On First Principles 1 part 1/4

On free will, and the resolution and interpretation of those scriptural sayings which seem to do away with it. — Since the doctrine of God's righteous judgment is contained in the Church's proclamation—a doctrine which, when believed to be true, summons its hearers to live nobly and by every means to flee from sin, inasmuch as they grant that things deserving of praise or blame lie within our own power—come, let us also treat briefly and on its own the question of free will, a problem as necessary as any can be.

But in order that we may understand what free will is, we must first unfold its concept, so that, once this has been accurately clarified, the matter under inquiry may be set forth.

Of things that move, some have within themselves the cause of their motion, while others are moved only from without.

Now only those things are moved from without which are merely carried—such as logs and stones and all matter that is held together by cohesion alone.

Let us for the present set aside from our discussion the calling of the flux of bodies 'motion,' since there is no need of this for the matter before us.

Those things have within themselves the cause of being moved which are animals and plants, and in a word all that is held together by nature and by soul.

Among these, they say, are also metals; and besides these, fire too is self-moving, and perhaps also springs of water.

Of those that have within themselves the cause of being moved, some, they say, are moved 'out of themselves,' others 'from themselves.'

Things without soul are moved out of themselves, but things possessing soul are moved from themselves.

And ensouled things are moved from themselves when an impression arises within that calls forth an impulse.

And again, in certain animals impressions arise that call forth impulse, since an imaginative nature sets the impulse in motion in an ordered way—as in the spider an impression of weaving arises and an impulse follows toward weaving, its imaginative nature in orderly fashion summoning it to this, and the creature being entrusted with nothing further beyond its imaginative nature; and so too in the bee toward the molding of the honeycomb.

The rational animal, however, has reason in addition to its imaginative nature—reason that judges the impressions, rejecting some and admitting others, so that the animal may be guided in accordance with them.

Hence, since in the nature of reason there are starting-points for contemplating the noble and the base, by following which, when we have contemplated the noble and the base, we choose the noble and turn away from the base—we are praiseworthy when we give ourselves to the practice of the noble, but blameworthy in the contrary case.

Yet we must not be unaware that the greater part of the nature ordered toward all things is present in some measure in the animals, in greater or lesser degree.

So that, so to speak, that which is found in tracking hounds and in war horses comes somewhere near to the rational.

Now that some external thing should befall us, stirring in us this or that impression, is admittedly not within our power.

But to judge how to use what has occurred, in this way or in another, is the work of nothing else than the reason within us—which either, in keeping with the starting-points, moves us toward the impulses that summon us to the noble and the fitting, or turns us toward the contrary.

But if someone should say that the external thing itself is of such a kind that it is impossible to resist it when it has become such, let him attend to his own passions and movements, [and observe] whether there does not arise an approval, an assent, and an inclination of the ruling part toward this particular thing on account of such persuasions.

For the woman who appears before a man who has resolved to be continent and to keep himself from intercourse, and entices him to do something contrary to his purpose, does not, to say the least, become the self-sufficient cause of his setting aside his purpose.

For having entirely yielded to the titillation and the smoothness of pleasure, not having willed to resist it nor to ratify what he had decided, he commits the licentious act.

...for one who has taken up such teachings and practiced them.

The titillations and the irritations do arise; but reason, inasmuch as it has been the more strengthened and nourished by practice and made firm in its convictions toward the noble—or at least has come near to being made firm—beats back the irritations and slackens the desire.

But for us, when things come about in us in this way, to lay the blame on externals and to absolve ourselves of the charge, declaring ourselves to be like logs and stones that are dragged by the things that move them from without—this is neither true nor fair-minded; rather, such an argument belongs to one who wishes to counterfeit the very concept of free will.

For if we were to ask such a person what free will is, he would say that it is this: 'If, when I had set before myself some particular purpose, nothing external met me to summon me to the contrary...'

Again, on the other hand, to blame bare constitution is contrary to plain fact, seeing that instructive reasoning takes in hand even the most intemperate and the most savage, and—if they would follow the exhortation—transforms them.

So that the exhortation and the change for the better come to pass to a very great degree, the most licentious often becoming better than those who by nature did not seem before to be of such a sort, and the most savage changing to such gentleness that those who were never so savage seem savage by comparison with the one who has been transformed to gentleness.

