Free will in the early church · Sophia Scriptura

Human freedom of choice, its power and limits, and its relation to grace and fate. Part of Humanity.

Epistle of the Apostles 39Anonymous · ca. 140-170 · Christ teaches that, as Adam was free to choose the light, every man has the power to believe and live, and that the Word became flesh so that those who keep his commandments may be saved.
First Apology 28Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Satan and his followers will be punished eternally; God delays judgment so that more may repent; humans are free and responsible.
First Apology 43Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Prophecy does not mean fate; humans have free choice, so reward and punishment are just.
First Apology 44Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · God gave humans free choice; the philosophers borrowed from Moses, so there are “seeds of truth” among all.
Second Apology 6Justin Martyr · ca. 150–160 · God delays the final judgment for the sake of the Christians; humans and angels act by free choice, not by fate, as the Stoics wrongly teach.
Sentences of Sextus 36Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · God has without doubt granted men the freedom of their own choice, so that, living purely and without sin, they may become like God.
Sentences of Sextus 255Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · To live is not in our power, but to live rightly is in our power.
Dialogue with Trypho 88.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · God made angels and men free; he rewards and punishes accordingly.
Dialogue with Trypho 102.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · God made angels and men free and judges them while preserving their freedom, as at Babel.
Oration to the Greeks 7Tatian · ca. 165–172 · The Word made angels and humans free; the first angel rebelled, was worshiped, and became the chief demon, and the first human lost the higher spirit and became mortal.
To Autolycus 2.27Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Humanity was created neither mortal nor immortal but free to choose; obedience leads to immortality, which God now gives by grace to those who obey him.
Fragment 5Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 170–200
Fragment 15Clement of Alexandria · late 2nd–early 3rd century · Sayings ascribed to Clement on flattery, moderation in using necessities, eating little and remembering death, and the rule that Christians must not correct sin by force, since only freely chosen goodness is true goodness.
Fragment 40 (On Providence; Maximus Confessor (definitions of will))Clement of Alexandria · late 2nd-early 3rd century · Definitions of the will and of free self-determination.
Fragment 41 (On Providence (Stromata 6); Maximus Confessor on will and wish)Clement of Alexandria · late 2nd-early 3rd century · Maximus cites Clement's definitions of willing and wishing.
The Instructor 1.9.76Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Lord admonishes Israel, foreknowing their refusal yet still calling them to repentance out of love and respect for their free will.
Exhortation to the Greeks 10.95Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · God sets life and death before us; faith in the Good should choose life at once, instead of deliberating only about godliness.
Against Heresies 4.4.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The one Lord who makes both wheat and chaff will separate them; man, being free, is himself the cause of becoming wheat or chaff.
Against Heresies 4.37.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · God made men and angels free to choose; those who keep the good he gave are rewarded, and those who despise it are justly judged.
Against Heresies 4.37.2Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Since all share the same nature and can choose good or evil, praise and blame are just, and God gave counsel through the prophets.
Against Heresies 4.37.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The Lord’s many exhortations to watchfulness and obedience show that man is free, and that God counsels but does not compel.
Against Heresies 4.37.4Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Paul’s “all things are lawful, but not all are expedient” and the apostolic exhortations presuppose free will, given to man in the likeness of a free God.
Against Heresies 4.37.5Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Faith too is a free act, as the Lord’s words about believing and his lament over Jerusalem show.
Against Heresies 4.37.6Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · A goodness imposed by nature without choice would be neither prized nor enjoyed, and would win no crown.
Against Heresies 4.39.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Man learned good and evil by experience, so that, knowing the bitterness of disobedience, he might choose obedience to God with firm judgment.
Against Heresies 4.39.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Those who refuse God’s work are the cause of their own imperfection, as the blind are of their darkness, since God compels no one.
Against Heresies 5.27.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · If the Father did not judge, Christ’s coming would be pointless; Christ divides believers from unbelievers, who choose freely, while the Father provides for all.
Against Heresies 5.27.2Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Communion with God is life and light; those who choose separation from him lose all good, and since God’s goods are eternal, so is their loss.
Prophetic Extracts 22.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The soul moves itself, so God's grace asks for its willingness as its contribution to salvation.
Prophetic Extracts 22.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · God gave the soul free choice: he shows the good, and the soul chooses and keeps it.
Excerpts from Theodotus 56.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The Valentinian doctrine of three natures: the spiritual saved by nature, the psychic free to choose, the material lost by nature.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 10.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · “If you wish” shows that the man was not yet perfect and that he was free to choose; the choice is man's, the gift is God's.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 10.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · God does not force salvation but gives it to those who desire and ask for it.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 14.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The mind has free will; one should destroy not one's possessions but the passions that prevent their good use.
Miscellanies 1.17.83Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The devil, free to repent or to steal, is the cause of the theft, not God; praise, blame, reward, and punishment are just only because the soul is free.
Miscellanies 1.17.84Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Sin begins in choice and mistaken belief, and it is in our power to avoid it; “all who came before me are thieves” refers to the false prophets the devil mixed among the true, like tares among wheat.
Miscellanies 1.18.90Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Isaiah shows that choice rests with us; God's wisdom is the teaching handed on through the Son; Paul exhorts those who think themselves wise to put on the new man, seek truth, and share it.
Miscellanies 2.14.60Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Involuntary acts, done in ignorance or under necessity, are not judged; Clement lists examples of ignorance of self, act, person, instrument, manner, and purpose.
Miscellanies 2.15.62Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Voluntary acts spring from appetite, choice, or thought; Clement distinguishes sin, mishap, and wrong; sin comes from ignorance or weakness, but accepting instruction and obeying the commandments are in our power.
Miscellanies 4.19.124Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · No one excels without learning and training; virtue is in our power as God's gift, which no one else can take away, so vice and virtue belong to each person's own choice.
Miscellanies 5.13.86Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Faith is a voluntary assent that produces good works; wrongdoing is voluntary, not necessary; and Christ is the door through which alone one rightly enters.
Miscellanies 5.14.136Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Malachi foretells that God's name will be glorified among the nations; Plato and Bacchylides teach that virtue is freely chosen and that God is never the cause of evil.
Miscellanies 7.2.12Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God arranges everything for salvation without forcing free choice and is never the cause of evil; virtuous souls rise to better dwellings, while disciplines and judgments press the hardened to repent.
Miscellanies 7.7.48Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God helps those who cooperate with him, as a physician heals those who follow treatment; like an athlete who has trained fully and asks Zeus for victory, the one who knows does his part and all things work for his salvation.
Miscellanies 7.16.101Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · As each master makes his pupil a craftsman, the Lord makes his obedient follower godlike; sin springs from ignorance and weakness, both of which lie in our power.
Book of the Laws of Countries 10Anonymous · ca. 196–235
Book of the Laws of Countries 13Anonymous · ca. 196–235
Book of the Laws of Countries 19Anonymous · ca. 196–235
Book of the Laws of Countries 20Anonymous · ca. 196–235
Book of the Laws of Countries 22Anonymous · ca. 196–235
Book of the Laws of Countries 23Anonymous · ca. 196–235
Book of the Laws of Countries 24Anonymous · ca. 196–235
Book of the Laws of Countries 30Anonymous · ca. 196–235
Octavius 36.1Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Fate is no excuse: the mind is free and people are judged by their actions.
Exhortation to Chastity 2Tertullian · ca. 208 · Since God took the first spouse away, remarrying is striving against his will; and we cannot excuse our choices as his will, because we choose freely, as Adam did.
Against Marcion 2.5Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · To the Marcionite charge that a good, all-knowing, all-powerful God would have prevented the fall, Tertullian answers that God's works prove all three attributes, and that the fall came from the free will God gave man as the very mark of his image.
Against Marcion 2.6Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · God rightly made man free: only a free being could truly be God's image, possess goodness as its own, resist evil, and deserve reward or punishment; so the fall is man's fault, not God's.
Against Marcion 2.7Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Having given man free will, God rightly did not snatch it back to prevent the fall; had he done so, Marcion would have called him fickle and faithless.
Against Marcion 2.8Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · God made man for life, not death; man fell not because he was too weak, since God's image was stronger than the tempting angel, and the same free will today lets believers defeat the devil.
Against Marcion 2.10Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The devil was created a good angel and became evil by his own free choice, as Ezekiel's lament over the prince of Tyre shows; God delays his destruction so that man, by the same free will, may defeat him and return to paradise.
On the Soul 21Tertullian · ca. 210 · Against the Valentinian three natures, the soul is one and changeable: grace and free will can turn bad trees good and make stones children of Abraham.
On Monogamy 14Tertullian · ca. 210–217 · Paul's leave to remarry was a temporary concession like Moses' leave to divorce; as Christ removed divorce, the Paraclete now removes second marriage, and those who will not accept it must answer for their own choice.
On First Principles 1.0.5Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · The church teaches judgment of the soul after death, the resurrection of the body, and free will against astrological fatalism, but has not settled the origin of the soul.
On First Principles 1.6.3Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Some fallen beings became the devil and his angels, opponents of humanity; whether they can ever be converted Origen leaves to the reader, while others are restored through long corrections, every rational being able to rise or fall by free choice.
On First Principles 1.8.3Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Every rational creature, even the devil, is capable of good and evil; only God, Christ and the Holy Spirit are good by nature, while creatures hold holiness, righteousness and wisdom as accidents.
On First Principles 2.1.2Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · God by his wisdom draws the varied wills of creatures into the harmony of one world without forcing their free choice, some being helped, others helping, others providing contests.
On First Principles 2.9.2Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Being created and changeable, rational beings fell more or less from the good by their own movements, and this gave the Creator the causes of the world's variety.
On First Principles 2.9.6Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · God created all rational beings equal and alike out of his goodness; their diversity comes from their own free choices, and God justly arranges them in one world like vessels in one house.
On First Principles 3.1.1Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Since the church's preaching includes God's just judgment, which implies that our life is in our power, Origen turns to the question of free choice.
On First Principles 3.1.3Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · A rational being can judge its impressions: what befalls us from outside is not in our power, but how we use it is, by the judgment of reason.
On First Principles 3.1.4Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Outside incitements cannot compel us: nothing is done without the mind's assent, as a man resolved on chastity can resist a woman's enticement.
On First Principles 3.1.5Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · To blame outside causes or bodily temperament for our sins makes us like stones; conversions and corruptions show that the use of what befalls us is in our power.
On First Principles 3.1.6Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Scripture confirms free choice: Moses, the prophets, the Psalms, the Saviour's commandments and Paul all speak to us as able to keep or transgress what is commanded.
On First Principles 3.1.7Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Origen sets out the passages that seem to exclude free choice: the hardening of Pharaoh, the heart of flesh in Ezekiel, the parables, and Paul's words on mercy and the potter.
On First Principles 3.1.8Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Against heretics who say Pharaoh was lost by nature, Origen argues that a hardening by God and a need for mercy both presuppose that a soul could have turned either way.
On First Principles 3.1.10Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · As one rain makes tilled land fruitful and neglected land thorny, so God's signs and patience soften some hearts and harden others according to their own cultivation.
On First Principles 3.1.11Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · As the sun's one heat melts wax and hardens mud, God's one working revealed Pharaoh's hardness; “I hardened” is a figure of speech, like a patient master's “I made you what you are.”
