Jansenius revives the old scholastic view: freedom opposed only to compulsion
Cornelius Jansenius, bishop of Ypres, revived this view of the old scholastics in our own time and tried to explain it, as can be seen throughout the sixth book, on the grace of Christ the Saviour, of the volume he called Augustinus.
There he argues at length that freedom is opposed not to every necessity but only to the one that comes from outside force working against the agent's inclination, which we call compulsion. In someone who acts on the judgment of reason, he says, compulsion alone removes freedom; the necessity of inevitability and immutability does not.
So a free agent is not the opposite of a necessary agent, any more than a natural agent is the opposite of one acting contingently. The free agent is opposed only to the natural agent, just as the contingent agent is opposed only to the necessary one.
Therefore it is no more contradictory for one who acts freely to act necessarily than for something acting by nature to act contingently. A natural cause can be hindered in its action by another cause, and in the same way a free cause can be fixed on one course immovably and unchangeably.
Latin
XXVI. Atque hanc Scholasticorum veterum sententiam, hoc saeculo renovavit, & illustrare conatus est Cornelius Jansenius Episcopus Iprensis, ut videre est in volumine illo cui titulum fecit Augustinus, toto libro sexto de Gratia Christi Salvatoris. Ibi enim prolixe docet libertatem non opponi necessitati cuilibet, sed illi soli quae est a vi externa contra agentis inclinationem, quam coactionem dicimus. Idque quoniam in eo qui ex judicio rationis agit, sola coactio libertatem tollit, non autem necessitas inevitabilitatis & immutabilitatis. Adeoque agens liberum oppositum non esse agenti necessario, sicut nec opposita sunt agens naturale, & agens contingenter, sed agens liberum oppositum esse soli agenti naturali, quemadmodum agens contingenter oppositum est soli agenti necessario. Proinde non magis repugnare ut qui libere agit necessario agat, quam repugnat ut quod per naturam agit, agat etiam contingenter; quia sicut causa naturalis ab alia causa potest in agendo impediri, ita causa libera in agendo potest esse ad unum determinata immobiliter & immutabiliter.