And we see others, who were most stable and most dignified, by perversion driven from their dignity and stability to worse pursuits, so that they change into licentiousness—often beginning their licentiousness in middle age and falling into disorder after the instability that belongs to youth by nature has passed.

Therefore reason shows that externals are not within our power, but that to use them in this way or the contrary—reason being taken as judge and examiner of how one must meet such-and-such external things—is our own work.

And that to live nobly is our own work, and that God requires this of us as something not His own doing, nor coming from any other source, nor, as some suppose, from fate, but as our own work—the prophet Micah will testify, saying:

'It has been declared to you, O man, what is good; or what does the Lord seek from you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to be ready to walk with the Lord your God?' And Moses:

'I have set before your face the way of life and the way of death;

choose the good and walk in it.' And Isaiah:

'If you are willing and obey Me, you shall eat the good things of the land;

but if you are not willing and do not obey Me, the sword shall devour you;

for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things.' And in the Psalms:

'If My people had listened to Me, if Israel had walked in My ways, I would have humbled their enemies to nothing, and laid My hand upon those who afflict them'—since it lies with the people to listen and to walk in the ways of God.

And the Savior too, saying, 'But I say to you, do not resist the evil one,' and 'Whoever is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment,' and 'Whoever looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart,' and whatever other commandment He gives, speaks as though it lay with us to keep what is enjoined, and as though we should rightly be liable to judgment if we transgressed them.

Whence also He says: 'Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does them shall be likened to a wise man who built his house upon the rock,' and so forth; 'but he who hears and does not do them is like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand,' and so forth.

And saying to those on the right hand:

'Come to Me, you blessed of My Father,' and so forth, 'for I was hungry and you gave Me to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me to drink'—very plainly He gives the promises to them as being causes of being praised; and conversely to the others, as being blameworthy in their own persons, He says, 'Depart, you cursed, into the eternal fire.'

He speaks to us as having free will, and as being ourselves the causes of our own destruction or salvation.

Or, He says, 'Do you despise the riches of His kindness and forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But according to your hardness and impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation and of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each according to his works:'

to those who by patience in good work seek for glory and honor and incorruption, eternal life; but to those who out of selfish ambition disobey the truth and obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation, affliction and distress upon every soul of man who works evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek;

but glory and honor and peace to everyone who works good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.'

Now there are countless passages in the Scriptures which most plainly establish free will.

But since to the contrary—that is, to the view that it does not lie within our power to keep the commandments and be saved, or to transgress them and perish—certain sayings from the Old and the New Testaments draw [the mind aside], come, let us in part set forth some of these too and examine their resolutions, so that from those we set down anyone who has gathered for himself, on the same principle, all that seems to do away with free will may consider the matters touching their resolution.

And indeed the matter concerning Pharaoh has troubled many, concerning whom God says in His oracle:

'But I will harden Pharaoh's heart again and again.'

For if he is hardened by God, and because of being hardened he sins, then he is not himself the cause of his own sin;

and if this is so, then Pharaoh is not possessed of free will.

And someone will say that, on the same principle, those who perish do not perish of their own free will nor through themselves.

And the saying in Ezekiel, 'I will take away their hearts of stone and put in hearts of flesh, that they may walk in My ordinances and keep My statutes,' might move someone [to think] that God gives the power to walk in the commandments and keep the statutes by having removed the obstacle, the heart of stone, and having put in the better thing, the heart of flesh.

Let us look also at the passage from the Gospel: what the Savior answers to those who asked why He speaks to the many in parables:

'That,' He says, 'seeing they may not see, and hearing they may hear and not understand;

lest they should turn again, and it be forgiven them.'

And further, in Paul, the saying 'So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy'; and in other places:

'and both to will and to work is from God'; and in others:

'So then He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.

Why then does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?' [And: the persuasion is from Him who calls and not from us.] 'Indeed, O man, who are you, you who answer back to God?' [And again:] 'Will the thing molded say to the one who molded it,

Why have you made me thus? Or has the potter no authority over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?' For these things in themselves are sufficient to throw the many into confusion, as though man were not possessed of free will, but rather God saved and destroyed whomever He willed.