On First Principles 3.1.15Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · God's promise to take away the heart of stone does not remove our freedom: like a teacher with a willing pupil, or the Saviour healing the blind who come to him, God acts in those who offer themselves.
On First Principles 3.1.16Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · The Saviour's words about speaking in parables “lest they turn and be forgiven” seem to deny free choice, and also show the heretics that the Gospels too need interpretation, like the Old Testament.
On First Principles 3.1.17Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Christ veiled his teaching from those not yet ready, lest a hasty healing make them worse; God orders the hearing of the word with mercy and justice for immortal souls over all ages.
On First Principles 3.1.18Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Against those who infer from “not of him who wills” that salvation is not in us, Origen argues that willing and running toward the good is itself good, and cannot come from a bad nature.
On First Principles 3.1.19Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · As a house, a besieged city, a harvest or a ship's safe arrival is credited to God though human labour was needed, so salvation is God's mercy completing our will and effort.
On First Principles 3.1.20Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · “To will and to accomplish are from God” means that the power of willing and acting comes from God, while we direct it to good or evil.
On First Principles 3.1.21Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · The potter's making of vessels for honour and dishonour does not remove free choice, for Paul blames and praises, and says that whoever cleanses himself becomes a vessel for honour.
On First Principles 3.1.23Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · The one lump refutes the doctrine of different natures; vessels may change from honour to dishonour or the reverse in later ages, as rational beings rise or fall through immeasurable ages.
On First Principles 3.2.3Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Some sins arise from the flesh warring against the spirit; God, like a just president of the games, lets each be tempted only according to his strength, while the use of that strength is in our power.
Eclogae on Exodus-Judges, column 281Origen · ca. 220-254 · The argument on the hardening of Pharaoh ends: God blames Pharaoh as free; then notes on Exod 3:21 and on the heart “strengthened”, “made heavy”, and “hardened”.
Fragments on Genesis, column 61Origen · ca. 220-254 · Origen sets out four problems: foreknowledge and free choice, stars as signs not causes, the limits of human astrology, and why God made the signs.
Fragments on Genesis, column 65Origen · ca. 220-254 · An event is foreknown because it will happen, not the reverse; Judas was foreknown as a betrayer, yet could have remained an apostle like Peter.
Fragments on Genesis, column 67Origen · ca. 220-254 · Human beings have real powers for good and evil; God hides the future from us, as Jeremiah's “perhaps” shows, so that foreknowledge may cause neither despair nor slackness.
Fragments on Genesis, column 69Origen · ca. 220-254 · God made us seeing toward the present and blind toward the future (Exod 4:11); free choice works within circumstances we do not control; a configuration cannot cause what happened before it.
Fragments on Genesis, column 83Origen · ca. 220-254 · God wrote the heavens as a book for angels and holy souls to read, to display his foreknowledge and to guide the angels' ministry; evil powers act by their own choice.
Fragments on Genesis, column 85Origen · ca. 220-254 · Origen quotes Clement's Circuits, where Clement shows his father that astrologers can explain any outcome after the fact and cannot see free choice.
PG 12:1161 (Ps 4 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · The good of a rational being is mixed, from our choice and God’s cooperating power, as a harvest needs both the farmer and the weather; even the perfect fall if they claim the credit, like the fallen morning star; Scripture uses “good” and “evil” loosely for pleasant and painful things.
PG 12:1419 (Ps 43 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · Notes on Ps 43 LXX (44):3–11: the nations of wickedness uprooted before the gentiles are planted, the Saviour as God’s hand and right hand, virtue in our power but knowledge a gift, and the horn of a pure mind.
Refutation of All Heresies 1.19.19Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Plato admitted fate but also human freedom and responsibility.
Refutation of All Heresies 1.19.20Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Plato taught that wrongdoing is involuntary, arising from ignorance of the good.
Refutation of All Heresies 1.21.2Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Stoics compared human freedom under fate to a dog tied to a cart.
Refutation of All Heresies 9.28.5Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Pharisees hold both fate and free will under God's will, and believe in bodily resurrection, judgment, and eternal punishment.
Refutation of All Heresies 9.29.1Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Sadducees deny fate and say that humans choose good or evil freely.
Refutation of All Heresies 10.33.9Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Humans were made with free will; evil is not a created thing but arises when a free being chooses it.
Fragment 11 on John 1:16Origen · ca. 226-254 · On John 1:16: virtue is partly our own choice and partly God's gift; God adds his grace to what we achieve by free choice, and this is ‘grace for grace.’
Fragment 40 on John 3:19Origen · ca. 226-254 · On John 3:19–21: the coming of the light removes the plea of ignorance and brings a judgment by works; men love darkness because their works are evil, by their own choice, not by nature, as some heretics claim.
Fragment 41 on John 3:19Origen · ca. 226-254 · On John 3:19: ‘rather than’ is not comparative; men by free choice loved darkness and did not love the light at all, as with ‘lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.’
Fragment 91 on John 12:83Origen · ca. 226-254 · On John 12:39–40: Scripture shows that we are free to become righteous or unrighteous; the one who blinds and hardens is the evil one, ‘the god of this age,’ while Christ heals those who turn; those who ‘could not believe’ could still be healed by coming to Jesus.
Commentary on John 2.107Origen · ca. 230–248 · Since reason within shows what to do, sin too comes about through reason, which removes every excuse.
Commentary on John 2.108Origen · ca. 230–248 · The Word is not to blame for sin, as a teacher is not to blame when his lessons leave a wrongdoer no excuse.
Commentary on John 13.64Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen rejects Heracleon's idea that faith comes from a special nature rather than free choice.
Commentary on John 20.106Origen · ca. 230–248 · No one is a child of God or of the devil by nature; one can change from the devil's child to God's.
Commentary on John 20.201Origen · ca. 230–248 · Accepting or rejecting what one understands is a choice, not a difference of substance.
Commentary on John 32.189Origen · ca. 230–248 · One must believe in the Holy Spirit and in free will with judgment.
On Prayer 6.1Origen · ca. 233–234 · Origen distinguishes things moved from outside, things moved by their nature, animals that move themselves, and rational beings who move by their own reason.
On Prayer 6.2Origen · ca. 233–234 · Denying free will is absurd: we experience ourselves choosing, and everyone praises and blames others as responsible for their acts.
On Prayer 6.3Origen · ca. 233–234 · God foreknows our free choices from the creation of the world, but his foreknowledge does not cause them; it lets him fit each choice into the government of the universe.
On Prayer 29.13Origen · ca. 233–234 · God governs each free soul toward its eternal life, sometimes letting sinners have their fill of sin so that they come to hate it, as he gave Israel quail until they loathed it.
Homilies on Exodus 4.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Origen will not treat as chance the varying accounts of who hardened Pharaoh's heart, and follows Paul's reticence in not committing the solution of the question to writing.
Homilies on Ezekiel 1.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Jerome's translation in the 380s) · The fiery figure of Ezek 1:27 shows that God’s fire is remedial, consuming only the works of sin, and the captivity is a figure of the soul’s fall into sin through free choice.
Homilies on Numbers 12.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The princes and kings who dug the well are the prophets and apostles who uncovered Christ beneath the letter, and Israel's stages from the well signify the soul's journey through gifts, God's grace, and dying with Christ to the heights of blessedness.
Homilies on Numbers 13.7Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · God kept Balaam's demons away rather than destroying them, because he will not condemn the demons or remove their free will before the time; Balaam's star prophecy, preserved by his disciples, led the magi to Christ.
Homilies on Numbers 14.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · God did not make evil but uses it, as with Joseph's brothers, Balak, Judas, and the devil, to test and crown the virtuous, while each person by free choice becomes a vessel of honor or of dishonor.
Homilies on Jeremiah 18.3Origen · ca. 240 · The vessel “fell” rather than being dropped because souls fall by their own free will: no one can snatch us from God's hand, but we can fall from it through neglect.
Homilies on Jeremiah 18.6Origen · ca. 240 · Scripture's talk of God “repenting” or being angry is accommodation, like adults speaking baby talk to children: God neither changes his mind nor feels passion, but speaks so as to preserve our free will and correct us.
Homilies on Jeremiah 20.2Origen · ca. 240 · God's “deception” differs from ours; a Jewish convert told Origen that God, who persuades rather than compels, let Jeremiah think he would give the cup of wrath only to the nations, then told him to give it first to Jerusalem, as Isaiah too volunteered before learning his hard message.
On the Trinity 1Novatian · ca. 240–250 · The rule of truth begins with faith in God the Father, the Creator of heaven, earth, sea, and man, whom he made free and gave a command, and of unseen realms above and below.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 3.227Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · The vines are the Churches, whose 'own fragrance' shows the soul's free choice restored by grace; or the angelic powers; or the verse foretells the Church's call at the resurrection.
Against Celsus 2.20Origen · ca. 248 · Against Celsus's charge that a foreknowing God made his disciples traitors, Origen argues that foreknowledge does not cause what it foresees, using Judas, the oracle to Laius, and the Stoic “idle argument.”
Against Celsus 3.69Origen · ca. 248 · All rational souls share one nature and none was created evil; habits of vice can be changed through God's word, as practice enables even rope-walkers' feats, and no one becomes sinless without the Word.
Against Celsus 4.3Origen · ca. 248 · Christ came to call back the lost sheep of Israel and give the kingdom to others; God does not correct people by force, since virtue must be freely chosen, and he always corrects the willing through his Word.
Against Celsus 4.67Origen · ca. 248 · If history repeats itself exactly in cycles, as Celsus claims, free will and moral praise and blame disappear, and Celsus himself must write his book endlessly again.
Against Celsus 4.70Origen · ca. 248 · God may use the wicked for the good of the whole, as a city uses condemned criminals for public works, but they remain blameworthy, as Paul's vessels of honor and dishonor show.
Against Celsus 6.57Origen · ca. 248 · God does admonish and persuade through Scripture and teachers, but being persuaded requires the hearer's own free consent, as Paul, Isaiah, and Deuteronomy show.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 83Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · As God the Word, Jesus remained with and guarded his disciples while he went to the cross; the devil handed him over through Judas, as the devil acts through all betrayers and unjust judges; Judas asked “Is it I?” last and without fear, only to hide his plan.
Commentary on Matthew 10.11Origen · ca. 246–248 · Against those who read the net as proof of fixed good and evil natures, Origen argues from Ezekiel that human beings become good or bad by free choice.
Commentary on Matthew 13.23Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen explains in what sense stumbling-blocks are “necessary”: wickedness precedes virtue in human beings and evil powers work through people, but the stumbling-blocks arise from free will, not from nature or from God.
Commentary on Matthew 13.26Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen explains smallness and greatness of soul as matters of free choice, and suggests that the little ones are cared for by angels while the perfect are cared for by the Lord himself.
Commentary on Romans 0.2Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen's preface: Romans is hard because of its obscure style and its questions on free choice; Paul wrote it at his most perfect, from Corinth; Rufinus adds a discussion of why Saul is called Paul.
Commentary on Romans 1.18Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Against Marcion, God's 'giving up' of sinners to their desires is explained: the soul between flesh and spirit, helped by good or evil angels, freely chooses, and the virtues withdraw from the soul that chooses the flesh.
