1. Ovidius questions to St. Augustine
   1. Ovidius question 1 (Natural necessity): Whence arises the movement by which the will itself turns from the unchangeable good to its own interests or to things beneath it, and so turns to mutable goods?
      1. how can we explain the movement of the will turning away form God to mutable goods in an act of sin?
         1. if the movement of free will would turn us naturally away from God, then it would not be culpable
         2. we have a conscious free will, so the movement to changeable things is culpable.
            1. what do is natural is the feeling of culpability we experience when we break with God. Just as the notion of justice (right and wrong) that make us realize that we are culpable
         3. thus, the movement of free will is not natural, for if it were to be natural it wouldent be culpable.
            1. does that mean that if it is not natural, it is then given as a gift? (this is not in the reading but is my own question)
         4. the whole point of this argument is that there is no natural necessity when it comes to free will
            1. for Ovidius free will is not part of the natural order
   2. Augustine's response to Q1
      1. nature of free will
         1. nature of hierarchy of natural causation
            1. God; angels; souls; living things; non living things
            2. things that are higher up in the hierarchy make things occur in the lower level but not vice versa
         2. he introduces the notion that the human soul can willingly break this chain of hierarchical natural causation to willingly subjugate itself to that which is lower.
            1. The soul can only become enslaved to lower pleasures only by its own free will and not by necessity.
            2. this is because vices are lower and have no power over her, and God, as a superior and most perfect being, cannot impose that on us because it would be unjust and unworthy of Himself
            3. Sin = a voluntary abandonment of higher things for the sake of lower things at the expense of its desire for what is higher
            4. If the soul decides not to sin, anyone or any thing can separate her from the love of God and higher things
      2. For Augustine, it doesn't matter if free will is part of natural order or not, insofar as we keep the certainty that it is up to us to sin or not to us
         1. Augustine gives a "yes and no" answer by contrating this two views
            1. free will is not a natural event as would be to see a rock falling from a hill (does not follows by nececity)
            2. But at the same time free will has a position within the natural order of the hierarchy of causation
            3. this is insofar as the free will has to willingly subject itself to that which is lower, breaking the chain. (this, he admits, is a paradoxical situation but that does its part of setting things into perspective)
   3. Ovidius question 2 (God's knowledge):
      1. God knows everything you have done, are doing, and will do. And so, are we truly free if that's the case?
      2. this seems to constrain the will in a sort of different necessity
         1. if God knows you will do something in the future,does that mean that you have no other option than to do what God knows you will do
      3. this whole argument tries to say that it appears as if we have no free will in reality.
   4. Augustine response to Q2:
      1. the fact that there is a knowledge of the future does not eliminates free will
         1. Augustine thinks there is nothing problematic with knowing the future
            1. he who foresees my actions also foresees that I will have the power to will at that moment
      2. we can say that God did not affect our decisions in any way. Yes, he is all-knowing, but he leaves our free will on its own
         1. even in the incarnation, he acted freely upon a free choice we made
      3. to understand this, we must identify the criteria upon which someone acts on free will
         1. this starts with an immediate awareness of the full consent one has in an act (do you really want to do it?)
            1. you cannot will against your will
   5. Ovidius question 3 (culpability for our sins)
      1. how does God's foreknowledge of our sins mingle with the idea of him knowing that he will punish us in the future?
   6. Augustine response to Q3:
      1. just because God knows what we will do in the future does not mean that we are not culpable for doing that. And since God respects our free will he allows those things to happen
         1. analogy of memory: just because something is in your memory, that doesn't mean that it happens exactly like that necessarily. For God, there is a sort of "memory of the future" that holds the hope of us doing the right thing
   7. Ovidius question 4
      1. is it better to exist as a sinful being than not to exist at all?
   8. Augustine response to Q4:
      1. this is the same answer than the one he gave when he was trying to justify the world that is evil
      2. it is better to have a being with the power of free will than not to have it, even if he uses that power wrongly.
      3. this gives a fullness to the universe (principle of plentitude)