Augustine And Freedom Essay, Research Paper
Augustine and Freedom: Some Tentative Philosophical Reflections
Evil-doing is neglect of eternal things and love of temporal things to the extent of
becoming subject to them. This is done by the free choice of the will . . . Free will
makes sin possible but it was given that man might live righteously.1
This is a brief summary of what Augustine believed regarding (1) the origin of sin and (2) the
purpose for which humanity was endowed with free choice of the will. Though insightful as it
may seem, Augustine’s statement will not set to rest all the issues raised by the notion of
human freedom and divine activity, since with free choice of the will come perplexing
questions that continue to rage in philosophical circles. Some questions, however, can be set
forth that outline parameters within which to begin understanding Augustine on the issue of
human freedom and its origins/causes.
If evil originates in the human will, from where does the will come? Are there any limitations to
human freedom? Is the human will neutral or does it have a bias toward good? A bias toward
evil? Where does free choice of the will come into play when individuals are saved by God’s
grace alone? What is meant by free will? On these questions, and many more related,
Augustine has been an immense help.
In this work an attempt will be made to illustrate Augustine’s view of free will. Such categories
as God’s sovereignty in election and salvation, the origin of evil and its impact upon humanity,
the justice of God, human responsibility and the providence of God in sanctification of the
believer will be utilized. Augustine’s understanding of human freedom should corroborate with
(1) the nature and character of God, (2) the integrity of Scripture and (3) human nature and
experience. Finally, an endeavor will be made toward a definition of free will that is faithful to
Scripture and Augustine.
It is important to say that this work is not meant to resolve the tension that has emerged
over the centuries between God and human freedom. Philosophical and theological variations
on this theme abound. The philosophical nature of the problem alone has resulted in countless
monolithic efforts, notwithstanding innumerable theological implications. If clarification should
result from this work, it would more than likely not be the product of this writer’s tentative
reflections on the issue. Rather, it would issue from the depth and breadth of wisdom given to
the Bishop of Hippo who’s intellect, for at least 1500 years, has enriched the Church of God.
It is necessary at the outset to expose what was doctrinally significant for Augustine during
the time of his writings on free will. His two most important works on freedom of the will are
De Libero Arbitrio (On Free Will) and De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio (On Grace and Free Will). The
former was written early (ca. 387-395) as a charge against the Manichees who believed the
world to be the arena within which two opposing forces were at war (good and evil). Human
activity, according to the Manichees, was determined by these two powers, which were
beyond any person’s control.
Augustine believed the Manichean error absolved individuals of moral responsibility. In De
Libero Arbitrio he was combating the Manichean heresy that evil’s origin was independent of
humanity. Instead, he demonstrates that evil is a product of liberum arbitrium or free choice
of the will. Moreover, Augustine explains why God gives freedom and that it is compatible with
divine foreknowledge.
The second work was written as a rejoinder to the Pelagian heresy. Though Pelagianism may
have been a response to the abuse of grace and the moral laxity of the Christian Church, it
was far from being a biblical alternative to Augustine’s teachings.2 In defending the grace of
God as the initial and effectual influence upon the soul’s conversion, Augustine was
interpreted as denying free choice of the will. Put simply, to defend grace is to deny freedom.
Pelagius maintained that humanity is born innocent of evil. That evil choices are made is not
denied by the Pelagians. Evil springs from bad examples in the environment which persons
imitate.3
Those influenced by Pelagius sought to defend free will in salvation and sanctification of the
saints at the expense of God’s grace. In De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio (ca. 426-427) Augustine
insists upon (1) the insufficiency of human efforts in meriting grace and (2) the undeserved,
necessary, and gratuitous assistance of God in saving and sanctifying the saints.
