Augustine writes the autobiography when he is a Bishop of Hippo in North Africa, eleven years after his conversion in Milan. It features his spiritual insights and beliefs. The autobiography, in many aspects, refutes the accusations that free will exists.
Augustine’s account of his conversion in the Confessions is consistent with his idea that free will does not exist. He believed that existence of goodness allows immoral deeds to exist, through the defect of humans. Free will is the art of decision-making of an individual.
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Augustine has chosen a convincing way of discussing his defense on choice of free will concerning his doctrine as a saint in the Catholic Church. He highlights two types of will. He states that will as a whole should be fundamentally original and self-determining. According to him, the evil art is led by man’s uncontrollable will.
The autobiography affirms that evil acts emanate from will rather than knowledge. Augustine states that he does not understand his actions since he finds himself doing the things that he does not want such as the evil deeds. Augustine accepts that he led an evil life, finds fault in his thoughts. He regrets having led a sinful sexual life and even writes about sexual immorality. Augustine confesses that in his adolescence stage, he did wrongs for no reason. He performed the evil deeds with his accomplices, thus acknowledging the unconscious of will. Hence, this shows the digression of the will that go against common sense and contradict sound reasoning.
Further, Augustine supports his defense of free will through contrasting humans to God where he states that human are imperfect while God is perfect. He argues out that although God knows the decisions humans will make, it does not mean that their actions are predetermined. He rejects the thinking of people that evil comes from God. He supports this with the notion that the outer forces surrounding him control human actions. In his confessions, he reflects on how he chose secular pleasure over following the scripture due to the influence of his friends.
To conclude, Augustine points out that freedom of the will has been lost due to the fall of man. This makes man not to enjoy freedom since he always has free choices that are of evil.
