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What Christian writers said, from about AD 155 to 1957.
157 passages · 48 writers · 17 centuries
This collection has 157 passages on free will from 48 writers, dated AD 155 to 1957. Of these, 73 state a position on the question and 84 mention free will in passing. Writers of the second to fifth centuries state that rational creatures were made able to choose good or evil, and they reject fate and the stars as causes of what people do. Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and other Catholic and Protestant writers address how far the will can choose good after the fall and how grace, election, and God's foreknowledge relate to that choice. Eastern writers are few after John of Damascus (died about 749), and Anglican writers are few throughout.
11 passages · 11 writers · 100s to 1900s
Writers define what free choice is and ask whether necessity, certainty, or a determining motive removes it or removes blame.
Again, the Lord clearly shows sins and transgressions to be in our own power, by prescribing modes of cure corresponding to the maladies; showing His wish that we should be corrected by the shepherds, in Ezekiel; blaming, I am of opinion, some of them for not keeping the commandments.
Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata, or Miscellanies 2.15
Now, that it is our business to live virtuously, and that God asks this of us, as not being dependent on Him nor on any other, nor, as some think, upon fate, but as being our own doing, the prophet Micah will prove when he says: “If it has been announced to thee, O man, what is good, or what does the Lord require of thee, except to do justice and to love mercy?” … And in the Psalms: “If My people had heard Me, and Israel had walked in My ways, I would have humbled their enemies to nothing, and laid My hand upon those that afflicted them;” showing that it was in the power of His people to hear and to walk in the ways of God.
Origen of Alexandria, The Works of Origen 4.3
So also, when we say that it is necessary that, when we will, we will by free choice, in so saying we both affirm what is true beyond doubt, and do not still subject our wills thereby to a necessity which destroys liberty. Our wills, therefore, exist as wills , and do themselves whatever we do by willing, and which would not be done if we were unwilling.
Augustine of Hippo, City of God 5.10
And again: if man has been made after the image of the blessed and super-essential Godhead, and if the divine nature is by nature endowed with free-will and volition, it follows that man, as its image, is free by nature and volitive . For the fathers defined freedom as volition .
John of Damascus, John of Damascus: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 3.14
And, as I said before, when one has freely determined to do some good action, and afterwards goes on to complete it, though, if unwilling to pay his vow, he could be compelled to do so, yet we must not say that he does it of necessity, but with the same freedom with which he made the resolution. For we ought not to say that anything is done, or not done, by necessity or weakness, when free choice is the only agent in the case.
Anselm of Canterbury, Cur Deus Homo II.Chapter_XVIII_a
But whatever agents have their judgement of things to be done not determined by nature to one effect, they must have free will. Such are all intelligent agents; for the understanding apprehends, not only this or that good, but good itself in general. Hence, since it is through the idea in apprehension that the understanding moves the will; and in all things the motive, or moving power, and the object moved must be proportioned to one another; it follows that the will of an intelligent subsistent being is not determined by nature except to good in general.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles 2.48
In this way, then, man is said to have free will, not because he has a free choice of good and evil, but because he acts voluntarily, and not by compulsion. This is perfectly true: but why should so small a matter have been dignified with so proud a title? … How few are there who, when they hear free will attributed to man, do not immediately imagine that he is the master of his mind and will in such a sense, that he can of himself incline himself either to good or evil?
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion II.2
But, after all, consent only perfects the good action; for if we are inspired of God, and take pleasure in that inspiration, and yet, nevertheless, refuse our consent to His inspiration, we are acting a very contemptuous, offensive part towards Him. We read of the Bride, that although the voice of her Beloved touched her heart, she made trivial excuses, and delayed opening the door to Him, and so He withdrew Himself and “was gone.”
Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life 2.18
Moral necessity is owing to the power and government of the inclination of the heart, either habitual or occasional, excited by motive: but, according to natural and common sense, the more a man does any thing with full inclination of heart, the more is it to be charged to his account for his condemnation, if it be an ill action, and the more to be ascribed to him for his praise, if it be good.
Jonathan Edwards, Freedom of the Will 6
That an event may be free and yet certain, may be easily proved. (1.) It is a matter of consciousness. We are often absolutely certain how we shall act, so far as we are free to act at all, and conscious that we act freely.
Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology I.9.2 (Vol. 1)
Obviously if any actions, even a lunatic’s, can be causeless, determinism is done for. If the chain of causation can be broken for a madman, it can be broken for a man.
G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy 2
9 passages · 7 writers · 300s to 1500s
Writers ask how the human will and God's grace work together in turning to God and doing good.
He who saith, “I have applied my heart,” had before said, “Incline my heart unto Thy testimonies:” so that we may understand that it is at once a divine gift, and an act of free will.
Augustine of Hippo, Expositions on the Book of Psalms 119.14
Because when he says, “it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth,” he does not deprive us of free-will, but shows that all is not one’s own, for that it requires grace from above. For it is binding on us to will, and also to run: but to confide not in our own labors, but in the love of God toward man.
John Chrysostom, The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Paul's Epistle to the Romans 18
From this we understand that to will and to run is ours, but the carrying into effect our willing and running pertains to the mercy of God, and is so effected that on the one hand in willing and running free will is preserved; and on the other, in consummating our willing and running, everything is left to the power of God. … And this is a clear proof that you either deny the grace which you banish from the parts of life; or if you concede its presence in the parts, a concession plainly much against your will, you must have come over to the views of us who preserve free will for man, but so limit it that we do not deny the assistance of God in each action.
Jerome, Against the Pelagians 1
For if, as the Truth says, “Every man that hath learned cometh,” it follows, of course, that whoever does not come has not learned. But who can fail to see that a man’s coming or not coming is by the determination of his will? This determination, however, may stand alone, if the man does not come; but if he does come, it cannot be without assistance; and such assistance, that he not only knows what it is he ought to do, but also actually does what he thus knows.
Augustine of Hippo, A Treatise on the Grace of Christ, and on Original Sin 3.15
These two then; viz., the grace of God and free will seem opposed to each other, but really are in harmony, and we gather from the system of goodness that we ought to have both alike, lest if we withdraw one of them from man, we may seem to have broken the rule of the Church’s faith: for when God sees us inclined to will what is good, He meets, guides, and strengthens us: for “At the voice of thy cry, as soon as He shall hear, He will answer thee;” and: “Call upon Me,” He says, “in the day of tribulation and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me.”
John Cassian, The Conferences of John Cassian. Part II. Containing Conferences XI-XVII 4.11
In order, therefore, that this saying, which is not received by all men, may yet be received by some, there are both the gift of God and free will.
Augustine of Hippo, A Treatise on Grace and Free Will 4.7
But it is man's proper nature to have free-will. Hence in him who has the use of reason, God's motion to justice does not take place without a movement of the free-will; but He so infuses the gift of justifying grace that at the same time He moves the free-will to accept the gift of grace, in such as are capable of being moved thus.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I-II.Q113.A3
CANON III.—If any one saith, that without the prevenient inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and without his help, man can believe, hope, love, or be penitent as he ought, so that the grace of Justification may be bestowed upon him: let him be anathema. CANON IV.—If any one saith, that man's free-will moved and excited by God, by assenting to God exciting and calling, nowise co-coperates towards disposing and preparing itself for obtaining the grace of Justification; that it can not refuse its consent, if it would, but that, as something inanimate, it does nothing whatever and is merely passive: let him be anathema.
Council of Trent, Canons and Dogmatic Decrees of the Council of Trent Session 6, can. I–X
All this being admitted, it will be beyond dispute, that free will does not enable any man to perform good works, unless he is assisted by grace; indeed, the special grace which the elect alone receive through regeneration. … But it has not yet been shown whether man is entirely deprived of the power of well-doing, or whether he still possesses it in some, though in a very feeble and limited degree—a degree so feeble and limited, that it can do nothing of itself, but when assisted by grace, is able also to perform its part.
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion II.2
9 passages · 8 writers · 300s to 1900s
Writers describe what free choice remains in fallen people and what it cannot do without God.
I say that there was free exercise of will in that man who was first formed. He was so made that absolutely nothing could resist his will, if he had willed to keep the precepts of God. But after he voluntarily sinned, we who have descended from his stock were plunged into necessity. But each one of us can by a little consideration find that what I say is true. For today in our actions before we are implicated by any habit, we have free choice of doing anything or not doing it.
