How did St. Thomas Aquinas explain God's role in human freedom?

In the context of free will and moral responsibility, St. Thomas Aquinas addressed the theological challenge of reconciling human freedom with God’s role as the prime mover and first cause of all things.

Aquinas argued that God is not an obstacle to human freedom but rather its source. He maintained that God moves all created beings to act in accordance with their specific natures. Because humans are created with a voluntary nature, God moves them in a way that preserves the voluntary character of their actions. As Aquinas noted in the Summa theologiae, just as God moving natural causes does not prevent those acts from being natural, God moving voluntary causes does not deprive those actions of being voluntary.1

Furthermore, Aquinas believed that human wills are naturally in harmony with God’s creative wisdom. By sustaining the order of nature and allowing beings to act according to their proper natures, God’s providence actually establishes the foundation for human self-determination rather than destroying it.2