ions on free choice and oppression are clearly stated and hidden in the dark satire of the violent tale. "Obviously Burgess's feeling is that there is potentially more good in a man who deliberately chooses evil, than in one who is forced to be good" This masterpiece grows stronger and deeper in meaning every time one reads it. Burgess repeatedly reveals his powerful beliefs that it is even the most violent crimes are trivial when compared to the heinous crime of oppression. Burgess not only considers moral oppression to be a wrong against one's civil rights, but he also considers it to be a destructive wrong against one's spiritual existence. This book delivers this message so powerfully, so overwhelmingly, that it leaves the reader in a state of awe and profound musing for some time after the book is read. This book demands, and commands, one's full attention and thought. Burgess seems to be inspired on a somewhat holy mission. His war is against moral oppression and the governments causing it. His weapon, a powerful one, is his incredible satiric writing ability. The Topic of Free Will versus Predestination Burgess, a happily lapsed Catholic, frequently raised the oppositions of free will and predestination in various of his novels (outside A Clockwork Orange, see especially The Wanting Seed and Earthly Powers), describing his own faith as alternating between residues of Pelagianism and Augustinianism. Theology 101: Pelagianism (named after the British heretic Morgan, known generally as Pelagius, the Latin equivalent of his name) denies that God has predestined, or pre-ordained, or planned, our lives. A consequence of this is that salvation is effectively within human power (as God hasn't set it down for each of us, it's within our control), which eventually leads to a denial of original sin. Refutation of this eventually came from Augustine, who (a) fiercely upheld the doctrine of original sin, and (b) defended the orthodox doc...
