Leo Strauss on Lev Shestov

Strauss on Shestov: Chestov's Thesis

Man is freely created by God, i.e., as having freedom from divine omnipotence—as capable of doing everything through love. But man fears his own freedom: he flees into the system of necessity, the product of his own understanding. By thus depriving himself of freedom, he deprives himself of the possibility of life. That is to say: insofar as man, who believes in necessity, lives, he lives in contradiction to his belief (the category of his existence and the category of his thinking diverge).

Chestov's Modernity: What was “demanded” of Athens was not obedience, but freedom (380). [Note: Cf. with Hume-Kant! Thesis regarding causality: Necessity is a construct of human understanding—in itself, there is freedom—but what is freedom? Freedom for good, for evil, i.e., freedom to submit to the moral law? That would be unfreedom, an unreconciled contradiction. No, freedom is radical freedom from evil = love, which is therefore something like omnipotence.]