Section — Prümmer, Manuale Theologiae Moralis
§ 1. On The Quiddity And Division Of The Voluntary
48. Definition. The voluntary (that is, a voluntary act or effect) is that which proceeds from an intrinsic principle with cognition of the end; or that "whose principle is within, with the addition of knowledge." Thus with St. Thomas25 all theologians.
This definition is explained. It is said, first: a voluntary act or effect is that which proceeds from an intrinsic principle. This principle or cause indeed is the will or appetite. Therefore an act is not voluntary if it is produced a) by an extrinsic principle, b) by a principle indeed intrinsic, but without the influx of the will or appetite. Hence the voluntary is distinguished: alpha) from the violent, since it is produced by an extrinsic cause, and is customarily defined by the scholastics: "The violent is that whose principle is outside, with the one suffering force contributing nothing."26 Such a violent act (but not voluntary and therefore not imputable), for example, is a coerced violation for a virgin. It is distinguished beta) from the willed, which is indeed the object, but not always the effect of the will. Hence every voluntary thing is indeed willed, but not every willed thing is voluntary. Thus, for example, rain can be something willed for the farmer, but not voluntary, since the farmer is indeed able to desire rain, but not to produce it. - The other internal powers of man can indeed sometimes produce human acts and therefore be the subject of sin, as, for example, reason and the inferior powers of the soul; but such acts are not truly voluntary except insofar as the will moves those powers to acting.27
It is said, second: with cognition of the end, that is, insofar as the known end allures and moves to acting. Cognition here is taken in the strict sense, that is, for intellectual cognition; whence sensible perception does not suffice (at least if the discussion is about the perfect voluntary). For even brute animals sensibly and instinctively perceive the end in their actions. Thus, for example, the swallow perceives the nest to be made as an end and the mud to be gathered as means to this end. Yet all these things do not constitute true and perfect cognition of the end, and therefore the swallow gathering mud and making a nest does not elicit voluntary acts (at least perfectly voluntary acts).28 Because of this required cognition of the end, the voluntary is distinguished: a) from a natural act, which indeed proceeds from an intrinsic principle, but to which cognition of the end is lacking. Such natural acts, which are not voluntary, are, for example, acts of the vegetative power, such as to sleep, to digest foods, etc. b) from a spontaneous act, that is, from a first-first act, which indeed proceeds from an intrinsic principle, but which precedes every cognition or advertence.
Note. From an intrinsic principle, that is, from a cognitive and appetitive power, there can proceed not only positive acts and effects, but also negative ones, that is, voluntary omissions and their effects. Wherefore these also pertain to the voluntary. Thus, for example, it is voluntary if parents omit a good education and from this the children commit sins.
Divisions. The voluntary is chiefly distinguished:
25 S. theol. I-II, q. 6, a. 1. In the German language voluntarium can be rendered: das Willentliche, das Selbstgewollte.
26 Cf. Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 3, 1.
27 Cf. S. theol. I-II, q. 24, a. 1-3.
28 Cf. below n. 52.
49. 1. Necessary and free. The first is that which is necessarily produced by the will, so that liberty of omitting that act is lacking. A voluntary of this kind is the desire of felicity on this earth and beatific love in heaven. - The free voluntary is that which is not only immune from coercion, from natural instinct, and from determination to one without potency toward another, but which is produced by the will in such a way that there remains to it the potency of acting or not acting. Of this kind are all properly and perfectly human acts except the two necessary acts cited above. - From these declarations given it follows that everything free is voluntary, but not vice versa is everything voluntary free. For in order that the voluntary be free, it is altogether required that liberty of indifference be added.
It is not of this place to investigate more deeply the nature of a free act. Perhaps there is no more difficult question in all Theology than that concerning the nature of a free act. For our mind is scarcely able to perceive how liberty can stand together with the immutability of God; and yet it is most certain that it is so. Divine acts "ad extra" are free, indeed in the highest degree of liberty, and yet they are immutable. God perfectly knows all and each free act of all men from eternity. Therefore, since the knowledge of God is infallible, every act of every man is infallibly produced, and indeed exactly in that manner just as God foresaw from eternity. Notwithstanding this certitude, all those acts are free. Concerning the nature of liberty, from the times of St. Augustine very many heresies and controversies have arisen. Heretical opinions concerning the nature of the free act have been brought forward especially by the Jansenists, Lutherans, and Calvinists. In our times liberty is denied by very many, for example, by Determinists and Fatalists. Against them a few things are to be said here concerning the notion and existence of free choice.29
29 Concerning the true and false notion of liberty, Leo XIII treats in a truly excellent manner in the encyclical Libertas, June 20, 1888.
50. Definition of free choice. Free choice is best defined by St. Thomas:30 "The elective power of means, the order of the end being preserved." It is said a) an elective power of means, because it belongs to free choice to choose means without any external coercion. It is said b) the order of the end being preserved, because it in no way belongs to free choice that it can reject the last end, or that it can choose evil; otherwise God, the angels, and the saints would not have free choice, because they cannot decline from the last end nor choose evil.
