I make a decree, that all they of the
people of Israel,
and their priests and the Levites, in my realm,
that are minded
of their own free will to go to Jerusalem,
go with thee. Ezra 7:13 (ASV)
Human beings have always been curious about God's creation and human
behavior, so the study of human behavior goes back to antiquity. It is a topic of
sacred, philosophic, and scientific interest. Every human being has an intellect, so
everyone can think about their own decision process by self-introspection.
Additionally, we observed the behavior of other individuals who make thoughtful
life choices, and we gain further insights into the nature of the human will and its
role in human choice. The study of the human will is like the study of the
weather; it can be observed by everyone. This is in contrast to topics that
depend completely upon sacred revelation, such as the doctrine of the Holy
Trinity. This doctrine rests upon sacred scripture, and it cannot be
discovered by reason nor seen by observation. The study of the human will began
with the study of creation and human behavior. The classic view of the human will
holds that human behavior is uniquely different from the rest of the animal
kingdom. This difference arises because of the distinctive nature of the human
mind. Of all the animals, only human beings are rational creatures endowed with
intellect and free will. The human intellect is to know the truth and to
distinguish the true from the false. The human will is the power of choice,
and it ought to choose the good and refuse the evil under the guidance of reason.
So, the proper function of the human intellect is to know the truth, and the
proper function of the human will is to choose the good. It is not
the fact that human beings walk, eat, play, and bond in social groups that define
a proper human act, because animals do all of these things too. In
stead, a proper human act is an act that finds its cause in the human
mind. It is a self-determined act that seeks the good as known by the
intellect. This type of act cannot be done by an animal, because it lacks an
intellectual mind. The behavior of an animal is fixed by nature and
instinct. Although an animal has a will, its will is not subject to a rational
mind. Hence, its nature guides its will, and it is not free in its choice. From the days of Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) until the time
of the 16th century Reformation, this was the accepted view within learned circles for
this period of approximately 1800 years. And from the time of the Reformation until the
present, many continue to hold the traditional view of free will. So, it is an
idea that has been the dominate one for over two millennia.
Plato (427?-347 B.C)
Plato wrote in the Republic Book X that virtue is not a necessity or a
compulsion. It is free choice and that choice resides with the one who
chooses. If a person chooses to do evil, the person is alone
responsible. Plato did not believe that God was to blame for the evil in the world.
Virtue is free, and as a man honours or dishonours her he
will have more or less of her; the responsibility is with the
chooser --God is justified.' Translated by Benjamin Jowett
But virtue honors her or does her despite. The blame is his who chooses. God is
blameless." 1 Translated by P.
Shorey
Aristotle (384-322 B.C)
Aristotle divided creation into inanimate objects (e.g., rocks) and animated
objects (those with self-motion or a life principle). Next, he studied the causes
of the change in animated things. Living organisms possess self-movement, which he
called the fundamental principle of life. Plant life consists of
nourishment, growth, and reproduction. Animal life consists of all the
features of plant life plus the animal's sensory systems (touch, sight, hearing,
taste, smell), natural instincts (will) and modes of locomotion. Finally, human
life has all the features of vegetative and animal life plus an immaterial
mind (intellect, free will, emotion). Ancient Christian scholars accepted this
view of creations. All three Christian 'A's (Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas) wrote approvingly
of Aristotle's outline of living organisms.
Life is found in animals and plants; but while in animals it is clearly
manifest, in plants it is hidden and not evident. For before we can assert the
presence of life in plants, a long inquiry must be held as to whether plants
possess a soul and a distinguishing capacity for desire and pleasure and pain.
2
Perceptively, Aristotle noted that, between brute animals and human being,
there was a difference in the way that they arrived at their choices. The difference is that humans reason about their choices, while animals do not.
The will of an animal is guided by its instinctive nature. A duck selects a
watery pond while a chicken likes the dry ground. Their respective choices were not influenced
by rational thought, such as, the conclusion of a syllogism.
It now remains for us to inquire into choice. Is choice desire or is it not?
Now desire is found in the lower animals, but not choice, for choice is attended
with reason, and none of the lower animals has reason.
3
These natural philosophers argued that stones and plants lacked a will. They
observed that animals and mankind had a will. They discerned that, because humans
reasoned about different possible choices, a human's will must belong to a
higher order than a brute animal's will. They felt that man's will made its
choices using the light of the intellect. This rational will was termed a free
will, and it is possessed by humans, angels, and God. A study of free will from
the time Aristotle until now shows that this has been the predominate concept
through the centuries.
Justin Martyr (100-165)
Justin Martyr did not believe that divine foreknowledge results in fatal necessity.
This is true, because divine foreknowledge takes into account the free
choices of rational creatures, such as, men and angels. Justin buttressed his
statements by noting that the divine prophets taught that human beings were
morally responsible beings. This moral accountability would make no sense,
if men were fated to do good or evil by nature. Because humans
can avoid evil and choose good allows for moral blame or praise. Also, he noted
that the same individual often does good deeds as well as bad deeds. He
concluded that this shows that human deeds are not the result of a fixed
nature. It has to be the result of a free willed choices. Justin Martyr said
that plants (trees) and animals (quadrupeds) cannot act by free choice. In fact, Justin
argued that if human nature necessitated all human acts,
then the whole concept of good and evil would be eradicated, because necessity
eliminates moral responsibility. It would
be impossible for human beings to do good or to do evil. Thus, to deny free
will would be equivalent to denying sin and the need for Jesus Christ's death upon Calvary's cross.
Although it is doubtful that Plato was aware of the writings of Moses, yet Justin
quotes Plato's on human moral responsibility and God's justice with respect to
human evil.
