Fourth Meditation: What Is Freedom? 179
what freedom is for a rational nature. Even God could not cre-
ate a rational being not oriented toward the Good, any more
than he could create a reality in which 2 + 2 = 5. That is not
to deny that, within the embrace of this relation between the
will's origin and its end in the Good (what, again, Maximus the
Confessor calls our "natural will"), there is considerable room
for deliberative liberty with regard to differing finite options
(what Maximus calls the "gnomic will"), and considerable
room in which to stray from the ideal path. But, even so, if a
rational creature- one whose mind is entirely unimpaired and
who has the capacity truly to know the substance and the con -
sequences of the choice confronting him or her-is allowed,
without coercion from any force extrinsic to his or her nature,
to make a choice between a union with God in bliss that will
utterly fulfill his or her nature in its deepest yearnings and a
separation from God that will result in endless suffering and
the total absence of his or her nature's satisfaction, only one
truly free choice is possible. A fool might thrust his hand into
the flame; only a lunatic would not then immediately withdraw
it. To say that the only sane and therefore free natural end of
the will is the Good is no more problematic than to say that
the only sane and therefore free natural end of the intellect is
Truth. Rational spirit could no more will evil on the grounds
that it is truly evil than the intellect could believe something on
the grounds that it is certainly false. So, yes, there is an origi-
nal and ultimate divine determinism of the creature's intellect
and will, and for just this reason there is such a thing as true
freedom in the created realm. As on the cross (John 12:32), so
in the whole of being: God frees souls by dragging them to
himself.