Commentary on Romans 5.10Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen explains dying and living with Christ, the threefold death in believers, why death no longer rules Christ, rejects the idea that Christ must suffer again in future ages, and teaches that love will keep free choice from falling.
Commentary on Romans 6.1Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen teaches that it lies in our power to keep sin from reigning in the body, that the soul stands between flesh and spirit, and that keeping the death of Christ before the mind routs sin.
Commentary on Romans 6.3Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen teaches that each person freely chooses whether to serve sin or righteousness, rejects excuses blaming the devil, nature, fate, or the stars, and explains the “pattern” of teaching as a shadow of the full truth to come.
Commentary on Romans 6.4Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen explains Paul’s “human” appeal: the members once used for vice should now serve righteousness and chastity, which shows that the choice lies with us, not with nature or the stars.
Commentary on Romans 7.8Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen interprets the chain of foreknowing, predestining, calling, justifying and glorifying so that salvation rests not on God’s foreknowledge but on human purpose and action: God “knows” the good with love, calls all, and justifies those called “according to purpose.”
Commentary on Romans 7.16Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen reads Romans 9:14–19 as an objector’s case against free choice which Paul rejects, explaining “not of him who wills” as the work completed by God, Pharaoh as “raised up” for his own wickedness, and hardening as God’s patience that the obstinate refuse.
Commentary on Romans 8.11Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Against the Valentinians' fixed natures, Origen holds that all rational beings share one nature and become good or wild olives by free choice; the holy root is Christ, and Gentile believers must not boast over the broken branches but fear God's severity.
To Quirinus 3.52Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Whether to believe or not is left to each person's free choice.
Fragment Z III (on the Epistle of James)Dionysius of Alexandria · ca. 248–265 · On James 1 and 4: God tests to crown, the devil tempts to kill; God foreknows but leaves man free; and jealous rivalry shows people to be fleshly.
Symposium 8.13Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd century · The dragon's seven heads are vices to be conquered for seven crowns and its ten horns the sins against the ten commandments; humans are free and not ruled by the stars, and Thecla turns to refute astrology.
Symposium 8.16Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd century · A series of arguments against astrological fate: the stars and God cause no evil, laws presuppose freedom, and blame and praise would be meaningless if fate made people what they are.
Symposium 8.17Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd century · Thecla concludes that good and evil lie in our own choice; Gregorion and Euboulion praise her and recall her deeds among the martyrs, and turn to the last two speakers.
On Free Will 16.2Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · God made the first man with free will, inherited by his descendants.
On Free Will 16.3Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · All other creatures obey God by necessity; man alone is free.
On Free Will 16.5Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Man’s freedom was given so that obedience might earn him a reward.
On Free Will 16.6Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Without freedom man would be a mere instrument, deserving neither reward nor blame.
On Free Will 16.7Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · God gave man power to choose and exhorts him to choose the better without removing his freedom.
On Free Will 17.1Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Free will is not a choice among pre-existing evils but the power to obey or disobey God.
On Free Will 18Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Using the parable of an enemy who learns from a physician's advice how to harm a man, the speaker argues that the devil learned what evil is from God's command, and that both devil and man are punished justly because they act by free will.
Res. 1.31Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · By a Socratic exchange the narrator shows that a fetter prevents wrongdoing, whereas the body serves the soul for good or evil, so the body is not a punitive fetter; Scripture's appeal to free choice confirms it.
Res. 1.45Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · No one may blame God for the punishment he chose by his own free will; death, like bitter medicine, serves our good, as the song of Deuteronomy confirms.
Res. 1.57Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · The narrator refutes the claim that Paul's 'I was once alive apart from the law' refers to souls living without bodies, and shows that Paul's 'flesh' in Romans 7-8 means a fleshly way of life, not the body.
Against the Nations 2.64Arnobius of Sicca · ca. 297–303 · Christ calls all equally, but God compels no one; those who refuse his offer of salvation have only themselves to blame.
Acta Archelai (Latin) 17Hegemonius · early to mid 4th century (Greek original) · Archelaus begins his reply; when Manes seizes on the word "adversary," Archelaus argues that an adversary by choice can become a friend, and presses Manes on whether his two natures can change.
Acta Archelai (Latin) 36Hegemonius · early to mid 4th century (Greek original) · Archelaus explains the devil as a fallen angel who chose evil, argues that every creature has free choice, and turns Manes's own belief in judgment against his view of the soul as part of God.
Acta Archelai (Latin) 37Hegemonius · early to mid 4th century (Greek original) · Archelaus explains who is "the father of the devil" in John 8:44: those who conceive and bring forth his wickedness, first the serpent, then Cain, and later Judas.
Homilies 11.8Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · God gave free will because only chosen goodness is true goodness, and making God the cause of all thoughts makes him the author of sin.
Recognitions 3.20Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · Peter proposes, following Jesus, to begin with God's righteousness and human freedom to do what will be judged.
Recognitions 3.22Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · Simon appeals to fate, and Peter shows that denying free choice would overturn judgment, law, virtue, and God himself.
Recognitions 3.24Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · Peter distinguishes things moved by necessity, like the heavens, from beings with free will, who are rewarded or punished.
Recognitions 3.26Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · Peter argues that goodness requires freedom, and describes the end of the world, the resurrection, and the judgment foretold by the true Prophet.
Recognitions 3.36Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · Peter teaches that those who hear the truth in order recognize it, but whether they accept it depends on their free choice.
Recognitions 3.52Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · Niceta asks how Simon can work real wonders, and Peter begins by explaining that God gave free choice and allowed two kingdoms, of good and of evil.
Recognitions 4.25Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · God foresaw that free creatures would fall and assigned them ranks, so that fallen beings serve as ministers of punishment and as adversaries whose defeat wins the faithful their reward.
Recognitions 5.6Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · Hearers of the true Prophet are free to accept or reject his teaching, which shows that human beings have free will.
Recognitions 5.25Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · God patiently spares idolaters because many will repent; goodness requires free will, and to make God the author of evil thoughts is blasphemy.
Recognitions 8.55Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · God, foreknowing human choices, kept the good as his inheritance and gave the wicked to be ruled by angels who fell by choice, though they have power only over those who first obey them.
Recognitions 8.57Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · The old man insists that his own life proves all is governed by birth-fate, leaving no free will or judgment, and Aquila defers the astrological argument to Clement.
Recognitions 9.4Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · God permitted the evil prince so that the good might be good by free choice in a world of diversity, not by necessity.
Recognitions 9.30Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · A just God could not impose a fate that compels sin and then punish it; the flood, which destroyed people of all horoscopes in one hour, shows that punishment follows sin, not stars.
Recognitions 10.10Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · Faustinianus asks how God can justly judge sins compelled by fate; Clement reminds him that yesterday they agreed demons incite but do not compel, and the old man admits lingering doubts from his own experience.
On the Workmanship of God 19.8Lactantius · ca. 303–305 · God left it in our power to use his gift and bound us by the sacred pledge of virtue to win life.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.1.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Eusebius notes that these oracles abolish human free will.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.6.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · If even our decisions are fated, philosophy, piety, and the reward of virtue all vanish.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.6.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Fatalism abolishes blame, praise, and the glory of philosophy.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.6.13Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The fatalist replies that changing his choice is not in his power.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.6.16Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Anyone who exhorts, rebukes, or praises shows he really believes in free will and only uses the name of fate.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.6.17Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Since we perceive our own choices as unforced, ascribing them to fate is a misnaming that paralyzes moral effort.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.6.18Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Fatalism would make laws, punishments, and honors meaningless.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.6.20Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · We are not puppets: we perceive ourselves choosing, neglecting, and refusing by our own impulse.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.6.21Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Free will is perceived directly, like sensation, and must be acknowledged.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.6.25Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Eusebius turns to explain free will in particular.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.6.26Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · A human being, made of body and soul, is both bound by bodily nature and free in the soul.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.6.29Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Some things come from our choice, some from bodily nature, some from external accident, but none is outside their Maker.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.6.34Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Yet free choice is strong enough to resist both bodily nature and external circumstance.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.6.41Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Other people's free choices also affect us in body and soul.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.6.46Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · With all things divided into free, natural, and accidental under God's will, fate has no place.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.6.48Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · God gave the soul freedom and a natural inner law that calls it to keep to the royal road.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.6.50Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · God is blameless; he made all natures good, including free will, which was given for choosing the good.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.6.51Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Evil is the work of choice, not nature, and the one who chooses it has no excuse.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.6.62Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The soul's free virtue holds out against every external obstacle.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.7.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Oenomaus mocks Apollo as compelled even in his willing.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.7.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Oenomaus complains that Democritus and Chrysippus have made human freedom a slave or half-slave.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.7.19Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · We perceive the difference between free and forced action as directly as our own existence.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.7.22Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The oracle to Laius was shameless, since his son's act depended on his own will.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.7.24Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The compromise view: Laius was free to beget, but once he did, his death was necessary.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.7.25Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The son too was free, so the oracle's prediction cannot be necessary.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.7.26Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The Theban story turns on many free decisions, which no chain of fate could bind.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.7.27Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Each turn of the Oedipus story depended on Oedipus's own choices.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.7.39Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Praising Lycurgus makes no sense if his virtue was fated.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.7.40Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · On the doctrine of fate the wicked are excused and the good deserve no praise.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.7.42Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Oenomaus concludes that the oracles themselves presuppose free will.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.8.30Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Diogenianus argues that what is up to us is the opposite of what is fated.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.8.31Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · If outcomes result from our efforts, they are not by fate.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.8.32Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Fate and our agency cannot coincide.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.8.33Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · If guarding is in my power, so is the outcome; fate does not encompass it.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.8.34Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Chrysippus's conditional language shows our part is free of fate.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.8.36Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · If outcomes depend on our will, our will is free.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.8.37Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Unless our very willing is fated, the outcome is not fixed from eternity.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.8.38Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · If our willing is fated, praise and blame vanish, which Chrysippus did not accept.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.9.26Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Many acts, like moving a finger, could go either way and so are not fated.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.9.27Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Human deliberation, judging impressions by reason, would be pointless if all were necessary.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.9.28Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · We deliberate only about what is in our power, and blame thoughtlessness.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.9.29Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The fatalists themselves teach, exhort, and rebuke, contradicting their doctrine.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.9.30Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Their distinction between voluntary and involuntary wrongs assumes free will.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.9.31Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Even the fatalists' practice proves natural free will.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.10.10Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Humans act partly by nature and partly by choice, and are judged only for what they choose.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.10.48Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · We are neither all-powerful nor mere instruments; God's will prevails, though he allows each nature its freedom.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.11.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Fatalism abolishes free will, praise, and blame.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.11.31Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Some Greeks denied God's foreknowledge to preserve free will.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.11.32Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The objection: if God foreknows a wrong, it is necessary and so blameless.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.11.38Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Scripture's blame of Judas shows he was free to be like the other apostles.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.11.39Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Psalm 109, read of Judas, blames him for his own choices.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.11.44Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Each chooses the better or worse according to whether he heeds instruction.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.11.52Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · External events condition our acts, but we could still act otherwise.
Preparation for the Gospel 12.52.26Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · God left our character to our own wills.
Preparation for the Gospel 12.52.27Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Souls rise or sink by their own choices to fitting places.
Demonstration of the Gospel 4.6.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The Word made rational beings in his image and gave man rule over creation and freedom of choice.