Let us begin, then, from what was said concerning Pharaoh, as being hardened by God so that he would not send away the people;

with which the apostolic saying will be examined together at the same time:

'So then He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.'

And since certain of the heterodox use these texts—they too virtually doing away with free will, because they introduce natures that perish, incapable of being saved, and others that are saved, incapable of perishing—and they say that Pharaoh, being of a perishing nature, is for this reason hardened by God, who has mercy on the spiritual but hardens the earthy, come, let us see what in the world they say.

For we shall inquire of them whether Pharaoh was of an earthy nature.

And to them, when they answer, we shall say that one of the earthy nature is in every case disobedient to God;

since it was possible for him to obey, and he would certainly have obeyed—inasmuch as he was not earthy—being awed by the wonders and signs; but God has need of him, for the sake of displaying His mighty acts unto the salvation of the many, while he disobeys all the more; for this reason He hardens his heart.

These things will be said to them first, to overturn what they suppose—that Pharaoh was of a perishing nature.

And the same thing must be said to them concerning what is said by the Apostle.

For whom does God harden? Those who perish? As though to suffer what, if they had not been hardened? Or clearly those who shall be saved, because they are not of a perishing nature? And on whom does He have mercy? Surely those who shall be saved? And how do they need a second mercy, having once been fashioned to be saved and being in every case blessed because of their nature? Unless indeed, since they are liable to destruction if they are not pitied, they are pitied, so that they may not receive what they are liable to—namely, destruction—but may come to be in the place of those who are saved.

And these things, then, are addressed to those people.

But against those who think they have understood the word 'He hardened,' we must raise a difficulty: why, then, do they say that God by His own activity hardens a heart, and with what aim He does this?

For let them preserve also a conception of God as, on the sound view, righteous and good; but if they are unwilling, let it be conceded to them for the present, as righteous;

and let them show how the good and righteous, or the merely righteous, is seen righteously to harden the heart of one who perishes on account of being hardened, and how the righteous one becomes the cause of the destruction and disobedience of those who are punished by Him because of being hardened and disobeying Him.

And why does He even find fault with him, saying:

'But you will not send away My people'?

'Behold, I will strike all the firstborn in Egypt, and your firstborn,' and whatever else is recorded as said by God through Moses to Pharaoh? For it is necessary that one who believes the Scriptures to be true and that God is righteous, if he is fair-minded, should struggle to understand how in such words God is clearly conceived as righteous.

For if anyone, having enrolled himself, stood bare-headed [openly] to maintain that the Creator is evil, other arguments would be needed toward him.

But since they say they are disposed concerning Him as concerning a righteous one, and we as concerning one who is at once good and righteous, let us consider how the good and righteous one could harden the heart of Pharaoh.

See, then, whether by means of an example which the Apostle used in the Epistle to the Hebrews we can show how by one and the same activity God has mercy on one and hardens another—not purposing to harden, but, by a kindly purpose upon which there follows, because of the underlying substratum of evil, the hardening that comes from the evil within those people themselves, being said to harden the one who is hardened.

'For land,' he says, 'which has drunk the rain that often comes upon it, and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whom it is also tilled, partakes of blessing from God;

but bearing thorns and briers, it is worthless and near to a curse, whose end is to be burned.'

Therefore the activity with respect to the rain is one;

but the activity with respect to the rain being one, the land that has been tilled bears fruit, while the land that has been neglected and lies waste bears thorns.

And it might seem ill-omened to say that the one who sends the rain says:

'I made the fruits and the thorns that are in the land'; but even if it is ill-omened, yet it is true.

For had no rain come, neither fruits nor thorns would have come into being; but when it has flowed down at the right time and in measure, both have come to be.

At any rate, the land that has drunk the rain often coming upon it, when it brings forth thorns and briers, is worthless and near to a curse.

Therefore the good of the rain came even upon the inferior land, but the substratum, being neglected and untilled, sprouted thorns and briers.

So then, in this way too, the wonders wrought by God are as it were rain;

according to the underlying substratum, by one and the same heat the wax is melted but the clay is dried up.

Thus the one activity wrought through Moses exposed the hardness of Pharaoh because of his wickedness, but [wrought] the persuasion of the mixed multitude of Egyptians who set out together with the Hebrews.

