ACC ~ Philemon 1 v14

FREE WILL A REALITY. ORIGEN: God does not tyrannize but rules, and when he rules, he does not coerce but encourages and he wishes that those under him yield themselves willingly to his direction so that the good of someone may not be according to compulsion but according to his free will. This is what Paul with understanding was saying to Philemon in the letter to Philemon concerning Onesimus: “So that your good be not according to compulsion but according to free will.” Thus, the God of the universe hypothetically might have produced a supposed good in us so that we would give alms from “compulsion” and we would be temperate from “compulsion,” but he has not wished to do so. HOMILIES ON JEREMIAH 20.2.

TWO GOOD EFFECTS. CHRYSOSTOM: This is a strategy that is particularly flattering to the person asked. The idea is that since the act proposed is a thing profitable in itself, it is brought forward in such a way as to win Philemon’s concurrence. For two good effects are thus produced: the intercessor gains his point, and the other person is rendered more secure. HOMILIES ON PHILEMON 2.

JEROME: This verse answers the question of why God, in creating human beings, did not constitute them invariably good and upright. If, indeed, God is good not out of some impersonal necessity but because in his essence he freely wills his own goodness, he should in making man have made him to the divine image and likeness, that is, that he be good willingly and not by necessity. COMMENTARY ON PHILEMON.

AUGUSTINE: And addressing himself to Philemon, Paul says: “that your kindness may not be as it were of necessity, but voluntary.” … Now wherever there is the express statement not to do this or that, and whenever the performance of the will is required to do or refrain from some action, in keeping with God’s commandments, that is sufficient proof of the free choice of the will. Let no one, therefore, blame God in his heart whenever he sins, but let him impute the sin to himself. GRACE AND FREE WILL 2.4.

PELAGIUS: It is to be noted that he wished no one to do anything good by necessity, lest that person lose the reward of freely choosing to do the right thing. PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON THE LETTER TO PHILEMON.

Philem