Free will and hope: for a pastoral care of interior freedom

The Good Thief at Calvary: Baroque Representation of Saint Dismas, the Repentant Criminal Crucified Alongside Christ, Figure of Final Mercy Before Death.

Gospel Citation (Luke 23:42-43): "Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom." Jesus replied, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

The question of free will and predestination has always been one of the deepest mysteries of the Christian faith, as it touches both the nature of God and that of man. The highest understanding of predestination cannot be achieved without considering that free will is, in itself, a divine grace and not merely a biological or neurological phenomenon determined by physical and chemical mechanisms. If free will were simply a consequence of brain function, then our decisions would be mere illusions produced by preprogrammed neural reactions. Science itself, in its advances in neurophysiology and quantum physics, tends to show that man is not a mere automaton governed by mechanical causes, but that there is an element of indeterminacy in human consciousness. This indeterminacy, far from being blind chance, could precisely be the mark of a divine gift that surpasses any material explanation.

Christian theology asserts that man is created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26-27). This resemblance cannot be merely formal; it must be substantial, including the capacity to love, to create, but also to choose freely. If our freedom came from a biological necessity, we would not be truly free; we would be conditioned by our nature, like animals who, though endowed with intelligence and complex behaviors, merely follow their instincts. If we are free, it is because this freedom is given to us by God and not by a simple chain of material causes. Human freedom is thus a participation in divine freedom. And this freedom is not neutral: it is an invitation to respond to grace, which gives meaning to predestination, not as a constraint imposed by God, but as a call to fully accomplish His will.

This perspective illuminates the entire Christian life. If God created us free, it is not only to allow us to truly love Him but also so that, through this freedom exercised in faith, we can manifest something that, in a mysterious sense, can even surprise God. Several passages in the Old Testament show a God who seems surprised and who changes His mind, such as when He decides not to destroy Nineveh after Jonah's preaching (Jonah 3:10), or when Moses intercedes for the people and God renounces His anger (Exodus 32:14). This does not mean that God was unaware of what would happen, but that these passages reveal a fundamental ontological truth: our freedom is real, and God, in His omnipotence, desired a relationship with man where the latter has the potential to produce something unique.

This idea is dizzying: if we are truly free, if our free will is a grace and not a simple biological mechanism, then God wanted, in His infinite love, that we could surprise Him. It is not a surprise in the human sense, as if God discovered what He did not know, but an eternal wonder before the creativity of human freedom fully embraced in His grace. The great saints, those who performed miracles and transformed the world, are the perfect illustration. When Paul, a persecutor of Christians, converts on the road to Damascus, nothing in his past suggested such a upheaval (Acts 9). Similarly, when Francis of Assisi abandons wealth to embrace Lady Poverty, he performs an act that defies all human logic. These radical transformations are not merely psychological choices; they are the fruit of grace freely received, which engenders miracles.

If we limit freedom and free will to mere predestination, we fall into a worldview akin to Protestant, Muslim, and even fatalistic philosophies of karma. These doctrines, each in their own way, tend to confine man in a determinism where his destiny is sealed either by an absolute divine decree or by an accumulation of past causes that condition him irreparably. This conception reduces grace to a privilege arbitrarily given to some and denied to others, making God a master who distributes faith and salvation according to His will, regardless of human choices. Such a perspective deeply contradicts the Christian revelation of divine love, which calls every man to true freedom and the transcendence of all earthly conditions.

In Calvinism, for example, the doctrine of double predestination teaches that God has, from eternity, chosen some for salvation and others for damnation, regardless of their actions. This view denies any possibility of true free will by turning faith and salvation into realities imposed or refused in advance. Similarly, in Muslim theology, certain schools assert that divine guidance is granted to some and denied to others by an absolute divine decree (qadar), without man being able to truly influence his own spiritual destiny. As for karmic conceptions, they often reduce human freedom to a mere consequence of past actions, in a mechanism where past lives inevitably condition the present and where the notion of grace almost completely disappears.

