St. Augustine recognized that a world with free will is better than one without it in the same way that a world of thriving animals is better than a world of lifeless rocks. He writes, “For a runaway horse is better than a stone that stays in the right place only because it has no movement or perception of its own; and in the same way, a creature that sins by free will is more excellent than one that does not sin only because it has no free will.”