And the fact that it is recorded that the heart of Pharaoh was as it were softened little by little—when he says:

'But you shall not go far off, for you shall go a three days' journey,' and 'leave your wives behind,' and whatever other little concessions he made toward the wonders—shows that the signs did indeed work something even upon him, yet did not accomplish the whole.

Nor would even these things have come about, if what is understood by the many—'I will harden Pharaoh's heart'—had been wrought by Him, that is, by God.

And it is not absurd to console ourselves over such things from common usage as well, since kindly masters often say to servants who have been spoiled by their kindness and long-suffering:

'It was I who made you wicked,' and,

'I have become to you the cause of such great misdeeds.'

For one must attend to the character and the force of what is said, and not slander those who do not catch the intent of the saying.

At any rate Paul, having clearly examined these things, says to the sinner:

'Or do you despise the riches of His kindness and forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But according to your hardness and impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and of revelation and of the righteous judgment of God.'

For what the Apostle says to the sinner, let it be said to Pharaoh; and these things, when reported to him, would be understood quite fittingly—since by his hardness and impenitent heart he was treasuring up for himself wrath, his hardness not having been thus exposed nor made manifest, had the signs not come to pass, or had they come to pass but not so many and so great.

But since such expositions are thought to be hard to accept and forced, let us see, from a prophetic saying too, what those say who, having had experience of God's great kindness, [...did not] live nobly, but afterwards sinned:

'Why, O Lord, have You made us wander from Your way? Why have You hardened our heart, that we should not fear Your name? Return, for Your servants' sake, for the sake of the tribes of Your inheritance, that we may inherit a little of Your holy mountain.'

'You deceived me, O Lord, and I was deceived; You were stronger and prevailed.'

For the words 'Why have You hardened our heart, that we should not fear Your name?'—being spoken by those who entreat to be pitied, spoken as a matter of character (rhetorically)—mean something of this sort:

'Why did You spare us so much, not visiting us upon our sins, but leaving us until our offenses came to such magnitude?' For He leaves the greater number unpunished, both so that the character of each may be examined from what lies within our power, and so that the better may become manifest through the testing that comes to pass, while the rest, not having escaped notice—not of God (for He knows all things before their coming into being), but of the rational beings and of their own selves—may afterwards obtain a way of healing; for they would never have come to know the benefaction, had they not condemned themselves.

Which is profitable for each, that he may perceive his own peculiar condition and the grace of God.

But he who does not perceive his own weakness and the divine grace, even if he is benefited, not having had experience of himself nor having condemned himself, will think that what was supplied to him from the heavenly grace is his own manly achievement.

And this, having produced conceit and being puffed up, will be a cause of downfall;

which we think happened also in the case of the devil, who attributed to himself the advantages he had when he was blameless.

For everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, just as everyone who humbles himself shall be exalted.

And consider that for this reason the divine things have been hidden from the wise and prudent, in order that, as the Apostle says, no flesh might boast before God;

[so as to show] to how great a height of blessedness they have come because of the unspeakable benefaction.

Therefore he who is forsaken is forsaken by a divine judgment, and God is long-suffering toward some of those who sin, not without reason, but as it will profit them, with a view to the immortality of the soul and the boundless age, that they should not be helped quickly toward salvation, but be brought to it more slowly, after having had experience of many evils.

For just as physicians too, though able to heal more quickly, when they suspect that there is a hidden poison about the body, work the contrary to healing, doing this for the sake of wishing to heal more safely, judging it much better to keep someone for a long time in inflammation and sickness, for the sake of his recovering health more securely, than to seem to strengthen him more quickly but afterwards to relapse, the swifter cure proving but temporary;

in the same way God also, knowing the secret things of the heart and foreknowing things to come, by His long-suffering permits—and perhaps by drawing out, through outward circumstances, the hidden evil—in order to cleanse the one who through negligence has admitted the seeds of sin, so that, when these have come to the surface and one has vomited them out, even if he has been longer in evils, he may afterwards, having obtained purification, be able to be re-established after the evil.

For God administers souls not with a view to, so to speak, the fifty years of this present life, but with a view to the unending age;

for He has made the intellectual nature incorruptible and akin to Himself, and the rational soul is not shut out from healing as it is in the case of this present life.