The First Apology of Justin
CHAPTER 43
RESPONSIBILITY ASSERTED
But lest some suppose, from what has been said
by us, that we say that whatever happens, happens by a fatal necessity, because it
is foretold as known beforehand, this too we explain. We have learned from the
prophets, and we hold it to be true, that punishments, and chastisements, and good
rewards, are rendered according to the merit of each man’s actions. Since if it
be not so, but all things happen by fate, neither is anything at all in our own
power. For if it be fated that this man, e.g., be good, and this other evil,
neither is the former meritorious nor the latter to be blamed. And again, unless
the human race have the power of avoiding evil and choosing good by free choice,
they are not accountable for their actions, of whatever kind they be. But that it
is by free choice they both walk uprightly and stumble, we thus demonstrate. We
see the same man making a transition to opposite things. Now, if it had been fated
that he were to be either good or bad, he could never have been capable of both
the opposites, nor of so many transitions. But not even would some be good and
others bad, since we thus make fate the cause of evil, and exhibit her as acting
in opposition to herself; or that which has been already stated would seem to be
true, that neither virtue nor vice is anything, but that things are only reckoned
good or evil by opinion; which, as the true word shows, is the greatest impiety
and wickedness. But this we assert is inevitable fate, that they who choose the
good have worthy rewards, and they who choose the opposite have their merited
awards. For not like other things, as trees and quadrupeds, which cannot act by
choice, did God make man: for neither would he be worthy of reward or praise did
he not of himself choose the good, but were created for this end; nor, if he were
evil, would he be worthy of punishment, not being evil of himself, but being able
to be nothing else than what he was made.
CHAPTER 44
NOT NULLIFIED BY PROPHECY
And the holy Spirit of prophecy taught us this, telling us by Moses that God
spoke thus to the man first created: "Behold, before thy face are good and
evil: choose the good." And again, by the other prophet Isaiah, that the
following utterance was made as if from God the Father and Lord of all: "Wash
you, make you clean; put away evils from your souls; learn to do well; judge the
orphan, and plead for the widow: and come and let us reason together, saith the
Lord: And if your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as wool; and if they
be red like as crimson, I will make them white as snow. And if ye be willing and
obey Me, ye shall eat the good of the land; but if ye do not obey Me, the sword
shall devour you: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." And that
expression, "The sword shall devour you," does not mean that the
disobedient shall be slain by the sword, but the sword of God is fire, of which
they who choose to do wickedly become the fuel. Wherefore He says, "The sword
shall devour you: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." And if He had
spoken concerning a sword that cuts and at once dispatches, He would not have
said, shall devour. And so, too, Plato, when he says, "The blame
is his who chooses, and God is blameless," took this from the prophet Moses
and uttered it. For Moses is more ancient than all the Greek writers.
4
In Justin Martyr's Second Apology, he correctly asserts that
human laws are grounded upon the assumption that human beings have reason, free
will, and moral responsibility. Good legislation consists of laws that accord to right
reason and virtue.
The Second Apology of Justin
CHAPTER VII
But since God in the beginning made the race
of angels and men with free-will, they will justly suffer in eternal fire the
punishment of whatever sins they have committed. and this is the nature of all
that is made, to be capable of vice and virtue. For neither would any of them be
praiseworthy unless there were power to turn to both (virtue and vice). And this
also is shown by those men everywhere who have made laws and philosophized
according to right reason, by their prescribing to do some things and refrain from
others.5
Justin Martyr presented the gospel of God's grace to Trypho, a Jew. In his
dialogue, Justin again answered the objection that many find between God's
foreknowledge and human responsibility. Some Jews might argue that if God
foreknew that the Jews would crucify Christ, then the Jews could not be
responsible for his death. Justin argued that human beings were free moral
agents. The Jews freely chose to crucify Christ, so they were responsible
for their sin. But, more importantly, the Jews were free to repent of their
sin and obtain mercy from God. Scripture foretold, 'Blessed is the man to
whom the Lord imputeth not sin. This blessing was available to them in this
life.
CHAPTER 141
FREE-WILL IN MEN AND ANGELS
"But that you may not have a pretext for saying that Christ must have been
crucified, and that those who transgressed must have been among your nation, and
that the matter could not have been otherwise, I said briefly by anticipation,
that God, wishing men and angels to follow His will, resolved to create them free
to do righteousness; possessing reason, that they may know by whom they are
created, and through whom they, not existing formerly, do now exist; and with a
law that they should be judged by Him, if they do anything contrary to right
reason: and of ourselves we, men and angels, shall be convicted of having acted
sinfully, unless we repent beforehand. But if the word of God foretells that some
angels and men shall be certainly punished, it did so because it foreknew that
they would be unchangeably [wicked], but not because God had created them so. So
that if they repent, all who wish for it can obtain mercy from God: and the
Scripture foretells that they shall be blessed, saying, 'Blessed is the man to
whom the Lord imputeth not sin;' that is, having repented of his sins, that he
may receive remission of them from God; 6
Irenaeus (120-202)
Irenaeus believed that God chose to create humankind with good liberty. As a
general principle, God metes justice according to the appropriate use of human
freedom. When humans abuse liberty, they will suffer retribution from
God. On the other hand, when human act according to reason and goodness, they will
experience God blessing. Like Justin Martyr, Irenaeus believe that if nature
compelled human behavior, humans would not be morally responsible
creatures. For example, it is wrong to punish someone for their ancestry,
color of skin, height, or sex, because these features are all determined by
nature. Hitler and the Nazis of the Third Reich were wicked when they
executed Jews because of their Jewish ancestry. It is not a moral issue whether a
person belongs to a particular race or is a male or a female. It is God's sovereign choice to create humans
belonging to a particular human race as well as whether they are male
or female. How we handle our masculinity or femininity is a moral issue, since
we are responsible for our personal sexual conduct. In other words, our sexuality
ought to be under the rational control of our wills. This is not the case
with animals.
