Whether an omission, and the effect that follows from it, are voluntary without a precept to place the act omitted?

Note 1°. The question is not of omission directly voluntary, namely when the one omitting in act wills positively to omit; for all confess that then, for the omission to be voluntary, no precept or obligation of positing the act omitted is required, because then the will is terminated directly and positively to it. But the question is of omission indirectly voluntary, namely when someone, being advertent, posits some act incompossible with the act omitted; e.g., someone, while the practical judgment dictates that Mass is presently to be celebrated and can be heard, chooses to remain at home, or to play, or to study, yet without saying: « I will to omit Mass. »

Note 2° that distinction must be made between culpable and voluntary omission; for it is certain that omission is not culpable without a precept of positing the act omitted.

I say 1°: For omission to be voluntary, there is not required a precept or obligation of positing the act omitted.

It is proved 1° by the fundamental reason. The voluntary is from an intrinsic principle with knowledge of the end. But, the precept of positing the act omitted being set aside, its omission is from an intrinsic principle with knowledge of the end. Therefore. — Proof of the minor: 1° We suppose the intellect to advert to what is omitted, otherwise it would be mere forgetfulness or negative omission. 2° This omission hangs upon the will, whether it be posited or not posited. 3° The will elicits advertently some act incompossible with the omitted act, whereby liberty is exercised in act, and from which the omission follows. Therefore, the precept being set aside, omission is from an intrinsic principle with knowledge of the end, and the omission is indirectly voluntary and thus elicited. What the adversaries oppose against this fundamental reason we shall say in the solution of the objections.

It is confirmed. He who omits freely omits voluntarily. But he who, intent upon study, omits Mass on a feria omits no less freely than on a feast day. Therefore.

It is proved 2° a posteriori. Many are the indirect voluntary omissions of acts not precepted; thus, e.g., he who, given to study or prayer, omits warming himself, or recreation, or some other convenience licit indeed but not precepted — not by direct volition of those omissions, but out of voluntary choice of study or prayer at that time, or on that occasion when he could licitly enjoy these conveniences; these, I say, are indirectly voluntary omissions, as no one, I think, will deny, since they are meritorious. Therefore it is plain that an indirect voluntary omission can exist without precept.

I say 2°: The effect consequent upon or concomitant with the omission is not voluntary without obligation of impeding it, unless perchance the omission be ordered as a means toward this effect.

It is proved 1° a priori. The effect following or accompanying the omission, the obligation of impeding it being set aside, proceeds neither physically nor morally from the will: not physically, because the will precisely omitting has no physical influx upon the existence of this effect, nor can omission, since it is a non-being, cause it physically; not morally, because there is no reason why an effect upon which the will has in no wise physical influx should be referred back to it as cause, unless because it could and ought to have impeded it. But by the very fact that it can and ought to impede such an effect, the effect begins to belong to it, and there is due to it the care of impeding it; whence omission of impeding is reckoned as volition of the effect, because no one is presumed unwilling to fulfill his debt, unless he wills the opposite the more. Therefore, the obligation of impeding the effect consequent upon the omission being set aside, that effect is not voluntary.

It is confirmed from the difference which exists between the omission itself and the effect following or accompanying it respectively with respect to the will. Omission per se immediately, no other cause intervening, depends upon the will; for the will can equally immediately nill as will. Whence, that the nolition, or omission of willing, be indirectly voluntary, it needs no other cause than only advertence and the suspension of influx after the vital manner, which is furnished by eliciting another act incompossible with the act omitted; for then the omission proceeds indirectly from an intrinsic principle with knowledge of the end. But the effect following, or accompanying, the omission is not per se immediately from the will, but mediately, through another cause intervening: thus, e.g., while I omit to part two quarrelers, the killing ensuing thence is caused neither by my will nor by my omission, but by the sword of the slayer; likewise, when a sailor omits to steer the ship, neither his will nor his omission submerges the ship, but the tempest. That therefore such an effect be referred back to the will as to its cause, and be called interpretatively voluntary, something must be assigned whereby it comes about that it belongs in some way to the will and has some connection with it; and nothing else can be assigned except a precept of impeding that effect, as I said in the first proof.

It is proved 2° a posteriori. There are effects following or accompanying voluntary omission which are in no wise voluntary through defect of the obligation of impeding them: thus God voluntarily omits to impede the sins of men, and yet sins are not voluntary in him, because he is not bound to impede them.

I said in the conclusion, « Unless perchance the omission be ordered as a means toward this effect »; because then it is manifest that such an effect would be directly intended and willed, consequently positively and directly voluntary: as if someone, to that end that he suffer cold for mortification's sake, omit to approach the fire; cold is positively voluntary in him, because per se intended and willed.

Obj. 1° against the first conclusion: St. Thomas, here a. 3, c., says: « Since therefore the will, by willing and acting, can impede this, that it will not and act not, and sometimes ought, therefore not to will and not to act is imputed to it as existing from it. » Therefore, according to St. Thomas, omission without precept is not voluntary.

I answer. St. Thomas speaks of omission insofar as it is at once culpable and voluntary, as is plain from this word « imputed ».

Obj. 2°: An omission, e.g., of Mass, is not voluntary unless it have the character of privation, because negative omission was already in the will before one willed or nilled, and not while the time of Mass was present. But, the precept being set aside, omission of Mass has not the character of privation, but of mere negation. Therefore. — Proof of the minor: Privation is the lack of a form due to the subject. But, the precept being set aside, hearing Mass is not due. Therefore. And this is the principal foundation of Gonet.

I answer, with Contenson: I deny the minor; to prove it, distinguish the minor. The precept being set aside, hearing Mass is not due legally and morally, that is, by way of obligation — grant the minor; it is not due physically and naturally, that is, by way of disposition and exigency — I deny the minor. A twofold debt therefore must be distinguished, one moral and of obligation, by force of a law that binds; the other natural, by force of a disposition that demands. And to this twofold debt corresponds a twofold privation: one is the lack of the act due by force of precept; the other, the lack of the act due by force of the disposition toward it. Although therefore the work, e.g., the hearing of Mass on a feria, is not due by force of precept, nevertheless, advertence being posited and the dictamen proposing in practice that Mass be celebrated here and now, Mass is due by a natural debt, that is, of exigency and disposition; for it cannot be denied that the thought and dictamen concerning some act are a disposition toward it, since the beginning of every work is the thought of it. When therefore man rejects this dictamen, and thereby prudently and knowingly turns himself to an act incompossible with hearing Mass, he stands not only negatively but privatively toward it, and voluntarily omits it: just as, e.g., while matter is disposed to some form, that form is due to it; and if, notwithstanding this disposition, another be introduced, it is said to be deprived of it.