On Free Will

Contents

Reading pages: 1.1–9.4 · 10.1–22.10

1. 1.1Methodius opens with Odysseus and the Sirens, whose song brought death to its hearers.
2. 1.2Methodius contrasts the Sirens’ deadly song with the divine voice that teaches salvation.
3. 1.3The prophets’ song, unlike the Sirens’, leads its hearers to a better life.
4. 1.4Methodius invites all to hear the divine song freely.
5. 1.5The apostles sing in harmony with the prophets, interpreting what they foretold.
6. 1.6Methodius calls his hearers to join in a hymn to the Father, glorifying Jesus in the Spirit.
7. 1.7Methodius rejoices in his audience, a meadow of flowers.
8. 1.8Methodius praises his hearers as free of envy, unlike Cain, Esau, and Joseph’s brothers.
9. 1.9Methodius ends his prologue in praise of the gathering.
10. 2.1The Valentinian describes watching a storm at sea, quoting Homer.
11. 2.2The Valentinian feared the waves would flood the earth.
12. 2.3The sea stayed within its bounds as if obeying a divine command.
13. 2.4The sea seemed like a servant obeying against its will, restraining its anger.
14. 2.5The Valentinian turned to contemplate the motion of the heavens.
15. 2.6The sun too keeps its course as if under command.
16. 2.7He watched the moon succeed the sun and wondered at its phases.
17. 2.8From the order of nature he concluded that a divine power governs all things, and praised the Creator.
18. 2.9The Valentinian wavers between creation from nothing and from a pre-existing substance.
19. 3.1The next day the Valentinian saw men quarrelling and robbing one another.
20. 3.2One man dug up and robbed a corpse.
21. 3.3Another man murdered a suppliant and stripped his body.
22. 3.4Another man tried to seduce his neighbor’s wife.
23. 3.5Such crimes made the Greek tragedies seem believable to him.
24. 3.6He asked where evils come from, unwilling to make God their author.
25. 3.7God, being good and forbidding evil, cannot be its maker.
26. 3.8God cannot have made evil, nor ever have delighted in it.
27. 3.9The Valentinian concludes that uncreated matter coexists with God and that evil flows from its unformed dregs.
28. 3.10The Valentinian invites correction.
29. 4.1The Orthodox speaker sympathizes with the Valentinian’s reasoning about the origin of evil.
30. 4.2Some have made matter eternal to avoid making God the author of evil; others made God its author; both erred.
31. 4.3The Orthodox speaker agrees to take up the inquiry with his friend.
32. 4.4A second companion is invited to hear, and the Valentinian is asked to answer each question.
33. 4.5The Valentinian agrees to answer, seeking truth rather than victory.
34. 5.1The Orthodox speaker argues that two unbegotten beings cannot coexist: God must be either separate from matter or united with it.
35. 5.2If God and matter are united, they form one unbegotten being, not two.
36. 5.3If they are separate, something must lie between them.
37. 5.4The same reasoning applies to any number of unbegotten beings.
38. 5.5Either way the argument holds.
39. 6.1If God is in matter as in a place, he is contained and bounded by it.
40. 6.2God would then share matter’s disorder and once have been among unordered things.
41. 6.3If God filled matter, he could only shape it by withdrawing or by shaping himself along with it.
42. 6.4If matter is in God, either God is divided to receive it or it is in him as in a place.
43. 6.5If matter is in God, God becomes divisible or the receptacle of evil.
44. 6.6The Orthodox speaker turns to the origin of evil, which is the real reason for positing eternal matter.
45. 7.1The Valentinian affirms that qualityless matter coexists with God.
46. 7.2God, then, is the maker of qualities.
47. 7.3The Valentinian grants that qualities did not come from pre-existing qualities and are not substances.
48. 7.4Qualities must therefore have come from nothing, so creation from nothing is not impossible.
49. 7.5Even human builders make cities and temples not out of cities and temples.
50. 7.6What makes a building is art, which does not pre-exist in the materials.
51. 7.7Art in the craftsman is itself an accident, not a pre-existing thing.
52. 7.8Arts come to be in people out of nothing.
53. 7.9So God can make substances, not only qualities, from nothing.
54. 8.1The Valentinian holds that evils are qualities and that matter was without qualities.
55. 8.2If God made the qualities and evils are qualities, God would make evil; the speakers agree to begin again.
56. 8.3The Valentinian invites the Orthodox speaker to proceed freely in search of the truth.
57. 8.4The Orthodox speaker examines whether evils are substances, starting from what a substance is.
58. 8.5A bodily substance exists by itself.
59. 8.6Evils are activities of someone.
60. 8.7Activities exist only when an agent is present.
61. 8.8Without an agent there is no activity.
62. 8.9Therefore evils, being activities, are not substances.
63. 8.10Murder is an act of a substance, not itself a substance.
64. 8.11A person is called evil from evil acts, as a physician from medicine, without the acts being his substance.
65. 8.12Even the devil is called evil from what he does, not from his substance.
66. 8.13If an evil agent were identical with his acts, humans who do those acts would cause his existence.
67. 8.14The evil agent is evil by his acts, not his substance.
