Augustinian Studies 38:1 (2007) 219–231

Augustine’s Notion of Freedom:

Deterministic, Libertarian, or Compatibilistic?

Johannes Brachtendorf
Tübingen

1. Introduction
Augustine’s notion of freedom has few supporters among modern scholars.
One of them, however, is Albrecht Dihle, who in his book “The Theory of Will in
Classical Antiquity” praises Augustine as the “inventor of the modern concept of
will.”1 For Dihle, Augustine was the first to assert the independence of the will from
the intellect. Contrary to the so called “Socratic intellectualism” found in Platos
Protagoras,2 Augustine does not conceive of the will as a subordinate faculty,
but as a power that can freely decide whether to follow reason or not. For Dihle,
Augustine transcended the limits of ancient philosophy and invented the idea of
freedom of the will.
John Rist, however, thinks that Augustine makes humans no more than mari-
onettes of God. For Augustine’s teaching of grace, at least in its developed version,
states that humans are not free to turn their will to the good, but can be converted
by God alone. Of their own accord, Augustine claims, humans cannot do anything
good; without God’s help they sin necessarily. But if God imparts his grace on an
individual, then he unfailingly and irresistibly effectuates a conversion of the will
towards the good. According to John Rist, Augustine’s teaching of grace makes the
will decidedly unfree.3 Gerard O’Daly, in turn, ultimately concludes that Augustine’s
1. Dihle (1982), 162.
2. Cf. Protagoras, 351b ff.
3. Cf. Rist (1969).

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concept of freedom is incoherent and unintelligible: “Augustine’s notion of freedom

of the will seems impossible: it remains a glorious and influential failure.”4 Elenore
Stump rejects this concept of freedom as well, because Augustine, as she reads him,
cannot secure the agent’s responsibility for his deeds.5
Remarkably, Augustine himself maintains the idea of free will and of responsibil-
ity throughout his work, not only in his early writings. Even in his late anti-pelagian
treatises, he decidedly rejects any objections that insist his teaching on grace an-
nihilates the freedom of the will. On the contrary, Augustine claims: Grace does
not destroy freedom, but establishes it. Only through grace can freedom be saved.
Without grace, Augustine maintains, freedom is impossible.6
Naturally I cannot resolve this controversy, nor can I explain Augustine’s notion
of freedom in such a way that it becomes easily acceptable. I do hope, however, to
make his reasoning more intelligible through an experiment. In order to elucidate
Augustine’s notion of freedom I will apply a distinction commonly used in contem-
porary philosophy, namely the distinction between a libertarian and a compatibilistic
concept of freedom.
Contemporary philosophers7 intent on maintaining human freedom essentially
have two alternative and rivaling positions to choose from: Libertarianism and
compatibilism. Libertarianism rests on the common sense idea that freedom and
determinism mutually exclude each other. There can be freedom only if not all events
in the world come about by necessity. Some events must be undetermined in the
sense that it depends only on a human’s decision whether or not they become real.
For libertarianism the criterion of freedom is what is called the alternativity of an
action or of a decision. According to this criterion, an action or a decision was free,
if the agent could have acted or decided otherwise—or, if it was up to him to act or
decide this way rather than that way. Libertarians understand freedom as freedom of
choice between two equally possible alternatives. This choice is made from a neutral
standpoint, which is why freedom of choice is also called freedom of indifference.
Compatibilism, on the contrary, is based on the somewhat surprising idea that
freedom and determinism do not exclude each other, but are mutually compatible.
In this view, freedom does not imply indeterminism, but one and the same action or
decision can at the same time be determined and free. Compatibilism distinguishes
two planes in human willing, a lower plane of particular strivings for concrete goals,
and a higher plane of evaluative judgement about these strivings. Harry Frankfurt,
4. O’Daly (2001), X 97.
5. Cf. Stump (2001).
6. Cf. corrept. 8,17; spir. et. litt. 52.
7. Cf. Watson (1995) and (2003); Kane (2002).