Augustine of Hippo, Acts or Disputation Against Fortunatus the Manichæan 3
For as it is not in our power to live in this world without sustaining ourselves by food, while it is in our power to refuse this nourishment and cease to live, as those do who kill themselves, so it was not in man’s power, even in Paradise, to live as he ought without God’s help; but it was in his power to live wickedly, though thus he should cut short his happiness, and incur very just punishment.
Augustine of Hippo, City of God 14.27
It is true indeed, that every time that this corpse, in whom only free-will has remained (which remains as long as the mortal body lives), asks My help, he can have it, but never can he help himself; he has become insupportable to himself, and, wishing to govern the world, is governed by that which is not, that is by sin, for sin in itself is nothing, and such men have become the servants and slaves of sin.
Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue 3.15
And hence it follows, that “Free-will,” without the grace of God is, absolutely, not FREE; but, immutably, the servant and bond-slave of evil; because, it cannot turn itself unto good. This being determined, I will allow you to make the power of “Free-will,” not only a certain small degree of power, but to make it evangelical if you will, or, if you can, to make it divine: provided that, you add to it this doleful appendage — that, without the grace of God, it is ineffective. Because, then you will at once take from it all power: for, what is ineffective power, but plainly, no power at all?
Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will 26
Of Free Will they teach that man’s will has some liberty to choose civil righteousness, and to work things subject to reason. But it has no power, without the Holy Ghost, to work the righteousness of God, that is, spiritual righteousness; since the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, 1 Corinthians 2:14 ; but this righteousness is wrought in the heart when the Holy Ghost is received through the Word.
Lutheran Church, Augsburg Confession 20
CANON V.—If any one saith, that, since Adam's sin, the free-will of man is lost and extinguished; or, that it is a thing with only a name, yea a name without a reality, a figment, in fine, introduced into the Church by Satan: let him be anathema. CANON VI.—If any one saith, that it is not in man's power to make his ways evil, but that the works that are evil God worketh as well as those that are good, not permissively only, but properly, and of himself, in such wise that the treason of Judas is no less his own proper work than the vocation of Paul: let him be anathema.
Council of Trent, Canons and Dogmatic Decrees of the Council of Trent Session 6, can. I–X
All that the Scripture knows about free-will is, that in the state of nature, antecedent unto the converting, sanctifying work of the Spirit, all men whatever are in bondage unto sin, and that in all the faculties of their souls. They are “sold under sin;” are “not subject unto the law of God, neither indeed can be;” — can neither think, nor will, nor do, nor desire, nor love any thing that is spiritually good, according to the mind of God. But as unto what is evil, perverse, unclean, that they are free and open unto, — ready for, prone, and inclined, and every way able to do. On the other side, in those who are renewed by the Holy Ghost and sanctified, it acknowledgeth and teacheth a freedom of will, not in an indifferency and flexibility unto good and evil, but in a power and ability to like, love, choose, and cleave unto God and his will in all things.
John Owen, Pneumatologia 4.6
See how wretchedly the corrupt will of man is enslaved to sin; as far as the carnal mind prevails, there is no inclination to the law of God; therefore wherever there is a change wrought it is by the power of God's grace, not by the freedom of man's will.
Matthew Henry, Commentary on Romans 8.1 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 6)
Man did not lose any of the constitutional faculties necessary to constitute him a responsible moral agent. He still has reason, conscience, and the freedom of choice. … But man did lose his material freedom, that is, the rational power to determine his course in the direction of the highest good, in harmony with the original moral constitution of his nature. Man has by nature an irresistible bias for evil.
Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology 2.2.4
7 passages · 7 writers · 200s to 1800s
Writers relate God's choosing of some and leaving of others to the freedom and guilt of the people concerned.
If a man therefore purge himself, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the Master’s use, and prepared unto every good work;” for if he who purges himself becomes a vessel unto honour, and he who allows himself to remain unpurged becomes a vessel unto dishonour, then, so far as these words are concerned, the Creator is not at all to blame. For the Creator makes vessels of honour and vessels of dishonour, not from the beginning according to His foreknowledge, since He does not condemn or justify beforehand according to it; but (He makes) those into vessels of honour who purged themselves, and those into vessels of dishonour who allowed themselves to remain unpurged: so that it results from older causes (which operated) in the formation of the vessels unto honour and dishonour, that one was created for the former condition, and another for the latter.
Origen of Alexandria, The Works of Origen 4.3
Whence then are some vessels of wrath, and some of mercy? Of their own free choice. … And if he was not saved, it was quite owing to his own will: since, as for what concerneth God, he had as much done for him as they who were saved.
John Chrysostom, The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Paul's Epistle to the Romans 18
When, therefore, you hear the Lord say, “I the Lord have deceived that prophet,” and likewise what the apostle says: “He hath mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth,” believe that, in the case of him whom He permits to be deceived and hardened, his evil deeds have deserved the judgment; whilst in the case of him to whom He shows mercy, you should loyally and unhesitatingly recognise the grace of the God who “rendereth not evil for evil; but contrariwise blessing.” Nor should you take away from Pharaoh free will, because in several passages God says, “I have hardened Pharaoh;” or,” I have hardened or I will harden Pharaoh’s heart;” for it does not by any means follow that Pharaoh did not, on this account, harden his own heart.
Augustine of Hippo, A Treatise on Grace and Free Will 4.45
So also the order of predestination is certain; yet free-will is not destroyed; whence the effect of predestination has its contingency. Moreover all that has been said about the divine knowledge and will ( Q[14], A[13] ; Q[19], A[4] ) must also be taken into consideration; since they do not destroy contingency in things, although they themselves are most certain and infallible.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I.Q23.A6
What did “Free-will” do for Jacob, or what did it do against Esau, when it was already determined, by the prescience and predestination of God, before either of them was born, what should be the portion of each; that is, that the one should serve, and the other rule?
Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will 99
In the exposition of the faith by the Eastern Patriarchs it is said: As he foresaw that some would use well their free will, but others ill, he accordingly predestined the former to glory, while the latter he condemned.
Philaret of Moscow, The Longer Catechism of the Orthodox, Catholic, Eastern Church q. 122–128
For one thing, we must never forget that God's election does not destroy man's responsibility and accountableness for his own soul. The same Bible which speaks of election, always addresses men as free agents, and calls on them to repent, to believe, to seek, to pray, to strive, to labor.
J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Mark Mark 13:14-23 (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, Vol. 2)
9 passages · 9 writers · 100s to 1800s
Writers ask whether God's knowledge of future acts and his governance of events leave human acts free.
So that what we say about future events being foretold, we do not say it as if they came about by a fatal necessity; but God foreknowing all that shall be done by all men, and it being His decree that the future actions of men shall all be recompensed according to their several value, He foretells by the Spirit of prophecy that He will bestow meet rewards according to the merit of the actions done, always urging the human race to effort and recollection, showing that He cares and provides for men.
Justin Martyr, The First Apology 44
Therefore we are by no means compelled, either, retaining the prescience of God, to take away the freedom of the will, or, retaining the freedom of the will, to deny that He is prescient of future things, which is impious. But we embrace both. … Consequently, it is not in vain that laws are enacted, and that reproaches, exhortations, praises, and vituperations are had recourse to; for these also He foreknew, and they are of great avail, even as great as He foreknew that they would be of.
Augustine of Hippo, City of God 5.10
For Adam did not sin because God knew that he would do so; but God inasmuch as He is God, foreknew what Adam would do of his own free choice.
Jerome, Against the Pelagians 4
Of things that are not in our hands some have their beginning or cause in those that are in our power, that is to say, the recompenses of our actions both in the present and in the age to come, but all the rest are dependent on the divine will. For the origin of all things is from God, but their destruction has been introduced by our wickedness for our punishment or benefit.
John of Damascus, John of Damascus: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 2.28
Cicero (De divinatione ii, 8) has this argument: ‘If all things are foreseen by God, the order of causes is certain; but if so, all things happen by fate, nothing is left in our power, and there is no such thing as free will.’ A frivolous argument, for since not only effects are subject to divine providence, but also causes, and modes of being, it follows that though all things happen by divine providence, some things are so foreseen by God as that they are done freely by us.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles 3.94
Wherefore, the prescience and Omnipotence of God, are diametrically opposite to our “Free-will.” And it must be, that either God is deceived in His prescience and errs in His action, (which is impossible) or we act, and are acted upon, according to His prescience and action. — But by the Omnipotence of God, I mean, not that power by which He does not many things that He could do, but that actual power by which He powerfully works all in all, in which sense the Scripture calls Him Omnipotent. This Omnipotence and prescience of God, I say, utterly abolishes the doctrine of “Free-will.”
Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will 93
Man did not sin because God foresaw him; but God foresaw him to sin, because man would sin. If Adam and other men would have acted otherwise, God would have foreknown that they would have acted well; God foresaw our actions because they would so come to pass by the motion of our freewill, which he would permit, which he would concur with, which he would order to his own holy and glorious ends, for the manifestation of the perfection of his nature.
Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God 8
If there be any such thing as a divine Foreknowledge of the volitions of free agents, that Foreknowledge, by the supposition, is a thing which already has, and long ago had existence; and so, now its existence is necessary; it is now utterly impossible to be otherwise, than that this Foreknowledge should be or should have been.
Jonathan Edwards, Freedom of the Will 3
What is foreknown must be certain, as much as what is foreordained. If the one, therefore, be inconsistent with liberty, so also is the other. … It is, therefore, evident that the sacred writers fully believed that free acts are foreknown by the divine mind, and therefore are certain as to their occurrence.
Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology I.9.2 (Vol. 1)
10 passages · 10 writers · 200s to 1800s
Writers trace the first sin and later sins to the created will of humans, angels, and demons rather than to God or to nature.
For the liberty of the will will not retort its own wrong on Him by whom it was bestowed, but on him by whom it was improperly used. What is the evil, then, which you want to impute to the Creator? If it is man’s sin, it will not be God’s fault, because it is man’s doing; nor is that Being to be regarded as the author of the sin, who turns out to be its forbidder, nay, its condemner.
Tertullian, The Five Books Against Marcion 2.9
A fearful thing is sin, and the sorest disease of the soul is transgression, secretly cutting its sinews, and becoming also the cause of eternal fire; an evil of a man’s own choosing, an offspring of the will. For that we sin of our own free will the Prophet says plainly in a certain place: Yet I planted thee a fruitful vine, wholly true: how art thou turned to bitterness, (and become) the strange vine ? The planting was good, the fruit coming from the will is evil; and therefore the planter is blameless, but the vine shall be burnt with fire since it was planted for good, and bore fruit unto evil of its own will.
Cyril of Jerusalem, The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril 6
For as when the light has been removed the darkness supervenes, but as long as it is present there is no darkness, so, as long as the good is present in the nature, vice is a thing that has no inherent existence; while the departure of the better state becomes the origin of its opposite. Since then, this is the peculiarity of the possession of a free will, that it chooses as it likes the thing that pleases it, you will find that it is not God Who is the author of the present evils, seeing that He has ordered your nature so as to be its own master and free; but rather the recklessness that makes choice of the worse in preference to the better.
Gregory of Nyssa, The Great Catechism 7
God hath not so framed man’s nature as that he should have any necessity to sin, since were this the case, there would be no such thing as punishment. We ourselves exact no account of things done of necessity and by constraint, much less would God, so full of mercy and loving-kindness.
John Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians 3
Nowhere, however, in Holy Scripture do we find such an assertion as, There is no volition but comes from God. And rightly is it not so written, because it is not true: otherwise God would be the author even of sins (which Heaven forbid!), if there were no volition except what comes from Him; inasmuch as an evil volition alone is already a sin, even if the effect be wanting,—in other words, if it has not ability.
Augustine of Hippo, A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter 54
By sinless, I mean not that sin could find no place in him (for that is the case with Deity alone), but that sin is the result of the free volition he enjoys rather than an integral part of his nature ; that is to say, he has the power to continue and go forward in the path of goodness, by co-operating with the divine grace, and likewise to turn from good and take to wickedness, for God has conceded this by conferring freedom of will upon him. For there is no virtue in what is the result of mere force .
John of Damascus, John of Damascus: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 2.12
Therefore the cause of sin cannot be the devil, but man's own will alone. I answer that, Sin is an action: so that a thing can be directly the cause of sin, in the same way as anyone is directly the cause of an action; and this can only happen by moving that action's proper principle to act. Now the proper principle of a sinful action is the will, since every sin is voluntary.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I-II.Q80.A1
I hold it as a settled axiom, that nothing is more unsuitable to the character of God than for us to say that man was created by Him for the purpose of being placed in a condition of suspense and doubt; wherefore I conclude, that, as it became the Creator, he had before determined with himself what should be man’s future condition. Hence the unskilful rashly infer, that man did not sin by free choice. For he himself perceives, being convicted by the testimony of his own conscience, that he has been too free in sinning. Whether he sinned by necessity, or by contingency, is another question; respecting which see the Institution, and the treatise on Predestination.
John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis, Vol. 1 3.1 (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. 1)
As God was not the cause of the first sin of Adam, which was the root of all other, so he is not the cause of the following sins, which, as branches, spring from that root; man’s free‑will was the cause of the first sin, and the corruption of his nature by it the cause of all succeeding sins. God doth not immediately harden any man, but doth propose those things, from whence the natural vice of man takes an occasion to strengthen and nourish itself.
Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God 11
God of his goodness, at the creation of man, gave him a will naturally disposed to love God, but still free; and man used this freedom for evil.
Philaret of Moscow, The Longer Catechism of the Orthodox, Catholic, Eastern Church q. 150–165
9 passages · 9 writers · 100s to 1800s
Writers answer claims that birth, the stars, or fate fix what people do.
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.
Justin Martyr, The First Apology 43
How, then, shall I admit this nativity according to Fate, when I see such managers of Fate? I do not wish to be a king; I am not anxious to be rich; I decline military command; I detest fornication; I am not impelled by an insatiable love of gain to go to sea; I do not contend for chaplets; I am free from a mad thirst for fame; I despise death; I am superior to every kind of disease; grief does not consume my soul.
Tatian, Tatian's Address to the Greeks 2.11
“Listen, then,” said Bardesan, “and observe, that that which the stars decree by their Fate and their portions is not practised by all men alike who are in all parts of the earth. For men have made laws for themselves in various countries, in the exercise of that freedom which was given them by God: forasmuch as this gift is in its very nature opposed to that Fate emanating from the Potentates, who assume to themselves that which was not given them.
Anonymous (ANF), Memoirs of Edessa And Other Ancient Syriac Documents 16
Now those who decide that man is not possessed of free-will, and affirm that he is governed by the unavoidable necessities of fate, and her unwritten commands, are guilty of impiety towards God Himself, making Him out to be the cause and author of human evils. For if He harmoniously orders the whole circular motion of the stars, with a wisdom which man can neither express nor comprehend, directing the course of the universe; and the stars produce the qualities of virtue and vice in human life, dragging men to these things by the chains of necessity; then they declare God to be the Cause and Giver of evils. But God is the cause of injury to no one; therefore fate is not the cause of all things.
Methodius of Olympus, The Banquet of the Ten Virgins; or Concerning Chastity 9.16
For it is not according to thy nativity that thou sinnest, nor is it by the power of chance that thou committest fornication, nor, as some idly talk, do the conjunctions of the stars compel thee to give thyself to wantonness . Why dost thou shrink from confessing thine own evil deeds, and ascribe the blame to the innocent stars?
Cyril of Jerusalem, The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril 8
As for us Christians, we shall see our great hopes vanish, since from the moment that man does not act with freedom, there is neither reward for justice, nor punishment for sin. Under the reign of necessity and of fatality there is no place for merit, the first condition of all righteous judgment.
Basil of Caesarea, The Hexæmeron 7
This then let us pursue, to this let us adhere, so shall we banish from our souls all destructive doctrines, such, for instance, as relate to nativity and fate. … Believe that there is a God, and a Providence, and you will not believe that there can be a nativity, that holds all things together. Believe that there is a place of punishment, and a Kingdom, and you will not believe in a nativity that takes away our free agency, and subjects us to necessity and force.
John Chrysostom, Homilies on 1 Timothy 2
We, too, deny the influence of the stars upon the birth of any man; for we maintain that, by the just law of God, the free-will of man, which chooses good or evil, is under no constraint of necessity.
Augustine of Hippo, Reply to Faustus the Manichæan 4
However fatalists may differ as to the cause of the necessity which governs all events, they agree as to its nature. It may arise from the influence of the stars, as the ancient Chaldeans held; or from the operation of second causes, or from the original constitutions of things; or from the decree of God. It avowedly precludes all liberty of action, and reduces the acts of men to the same category with those of irrational animals.
Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology II.9.1 (Vol. 2)
9 passages · 9 writers · 100s to 300s
Writers of the second to fifth centuries teach that rational creatures were made able to choose good or evil.
For God, wishing both angels and men, who were endowed with free-will, and at their own disposal, to do whatever He had strengthened each to do, made them so, that if they chose the things acceptable to Himself, He would keep them free from death and from punishment; but that if they did evil, He would punish each as He sees fit.
Justin Martyr, Dialog with Trypho 88
This expression [of our Lord], “How often would I have gathered thy children together, and thou wouldest not,” 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.
Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies: Book IV 38
But we, who have heard by the Scriptures that self-determining choice and refusal have been given by the Lord to men, rest in the infallible criterion of faith, manifesting a willing spirit, since we have chosen life and believe God through His voice. And he who has believed the Word knows the matter to be true; for the Word is truth.
Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata, or Miscellanies 2.4
I find, then, that man was by God constituted free, master of his own will and power; indicating the presence of God’s image and likeness in him by nothing so well as by this constitution of his nature. For it was not by his face, and by the lineaments of his body, though they were so varied in his human nature, that he expressed his likeness to the form of God; but he showed his stamp in that essence which he derived from God Himself (that is, the spiritual, which answered to the form of God), and in the freedom and power of his will.
Tertullian, The Five Books Against Marcion 2.5
This also is clearly defined in the teaching of the Church, that every rational soul is possessed of free-will and volition; that it has a struggle to maintain with the devil and his angels, and opposing influences, because they strive to burden it with sins; but if we live rightly and wisely, we should endeavour to shake ourselves free of a burden of that kind.
Origen of Alexandria, The Works of Origen 1
That the liberty of believing or of not believing is placed in free choice.
Cyprian of Carthage, The Treatises of Cyprian 12.4.2
Know also that thou hast a soul self-governed, the noblest work of God, made after the image of its Creator : immortal because of God that gives it immortality; a living being, rational, imperishable, because of Him that bestowed these gifts: having free power to do what it willeth
Cyril of Jerusalem, The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril 8
For He Who holds the sovereignty of the universe, out of the excess of this regard for man, permitted something to be under our own control, of which each of us alone is master. Now this is the will, a thing that cannot be enslaved, and of self-determining power, since it is seated in the liberty of thought and mind.
Gregory of Nyssa, The Great Catechism 32
Beloved, see how we are honored! yet some are so unreasonable and so ungrateful as to say, “Why are we endowed with free will?” But how in all the particulars which we have mentioned could we have imitated God, if there had been no free will?
John Chrysostom, Homilies on 1 Timothy 16
15 passages · 13 writers · 100s to 1900s
Writers mention free will in passing as part of the image of God or as something God gave.
In the previous books I have set forth the causes for which God permitted these things to be made, and have pointed out that all such have been created for the benefit of that human nature which is saved, ripening for immortality that which is [possessed] of its own free will and its own power, and preparing and rendering it more adapted for eternal subjection to God. And therefore the creation is suited to [the wants of] man; for man was not made for its sake, but creation for the sake of man.
Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies: Book V 30
Hermogenes has already heard from us what are the other natural faculties of the soul, as well as their vindication and proof; whence it may be seen that the soul is rather the offspring of God than of matter. The names of these faculties shall here be simply repeated, that they may not seem to be forgotten and passed out of sight. We have assigned, then, to the soul both that freedom of the will which we just now mentioned, and its dominion over the works of nature, and its occasional gift of divination, independently of that endowment of prophecy which accrues to it expressly from the grace of God.
Tertullian, A Treatise on the Soul 22
The Logos alone of this God is from God himself; wherefore also the Logos is God, being the substance of God. Now the world was made from nothing; wherefore it is not God; as also because this world admits of dissolution whenever the Creator so wishes it. But God, who created it , did not, nor does not, make evil. He makes what is glorious and excellent; for He who makes it is good. Now man, that was brought into existence, was a creature endued with a capacity of self-determination,
Hippolytus of Rome, The Refutation of All Heresies 8.30
XII. This being He placed in Paradise, whatever the Paradise may have been, having honoured him with the gift of Free Will (in order that God might belong to him as the result of his choice, no less than to Him who had implanted the seeds of it), to till the immortal plants, by which is meant perhaps the Divine Conceptions, both the simpler and the more perfect; naked in his simplicity and inartificial life, and without any covering or screen; for it was fitting that he who was from the beginning should be such. Also He gave him a Law, as a material for his Free Will to act upon. This Law was a Commandment as to what plants he might partake of, and which one he might not touch.
Gregory of Nazianzus, Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen 21
We distinctly remember what in the course of our argument we said in the commencement of this treatise; namely, that man was fashioned in imitation of the Divine nature, preserving his resemblance to the Deity as well in other excellences as in possession of freedom of the will, yet being of necessity of a nature subject to change. For it was not possible that a being who derived his origin from an alteration should be altogether free from this liability.
Gregory of Nyssa, The Great Catechism 23
Not alone giving thanks to Him for that He has created us as reasonable beings, and endowed us with the power of free will, and blessed us with the grace of baptism, and granted to us the knowledge and aid of the law, but for these things as well, which are bestowed upon us by His daily providence; viz., that He delivers us from the craft of our enemies; that He works with us so that we can overcome the sins of the flesh, that, even without our knowing it, He shields us from dangers; that He protects us from falling into sin; that He helps us and enlightens us, so that we can understand and recognize the actual help which He gives us, (which some will have it is what is meant by the law);
John Cassian, The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults 12.18
For indeed the Lord admonished the human race to their face, when to man, created in Paradise, and standing in free will, He declared what He ought to do or not to do. But man turned his back on the face of God , when in his pride he despised His commands. Yet still God deserted him not in his pride, in that He gave the Law for the purpose of recalling man, and sent exhorting angels, and Himself appeared in the flesh of our mortality. Therefore, standing behind our back, He admonished us, in that, even though despised, He called us to the recovery of grace.
Gregory the Great, The Book of Pastoral Rule, and Selected Epistles, of Gregory the Great 4.4.29
For He created him after His own image, endowed with intellect and free-will, and after His own likeness, that is to say, perfect in all virtue so far as it is possible for man’s nature to attain perfection. For the following properties are, so to speak, marks of the divine nature: viz. absence of care and distraction and guile, goodness, wisdom, justice, freedom from all vice. So then, after He had placed man in communion with Himself (for having made him for incorruption , He led him up through communion with Himself to incorruption), and when moreover, through the transgression of the command we had confused and obliterated the marks of the divine image, and had become evil, we were stripped of our communion with God (for what communion hath light with darkness ?): and having been shut out from life we became subject to the corruption of death: yea, since He gave us to share in the better part, and we did not keep it secure, He shares in the inferior part,
John of Damascus, John of Damascus: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 4.4
When therefore He had furnished his nature with free-will, He imposed a law on him, not to taste of the tree of knowledge. Concerning this tree, we have said as much as is necessary in the chapter about Paradise, at least as much as it was in our power to say. And with this command He gave the promise that, if he should preserve the dignity of the soul by giving the victory to reason, and acknowledging his Creator and observing His command, he should share eternal blessedness and live to all eternity, proving mightier than death: but if forsooth he should subject the soul to the body, and prefer the delights of the body, comparing himself in ignorance of his true dignity to the senseless beasts , and shaking off His Creator’s yoke, and neglecting His divine injunction, he will be liable to death and corruption, and will be compelled to labour throughout a miserable life.
John of Damascus, John of Damascus: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 2.30
Man must seek in his own higher nature for the highest gifts; and these are dignity, wisdom and virtue. By dignity I mean free-will, whereby he not only excels all other earthly creatures, but has dominion over them.
Bernard of Clairvaux, On Loving God 2
A soul endued with a clearness of understanding and freedom of will: faculties no sooner framed, but they were able to produce the operation they were intended for; a soul that excelled the whole world, that comprehended the whole creation; a soul that evidenced the extent of its skill in giving names to all that variety of creatures which had issued out of the hand of Divine Power (Gen. ii. 19); a soul able to discover the nature of other creatures, and manage and conduct their motions. In the ruins of a palace we may see the curiosity displayed, and the cost expended in the building of it; in the ruins of this fallen structure, we still find it capable of a mighty knowledge; a reason able to regulate affairs, govern states, order more mighty and massy creatures, find out witty inventions; there is still an understanding to irradiate the other faculties, a mind to contemplate its own Creator, a judgment to discern the differences between good and evil, vice and virtue, which the goodness of God hath not granted to any lower creature.
Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God 12
A man hath a right to a piece of brass or gold by his purchase, but when by his engraving he hath formed it into an excellent statue, there results an increase of his right upon the account of his artifice. God’s creation of the matter of man gave him a right over man; but his creation of him in so eminent an excellency, with reason to guide him, a clear eye of understanding to discern light from darkness, and truth from falsehood, a freedom of will to act accordingly, and an original righteousness as the varnish and beauty of all; here is the strongest foundation for a claim of authority over man, and the strongest obligation on man for subjection to God.
Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God 13
As he has the government of the inferior creatures, he is, as it were, God's representative, or viceroy, upon earth; they are not capable of fearing and serving God, therefore God has appointed them to fear and serve man. Yet his government of himself by the freedom of his will has in it more of God's image than his government of the creatures. … His will complied readily and universally with the will of God, without reluctancy or resistance.
Matthew Henry, Commentary on Genesis 1.8 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 1)
The essential attributes of a spirit are reason, conscience, and will. A spirit is a rational, moral, and therefore also, a free agent. In making man after his own image, therefore, God endowed him with those attributes which belong to his own nature as a spirit.
Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology II.5.2 (Vol. 2)
With his spirit Adam was in touch with the spiritual world of God; with his body he was in touch with the physical world of material things. He gathered up these two sides of God’s creative act into himself to become a personality, an entity living in the world, moving by itself and having powers of free choice.
Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life 12.1
12 passages · 7 writers · 1100s to 1900s
Writers mention free will as a claim they oppose, usually because it is set against grace or credited with a share in salvation.
Who else could bestow virtue except the Lord of virtue? Therefore even the infidel who knows not Christ but does at least know himself, is bound to love God for God’s own sake. He is unpardonable if he does not love the Lord his God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his mind; for his own innate justice and common sense cry out from within that he is bound wholly to love God, from whom he has received all things. But it is hard, nay rather, impossible, for a man by his own strength or in the power of free-will to render all things to God from whom they came, without rather turning them aside, each to his own account, even as it is written, ‘For all seek their own’ (Phil. 2.21); and again, ‘The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth’ (Gen. 8.21).
Bernard of Clairvaux, On Loving God 2
The Pelagians held that this cause was nothing else than man's free-will: and consequently they said that the beginning of faith is from ourselves, inasmuch as, to wit, it is in our power to be ready to assent to things which are of faith, but that the consummation of faith is from God, Who proposes to us the things we have to believe. But this is false, for, since man, by assenting to matters of faith, is raised above his nature, this must needs accrue to him from some supernatural principle moving him inwardly; and this is God. Therefore faith, as regards the assent which is the chief act of faith, is from God moving man inwardly by grace.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q6.A1
Despite the intelligibility of Paul’s statement, our enemies fail to grasp it. Otherwise they would not emphasize free will, natural strength, the works of supererogation, etc. To escape the charge of forgery they always have their convenient annotation handy, that Paul is referring only to the ceremonial and not to the moral law. But Paul includes all laws.
Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians 3:21
So the Papists, at this day, setting up freewill in opposition to the grace of the Holy Spirit, ascribing a part of their righteousness and salvation to the merits of works, feigning for themselves innumerable advocates, by whom they render God propitious to them, have a sort of fictitious Christ, I know not what; but the lively and genuine image of God, which shines forth in Christ, they deform by their wicked inventions; they lessen his power, subvert and pervert his office. We now see that Christ, is denied, whenever those things which peculiarly belong to him, are taken away from him.
John Calvin, Commentary on the Catholic Epistles 1 John 2.7 (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. 45)
Let Papists now go and proudly vaunt of their free-will, but let us, who are conscious of our own slavery, glory in none but Christ our Deliverer. For the reason why the Gospel ought to be reckoned to have achieved our deliverance is, that it offers and gives us to Christ to be freed from the yoke of sin. Lastly, we ought to observe, that freedom has its degrees according to the measure of their faith; and therefore Paul, though clearly made free , still groans and longs after perfect freedom, ( Romans 7:24 .)
John Calvin, Commentary on the Gospel of John, Vol. 1 8.6 (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. 34)
A remarkable and striking instance of this is found in those who maintain the righteousness of works and defend free-will. They have continually in their mouth these words, “Perfect holiness, merits, satisfactions;” but their whole life cries out against them, that they are outrageously wicked and ungodly, that they provoke in every possible way the wrath of God, and fearlessly set his judgment at naught. They extol in lofty terms the free choice of good and evil; but they openly shew, by their actions, that they are the slaves of Satan, and are most firmly held by him in the chains of slavery.
John Calvin, Commentary on Timothy, Titus, and Philemon 1 Timothy 1.2 (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. 43)
And hence it follows that we are by nature depraved and corrupted, and cannot yield fruit in any other way than by being changed and planted by the Lord. This sets aside the vain and haughty opinion of the Papists, who, by contriving either preparations or the aids of free will, claim what belongs to God alone; for if we are planted by the Lord, it follows that we are by nature dry and unfruitful.
John Calvin, Commentary on Isaiah, Vol. 4 61.1 (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. 16)
Let our doctrine be tested by this rule and our victory is secure. For what accords better and more aptly with faith than to acknowledge ourselves divested of all virtue that we may be clothed by God, devoid of all goodness that we may be filled by Him, the slaves of sin that he may give us freedom, blind that he may enlighten, lame that he may cure, and feeble that he may sustain us; to strip ourselves of all ground of glorying that he alone may shine forth glorious, and we be glorified in him? When these things, and others to the same effect, are said by us, they interpose, and querulously complain, that in this way we overturn some blind light of nature, fancied preparatives, free will, and works meritorious of eternal salvation, with their own supererogations also;The only word in the Ed. 1536 after “free will,” is “merita.” because they cannot bear that the entire praise and glory of all goodness, virtue, justice, and wisdom, should remain with God.
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion Pref.4
Is it not universally a figment of your own brains? or is it not a new name for that old idol free-will? Is it not destructive to free grace in every branch of it?
John Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ 4.7
Hence the dear esteem and high valuation which this old idol free-will hath attained in these days, being so useful to the general ransom that it cannot live a day without it. Should it pass for true what the Scripture affirms, namely, that we are by nature “dead in trespasses and sins,” etc., there would not be left of the general ransom a shred to take fire from the hearth. Like the wood of the vine, it would not yield a pin to hang a garment upon: all which you shall find fully declared in the ensuing treatise.
John Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ 0.4
Whosoever they are that look for righteousness and salvation by the power of their freewill, or the inherent goodness of their nature, or by virtue of their merit, as the Socinians and Papists, they are all under the covenant of works. … It says, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and be saved'; but such as will stand upon their own inherent righteousness, free-will and merit, fall under the first covenant of works, and are in a perishing estate.
Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity 4.1
Our pulpits as well as our church publications, our schools and seminaries, ring with the Arminian doctrines of merit and free-will.
Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination 39
11 passages · 9 writers · 100s to 1800s
Writers take free choice for granted when they speak of sin, rebuke, and punishment.
Plato in what follows gives an exhibition of free-will: “Virtue owns not a master; and in proportion as each one honours or dishonours it, in that proportion he will be a partaker of it. The blame lies in the exercise of free choice.” But God is blameless. For He is never the author of evil.
Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata, or Miscellanies 5.14
And as he knows that it is written, “Behold, thou art made whole; sin no more, lest a worse thing happen unto thee,” let him separate the fraudulent and adulterers from his side and from his company, since the case of an adulterer is by far both graver and worse than that of one who has taken a certificate, because the latter has sinned by necessity, the former by free will
Cyprian of Carthage, The Epistles of Cyprian 51
But if you say, Why, then, was the nature of man made at the beginning capable of death? I tell you, because of free-will; for if we were not capable of death, we could not, as being immortal, be punished on account of our voluntary sin. And thus, on account of our freedom from suffering, righteousness would be still more weakened if we were wicked by choice; for those who should have evil purposes could not be punished, on account of their being incapable of suffering.
