III.

Theological Views

Free will is important in theology. One of the basic tenets of traditional Christian theology is that God is omniscient and omnipotent, and that every human action is foreordained by God. The doctrine of predestination, the theological counterpart of determinism, seemingly precludes the existence of free will. Because morality, duty, and the avoidance of sin are also basic elements in Christian teaching, how, it is asked, can people be morally responsible once predestination is accepted? Many attempts have been made by theologians to explain this paradox. Saint Augustine, the great Father and Doctor of the Church, firmly believed in predestination, holding that only those elected by God would attain salvation; no one, however, knows who is among the elect, and therefore all should lead God-fearing, religious lives. Freedom, for him, was the gift of divine grace. This doctrine was opposed by the British monk Pelagius (see Pelagianism) and particularly by his followers, who maintained that Adam's sin concerned only Adam and not the whole human race, and that everyone, although helped by divine grace to attain salvation, has complete freedom of will to choose or reject the way to God. Eventually, Roman Catholic theologians stated the doctrine of prevenient grace to explain free will; according to this doctrine, God bestows on individuals the grace to will themselves into a state of grace.

During the Reformation, the question of free will became a religious battleground. Many Protestant sects, notably the Calvinists, emphasized the Augustinian doctrine of predestination and the complete exclusion of free will (see John Calvin). Calvinistic predestination was considered a paramount heresy by the Roman Catholic church; and the Council of Trent in the 16th century condemned all who denied free will. Still the problem was not resolved. The French Roman Catholic prelate Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet offered yet another approach, which became widely held; he stated that free will and divine foreknowledge are certain truths that must be accepted even though they are not logically connected.