If such a vision were correct, then human history would be a vast theater where characters play a pre-written role, without the possibility of true conversion, sincere repentance, or radical change of trajectory. This would imply that life's circumstances—being born into a believing or atheist family, a good or bad education, suffering or happiness—would largely determine our eternal destiny. Would such a God be just? How could a God of love let souls be lost simply because they were born in the wrong place, at the wrong time, or with the wrong influences? This would be a total negation of Christ, who came to seek what was lost (Luke 19:10) and call all men to conversion. It is precisely here that the transcendence of free will and its miraculous nature take on their full meaning in the Catholic faith. Far from being confined to a logic of determinism, human freedom is a continually renewed gift that allows each person, at any moment, to respond to divine grace. The Church should therefore insist even more on this liberating dimension of free will, as it truly constitutes good news for all men. No one is condemned in advance; no one is a slave to their past, and holiness is not reserved for a predestined elite. Each person, through an act of faith and sincere surrender to God, can see their life transformed.

This truth is fully affirmed by Christ Himself when He says: "If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." (Matthew 17:20). This passage illustrates well that faith is not a reserved gift but a power accessible to all who embrace it sincerely. Jesus emphasizes this truth on numerous occasions: "Everything is possible for one who believes." (Mark 9:23), "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you." (Matthew 7:7). These words only make sense if human freedom is real and capable, through faith, of radically transforming the course of an existence. Saint Paul pushes this vision even further when he asserts: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."(Galatians 3:28)

This declaration is nothing short of revolutionary: it means that, in the divine economy, the conditions imposed by the world—nation, social class, sex, education—do not determine our access to salvation. What counts is faith and the free response to grace. This vision stands in complete opposition to any form of fatalistic predestination, for it proclaims that every person, regardless of origin or past, can enter into the fullness of divine life.

Saint Paul’s passage, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you both to will and to act according to his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12–13), contains an apparent tension between human effort and divine action. On the one hand, Paul exhorts believers to actively labor for their salvation, as if it depended on them. On the other, he affirms that it is God himself who operates within, granting both the desire and the capacity to do good. This dual affirmation seems paradoxical, yet it profoundly illuminates the way in which free will and grace intertwine.

If we consider human freedom as mere biological mechanics or as a fixed condition, this passage becomes difficult to comprehend. Why would man be asked to tremble if he were fully autonomous in will and deed? Why would Paul emphasize effort if all were predetermined by God? But if we understand free will as itself a grace, then all becomes clear. The fear and trembling are not the anxiety of inevitable damnation, but the awe-filled reverence before an extraordinary gift entrusted to us: the real freedom to choose or to turn away from God.

God indeed produces in us both the will and the deed, but never by coercion. He inspires in us desires for good, enlightens our intellect, and strengthens our will—but always while respecting the very freedom that is the mark of our resemblance to Him. We thus possess, in potency, the choice to respond or to resist this inner call. To work out our salvation is to welcome this grace and allow it to be fulfilled in us.

Paul confirms this again in Ephesians 2:10: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” This phrase does not imply that we are mechanically programmed to perform a prewritten script, but rather that God, in His wisdom, has traced a path of holiness accessible to each one, and that our freedom—illuminated by grace—permits us to walk it.

These passages from Paul are not a negation of free will, but a revelation of its transcendent nature. It is precisely because human freedom is a divine gift that it must be exercised with gravity, in full awareness that it may be directed toward good or toward evil. And because it is sustained by grace, it may transcend every human limit and generate acts that partake fully in the divine design.

When the Church puts forth this understanding of free will as transcendent grace, it proclaims a true Gospel—a message brimming with hope and liberation. This vision of salvation offers to each person the possibility of a new beginning, of radical transformation, of unexpected holiness. It explains sudden conversions, broken lives that are reborn, saints emerging from unlikely places. This is the power of faith: a freedom that surpasses every human logic and allows man to become a co-creator of his story with God.