Oration to the Assembly of the Saints 6.2Constantine the Great · ca. 325 (dated variously 317–325) · Virtue and vice, justice and desert cannot be the product of fate.
Oration to the Assembly of the Saints 13.1Constantine the Great · ca. 325 (dated variously 317–325) · Some blame God for making things and characters different; but diversity serves the world, while human character depends on free choice: reason ruling the passions leads to virtue and reward, vice to unquenchable fire.
Against the Heathen 4Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · The soul, free and always in motion, mistook pleasure for the good and turned the body’s members from their proper uses to evil.
Theophany 1.78Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 325–337
Catechetical Lecture 4.19Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · The soul is sinless before it comes into the world; people sin by choice, as Scripture’s appeals to the will show.
Catechetical Lecture 4.20Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Souls of men and women are alike and sin by choice, not by nature; the body is God’s skillful work and the soul’s instrument, to be kept pure as a temple of the Spirit.
Catechetical Lecture 7.12Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · People forsake the heavenly Father for idols and even the devil; sonship to God is by free choice and faith, and must be shown in works.
Homily on the Paralytic 2Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350-387 · Jesus chose the man ill for thirty-eight years, saw his need of soul and body, and made healing depend on his willing.
Long recension, Magnesians 5Anonymous · later 4th century (probable) · Ignatius sets life and death before the Magnesians, describes the true and counterfeit coin of godly and ungodly, and urges them to act in concord under bishop, presbyters and deacons.
To Justinus the Manichaean 16Marius Victorinus · ca. 357–362 · The author traces sin to the soul's misuse of free will, exposes the contradictions of Manichaean docetism about Christ's death and burial, criticizes Manichaean fasting, and urges Justin to confess God as creator of soul and body.
Treatise on the Mysteries 1.26.4Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · Salvation is open to all; delay lies in the human will.
Treatise on the Mysteries 1.26.5Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · Esau may yet be blessed by casting off his yoke, since each is free to come to faith.
Tractates on the Psalms 2.16Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · God gave freedom of will so that goodness might be meritorious, setting reward before us and punishment as a restraint.
Tractates on the Psalms 51.23Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Righteous works need God's mercy to attain eternal life; confession is possible only in this life, since after death the will is no longer free.
Tractates on the Psalms 57.3Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Sinners' estrangement from the womb reflects God's foreknowledge, not a necessity of nature; their fault is a will deliberately deaf, like the ancient serpent.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.22.4Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The psalmist freely chose God's commandments, as each person is free to choose his way and will be punished or rewarded for it.
Titus of Bostra, Against the Manichees 1.32Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · Sin lies in reason’s choice, not in desire or body; on Mani’s scheme reason belongs to the good, so sin would come from the good.
Titus of Bostra, Against the Manichees 2.3Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · God gave man knowledge of good and evil and power over virtue and vice, so sin is acting against reason, which must be exercised like the body.
Titus of Bostra, Against the Manichees 2.4Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · Virtue requires the real possibility of vice: self-control and justice mean refraining from what one could do, so God rightly made us able to sin.
Titus of Bostra, Against the Manichees 2.5Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · Man is made good only through self-control and justice, which require the presence of their opposites.
Titus of Bostra, Against the Manichees 2.7Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · Man is by nature fair but neither good nor evil; God gave him both freedom and moral knowledge, like a skilled charioteer.
Titus of Bostra, Against the Manichees 2.8Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · Freedom to sin is a benefit, because virtue among men consists chiefly in refusing evil that one could do; God alone is good by pure beneficence.
Titus of Bostra, Against the Manichees 2.11Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · Made in God’s image, man is free; the changes of men toward virtue and vice show that sin is chosen, not natural.
Titus of Bostra, Against the Manichees 2.12Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · Bad habits are hard but not impossible to break; fear and law restrain sin, showing that sins come from passions and choice, not nature.
Against the Manichees, Greek continuation of book 3, Lagarde p. 73Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · Against the Manichaean doctrine of two roots bearing good and evil fruit, Titus points to the apostles, who changed from bad to good, as proof that rational creatures act by choice.
Commentary on Philippians 2.12Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · The Philippians must work out their salvation with fear and trembling, yet both the willing and the working are from God, so that human will and divine grace are mixed.
Oration 37.13Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · “To whom it is given” does not mean fixed natures, as some heretics teach: aptitude must be called forth by choice, yet even good willing is God's gift, so both our freedom and God's mercy are needed.
Oration 38.12Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Adam, placed in paradise with free will and a commandment, ate prematurely of the tree of knowledge (contemplation), was exiled and clothed with mortal flesh, yet even death was a merciful limit to sin.
Oration 45.8Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Adam, placed in paradise with free will and a commandment, ate prematurely of the tree of knowledge (contemplation), was exiled and clothed with mortal flesh, yet even death was a merciful limit to sin.
Tractates 1.12.9Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno urges his hearers, who have put on Christ, to choose the soul over the flesh, since the choice of life or death is given to the will.
Hexaemeron 2.5Basil of Caesarea · ca. 370 · Evil is chosen, not a nature; the darkness of Genesis 1:2 is the shadow cast by the newly made heaven, which shut out the light in which the spiritual creation already lived.
Hexaemeron 6.7Basil of Caesarea · ca. 370 · If the stars determined virtue and vice, God would be the author of evil, kings would be born daily, and laws, judges, work, and Christian hope would all be pointless.
Homilies 9.1Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · Basil argues that God is not the author of evil: true evil is sin, arising from free will; sufferings are medicinal or corrective; Scripture's 'evils from the Lord' mean chastisements or refashioning; evil has no substance of its own but is the privation of good, and death came from Adam's turning away from God.
Homilies 9.8Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · The devil, an angel who fell by his own choice, is evil not by nature but by estrangement from God, and in envy deceived man in paradise.
Commentary on 1 Timothy 2:1–4Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · The church prays for rulers so that believers may live godly lives in peace; God wills all to be saved, but only those who freely come to him in faith.
Commentary on Philippians 2:12–13Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Believers must work out their salvation with good conduct, since the willing is theirs and the accomplishing God's, who alone overcomes the spiritual powers.
Question 1, section 4Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Human beings have free choice, so that they deserve honor or blame; without it they would be like beasts, without merit or guilt.
Question 75, section 1Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · “No one comes unless the Father draws him” does not deny free will: the Father draws people by the miracles he works through Christ, which show that God is his Father.
Question 75, section 2Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · God’s drawing is testimony, not force, and his hardening (Rom 9) justly gives the willfully malicious what they choose; so free choice is confirmed.
Question 115, section 1Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Astrology contradicts God’s law, for if people were born good or bad, the law would be pointless and God unjust in punishing.
Question 115, section 2Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Because God is just, his law presupposes that people can obey it, and so his punishments are just.
Question 115, section 4Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · The faithful study and keep God’s law, while those who want to sin use fate as an excuse, having given up hope of the life to come.
Question 115, section 5Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Fatalism, Satan’s device, removes both guilt and merit, contradicting the baptismal renunciation of Satan and making praise and blame meaningless.
Question 115, section 8Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Reward and punishment concern the will, which chooses, not nature, which acts necessarily like the sun or water and earns neither praise nor blame.
Question 115, section 19Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Unions forbidden by law, practised by Persians and occasionally by others, are restrained by punishment, which shows that law addresses free choices, not fated acts.
Question 115, section 82Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Christ’s promises to those who ask and believe show that the will is free; faith, present in human nature only as a seed like fire in flint, must be roused and exercised, and astrology destroys it.
Letter 21.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains the dividing of the property as God's gift of free will to humanity.
Letter 85.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome states Paulinus's two questions: on the hardening of Pharaoh's heart and free will, and on the holiness of children of believers.
Letter 85.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome refers Paulinus to Origen's treatment of free will in On First Principles, which he has just translated literally at Pammachius's request, and explains the delay of his commentary on Daniel.
Letter 120.10Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome interprets Rom 9:14-29, rejecting the idea of souls punished for sins before birth and arguing that God's choice rests on human free will to believe or refuse.
Letter 120.11Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains 2 Cor 2:12-17: Paul sought Titus as his interpreter, God triumphs in the sufferings of the martyrs, and the one gospel becomes life or death according to the hearers' free choice.
Letter 133.5Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome argues that the Pelagian view of grace as merely the gift of free will makes prayer and fasting pointless, quoting one of Pelagius's disciples.
Letter 133.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome insists that free will itself depends on God's continual help, so Christians must always pray and give thanks, and no one is perfect in this life.
Letter 133.7Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome mocks a Pelagian's claim that ordinary actions need no divine help, and argues that the commandments cannot be both easy and never fulfilled.
Letter 133.10Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome affirms free choice but insists it needs God's help, and presses his opponent with the dilemma of his own confessed sinfulness.
Letter 140.5Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 90:1 Jerome notes that the Hebrew means 'dwelling', and teaches that man can do no good work without God's grace in each act.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 16.4.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Freedom to sin or not grounds reward and punishment.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 16.4.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Isaiah's words show that human beings choose.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 16.4.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · God gave human beings free will.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.20.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Saviour came to save the psychic element, which has free will.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 38.3.9Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They teach that good and evil are by nature, not choice.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 38.6.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Prophecy of a sin is no excuse for it.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 43.2.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Each person causes his own condemnation; God is not to blame.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.24.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Only the free can do evil.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.24.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Scripture addresses man as free.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.29.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Angels too have free will.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.37.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The sinner chose evil freely.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.49.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Free will operates in this life.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.56.9Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Man freely chose the serpent’s counsel and was sold to the devil.
On Cain and Abel 2.25Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · "You are its ruler" means Cain is the author of his sin; impiety toward God is the mother of all other offences, and Cain sinned by deliberate choice.
On Cain and Abel 2.27Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · God asked Cain where his brother was to call him to confession, which lessens punishment; to blame God's decree for one's sin, as pagans do, is worse than the sin itself.
On Paradise 39Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · To pagans, Ambrose answers that Christ chose even Judas to show his will to save all; God imposes no necessity of sin, and his law is written by nature on the human heart.
On the Soul and the Resurrection, Migne page 61Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 379–380 · The passions were not given for evil: like iron they can be shaped by free choice into tools of virtue or vice; ruled by reason they serve virtue, but when reason drops the reins they make man brutish.
On the Soul and the Resurrection, Migne page 101Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 379–380 · Evil, existing only in choice, will vanish when every choice is in God. Gregory fears long suffering; Macrina urges keeping sins few and curable, since, as the Gospel’s debtors show, each will pay in torment until all is paid, and then be free.
On the Soul and the Resurrection, Migne page 119Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 379–380 · If life began from vice, there would be no providence, no judgment, and no desire for virtue; in fact God’s wisdom begins life, and the soul, created good and free, can choose to close its eye to the good, like a man who shuts his eyes.
Homily 2Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 379–394 · Gregory reads Eccl 1:12–2:3 of Christ the true Ecclesiast who came to seek out evil under heaven, denies that God gave evil (the abuse of free choice is the cause), and expounds Solomon’s testing of wisdom, laughter and pleasure as a search for the lasting good, which he identifies with the work of faith.
On the Beatitudes 1255Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · Good and evil depend on our own choice, for evil has no existence apart from choice; God’s judgment, like a mirror, returns to each what he has chosen, as the sheep and the goats and the rich man and Lazarus show.