Augustine’s anthropology significantly contributes to his understanding of free will. Denying
Plato’s trichotomy, he affirms a dualistic view of existence; a soul-body distinction wherein an
integrative unity of existence obtains. “Regarding [humans] as neither the soul alone nor the
body alone but the combination of body and soul”4 is clear reference to Augustine’s dual
integration of human nature. The soul is immortal but not eternally existing (contra Plato) and
is “a certain substance, sharing in reason and suited to the task of ruling the body.”5 With this
framework in mind, one can proceed in asking questions regarding the constitution of the soul
and what moves it.
What motivates the will? How does one decide between options? What is behind the capacity
to choose? What is the sequence of movement in choices? For Augustine, choices are made
based upon motives. Prior to motives are desires and affections. Furthermore, antecedent to
desires is a pre-existing inclination, bias, or disposition toward good or evil. This inclination is
the first cause, so to speak, of human decisions.
But is there a cause beyond the inclination? In other words, “what cause lies behind willing?”6
Augustine’s answer to this question takes on a somewhat sarcastic tone, yet is intended to
show the absurdity of the question. “If I could find one, are you not going to ask for the
cause of the cause I have found? What limit will there be to your quest, what end to inquiry
and explanation?”7 While it may appear that he is avoiding the question, Augustine does point
out that the cause of evil is an evil will and the cause of the evil will is self-determining. And
the self is determined to choose for or against x based upon his/her inclination toward or away
from x.
This would appear to be in opposition with what has come to be known as one of the standard
definitions of freedom, viz., absolute power to contrary. This explanation of freedom is so
prevalent that some have understood it to make God contingent in some way.8 Alvin Plantinga
is often quoted on freedom as power to contrary.
If a person is free with respect to a given action, then he is free to perform that
action and free to refrain from performing it; no antecedent conditions [italics
mine] and/or causal laws determine that he will perform the action, or that he
won’t. It is within his power, at the time in question, to take or perform the action
and within his power to refrain from it.9
But Augustine understood that the antecedent condition for the movement of the will is a prior
inclination. Far from coercion, Augustine believed in a predisposed bias or inclination toward
either good or evil. Choices, motives, and desires do not happen in a vacuous environment nor
are they indifferent to or disinclined toward any direction. Whether human freedom entails
power to contrary choice or self-determination depends upon the inclination of the soul. And
the soul’s inclination depends upon which era of human existence is being assumed in the
defining stages of freedom.
There are four distinct epochs of history in which humans exist.10 At creation and before the
Fall, after the Fall and before regeneration, after regeneration and before glorification and the
eternal state after death. Each of these categories are necessary to keep in mind prior to
understanding freedom of a creature. It is necessary to define the conditions under which the
creature may operate. Otherwise the concept of freedom is unconstrained and confusion
results.
First, before the Fall humanity experienced power to contrary choice. Adam was endowed
with the capacity to love and obey God at creation. He was given the freedom to do what he
ought. “When we speak of the freedom of the will to do right, we are speaking of the freedom
wherein man was created.”11 In this state the gift of freedom was bestowed upon Adam. He
could “go straight forward, develop himself harmoniously in untroubled unity with God, and
thus gradually attain his final perfection; or he could fall away, engender evil ex nihilo by
abuse of his free will.”12
Humanity is anything but a static being at creation. Augustine says “Only as originally created,
i.e., before the Fall, had man freedom to will and to do right.”13 Adam was not created neutral
nor disinclined (simile Pelagius). For to remain equidistant from both good and evil is to be
indifferent, in which case indifference does not apply to the category of freedom since
inherent in freedom is the idea of movement. One is free to act or refrain from the act. In
either case movement is involved. Stated differently: to move toward the good is to move
away from evil and vice versa. As Shedd puts it:
Holy Adam at the instant of his creation did not find himself set to choose either
the Creator or the creature as an ultimate end, being indifferent to both, but he
found himself inclined to the Creator . . . His will if created at all must have been
created as voluntary, since it could not be created as involuntary or uninclined.
