Lexic.us

Definition of Free will

1. Noun. The power of making free choices unconstrained by external agencies.

Definition of Free will

1. Noun. A person's natural inclination; unforced choice. ¹

2. Noun. (philosophy) The ability to choose one's actions, or determine what reasons are acceptable motivation for actions, without predestination, fate etc. ¹

¹ Source: wiktionary.com

Medical Definition of Free will

1. 1. A will free from improper coercion or restraint. "To come thus was I not constrained, but did On my free will." (Shak) 2. The power asserted of moral beings of willing or choosing without the restraints of physical or absolute necessity. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998)

Lexicographical Neighbors of Free Will

Literary usage of Free will

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the by Charles George Herbermann (1913)
"The question of free will does not seem to have presented itself very clearly to the early Greek philosophers. Some historians have held that the ..."

2. Nature by Norman Lockyer (1877)
"THOMAS BELT The Cedars, Ealing " On the Question of Free-Will" I SHOULD like to call the attention of your readers to what appears an important matter in ..."

3. Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin (1921)
"For in the dispute concerning free will, the question is not, whether a man, notwithstanding external impediments, can perform and execute whatever he may ..."

4. A Philosophical Dictionary by Voltaire (1824)
"FREE-WILL. FEOM the commencement of the time in which men began to reason, philosophers have agitated this question, which theologians have rendered ..."

5. The Table Talk of Martin Luther by Martin Luther, Hazlitt, William Hazlitt, Alexander Chalmers (1857)
"OF FREE-WILL. CCLIX. THE very name, Free-will, was odious to all the Fathers. I, for my part, admit that God gave to mankind a free will, but the question ..."

6. The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge: Embracing by Johann Jakob Herzog, Philip Schaff, Albert Hauck (1912)
"According to Bernard of Clairvaux (qv), free will remains also after the fall, wretched, to be sure, but intact. Only with volition itself ..."

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