Free Will on Father Antonio Vieira

Abstract

An important question in Philosophical Theology and Philosophical Anthropology is the question of Free Will. More than an Ethical
approach about the nature of human action, the notion of Free Will has ontological implications in determining the comprehension about Being, about the essence and existence. In fact, authors such Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, Cicero, St. Anselm, St. Augustine and St. Thomas of Aquinas, among others, claim that the comprehension of the possibilities and the limits of human action necessarily implies a conception about the human nature, his essence, origin and ends. In this paper we will undertake an excursion through the different and complementary conceptions of Free Will of some of the named authors, in order to understand how, in the work of Father António Vieira, it can be resolved the possible difficulty of conciliation between the Free Will of the creatures and the omniscience of the Creator.