This inclination was self-motion. It was the spontaneity of a spiritual essence, not
an activity forced ab extra [italics his].14
To further demonstrate power to contrary before the Fall, Augustine distinguishes between
posse non peccare and possibilitas peccandi. That is, the possibility of sinning was necessary
unto Adam’s freedom but sinning itself was not. In the garden potential freedom from sin
belonged to Adam prior to the Fall and its opposite (viz., potential slavery to sin) was equally
implied.15 Had Adam chosen to follow his holy inclination, things would be somewhat different
today.
Second, after the Fall Adam had only one inclination, posse peccare, viz., the ability to sin.
Freedom is not thereby removed. It simply takes the shape of self-determination. Fallen
persons voluntarily determine to follow their own bent toward evil. They are self-determined
rather than God-determined. “Adam prior to the fall had freedom including both the ability not
to sin (posse non peccare) and the ability to sin (posse peccare). But all the descendants of
Adam, by reason of their inheritance, have only ability to sin (posse peccare) until they are
redeemed.”16 Nevertheless, the unregenerate are periodically capable of complying with the
demands of God, sporadically though it may be, in doing those things which are in accordance
with God’s Law (cf., Rom. 2:14-15). This is not to say God’s Law is fulfilled in any sense in the
way it is with believers through the Spirit (cf., Rom. 8:4).
It is unlikely Augustine was correct in applying Romans 2:14-15 to Gentile Christians.17 It
would be quite difficult to explain why Paul says of these so-called Christians that they are “a
law unto themselves,” not to mention Paul’s purpose of the entire pericope (Rom. 1:18-3:20)
is to demonstrate that all persons live under the dominion of sin. That some do, on occasion,
comply with God’s moral standards is the most this reference says. And this is a far cry from
regeneration. Persons aren’t free to live righteous lives unless they are free from an
unrighteous life.
The third stage of freedom in the saga of human history is after regeneration. That it takes
the enabling grace of God to transform the unregenerate is indication enough that free will is
self-determination rather than power to contrary. This is probably the hallmark of Augustine’s
contribution to Christianity. On the necessity of grace and the restoration of human freedom
in salvation Augustine could not be more clear.
For the grace bestowed upon us through Jesus our Lord is neither the knowledge
of God’s law nor nature nor the mere remission of sin, but that grace which makes
it possible to fulfill the Law so that our nature is set free from the dominion of
sin.18
Still further, Augustine says; “Freewill is always present in us, but it is not always good . . .
But the grace of God is always good and brings about a good will in a man who before was
possessed of an evil will.”19 He was emphatic that the ability to perform good works does not
merit God’s favor. For it is God alone who enables individuals to believe unto salvation.
God . . . works in us, without our cooperation, the power to will, but once we
begin to will, and do so in a way that brings us to act, then it is that He
cooperates with us. But if He does not work in us the power to will or does not
cooperate in our act of willing, we are powerless to perform good works of a
salutory nature.20
Augustine understood that the same grace that saves is the same grace that sanctifies.
Dependence upon God in yielding one’s own will over to God was a continual process that
begins at salvation and extends throughout the believer’s life. Nowhere in Augustine’s writings
is the balance between freewill after regeneration (power to contrary) and the rule of God in
the believer’s life more clearly seen than in this passage where Augustine reflects upon the
imago Dei being renewed.
He who is thus renewed by daily advancing in the knowledge of God, in
righteousness and holiness of truth, is changing in the direction of his love from
the temporal to the eternal, from the visible to the intelligible, from the carnal to
the spiritual; diligently endeavoring to curb and abate all lust for the one, and to
bind himself in charity to the other. In which all his success depends on the divine
aid; for it is the word of God, that ?without me ye can do nothing.?21
The believer’s will is no longer motivated out of self-interests (self-determination). Rather, it is
moved by God’s love and enabled by God’s Spirit to be what he intends. What is lost in
salvation is a will that was governed by sinful passions and desires and replaced with
voluntary surrender to the One whose will is supremely good and holy.