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so to speak the founding father of modern compatibilism, distinguishes “first order

desires” (the lower plane of willing) from “second order volitions” (the higher plane
of evaluation).8 In his seminal article “Freedom and the concept of a person,” he
maintains that the existence of “second order volitions” characterizes a person as
opposed to an animal. Humans do not just follow their “first order desires,” as a dog
might do, which following its instincts snaps for a piece of sausage held in front of
him. (Humans in a butcher’s store behave differently, even if they are hungry and
thus have the same “first order desires” as the dog.) They are capable of evaluating
their “first order desires,” and of deciding whether or not such a desire should lead
to an action. Such decisions are made in the light of “second order volitions,” i.e.,
convictions about what is right and wrong, such as the conviction that it is just to
pay for the sausage before you eat it up. Compatibilists hold that freedom entails
the accordance of both planes of willing. A human is free, if his actions follow those
first order desires that he has approved according to his second order volitions. A
person is accordingly unfree if he follows strivings that he does not want to have
and perceives as alien to himself, as might happen in cases of addiction or hypnoti-
zation. From a compatibilistic perspective, freedom connotes the conformity of the
will with itself.
Compatibilism is open to determinism, because in its view freedom is nothing
more than accordance of the first order desires with the second order volitions.
In particular, it does not require that a person has freely chosen her second order
volitions, or that a person is able simply to change her set of values and attitudes
for a new one. Compatibilism allows for a determination of these volitions by a
person’s social background, by education or other psychological factors. Accord-
ingly, a human being is to be considered free, if its actions follow those strivings
that it has positively evaluated, even if it is determined to have precisely these
standards of evaluation, and no others. Thus, an agent is responsible for an action
and culpable, if it has approved in light of its second order volitions the first order
desires that led to the action.
Compatibilists hold that alternativity, i.e., the ability to do otherwise, is not a
criterion of freedom, if this is meant to include the ability to have other second
order volitions than one really has. Libertarians, however, find this stance provoca-
tive. They maintain that a responsible and culpable agent must posses the ability to
freely choose even its second order volitions. Compatibilists typically answer this
objection by pointing out that libertarianism compels the notion of an absolutely
free subject that is purely neutral in regard to the first fundamental choice it has to
make, and that such neutrality is fictitious and never exists in human life.
8. Cf. Frankfurt (1971).

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In the following I will distinguish several elements of Augustine’s teaching

on freedom, namely the liberum arbitrium, the division of the will, the freedom
to convert the will, and the liberation of freedom. I subsequently will investigate
whether these elements are conceived of in a libertarian or in a compatibilistic
way. I will argue that in his intellectual development Augustine increasingly
interprets freedom as conformity of the will with itself and thus leans more and
more toward the compatibilistic notion of freedom without giving up completely,
however, on libertarianism.9

2. Free Will and liberum arbitrium

Freedom of action first of all means the absence of external hindrances which
could prevent the execution of one’s intentions. Whoever is not prevented from real-
izing his wishes possesses freedom of action. Whoever is incapable of realizing his
intentions—as for instance, if one wants to take a walk but cannot because one is
imprisoned, or if one would like to take a trip but cannot because one does not have
the money to pay for it—this person does not possess freedom of action. In this sense,
freedom entails being able to do or refrain from doing that which one wills.
Obviously, this concept of freedom needs deepening, for immediately follow-
ing this definition is the further-reaching question: who actually determines “what
one wills?” From where do the wishes and intentions arise that we either can
realize or not? Are they simply given to us or are we ourselves also responsible
for our intentions?
Augustine emphatically advocates that the will principally possesses the power
over its willing. And precisely therein lies the will’s freedom. Thus, in De libero
arbitrio III, he writes, “Now if it is impossible for us not to will when we are will-
ing, then the will is present to those who will; and if something is present when
we will it, then it is in our power. And since it is in our power, we are free with
respect to it. But we are not free with respect to anything that we do not have in
our power.”10 The will is free, according to Augustine, because it has power over
its strivings. Augustine clearly holds a two plane theory of willing as presupposed
by compatibilism. Willing includes first of all the striving for a concrete goal, and
secondly the power to evaluate and direct these strivings.
Augustine thus endeavors to distinguish terminologically between the concrete
intentions (i.e., that which one wills), on the one hand, and the will that confirms
9. Stump (2001) has tried to give a libertarian interpretation of Augustine’s doctrine, but this turns
out to be possible only for De libero arbitrio, not for the later works. In the following I will apply
an opposite reading that identifies the compatibilistic elements in Augustine’s thought.
10. Lib. arb. 3,3 (trans. Williams).

