The Church Fathers constantly use the term “free will,” but thankfully, they often what they mean by it. In particular, Augustine calls the will a slave. In another passage, he is offended by those who deny free will. But he explains the reason for his offense, “Some who deny freedom of will use it as an excuse for sin.” He admits in other writing the people do not have free will without the Holy Spirit. Apart from the Spirit, the will is masted by lust. He also says that human nature desired freedom precisely at the moment that the will was enslaved by its own rebellion. Again, he argues that humanity made a bad use of free will and lost both itself and its free will. Again, he says that because the human will was made a captive, it cannot do anything righteously. Furthermore, he explains that a will can be made free only by God’s grace. He claims that people can fulfill God’s righteousness not through their own efforts but when the Spirit assists them and their will obeys. He grounds all of his observations in the fact that man receive a great deal of free will when he was created but lost it by sinning. In another place, after showing that free will is estbalished by God’s grace, Augustine strongly argues against those who try to claim that they can do any good without grace. His words are, “No matter how confidently miserable human beings can boast about free will, they are not free until God sets them free. Some, after they have been made free, may even wrongly claim they made themselves free. If they are truly “free,” it’s only because they have been set free, not that they possessed it in themselves. In fact, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:17). If these people are servants of sin, then, why do they brag about having free will? The person who has been defeated by someone is the slave of the person who beat htem. If people have been made free, why do they brag about it as if they did themselves? Are they so free that they are unwilling to be the servants of Christ, who has said, ‘Apart from me, you can do nothing ‘ (John 15:5)?”

In another passage, Augustine even seems to ridicule the term “free will” when he say, “The will is certainly free, but not freed. It is free from righteousness and enslaved to sin!” He repeats the same idea elsewhere when he says, “People cannot perform righteousness due to the choice of their will. They are not made free from sin except by the grace of the Savior.” Augustine ironically points out that the “freedom” people have apart from God is being free from God’s righteousness. Therefore, there seems to be an emptiness in the term “free will.” If Christians, then, want to use the term “free will,” I won’t badger them about it. But they should use it very carefully. In fact, I think getting rid of the term would be really good for the Church. I am unwilling to the term myself, and I hope that others will take my advice.

In another passage he even seems to ridicule the word, when he says,¹⁵⁶ “That the will is indeed free, but not freed—free of righteousness, but enslaved to sin.” The same idea he elsewhere repeats and explains, when he says, “That man is not free from righteousness save by the choice of his will, and is not made free from sin save by the grace of the Saviour.” Declaring that the freedom of man is nothing else than emancipation or manumission from righteousness, he seems to jest at the emptiness of the name. If any one, then, chooses to make use of this term, without attaching any bad meaning to it, he shall not be troubled by me on that account; but as it cannot be retained without very great danger, I think the abolition of it would be of great advantage to the Church. I am unwilling to use it myself; and others if they will take my advice, will do well to abstain from it.

“Blogging the Institutes” is my on-going attempt to paraphrase John Calvin’s work, the Institutes of the Christian Religion. You can find out more about the series in the Introduction. For all the posts in this series, check out the Master List.