The first three periods of human freedom (viz., before the Fall, after the Fall and after
regeneration) could be stated in this manner: either God created Adam with (1) a disinclined
indifferent will (simile Pelagius), (2) a spontaneous voluntary will inclined toward him, yet not
externally compelled toward God or (3) a will disinclined toward him and inclined toward evil.
For Augustine, holy inclination is the product of God and the activity of the creature. The
possibility to err was present, hence power to contrary. Sinful inclination is both the creature’s
product and activity. Holy will is in the self but not from the self. It is a product of God who
originally and graciously gifted humanity with a desire for fellowship with him.22
Evil self-determination is both in the self and from the self, hence self-determination. Activity
which is self-determined and self-originating is only evil after the Fall and prior to
regeneration. After regeneration, the will is restored to its holy inclination whereby power to
contrary is reinstated and movement toward a righteous life and away from sin is progressively
realized in the life of the believer (cf., Rom. 6:6, 14a).
The final state of human freedom is the believer’s freedom in eternity. Here the believer will be
transformed into a glorious, immortal being where power to contrary is no longer necessary.
Every thought, deed, and motive will be free to be all that God intended. In the glorified state
the conditions will be such that individuals no longer are inclined away from God and toward
evil. The tenacious problem Paul calls the “flesh” will be laid to rest once and for all. “Making
choices consistent with nature confirmed in righteousness will be our highest freedom!” 23 If
these categories obtain and (1) the conditions of the Fall radically affected human freedom
and (2) r
of Augustine, one cannot discuss human freedom without discussing the origin of evil.
According to Augustine, “There are two sources of sin, a man’s own spontaneous thought, and
the persuasion of a neighbor . . . Both, however, are voluntary.”24 Sin issues from within and
without. There are two mediums through which sin enters: (1) the bodily senses and (2) evil
desires (cf., I Jn. 2:14-15; Jam. 1: 14). In either case the will is utilized. “Sins . . . are to be
ascribed to nothing but to their own wills, and no further cause for sins is to be looked for.”25
That persons are both impotent and ignorant does not make them less guilty before God.
These are the conditions under which unregenerate creatures exist. Ignorance and impotence
are conditions, not causes.
Analogously, a drought is not the cause of hunger; lack of food is. The drought may be the
condition under which hunger occurs, but it is not the cause of hunger. So too, God created
the condition (viz., freedom) from which humans could move closer toward him. Adam
voluntarily chose otherwise and, hence, became guilty. The cause of the guilt is the misuse of
the condition (freedom). In essence, God caused the condition, Adam abused it and,
therefore, became guilty.
Why should not the Author of the soul be praised with due piety if he has given it
so good a start that it may by zeal and progress reach the fruit of wisdom and
justice, and has given it so much dignity as to put within its power the capacity
to grow towards happiness if it will?26
Though God gives freedom at creation he is not to be charged with its misuse. “The soul was
not created evil because it was not given all that it had power to become.”27 The purpose for
which God gifted his creatures with freedom was that they might live righteously. God is
exonerated and humanity, being the efficient cause of evil/sin, is guilty.
One might argue that “Freedom is not possible due to God having foreknowledge. Whether
freedom be defined as power to contrary or self-determination, the creature is certain to
choose what God has already known and, therefore, cannot be free in any sense. A
deterministic or even fatalistic view of God and his creation is the only possible alternative,
given the infallible foreknowledge of God.” Once again, the Bishop of Hippo provides a great
deal of aid in understanding the compatibility of divine foreknowledge and human freedom
(either definition).
In De Libero Arbitrio Evodius asks Augustine, “Since God foreknew that man would sin, that
which God foreknew must come to pass. How then is the will free when there is apparently
this unavoidable necessity?”28 Augustine is quick to point out the disjunctive thinking on the
matter. First, it assumes an either/or scenario (bifurcation) and doesn’t offer a third
alternative, viz., that God has foreknowledge of the power to will. Second, this disjunction
assumes, unnecessarily so, that foreknowledge is somehow causative. Once again, this
confuses conditions with causes.