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these intentions, on the other hand. In Confessiones VIII11 he calls the former
voluntates (in the plural, which accordingly can be translated as “strivings, or
inclinations”)12 and the latter voluntas (therefore simply “will” in the singular).
Furthermore, he designates the voluntas (in singular) as the liberum arbitrium
voluntatis because the liberum arbitrium decides over the voluntates.
If we will, then we ultimately will through the liberum arbitrium because, for
Augustine, the voluntates are always bound to a will that determines them. It belongs
to the essence of a striving of the will not only that it wills something, but also that
it is willed, which is to say, is approved by a superior will. One can see clearly
therefore the way in which Augustine deepens the problematic of freedom. While
the freedom of action concerns merely the relation between the strivings of our
will and reality, Augustine takes into account the internal relation of the will—the
relation between strivings and the liberum arbitrium. He thus extends the traditional
single-plane theory to a two-plane theory of the will.

3. The Divided Will

If Augustine holds that the liberum arbitrium voluntatis has power over the striv-
ings of the will, how can his description of the divided will in Confessiones VIII be
understood? Does he not say that his evil strivings became autonomous so to speak,
and uncontrollable by his liberum arbitrium? And how can his two plane theory of the
will be harmonized with the words of the Apostle so important to Augustine: “I do not
understand what I do; for I don’t do what I would like to do, but instead I do what I hate.
. . . I am not really the one who does this thing; rather it is the sin that lives in me. . . . For
even though the desire to do good is in me, I am not able to do it. I don’t do the good I
want to do; instead, I do the evil that I do not want to do” (Rom 7, 15–20). Augustine
has to explain how the apostle can say that he does not do what he wills, although, as
Augustine maintains, nothing is within the power of the will like the will itself.
Pertinent to this point is Augustine’s portrayal of his own inner struggle in
Confessiones VIII.13 Augustine had already decided to abandon his vices (namely
the desire for glory and women) and lead a life orientated by God as the highest
good, but he experienced that this will toward the good was incapable of establish-
ing itself in the face of his vices. Despite his resolution to change, he cannot stop
doing evil, or, to be more precise, willing evil. In this respect, Augustine undergoes
exactly that of which the apostle reports: he does not do the good he wants to do,
but rather the evil that he does not want to do.
11. Cf. conf. 10,22f.
12. Den Bok (1994), 239.
13. Cf. conf. 8,10–12.20–25.

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Obviously, Augustine refers to the problem of akrasia (incontinence) that was

well known in ancient philosophy, particularly through Plato’s14 and Aristotle’s15
accounts. In contrast to Plato, Augustine interprets his own incontinence not as a lack
of knowledge, but as a weakness of the will. This weakness results—and this is one
of Augustine’s innovative ideas—from a division of the will. In the self-description
of Confessiones, Augustine observes that the voluntas appears to have forfeited the
power over the voluntates normally attributed to it. The strivings of the will no longer
comply strictly with the will’s command. The decision to will the good does not
reach the evil intentions; they remain efficacious despite the established decision to
will the good. But this does not mean that there are autonomous voluntates without
voluntas. Rather Augustine diagnoses a cleft on the plane of the voluntas itself. In
the fallen human being who resolves to do the good, there is an old voluntas that
produces evil intentions next to a new voluntas that wants to have good intentions.
The evil strivings of the will are willed by the old will, and as long as this will
remains operative, the new will has no power over such strivings.
But from where does the division of the will stem? Is not the distinction between
the new and the old will simply a re-inscription of the dualism raised from the plane
of the voluntates to that of the will itself? Indeed, already during his lifetime, crit-
ics, like the sharp-minded Julian von Aeclanum, accused Augustine of not having
truly withdrawn from Manichaeism.
For Augustine’s anti-dualistic objective, it is decisive to see that it is one and the
same person whose will appears at times as the will to the good and at other times as
the will to evil. He correspondingly depicts the situation of the will’s division with
the words: “I was the one who wanted [the good], and I was the one who did not
want it. It was I.”16 The power of the voluntas is split between two rivaling centers,
the old and the new will, neither of which can usurp the power over the other. “For
it is the will that commands the will to exist, and it commands not another will but
itself. But the will that commands is incomplete, and therefore what it commands
does not happen.”17 In accordance with the two plane theory of willing, there is a
commanding will and a commanded will. But the commanding will is divided. The
new will is incomplete, and thus the commanded will does not obey.
Because the old will cannot be overcome, the new will is incapable of attain-
ing power over the voluntates willed by the old will. Despite the resolution to do
the good, Augustine cannot shake off his vices. He wills the good but is unable to

14. Cf. Plato, Protagoras 352a–357e.

15. Cf. Aristoteles, Ethica Nicomachea 7, 1146a31–1147b17.
16. Conf. 8,10, 22: ego eram qui volebam, ego, qui nolebam, ego ego eram.
17. Conf. 8,9,21.

