It is vain labour to try and derive the solution of the question of Free Will, or even a contribution towards it, from introspection. It is a method unsuitable for this purpose. The Greek sage well knew what a great and difficult task he set man when he admonished him: "[Greek: gnôthi seauton]." That is easy to say but difficult if not impossible to do. Spinoza very happily characterized the self-deception in which the individual is plunged with regard to the part played in determining his actions by his conscious Will aided by Reason; he says that if a stone, flung by some hand, had consciousness, it would imagine it was flying of its own free will; and in another place he points out without any illustrative metaphor, that a drunk man and a child, who certainly do not act on their own initiative, also believe in the freedom of their will. It has been possible to prove experimentally how ignorant of the real motives of his actions the individual may be. It is suggested to a person who has been hypnotized that on awakening he is to carry out a certain action, something particularly absurd, unjustified and aimless being intentionally chosen. The subject of the experiment on awaking faithfully carries out the suggestion, and as he has no memory of what happened while he was in the hypnotic state, he is convinced that he is yielding to a sudden idea, a whim, but that in any case his action is determined by his own will. But since he must realize the absurdity of what he is doing, he seeks for some sufficient motive to explain it, and always finds one to his own satisfaction.
All the efforts of anguished sophists to prove their thesis of the Freedom of the Will from data supplied by introspection have failed miserably. But they were forced to undertake them, for theology cannot give up the contention that man acts with free Will. It is an important part of the religious conception of the universe and of the relation in which, according to this, man stands to God.
To put it shortly, religion sees in man's life on earth a preparation for eternity. It gives him the opportunity of coming nearer to God by his own efforts and thus making himself worthy of the salvation which secures him a place in the sight of God to the end of time. Thus the life of the flesh is made a method of selection by which the sheep are sundered from the goats. God provides man with free Will for this special purpose, so that he may make use of it to choose good of his own accord and to avoid evil. This undoubtedly wearisome task is made much easier for him, because God in His goodness has given him laws, doctrines of Morality and examples which point out the way of salvation. If man makes proper use of his gifts, if in pursuance of divine admonition, he treads of his own free will the path of virtue, he acquires merit which gives him a legitimate claim to the reward of finding favour in God's eyes and to be admitted to the company of the just and pure. But if man purposely turns to evil, of which he is warned by revelation and which he has been given the power to avoid, then he is a sinner and deserves the punishment of damnation, which, however, he may yet escape if God in His mercy forgives him his sin. Therefore man holds in his hand the fate of his immortal soul. It depends on him whether this fate be salvation or damnation. He is responsible for directing it to the former or the latter. Of course, God has the power to force him to virtue and to stop him from vice. But it is not His plan to condemn man to be the slave of virtue. He wants man to choose virtue of his own accord, He wants noble souls about Him who by freedom have attained Morality.