Third, it makes foreknowledge out to be far more than is intended at this point. Augustine
clearly states that foreknowledge is prescience, or knowing beforehand. “God by his
foreknowledge does not use compulsion in the case of future events . . . God has
foreknowledge of all his own actions, but is not the agent of all that he foreknows . . . he has
no responsibility for the future actions of men though he knows them beforehand.”29 God
foreknew, for example, in 1899 that scores of Kosovo inhabitants would be brutely murdered in
1999. This knowledge does not implicate God as responsible.
The dilemma of foreknowledge and freedom has, for more than 17 centuries, troubled
philosophers and theologians to their grave and, no doubt, will continue to do so.30 Central to
both foreknowledge and freedom are (1) the infallible knowledge of God and (2) some idea of
human freedom other than a hard determinism.
Closely related to this problem is the question of God’s relationship to time. There is a sense in
which one cannot begin to wrestle with the dilemma of foreknowledge and freedom until the
issue of God’s relationship to time is resolved. The simplest form of the equation would be to
hold that God is timeless, which appears to be Augustine’s view.
For He [God] does not pass from this to that by transition of thought, but beholds
all things with absolute unchangeableness; so that of those things which emerge
in time, the future, indeed are not yet, and the present are now, and the past no
longer are; but all of these are by Him comprehended in His stable and eternal
presence.31
Certainly it would seem that if God has knowledge of all free choices, past, present and
future, then he would have to have a vantage point outside of time in order to not be
constrained by sequence. On this, Geisler is correct in saying that “God knows everything in
the eternal present but He does not know everything as the present moment in time; He
knows the past as past, the future as future, etc.”32 [italics his]. Therefore, it could be said
that God knows all things a priori, yet sees them as a posteriori.
But how does this position on foreknowledge and freedom cohere with Augustine’s view of
salvation? If it is true that God’s foreknowledge does not cause free decisions and humans are
incapable of coming to God on their own, how does anyone enter into the kingdom? At this
point it would be helpful to distinguish different categories of causes.
Aristotle points to four kinds of causes for any given effect: (1) material, (2) efficient, (3)
formal and (4) final or ultimate. God is the final or ultimate cause of all things but not the
material or efficient cause of all things. Put simply, God efficiently, materially and ultimately
causes regeneration of the soul. He creates the conditions under which humans can freely
love him (freedom = the material cause), lovingly persuades some to believe (enabling grace =
the efficient cause) and carries them on to completion in the eternal state (gift of
perseverance = final or ultimate cause).
Augustine, throughout his writings, exonerates God of being the efficient cause of evil. That
God decrees, in an ultimate sense, the means and the ends does not entail him being
responsible for them.33 Application of a singular causality principle to the metaphysical
problem of freedom and evil is short-sighted, not to mention an informal fallacy.
That freedom is, in itself, a good thing given by God to the creature. Augustine states “free
will, . . . is a good thing divinely bestowed, and that those are to be condemned who make a
bad use of it.”34 The cause of human freedom is God, yet the cause of sin and evil is the use
of freedom, which is in accordance with the antecedent inclination of the will. Augustine
illustrates the responsible/irresponsible use of a good thing.
If you see a man without feet you will admit that, from the point of view of the
wholeness of his body, a very great good is wanting. And yet you would not deny
that a man makes a bad use of his feet who uses them to hurt another or to
dishonour himself.35
Due to a sinful disposition or the bias toward evil no one can, apart from God’s intervening
grace, choose to enter the kingdom. “Good works do not produce grace but are produced by
grace.”36 And “calling [by God] precedes the good will . . . without his calling we cannot even
will.”37
Though God’s foreknowledge includes all free decisions, he does not share responsibility for
them all. God is no more responsible for the misuse of freedom any more than the giver of a
gift is responsible for how the gift is used. For example, one might receive a gift of $1,000 to
be used in helping an orphanage. If a high-powered rifle were instead purchased, then used to
assassinate the President of the United States this in no way implicates any guilt on the part
of the giver. Likewise, God gives the gift of freedom (and all things, for that matter), but he is
not morally responsible for how it is used (cf., 1 Cor. 4:7b).