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uniformly determine himself to will the good because the old will stands in opposi-
tion. Augustine nonetheless identifies himself more with the new will as with the
old one: “I was aligned with both, but more with the desires I approved in myself
than with those I frowned upon.”18 From the standpoint of the new will it is as Paul
writes: Augustine does that which he does not will, or, to be more precise, Augus-
tine continues to will the evil that he does not want to will. Since the old will is
also his will, however, it is Augustine himself, situated in the will’s division, who
wants to will or does not want to will. Through the concepts of the freedom of the
will and the division of the will, Augustine reconstructs the self-description of the
apostle in a non-dualistic manner and elevates it to a higher level. For Paul speaks
first and foremost about the relation of the strivings of the will to action (or about
the relation between willing and works), whereas Augustine, upon the basis of his
two-plane doctrine of the will, refers the words of Paul to the relation between the
voluntas and the voluntates. Paul does not do the good that he wills, but the evil
that he does not will. Augustine, however, does not will the good that he wants to
will, but wills the evil that he does not want to will.
Thus, does the assertion made in De libero arbitrio I: “For what is so much in
the power of the will as the will itself?,”19 even hold for the divided will? Does
the Augustine of Confessiones VIII have a free will? Is his liberum arbitrium still
functional? Augustine’s answer is: yes and no—and he consequently needs to further
develop his notions of freedom, sin, and the need of redemption. The answer is no,
because the new will is unable to gain control of the evil strivings; thus to will evil
is for him a necessity, a compulsion from which he cannot free himself, requiring
instead liberation through God’s grace. The answer is yes, because Augustine still
approves of his evil strivings through his old will. From the standpoint of the old
will, Augustine’s will is in conformity with itself and thus he freely wills evil and
is responsible for doing so. On the one hand, redemption from sin through God is
required only if humans cannot liberate themselves. On the other hand, there is no
sin without freedom. The compatibilist notion of freedom as conformity of the will
with itself enables Augustine to maintain both at the same time: the freedom and
unfreedom of humans. The new will is not in accordance with the evil strivings, and
thus Augustine is compatibilistically unfree. At the same time, it is Augustine’s old
will that still approves of his evil strivings, and thus Augustine is compatibilistically
free. Augustine uses the compatibilistic notion of freedom to explain what might
be one of the most difficult claims in all of Christian doctrine, namely that without
redemption humans are necessitated to sin freely.

18. Conf. 8,5,11.

19. Lib. arb. 1,12, (trans. Williams).

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4. Freedom of Conversion, or Can We Make Ourselves into Good Humans?

If freedom of the will means conformity between the liberum arbitrium and
particular intentions, the next question is: Who determines the way in which the
liberum arbitrium judges over the voluntates? Where do the second order volitions
come from according to which we evaluate our first order desires? Do we freely
choose our basic values and attitudes? Is it up to us to determine our fundamental
moral character, to decide whether we are good persons or evil persons? By means
of the voluntas, the human is judge over his voluntates and thus possesses freedom
of the will. But is he also free to decide how he wants to use this freedom, whether
for the good or for evil? Put in Augustine’s terms: Who decides what use we make
of our free will?
It is well know that Augustine’s understanding of the relation between freedom
and grace developed over the course of his life. I call his early conception, as fully
elaborated in De libero arbitrio III and still prevalent in Confessions, the model of
the “helping hand.” According to this model, humans are sunk, so to speak, in the
swamp of evil. They are so deeply entrenched that they are unable to work them-
selves out of the swamp. Thus God offers his help in Jesus Christ. Now it is up to
the human to decide whether or not to seize God’s extended hand and let himself
be pulled out of the swamp. To speak less metaphorically: If a human decides that
he wants to become a good person, God bestows the power on him to actually be-
come good. First comes the human decision, then God gives his grace, making the
decision effective. In his later works, Augustine calls this kind of grace “subsequent
grace” (gratia sequens),20 because it follows the human decision. According to the
model of the “helping hand,” humans do possess the freedom to choose their basic
moral orientation.
Augustine later rejects the model of the “helping hand.” In the debate with the
Pelagians and the so called semi-Pelagians, he criticizes his own early concep-
tion for underestimating the meaning of grace. (Although Augustine claims in the
Retractationes21 that between the lines even De libero arbitrio offers the correct
doctrine on freedom and grace, but we can say that this is an exaggeration. In
truth, De libero arbitrio is not Pelagian, but certainly semi-Pelagian). Augustine’s
self-critique is not aimed at the notion of a “subsequent grace” as such, but against
the idea of an autonomous choice of man as a presupposition for God’s activity. In
his later writings, Augustine maintains that there must be an action of God prior
to any human decision, because God’s preceding grace (gratia praeveniens) is the
necessary presupposition for any human decision towards the good, which, once
20. Cf. praed. sanct. 6–7.
21. Cf. retr. 1,9,2.6.