Irenaeus gave examples from scripture where the underlying assumption is human
responsibility. Further, he argued that human beings are responsible for their
response to the gospel message. From a human responsibility perspective, it is
within the power of their wills to accept or reject the gospel. Likewise, after a
person is in the faith and has accepted the gospel, the believer must exercise his
will in striving for the reward of service to God. In all of this, God is working
for our benefit too.
AGAINST HERESIES
Book IV
Chapter XXXVII
Men are possessed of free will,
and endowed with the faculty of making a choice.
It is not true, therefore,
that some are by nature good,
and others bad.
1. This expression [of our Lord],
"How often would I have gathered thy children together, and thou wouldest
not,"[Matt 23:37] set forth the ancient law of human liberty, because God made man a free
[agent] from the beginning, possessing his own power, even as he does his own
soul, to obey the behests (ad
utendum sententia) of God
voluntarily, and not by compulsion of God. For there is no coercion with God, but
a good will [towards us] is present with Him continually. And therefore does He
give good counsel to all. And in man, as well as in angels, He has placed the
power of choice (for angels are rational beings), so that those who had yielded
obedience might justly possess what is good, given indeed by God, but preserved by
themselves. On the other hand, they who have not obeyed shall, with justice, be
not found in possession of the good, and shall receive condign punishment: for God
did kindly bestow on them what was good; but they themselves did not diligently
keep it, nor deem it something precious, but poured contempt upon His
super-eminent goodness. Rejecting therefore the good, and as it were spuing it
out, they shall all deservedly incur the just judgment of God, which also the
Apostle Paul testifies in his Epistle to the Romans, where he says, "But dost
thou despise the riches of His goodness, and patience, and long-suffering, being
ignorant that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But according to thy
hardness and impenitent heart, thou treasurest to thyself wrath against the day of
wrath, and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God." "But glory
and honor," he says, "to every one that doeth good."[Rom 2:4,5,7] God therefore
has given that which is good, as the apostle tells us in this Epistle, and they
who work it shall receive glory and honor, because they have done that which is
good when they had it in their power not to do it; but those who do it not shall
receive the just judgment of God, because they did not work good when they had it
in their power so to do.
2. But if some had been made by
nature bad, and others good, these latter would not be deserving of praise for
being good, for such were they created; nor would the former be reprehensible, for
thus they were made [originally]. But since all men are of the same nature, able
both to hold fast and to do what is good; and, on the other hand, having also the
power to cast it from them and not to do it, — some do justly receive praise
even among men who are under the control of good laws (and much more from God),
and obtain deserved testimony of their choice of good in general, and of
persevering therein; but the others are blamed, and receive a just condemnation,
because of their rejection of what is fair and good. And therefore the prophets
used to exhort men to what was good, to act justly and to work righteousness, as I
have so largely demonstrated, because it is in our power so to do, and because by
excessive negligence we might become forgetful, and thus stand in need of that
good counsel which the good God has given us to know by means of the prophets.
3. For this reason the Lord also
said, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good deeds,
and glorify your Father who is in heaven." [Matt 5:16] And, "Take heed to
yourselves, lest perchance your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and
drunkenness, and worldly cares." [Luke 21:34] And, "Let your loins be girded about,
and your lamps burning, and ye like unto men that wait for their Lord, when He
returns from the wedding, that when He cometh and knocketh, they may open to Him.
Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when He cometh, shall find so doing."
[Luke 12:35,36] And again, "The servant who knows his Lord’s will, and does it not, shall
be beaten with many stripes." And, "Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do
not the things which I say?" And again, "But if the servant say in his
heart, The Lord delayeth, and begin to beat his fellow-servants, and to eat, and
drink, and to be drunken, his Lord will come in a day on which he does not expect
Him, and shall cut him in sunder, and appoint his portion with the
hypocrites." All such passages demonstrate the independent will of man, and
at the same time the counsel which God conveys to him, by which He exhorts us to
submit ourselves to Him, and seeks to turn us away from [the sin of] unbelief
against Him, without, however, in any way coercing us.
4. No doubt, if any one is
unwilling to follow the Gospel itself, it is in his power [to reject it], but it
is not expedient. For it is in man’s power to disobey God, and to forfeit what
is good; but [such conduct] brings no small amount of injury and mischief. And on
this account Paul says, "All things are lawful to me, but all things are not
expedient;" referring both to the liberty of man, in which respect "all
things are lawful," God exercising no compulsion in regard to him; and [by
the expression] "not expedient" pointing out that we "should not
use our liberty as a cloak of maliciousness, for this is not expedient. And again
he says, "Speak ye every man truth with his neighbor." And, "Let no
corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, neither filthiness, nor foolish
talking, nor scurrility, which are not convenient, but rather giving of
thanks." And, "For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in
the Lord; walk honestly as children of the light, not in rioting and drunkenness,
not in chambering and wantonness, not in anger and jealousy. And such were some of
you; but ye have been washed, but ye have been sanctified in the name of our
Lord." If then it were not in our power to do or not to do these things, what
reason had the apostle, and much more the Lord Himself, to give us counsel to do
some things, and to abstain from others? But because man is possessed of free will
from the beginning, and God is possessed of free will, in whose likeness man was
created, advice is always given to him to keep fast the good, which thing is done
by means of obedience to God.
5. And not merely in works, but
also in faith, has God preserved the will of man free and under his own control,
saying, "According to thy faith be it unto thee; " thus showing that
there is a faith specially belonging to man, since he has an opinion specially his
own. And again, "All things are possible to him that believeth;" and,
"Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee." Now
all such expressions demonstrate that man is in his own power with respect to
faith. And for this reason, "he that believeth in Him has eternal life while
he who believeth not the Son hath not eternal life, but the wrath of God shall
remain upon him." In the same manner therefore the Lord, both showing His own
goodness, and indicating that man is in his own free will and his own power, said
to Jerusalem, "How often have I wished to gather thy children together, as a
hen [gathereth] her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Wherefore your
house shall be left unto you desolate."
