Chapter — Bucceroni, Commentaries on Human Acts
Commentary II: On the Free
1.
- We have spoken of the voluntary of human acts in the first Commentary; now, in this second Commentary, we must speak of the free. That the free is found in human acts is a truth of faith, which is established with all evidence and certitude from Sacred Scripture and Tradition. Cf. Suarez, in 1. 2. tr. 2. D. 1. S. 2. The reason is that “if some good is proposed to the will which has the complete notion of good, and the ultimate end, on account of which all things are desired, it cannot not will to be happy, or will to be miserable. But in those things which are ordered to the ultimate end, nothing is found so evil that it does not have some good mixed in, nor anything so good that it suffices in all things; whence, however much it is shown to be good or evil, it can always adhere and flee into the contrary by reason of the other which is in it, from which it is taken, if it is evil simply, as an apparent good, and, if it is good simply, as an apparent evil; and thence it is that in all things which fall under choice, the will remains free, having determination in this alone, that it desires natural happiness, and not determinately in this or that.” St. Thomas, 2. Dist. 25. q. 1. a. 2., 1. 2. q. 10. a. 2.; Suarez, in 1. 2. tr. 2. D. 6. S. 3., D. 8. S. 4.; Lessius on q. 10. St. Thomas; Würzburg Theology, n. 144 ff.
2.
- The free adds, above the act of the will, only a relation to the power eliciting the act of the will and having the power to suspend that act, or to elicit another act diverse only in species or even opposed. In the first case it is called liberty of exercise or of contradiction; in the other case, liberty of specification; in the third case, liberty of contrariety. Cf. Becanus, tr. 1. c. 2. q. 1., c. 3. q. 3. The exercise of the act is from the application of the will to willing; specification is from the various nature of the object. Therefore the free certainly requires in the will an active power of act and non-act, of this or that act; but it by no means requires immunity also from infirmity, namely from concupiscence and other passions and miseries of human life; since these are extrinsic, they cannot change the intrinsic manner of acting of the human will. Hence St. Thomas says: “it must be said that that infirmity which is in voluntary evils is subject to the power of man; and therefore it neither removes nor diminishes the notion of fault.” 1. 2. q. 21. a. 2. ad 3. This liberty, concerning which we are treating, is physical liberty. But moral liberty involves in its concept only the lack of obligation in conscience, or under fault, by force of a law commanding or prohibiting; which obligation presupposes physical liberty. Wherefore moral liberty connotes physical liberty. St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 10. a. 2. 3., q. 15. a. 2., q. 24. a. 3.
3.
- The aforesaid active power of the will essentially requires immunity from intrinsic necessity. The reason is that otherwise there would now be no further distinction between natural or necessary acts, and voluntary or free acts; now all acts of the will would be necessary, as being from intrinsic necessity, or all would be free if intrinsic necessity does not take away the liberty of the act. And thus the very acts of the will concerning the ultimate end or happiness, or concerning good in common, would be free. “Will,” says St. Thomas, “is divided against nature, as one cause against another, for some things happen naturally, and some things happen voluntarily.” 1. 2. q. 10. a. 1. ad 1. Namely, acts are divided into necessary acts and free acts. The former happen naturally, but the latter voluntarily. For an act to happen naturally is for it to happen from the instinct of nature, from intrinsic necessity. But for an act to happen voluntarily is for it to happen neither from the instinct of nature nor from intrinsic necessity. St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 10. a. 2. 4.; Würzburg Theology, n. 94 ff.
4.
- Besides immunity from intrinsic necessity, that active power of the will which is contained in the liberty of the same will further requires intrinsic active indifference to acting, namely a power intrinsically indifferent to acting or not acting, to acting this or that, once all conditions prerequired for acting have been posited. - Proof of the first part: the free excludes intrinsic necessity of acting. Therefore it necessarily implies intrinsic power of acting or not acting, of acting this or that. But this power is a power intrinsically and actively indifferent. Therefore. Proof of the second part: if that active indifference were to be understood only antecedently to the necessary prerequisites for acting, a free cause would differ in nothing from a necessary cause. Würzburg Theology, n. 100 ff. - The voluntary, according to the Angelic Doctor, 1. 2. q. 6. a. 1, imports the motion or act of those things which, from their own inclination and not inclined by another, perfectly move themselves. How therefore, if the aforesaid active intrinsic indifference of the will were lacking, would the voluntary still be had from one's own inclination and from perfect motion by oneself to act?