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it is made, must still be supported by “subsequent grace.”22 The beginning of faith,

Augustine says, is not in human hands but in God’s. To neglect the precedence of
God entails emptying the cross of Christ. Augustine subsequently insists on the
fact that grace is given for free in the radical sense, that it does not presuppose any
human accomplishment, not even the wish to be a good person.
Augustine’s deepened doctrine of grace therefore corresponds to his revised
teaching on original sin. Throughout all of his works Augustine holds the view
that Adam and Eve in paradise were free to choose between good and evil, i.e.,
to eat the apple or not. As we all know, they chose badly. Augustine changed his
mind about the consequences of this choice. According to his early works, a fallen
human is still able to decide for the good but is too weak to enforce this decision
within his own will, and thus needs divine help. Later, however, Augustine holds
that a fallen human is not even capable of making the basic decision for the good,
or of wanting to be good. For Augustine, in his later works, the statement: in Adam
“all have sinned,” entails that Adam’s original decision is determinant for the moral
character of all. We, the children of Adam, are accordingly no longer in the position
to decide upon our own character as Adam and Eve still could. Solely before the
Fall did the liberum arbitrium possess the power to freely decide upon its own us-
age and choose an encompassing moral orientation. For us, however, this power is
irretrievably lost. The human being as we know him is committed to a poor use of
his freedom. The will still does hold the capacity to produce wishes and intentions
according to its own orientation, but it no longer possesses the might to change
this orientation.23
How does this underlying unfreedom relate to the claimed freedom of the will?
It remains the case that the one who has an evil will produces and approves the evil
strivings of the will through this will. Sinners, Augustine claims, are “held back in
sin by their own will and thrust from sin to sin by [their] own will.”24 Whoever sins
does so with pleasure and love for sin; he wills the evil that he does, and approves
of his evil strivings. He therefore not only wills evil but has joy in willing it and
is thus held back in sin by his own will. In other words, the voluntas is always the
originator of the evil voluntates, the first order desires are in accord with the second
order volitions and therefore the will, even in the sinner, is compatibilistically free.
Naturally, for Augustine, the fallen human’s will is at the same time determined,
insofar as it is no longer free to choose other second order volitions than the evil
ones it has. The fallen human being is, according to Augustine, simultaneously

22. Cf. praed. sanct. 7.

23. Cf. spir. et. litt. 5.
24. C. ep. Pel. 1,7 (ALG 3,287f.).

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free and bound, although on different levels. He wills evil with freedom without
possessing the freedom, however, to not will evil. He is subject therefore to the
necessity of sinning with freedom. Although he is attributed freedom of the will
insofar as he possesses power over his intentions, he is without the power over
himself that would be necessary to change his moral character and make good use
of his freedom. The liberum arbitrium remains the author of the voluntates, but
it exercises this authorship only as an evil will—as voluntas mala. The liberum
arbitrium, Augustine observes, is in no way destroyed by original sin, but it is now
only of use to sin.25
In the development of Augustine’s understanding of the fallen human, the
libertarian notion of freedom as freedom of choice or as freedom of indifference
recedes in favor or the compatibilistic notion of freedom as accordance of the will
with itself. Further, Augustine’s developed position holds, in a very compatibilistic
manner, that the higher level of willing, i.e., the liberum arbitrium voluntatis or
simply the voluntas, can be determined in its use, i.e., in its moral orientation, while
the freedom of the will still maintains.

