But without your consent would I do nothing; that your benefit should not be as it were of necessity, but willingly.
All Commentaries on Philemon 1:14 Go To Philemon 1
Jerome
AD 420
This verse answers the question of why God, in creating human beings, did not constitute them invariably good and upright. If, indeed, God is good not out of some impersonal necessity but because in his essence he freely wills his own goodness, he should in making man have made him to the divine image and likeness, that is, that he be good willingly and not by necessity. .