5.
- The doctrine concerning the free, proposed in the preceding number, both as to the matter and even as to the words themselves, is truly the doctrine of St. Thomas. For the Angelic Doctor explains the free through dominion of the act. “Those actions alone are called properly human of which man is master. But he is master of his acts through reason and will; whence also free choice is said to be the faculty of will and reason.” 1. 2. q. 1. a. 1. - He explains it through moving oneself to the end. “Therefore those things which have reason move themselves to the end, because they have dominion of their acts through free choice.” 1. 2. q. 1. a. 2. “Perfect cognition of the end is followed by the voluntary according to the perfect notion, insofar, namely, as, the end having been apprehended, someone can, deliberating about the end and about those things which are to the end, be moved into the end or not be moved.” 1. 2. q. 6. a. 2. - He explains it through power for opposite acts. “From this, that deliberating reason is disposed toward opposites, the will is able toward either.” Ibid. ad 2. - He explains it through the determination of the faculty itself to act. “Man through reason determines himself to willing this or that, which is truly good or apparently good,” 1. 2. q. 9. a. 6. ad 3; and he excludes God's determination to one from without; for he opposes this determination to particular good, proceeding from the will itself, to the motion of God toward good in common. Likewise he excludes intrinsic determination to one, saying: “But there is another mode of causing proper to the will, which is mistress of its act, besides the mode which belongs to nature, which is determined to one.” 1. 2. q. 10. a. 1. ad 1. ad 3. “But the will is indeed, according to the order of nature, determined to one common thing, which is good, but it is indeterminately disposed with respect to particular goods.” 1. 2. q. 13. a. 2. And here it must be noted that St. Thomas so truly excludes from a freely acting cause determination to one, that he explains a necessary cause in acting through this determination to one, taking necessity in acting and determination to one in acting for one and the same thing. And thus in 1. 2 q. 13. a. 2 he says: “But there is a difference between the sensitive appetite and the will, because, as is clear from what has been said above q. 1. a. 2. ad 3, the sensitive appetite is determined to one particular thing according to the order of nature; but the will is indeed, according to the order of nature, determined to one common thing, which is good, but it is indeterminately disposed with respect to particular goods.” And ad 2.um: “The brute animal takes one thing before another, because its appetite is naturally determined to it; whence immediately, when through sense or through imagination something is represented to it, to which its appetite is naturally inclined, it is moved to it without choice, just as also without choice fire is moved upward and not downward.” These things specifically concerning the distinction between the will and the sensitive appetite. But speaking altogether generally about causes, St. Thomas divides them into natural and voluntary, or into necessary and free, q. 10. a. 1. ad 1, q. 21. a. 1. 2, etc.; and he explains the mode of causing of a natural, or necessary, cause by determination to one, without power toward either. Wherefore, according to the Angelic Doctor, a necessary cause is a cause determined to one; a free cause is a cause actively indifferent toward either. The Angelic Doctor furthermore explains the free expressly through the active indifference of the will. “Therefore because the will is an active principle not determined to one, but holding itself indifferently toward many things, God so moves it that he does not determine it of necessity to one, but its motion remains contingent and not necessary, except in those things to which it is moved naturally.” 1. 2. q. 10. a. 4.
6.
- And in this last place the Angelic Doctor explicitly, in the very words, excludes determination by God to one; wherefore he also excludes predetermination to one. But if by the name of premotion is understood that motion of God concerning which the Angelic Doctor says, God moves the will, divine premotion can very well be admitted, indeed must be admitted, since God's motion is prior by nature to the motion itself of the will. “It must be said,” says St. Thomas in the cited place, namely q. 9. a. 6. ad 3, “that God moves the will of man as universal mover to the universal object of the will, which is good; and without this universal motion man cannot will anything. But man through reason determines himself to willing this or that... good.” Moreover it is evident that that universal motion is prior by nature to this determination; whence, without that preceding universal motion of God, the particular determination of the human will cannot be had.
