A key phenomenon of modernity for Heidegger is the category of freedom, a category organically connected to the conscious, volitional, representational, free, and active self. From this perspective, freedom is connected to the standing of the active human self as a pillar, basis, center, and source of value in modern Arabic thought. Heidegger posits freedom as a continuous act of liberation from the hegemony of the church, which he terms the new freedom. This is the freedom through which humanity was liberated from the ecclesiastical certainty and salvation, and instead become reliant on its own certainty and its own destiny without imposed guidance.