But come, let us use such an image from the Gospel too.

There is a certain rock having little and shallow soil, into which if the seeds fall they spring up quickly, but having sprung up, since they have no root, when the sun has risen they are scorched and withered.

And this rock is the human soul, hardened through negligence and turned to stone through wickedness;

for a heart of stone has been created by God in no one, but it becomes such from wickedness.

Just as, therefore, if someone should blame the farmer for not having sooner cast the seeds upon the rocky ground, seeing some other rocky ground...

so also the great Husbandman of all nature defers the benefaction that would have been thought too quick, lest it become shallow.

But it is likely that someone will object to us against these things:

'Why does any of the seeds fall upon the soul that has soil only on the surface, being as it were a rock?' And to this too it must be said that it is better for one who has too rashly willed the better things, and has not journeyed toward them by the right road, to attain what she willed, so that, having condemned herself in this matter, she may patiently wait afterwards to receive, over a long time, the natural husbandry.

For our souls are, as one might say, infinite, and infinite are their characters, and most numerous are their movements and purposes and undertakings and impulses;

of which there is one sole and best Steward, who knows both the seasons and the fitting helps and the modes of training and the ways—the God and Father of all, who knows how He leads even Pharaoh through such-and-such things and through being drowned in the sea;

in which drowning the administration of Pharaoh does not come to an end; for it was not the case that, because he was drowned, he was thereby dissolved [annihilated];

for in the hand of God are both we and our words, and all prudence and skill in works.

And these things, then, have been said with moderation by way of defense concerning the hardening of Pharaoh's heart and concerning the saying:

'Whom He wills He has mercy on, and whom He wills He hardens.'

Now let us look also at the passage from Ezekiel, who says:

'I will take away the hearts of stone from them and put in hearts of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances.'

...[that He] takes away the hearts of stone and puts in hearts of flesh, so that His ordinances may be kept and His commandments observed—it is not within our power to put off wickedness.

For to have the hearts of stone removed is nothing else than to have the wickedness, according to which one is hardened, taken away from him by God when He wills;

and for a heart of flesh to come into being, that one may walk in the statutes of God and keep His commandments, what else is it than to become yielding and not stubbornly resistant to the truth, and to be a doer of the virtues? But if God promises to do these things, and we do not put off our hearts of stone before He removes them, it is clear that it does not lie within our power to put off wickedness;

and if it is not we who do anything in order that the heart of flesh may come into being in us, but it is God's work, then living virtuously will not be our work but altogether divine grace.

These things, then, will be said by the one who does away with what lies within our power on the basis of the bare words.

But we shall answer, saying that one must understand these things in this way: just as the man who is in ignorance and lack of instruction, on perceiving his own evils—whether from the exhortation of a teacher or otherwise of himself—gives himself over to one whom he thinks able to lead him by the hand to instruction and virtue; and when this man gives himself over, the instructor promises to take away the lack of instruction and to put in instruction—not as though nothing came from the one who presented himself to be healed toward being instructed and fleeing ignorance, but as promising to better the one who is willing;

in the same way the divine word promises to take away the wickedness of those who come to it—which it called a heart of stone—not when those people are unwilling, but when they have presented themselves to the physician of the sick;

as in the Gospels the sick are found coming to the Savior and asking to obtain healing, and being healed.

And, for example, the recovery of sight by the blind is, on the one hand, their own work, in that they believed they were able to be healed of their afflictions and asked for it; but on the other hand, the restoration of sight is the work of our Savior.

Thus, then, the word of God promises to implant knowledge in those who come to it, having taken away the stony and hard heart—which is wickedness—so that one may walk in the divine commandments and keep the divine statutes.

After these there was the passage from the Gospel, when the Savior said that for this reason He spoke to those outside in parables, that 'seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand;

lest they should turn again, and it be forgiven them.'

If certain people, upon hearing the clearer teachings, in every case turn—and turn in such a way as to become worthy of forgiveness of sins—yet it does not lie with them to hear the clearer words, but with the teacher, and for this reason He does not declare to them more plainly, lest they should see and understand, then it does not lie with them to be saved;

and if this is so, we are not possessed of free will with respect to salvation and destruction.