es are necessary to keep in mind prior to understanding freedom of a creature. It is necessary to define the conditions under which the creature may operate. Otherwise the concept of freedom is unconstrained and confusion results. First, before the Fall humanity experienced power to contrary choice. Adam was endowed with the capacity to love and obey God at creation. He was given the freedom to do what he ought. "When we speak of the freedom of the will to do right, we are speaking of the freedom wherein man was created."11 In this state the gift of freedom was bestowed upon Adam. He could "go straight forward, develop himself harmoniously in untroubled unity with God, and thus gradually attain his final perfection; or he could fall away, engender evil ex nihilo by abuse of his free will."12 Humanity is anything but a static being at creation. Augustine says "Only as originally created, i.e., before the Fall, had man freedom to will and to do right."13 Adam was not created neutral nor disinclined (simile Pelagius). For to remain equidistant from both good and evil is to be indifferent, in which case indifference does not apply to the category of freedom since inherent in freedom is the idea of movement. One is free to act or refrain from the act. In either case movement is involved. Stated differently: to move toward the good is to move away from evil and vice versa. As Shedd puts it: Holy Adam at the instant of his creation did not find himself set to choose either the Creator or the creature as an ultimate end, being indifferent to both, but he found himself inclined to the Creator . . . His will if created at all must have been created as voluntary, since it could not be created as involuntary or uninclined. This inclination was self-motion. It was the spontaneity of a spiritual essence, not an activity forced ab extra [italics his].14 To further demonstrate power to contrary before the Fall, Augustine d...