For true liberty there is required a) liberty from coercion; for in coercion or violence every choice is taken away; b) liberty of contradiction, that is, the faculty of acting or not acting, of doing this or of not doing this. The reason is the same, because otherwise no choice now exists. But there is in no way required: alpha) liberty of contrariety, that is, the faculty of choosing contraries in moral matters, namely, good and evil. The reason is that such a choice does not conduct to the end, but on the contrary often leads away from it. Therefore to be able to choose sin in no way pertains to liberty; otherwise neither God nor the angels would be free. beta) Liberty of specification, that is, the faculty of choosing objects diverse in species. Certainly this faculty belongs to God and the angels, but it is not necessarily required for liberty, since even without it there is sufficient faculty of choosing. Besides, liberty of contrariety and specification are not rarely confused and are held for the faculty of choosing evil. But it was said above that the faculty of choosing evil is in no way required for the essence of liberty. - These things having been explained, there is proved:
30 S. theol. I, q. 83, a. 4.
51. The existence of free choice, which is denied by the Stoics, Manichaeans, Lutherans, Calvinists, and almost all modern Atheists, Materialists, and Pantheists, who are customarily called by the common name Determinists:31
a) From Sacred Scripture: "Stretch forth your hand to that which you will; before man are life and death, good and evil; what pleases him shall be given to him."32 "An option is given to you; choose today what pleases."33
b) From the definitions of the Church: "If anyone says that man's free choice, moved and stirred by God, cooperates nothing by assenting to God stirring and calling ... let him be anathema."34 - "If anyone says that man's free choice after Adam's sin was lost and extinguished, or that it is a thing in title only, indeed a title without reality, finally a fiction introduced into the Church by Satan, let him be anathema."35
c) From the very nature of man. The human soul is a spiritual being having both intellect, whose object is universal truth, and will, whose object is universal good. But such a being is necessarily free. Therefore the human soul has free choice. The major of this syllogism is supposed to have been proven more than sufficiently in psychology. But the minor is plain even from the terms themselves. For the will, which is led by the intellect knowing every truth and which does not tend necessarily toward this or that good, but toward universal good, consequently has the faculty of choosing among diverse goods, and therefore is free.
d) From the testimony of conscience. alpha) Any man of sound mind is intimately and most certainly conscious to himself that he is able to do this or that and has liberty of choice. But such a testimony, so universal and so certain, cannot be false, because otherwise that error would have to be imputed to the Creator Himself, who so created human nature. beta) Any man voluntarily committing sin suffers remorse of conscience. But remorse of conscience would be inexplicable if the sinner were not intimately convinced that he could and should have acted otherwise. For no one has remorse of conscience about a necessary and inevitable thing, although he can grieve over it. Thus, for example, a son grieves vehemently over the unexpected death of his father, but he does not have remorse of conscience unless he has in some way voluntarily caused the death of his father. Remorse of conscience has been acknowledged not only by Christians, but even by pagans themselves, who fashioned it under the name of the Furies or Erinyes.
For fuller arguments for free choice, as also objections against it, see Billuart36 and other authors who defend man's free choice expressly.
31 For the opinions of moderns see Cathrein, Moralphilosophie, 6th ed., vol. 1, book 1, chap. 2, § 2.
32 Ecclus. 15:17 sqq.
33 Jos. 24:15. Cf. also Ps. 94:8; Prov. 8:10; Is. 66:3-4; Matt. 19:17; 1 Cor. 7:37; 1 Thess. 5:21.
34 Council of Trent, sess. 6, can. 4 on justification (Denz. 814).
35 Ibid. can. 5 (Denz. 815). Cf. also several condemned propositions of Baius, Quesnel, and Jansenius, for example, prop. 66 of Baius: "Violence alone is repugnant to the natural liberty of man" (Denz. 1066); prop. 67: "Man sins, even damnably, in that which he does necessarily" (Denz. 1067).
36 De act. hum. diss. 2, a. 1, or in Cathrein, l. c.
52. 2. Perfect and imperfect. Perfect is that which proceeds from perfect and formal cognition of the end; imperfect, on the contrary, is that which arises from imperfect cognition of the end. Therefore this division is taken from the part of cognition and advertence. Perfect and formal cognition of the end is had when not only the thing which is the end is apprehended, but also the account of the end and the proportion of the means to the end are known intellectually.37 Such cognition is found only in rational creatures, which act with full advertence and cognition. If such advertence and perfect cognition is lacking, the voluntary is imperfect, or, as it is customarily said, the act is imperfect; for example, all second-first acts, such as the acts of one half-asleep, acts produced under the influx of vehement passion, etc. - The imperfect voluntary also belongs to brutes; for they act from an intrinsic principle with some material perception of the end and of the means to the end.38