7.
- But if by the name of premotion is understood premotion to one certain act, to one determined act, just as St. Thomas excludes determination, or predetermination, by God to one, so also he excludes motion or premotion by God to one. Whence the Angelic Doctor immediately adds that God so moves the will that its motion remains contingent and not necessary: it certainly remains contingent and not necessary, as flowing from the human will, in the composite sense of the divine motion itself. He so moves that it remains contingent. Wherefore the explanation of the Angelic Doctor differs in nothing from the explanation of liberty given above in the preceding number.
8.
- Moreover, the Angelic Doctor explains liberty through choice, 1. 2. q. 13. a. 2. 6, which altogether excludes determination to one, and is indeterminately disposed toward many things, or is actively indifferent toward choosing them. Nor indeed can choice be understood without this intrinsic active indifference. “It must be said,” says St. Thomas in the cited place, “that since choice is the pre-acceptance of one thing with respect to another, it is necessary that choice be with respect to many things which can be chosen; therefore in those things which are determined to one, choice has no place. But there is a difference between appetite and the will, because, as is clear from what has been said above, q. 1. a. 2. ad 3, the sensitive appetite is determined to one particular thing according to the order of nature; but the will is indeed, according to the order of nature, determined to one common thing; but it is indeterminately disposed with respect to particular goods. And therefore properly it belongs to the will to choose, but not to the sensitive appetite, which alone is in brute animals; and on account of this it does not belong to brute animals.” Cf. Contra Gentiles, l. 2. c. 48, l. 3. c. 88. 89.
9.
- Finally, the Angelic Doctor explains the free through the active application of appetitive motion to something, which also excludes any intrinsic and extrinsic determination to one. “Consent,” he says, “properly speaking, is not in brute animals. The reason for this is that consent imports application of appetitive motion to the doing of something. But it belongs to him in whose power the appetitive motion is to apply appetitive motion to the doing of something: just as touching a stone indeed belongs to a staff, but applying the staff to the touch of the stone belongs to him who has it in his power to move the staff. But brute animals do not have appetitive motion in their own power; rather such a motion in them is from the instinct of nature, whence a brute animal indeed desires, but does not apply appetitive motion to something. And on account of this it is not properly said to consent, but only a rational nature is, which has appetitive motion in its own power, and can apply it or not apply it to this or to that.” 1. 2. q. 15. a. 2.
10.
- Wherefore it must be concluded that, as the free excludes any intrinsic necessity, and consequently any extrinsic coercion, so also it excludes any intrinsic and extrinsic determination to acting. Nor indeed does it avail to object those things which the Angelic Doctor has in the same cited place, q. 10. a. 4. ad 3, where he says: “it must be said that, if God moves the will to something, it is incompossible with this position that the will not be moved to that thing; nevertheless it is not impossible simply. Whence it does not follow that the will is moved by God of necessity.” From these words indeed the Holy Doctor can seem to teach that the will is not determined to one before the divine motion, but, once the divine motion has been posited, is now determined to one. And this would be to teach, in almost the same number of words, the noted distinction of the composite and divided sense. Namely, in the composite sense of the divine motion it is impossible or incompossible that the act not be posited; but that this is possible simply, possible namely in the divided sense of the divine motion. - But the Holy Doctor in that response ad 3 certainly says this, which is quite different: once the divine motion has been posited, it is impossible that the act not be posited. But since the divine motion is of such efficacy that through it not only is something done, “but also that it be done in that mode which agrees with the nature of the thing itself; and therefore it would be more repugnant to the divine motion if the will were moved from necessity, which does not belong to its nature, than if it were moved freely, as belongs to its nature,” ibid. ad 1; consequently it