Section — Marc, Institutiones Morales
§ 2. On the Free
- Things to be noted beforehand. Liberty, in general, is immunity from servitude and subjection: whence, as many as are the species of servitude, so many are the species of liberty.
But a fivefold liberty is customarily assigned: 1. LIBERTY OF SPONTANEITY, which consists in exemption from violence and from coercion. This is common to all living things; indeed by analogy it is transferred to inanimate things: thus water is said to flow spontaneously.
LIBERTY OF INDIFFERENCE, or of choice, which consists in exemption from necessity and natural inclination determining to one. This belongs to intellectual nature alone.
LIBERTY OF INDEPENDENCE, which consists in exemption from obligation to law and any Superior commanding. This absolutely belongs to God alone, who, subject to no one, alone is law and rule to Himself; but participatively and relatively, also to intellectual creatures, namely outside the ambit of those obligations by which each is bound, and then it is called moral liberty, or the power of acting licitly (cf. n. 279). See St. Alph., Diss. dell'Uso moder. (1765), c. 4, n. 11-16.
LIBERTY OF GRACE and Virtue, which consists in immunity from sin, and from habits inclining to evil. This belongs only to the good, in whom, the motions of cupidity having been extinguished or mitigated, and the yoke of sin having been shaken off, there is the tranquil kingdom and rule of will and reason, subject to God alone. The just man has all his affections right; whence, even if no law had been imposed upon him, as if connaturally and from his own inclination, he would observe those things which are of the law; concerning which the Apostle, speaking, said (1 Tim. 1:9): Law is not placed for the just, but for the unjust.
LIBERTY OF HAPPINESS, which consists in exemption from all misery and penalty. This belongs to those who have already entered into the joy of the Lord.
Only liberty of indifference, or of choice, refers to our matter; for this alone is the principle of imputability, and constitutes man master of his acts. As regards the other species of liberty, it suffices to note these things: Concerning liberty of spontaneity no peculiar treatment occurs, since it is included in liberty of choice, of which it is the foundation. Liberty of independence is circumscribed by laws, which determine the right use of choice. But the observance of laws leads to liberty of grace and virtue, which brings forth the liberty of glory (Billuart, Diss. 2).
- DEFINITION. Liberty of choice is elective force, or the faculty by which the will is endowed, of choosing or not choosing, at pleasure. We call that act free which is done with no necessity compelling, or which can be omitted at pleasure.
DIVISION. "LIBERTY OF CHOICE, or liberty from necessity, is subdivided: into liberty of contradiction, by which someone can act or not act; into liberty of contrariety, by which he can act thus or act the opposite, for example, to love or to have hatred; and into liberty of disparity, by which he can do this or another thing, but not the opposite, for example, to write or to walk" (V, n. XXX).
To liberty is opposed NECESSITY, and it is the state of a thing which cannot have itself otherwise. One is called necessity of coercion, which is the same as violence; it arises from an extrinsic principle, and if it is absolute, it takes away the free and the voluntary, as will be said below (n. 282). Another is necessity of nature, or of natural inclination, which consists in a certain propensity implanted in the will by nature itself, toward something necessarily pursued or avoided. It is from an intrinsic principle determining to one, and takes away the free, but not the voluntary. Thus the Blessed necessarily love God, and man as wayfarer necessarily seeks good in general.
The things which regard the question of free choice are customarily treated at length in Dogmatic Institutions; wherefore we shall recall only the following principles. Cf. St. Alph., Op. dogm. (ed. Walt.), II, p. 220, 411, 463, 495.
- II. For meriting or demeriting, in the state of fallen nature, liberty from coercion does not suffice, but liberty from necessity, or of indifference, is required. It is similarly of faith, from the third proposition of Jansenius condemned as heretical: "For meriting or demeriting, in the state of fallen nature, there is not required in man liberty from necessity, but liberty from coercion suffices."
- III. The power of sinning, which is in man as wayfarer, is not of the notion of liberty, but rather of its imperfection. And indeed truly, "if to be able to sin," says St. Anselm (de lib. Arb., c. 1), "were part of free choice, God and the Angels would not have free choice: which is absurd." The reason is evident: for since free choice is a quality of the will, it is ordered of itself to the good; but to be able to deflect from its own proper object is the defect or vice of any power whatever: therefore the faculty of sinning is a defect of liberty. Whence St. Thomas (de Verit., q. 22, a. 6): "To will evil is neither liberty nor part of liberty, although it is a certain sign of liberty, just as sickness, for example, is a sign of life." And St. Augustine (de Civ. Dei, l. 22, c. ult., n. 3): "Choice will be the more powerful, the more it will not be able to sin."
It is helpful here to add the things which St. Alphonsus (H. Ap., III, 11) writes concerning the root of liberty, briefly and learnedly in this way: "It must be noted that the root of liberty of indifference arises from the indifference of judgment, which is nothing other than deliberation concerning the good or evil which is considered in the action. This indifference of judgment does not now constitute liberty, but, as was said, is the root of liberty, so that afterwards the will can choose freely and indifferently what shall have pleased it."
- From the things said you will gather: 1. Man's proclivity to evil never becomes a necessity of sinning; wherefore judges sin gravely against natural and civil right who absolve those guilty of great crimes, under the imaginary pretext that, in acting, they lacked liberty. See, however, the things to be said n. 291 and 292, note.
- They speak absurdly who, under the pretext of liberty, maintain license of opining, writing, teaching, and operating all things at pleasure. These confuse the physical liberty of choice with moral liberty or independence. The former is natural to man; the latter by no means, unless, as was said, it is contained within the limits of the good and the licit (n. 275, 3.). See the work Verita della fede, P. II, c. 11; Confut. del libro dello spirito, n. 24.
To the point Pope Leo XIII (Encycl. Immortale Dei): "Nor can the Church approve that liberty," he says, "which begets disgust for the most holy laws of God and strips off due obedience to legitimate power. For it is more truly license than liberty; and most rightly by Augustine it is called liberty of perdition, by Peter the Apostle a veil of malice (1 Pet. 2:16): indeed, since it is beyond reason, it is true servitude: for he who commits sin is the slave of sin (John 8:34). On the contrary, that is genuine and desirable liberty which, if it is considered privately, does not allow man to serve errors and passions, most hideous masters; if publicly, it wisely presides over citizens, supplies widely the faculty of increasing advantages, and defends the republic from another's arbitrary power." A. S. S., vol. 18, p. 175.
Note. Certain things should be said here concerning the principles which concur for the production of a free act: namely concerning advertence and the consent of the will. But concerning these things below, n. 317, when the discourse will be concerning sins.