The human will is free.

What we mean by that claim is something which is as simple as it is basic:

That a human person is a conscious originating source of his own activity. It is not that the human
being is to be regarded as untouched by any kind of determinism whatever. To think so would be
profoundly to misunderstand the human condition. As contingent creatures, we human beings are
determined in a wide variety of ways. The simple fact that we are physical beings, for example,
makes us subject to all the rigid determinations of matter. But the various determinisms which frame
and define men's life do not argue against the freedom of his will. The point to be emphasized is that
men's free will is itself one of the factors that determined his life, and a key factor at that. If man is
determined in certain respects, he also determines. By reason of his possession of free will, man
himself is a determining agent, and as such he can have a significant effect upon the other
determining influences in his life. Man is not a helpless pawn in the hands of forces over which he
has no control. He's an active player in a game which has everything to do with his eternal destiny.
The game was not made-up by man, nor is he the author of the rules to which he is subject, but that
does not make him any less a free participant in the game. And by his free actions he can have add
decided effect on the outcome of the contest.