I’d just like to post a quote from St. Augustine’s book The City of God regarding free will:
“. . . when we say we must choose freely when we choose at all, what we say is true; yet, we do not subject free choice to any necessity (in an above paragraph, Augustine defines a necessity as in the case with the necessity to die) which destroys our liberty. Our choices, therefore are our own, and they effect, whenever we choose to act, something that would not happen if we had not chosen. Even when a person suffers against his will from the will of others, there is a voluntary act–not, indeed, of the person who suffers. However, a human will prevails–although the power which permits this is God’s. . . It does not follow, therefore, that there is no power in our will because God foreknew what was to be the choice in our will. . .Furthermore, if He who foresaw what was to be in our will, foresaw, not nothing, but something, it follows that there is a power in our will, even though He foresaw it.”
“The conclusion is that we are by no means under some compulsion to abandon free choice in favor of divine foreknowledgge, nor need we deny–God forbid!–that God knows the future as a condition for holding free choice. We accept both. . .”
This problem of determining if our will is free or if God is orchestrating every act of everyone in existence for all times leads to another difficulty, and that is the fact of suffering and death in this world. Because, since our will is free, we can and often do cause harm to others, while natural disasters and illnesses are readily apparent. Are these caused by God? He allows these evils which are the result of original sin. In other words, our God is bending to man’s will, yet it is within His own will to do so. That’s certainly a conundrum.
I’m of the opinion that God set in motion the Natural Law (both laws of physics and morals) and gives human beings the freedom with which to live their lives as they choose (even though our choices are partially determined by nature and environment). However, the given is the Moral Law. Whether we choose to obey it (Ten Commandments which can be summed up in the Two Greatest Commandments) is of our own volition. Every choice, God allows and knew from all Eternity. It is said that God makes straight the crooked lines. As mentioned in posts above, He makes good come of evil. The more we choose to do good, the more we resemble God Himself.
“In those respects in which the soul is unlike God, it is also unlike itself.” (St. Bernard)
