It’s great to have this post started. May as well jump right in.
Regarding question 1. The concept of freedom I would propose is this: the agent in question is able, at the particular time he has freedom (which may not be always), to do otherwise. This means that influences (at this particular moment) may be present to the nth degree and not actually cause or be the total explanation of a given choice. The person or individual is the one who, by exercising their “choosing part,” chooses between a source of alternatives. As such this freedom does not imply a “causeless act”, though it does imply an act not totally determined by anything outside the chooser. It is, as it were, an initiating event. It is also why some philosophers say that while free will choices are not infallibly knowable prior to their being made, they are nevertheless retroactively intelligible afterward. Such a choice requires a sort of ambiguity in which what is in the intellect does not determine the will (so, for example, one beholding God in beatitude would not possess this kind of freedom). I want also to emphasize the fact that this freedom need not always be present for it to be real or exist or be a meaningful part of God’s plan. Which leads me to question 2.
- I don’t believe that by having freedom it follows that we may be able to freely reject God forever. This would only follow if our freedom itself must be applicable to the idea of “rejecting God forever.” But I’m not sure this is a fact of reality that our freedom extends to. What lies behind this objection is the idea that exercising our freedom in a certain way - say by “accepting” rather than rejecting God - is necessary for our salvation. And hence a theodicy is often built upon this concept and as such only a “hopeful universalism” is possible. But I’m more and more inclined to believe that our freedom was not granted so that we could freely exercise it in a certain way; but rather that we could exercise it at all. To vaguely and shortly put what I mean, it seems possible that free will was given, not to get us into heaven by choosing certain things, but because without it we could not come to a knowledge of ourselves, other beings, God, and various concepts like causation and unity and individuality. It is only accidentally, as it were, that the consequence of giving creatures freedom is that they are also able to do evil. In other words, it seems it may be that we’re given freedom not because without it we couldn’t do good, but because we need it in order to understand various concepts which will make our perfection and beatitude intelligible. Relationships with others and God and our interaction with things seem to involve concepts that would be impossible to cognize without experiencing freedom. The fact that good and evil can be done as well is only, as I said, accidental. It also follows from this that though *experiencing *freedom may be necessary, actually committing evil is not.
So, as odd (and untraditional) as it may sound, I think it may be that the concept of freedom in theodicy may be much more asymmetrical, if you will, than is normally believed. I believe it can serve as an explanation of evil (and also some good), but good is still possible without it (though evil is not). To push further, I would suggest that our free will is not needed to be exercised in a certain way - but only simply exercised - in order to be perfected and, to use your language doctor Talbott, “trumped” by God. For the trumping does not take away from the good of the act, only its freedom, which at that point has served its necessary purpose in the formation of individuality and the understanding of various concepts in the rational creature. In short, I want to suggest that maybe free will is not necessary for good, but something else, and that this may be a way in which we can guarantee universalism, safe-guard our intuitions of “good” acts which seem irresistible to us though still fully chosen by us (such as Lewis’ conversion or our falling in love), and provide an answer to the origination of evil.