68. 8.15Evil acts have a beginning, so evil is neither eternal nor unbegotten.
69. 9.1A second interlocutor concedes the argument against qualityless matter.
70. 9.2The Companion objects that no substance, including matter, can be without qualities.
71. 9.3He holds that matter always had qualities and that evil flows from it.
72. 9.4The Orthodox speaker welcomes the new objection.
73. 10.1If matter always had qualities, God made nothing and is no creator.
74. 10.2Did God change substances or only qualities?
75. 10.3The Companion holds that God changed only the qualities, as stones become a house.
76. 10.4God, on this view, formed the world by changing the qualities of persisting matter.
77. 10.5The Companion agrees that evils are qualities.
78. 10.6He holds that these qualities are uncreated.
79. 10.7God changed the qualities.
80. 10.8The change was for the better.
81. 11.1If God improved matter’s qualities, where do evils come from?
82. 11.2The Companion holds that God left the evil qualities unchanged and ordered only the indifferent ones.
83. 11.3If God could have removed evil qualities but did not, he is responsible for them.
84. 11.4By ordering part of matter and leaving the rest evil, God would be to blame.
85. 11.5The ordered part of matter now suffers worse, since it can feel evil.
86. 11.6Man, once formed, can feel evil; so God’s ordering would harm matter.
87. 11.7If God cannot remove evil, he is powerless, whether by weakness or by fear of someone stronger.
88. 11.8To call God weak or overpowered by evil would make evil greater than God.
89. 12.1The Orthodox speaker asks whether matter is simple or composite; a composite world cannot come from simple matter.
90. 12.2If matter is composite, it came into being and is not unbegotten.
91. 12.3Matter, once non-existent, cannot be unbegotten.
92. 12.4There would then be many unbegotten beings.
93. 12.5Since the elements oppose one another, they cannot be one matter.
94. 12.6Parts do not destroy each other, but the elements do.
95. 12.7So the elements are not parts of one matter.
96. 12.8One matter could not contain opposites, so such a matter does not exist.
97. 12.9The Orthodox speaker closes the argument about matter.
98. 13.1Whether evils among humans are species or parts of evil, evil turns out to have a beginning; it lies in human choice, not substance.
99. 14The dialogue on evil begins: both speakers agree God is good and does no evil; just punishment is not evil, and evil is an accident tied to free choice, not a substance.
100. 15.1Nothing is evil by nature; intercourse is good within marriage and evil in adultery.
101. 15.2The same act differs morally by the manner of its use.
102. 15.3Killing too is judged by its manner: punishment differs from murder for gain.
103. 15.4Taking another’s money is good or evil according to the manner.
104. 15.5Worship is good when directed to the true God and evil when given to idols.
105. 16.1The Companion asks whether evil originates in humans themselves, in God, or in another tempter.
106. 16.2God made the first man with free will, inherited by his descendants.
107. 16.3All other creatures obey God by necessity; man alone is free.
108. 16.4Creatures that obey by necessity earn no praise or reward.
109. 16.5Man’s freedom was given so that obedience might earn him a reward.
110. 16.6Without freedom man would be a mere instrument, deserving neither reward nor blame.
111. 16.7God gave man power to choose and exhorts him to choose the better without removing his freedom.
112. 16.8As a father urges a child to study without forcing him, God urges obedience without removing freedom.
113. 16.9God’s commands presuppose freedom and aim at rewarding obedience.
114. 17.1Free will is not a choice among pre-existing evils but the power to obey or disobey God.
115. 17.2Evil began with the first man’s disobedience to God’s command.
116. 17.3Disobedience was not in man’s nature but came by another’s teaching, as Scripture shows.
117. 18Using the parable of an enemy who learns from a physician's advice how to harm a man, the speaker argues that the devil learned what evil is from God's command, and that both devil and man are punished justly because they act by free will.
118. 18.8Evil began in envy at man’s honor and consists in disobedience to God.
119. 19The devil was created good and became devil by his own envious choice, as Scripture's name apostate shows; God foreknew his fall but created him so that free will and God's goodness in forgiveness might be made known.
120. 20God did not destroy the devil at once, because that would have been no great deed and would have hidden his kindness; instead he trains men like wrestlers to conquer the devil themselves.
121. 22.1Asked why God began to create the world if matter did not exist beside him, the speaker says God's reasons cannot be fully known, but offers what he thinks he knows.
122. 22.3God created because his knowledge and goodness were not meant to remain idle.
123. 22.4A craftsman who never practices his art has it in vain.
124. 22.5Goodness needs others to benefit.
125. 22.6God created to display his art and goodness in his works.
126. 22.7God showed his goodness by creating from nothing and by promising better things.
127. 22.8God created to be known; the world exists for man, and man for God.
128. 22.10Methodius concludes that God gave all things their very being, not merely form.