Against Fate, part 1Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · Writing to a friend after the conversion of an old unbeliever, Eusebius, Gregory begins his account of a debate in Constantinople with a philosopher who held that every human life, choice, virtue, and vice is fixed by fate, which he defined astrologically as the necessary sequence produced by the interweaving of the stars.
Against Fate, part 3Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · The philosopher explains that the stellar outflow changes every instant and stamps each newborn like a seal in wax; Gregory ridicules the idea that a lifeless, partless instant could rule living, choosing beings, and argues that neither the star nor the child can be said to lead, since both are already in motion.
Against Fate, part 10Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · Customs prove the power of free choice: the incestuous marriages of the Persians occur only where their laws are followed, and Jews everywhere, under every configuration of stars, are circumcised on the appointed day; Gregory then begins to explain predictions as the work of a power hostile to humanity, the opposite of God's goodness.
Book of Heresies 128.6Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · We must run by our own will, without presuming on our own merit.
Book of Heresies 128.7Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Paul teaches us to run and will humbly.
Book of Heresies 128.8Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Some things depend on our effort, greater things on God.
Catechetical Oration 5Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 385–390 · God, who is Word, Wisdom, and Power, made man out of love in his image, good and free; evil is not from God but is the absence of good, arising when the free will turns away from it.
Catechetical Oration 21Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 385–390 · Man, created from nothing and an image rather than the archetype, is changeable; his will always moves either toward the true good or, deceived by appearances, toward its opposite.
Catechetical Oration 30Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 385–390 · Sin lingers like the tail of a snake whose head is crushed; faith has not reached all because God calls all equally but leaves each person's will free.
Catechetical Oration 31Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 385–390 · God does not force belief, for compulsion would destroy free will, virtue, and moral judgment; unbelief is the fault of those who refuse.
On the Life of Moses 327Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 385–395 · Beginning the spiritual contemplation, Gregory reads Moses’ birth as the birth of virtue: since a changeable nature is always being born, we are in a sense our own parents, and by choice can bring forth the “male” offspring of virtue that the tyrant fears.
On the Life of Moses 347Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 385–395 · God does not cause vice: being “given up” to passion or “hardened” means that whoever refuses to know God falls by his own choice, as one who will not look at the sun falls into a pit; the frogs die when Moses stretches out his hands, a figure of Christ on the cross.
On the Life of Moses 349Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 385–395 · The plague of darkness shows that light and darkness come from our own choice, not from compulsion; the Egyptians’ return to light after three days figures repentance through knowledge of the Crucified; the boils from the furnace figure Gehenna, from which Christ’s outstretched hands can heal; the remaining plagues are caused by each person’s own choice.
On Jacob and the Happy Life 1.10Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · Guilt comes from our own will, not the flesh; our members become weapons of righteousness or of sin according to how we use them.
On Jacob and the Happy Life 1.11Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · The will, not the flesh, causes sin; serving righteousness under Christ is both precious slavery and glorious freedom.
Letter 145.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine reflects that the world is more dangerous when it allures than when it troubles, and that the will is not truly free without God's grace.
Letter 157.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The claim that free will suffices to keep God's commandments without grace and the Holy Spirit must be anathematized.
Letter 157.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Free will avails for good only with God's help, as the petition "Lead us not into temptation" and 1 Cor 10:13 show.
Letter 157.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The will is truly free only when healed by grace; the psalmist prays for God to direct his steps rather than boasting of free choice.
Letter 157.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Grace does not abolish free will but helps it; whatever good one has is received from God, so one should glory in the Lord and pray humbly.
Letter 157.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Those who groan to God in the words of the psalms receive superabounding grace; Paul in Romans 7 credits deliverance to grace, not free choice.
Letter 177.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Every command (understanding, wisdom, self-control, avoiding evil, doing good) is matched by a prayer for the same thing, showing that law commands and grace helps.
Letter 181.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · We need God's help daily, whether living well or badly; free choice alone cannot overcome sin.
Letter 182.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Scripture everywhere joins God's help to free will; the council's testimonies suffice to refute Pelagius and Caelestius.
Letter 186.34Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Pelagius's later books still give the will equal power to sin or not to sin, or call it strong and firm, whereas it is weak until healed.
Letter 188.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Demetrias should pray and give thanks, recognizing that her goods are in her but not from her alone, since God works both the will and the deed by inspiring love.
Letter 194.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Denying that a good will needs God's help inflates rather than strengthens free choice.
Letter 194.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The defenders of free choice repeat the objection Paul answered in Rom 9: why does God still find fault?
Letter 214.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine writes to the monks of Hadrumetum, having heard that some deny free will and judgment according to works, and approves those who hold that grace helps free will.
Letter 214.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine urges the monks to believe in both free will and grace, showing from Scripture that even understanding is commanded of the will yet given by God.
Letter 215.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine shows from Proverbs 4 that Scripture both commands the will and promises that God will make its paths straight.
Letter 215.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine concludes that relying on one's own will turns aside to the right, while abusing grace as license turns aside to the left, and asks that the monk Florus be sent to him.
Letter 217.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine writes to Vitalis of Carthage, who held that the beginning of faith comes from our own will, arguing that this view contradicts the Church's prayers for the right faith of others.
Letter 217.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine argues from Paul's prayer and from Psalm 37:23 that the good will to believe is itself God's gift, not something that precedes it.
Letter 217.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine argues that if grace were only teaching applied to free will, prayer for the conversion and perseverance of others would be pointless, and that whatever must be asked of God is given by God.
Letter 217.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine argues from Colossians 1:12–13 that God frees the will from the power of darkness, so that believers come to faith by free will and yet by grace.
Letter 217.23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine argues that it is the opponents of grace who undermine free will, and that God prepares the will by hidden inspiration, not merely by teaching.
Letter 226.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Hilary reports that the Gallic opponents hold that the fallen can still will to be healed and believe, and that grace then helps those who begin to will.
Letter 246.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine argues that all law and discipline presuppose that the will causes sin, and that astrologers themselves punish their wives rather than blame the stars.
Letter 246.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine argues that anyone who blames fate refutes himself by punishing and rewarding others, and promises a fuller book if Lampadius wishes.
Homilies on Matthew 22.5John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · No sin is beyond the power of repentance and Christ’s grace, but God saves only the willing; persistent prayer, like that of the Syrophoenician woman, the importunate friend, the widow, and the prodigal son, is never refused.
Homilies on Matthew 44.3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The sower is Christ, who came out to us by taking flesh and sows the word without distinction; the loss of most of the seed comes from the hearers, who, unlike soil, can change; the ways of destruction are various.
Homilies on Matthew 44.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · We are responsible for the loss of the word, for it is not wealth but the deceitfulness of wealth that chokes it; the good ground bears different measures of fruit, and salvation needs attentive hearing, courage and contempt of riches together.
Homilies on Matthew 45.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ tells the disciples that to them it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom; this is a gift, but it does not take away free will, for the others are blind by their own choice, as Isaiah foretold.
Homilies on Matthew 45.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ’s words show that those who turn can be healed and that sin is not of nature; the disciples are blessed beyond the prophets; the parable allows a hundred, sixty or thirtyfold, so that each can give to Christ in the poor what he can.
Homilies on Matthew 55.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · After rebuking Peter, Christ teaches that his followers too must be ready to die, but without compulsion: following him means freely denying oneself, as one disowns a stranger, and not sparing the body in trials.
Homilies on Matthew 59.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ laments those who cause stumbling because, though he became man to heal them, they remained sick; the necessity of stumbling blocks is foreknowledge, not compulsion, and no one perishes by them except through his own carelessness, as Adam shows.
Homilies on Matthew 59.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · God did not make Adam or anyone wicked; we ourselves show that sin comes from choice when we blame others only for what they could control, and since men change from good to bad and back, wickedness is not of nature; evil is neither from God nor unbegotten.
Homilies on Matthew 59.3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Evil is not unbegotten, a blasphemous doctrine, but comes from our willing to disobey God, as everyone’s alternating virtue and vice shows; our blaming and praising of others prove that no one is wicked by necessity, and the “woe” falls only on those wicked by choice.
Homilies on Matthew 80.3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Judas, though taught daily by Christ, sold him for a little money because he let the love of money grow through carelessness; this unnatural passion makes a man useless and wretched even as a king, while the virtuous poor man, whom no one can harm, is truly rich.
Homilies on Matthew 81.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ’s gentle rebuke of the traitor teaches forbearance; Judas is guilty because he acted from wickedness, though Christ’s wisdom turned his crime to our salvation, and no one is wicked by necessity; the love of money that blinded him is a madness worse than demon possession.
Homilies on Matthew 82.3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Peter’s confident contradiction was cured by being left to fall, which teaches that virtue needs both human effort and grace; as we trust Christ’s word against our reasoning, so in the Eucharist we trust “this is my body” against our senses, and must approach it with purity and fervor, since Christ himself still consecrates it and feeds us with his own flesh and blood.
Hexameron (Exameron) 1.31Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Evil is not a substance but a perversion of the will; we are its cause, and outward misfortunes are not true evils.
Hexameron (Exameron) 4.13Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Astrology destroys moral responsibility; the apostles, the thief, Jonah, Peter, and Paul were saved by grace and faith, not by their stars.
Hexameron (Exameron) 4.17Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · If stars are maleficent by nature God is blamed; if by choice they punish the innocent; astrology removes guilt from men.
Hexameron (Exameron) 4.19Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · If fate governed acts, laws, labour, and rewards would be pointless; farmers and merchants themselves act as if they were free.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 40.22.4Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Man is free to choose good or evil; Judas, who betrayed his table companion, chose evil.
On Free Choice of the Will 1.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Evodius asks whether God is the author of evil; Augustine distinguishes evil done from evil suffered and argues that evil cannot be learned, since learning and understanding are good.
On Free Choice of the Will 1.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Since neither a higher nor a lower nature can force the mind to serve lust, only its own will and free choice can do so; the mind's resulting slavery to lust is itself a just and heavy penalty.
On Free Choice of the Will 1.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Leaving open whether the soul lived wisely before the body, Augustine shows that we have a will, that a good will surpasses all external goods, and that whether we have it lies in our will itself.
On Free Choice of the Will 1.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Evil-doing is turning from eternal to temporal things, and it comes from the free choice of the will; Evodius asks whether God should have given free choice, which Augustine defers to the next book.
On Free Choice of the Will 2.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Augustine argues that man is a good from God who can live rightly only by willing, so God had to give him free will, which was given for acting rightly; otherwise just punishment and reward could not exist.
On Free Choice of the Will 2.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Having shown that God exists and that every good is from him, Augustine argues that free will, without which no one can live rightly, is a good like the eyes and hands, which can be misused yet are rightly given.
On Free Choice of the Will 2.19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Augustine ranks the virtues as great goods, bodily beauty as least, and the powers of the mind, free will among them, as middle goods; sin is the will's voluntary turning from the unchangeable common good to its own, external, or lower goods.
On Free Choice of the Will 3.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Unlike a stone's natural fall, the soul's turning from the unchangeable good is its own voluntary and blameworthy motion; otherwise praise, blame, and admonition would make no sense.
