What is Free-Will?
What does it mean for the will to be free? Or, prior, what is the will? Let us be clear, will (thélēsis) is defined as the rational & vital appetite attached only to that which is natural. Rational, here, meaning not “always in agreement with rationality,” but that will is proper only to things with reason. So it’d be absurd to speak of will in mindless beasts or dead rocks. Vital, in order, meaning, again, proper to that which is living in the common sense, i.e. sentient. So again it’d be absurd to predicate a will of insentient plants. By appetite is meant moving towards a desire, i.e. the motion is purposed by the mover. Now some might say since will is defined as rational, babies do not have will since they have not yet grown the mental organs. This would be a confusion of the faculty of reason (diánœa) in relation to the senses—which functions through the middle ventricle of the brain, which in babies seems too unformed to function properly—and the mind (nûs), which is that exact thing required for the will. If the function, and thefore existence, of the mind was contigent with the formation of the middle ventricle, as is the case for the rationalization of sensation, then the human soul would cease to exist after the destruction of the body, like an animal’s. But this is clearly not the case, as the Saints live, as do the damned, without their bodies, as Solomon confirms:
But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them. In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die: & their departure is taken for misery, and their going from us to be utter destruction: but they are in peace.
- Wisdom 2:1-3
And, besides this, it’d be unimaginable that the Lord would let His own image, which He Himself crafts anew for every man coming into the world—for each man is born with a soul as new as Adam’s when he was made—to be destroyed. As He commands to Moses:
And ye shall abolish their name out of that place. Ye shall not do so to the Lord your God.
- Deuteronomy 12:3-4
So then it is abudently evident babies, even unborn, from the very moment of their conception, have a mind. Since a participant in a nature has all things proper to that nature, even if, according to generation, he hasn’t yet grown the means of facilitating all the operations of the nature—as a calf butts before it has horns, or a colt kicks before its hooves have hardened, or a puppy attempts to bite with tender teeth—from the moment a man comes into existence, i.e. is conceived & begins to be formed in the womb, he must have all the powers naturally belonging to that nature.
Having then thoroughly explained the will, let us move onto how freedom is predicated of it. What is it free from? Determination, i.e. it is self-determined. If it were determined by anything else to any extent—and again I stress determined, not influenced, since when an influence engenders a feeling or thought in the soul, it is up to the soul to either accept or reject it—it would not be self-determined any more. So if the influence of reason, or the lack thereof, at all determined the will, then the principle of that reason would, by indirection, have determined the will. In other words, since all rationality is from the Logos, i.e. from the uncreated logic, and it is by His will that creatures participate in it according to the natural capacity He created them with, He would, by His own will, indirectly determine the will of creatures, since their will would be determined by apparant reason, either be giving or witholding apparant reason from them. Since He is the only Good, and beneficially shares with all, no creature could ever will evil, because each would, according to their portion, will solely what is rationally consistent, and so an evil will would only be possible if they were maliciously deprived of the apparant reason which is natural to them. But yet, man is fallen, we all, I think, are aware of our evil willing, and so it must be that our will is free, since the Logos cannot be but good.
Even though this is religiously charged, I wouldn’t say my posts here like this are neccesarily religious. Even an atheist believes the world has logical order (even if he denies the personal existence of the Logos it’s modeled after), and so he too is bound by it to affirm free-will, even if he canot explain how it is granted such freedom. I’ve seen some people interested in quantum mechanics try to argue the will cannot be free because of causality, but this again would make it impossible to will evil.
On Evil-Will
What is evil willing, and how can we know if we’re willing evily or goodly? Evil willing is a motion of the will away from the Good, i.e. the privation of good willing. Discriminating between good & evil, in general, requires humility. The Good has not left us ignorant of Itself and readily & openly reveals Itself. If we were to speak exactly, we’d point to the incarnate Person of the Lord as this revelation, but we can speak less exactly to reason & the world, since they’re a veil for the Good. Even an ardent atheist agrees, logically, that specific beings are constituted of certain properties which, then, by definition have proper to them some things, and improper other things. Those things proper are called natural, since they are accordant with the nature, and those improper, unnatural, since they are discordant with it. Now if nature is good (as created by the Good), then that which is good is natural, and evil, unnatural. In my opinion, the atheist is left in a paradox here since his only notion of nature is fallen, leading to a seeming contradiction where death, which is clearly unnatural, is somehow “natural.” At any rate, an action, since we’re talking about will, is never considered by itself but with its origin & end in mind. So one way to discriminate good from evil actions is by examining the principle & purpose of it. What is the principle or purpose of licentiousness? Pride, and insubmission to natural order & good law. As humility is natural, as well as obedience & righteousness, it is clear the privations of these are unnatural & therefore immoral, and so lead to death.
Now, having mentioned the most unnatural thing—death—I should say it, with other such weaknesses, do not make the person suffering from them evil, since no one naturally wills to die. What then of the Godman’s passion? Remember every action is considered with beginning & end in mind. Everything the Lord willed to suffer—nakedness, thirst, hunger, grief, death—had as its reason the nullification of those things. By becoming naked, He at once clothes us in His own brilliance. By thirsting & hungering, He at once gives us His own refreshment & fulfillment. By being grieved, He at once shares with us His joy. By dying, He at once raises us to His own life. And notice how, for all of these, He demonstrates that as a man He does not deviate from what is natural, He expresses a natural willing away from death before the Cross. He accepts it, of course, as explained. So when the Saints, unable to avoid death, boldly approach martyrdom, it is not out of a will which hates life, but rather loves true life more than our fallen life. When the monks fast, it is not out of hatred for fulfillment but again rather love of spiritual fulfillment. But one can easily delude himself into thinking he does something which would be virtuous if done with the right will, when he does it out of pride, and so makes the act evil for him. An example is Cain. Sacrifice to the Lord is good, but he did so with a envious heart & so robbed himself of the virtue.
I say this is inexact because we should knowingly or faithfully will synergetically with the Good. We should will to live & act towards, and in, living out of love for the Living. However, it is not totally evil to will to do so unaware. What I mean is, let us take Plato as an example. He was relatively ignorant of the Good’s self-revelation in Judæa. I say relatively because clearly he had at least read or heard some account of Moses, but still worshipped Apollo & Dionysus. He didn’t practice the true faith. Nonetheless, his will was mostly towards the Good, and every thing he did was either rightly or mistakenly in pursuit of It. Clearly he was mistaken to give Its honor to Apollo, but right in describing It as a noëtic Sun. So when he died & later the Good descended to hell, Plato was among the first to repent of his errors & be saved by Him.