6. Those, again, who maintain the
opposite to these [conclusions], do themselves present the Lord as destitute of
power, as if, forsooth, He were unable to accomplish what He willed; or, on the
other hand, as being ignorant that they were by nature "material," as
these men express it, and such as cannot receive His immortality. "But He
should not," say they, "have created angels of such a nature that they
were capable of transgression, nor men who immediately proved ungrateful towards
Him; for they were made rational beings, endowed with the power of examining and
judging, and were not [formed] as things irrational or of a [merely] animal
nature, which can do nothing of their own will, but are drawn by necessity and
compulsion to what is good, in which things there is one mind and one usage,
working mechanically in one groove (inflexibiles et sine judicio), who are
incapable of being anything else except
just what they had been created." But upon this supposition, neither would
what is good be grateful to them, nor communion with God be precious, nor would
the good be very much to be sought after, which would present itself without their
own proper endeavor, care, or study, but would be implanted of its own accord and
without their concern. Thus it would come to pass, that their being good would be
of no consequence, because they were so by nature rather than by will, and are
possessors of good spontaneously, not by choice; and for this reason they would
not understand this fact, that good is a comely thing, nor would they take
pleasure in it. For how can those who are ignorant of good enjoy it? Or what
credit is it to those who have not aimed at it? And what crown is it to those who
have not followed in pursuit of it, like those victorious in the contest?
7
St. Augustine (354-430)
Augustine studied God's creation in light of scripture and
observed, like Aristotle, nature's hierarchical order. He noted that man's soul, psyche,
was uniquely superior to the soul of any plant or animal. Its superiority lay in
the fact that human beings had a soul that was rational. This rationality allowed
a person to order his activities according to right reason. And, when acts are
done according to right reason, they are righteous acts. Since human beings
possess this ability of rational choice, they possess free will. He wrote that
human free will is a good gift from God. In his book entitled, On Free Choice
of the Will, St. Augustine has a discourse with Evodius in which he presented
his views on free will. The following quotations are from what Augustine said to
Evodius in their dialogue.
This is what I mean: whatever it is that sets man above beast—whether
it is called mind or spirit [spiritus] (or, more correctly, both, since we
find both in the Holy Scriptures)—if it controls and commands whatever else man
consists of, then man is ordered in the highest degree. We see that we have many
things in common not only with beasts, but even with trees, and plants.
8 (underlining added)
There were positive reasons for God imparting free will to human nature. It was
a necessary prerequisite for human beings to be able to do righteous acts; that
is, without free will, human actions could not surpass the behavior of a beast of
the field. Augustine wrote,
You said you thought that free choice of the will ought not to have been given
because through it man sins. To this opinion I replied that no righteous act could
be performed except by free choice of the will, and I assert that God gave it for
this reason.9
The fourth chapter of Daniel supports Augustine's
view. Nebuchadnezzar lost his reason and free will
and became like a beast. It is the human mind that separates humans from
the beasts of the field. It is why humans bear the image of God.
"Immediately the word concerning Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled; and he was driven away from mankind and began eating grass like cattle, and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven, until his hair had grown like eagles' {feathers} and his nails like birds' {claws}
"But at the end of that period I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever; for His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom {endures} from generation to generation.
Dan 4:33-34 (NAS)
When a human being sins, he is the cause of his own sin, because his free will was
the source of his unreasonable choice to act contrary to reason. God is blameless, because human free
will, without being forced, freely chooses to violate right reason. By contrast,
as Augustine stated, a
sinner would not be guilty of sinning if God's will were the cause of his sin.
This is a vital point to notice because some theologians claim the God is the
ultimate cause of evil in the universe.
But if no one is forced to sin, either by his own nature or by that of another,
it follows that he sins of his own will. If you wish to attribute his sin to the
Creator, you will acquit the sinner of his sin.
10
When a "first" cause is discovered, seeking an antecedent cause is
not reasonable, because a first cause is the first or original cause. There is no
prior cause to a first cause. St. Augustine wrote that the first cause of person's
sin is the person's free will. Again, Augustine clearly does not attribute sin to the will of God.
Either the will is the first cause of sin, or else there is no first cause. Sin
cannot rightly be imputed to anyone but the sinner, nor can it rightly be imputed
to him unless he wills it.
11
Furthermore, Augustine asserted that divine decree took into account the free
willed choices of human beings.
But it does not follow that, though there is for God a certain order of all
causes, there must therefore be nothing depending on the free exercise of our own
wills, for our wills themselves are included in that order of causes which is
certain to God, and is embraced by His foreknowledge, for human wills are also
causes of human actions; and He who foreknew all the causes of things would
certainly among those causes not have been ignorant of our wills.
12
Additionally, Ezra 7:13 shows that a decree can take into account free will.
I make a decree, that all they of the people of Israel, and their priests and the Levites, in my realm, that are minded of their own
free will to go to Jerusalem, go with thee. Ezra 7:13 (ASV)
Boethius (480-524)
Boethius (c.480-524 A.D.)—a Roman statesman, philosopher, and
theologian—is well known in theological circles for his tractate on the Trinity entitled, De
Trinitate. Yet, another work, The Consolation of Philosophy,
deserves studied consideration when the subject of necessity and free-will are
examined. This literary work was composed while he was in prison awaiting his
execution, and it consists of a dialogue between Boethius and "the
lady of Philosophy" who solved many of the intellectual difficulties which
troubled Boethius. Throughout this work, philosophical concepts are applied to
unravel what, otherwise, would seem like inscrutable theological contradictions.
