Free Will
A remaining stage to consider in discerning the
rightness or wrongness of our behavior in moral decision-making is the
consideration of the freedom we possess--free will. Freedom or free will is an
act of the will determining itself under and in some manner indifferent to
reason with the power of not doing or otherwise doing that which it does; the
act of the will making a free choice, operating in the light of knowledge
furnished by the intellect.
Some Protestant Reformers rejected free will by stating
that with the fall of Adam, the will of man was irreparably damaged, unable to
make an unaided free choice. The Catholic response is that God would not permit
the essence of the human will, by His very own design making a choice among
alternatives, to be changed from His Will. Man does remain created “in the
image and likeness of God.” The will may be wounded or weakened by sin, but it
is not taken away or annihilated. Scripture attests to the assumption that
mankind, even after the sin of Adam, is still free to make choices.
As with the development of and formation of our
conscience, we turn to three highly credible sources, the Bible, the Fathers
and Doctors of the Church, and the Counciliar teaching of the Church throughout
history.
Sacred Scripture
In many places both formally and explicitly Sacred
Scripture asserts both in the Hebrew
Scriptures and in the New Testament that a person has within him/her the
faculty of choosing freely. The existence of choice is either virtually or
indirectly understood in counsels, exhortations, rewards, and penalties
offered; and indeed in showing those actions alone as moral and meritorious or not
meritorious which come under the power of man to choose.
Sirach 15:14-17
When God, in the beginning, created man, he made him
subject to his own free choice. If you
choose you can keep the commandments; it is loyalty to do his will. There are
set before you fire and water; to whichever you choose, stretch forth your
hand. Before man are life and death, whichever he chooses shall be given him.
Sirach 31:8,10
Happy the man ... he could have sinned but did not;
could have done evil but would not, ...
Genesis 4:7
If you do well, you can hold up your head; but if not,
sin is a demon lurking at the door: his urge is toward you, yet you can be his
master.
Deuteronomy 30:19
I call heaven and earth today to witness against you; I
have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life,
then, that you and your descendants may live.
Joshua 24:15
If it does not please you to serve the LORD, decide
today whom you will serve, the gods your fathers served beyond the River or the
gods of the Amorites in whose country you are dwelling. As for me and my
household, we will serve the LORD.
2 Samuel 24:12
Go and say to David, 'This is what the LORD says: I offer you three alternatives; choose
one of them, and I will inflict it on you."
1 Chronicles
21:10
Go, tell David: Thus says the LORD: I offer you three
alternatives; choose one of them, and I will inflict it on you.
Job 34:12
Let us discern for ourselves what is right; let us learn
between us what good.
Proverbs 3:31
Envy not the lawless man, and choose none of his ways.
Isaiah 1:19-20
If you are willing, and obey, you shall eat the good
things of the land; if you refuse and resist, the sword shall consume you: for
the mouth of LORD has spoken.
Isaiah 7:15-16
He shall be living on curds and honey by the time he
learns to reject bad and choose the good. For before the child learns to reject
the bad and choose the good, the land of those two kinds whom you had shall be
deserted.
Galatians 5:1
It was for liberty that Christ freed us. So stand firm
and do not take on yourselves the yoke of slavery a second time!
Galatians 5:13
My brothers, remember that you have been called to live
in freedom--but not a freedom that gives free reign to the flesh.
1 Peter 2:16
Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cloak
for vice.
Fathers and
Doctors of the Church
The Fathers of the Church, beginning with the apostolic
and post apostolic apologists, explicitly taught the freedom of man and they
fought for freedom against Gnosticism and Manichaeism; they defined the true limits of freedom
against Pelagianism.
Theophilus, Bishop of
But some one will say to us, Was man made by nature
mortal? Certainly not. Was he, then, immortal? Neither do we confirm this. But
one will say, was he, then, nothing? Not even this hits the mark. He was by
nature neither mortal nor immortal. For if [God] had made him immortal from the
beginning, He would have made him God. Again, if He had made him mortal, God
would seem to be the cause of his death. Neither, then immortal nor yet mortal
did He make him, but, as we have said above, capable of both; so that if he should incline to the things
of immortality, keeping the commandment of God, he should receive as reward
from Him immortality, and should become God; but if, on the other hand, he
should turn to the things of death, disobeying God, he should himself be the
cause of death to himself. For God made man free, and with power over himself.
(To Autolycus, Bk. 2,
Irenaeus of
God made man by his own law free. (Rouet de Journel, Enchiridion Patristicum, 244)
Jerome (Stridon, c. 341-420)
God made man free; we are drawn neither to virtue nor to
vice necessarily; on the other hand, where there is necessity, there is no
crown (Rouet de Journel, Enchiridion
Patristicum, 1380).
Counciliar Teaching
of the Church
The Magisterium, the teaching authority of the Church,
especially in the Council of Trent (1545 - 1563), after stating the existence
of free will, however so much weakened in men, said that
All men had lost innocence in the sin of Adam ... became
unclean ... were by nature children of wrath (Eph 2:3) ... slaves to sin ...
under the power of the devil and of death ... yet their free will, though
weakened and unsteady, was by no means destroyed. (Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum, 793)
and that men are disposed to the justification of God,
That (men) who are turned away from God by sin ... are
disposed to turn to their own justification by freely assenting to and
cooperating with... grace. (Denzinger,
Enchiridion Symbolorum, 797)
then followed the anathema of Lutheran doctrine denying
free will,
If anyone says that the free will of man, moved and awakened
by God, in no way cooperates with the awakening call of God by an assent by
which man disposes and prepares himself to get the grace of justification; and
that man cannot dissent, if he wishes, but like an object without life, he does
nothing at all and is merely passive: let him be anathema. (Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum, 814).
and, finally,
If anyone says that after Adam's sin man's free will was
destroyed and lost ... let him be anathema (Denzinger,
Enchiridion Symbolorum, 815).
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture texts are taken from the New
American Bible with Revised New Testament and Revised Psalms © 1991, 1986,
1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by
permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New
American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing
from the copyright owner.
© 2011 Robert J. Schihl
Email comments to rjschihl@catholicapologetics.org