Pseudo-Clement, Pseudo-Clementine Literature 4.22.15
Here the question is no longer one of necessity. Passion is no matter of necessity, no one loves of necessity, but of deliberate choice and free will. Indulgence of nature, indeed, is perhaps matter of necessity, but to love one woman rather than another is no matter of necessity.
John Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians 3
For it was not God that cut them off, but they have broken themselves off and fallen, and he did well to say have broken themselves off. For He hath never yet so (Sav. conj. ms. corr. οὗτος ) cast them off, though they have sinned so much and so often. You see what a great thing a man’s free choice is, how great the efficacy of the mind is. For none of these things is immutable, neither thy good nor his evil.
John Chrysostom, The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Paul's Epistle to the Romans 21
Sinning therefore takes place only by exercise of will. But our will is very well known to us; for neither should I know that I will, if I did not know what will itself is. Accordingly, it is thus defined: will is a movement of mind, no one compelling, either for not losing or for obtaining something.
Augustine of Hippo, On Two Souls, Against the Manichæans 10
But if you say that this contrary nature alone deserves punishment, and not the soul, I ask to which is repentance, which is commanded, vouchsafed. If the soul is commanded to repent, sin is from the soul, and the soul has sinned voluntarily. For if the soul is compelled to do evil, that which it does is not evil.
Augustine of Hippo, Acts or Disputation Against Fortunatus the Manichæan 3
The Apostle James also, knowing that the baptized can be tempted, and fall of their own free choice, says: “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he hath been approved, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord promised to them that love him.” And that we may not think that we are tempted by God, as we read in Genesis Abraham was, he adds: “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempteth no man.
Jerome, Against Jovinianus 2
On the contrary, It is written (De Eccl. Dogmat. xlix): "Not all our evil thoughts are stirred up by the devil, but sometimes they arise from the movement of our free-will." I answer that, One thing can be the cause of another in two ways; directly and indirectly. Indirectly as when an agent is the cause of a disposition to a certain effect, it is said to be the occasional and indirect cause of that effect: for instance, we might say that he who dries the wood is the cause of the wood burning. In this way we must admit that the devil is the cause of all our sins; because he it was who instigated the first man to sin, from whose sin there resulted a proneness to sin in the whole human race: and in this sense we must take the words of Damascene and Dionysius.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I.Q114.A3
The Prophet teaches us here that the fault of the people could not be extenuated as though they had sinned through ignorance; for they had been warned more than necessary by God. The same sentiment is found in Isaiah, “This is your rest; but they would not hear.” ( Isaiah 28:12 .) But our Prophet more at large condemns the Jews; for God had commanded them to stand in the ways, to look and to inquire respecting all the old paths. He uses a similitude: and we ought not to doubt respecting the way, since it has been shewn to us by the mouth of God. But the impiety of the people is exposed and reproved, because they did not so much as open their eyes, when God shewed them the way and allowed them a free choice: for he introduces God here, not strictly as one who commands, but as one who shews so much indulgence, that the people were free to choose the way they approved and thought best. When God deals so kindly with men, and so condescendingly sets before them what is useful and expedient, it is the basest ingratitude to reject such kindness on God’s part.
John Calvin, Commentary on Jeremiah and Lamentations, Vol. 1 6.16 (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. 17)
Set down, too, the circumstances of his choice. He was not obliged to choose as he did. None compelled him to take such a course. The things he took up did not force themselves upon him against his will. He went after them; they did not come after him. All that he did, he did of his own free choice—voluntarily, and of his own accord.
J.C. Ryle, Holiness 9
6 passages · 4 writers · 200s to 1500s
Writers mention fate, the stars, or necessity as excuses or errors that they reject.
If destiny leads one on to kill a man, and to stain his hands with murder, and the law forbids this, punishing criminals, and by threats restrains the decrees of destiny, such as committing injustice, adultery, theft, poisoning, then the law is in opposition to destiny; for those things which destiny appointed the law prohibits, and those things which the law prohibits destiny compels men to do. … Either, then, there is destiny and there was no need of laws; or there are laws and they are not in accordance with destiny.
Methodius of Olympus, The Banquet of the Ten Virgins; or Concerning Chastity 9.16
And some indeed, who are used to excuse their own sins, complain that they are driven to sin by fate, as though the stars had decreed this, and heaven had first sinned by decreeing such, in order that man should after sin by committing such, and thus had rather impute their sin to fortune: who think that all things are driven to and fro by chance accidents, and yet contend that this their wisdom and assertion is not of chance rashness, but of ascertained reason. What madness then is it, to lay to reason their discussions, and to make their actions subject to accidents! Others refer to the devil the whole of what they do ill: and will not have even a share with him, whereas they may suspect whether he by hidden suggestions hath persuaded them to evil, and on the other hand cannot doubt that they have consented to those suggestions, from whatever source they have come. There are also they who extend their defense of self unto an accusation of God, wretched by the divine judgment, but blasphemers by their own madness.
Augustine of Hippo, On Continence 14
When, therefore, any one, upon being reproved, affirms that Fate is the cause of the action, and insists that therefore he is not to be blamed, because he says that under the compulsion of Fate he did the action which is censured, let him come back to apply this to his own case, let him observe this principle in managing his own affairs: let him not chastise a dishonest servant; let him not complain of a disrespectful son; let him not utter threats against a mischievous neighbour. For in doing which of these things would he act justly, if all from whom he suffers such wrong are impelled to commit it by Fate, not by any fault of their own? If, however, from the fight inherent in himself, and the duty incumbent on him as the head of a family towards all whom for the time he has under his control, he exhorts them to do good, deters them from doing evil, commands them to obey his will, honours those who yield implicit obedience, inflicts punishment on those who set him at naught, gives thanks to those who do him good, and hates those who are ungrateful,—shall I wait to prove the absurdity of the astrologers calculations of Fate, when I find him proclaiming, not by words but by deeds, things so conclusive against his pretensions that he seems to destroy almost with his own hands every hair on the heads of the astrologers?
Augustine of Hippo, Letters of St. Augustin 1.165
Dost thou then put Christ under fate? Where are the fates? In heaven, sayest thou, in the order and changes of the stars. How then can fate rule Him by whom the heavens and the stars were made; whilst thy own will, if thou thinkest rightly, transcends even the stars? Or, because thou knowest that Christ’s flesh was under heaven, is that the reason why thou thinkest that Christ’s power was put under the heavens?
Augustine of Hippo, Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John 38
Consequently astrologers are able to foretell the truth in the majority of cases, especially in a general way. But not in particular cases; for nothing prevents man resisting his passions by his free-will. Wherefore the astrologers themselves are wont to say that "the wise man is stronger than the stars" [*Ptolemy, Centiloquium, prop. 5], forasmuch as, to wit, he conquers his passions.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I.Q115.A4
There are many, I know, at this day foolishly curious, and hence wish some account to be made of judiciary astrology; and this delirium has taken possession of some pious men and really learned: but we see what God here declares by his servant. And I wonder that some are thus credulous as to the stars, who yet speak with extreme subtlety on free-will. They would have the events of things fortuitous, they would have it that men act freely in both ways, and they hate and abhor fate; and yet they confine God as it were in a prison, and would have the stars to rule.
John Calvin, Commentary on Jeremiah and Lamentations, Vol. 2 10.1 (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. 18)
11 passages · 7 writers · 200s to 1900s
Writers mention human freedom as a fact that stands next to God's governance or knowledge.
Celsus has made a statement regarding evils of the following nature, viz., that “although a thing may seem to you to be evil, it is by no means certain that it is so; for you do not know what is of advantage to yourself, or to another, or to the whole world.” Now this assertion is made with a certain degree of caution; and it hints that the nature of evil is not wholly wicked, because that which may be considered so in individual cases, may contain something which is of advantage to the whole community. However, lest any one should mistake my words, and find a pretence of wrongdoing, as if his wickedness were profitable to the world, or at least might be so, we have to say, that although God, who preserves the free-will of each individual, may make use of the evil of the wicked for the administration of the world, so disposing them as to conduce to the benefit of the whole; yet, notwithstanding, such an individual is deserving of censure, and as such has been appointed for a use, which is a subject of loathing to each separate individual, although of advantage to the whole community. It is as if one were to say that in the case of a city, a man who had committed certain crimes, and on account of these had been condemned to serve in public works that were useful to the community, did something that was of advantage to the entire city, while he himself was engaged in an abominable task, in which no one possessed of moderate understanding would wish to be engaged.