For him, philosophical wisdom was a servant to revelatory theology, showing
logically that divine revelation was non-contradictory.
For Boethius, philosophical wisdom would conclude that human
beings have a free will because humans have reason and make intellectual
judgments. These judgments consist of two kinds, speculative and practical. The speculative
judgments are propositions about what reality is, that is, they are
truth statements, while practical judgments are propositions about what
humans do, that is, they are human action statements.
Human beings ought to use reason to arrive at practical judgments, and each
judgment provides a means to attain a desired end. From among the several
practical judgments that the intellect proposes to achieve a goal, a single
selection or option is chosen. This selection or choice is called an act of the
will where the will is defined as the power of choice. The choice is free and
self-determined, because it is not forced or determined by an instinctive nature
like the choices of the rest of the animal kingdom. Animals make choices;
therefore, they have wills. But their wills are not free, since their choices are
under the control of their animal nature. For example, a lion may choose simply to
out run a wildebeest or it may choose to creep towards its prey by stealth. The
lion does not determine the means to attain its end by lying under a baobab tree
and intellectually considering the pros and cons of the various methods of
subduing a wildebeest.
"Freedom there is," she said, "for there could not
be any nature rational, did not that same nature possess freedom of the will. For
that which can by its nature use reason, has the faculty of judgement, by which it
determines everything; of itself, therefore, it distinguishes those things which
are to be avoided, and those things that are to be desired. Now what a man judges
is to be desired, that he seeks; but he runs away from what he thinks is to be
avoided. And therefore those who have in themselves reason have also in them
freedom to will or not to will, but this freedom is not, I am sure, equal in all
of them."13
Boethius comes to what many theologians find to be an
insurmountable obstacle to accepting free will, namely God's omniscience. If God
foreknows everything and cannot be mistaken about what He foreknows, how can human
acts be any different from what He foreknows? What God foreknows must of necessity
come to pass, otherwise, what God foreknew would be erroneous. Since God cannot be
mistaken in His knowledge, what He foreknows must of necessity come to pass.
Boethius stated what many consider to be the heart of the problem of human free
will in the light of God's omniscience—that is, what occurs by necessity would
seem to require the absence of free will.
"It seems," I said, "much too conflicting and
contradictory that God foreknows all things and that there is any free
will. For if God foresees all and cannot in any way be mistaken, then that must
necessarily happen which in his providence he foresees will be. And therefore if
he foreknows from all eternity not only the deeds of men but even their plans and
desires, there will be no free will; for it will be impossible for there to be any
deed at all or any desire whatever except that which divine providence, which
cannot be mistaken, perceives beforehand. For if they can be turned aside into a
different way from that foreseen, then there will no longer be firm foreknowledge
of the future, but rather uncertain opinion, which I judge impious to believe of
God.14
However, before attempting to clear up the difficulty, he first
considered the nature of God's eternality. Here we find Boethius' famous
definition of eternity: "Eternity, then, is the whole, simultaneous and
perfect possession of boundless life." God's life is a simultaneous,
boundless whole; whereas, the events of our life come into being and then pass
away from us. Human beings only possess an instantaneous, momentary now. For human
beings, the past has fled away while the future is not yet present. By contrast,
God has no past or future. His eternality is an ever-present now. All events are
ever present to him as a simultaneous whole.
Now that God is eternal is the common judgement of all who live by
reason. Therefore let us consider, what is eternity; for this makes plain to us
both the divine nature and the divine knowledge. Eternity, then, is the whole,
simultaneous and perfect possession of boundless life, which becomes clearer by
comparison with temporal things. For whatever lives in time proceeds in the
present from the past into the future, and there is nothing established in time
which can embrace the whole space of its life equally, but tomorrow surely it does
not yet grasp, while yesterday it has already lost. And in this day to day life
you live no more than in that moving and transitory moment.
15
Whatever therefore comprehends and possesses at once the whole
fullness of boundless life, and is such that neither is anything future lacking
from it, nor has anything past flowed away, that is rightly held to be eternal,
and that must necessarily both always be present to itself, possessing itself in
the present, and hold as present the infinity of moving time.
16
Every being must know according to its own nature. A temporal,
spatial being—like human beings—knows temporally and spatially. God is a
non-temporal and non-spatial being whose knowledge is, likewise, non-temporal and
non-spatial. Time and space were created by God; and, therefore, they are objects
of His creation. God's eternality and knowledge are not under the conditions of
space and time. All of creation, both its space and time, are ever present to His
divine omniscience. Human knowledge of the past gradually dims with time, but God
sees it all freshly present. Human foresight is only speculative. God's knowledge
of all future human events is that all the events are ever present and permanent
to Him. In the simplicity of His being, everything is seen and known by Him in one
sweep of His divine vision. Only in a human sense can we speak of God
"foreknowing" future events. From His divine perspective, God simply
"knows" every event and the event's accompanying conditions of time and
space. Furthermore, His knowledge of created beings and their activities is
certain to come to pass. It must necessarily be so because God's knowledge is
unerring.
Since then every judgement comprehends those things subject to it
according to its own nature, and God has an always eternal and present nature,
then his knowledge too, surpassing all movement of time, is permanent in the
simplicity of his present, and embracing all the infinite spaces of the future and
the past, considers them in his simple act of knowledge as though they were now
going on. So if you should wish to consider his foreknowledge, by which he
discerns all things, you will more rightly judge it to be not foreknowledge as it
were of the future but knowledge of a never-passing instant.
