Thomistic Predestination and Free Will
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God moves a thing according to the nature of thing he moves. So when God gives grace to a man, he gives it to him according to his nature; so God gives grace to a man so that man receives it freely. Also, predestination is in God, and our choices are in us, so they inhere in two different subjects.
Also, it is important that God is not one influence and our will another influence, but God causes us to be free (for nothing escapes God's causality). Our free will and God's predestination are not two competing influences, but God predestines some to be saved according to their nature, ie. freely. So there exists connection between God's predestination and our free will, namely, God predestined some to be saved freely.
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The view of Norman Geisler, who was a Thomistic scholar, is that free will and election are not innately contradictory. Geisler wrote the book "Chosen but Free". He explains that while God's choosing and man's free will seem to be contradictory, philosophically they can't be shown to be so.
A key verse for Geisler is 1 Peter 1:1-2 where God's choice is "according to" His foreknowledge. Calvinism claims that God chooses independent of His foreknowledge. Arminianism usually says that God chooses based on His foreknowledge of our faith. But Geisler based on Aquinas simply posits that God's choice doesn't contradict free will.
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