cannot be said to be impossible simply that the act not follow; for what is impossible simply cannot be that which is, but contingently is toward either, for the acting will can act or not act. What is impossible simply is not contingent, but is altogether determined. And it must be noted that the act remains contingent and free in the composite sense of the divine motion itself, and in the same composite sense that act consequently proceeds from a will actively indifferent and able toward either. For the Holy Doctor says, both in the said response ad 1.um and in the body, that that motion accommodates itself to the nature of things and of the will, and consequently does not move this will by necessity and with determination to one. If that motion agrees with the nature of the will, if it does not move by necessity by determining to one, it certainly moves in such a way that, with the divine motion itself standing, the will remains what it is, and, as the Holy Doctor says in the body of the article, this is the will, namely an active principle not determined to one, but holding itself indifferently toward many things. Therefore the will remains, in the composite sense of the motion, wholly what it is, and therefore actively indifferent and able toward either, not determined to one; and likewise, with that motion standing, the motion of the will remains contingent and free, and therefore proceeded from the will, under that motion, as not determined to one. God so moves it that he does not determine it of necessity to one, but its motion remains contingent, in the evidently composite sense of the divine motion itself. Nevertheless, once this divine motion to something has been posited, it is incompossible with this position that the will not be moved to that thing, since that divine motion already implies with itself the concomitant motion of the will itself, though contingent and free, because most certainly the motion of the will remains contingent and free. Cf. 1. p. q. 19. a. 8.
11.
- According to the Angelic Doctor, the free is founded in the objective indifference of the preceding judgment of reason, proposing the thing not as absolutely to be chosen, but only as choosable on account of the various reasons of fittingness and unfittingness which can be present in it. For he says that the free is had “insofar as, the end having been apprehended, someone can, deliberating about the end and about those things which are to the end, be moved into the end or not be moved.” 1. 2. q. 6. a. 3. “From this it happens that man is master of his act, that he has deliberation concerning his acts. For from this, that deliberating reason is disposed toward opposites, the will is able toward either.” Now deliberation cannot be had unless reason proposes to the will the various fittingnesses and unfittingnesses which are in the object. Moreover in 1. 2. q. 10. a. 2 the Angelic Doctor has these words: “In the motion of any power by its object, the account must be considered through which the object moves the power.... Whence, if some object is proposed to the will which is universally good, and according to every consideration, of necessity the will tends into it , if it wills anything; for it will not be able to will the opposite. But if some object is proposed to it which is not good according to every consideration, the will is not borne into it of necessity.” Therefore the free is founded in this proposing of the object on the part of reason under diverse considerations, according to which the same object can be rejected or approved by the will. And in 1. 2. q. 13. a. 6: “In all particular goods, (reason) can consider the notion of some good and the defect of some good, which has the notion of evil. And according to this it can apprehend each of goods of this kind as choosable or fleeable. But perfect good alone, which is beatitude, reason cannot apprehend under the notion of evil, or of some defect. And therefore man wills beatitude of necessity, nor can he will not to be blessed, or to be miserable. But choice, since it is not about the end, but about those things which are to the end, is not of perfect good, which is beatitude, but of other particular goods. And therefore man chooses not of necessity, but freely.” And 1. 2. q. 17. a. 1. ad 2: “It must be said that the root of liberty is the will, as subject; but reason is so as cause. For from this the will can freely be borne to diverse things, because reason can have diverse conceptions of good. And therefore the Philosophers define free choice as a free judgment concerning reason, as though reason were the cause of liberty.”
12.