God is behind all free decisions in an ultimate sense, behind free decisions in salvation in an
efficient sense and behind free decisions unto reprobation only in a material sense.
Consequently, “it is far from the truth that the sins of the creature must be attributed to the
Creator, even though those things must necessarily happen which he has foreknown.”38 The
ability to believe is the material cause of salvation.
For the effectiveness of God’s mercy cannot be in the power of man to frustrate,
if he will have none of it. If God wills to have mercy on men, he can call them in a
way that is suited to them, so that they will be moved to understand and to
follow . . . it is false to say that “it is not of God who hath mercy but of man who
willeth and runneth,” because God has mercy on no man in vain. He calls the man
on whom he has mercy in the way he knows will suit him, so that he will not
refuse the call [italics mine].39
God’s decrees do not entail him being the material, efficient, formal and final cause of
everything. It would be tantamount to blasphemy to assert that the perfect, holy and just
God is the author of evil or sin. Evil is a deprivation or a lack of something that ought to have
been otherwise. The lack of sight is, for a person, an evil whereas it isn’t for a tree. When the
Bible speaks of God creating disaster or clamity (evil in Hebrew, cf., Is. 45:7) it is in the
context of divine judgment upon a nation who ought to have behaved otherwise. He is the
efficient cause of judgment upon sin!
One other aspect of God’s omniscience must be broached as it relates to human freedom. This
is probably one of the most controversial facets of divine omniscience. It has been called
various things such as contingent knowledge or middle knowledge. Put simply, God knows not
only what will occur at all times by all people, but he knows what might occur given other
variables which may have been different. If God’s knowledge of all things actual and possible is
simultaneous, then middle knowledge is nothing more than a heuristic means for understanding
the logical processes of God’s thought. Whether or not Augustine held to any kind of middle
(or contingent) knowledge of God is difficult to know. It is only mentioned to illustrate the
scope of possible relationships between God’s knowledge and human choices. Craig says:
Since God knows what any free creature would do in any situation, he can, by
creating the appropriate situations, bring it about that creatures will achieve his
ends and purposes and that they will do so freely . . . Only an infinite Mind could
calculate the unimaginably complex and numerous factors that would need to be
combined in order to bring about through the free decisions of creatures a single
human event.40
Middle knowledge could serve to bridge the gap between God knowing all things simultaneously
and the order of events which occur in the world that God foreknows will happen.
Moreover, there are other kinds of relationships between subject and object than merely
cause/effect. Craig demonstrates the difference between cause/effect and
ground/consequent relationships that clearly show God’s foreknowledge of future events is not
causative. He does this by suggesting that God foreknows x, because x will take place.
The word because here indicates a logical, not a causal relation, one similar to
that expressed in the sentence ‘four is an even number because it is divisible by
two.’ The word because expresses a logical relation of ground and consequent.
God’s foreknowledge is chronologically prior to [x], but [x] is logically prior to God’s
foreknowledge.41
But this argument is a double-edged sword. If God foreknows x because it will take place,
then is it not equally true that x will take place because God foreknows it, given the same
relationship (i.e., ground/consequent) exists? In other words, the ground or basis upon which
free choices are made is God’s infallible foreknowledge and free human choices are the
consequent. God’s foreknowledge may be chronologically prior to the actualizing of a free
choice, but this in no way makes his foreknowledge contingent. Otherwise, he makes decisions
in the dark (cf., Eph. 1:11)!
