Although Maximus' and Augustine's theologies of the will were shaped by very different polemical contexts, it is arguable that the two thinkers were interested in securing the same theological ground. In response to positions that treated the will as a reserve of human autonomy over against God, both thinkers sought to see the freedom of the will as a function of its integration into the natural order through grace. Maximus' concept of the natural will in particular functions as a means of challenging both divine determinism and human libertarianism as adequate accounts of the relationship between divine and human activity.