On Free Choice of the Will 3.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Augustine argues that God's foreknowledge does not remove the will: what God foreknows is a will, and a will is necessarily in our power, so foreknowledge makes our free willing certain rather than impossible.
On Free Choice of the Will 3.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Foreknowledge does not compel: as our memory does not cause past deeds, God's foreknowledge does not cause future sins, so he justly punishes sins he foresees but does not commit.
On Free Choice of the Will 3.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Asked why some creatures sin and others do not, Augustine answers that the wicked will, the avarice that is the root of all evils, is the first cause of sin, and no cause before the will need be sought.
On Free Choice of the Will 3.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Sins done in ignorance or under the necessity of the flesh are a just penalty inherited from man's condemnation; ignorance and difficulty are not human nature as created but the punishment of sin.
On Free Choice of the Will 3.22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Sins are due to the will alone; if ignorance and difficulty are natural, they are a starting point like an infant's speechlessness, blameworthy only if one refuses to progress, and God is praised for every stage.
On the Greatness of the Soul 36Augustine of Hippo · 387–388 · God rules all things by an unbreakable law in which the soul's free choice, punishments, and rewards all serve the beauty of the whole; true religion binds the soul back to God through the higher acts, and the remaining questions are briefly answered.
On True Religion 14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 389–391 · Augustine argues that sin is necessarily voluntary, so that souls have free choice of the will, and that even man's yielding to the devil's persuasion was by consent.
Homily 2Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 390–394 · Expounding Song 1:5–8, Gregory teaches that the soul, blackened by sin through the free choice of fallen powers rather than by its Creator, is made beautiful by Christ's love, and must guard that beauty by knowing itself as God's image.
On Two Souls 14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391–392 · Augustine defines will as a movement of the mind, uncompelled, toward keeping or gaining something, a definition that nature makes plain to everyone.
On Two Souls 17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391–392 · Since God justly condemns only souls that sin, and sin requires will, souls evil by nature cannot sin and so cannot exist; the Manichaeans' evil kind of souls is nothing.
On Two Souls 19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391–392 · Wavering in deliberation shows not two souls but one soul drawn by carnal and spiritual goods, both from God; the struggle comes from habit and the penalty of sin.
Sermon 4.29Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Esau's blessing shares the dew and fatness of the earth with Jacob's, but only Jacob receives lordship over the nations; Esau lives by the sword, yet is free to shake off the yoke and belong to Jacob.
Sermon 13.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · We work out our salvation with fear because God works in us both to will and to work; the good will itself is God's gift, and whoever was lost in himself is found only when his Maker seeks him.
Sermon 20.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The sinner must accuse himself, not excuse himself by blaming fortune, fate or the devil; God turns his face from the sins of one who acknowledges them, for sin must be punished either by the penitent or by God.
Sermon 26.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Against those who say that God made them men but they make themselves just, Augustine argues that Adam, made upright, broke himself by free choice and can be remade only by God.
Sermon 30.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Man sold himself to sin by free choice for the pleasure of the forbidden fruit; only the Redeemer’s blood can buy him back and straighten his steps.
Sermon 30.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The man of Rom 7 who says “I do not do what I want” has lost by willing evil the power to do good; the opponent of grace who denies this is no judge of another’s conscience.
Sermon 30.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ’s yoke is easy because he breathes love into us; even our coming to him is his gift, since no one comes unless the Father draws him.
Sermon 131.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Whoever trusts in his free choice to keep him on the right way is like the psalmist who said “I shall not be moved” and was troubled when God turned his face away; strength must be kept by God.
Sermon 131.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Against those who exalt human nature, Augustine says that free choice was lost by sin; baptism forgives all sins, like the Samaritan’s oil and wine, but weakness is healed only gradually in the inn, the Church.
Sermon 156.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Against Jews who thought the Law sufficient for free choice, Paul teaches that the Law was added for the sake of transgression, to humble the proud until Christ came; free choice in paradise showed only its power to fall.
Sermon 156.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · God's help is not like a wind that only makes rowing easier: without it we can do nothing good, and the will that acts without it is not free but enslaved to sin.
Sermon 156.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Against those who say grace only makes good works easier, Augustine cites Christ's “Without me you can do nothing,” while insisting that believers, as living stones, must also run and follow.
Sermon 165.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Paul both asks the Ephesians not to lose heart, appealing to their will, and kneels to pray that God give it, showing that free choice is real but insufficient without God's help.
Sermon 169.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Justification is wholly from God, yet not without our will: God made us without our consent, but he does not justify us without it; still the righteousness is his, not ours.
Sermon 174.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Adam shows what free will does without help, Christ what grace does; Christ's humanity, one nature with ours but sinless, was united to the Word with no prior merit, so we too must seek his gifts, not our merits, and be small like Zacchaeus.
Sermon 193.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Good will struggling against the law of sin must not trust its own strength but call on God's grace, which both calls us to will and enables us to do.
Sermon 199.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The star of the Magi does not show that Christ was subject to the stars; it served him, leading the Magi to him, and astrology is refuted by its own consequences.
Sermon 252.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Those who seek carnal things in the Church, inside or outside, are chaff; but unlike real chaff men have free will and can become wheat, and what matters is how the last winnowing finds them.
Sermon 278.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · As a man can fall sick by intemperance but needs a physician to recover, so Adam fell by free choice into sin and death, and now must obey Christ the physician to be healed.
Sermon 284.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The martyrs’ strength is not their own but God’s gift; whoever ascribes it to them flatters like the serpent, while the martyr credits even his suffering to God.
Sermon 284.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Fallen humanity is scattered in many thoughts; the martyrs, desiring the one thing, the delight of God, overcame both the world’s threats and its coaxing.
Acts of the Debate with Fortunatus the Manichaean 15Augustine of Hippo · 28–29 August 392 · Augustine explains evil as voluntary sin and its just punishment, made possible by the free choice God gave the soul.
Acts of the Debate with Fortunatus the Manichaean 17Augustine of Hippo · 28–29 August 392 · Augustine argues that sin, repentance, and forgiveness presuppose free will and cites 'by nature children of wrath'; Fortunatus answers that Paul meant this of the body and that the soul is from God.
Acts of the Debate with Fortunatus the Manichaean 20Augustine of Hippo · 28–29 August 392 · Augustine argues that a faith in an incorruptible God whose creatures sin by free will is worthier than one that makes God's own part suffer; Fortunatus replies that we sin unwillingly, compelled by a hostile substance.
Acts of the Debate with Fortunatus the Manichaean 21Augustine of Hippo · 28–29 August 392 · Augustine traces evil to sin and desire, the 'root of all evils', and presses the Manichaean on repentance; Fortunatus answers that desire in us is only a small part of an evil that pervades the world.
Acts of the Debate with Fortunatus the Manichaean 22Augustine of Hippo · 28–29 August 392 · Augustine explains how Adam's free sin and the habits we form bind the will, reads the two trees as two wills, and again asks how sin can be imputed to souls sent by God.
Acts of the Debate with Fortunatus the Manichaean 25Augustine of Hippo · 28–29 August 392 · Augustine answers that the soul is miserable because it sinned by free choice, and asks again why a God who could not be harmed sent souls here.
Against Adimantus, a Disciple of Mani 27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 394 · Augustine reads Isaiah 45:7 (“I make peace and establish evils”) through Romans 11:22 as God's goodness and severity, and shows that each Testament contains what the Manichaeans praise and blame in the other.
On Continence 14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 395 · Augustine surveys excuses for sin (fate, fortune, the devil) and rejects the Manichaean excuse that blames a defiled divine nature.
On Continence 16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 395 · God made man able not to sin, so that not sinning would be merit and being unable to sin its reward, as the saints will be at the end.
On the Faith against the Manichaeans 5Evodius of Uzalis · ca. 400-424 · Scripture, the Leucian Acts, and Mani's own Thesaurus and Fundamental Epistle all show that souls sin by their own will.
On the Faith against the Manichaeans 8Evodius of Uzalis · ca. 400-424 · Since angels too are judged, sin must be voluntary, and each person is the author of his own evil through desire.
On the Faith against the Manichaeans 9Evodius of Uzalis · ca. 400-424 · Evil is not a nature but sin and its punishment; sin comes from the free will of the rational soul.
On the Faith against the Manichaeans 10Evodius of Uzalis · ca. 400-424 · Commands and judgment presuppose free will; evil is a turning away from God's commands.
On the Faith against the Manichaeans 44Evodius of Uzalis · ca. 400-424 · A being evil by necessity of nature could not sin; only a rational soul with free will can sin and be justly condemned.
On the Christian Struggle 11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 396–397 · Our weakness comes from our own sinful will, not from God, who made man with free choice; the unchangeable Son took up this weakness in the incarnation.
Confessions 7.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine began to see that the free choice of the will is the cause of sin, yet he still asked where an evil will could come from if God, who is wholly good, made him and the devil.
Confessions 8.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine longs to imitate Victorinus but is chained by habit: two wills, old and new, fight within him.
Confessions 8.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine experiences the war of flesh and spirit; he now knows the truth but still refuses to follow it.
Confessions 8.20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · The body obeys the will at once, but the will does not obey itself.
Confessions 8.21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · The mind commands itself to will and is not obeyed, because the will is divided and sick, not whole.
Confessions 8.22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Against the Manichees, Augustine argues that the conflict of wills shows not two natures but one divided soul, punished for Adam's sin.
Confessions 9.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine praises God for freeing his will and replacing the pleasures of trifles with himself.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine argues at length that even the god Faustus caricatures as the Catholics' is better than the Manichaean god, who sent his own members into darkness under necessity and then condemns them.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.78Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine argues that God's providence orders all things, that only iniquity, the disordering of love and use, is truly evil, and that the outcomes of peace and war profit or harm by God's hidden judgment and mercy.
Tractates 3Gaudentius of Brescia · ca. 397-410 · On Easter Sunday Gaudentius reads the renewal of heaven and earth in the newly baptized and expounds the Passover lamb: taken on the tenth day and killed on the fourteenth, foretold but not caused by God's foreknowledge, perfect, male, and a year old as Christ was.
Against Secundinus the Manichaean 11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399 · Augustine defines evil as a voluntary falling away of a being from what is more to what is less, and refers Secundinus to his three books On Free Choice, available from Paulinus at Nola.
Against Secundinus the Manichaean 12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399 · Augustine notes that Secundinus's letter admits the soul sins by its own will when it consents to evil, which undermines both Mani's teaching on punishment and the claim that evil is a substance.
Against Secundinus the Manichaean 19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399 · Augustine asks where the soul's capacity to be corrupted came from before any contact with evil; if it is God's substance, God would be changeable, so evil must be the free will of a creature made from nothing.
Questions and Answers to the Orthodox 6–12Anonymous · 5th century (disputed) · Several questions: why the risen will be impassible though they feel joy or pain (their state is fixed and unchanging); why comparing rest and punishment changes nothing in the age to come; why God is not the author of evil (free choice, not knowledge, makes us good or bad); how biblical anthropomorphism differs from pagan myth; and why God, who contains all things, is greater than all and preserves no evil by nature.