17
Here the genius of Boethius shines forth. He shows that the
knowledge of an event does not cause the event. Those who deny human freedom argue
that, since God has knowledge of all future events, these events must necessarily
occur, and the necessity of these events occurring eliminates the possibility of
human free will. However, even in human terms, the knowledge of an event does not
cause that event to occur. For example, an observer may see a person walking, but
the knowledge of the person walking does not cause that person to walk. For an
observer to know that a person is walking the person must necessarily be walking.
Yet, the knowledge and necessity of the person walking do not eliminate the
voluntary nature of the person walking. Those who do not see free will fail to
distinguish God's foreknowledge and human agency.
Why then do you require those things to be necessary which are
scanned by the light of God's sight, when not even men make necessary those things
they see? After all, your looking at them does not confer any necessity on those
things you presently see, does it?"
"Not at all."
"But if the comparison of the divine and the human present is
a proper one, just as you see certain things in this your temporal present, so he
perceives all things in his eternal one. And therefore this divine foreknowledge
does not alter the proper nature of things, but sees them present to him just such
as in time they will at some future point come to be. Nor does he confuse the ways
things are to be judged, but with one glance of his mind distinguishes both those
things necessarily coming to be and those not necessarily coming to be, just as
you, when you see at one and the same time that a man is walking on the ground and
that the sun is rising in the sky, although the two things are seen
simultaneously, yet you distinguish them, and judge the first to be voluntary, the
second necessary. So then the divine perception looking down on all things does
not disturb at all the quality of things that are present indeed to him but future
with reference to imposed conditions of time. So it is that it is not opinion but
a knowledge grounded rather upon truth, when he knows that something is going to
happen, something which he is also aware lacks all necessity of happening.
18
Since God knows everything non-temporally. His knowledge embraces
every act of the will that voluntary agents freely choose. He knows in an
ever-present fashion what could be chosen as well as what will be chosen. Every
act of the human will is known by God. What He knows will necessarily happen. Yet,
every act will happen according to its own intrinsic nature, that is, free willed
acts will necessarily occur, but they will occur through the agency of human free
will. What occurs as a result of the laws of physics will also necessarily occur,
but these events will necessarily occur through the divine providential laws of
nature.
For I shall say in answer that the same future event, when it is
related to divine knowledge, is necessary, but when it is considered in its own
nature it seems to be utterly and absolutely free. For there are really two
necessities, the one simple, as that it is necessary that all men are mortal; the
other conditional, as for example, if you know that someone is walking, it is
necessary that he is walking. Whatever anyone knows cannot be otherwise that as it
is known, but this conditional necessity by no means carries with it that other
simple kind. For this sort of necessity is not caused by a thing's proper nature
but by the addition of the condition; for not necessity forces him to go who walks
of his own will, even though it is necessary that he is going at the time when he
is walking. Now in the same way, if providence sees anything as present, that must
necessarily be, even if it possesses not necessity of its nature. But God beholds
those future events which happen because of the freedom of the will, as present;
they therefore, related to the divine perception, become necessary through the
condition of the divine knowledge, but considered in themselves do not lose the
absolute freedom of their nature.
19
From an eternal view point, God's knowledge includes the knowledge
of all possible worlds. In the exercise of His free will, He chose to actualize
one of the possible worlds, the one in which we live. With the bringing into being
of that possible world, He possesses the knowledge of all volitional events that
would accompany the particular world He chose to actualize. In the classical view,
God is the ultimate cause of the universe that has come into existence. His
prescience has seen every event that each creature would do. He knows what the
outcome of the creation of the world will be. It is not a process for which the
outcome is uncertain to Him. Some of the creature's activities will occur because
of God's divine providence while others will occur through the agency of human
free will. Thus, in one of the possible worlds, God saw that Judas would freely
betray Jesus Christ for thirty pieces of silver. This happens to be the possible
world that God chose to actualize. God's knowledge included every aspect of the
mental intentions of Judas. Since God's knowledge is true, Judas must necessarily
betray Christ. Yet, he betrayed Christ voluntarily. Finally, the act of Judas was
not the cause of God's knowledge, rather it was God's knowledge of the possible
world that He chose to bring into existence. Therefore, it is God's eternal
knowledge, as Boethius so cogently states, that is the measure of all things.
But if, you will say, it lies in my power to
change my intention, I shall make nonsense of providence, since what providence
foreknows, I shall perhaps have changed. I shall reply that you can indeed alter
you intention, but since the truth of providence sees in its present both that you
can do so, and whether you will do so and in what direction you will change, you
cannot avoid the divine prescience, just as you could not escape the sight of an
eye that was present, even though of your own free will you changed different
courses of action. What then will you say? Will the divine knowledge be changed by
my disposition, so that, since I want to do this at one time and that at another,
it too alternates from this kind of knowledge to that? Not at all. For the divine
perception runs ahead over every future event and turns it back and recalls it to
the present of its own knowledge, and does not alternate, as you suggest,
foreknowing now this, now that, but itself remaining still anticipates and
embraces your changes at one stroke. And God possesses this present instant of
comprehension and sight of all things not from the issuing of future events but
from his own simplicity. In this way that too is resolved which you suggested a
little while ago, that it is not right that our future actions should be said to
provide the cause of the knowledge of God. For the nature of knowledge as we have
described it, embracing all things in a present act of knowing, establishes a
measure for everything, but owes nothing to later events.
20
John of Damascus (675-749)
John of Damascus in his Exposition of the Orthodox Faith gives a
standard definition of free will. Stones and bugs do not have an intellect;
and, therefore, they do not have a free will. The will of man is not bound by
matter nor cut off from reason; it was created in a more noble fashion than the
lower creation.