- “It is inferred that, when a grave temptation has arisen, and after the sensitive appetite, whether concupiscible, venereal, or irascible, is vehemently excited by phantasy or from elsewhere, that then, I say, acts of a threefold kind can be given in the will. First, those which precede the use of reason and are elicited by the tempted person in that instant or time in which the intellect has not yet proposed to the will motives deterring it, but only those enticing it toward that object into which the appetite is borne. And these acts of the will are called first-first motions. Secondly, those which follow upon some use of reason, and are elicited by the tempted person in that instant in which the intellect proposes deterring motives only obscurely, but motives enticing toward illicit love or toward hatred so vividly that the will is moved by the deterring motives only weakly and imperfectly. And these acts of the will are called second-first motions. Thirdly, finally, those which follow upon the perfect use of reason and are elicited by the will in that instant in which the intellect has proposed to the will, sufficiently clearly and intensely, deterring motives or the unfittingness and moral malice, by which the will could be freely deterred, if it seriously willed. And these acts of the will are called deliberate acts. Acts of the 1.i kind are not free, and consequently neither are they formally sinful. Acts of the 2.i kind are imperfectly free, and only venially sinful. But acts of the 3.ii kind are perfectly free, and consequently, if there is gravity of matter, they are mortally sinful.” Struggl, Moral Theology, tr. 1. q. 1. a. 1. n. 10. Cf. St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 10. a. 3.
13.
- A question arises from the established doctrine of the preceding number 11: whether for the exercise of liberty there is prerequired a practical judgment, or command of reason, by which it is defined that the object here and now, all things considered, is to be chosen or rejected? - R. Bellarmine (On Grace and Free Choice, l. 3. c. 8. 9.) indeed concedes that a judgment of this kind is required, and he further concedes that the will is determined to one from this judgment, but he denies that liberty is weakened thereby. For he says that that very practical judgment by which the will is determined is in the power of the will, insofar as, various objects or reasons of fittingness or utility having been proposed to the will, the will permits itself to be moved rather by one than by another object, rather by one than by another reason of fittingness or utility, from which permission of the will one practical judgment rather than another flows. Wherefore, although the will is determined by practical judgment, nevertheless this practical judgment follows upon the exercise of liberty. And thus liberty remains whole. But although the authority of Cardinal Bellarmine is great, still we cannot follow his opinion in this matter. For that practical judgment by which the will is determined to one: is it absolutely necessary, or is it absolutely free? If the 1.um, therefore all liberty is ended. If the 2.um, either it is free intrinsically, or extrinsically from the command of the will. The first cannot be said, because the formally free faculty is not the intellect but the will. But if the second is said, then either that command of the will is determined from another judgment of the intellect, and thus one must proceed to infinity, or it is not determined from a previous practical judgment, and then it is false that the will in all its free acts is determined by the last practical judgment of the intellect. Wherefore, with Suarez in 1. 2. tr. 2. D. 1. S. 2, D. 6. S. 5. 6, D. 8. S. 4, Lessius in q. 6 of St. Thomas, and others, it is rather to be said that, for having the free determination of the will, such a practical judgment altogether determining it is not necessary. For to have the exercise of the will it is enough that the intellect propose the object to it as choosable; for by thus proposing the object, it proposes that object under some notion of good. Cfr. Becanus, tr. 1. c. 2. q. 5. 6. 7.
14.
- As has already been said, “the will is moved in two ways. In one way as to the exercise of the act; in another way as to the specification of the act, which is from the object. - Therefore in the first way the will is moved by no object of necessity. For someone can fail to think about any object whatever, and consequently neither actually will it.” St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 10. a. 2. And De Malo q. 6. a. un.: “The appetite for beatitude itself also is from necessity as to the determination of the act, because one cannot will the opposite; but not as to the exercise of the act, because someone can then not will to think about beatitude, because even the acts themselves of intellect and will are particular.” “But as to the second mode of motion, the will is moved by some object of necessity, but by some not.” 1. 2. q. 10. a. 2. The reason is that there are some objects, namely good in common, the ultimate end in common, and the means necessary to it, 1. 2. q. 10. a. 1. 2, which are not proposed to the will by reason except under the consideration of good. “But any other particular goods, insofar as they fall short of some good, can be taken as not good. And according to this consideration they can be rejected or approved by the will,” 1. 2. q. 10. a. 2, rejected as not good, approved as good; for thus indeed there is had, on the part of the object, a moving reason of the faculty toward act, but a sufficient moving reason is not had. “The sufficient motive of any power is only an object which totally has the notion of motive. But if it is deficient in something, it will not move of necessity.” 1. 2. q. 10. a. 2. ad 1.