Boethius and Free
Will by
The question of predestination versus free will has always weighed on the
minds of men; it is a topic that is frequently addressed in modern time, but it
was also pressing in medieval days. In
The Consolation of Philosophy Boethius dedicates the entire fifth book,
the last book before the summary, to the pondering of predestination and free
will of human kind. Boethius
discovers that man does have free will which is not cancelled out by divine
Most everyone that believes in God, which includes a lot of non-Christian religions as well as Christianity, believes that He knows the future. This belief, like predestination, is nothing new; it was an old belief when Boethius wrote his book. And, just as was common in medieval days, many people confuse divine foreknowledge and predestination. If predestination were a fact then there is no point in punishing the wicked and rewarding the good (p. 107). If we had no choice but to sin in a certain situation and to remain strong and faithful in another situation, what would be the point of God’s testing out faith as He did with Job? There would be no point in learning or growing in such a case. Not only that, but if vice and sin depended on God’s providence and not the choices and intentions of men, would not that make God, not man, responsible for our sins (p. 107)? Yes, Jesus took on the responsibility of sin but out of love for man, not because he had to.
There is another horror brought on by the argument of predestination. If predestination were true there would be no need to hope of pray for anything. If there is no need to pray, man’s communication with God is destroyed (p. 107). Since we know that God does punish and reward as a result of sin and faithfulness, God does not sin, many have seen miracles result from prayer, and hope always exists in some form, we can say with certainty that predestination cannot be true.
For many people, however, there is still the problem of separating foreknowledge and predestination. For that problem one should try what Lady Philosophy gets Boethius to do. One should imagine that nothing in the way of foreknowledge exists: therefore there is no necessity placed on the occurrence of events, and there is no hindrance to free will. Once that is agreed upon one should imagine a knowing of the future, but still without necessity or hindrance to free will (p. 109). This would be similar, but much more divine and precise, to my knowing how my friend will react to a certain situation and then his doing so. Did my knowing he would act a certain way cause him to do so? No. Neither does God’s knowledge force us to react the way we do.
With the distinction of foreknowledge and predestination determined, Boethius adds another thought to the pot: God’s knowledge is not foreknowledge at all but a knowledge of a never changing present (p. 116). God is not bound by the restraints of time. As God observes me pondering The Consolation of Philosophy, a book that was discussed by men as an old work before my great grandfather was born, He is simultaneously observing the author writing it. Can someone say, “I am going to mess up God’s plan by not doing what He wants me to do,” and then do it? Because God is seeing this person change his mind and is seeing this person’s final choice and action, the answer is no, no one can baffle God.
It is free will, not predestination, that determines our actions. God sees what is to us the future, and while he intervenes when we ask Him to and sometimes when it is just necessary, He does not force our choices. And since God sees our past, present, and future all at once, no man can catch God off guard with an unusual decision or action. Even as clear as these statements are proven by Boethius and others like him, there are still many who want to put the physical limitations of time and the human mind on the very one who created and moderates it all.