We hold, therefore, that free-will comes on the scene at the
same moment as reason .... And if this is so, free-will must necessarily be very
closely related to reason. For either man is an irrational being, or, if he is
rational, he is master of his acts and endowed with free-will. Hence, also
creatures without reason do not enjoy free-will: for nature leads them rather than
they nature, and so they do not oppose the natural appetite, but as soon as their
appetite longs after anything they rush headlong after it. But man, being
rational, leads nature rather than nature him, and so when he desires aught he has
the power to curb his appetite or to indulge as he pleases. Hence also creatures
devoid of reason are the subjects neither of praise nor blame, while man is the
subject of both praise and blame. 21
St. Augustine believed, "human wills are also the causes of human
actions." It is in this sense and context that John of Damascus used the
phrase that man "is master of his acts and endowed with free
will." What causes something is what bears responsibility for it. The exercise of
free will is the cause of human behavior, so persons exercising free will bear
responsibility for their free willed acts. This is the fundamental principle
of moral responsibility.
Suppose a person shot and killed someone. Where does the responsibility lie?
The person who shot the gun never even touched the person who was hit. So, is the
bullet responsible for killing the person who was hit? No, and as a result, courts
do not put bullets in jail for murder. Bullets are only the instrumental cause of
injury. Since the finger pulled the gun's trigger causing it to fire, is the
finger guilty of murder? If the finger were responsible, then it should be
forfeited and punished. Judicial courts rightly consider that the
"person" is guilty because the person is the one who is the efficient
cause or the "master" of his acts. Classical Christianity believes that
the buck stops at the efficient cause of the act. They believe that God is the
efficient cause of all existence, but He is not the efficient cause of all
behavior.
St. Anselm (1033-1109)
Anselm continued the classical tradition of free will in his De
Libertate Arbitrii. His view, like others before him, was grounded in God's
creation, which provides the basis for natural philosophy. It is true that
Aristotle, Justin Martyr, Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, John of Damascus, and
Aquinas stressed different aspects of free will while passing by other aspects;
yet, their differences were in emphasis only, not in substance. Anselm believed
that the will of a horse was radically different from a human will. He believed that
a horse's will served its appetite by natural necessity, that is, its will was
guided by its nature. He thought that man's will, when it is upright,
consented to do the right act. In his view, an "upright" will was a will
that followed the guidance of right reason. However, when it turns away from being
upright, the will consents freely to do evil, without alien coercion. The dialogue
is between a teacher (T) and a student (S).
T. So why isn't this will free—since another power cannot bring it into
subjection, without the will's own consent?
S. But wouldn't this definition of freedom also apply to the will of a horse?
For the will of a horse is willingly subject to appetites of the flesh; hence it
is a free will.
T. No, this isn't a similar case. For the will of a horse doesn't subject
itself to the appetite of the flesh, but always serves it by necessity since it is
naturally subjected to it. But in the case of a man, as long as he has an upright
will, he neither serves what he ought not nor is he subjected to it; and he is not
turned away from his uprightness by any alien force, unless he willingly consents
to do what he should not. A man's consent is clearly seen to come from himself,
and not from necessity or nature (as in the case of a horse).
22
Moses Maimonides (1135-1204)
From a Jewish perspective, we find the medieval scholar, Moses
Maimonides, showing the necessity of free will in his Epistle to Yemen. He
argued for human freedom as a necessary basis for commandments and prohibitions to
be meaningful. If humans lacked free will, then all the evil would be
attributed to God which contradicts rational thought.
If a man were fated to perform his actions, then all the
commandments and prohibitions of the divine Law would be useless and purposeless,
they would all be sheer trumpery, since, after all, a man would have no free will.
It would likewise follow that teaching and education, as well as mastering any
practical skills, would be futile, and all such things would be mere trifles,
since, according to the theory of the astrologers, a man would be unavoidably
compelled by an outer force to do such and such, attain such and such knowledge,
acquire such and such a characteristic. Moreover, every reward or punishment would
be crassly unjust, and not permissible for us toward one another or for God toward
us. It would also be useless to construct houses, procure food, flee danger,
because, after all, what has been fated would have to come irrevocably. But all
this is utterly unthinkable and contradicts all intellectual understanding and
sensory perception, it tears down the wall of the Law and attributes injustice to
God. 23
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
Saint Thomas Aquinas, like Saint Augustine before him, taught
that man had a free will. Thomas Aquinas stressed the fact that free will was
basic to human moral responsibility. It was necessary result of the rational
nature of human beings.
I answer that,Man has free-will:
otherwise counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards and punishments
would be in vain. In order to make this evident, we must observe that some things
act without judgment; as a stone moves downwards; and in like manner all things
which lack knowledge. As some act from judgment, but not a free judgment; as brute
animals. For the sheep, seeing the wolf, judges it a thing to be shunned, from a
natural and not a free judgment, because it judges, not from reason, but from
natural instinct. And the same thing is to be said of any judgment of brute
animals. But man acts from judgment, because by his apprehensive power he judges
that something should be avoided or sought. But because this judgment, in the case
of some particular act, is not from a natural instinct, but from some act of
comparison in reason, therefore he acts from free judgment and retains the power
of being inclined to various things. ... And forasmuch as man is rational is it
necessary that man have a free-will. (Q.83, Art 1)
24
Anthony Kenny
Today, free will is still couched in terms of natural philosophy. Professor
Anthony Kenny of Oxford University holds the classical view, although he uses
somewhat different terminology to express the four categories of sensible beings.
His terms for the four categories are:
1. Natural agency belongs to inanimate beings.
2. Living agency belongs to plants
3. Voluntary agency belongs to animals
4. Intentional agency belongs to human beings
Like Aristotle, he expressed his belief in the hierarchy of the beings of
nature.
The distinction between the behaviour of humans and the behaviour of inanimate
substances is wrongly demarcated by the theory that only humans exhibit agency.
