Origen of Alexandria, On First Principles

We hold that certain matters concerning divine promises are to be understood when we cast our understanding toward the contemplation of that eternal age which admits no end of praise, and when we contemplate its ineffable joy and blessedness.

Yet because ecclesiastical preaching also contains faith in the future judgment of God, and because the credibility of that judgment stirs people and urges them to live well and blessedly and to flee every kind of sin, and because this unmistakably shows that it lies in our power to hand ourselves over either to a praiseworthy life or to a culpable one, I consider it necessary to discuss a few things about the freedom of our will, since this question, too, is agitated by very many people not without dignity.

In order that we may more readily grasp what freedom of will is, let us inquire what the nature of will itself intends.

Of all things that are moved, some carry the causes of their movements within themselves, while others receive them from outside.

For example, all things that lack life are moved only from outside, such as stones or wood and whatever things of that sort there are, which consist solely in the condition of their matter or bodies.

We must set aside for now the question that even regards dissolution through corruption as movement, because it contributes nothing to the present purpose.

Other things, however, possess the cause of movement within themselves, such as animals or trees and all things that subsist either through natural life or through a soul.

Among these, some have thought that veins of metal should be counted, and fire too is to be regarded as having its own movement, and perhaps also the springs of water.

Now those things which have the cause of their movements within themselves, some are said to move from themselves, some from themselves; and so they distinguish things that move from themselves, which live indeed but are not animate, from things that move from themselves, namely animate beings, when fantasy, that is, a certain will or incitement, is present which has provoked and incited them to move or to be incited to something.

Finally, even in certain animals there is such a fantasy, that is, a will or sense, which by a certain natural instinct provokes and incites them to ordered and composed movements.

We see this in spiders, which are incited to the work of weaving in a most orderly way by a certain fantasy, that is, by a certain will or zeal for weaving, a natural movement undoubtedly provoking the intention of such a work, and yet the animal itself is found to have no other sense than the natural zeal for weaving, just as the bee is said to fashion honeycombs and honey from the air.

The rational animal, since it has these natural movements within itself, nevertheless possesses something more than the other animals, namely the power of reason, by which it can judge and discern concerning natural movements and reject and cast away some, and approve and accept others, so that by the judgment of this reason the movements of a human being can be directed and governed toward a praiseworthy life.

From this it follows that, since the nature of this reason which is in a human being has within itself the power of distinguishing good or evil, and once it has discerned, there is also present in it the faculty of choosing what it has approved; in choosing what is good it is praiseworthy, but in following what is base or evil it is justly judged culpable.

It should by no means escape our notice that in some mute animals a more ordered movement is found than in other animals, such as in keen dogs or warhorses, so that they appear to be moved by a certain rational sense; but this is to be believed to happen not so much by reason as by a certain incitement and natural movement, more abundantly granted for such uses.

But as we began to say, since the rational animal is such, certain things can befall us humans from outside and present themselves, whether to sight or to hearing or to other senses, which provoke and incite us to good or contrary movements.