© The Author(s) 2020. Oxford University Press and New York University School of Law. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com The theological value of autonomy Adiel Zimran* Western liberalism is based on two different humanistic traditions: First, the biblical tradition of the Abrahamic religions, according to which man was created in the image of God; and, second, the tradition that developed in the age of Enlightenment, which claims man’s absolute independence of any heteronomous or transcendental being and views the very existence as a goal in and of itself. Each one of these two traditions restricts the autonomy of the indi- vidual in different ways, thus infuencing the constitutional structure one of whose principal functions is to safeguard the autonomy of the citizens. This article deals with the theological value of autonomy. It analyzes the tension between the humanistic-anthropocentric world- view, which sanctifes human freedom, and the humanistic-theocentric way of thinking, which sees God as the source of all norms and holds that the freedom of man is limited by the divine imperative. Subsequently, the article presents three different models of understanding the relations between the will of God and the will of man, through an analysis of the exegesis of three Jewish thinkers on the stories of man’s creation in the image of God and the sin of the Primordial Man. These models represent three attitudes towards the theological value of autonomy. After having presented the different models, I shall compare them to each other and explicate the conceptual differences between them. To conclude, I shall further assess the contribution of these models to contemporary discourse on autonomy and liberty. 1. Introduction Human freedom is a legal and constitutional value in all democratic states. 1 Kantian philosophy presents man as an “autonomous” being with a subjective self-conscious- ness and intrinsic will, and determines that it is appropriate that he be granted freedom to form his life in accordance with his will. 2 * The Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Email: adiel.zimran@mail.huji.ac.il. Funding for this project was provided by the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, New York. 1 See, e.g., ROGERS M. SMITH, LIBERALISM AND AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (1985); ANDREW GOULD, ORIGINS OF LIBERAL DOMINANCE (1999); BEN COBURN, AUTONOMY AND LIBERALISM (2010). 2 IMMANUEL KANT, GROUNDING FOR THE METAPHYSICS OF MORALS 41 (James W. Ellington trans., Hackett Publishing Company, 1993). For further discussion, see ROGER J. SULLIVAN, IMMANUEL KANT’S MORAL THEORY (1989); I•CON (2020), 1–27 doi:10.1093/icon/moaa060 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/icon/advance-article/doi/10.1093/icon/moaa060/5900483 by zimranadiel@gmail.com on 02 September 2020