The distinction should be marked as a difference between two kinds of agency,
voluntary and natural. However, between the natural agency of non-living things
and the intentional action of human beings, there is a hierarchy of agency
extending upwards from stones through plants and animals to men.
25
In some academic circles, natural philosophy provides the backdrop for the
subject of free will. Prof. Kenny notes that animals are limited to voluntary
actions while humans can do "intentional actions or acts of reasons." An
intentional act would be considered the same thing as a free willed act.
The difference between animals and humans is not that only humans can perform
voluntary actions. It is rather that while many kinds of animals can perform
voluntary actions, only language-using animals can perform intentional actions or
act for reasons. As we ascend the hierarchy of agency, we rise from natural
agency, through living agency, through voluntary agency, to the summit of
intentional agency.26
Mortimer Adler
Naturally, Mortimer Adler—Chairman of the Board of Editors of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Associate Editor of the Great Books of the
Western World series—taught the classical view of free will. His broad
exposure to philosophical and theological concepts made it a matter-of-course for
him to hold this view. His book, Intellect: Mind over Matter, shows his
clear understanding of the historical view of "free choice."
In antiquity, the word "soul" (in Greek, psyche; in Latin, anima)
was used to signify whatever it was in living organisms that made them alive,
active without being acted upon. Since plants are living organisms, they,
too, have souls, conferring on them the vegetative powers of nourishment, growth,
and reproduction. Animals have souls that confer upon them additional
powers—the powers of sense, of appetite or desire, and of locomotion. In
addition to endowing man with all the vital powers possessed by plants and other
animals, the human soul gives man his distinctive power—that of intellect
and, with it, the power of conceptual thought, the power of judging and reasoning,
and the power of making free choices.
27 (underlining added)
The term "free will" has been used for over two thousand years
to signify an intellectual or rational choice. The quotations above support this
use of the term, human free will.
REFERENCES
1 Plato, Republic,
Book X, 617e, Trans. P. Shorey, In: The
Collected Dialogues of Plato, including the Letters, Edited by Edith
Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, Bollingen Series LXXI, 1961, Princeton
University Press, Princeton, N. J., p. 841.]
2
Aristotle, On Plants, Book I, 815a10-13, In: The Complete Works of Aristotle,
The Revised Oxford Translation, Volume 2, Bollingen Series, LXXI 2,
Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1984, p. 1251.
3 Aristotle, Magna Moralia Book I,
1189a1-4, In: The Complete Works of Aristotle, The Revised Oxford
Translation, Volume 2, Bollingen Series, LXXI 2, Princeton University Press,
Princeton, NJ, 1984, p. 1880.
4 Justin Martyr, The First Apology of Justin, Chapter XLIII, In: Vol I,
Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, (The Ante-Nicene Fathers:
Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325), Editors:
Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, Grand
Rapids, MI., 1885, Reprinted 1989, p. 177.
5 Justin Martyr, The Second Apology of Justin, Chapter VII, In: Vol I,
Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, (The Ante-Nicene Fathers:
Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325), Editors:
Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, Grand
Rapids, MI., 1885, Reprinted 1989, p. 190.
6 Justin Martyr, Dialogue of Justin, Philosopher and Martyr, with Trypho, a Jew, Chapter
CXLI, Free Will in Men and Angels In: Vol I,
Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, (The Ante-Nicene Fathers:
Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325), Editors:
Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, Grand
Rapids, MI., 1885, Reprinted 1989, p. 269.
7 Irenaeus, Irenaeus Against
Heresies, Book IV, Chapter XXXVII, Men are Possessed of Free Will, and
Endowed with the Faculty of Making a Choice. It is not True, therefore, that
some Men are by Nature Good, and Others Bad, In: Vol I,
Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, (The Ante-Nicene Fathers:
Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325), Editors:
Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, Grand
Rapids, MI., 1885, Reprinted 1989, p. 518.
8 Saint Augustine, On Free Choice of
the Will, Macmillan Publishing Co., New York, NY, 1964, Book I, Chap. VIII, p.
18.
9 ibid., Book II, Chap. XVIII, p.
78.
10 ibid., Book III, Chap. XVI, p.
124.
11 ibid., Book III, Chap. XVII, p.
126.
12 St. Augustine, The City of God,
Book V, (9), Translated by: Marcus Dods, The Modern Library (Random House),
New York, NY, p. 154-155
13 Boethius, The Consolation of
Philosophy, Trans: S.J. Tester, In: Boethius: The Theological Tractates and
The Consolation of Philosophy, Loeb Classical Library, Vol 74, Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1973, p. 391
14 ibid., p. 395
15 ibid., p. 423
16 ibid., p. 423-425
17 ibid., p. 427
18 ibid., p. 427-429
19 ibid., p. 429-431
20 ibid., p. 431-433
21 John of Damascus, Exposition
of the Orthodox Faith, In: A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene
Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series, Vol IX, St. Hilary of Poitiers,
John of Damascus, W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, Grand Rapids, MI, Reprinted
1989, p. 40.
22 Anselm of Canterbury, On Freedom of
Choice (De Libertate Arbitrii), In: Truth, Freedom, and Evil: Three
Philosophical Dialogues, Edited and Translated by: Jasper Hopkins and Herbert
Richardson, Harper Torchbooks, Harper and Row, New York, NY, Revised 1967, p.
131-132
23 Abraham J. Heschel,
Maimonides: A Biography,
Doubleday, New York, NY, 1991 (Originally published in 1982), p. 111-112.
24 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica Vol. One,Christian Classics,
Westminster, MD, p. 418
25 Anthony Kenny, The Metaphysics of
Mind, Oxford University Press, Oxford, England, p. 33-34
26 ibid., p. 38
27 Mortimer J. Adler, Intellect: Mind
over Matter, Macmillan Publishing Co., New York, NY, 1990, p. 10.
May 28, 2001
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