Question Three: On the Free

S. Th. I-II, q. 10 and 13.

84. The free is that which is immune from a bond. But the bond is twofold:

1. An external bond, that is, an extrinsically acting and determining cause, from which whatever is voluntary is immune; and therefore it is called free from coercion and violence, or from an extrinsic force compelling to the act against the inclination of the will. Freedom from coercion, or of execution (spontaneity), therefore is inseparable from the human will, because the will cannot be coerced, not even by God; for no one can unwillingly will, because no one can will while unwilling. It is freedom of acting rather than of willing.

2. An internal bond, or intrinsic necessity and natural determination of the power to one thing; hence the free properly so called, from natural necessity, is that which proceeds from election of a will not naturally determined, or that to which the will determines itself through deliberation. Hence there is called free choice "which is the cause of itself," that is, of its own movement, namely, through its own judgment and its own determination (De Veritate 24, a. 1; Contra Gentiles I, 72 and 88); and freedom properly so called is called freedom from necessity, of indifference (to opposites), of election, and of exercise. It is true freedom of willing.

But in human acts the voluntary is always free, and therefore these terms are often used indiscriminately by moralists.

85. Freedom is the abstract quality which belongs to the will insofar as it is furnished with free choice; but free choice is a rational power (choice) toward opposites (free), as St. Thomas says, De Veritate 24, a. 3; and it is defined by him (I, q. 83, a. 4; and q. 62, a. 8, ad 3): an elective power of means, the order of the end being preserved, that is, an active faculty of acting, not acting, or doing another thing at pleasure. It is said:

1. A power, that is, an active potency or faculty, not an act, because free choice is natural and permanent in man even when he is not acting.

2. Elective: it consists in taking one thing while the other is refused. But election is an act of the will: namely, to seek something (that is, to will one thing before another) for attaining another; although it presupposes choice or practical judgment and therefore counsel or deliberation of the intellect, by which motives of acting are comparatively estimated (according to the diverse reason of good and advantage or evil and disadvantage), and it is judged what is to be preferred to another.

Therefore freedom formally is in the will, which from the judgment of the intellect freely determines itself to this or that, while it can will or choose another thing; radically and presuppositively it is in the intellect, which proposes objects with some indifference. For it is "in the will as in the subject, because the adequate object of the will by which its capacity is filled is not any good whatever but universal good; whence it does not efficaciously and necessarily will whatsoever things are proposed to it as particular, participated, and relative goods. Therefore that from which freedom immediately arises is the eminence of the will above particular goods, and its amplitude and capacity for all goods: therefore particular goods cannot satiate its capacity nor equal its amplitude.

But it is originatively from reason directing and ruling as from a cause: for from this the will can freely be borne to diverse things, because reason can have diverse conceptions of good (I-II, q. 17, a. 1, ad 2). For in various particular objects it sees at once advantage and defect; whence it can propose them as appetible and choosable under one respect, and as hateful and avoidable under another respect. And therefore the will can choose them insofar as they are goods, but also can not choose them insofar as they have the notion of disadvantage or defect. For the will is essentially a rational appetite, and therefore it is borne not freely but necessarily into an object which is proposed by the intellect as simply good without defect (I, q. 82, a. 1 and 2; I-II, q. 13, a. 6).

3. Of means: election in operable things stands as conclusion in speculative things, and the end as principle; therefore the end as end is not chosen, because it stands as principle in operable things, but only the means are chosen, just as a conclusion is not about principles but about things consequent upon them. But if sometimes the end is chosen, then it is considered as a means to the ultimate end; but the ultimate end as such, or complete good as such, is not chosen, because it cannot be ordered to another.

4. The order of the end being preserved: for means are for the sake of the end; hence if freedom turns aside from the end, there is defect, which is not of the essence and perfection of free choice, just as a conclusion which departs from principles.

86. Division of Freedom.

By reason of object, freedom is:

1. One of contradiction or exercise (concerning the very act of the will), by which we can choose between two contradictories, or will to love and will not to love, will to act and will not to act, will to will and will not to will, etc.;

2. Another of specification (concerning the objects of the act of the will), by which we can choose between two acts diverse in species, or between two diverse goods, for example to will to stand or sit, to walk or study, faith or hope, to do this or that;

3. Another of contrariety or moral freedom (concerning the order of the end), by which we can choose between two contrary acts in relation to the end, for example to love and to hate, to will good and evil. This is not a new species of freedom, but the very freedom of specification for choosing between contraries (cf. St. Thomas, Q. D. De Veritate 22, a. 6; on John VIII, 34).

