Freewill is 'independent' and does not come from a bound Element.

But if Freewill has the character of a 'bound Nature,' . . . . [how are there in] it sentiments which are unlike one another? And it is found that there are not two Entities which contend with one another, as Mani says, because they are Wills of one Existence . . . [For how do Entities contend with one another?] . . . but that which was created from nothing. And when it is changed from one thing to another thing? For an independent Will it (i.e., Freedom) has not, because it is bound in something from which it has come. For if it was (created) from an Entity . . . the Freedom of the Soul . . . [P. 181, l.13.] [depends] upon [the Entities].

And if they are good it is good just as if they are evil it is evil. And if the Entities are good or evil it is like them. And of necessity Freewill such as this is not at all Freewill, but a shadow either of the Entities or of 'bound Natures,' so that wherever they turn it (i.e., Freewill) turns with them in like manner. But that Freewill which was created from nothing [cxviii] is not bound up with that nothing, because it does not even exist. And on this account it is not turned as a 'bound Shadow,' but it is changed as an independent Freewill.

But let us refute them a little, for whose correction even [P. 182.] much refutation is too little. Because the Souls come from something, as they say, it is found that their Freewill also is bound up with something, and it is not found that they are either pleasing or hateful, but if this true Root is pleasing they are mingled with it. But if they say that while the fountain is pure its Will is perturbed on account of its free Nature, then without Evil and Satan, in virtue of what it is, Freewill is able by its own power to produce many evils. And they acknowledge the truth unwillingly that Freewill has power to change its Wishes, since its Wishes are not bound up with a good or evil Essence. For if it is bound up with a good Nature or an evil Root, its wishes have no (free) power, but they are pipes in which Bitterness and Sweetness move along from the Roots with which it is bound up.