As suggested by Augustine’s argument about the problem of evil humans were given free will. In Christian belief, God allowed Adam the freedom to choose whether he would eat the forbidden fruit. God is omnipotent, yet he gave us the free will to decide our actions. He is also omniscient. But if he knows what we are going to do our actions must be predetermined, so is it truly free will? This is the argument of free will vs determinism.
Arguments for free will have been based on the subjective experience of freedom, on sentiments of guilt, on revealed religion, and on the common assumption of individual moral responsibility that underlies the concepts of law, reward, punishment, and incentive. Determinism entails that, in a situation in which a person makes a certain decision or performs a certain action, it is impossible that he or she could have made any other decision or performed any other action. In other words, it is never true that people could have decided or acted otherwise than they actually did.
One of the early Christian philosophers, Boethius, countered this question by explaining how God’s knowledge of our actions does not mean he instills or controls them. Rather he simply foresees them. However, the problem continued a matter of interest and careful consideration for philosophers. Since some philosophical theories are based on the idea that everything will happen a certain way, while others present a libertarian belief that we are in control of our actions. The two ideas seem incompatible, but somewhere between determinism and free will a middle ground suggests that while our choices are pre-determined the path we choose is a matter of free will.