1. Moral freedom among modern authors is taken in a diverse sense, namely, in opposition to freedom from a physical bond, or natural and physical freedom, as immunity from a moral bond, that is, from law and obligation (cf. Leo XIII, enc. Libertas). And thus physical freedom is the foundation of moral freedom.

The first is of the essence of freedom, without which freedom cannot exist; the second is of its perfection; the third is a defect proper to the state of wayfaring, whence it is called an imperfection and sign of freedom, just as sickness is a sign of life. For the way of means to the end is more perfect the more securely it attains the end.

87. Thesis. Man has free choice, even in the present state of fallen nature. - It is of faith from the Council of Trent, session 6, chapter 1 and canons 4, 5, and 6; and from the Vatican Council, session 3, chapter 3, canon 5 (cf. the condemned propositions of Baius 39, 66, 67; the third proposition of Jansenius; and the first condemned by Alexander VIII).

The first part is proved: the will is the power by which man can seek every good. Therefore, if a particular good is shown to it, it can seek it because it is good, and not seek it because a defect is joined to it, or because it is not complete good itself nor perfectly satiating. Cf. St. Thomas I, q. 82, a. 2; q. 83, a. 1; I-II, q. 10, a. 2; q. 13, a. 6; De Malo VI, a. 1.

The second part is proved: 1) from the Scriptures, in which the faculty of choosing is asserted formally and directly (Eccli. XV, 14; XXXI, 10; Gen. IV, 7; Deut. XXX, 15, 19; I Cor. VII, 36-37), and also virtually and indirectly, namely, by precepts and counsels, exhortations, trials, rewards, and punishments;

2. from the testimony of conscience and the common sense of men;

3. from the perpetual tradition of the Church:

a) It is proposed by the apostolic Fathers, especially by the Apologists. Cf. Justin, Apology I, 43; Dialogue 102; Tatian, Against the Greeks, or. 7; Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus II, 27; Irenaeus, Against Heresies IV, 37.

b) It is defended and vindicated among the Fathers:

Against the Gnostics: thus Tertullian, De anima; Methodius, De libero arbitrio; Origen, De Principiis; Ephraem, etc.

Against the Manichaeans: thus Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine.

1. For the doctrine of St. Augustine the theologians can be consulted where they treat of grace.

Against the Predestinarians of the eighth-ninth century: thus Adrian I, ep. Instit. universal., the Council of Quierzy, the Council of Valence. Cf. Leo IX, symbol of faith.

c) In the Middle Ages the Scholastics also prove freedom by philosophical arguments.

d) Later Luther, Baius, and Jansenius were condemned, denying the freedom of fallen man.

4. by reason: fallen man does not cease to be of intellectual nature. But free choice inseparably follows intellectual nature.

88. Observation.

The will a) as to specification is naturally and necessarily moved by some object, as St. Thomas says, q. 10, a. 1: those things which are not in something per se, but can be in it and not in it, are reduced to something which is in it per se and necessarily as to a first; otherwise there would be a process to infinity. And therefore it is necessary that always the principle in those things which belong to a thing be natural. Whence the principle of the movements of the will must be something naturally willed. But this is:

1. Good in common, or indeterminate universal good (any good whatsoever, so that it is nothing but good), toward which the will naturally tends as any power tends toward its object;

2. The ultimate end itself or beatitude in the abstract, as our highest and complete good, because it is the first principle in operable things;

3. Those things which are necessary to the one willing according to his nature, such as to be and to live and to know truth, insofar as they are thus considered according to themselves and by reason of themselves as suitable to nature (on the part of the object), because thus they appear only as good; nevertheless per accidens and by reason of circumstances they can appear as evil, and then they are not naturally sought (for example, in suicide).

b) As to exercise, at least in the present state, it is moved necessarily by no object, not even by good or beatitude in common, because man can always not think of that object and thus not actually will it (a. 2). It is not so in the state of the term, in which the intellect is always in act and necessarily understands God to be its beatitude (I, q. 82, a. 2).

Hence it is understood: 1) that the will necessarily wills that which is thought by the intellect as absolutely and under every respect good; 2) if something evidently appears to be so necessarily connected with the end and beatitude that without it the end cannot be had, then the will cannot not will it; 3) nevertheless, because all particular goods, even those in which the ultimate end is constituted, do not necessarily and always appear as good from every side and necessary, but can appear as connected with evils (for example, on account of difficulties), therefore they are freely sought as to specification; and because man can fail to consider them, they are freely sought as to exercise.