Questions and Answers to the Orthodox 103Anonymous · 5th century (disputed) · Keeping the law was possible, as the blameless Zechariah and Elizabeth show, since its sum is to love God and neighbor; men sin from unwillingness, not inability, which is why not all fall into the same sins.
Letter 29, chapter 4Innocent I, bishop of Rome · 401–417 · Innocent argues that we need God’s help daily, whether to live better or to return from error, and that free will alone cannot resist sin.
Apology against Rufinus 2.7Jerome · ca. 401–402 · Jerome argues that Rufinus's formula blames the devil for all sin, denying free will, and is compatible with Origen's view of eternal fire as remorse; he should have used Scripture's plain words of the devil's final ruin.
Commentary on the Apostles' Creed 40Rufinus of Aquileia · ca. 404 · Forgiveness of sins rests on God's promise, and it is reasonable, since guilt lies in the will, which God can change from evil to good.
Against Felix the Manichaean 2.3Augustine of Hippo · December 404 · Augustine answers that the scriptures speak of sinners, not of two natures: God made every nature, and rational creatures sin by free choice, as even Mani admits.
Against Felix the Manichaean 2.4Augustine of Hippo · December 404 · Augustine reads Christ's “make the tree good or bad” as a statement of free choice, not of two natures, within God's ordered creation.
Against Felix the Manichaean 2.5Augustine of Hippo · December 404 · Augustine quotes Mani's Treasure, where those who “were unwilling” to keep the law are blamed, as proof that Mani himself admitted free choice.
Against Felix the Manichaean 2.6Augustine of Hippo · December 404 · Augustine quotes the apocryphal Acts ascribed to Leucius, accepted by the Manichees, to show that man became worse by his own will through the devil's seduction.
Against Felix the Manichaean 2.8Augustine of Hippo · December 404 · Felix charges the catholic doctrine of eternal fire with the same cruelty; Augustine replies that the damned are those who by free choice refused repentance and healing, while sin is not possible at all on Manichaean premises.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 26.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The Father draws not by force but by delight: as the poet says each is drawn by his own pleasure, so the lover of truth and righteousness is drawn to Christ.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 53.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · God foretold the Jews' unbelief by his foreknowledge but did not cause it; foreknowledge does not compel sin.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 53.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · They could not believe because they would not; God blinds by withholding help, by a judgment hidden but never unjust, before which we must stand in awe.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 53.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Free choice must not be defended so as to make prayer for grace needless, nor denied so as to excuse sin; both faith and its power are God's gifts.
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 2.2Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · Some so trust free choice that they deny we need God's help not to sin, which would make the petition “Do not bring us into temptation” pointless.
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 2.6Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · Even the Pharisee thanked God for his righteousness; those who think righteousness comes from themselves are worse, though our will must also strive, since God helps only those who make an effort, in ways known to him alone.
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 2.7Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · Augustine divides the question into four and answers the first: by God's grace and free choice, itself God's gift, a man can be without sin in this life.
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 2.26Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · To the third question, why no one is sinless though it is possible, Augustine answers: because people do not will it, through ignorance or lack of delight in the good, which only grace can remedy.
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 2.28Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · Augustine can find no good in our will that does not come from God, and warns against defending grace in a way that abolishes free choice, or free choice in a way that denies grace.
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 2.30Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · Free choice is a natural good that can be misused, but good will itself, which loves righteousness, comes only from God; otherwise what is ours would be better than what is his.
On the Spirit and the Letter 4Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Augustine states the view of his opponents: God's help consists only in creating free will and giving commands that remove ignorance.
On the Spirit and the Letter 52Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Grace does not abolish free will but establishes it, by healing the will so that it freely loves righteousness; Augustine traces the chain from law to faith, grace, health, freedom, love, and obedience.
On the Spirit and the Letter 53Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Before asking whether faith is in our power, Augustine defines power as the ability to act joined to the will: what one does if one wills and does not do if one does not will.
On the Spirit and the Letter 54Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Faith is in our power, since believing is consenting, which is an act of will; yet all power is from God, though evil will is not, and God may give power to the wicked as judgment.
On the Spirit and the Letter 58Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Augustine first proposes that the will to believe arises from God-given free choice when God calls; unbelievers resist God's will but cannot escape his judgment.
On the Spirit and the Letter 60Augustine of Hippo · 412 · God works the will to believe by outward and inward persuasion, though consent remains the act of one's own will; why one is persuaded and another not lies in the depth of God's judgments.
City of God 5.9Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine answers Cicero's claim that divine foreknowledge destroys free will, affirming both God's foreknowledge and human choice, since our wills are themselves among the causes God foreknows.
City of God 5.10Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine argues that the necessity implied by God's foreknowledge does not take away the freedom of the human will, so laws, prayers, rewards, and punishments are not in vain.
City of God 12.6Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · The good angels are happy by cleaving to God, the evil wretched through pride; an evil will has no efficient cause, and arises not from nature but from a nature's having been made from nothing.
City of God 12.7Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · An evil will has no efficient cause but only a deficient one; its origin, like darkness or silence, is known only as a privation.
City of God 12.8Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · The will sins not by turning to evil things but by turning evilly, out of order, to lesser goods: avarice, lust, boasting, and pride lie in the soul's perverse love, not in their objects.
City of God 14.11Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · God foreknew the fall and his good use of it; man was made upright with a good will, lost true freedom by sin and can regain it only through the Son; the devil through the serpent deceived Eve, while Adam sinned knowingly out of attachment to her.
City of God 15.21Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · The genealogy of Seth restarts from Adam (Gen 5:1) because only the heavenly city's times are reckoned; the city of God must learn to hope in God, not in its own free choice.
City of God 22.1Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine introduces the last book on the eternal blessedness of the city of God, founded by God, who allowed angels and men free choice and gathers a people by grace to restore the number of the fallen angels.
On the Good of Widowhood 22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 414 · Exhortation works only because God acts within the will; the widows will gain more from their prayers than from Augustine's words.
Commentary on Jeremiah 1.29Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Israel, planted as the choicest vine, degenerated by its own fault; no one should feel secure, though Christ, the true vine, lets believers be true vines if they persevere.
Commentary on Jeremiah 1.85Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Israel's folly is willed, not natural; wisdom for evil is mere cunning, true wisdom being joined to the fear of God.
Commentary on Jeremiah 1.94Jerome · ca. 414-419 · The prophet wonders whether the common people sin from ignorance and turns to the leaders, who know God's will; the tentative wording shows human free will.
Commentary on Jeremiah 2.96Jerome · ca. 414-419 · A man's way is not in his own power but directed by God, against those who say each is ruled by his own choice.
Commentary on Jeremiah 3.43Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Sinners depart from God by their will, not by place.
Commentary on Jeremiah 4.3Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Jerome opens Book 4 by attacking the revived heresy of impassibility and sinlessness, then expounds the potter's house (Jer 18:1–13) as teaching both free choice and the primacy of grace.
Commentary on Jeremiah 4.33Jerome · ca. 414-419 · God calls the royal house to just judgment in the morning so that his fire may not be kindled, offering repentance even after pronouncing sentence, to preserve their free choice (Jer 21:11–12).
Commentary on Jeremiah 5.36Jerome · ca. 414-419 · This earlier oracle shows the prophets do not keep historical order; God's 'perhaps they will listen' preserves human free choice, since his foreknowledge does not cause what happens, and his threats are conditional on repentance (Jer 26:1–3).
Commentary on Jeremiah 5.37Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Free choice is ours, but every good work is to be credited to God's grace; the repeated sending of prophets refutes the idea that the law once given suffices; as Shiloh gave way to the temple, so the law's ceremonies gave way to the church (Jer 26:4–6).
Commentary on Jeremiah 6.45Jerome · ca. 414-419 · God taught his people daily, but in their free choice they would not accept instruction (Jer 32:33).
On Nature and Grace 25Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine teaches that free choice sufficed for man to fall into sin, but only Christ's grace can heal and give life for his return to righteousness.
On Nature and Grace 36Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine teaches that God himself shows, gives, and leads us in the righteous way, so that we must walk it in fear and trust in him, which does not remove the will but proclaims grace.
On Nature and Grace 53Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine reports Pelagius' argument that the ability to speak (and so not to sin) belongs to nature and God, while its use belongs to the will, and shows how even that ability can be lost.
On Nature and Grace 54Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine questions Pelagius' claim that what is by natural necessity is outside the will, citing our necessary will to be happy and God's inability to will sin.
On Nature and Grace 55Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine shows that Pelagius' comparisons from sight, hearing, and smell fail, since we often cannot use or refuse these senses at will.
On Nature and Grace 57Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine answers Pelagius' reasoning about the “ability not to sin” implanted in nature, pointing out that corrupted nature, like broken feet, has lost that ability and cries for healing.
On Nature and Grace 58Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine answers Pelagius' claim that the ability not to sin is inseparably implanted in nature by citing Galatians 5:17 and Romans 7, which show men unable to do the good they will.
On Nature and Grace 59Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine shows that Pelagius calls the possibility of not sinning “grace” only because God created nature with it, and answers from Romans 7:18 that the will can be present while the ability is lost.
On Nature and Grace 76Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine accepts John Chrysostom's statements that sin is an evil act from free choice, but insists the question concerns the grace by which fallen nature is healed.
On Nature and Grace 81Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine quotes further from his On Free Choice to show that he taught that ignorance and difficulty are penalties of Adam's condemnation and that God's help must be sought, so that his words do not support Pelagius.
On Patience 12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 415 · True patience is not from the powers of free will, as some proudly hold, but is God's gift to the poor in spirit.
On Patience 13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 415 · Augustine states his opponents' objection: if the wicked can endure so much by free will alone, why cannot the righteous?
On Man's Perfection in Righteousness 9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 415 · Man fell into sin by free choice, but the penalty turned freedom into necessity; true freedom is restored by the Son and ends in a happy necessity of never sinning.
On Man's Perfection in Righteousness 12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 415 · The will cannot “very easily” change itself, since Paul says the flesh opposes the spirit so that we do not do what we will; nature, good in itself, needs grace to be healed.
On Man's Perfection in Righteousness 40Augustine of Hippo · ca. 415 · Caelestius answers Rom 9:16 with texts on free choice, but by doing so he argues against the mercy we pray for in the Lord's Prayer.
Apologetic Book 26.1Orosius · ca. 415–416 · God gave free will with a law.
Apologetic Book 26.2Orosius · ca. 415–416 · Freedom is meant for chosen service.
On the Proceedings of Pelagius 5Augustine of Hippo · 417 · The second charge, that all are governed by their own will, is accepted in Pelagius's explanation, but Augustine shows from Scripture that God governs and leads his children.
On the Proceedings of Pelagius 21Augustine of Hippo · 417 · Paul in Romans 7 had free choice and knowledge of the law but lacked the strength to do good, so he asked for grace.
On the Proceedings of Pelagius 62Augustine of Hippo · 417 · Recapitulation: the points the bishops approved were approved only in Pelagius's explained senses, which leave the heresy itself condemned.
On the Grace of Christ and On Original Sin 1.3Augustine of Hippo · 418 · Despite condemning these views at the synod, Pelagius in his books still places grace in nature, free choice, or law and teaching, not in God's inward help.
