Freedom an Foreknowledge

free will n (13c)  1 : voluntary choice or decision <I do this of my own free will>  2 : freedom of  humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention
--Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary
Eleventh ed.
         
Humans have long treasured their steadfast belief that the decisions they make are theirs and theirs alone. The ideas of enslavement, of coercion, and control are abhorrent to the human race as a whole. In his Divine Comedy, Dante called free will “The greatest gift that in his largess God / Creating made…and that which He doth prize / Most highly,” (V, xix-xxiv), a quote which I myself treasure and have posted on my door. Our free will is part of what makes us unique, separate from and above any other creatures on Earth.
But we also worship a God who is omnipotent, all-knowing. There are many who feel that if God knows everything that we will do in the future, we are not really choosing to do those things—our choices are predetermined by fate. This apparent clash between free will and divine foreknowledge has led some to believe that God can’t know the future, or else humans would not have free will. It has led some to believe that since God must know the future, humans must not really have free will. Both of these groups of thinkers have led me and Augustine to believe that some people out there just aren’t seeing the picture clearly: divine foreknowledge does not lead to the eradication of the free will.
The dilemma, as expressed by Evodius in Augustine’s On Free Choice of the Will, is:

“It would be an irreligious and completely insane attack on God’s foreknowledge to say that something could happen otherwise than as God foreknew. So suppose that God foreknew that the first human being was going to sin…since God foreknew that he was going to sin, his sin necessarily had to happen. How, then, is the will free when such inescapable necessity is found in it?”  (III, 73)

In other words, if God knows it something will happen, then it must happen, and “must” is incompatible with “choice” and “freedom.”  So how can humans possibly make their own decisions? The question is a good one, and one that has puzzled many people for many centuries.
Augustine replies with, “Unless I am mistaken, you do not force someone to sin just because you foreknow that he is going to sin. Nor does your foreknowledge force him to sin, even if he is undoubtedly going to sin” (Augustine, 78). Compare it to a situation where you have two best friends, who know each other inside and out. If one morning it was raining, one friend might know that the other hates getting wet, and will bring an umbrella to school, which that friend does do. Did that person really force their friend to grab their umbrella just because s/he knew about that friend’s habits and personality? No. The friend chose to stay dry, and the other simply knew based on knowledge and logic what would occur. God’s knowledge comes from his divine power, but it is the same basic concept. He knows what we will do, but that does not mean that He is pulling the strings.
Augustine comes to the conclusion that:
“…God has foreknowledge of everything in the future and that nonetheless we will whatever we will. Since God foreknows our will, the very will which he foreknows will be what comes about. Therefore, it will be a will, since it is a will that he foreknows. And it could not be a will unless it is in our power. Therefore, he also foreknows this power. It follows, then, that his foreknowledge does not take away my power; in fact, it is all the more certain that I will have that power, since he whose foreknowledge never errs foreknows that I will have it.” (Augustine, 77)

God, in His omnipotence, not only knows what we will do, but also knows that we will choose do to it, thus it must be so. Augustine has completely turned Evodius’ concern inside-out in a way; instead of divine foreknowledge preventing free will, Augustine explains how foreknowledge guarantees it. God is all-knowing, and He knows that humans have free will, therefore it must be true, since God cannot be wrong.
         Another possible objection which Augustine does not truly address is brought to light by St. Thomas Aquinas when he states, “Further, he that acts voluntarily can act of himself. But this is not true of man, for it is written (Jo. xv. 5): Without me you can do nothing. Therefore there is nothing voluntary in human acts” (Aquinas, 480) Humans can accomplish nothing that goes against God’s will. So how is it possible that he act according to our own will?
         Aquinas states that since God is the First Mover, it is natural that all movements within our own wills come from Him, for all movements initially come from God (Aquinas, 482). It does not mean that we do not have our own free wills, but simply that God is the source of our free wills, and thus our very ability to make choices stems from Him. Without God, free will would not exist; therefore God is an essential part of free will.
         Another point I myself would make is that although all things move through God, not all things follow Him. God is the Ultimate Good, so if He controlled the will of the human race, all humans would inevitably have wills leaning towards the good. There would be no sin, nor heresy, none who hated or didn’t believe in the existence of God. But it is common knowledge that these things exist. The fact is, we can choose whether or not to follow God’s will, but since God is the source of all good, not following his will is equal to following the path that is not-good, or evil. So by the very fact that evil exists in the world, we can be assured that our wills are free.
         Also, were God to force the human race to love and obey Him, that love and obedience would be meaningless. By choosing to love God, we put forth our own effort, take up time from our own, mortal lives, and give it to Him, not because we must, but because we want to. Take for example, the classic scene every child has gone through at least once in his or her life. The child is upset over perhaps being cut from the school soccer team. The child’s mother tells him or her, “It’s okay sweetie, I think you’re the best soccer player in the world!” and the child responds with, “You have to say that though; you’re my mom!” Love is insincere and worthless when given only out of a sense of forced duty or obligation. That kind of love usually winds up making a person feel worse. Only love given freely, because the person (or omnipotent being) it is given to truly wants to give it to her/him/Him. So God would prefer the human race to be free, so that we could love Him more fully.
         Augustine claims that those who try to refute the existence of free will by saying it is incompatible with divine foreknowledge “are more eager to excuse than confess their sins” (Augustine, 73). He claims they are making excuses for their sinful behavior, because they do not wish to own up to what it is they’ve done. In other words, it is the argument of sinners and lazy people, a rather nasty opinion I don’t entirely agree with. While some people may wish to pass the blame for their sins onto God, there are many who are truly puzzled by this apparent paradox. They assume that knowledge is akin to cause, when knowledge alone does not actively cause events to occur.
         The fact is that God exists in the past, present and the future; time is one entity to God. He knows all that will happen, but He does not directly influence the choices we make, nor does He control our lives like a puppeteer pulling strings. In fact, in Milton’s Paradise Lost, Milton has God send the archangel Raphael down to Adam and Eve in Eden, to warn them about resisting temptation, and obeying God’s commands, lest they have to face dire consequences, rather futilely, since God already knows that they will fall prey to the serpent. By giving them this warning, Milton’s depicted God not only makes it impossible for Adam and Eve to justly blame God for their sins, but also shows that he cares about their impending fall. He will not force them to be pure though, for that would be stripping them of the free will which he gave them, so must instead watch them be tempted and have to punish them for their deeds.  I do not think a human could handle being in such a position. One of us would either jump in and change things or break. God knows all, true, but it is because our God and Creator knows each of His children inside and out, and He knows his universe inside and out. This knowledge does not mean He also takes away our choices, but merely that He knows what we will choose. A meteorologist can predict the weather, but does that mean s/he can also create tornadoes and hurricanes, or even light rain? Knowledge is one thing, and control is an entirely separate thing. One must be careful not to confuse the two, or s/he will needlessly trouble his or her heart.



Bibliography
•          Alighieri, Dante. Paradiso. The Divine Comedy. n.d.
•          Aquinas, Thomas. "Summa Theologica." Introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas. Ed. Anton C. Pegis. New York: Random House, 1948.
•          Augustine. On Free Choice of the Will. Trans. Thomas Williams. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1993.
•          Milton, John. Paradise Lost. n.d.