Election and the sovereignty of God demonstrate that he uses the perdition of some as a
general deterrent from sin and the salvation of some as a general incentive for salvation (cf.,
Rom. 9:10-29). “The hardening of the ungodly demonstrates two things ? that a man should
fear and turn to God in piety, and that thanks should be given for his mercy to God
Bibliography
1.”On Free Will,” Book 1, 15, 34, Book II, 1, 1; trans. J.H.S. Burleigh, in The Library of
Christian Classics, ed. John Baillie, John T. McNeill and Henry P. Van Dusen, hereafter
called AEW, Augustine: EarlierWritings, (Philadelphia: Westminster), 108.
2.Cf., “The Spirit and the Letter,” introduction by John Burnaby, trans. John Burnaby, in
The Library of Christian Classics, ed. John Baillic, John T. McNeill and Henry P. Van
Dusen, hereafter called ALW, Augustine: Later Works, (Philadelphia: Westminster), 182.
3.Gordon R. Lewis and Bruce A. Demarest, Integrative Theology, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1990), 184.
4.Augustine, The City of God, XIX, 3, quoted in John W. Cooper, Body Soul and Life
Everlasting, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 11.
5.Augustine, On the Greatness of the Soul, Mll, 22, in Cooper, ibid.
6.”On Free Will,” Book III, xv, 46; AEW, 199.
7.Ibid., 200.
8.D. A. Carson, How Long, O Lord (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), 214-215.
9.Alvin Plantinga, God, Freedom and Evil (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 29.
10.Lewis and Demarest, Integrative, vol. 2, 96.
11.”On Free Will,” Book III, xviii, 54; AEW, 202.
12.Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 3, Nicene and Post-Nicene
Christianity, (Grand Rapids: Ecrdmans, 1910), 819.
13.”On Free Will,” Book III, xvii, 52; AEW, III.
14.William G.T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, vol. 2, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, n.d.), 113.
15.Philip Schaff, History, 819.
16.Gordon R. Lewis, “Faith and Rcason in the Thought of St. Augustine,” Ph.D. dissertation,
(Syracuse University, 1959), 81.
17.”The Spirit and the Letter,” xxvi, 43 -45, ALW, 226-229.
18.”Grace and Free Will,” 14, 27; trans. Robert P. Russell, in The Fathers of the Church,
vol. 59, ed. Roy Joscph Deferrari, hereafter called GFW, (Washington: Catholic University
of America Press, 1968), 280.
19. Ibid., 285.
20. Ibid., 289.
21.”The Trinity,” ALW, 23, 122.
22.William G.T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, vol. 2, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, n.d.),
113-114.
23.Lewis and Demarest, Integrative, vol. 2, 96.
24.On Free Will,” Book III, x, 29; AEW, 189.
25.Ibid., xxii, 63, 209.
26.Ibid., xxii, 65, 2 1 0.
27.Ibid.
28.Ibid., Book 111, ii, 4, 172.
29.Ibid., iv, 11, 177.
30.For a brief history of the problem see Linda Zagzebski, The Dilemma of Freedom and
Foreknowledge (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), note 1, chapter 1, 189.
31.The City of God,” XI, 2 1, trans. Marcus Dods (New York: The Modem Library, 1950),
364. For an alternative view which holds that God’s relationship to time changed when
time came into existence see William L. Craig, “God, Time and Eternity” Religious Studies
14 (1978): 497-503.
32.Norman L. Geisler, Philosophy of Religion (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, n.d.), note 10,
chapter 14, 331.
33.Cf., Lewis and Demarest, Integrative, vol. 1, op. cit., 310-328.
34. On Free Will,” Book II, xv, 48, AEW, 166.
35. Ibid.
36.”The Simplican,” The Second Question, 3, ALW, 388.
37.Ibid., 12, op. cit., 394-395.
38.AEW, Book III, vi, 18,181.
39.”The Simplican,” The Second Question, 13, ALW, 395.
40.William L. Craig, The Only Wise God (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987), 135. Though Craig
holds to fallen creatures having power to contrary, it is likely that middle knowledge is
still possible given the alternative view of freedom offered here (viz.,