Is the human will really free?
In this episode of Ten Minutes in the Doorway, Dr. Owen Anderson continues his discussion of Molinism by turning to a deeper assumption shared by pagan philosophy and modern humanism: the idea that the will is neutral, detached, and capable of calmly choosing between options without inclination.
Drawing on pagan thinkers, Renaissance humanism, and modern assumptions about autonomy, this episode contrasts that view with the biblical and Augustinian account of the will. Paul, Augustine, and Calvin all insist that the will is never disinclined. After the Fall, it is bent toward evil—not coerced, but enslaved by what it loves. A free choice, in the Christian sense, is an uncoerced choice, not a morally neutral one.
The episode concludes with Paul’s haunting question from Romans 7: “Who will deliver me from this body of death?”—and the Christian answer that freedom does not come from better options or more information, but from redemption in Christ.
If the problem is not lack of freedom but the will itself, the real question becomes: who will save me from me?