Origen of Alexandria, Origen Against Celsus 4.70
Thus we see him acknowledge both his own part and that of God, and whilst he ascribes the greater part to the providence of God, he extenuates his own, yet so far only, as we said before, as was consistent with free will. … This was the effect of no human power, and yet not of Divine influence alone, but of his own resolution also.
John Chrysostom, Homilies on 1 Timothy 4
If Abraham had been a Socinian, to deny God’s knowledge of the free acts of men, had he not a fine excuse for unbelief? What would his reply have been to God? Alas, Lord, this is not a promise to be relied upon, the Amorites’ iniquity depends upon the acts of their free will, and such thou canst have no knowledge of; thou canst see no more than a likelihood of their iniquity being full, and therefore there is but a likelihood of thy performing thy promise, and not a certainty! Would not this be judged not only a saucy, but a blasphemous answer? And upon these principles the truth of the most faithful God had been dashed to uncertainty and a peradventure.
Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God 8
Though he has endued man with understanding and freedom of will, yet he reserves to himself the government of him, and even of those very faculties by which he is qualified to govern himself. 1. The children of men are all under his eye, even their hearts are so; and all the motions and operations of their souls, which none know but they themselves, he knows better than they themselves, v. 13, 14 . … Atheists think that, because he dwells above in heaven, he cannot, or will not, take notice of what is done here in this lower world; but thence, high as it is, he sees us all, and all persons and things are naked and open before him.
Matthew Henry, Commentary on Psalms 33.2 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 3)
Man purposes. He has a freedom of thought and a freedom of will permitted him; let him form his projects, and lay his schemes, as he thinks best: but, after all, 2. God disposes. Man cannot go on with his business without the assistance and blessing of God, who made man's mouth and teaches us what we shall say.
Matthew Henry, Commentary on Proverbs 16.1 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 3)
God's eternal purposes and man's free agency, as also the doctrine of salvation by grace and the unchanging obligations of God's law, have ever been subjected to the charge of inconsistency by those who will bow to no truth which their own reason cannot fathom. But amidst all the clouds and darkness which in this present state envelop the divine administration and many of the truths of the Bible, such broad and deep principles as are here laid down, and which shine in their own luster, will be found the sheet-anchor of our faith.
Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset, and David Brown, Fausset, and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible Romans 3
Among the objects of the divine knowledge are the free acts of men. The Scriptures abundantly teach that such acts are foreknown. Such knowledge is involved in the prediction of events which either concern the free acts of men, or are dependent on them. If God be ignorant of how free agents will act, his knowledge must be limited, and it must be constantly increasing, which is altogether inconsistent with the true idea of his nature.
Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology I.5.8 (Vol. 1)
In creating free agents, He willed not to foreknow how they would act, in order to leave their freedom unimpaired. But this is to suppose that God wills not to be God; that the Infinite wills to be finite. Knowledge with God is not founded on his will, except so far as the knowledge of vision is concerned, i.e., his knowledge of his own purposes, or of what He has decreed shall come to pass.
Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology I.9.2 (Vol. 1)
The providential agency of God in the government of free agents is not to be confounded with the operations of his grace. These two things are constantly represented in the Bible as distinct. The one is natural, the other supernatural. In the one God acts according to uniform laws, or by his potentia ordinata, in the other, according to the good pleasure of his will, or by his potentia absoluta. The control which God exercises over the ordinary acts of men, and especially over the wicked, is analogous to that which He exercises in the guidance of material causes. whereas his agency in the operations of his grace is more analogous to his mode of action in prophecy, inspiration, and miracles. In the former, or in his providential agency over minds, nothing is effected which transcends the efficiency of second causes.
Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology I.11.4 (Vol. 1)
Rehoboam, in following an evil counsel, and the Hebrew people, in making a revolutionary movement, each acted as free agents, obeying their own will and passions. But God, who permitted the revolt of the northern tribes, intended it as a punishment of the house of David for Solomon's apostasy. That event demonstrates the immediate superintendence of His providence over the revolutions of kingdoms; and thus it affords an instance, similar to many other striking instances that are found in Scripture, of divine predictions, uttered long before, being accomplished by the operation of human passions, and in the natural course of events.
Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset, and David Brown, Fausset, and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible Second Chronicles 10
Foreknowledge must not be confused with foreordination. Foreknowledge presupposes foreordination, but is not itself foreordination. The actions of free agents do not take place because they are foreseen, but they are foreseen because they are certain to take place.
Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination 6
6 passages · 5 writers · 400s to 1900s
Writers describe the free-will positions of Cœlestius, the Semi-Pelagians, defenders of liberty of indifference, Luther, and the Greek fathers.
After this we find objected against Pelagius some other points of Cœlestius’ teaching,—prominent ones, and undoubtedly worthy of condemnation; such, indeed, as would certainly have involved Pelagius in condemnation, if he had not anathematized them in the synod. Under his third head Cœlestius was alleged to have written: “That God’s grace and assistance is not given for single actions, but is imparted in the freedom of the will, or in the law and in doctrine.” And again: “That God’s grace is given in proportion to our deserts; because, were He to give it to sinful persons, He would seem to be unrighteous.”
Augustine of Hippo, A Work on the Proceedings of Pelagius 30
Now lest some should suppose that I do not understand those that place Liberty in Indifference, or should charge me with misrepresenting their opinion, I would signify, that I am sensible, there are some, who, when they talk of Liberty of the Will as consisting in Indifference, express themselves as though they would not be understood to mean the Indifference of the inclination or tendency of the Will, but an Indifference of the soul’s power, of willing; or that the Will, with respect to its power or ability to choose, is indifferent, can go either way indifferently, either to the right hand or left, either act or forbear to act, one as well as the other. This indeed seems to be a refining of some particular writers only, and newly invented, which will by no means consist with the manner of expression used by the defenders of Liberty of Indifference in general.
Jonathan Edwards, Freedom of the Will 3
It is no doubt true that many declarations may be cited from the early writers, especially of the Greek Church, inconsistent with one or more of the doctrines just stated; but it is no less true that these same writers and others of equal authority explicitly avow them. (6.) As the prevalent heresies of that time tended to fatalism, the natural counter tendency of the Church was to the undue exaltation of the liberty and ability of the human will. (7.) That this tendency was specially characteristic of the Greek Church, and has continued to distinguish the theology of that Church to the present day.
Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology III.14.7 (Vol. 2)
That this was Luther's doctrine cannot be denied. In his book, "The Bondage of the Will," the main purpose of which was to prove that the will of man is by nature enslaved to evil only, and that because it is fond of that slavery it is said to be free, he declared: "Whatever man does, he does necessarily, though not with any sensible compulsion, and he can only do what God from eternity willed and foreknew he should, which will of God must be effectual and His foresight must be certain . .. Neither the Divine nor human will does anything by constraint, and whatever man does, be it good or bad, he does with as much appetite and willingness as if his will was really free.
Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination 28
According to the Greek Fathers there is a physical corruption in the human race, which is derived from Adam, but this is not sin and does not involve guilt. The freedom of the will was not affected directly by the fall, but is affected only indirectly by the inherited physical corruption. The tendency apparent in the Greek Church finally culminated in Pelagianism, which flatly denied all original sin.
Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology 2.2.4
Semi-Pelagianism reacted against the absoluteness of the Augustinian view. It admitted that the whole human race is involved in the fall of Adam, that human nature is tainted with hereditary sin, and that all men are by nature inclined to evil and not able, apart from the grace of God, to complete any good work; but denied the total depravity of man, the guilt of original sin, and the loss of the freedom of the will. This became the prevalent view during the Middle Ages, though there were some prominent Scholastics who were on the whole Augustinian in their conception of original sin.
Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology 2.2.4
12 passages · 11 writers · 100s to 1900s
Writers mention free will when speaking of willing obedience, chosen virtue, and surrender to God.
Whenever, then, one is righteous, not from necessity or out of fear or hope, but from free choice, this is called the royal road, which the royal race travel. … But he who has done good out of free choice, demands the recompense as a good workman.
Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata, or Miscellanies 7.12
We ought to remember that we should do not our own will, but God’s, in accordance with what our Lord has bidden us daily to pray. How preposterous and absurd it is, that while we ask that the will of God should be done, yet when God calls and summons us from this world, we should not at once obey the command of His will! We struggle and resist, and after the manner of froward servants we are dragged to the presence of the Lord with sadness and grief, departing hence under the bondage of necessity, not with the obedience of free will; and we wish to be honoured with heavenly rewards by Him to whom we come unwillingly.