5. The Liberation of Freedom

In the dispute with the Pelagians, Augustine is confronted with the objection that
the denial of the capacity to be able to make oneself a good person boils down to the
annihilation of freedom. He thus diligently addresses the inappropriateness of this
objection in his anti-Pelagian writings. According to this general thesis, grace does
not destroy freedom, but rather establishes it by liberating the will from the necessity
to sin. Hence by advocating a freedom of choice at the expense of grace, it is the
Pelagians who are in truth not the defenders but the destroyers of freedom.26
The freedom at debate here is what Augustine calls libertas. Libertas means
the condition of being free from the love of evil and the animation of the love for
the good. The will that possesses this libertas is free from the necessity of sinning
with freedom. Through the resolution of the will, namely through the decision for
an evil character, humans became slaves of sin and thus “free from justice.” They
become “free from sin,” Augustine explains, not through their own choice but alone
through the “grace of the redeemer.”27
How does grace in Augustine’s fully developed understanding relate to free-
dom? The reversal of the will is always, to be sure, a matter of the will—that is, it

25. Cf. spir. et. litt. 5.

26. Cf. gr. et lib. arb. 27 (ALG 7, 121).
27. C. ep. Pel. 1,5 (ALG 3,285f.).

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is carried out through the liberum arbitrium, but, as Augustine emphasizes, not by
virtue of the liberum arbitrium. Even in the debate with the Pelagians, Augustine
can claim: the faithful believe because they want to believe. But the fact that they
want to believe is precisely not of their own doing.
Equally ruled out is the notion that grace removes the voluntates from the libe-
rum arbitrium’s power of control in order to place them under the efficacy of God.
According to Augustine, this would entail merely an inverted Manichaeism. Human
beings would then indeed be marionettes of God. In truth, however, grace does
not weaken the will by removing its power over the strivings of the will; it rather
restitutes this power because the liberated will (in contrast to the fragmented good
will in its divided condition) is capable of wholly and thoroughly determining its
intentions. Grace does not weaken the will but strengthens it, for the liberum arbi-
trium, having been freed to become the libertas, is reestablished in the encompassing
power of control over “what it wills.” For this reason, the thoroughly good will is
the truly free will. In this sense Augustine claims that grace does not destroy the
liberum arbitrium, but rather establishes it. Freedom, compatibilistically understood
as conformity with itself, does not become lesser through grace, but greater.
In his most speculative writing on the doctrine of freedom and grace, De cor-
reptione et gratia (426–427), Augustine juxtaposes the freedom of Adam before the
Fall with the freedom of the redeemed man. He claims in due consistency that the
efficaciousness of grace does not result in a reconstitution of the freedom of choice
between a good and an evil character as was the case for Adam and Eve, but rather
in a definitive determination of the will towards the good. God had entrusted Adam’s
free will with choice; the graced will, on the contrary, is no longer left to its own
resources, but is rather so motivated by God that it unerringly wills the good—and
which will, Augustine asks, could be more free than the one that can no longer serve
sin?28 Through the first freedom, Adam possessed the capacity not to sin if he did
not want to sin (posse non peccare); through the new freedom, the will is unable to
sin (non posse peccare).29 According to Augustine’s later writings, the freedom of
the redeemed man is even greater than that of Adam because it no longer faces the
alternative between good and evil but is decided for the will of the good.
If the libertas is the highest form of freedom, then the hallmark of true freedom
does not reside in the ability to decide one way or another from an indifferent posi-
tion, but rather in being so unequivocally directed towards the good that the freedom
of the will knows no bounds in its determination of the voluntates.

28. Cf. corrept. 32 (ALG 7, 211f.).

29. Cf. corrept. 33 (ALG 7, 213f.).

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6. Conclusion
Augustine’s doctrine of freedom and grace becomes more intelligible, or so
I believe, if we observe that his notion of freedom develops from libertarianism
to compatibilism. Does this make Augustine a compatibilist? Perhaps we have to
call him a semi-compatibilist. For in contrast to modern compatibilists, Augustine
does not reject libertarianism as a wrong or even nonsensical theory of freedom,
but he restricts it to the situation of humans before sin. According to Augustine,
encompassing freedom of choice was once real, but it is not any more. After sin
there is only compabilistic freedom.

Abbreviation
ALG: Sankt Augustinus. Der Lehrer der Gnade, lat.-ger. Gesamtausgabe seiner
antipelagianischen Schriften, ed. V. A. Kunzelmann, S. Kopp, A. Zumkeller,
Würzburg, Augustinus Verlag, 1955ff.

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