Section — Koch–Preuss
Section 1: Free-Will as the Subjective Condition of Morality
The subject of morality is man as a rational creature, able to know the moral law and conscious of being responsible for his acts and omissions.
Man's chief ethical faculty is free-will, i. e., the power to determine his own actions or to choose for himself between right and wrong (liberum arbitrium, vis electiva). By virtue of this faculty man is truly and properly the master of his own actions (dominus actuum suorum).
Only those acts are properly called human (actus humani, in opposition to actus hominis) of which man is master, i. e., which he performs with consciousness and free-will (actus morales). 1
1 Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a, qu. 83, art. 3: "Choice is proper to free judgment. We are said to possess free judgment because we can accept one thing while refusing another, which is to choose; and therefore the nature of free judgment must be considered from choice." —Ibid., 1a 2ae, qu. 1, art. 1: "Man differs from other irrational creatures in this: that he is master of his acts. Hence those actions alone are called properly human of which he is master. Man is master of his acts through reason and will; hence free choice is said to be a faculty of will and reason. Therefore those actions are called properly human which proceed from a deliberate will. If any other actions belong to man, they can indeed be called actions of a man, but not properly human actions, since they do not belong to man insofar as he is man."
The liberty of the human will, which we take as an axiom from philosophy and Dogmatic Theology, 2 is not merely a Catholic dogma,3 but a fundamental truth of revealed religion,4 and the pivot of all morality.5 Without free-will man could perform no ethical acts, either good or bad; there would be no moral responsibility, no imputability, no virtues or vices, neither guilt nor merit, and no redemption.6 To deny the freedom of the will, therefore, is to deny Christianity itself.
2 See Readings at the end of this chapter.
3 Cfr. Conc. Trident., Sess. VI, can. 5: "If anyone says that man's free will was lost and extinguished after Adam's sin, or that it is a thing only in name—indeed, a name without a reality—and finally a fiction introduced into the Church by Satan, let him be anathema."
4 Cfr. Gen. IV, 7; Deut. XXX, 19-20; Ecclus. XV, 14-18; Matth. XXIII, 37.—St. Augustine, De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio, II, n. 2, says: "He has revealed to us through His Holy Scriptures that there is free choice of the will in man. ... The divine precepts themselves would not profit man unless he had free choice of the will, by which, in doing them, he might attain the promised rewards."—Ibid., n. 4: "What of the fact that in so many places God commands all His commandments to be kept and done? How does He command this if there is no free will?" (Migne, P. L., XLIV, 882 sq.)—Cfr. E. Janvier, Exposition de la Morale Catholique, Vol. II, Paris 1904, pp. 51 sqq.
5 Cfr. St. Thomas, Comment, in Sent., II, dist. 24, qu. 3, art. 2: "The will is the principle of moral things, and therefore the moral order begins where dominion of the will is first found."
6 Cfr. St. Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio, II, c. 1, n. 3: "Both punishment and reward would be unjust if man did not have a free will."—IDEM, De Vera Religione, c. 14, n. 27: "If we do evil not by the will, no one at all should be rebuked or admonished; and if these are removed, the Christian law and every discipline of religion must be taken away. Therefore sin is committed by the will. And since there is no doubt that sin is committed, I see that there should likewise be no doubt that souls possess free choice of the will." —IDEM, Enarrat. in Ps., CI, serm. 1, n. 11: "If You had not given me free choice and by this reason made me better than beasts, just condemnation would not follow me when I sinned." —IDEM, Retract., I, c. 9, n. 4. (See Migne, P. L., XXXII, 1241; XXXIV, 133; XXXVII, 1302; XXXII, 596).—Cfr. St. Jerome, Adv. Iovin., II, c. 3: "God created us with free choice, and we are drawn by necessity neither to virtues nor to vices. Otherwise, where there is necessity, there is no crown." (Cfr. ibid., XXIII, 286). —St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a, qu. 83, art. 1: "Man possesses free choice; otherwise counsels, exhortations, precepts, prohibitions, rewards, and punishments would be in vain."
Free-will is capable of development and cultivation, and hence is not the beginning but the end of moral endeavor. Man, by "going from virtue to virtue," and by ''growing unto salvation," 7 is called to attain "moral liberty," to develop into "a perfect man unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ," and thereby to reach that blessed freedom which is "the glory of the children of God." 8 Moreover, free-will is not absolute but relative and limited in various ways:—metaphysically, by man's dependence upon the will of His Creator, and ethically, by certain natural, individual, personal, and social factors which constitute as many intrinsic determinants of liberty.
7 Ps. LXXXIII, 8; Phil. III, 13; 1 Pet. II, 2.—Cfr. Conc. Trident., Sess. VI, c. 11.
READINGS. —St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a, qu. 8 sqq., 13, 83. —C. Gutberlet, Die Willensfreiheit und ihre Gegner, Fulda 1893, pp. 26 sqq. —M. Maher, S.J., Psychology; Empirical and Rational, 4th ed., London 1900, pp. 394 sqq. —IDEM, in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VI, pp. 259 sqq. —Jos. Rickaby, S.J., Political and Moral Essays, New York 1902, pp. 249 sqq. —IDEM, Free Will and Four English Philosophers (Hobbes, Locke, Hume, and Mill), London 1906. —W. von Rohland, Die Willensfreiheit und ihre Gegner, Leipsic 1905. —A. Janvier, Exposition de la Morale Catholique, Vol. I, Paris 1904. —H. Gründer, S.J., Free Will, the Greatest of the Seven World-Riddles, St. Louis 1911. —E. Müller, Theol. Mor., Vol. I, 5th ed., pp. 329 sqq. —W. McDonald, Principles of Moral Science, Dublin 1910, Ch. VIII. —J. E. Ross, Christian Ethics, New York 1919, pp. 21 sqq.