Cyprian of Carthage, The Treatises of Cyprian 7
For what is involuntary apart from its being the result of oppression, is neither meritorious nor durable. For what is forced, like a plant violently drawn aside by our hands, when set free, returns to what it was before, but that which is the result of choice is both most legitimate and enduring, for it is preserved by the bond of good will. And so our law and our lawgiver enjoin upon us most strictly that we should “tend the flock not by constraint but willingly.”
Gregory of Nazianzus, Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen 4
Do you not see the adamant reverberating the blows it receives? But nature, you will say, gives it this property. Yet you too have it in your power to become by free choice such, as that happens to be by nature. How? do you not know that the children in the furnace were not burned? and that Daniel in the den suffered no harm? This may even now come to pass.
John Chrysostom, The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Paul's Epistle to the Romans 5
Serving God freely with the will. … For if the Apostolic teaching admonisheth a slave to serve a human master, not as though of necessity, but of good will, and by freely serving make himself in heart free; how much more must God be served with whole and full and free will, who seeth thy very will?…The first man made us captive, the second man hath delivered us from captivity. “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.” But in Adam they die through the flesh’s nativity, in Christ they are delivered through the heart’s faith.
Augustine of Hippo, Expositions on the Book of Psalms 71
In accordance with the condition and measure of every mind Holy Scripture summons our free wills to different grades of perfection. For no uniform crown of perfection can be offered to all men, because all have not the same virtue, or purpose, or fervour, and so the Divine Word has in some way appointed different ranks and different measures of perfection itself.
John Cassian, The Conferences of John Cassian. Part II. Containing Conferences XI-XVII 2.12
Therefore, brethren, you ought by free will not do evil but do good; this, indeed, is the lesson taught us in the law of God, in the Holy Scriptures—both Old and New. Let us, however, read, and by the Lord’s help understand, what the apostle tells us: “Because by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Observe, he says “ the knowledge ,” not “the destruction,” of sin. But when a man knows sin, and grace does not help him to avoid what he knows, undoubtedly the law works wrath. And this the apostle explicitly says in another passage. His words are: “The law worketh wrath.” The reason of this statement lies in the fact that God’s wrath is greater in the case of the transgressor who by the law knows sin, and yet commits it; such a man is thus a transgressor of the law, even as the apostle says in another sentence, “For where no law is, there is no transgression.”
Augustine of Hippo, A Treatise on Grace and Free Will 4.22
Thus, then, He exhibited a free obedience to the Father, inasmuch as He spontaneously willed to do what He knew would be pleasing to the Father. … For the obedience of Human Nature is exhibited at once in full perfection and in uttermost freedom, when it voluntarily surrenders its own free will to the will of God, and when, with a freedom all its own, it perfects the good will which was therefore accepted because unexacted.
Anselm of Canterbury, Meditations and Prayers 2.11
No doubt even the slave does sometimes the work of God, but because he does it not of his own free will he remains still in his hardness. The mercenary person does it also, but not out of kindness, only as drawn by his own particular advantage. Where there is distinction of persons, there are personal interests, and where there are personal interests there is a limit of willingness, and there, without doubt, a rusting meanness. … But charity does convert souls when it fills them with disinterested zeal.
Bernard of Clairvaux, Some Letters of Saint Bernard 47
But if you rely upon self, and do not offer your free will to Mine, your offering will be incomplete and the union between us imperfect. Hence, if you desire to attain grace and freedom of heart, let the free offering of yourself into the hands of God precede your every action. This is why so few are inwardly free and enlightened—they know not how to renounce themselves entirely.
Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ 4.8
That shore was God; that direction was tradition; the oars were the freedom given me to pull for the shore and unite with God. And so the force of life was renewed in me and I again began to live.
Leo Tolstoy, A Confession 12
The mother of all graces of conduct is the bowing of the will to divine authority. The will is the man, and where it ceases to lift itself up in self-sacrificing and self-determining rebellion, and dissolves into running waters of submission, these will flow through the life and make it pure. To obey self is sin, to obey God is righteousness.
Alexander Maclaren, Second Kings from Chap. VIII, and Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes 1.8.3 (Expositions of Holy Scripture, Vol. 3)
11 passages · 8 writers · 300s to 1500s
Writers mention free will in angels, in the human will of Christ, and in the redeemed.
But their sanctification, being external to their substance, superinduces their perfection through the communion of the Spirit. They keep their rank by their abiding in the good and true, and while they retain their freedom of will, never fall away from their patient attendance on Him who is truly good.
Basil of Caesarea, De Spiritu Sancto 17
For “No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost, and no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed;” as might be said by wicked and hostile spirits, whose fall establishes our statement of the freedom of the will of the invisible powers; being, as they are, in a condition of equipoise between virtue and vice, and on this account needing the succour of the Spirit.
Basil of Caesarea, De Spiritu Sancto 17
What need is there of any words of ours to reveal how great is the profanity of such a notion, when the heretical utterance of itself proclaims aloud its monstrosity? For if He was obedient for this reason only that He was so made, then of course He is not on an equal footing even with humanity, since on this theory, while our soul is self-determining and independent, choosing as it will with sovereignty over itself that which is pleasing to it, He on the contrary exercises, or rather experiences, obedience under the constraint of a compulsory law of His nature, while His nature suffers Him not to disobey, even if He would.
Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius 4.11
Was it to be feared that as age matured this man, He would sin of free will? Or was the will in Him not free on that account? and was it not so much the more free in proportion to the greater impossibility of His becoming the servant of sin? Certainly, in Him human nature—that is to say, our nature—specially received all those specially admirable gifts, and any others that may most truly be said to be peculiar to Him, by virtue of no preceding merits of its own.
Augustine of Hippo, A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints 2.30
For should we say that the human nature of our Lord is without will and operation, how could we affirm in safety the perfect humanity? For nothing else constitutes the integrity of human nature except the essential will, through which the strength of free-will is marked in us; and this is also the case with the substantial operation. For how shall we call him perfect in humanity if he in no wise suffered and acted as a man?
Anonymous (NPNF), The Sixth Ecumenical Council. The Third Council of Constantinople 11
He who from among these angelic powers was set over the earthly realm, and into whose hands God committed the guardianship of the earth, was not made wicked in nature but was good, and made for good ends, and received from his Creator no trace whatever of evil in himself. But he did not sustain the brightness and the honour which the Creator had bestowed on him, and of his free choice was changed from what was in harmony to what was at variance with his nature, and became roused against God Who created him, and determined to rise in rebellion against Him : and he was the first to depart from good and become evil
John of Damascus, John of Damascus: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 2.4
So there is nothing unfitting in an angel being moved to act in so far as such natural inclination is implanted in him by the Author of his nature. Yet he is not so moved to act that he does not act himself, because he has free-will.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I.Q60.A1
Reply to Objection 3: An angel has an inflexible free-will after once choosing; consequently, if after the first instant, in which he had a natural movement to good, he had not at once placed a barrier to beatitude, he would have been confirmed in good. It is not so with man; and therefore the argument does not hold good.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I.Q63.A6
So you see that in those bonds of love in which they finished their life, they go on and remain eternally. They are conformed so entirely to My will, that they cannot desire except what I desire, because their free-will is bound in the bond of love, in such a way that, time failing them, and, dying in a state of grace, they cannot sin any more. And their will is so united with Mine, that a father or a mother seeing their son, or a son seeing his father or his mother in Hell, do not trouble themselves, and even are contented to see them punished as My enemies.
Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue 3.25
Because their life finished in the affection of My love, and therefore will this delight endure for them eternally. Not that they can work any good, but they rejoice and delight in that good which they have brought with them, that is, they cannot do any meritorious act, by which they could merit anything, because in this life alone can they merit and sin, according as they please, with free-will.
Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue 3.25
I say to bring to memory the sin of the Angels, how they, being created in grace, not wanting to help themselves with their liberty to reverence and obey their Creator and Lord, coming to pride, were changed from grace to malice, and hurled from Heaven to Hell; and so then to discuss more in detail with the intellect: and then to move the feelings more with the will.
Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises 1.5
Each morning, a few short passages on one topic from different writers, with sources. Free.
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