On the Grace of Christ and On Original Sin 1.4Augustine of Hippo · 418 · Pelagius distinguishes capacity, will, and action, and holds that grace helps only the God-given capacity, not the will or the action.
On the Grace of Christ and On Original Sin 1.5Augustine of Hippo · 418 · Augustine quotes Pelagius's own statement of the triad: being able is from God, while willing and being (doing) are man's own.
On the Grace of Christ and On Original Sin 1.15Augustine of Hippo · 418 · Christ's words 'everyone who has learned comes to me' show that God's teaching by grace produces the actual willing and coming, not just the capacity to come.
On the Grace of Christ and On Original Sin 1.16Augustine of Hippo · 418 · Against Pelagius's example that seeing well or badly is our own, the prayer 'Turn away my eyes from vanity' shows that God helps the will.
On the Grace of Christ and On Original Sin 1.24Augustine of Hippo · 418 · Pelagius says that running to God and becoming one spirit with him is done by free choice alone, and that grace follows as a reward; Augustine answers that grace so earned would not be grace.
On the Grace of Christ and On Original Sin 1.51Augustine of Hippo · 418 · Ambrose's saying that 'God calls whom he deigns and makes religious whom he wills' contradicts Pelagius's claim that turning to God is done by free choice alone.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Catholics affirm free choice and God as creator; what makes the Pelagians heretics is denying that grace is needed for good and that infants need redemption.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 1.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine quotes Julian's charge that Catholics are Manichees who deny free choice, and compares it with Jovinian's slander.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 1.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine answers that free choice was not lost by Adam's sin, but the freedom to live righteously was, and it is restored only by grace.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 1.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine explains that people are not forced to sin but sin by their own will, and that a good will comes only by unmerited grace.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 1.29Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine turns to Julian's own statement of faith, beginning with his claim that free choice could not perish by Adam's sin.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 1.36Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine answers Julian that God does not compel the will, but that God's grace helps a man even to will the good.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 1.37Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine argues from Paul's conversion and John 6:44 that grace does not merely help a good will already present but first makes the unwilling willing.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 2.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine turns to the Pelagian claim that the desire for good begins from man himself, noting Pelagius's view that grace only makes the good easier.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 2.19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine interprets 'it belongs to man to prepare the heart' as meaning that man prepares his heart with God's help, not without it.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 2.20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine shows from Scripture that even when man opens his mouth or prepares his will, he does so with God's help.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 4.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine accepts Isaiah 1:19–20 as proof of free choice against the Manichees but insists that the good will itself is prepared by God.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 4.26Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine argues from Cyprian that even avoiding grave sin and converting persecutors depend on grace sought in prayer, without denying free choice.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 4.30Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine cites Ambrose to show that even the beginning of good thoughts and prayer comes from God's grace, and that the law alone cannot convert the heart.
Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 30Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–423 · Fallen man cannot be restored by his works or his free choice, which he lost in sinning; true freedom to do good comes only when the Son sets him free by grace.
Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 32Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–423 · Even the good will is God's gift: “not of him who wills but of God who shows mercy” means the whole is given to God, whose mercy goes before the unwilling and follows the willing.
Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 105Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–423 · Man was first made able to will good or evil; in the life to come he will be unable to will evil and so be freer, as the lesser immortality of being able not to die gives way to being unable to die.
Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 106Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–423 · Even before the fall man needed grace to persevere in righteousness; after it, free choice itself must be freed from sin by grace through faith in Christ.
On Grace and Free Will 1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 426 · Augustine writes to Valentinus and the monks of Hadrumetum, who are divided over grace and free choice, urging thanks for what they understand and prayer for what they do not.
On Grace and Free Will 2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 426 · Augustine proves from the commands and prohibitions of Scripture, Old and New, that man has free choice of the will and cannot blame God for his sins.
On Grace and Free Will 3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 426 · Ignorance does not excuse from punishment, though sinning with knowledge is graver; and one who pleads defeat by desire is still addressed as having a will.
On Grace and Free Will 9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 426 · “Grace for grace” (John 1:16): the grace of a good life is rewarded with the grace of eternal life, for God works in us both to will and to work, without removing free choice.
On Grace and Free Will 15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 426 · God commands what he gives and gives what he commands; the will is always free but good only by grace, which also strengthens a weak good will so that it can keep the commandments.
On Grace and Free Will 16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 426 · God commands things we cannot do so that we may ask for them; Ecclesiasticus itself, after “If you will, you will keep the commandments”, prays for help, for God prepares the will and makes us act.
On Grace and Free Will 23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 426 · Why one infant is baptized and another not, or one baptized person survives to fall while another is taken, belongs to God's hidden judgments; God and Pharaoh both hardened Pharaoh's heart.
Retractations 1.8Augustine of Hippo · 426-427 · Reviewing On Free Choice, written against the Manichaeans, Augustine answers the Pelagians' use of its statements on the will, arguing that the books already taught that every good, including the good use of free will, is from God and that fallen man rises only by grace.
Retractations 1.21Augustine of Hippo · 426-427 · Reviewing Against Adimantus, Augustine says he should have written that “almost” nothing in the New Testament is lacking in the Old, corrects his list of the senses of “son,” and explains that the power to change one's will is given by God.
Retractations 2.1Augustine of Hippo · 426-427 · Reviewing his two books to Simplicianus, Augustine says that in explaining Rom 9 he labored for free choice “but the grace of God conquered,” and notes that he now reads Rom 7 as possibly describing a spiritual man.
Retractations 2.66Augustine of Hippo · 426-427 · Augustine notes his book On Grace and Free Choice, written for the monks of Hadrumetum.
The Conferences 3.11John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Germanus asks what room is left for free will if God begins and completes our perfection.
The Conferences 3.12John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Paphnutius answers that between God's call and God's completion lies our response, yet no one reaches perfection without God's continual help, as the Psalms show, since free will is weak and falls unless God upholds it.
The Conferences 3.15John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Even David asked God for understanding, and Paul teaches that God works in us both to will and to accomplish; our effort is needed, but without God's help we cannot even strive effectively.
The Conferences 3.19John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The beginning of a good will and the perfection of virtue are God's gifts, while our part is to respond earnestly or slackly; Deuteronomy's conquest, the healing of the blind men, and the ten lepers illustrate the distinction.
The Conferences 3.21John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Germanus argues that God's words “if my people had heard me” show that salvation lies in our power.
The Conferences 3.22John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Paphnutius answers that the same psalm shows both human freedom and God's prior call and help, and dismisses the visitors humbled, realizing they have barely begun the renunciations.
The Conferences 4.12John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Our lukewarm will wants virtue without pain; the opposing pulls of flesh and spirit check each other, forcing us into the laborious middle way of real virtue, as the confusion of tongues at Babel checked a harmful unity.
The Conferences 7.4John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Serenus answers that the mind is naturally always moving, but by long practice it can be trained to dwell on spiritual things; wandering thoughts are our fault, not nature's, for we will be judged for them.
The Conferences 13.3John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Chaeremon answers that the farmer’s own example shows that effort achieves nothing without God, who sends rain, gives strength, and averts disaster; the beginning of good actions and thoughts is from God, and it is ours to follow his grace or resist it.
The Conferences 13.4John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Germanus objects that this view destroys free will, since pagan philosophers, ignorant of God and his grace, are said to have attained chastity by their own effort.
The Conferences 13.9John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Scripture speaks both of human choice and of God’s initiative, so both grace and free will are declared: a person can sometimes by nature begin to desire the good, but always needs God’s help to accomplish it.
The Conferences 13.10John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Chaeremon sets pairs of Scripture texts side by side, each affirming human free will and at the same time its weakness and need of God.
The Conferences 13.11John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Chaeremon poses the question whether God’s mercy follows our good will or precedes it; Scripture gives examples of both, so grace and free will, though they seem opposed, must both be held according to the church’s faith.
The Conferences 13.12John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · God did not make man incapable of good: the knowledge of good survived the fall, the seeds of virtue are implanted by nature, and David’s good intention was his own; yet they need God’s help to grow, and Scripture shows God and man each anticipating, inviting, and seeking the other.
The Conferences 13.14John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · God tests people as he did Job, the centurion, and Abraham, not shielding them so completely that no room is left for their own strength; like a nurse teaching a child to walk, he supports, lets them struggle, and rescues them.
The Conferences 13.18John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Chaeremon concludes that God works all in all, inspiring good will, enabling good works, and granting perseverance, yet without destroying free will; how both are true is beyond human reason and must be held by faith.
The Conferences 23.1John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Theonas argues that Romans 7 cannot describe sinners, who sin willingly and eagerly and serve God neither in mind nor in flesh, and must describe the perfect.
Chapter 5Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 426-428 · Against the critics' use of Matt 11:28, Prosper cites texts showing that free choice obeys God's call only when grace has created the will to believe.
Chapter 17Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 426-428 · Grace does not abolish free choice but converts and heals it; man is evil of himself and good through God, who gives the will, the deed and perseverance.
On Rebuke and Grace 1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 427 · Augustine thanks Valentinus for news of peace at Hadrumetum, urges rereading his book On Grace and Free Will, and states that free choice in doing good depends on being set free and helped by Christ.
On Rebuke and Grace 10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 427 · Adam was created upright and could have persevered by free choice; he fell by his own will and the whole race was condemned in him; God ordered angels and men to show first what free choice could do, then what grace and justice can do.
On Rebuke and Grace 14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 427 · Rebuke is a medicine for the predestined and a punishment for others; no human will can resist God's will to save, and “God wills all men to be saved” can mean all the predestined, drawn from every kind of men; God moves wills from within, as with Saul's and David's followers.
Objection and reply 6Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 431-432 · Free choice exists, but before grace it is sick and in darkness; grace, without prior merit, gives the gift by which merit is gained; predestination does not drive people to evil.
Chapter 2Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 432-433 · Prosper introduces Cassian's Conference 13, praises its opening definition that every good thought begins from God, and shows that its ninth chapter contradicts it by letting some come to grace by their own free will.
Chapter 4Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 432-433 · Prosper rejects Cassian's claim that the desire for health comes from man and the cure from God, arguing that even the first desire to be healed is God's gift, and explains Rom 7:18 as the voice of one already under grace.
Chapter 6Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 432-433 · Prosper insists that the question of grace was settled against the Pelagians and that grace does not destroy free choice but makes the will good.
Chapter 7Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 432-433 · Prosper answers Cassian's examples of Paul and Matthew against Zacchaeus and the thief, arguing that God draws everyone who comes to Christ, by many different means.
Chapter 12Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 432-433 · Prosper rejects Cassian's argument that David's wish to build the temple was a good thought from man alone, arguing that every good will, though man's own, is inspired by God.
Chapter 14Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 432-433 · Prosper quotes Cassian on Job, who supposedly defeated the devil by his own strength, and sums up how Cassian's successive definitions have departed from his own catholic opening statement.
Chapter 18Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 432-433 · Prosper rejects Cassian's division of the faithful into those saved by grace and those merely helped after starting by their own will, and affirms that grace makes the will free for good in all.
Chapter 19Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 432-433 · Prosper sums up Cassian's twelve definitions on grace and free choice, accepting only the first as catholic and briefly refuting each of the others.