37 Cf. S. theol. I-II, q. 6, a. 2.
38 Cf. ibid. and Billuart, De act. hum. diss. 1, a. 1.
53. 3. The voluntary simply and in a certain respect. Just as the preceding division was taken from the part of cognition, so the present division is attended to from the part of volition. The voluntary simply, or pure voluntary, is customarily called that toward which the will is borne without any repugnance whatever; for example, toward an honest and altogether fitting delectation. But the voluntary in a certain respect is that toward which the will is indeed borne, but with a certain reluctance; for some evil is mixed with the good willed, for example, a sick man, in order to recover health, wills medicine, which nevertheless, because it is very bitter, he takes with some reluctance.39 This voluntary in a certain respect is also customarily called the mixed voluntary, because it is mixed from the voluntary and the involuntary; and therefore some authors prefer to speak of the involuntary in a certain respect. It is a dispute about words.
Note. Even the voluntary in a certain respect is truly voluntary in a particular case, and therefore a perfect human and moral act. Wherefore if such a voluntary is compared with the adjoining involuntary, it is customarily called voluntary simply and involuntary in a certain respect. For example, for a sick man to take bitter medicine is voluntary simply and involuntary in a certain respect; to merit hell is for the sinner voluntary simply and involuntary in a certain respect. For although to go into hell is altogether involuntary, nevertheless the sinner does not wish to desist from sin, with which the punishment of hell is joined; and thus by accident it comes about that to go into hell is voluntary simply.
39 St. Alphonsus (Theol. mor. c. 5, preliminary tract IX) and several modern writers explain this distinction thus. Others, for example, Lehmkuhl (Theol. mor. I, 57; Frins, De act. hum. I, 282), give another explanation.
54. 4. Direct voluntary and indirect voluntary. The first (which by some is called the voluntary in itself)40 is that which is intended in itself and is the immediate intended object; for example, theft by a thief. The other (which sometimes is called the voluntary in the cause) is that which is not intended immediately and by reason of itself, but for this reason, that it is inseparably (as an effect or accessory or otherwise) joined with some other thing which is efficaciously sought; for example, in danger of shipwreck sailors cast goods into the sea in order to save life. The casting of the goods is an indirect voluntary; for it is not intended, but rather would be avoided, if it were possible. But because the saving of life, which is intended before all other things, cannot be had without the casting of the goods in this case, hence the casting of the goods into the sea is also indirectly intended by those sailing. Since cases of the indirect voluntary occur very often, indeed pervade almost all Moral Theology, and not rarely are of difficult solution, in the following paragraph this matter will be treated more specially.
40 Several theologians rightly, with St. Thomas, distinguish the direct and indirect voluntary from the voluntary in itself and in the cause. These are the words of the Angelic Doctor: "Something can be voluntary either according to itself, as when the will is borne directly into it; or according to its cause, when the will is borne into the cause and not into the effect, as is plain in him who voluntarily becomes drunk; for from this, what he commits through drunkenness is imputed to him as if voluntary.... Something is called voluntary directly or indirectly: directly indeed that into which the will is borne; but indirectly that which the will could have prohibited, but did not prohibit" (S. theol. I-II, q. 77, a. 7). But because this distinction does not seem to be of great moment for practice, we omit it. For the same things in practice are valid concerning the morality of the indirect voluntary and of the voluntary in the cause.
55. 5. Positive and negative voluntary. The first proceeds from the will through a positive and directly elicited act; for example, someone takes away another's property. The other consists in the voluntary omission of a due act; for example, some administrator of goods sees goods committed to him being taken away, but omits to prevent such theft. That which follows from such an omission is called by St. Thomas the indirect voluntary.41
There are still other divisions of the voluntary; for example, expressed, tacit, explicit, implicit, actual, virtual, habitual, interpretative voluntary, etc. All these indeed will be explained in their proper places, when they occur, and especially when there will be discussion of the intention necessary in contracts, vows, sacraments, etc.
41 S. theol. I-II, q. 6, a. 3.
56. Scholion. On the involuntary. The involuntary must be distinguished from the non-voluntary. The involuntary is an act or effect which happens against the will; but the non-voluntary happens without the will of the agent. Wherefore the Angelic Doctor says: "The non-voluntary is said by the mere removal of the act of the will, but the involuntary is said by this, that the will is contrary to that which happens; whence sadness follows upon the involuntary, which nevertheless does not always follow upon the non-voluntary. For it sometimes happens that someone approaches one not his own, whom he believes to be his own (wife), although he does not actually will to approach one not his own, because he does not know that she is not his own; yet he wills habitually, and would will actually if he knew; whence when afterward he perceives that she was not his own, he is not saddened, but rejoices, unless he has changed his will."42 Theologians are accustomed to say: Concomitant ignorance does not cause the involuntary, but the non-voluntary.43
Since the involuntary is contrarily opposed to the voluntary, and since for the voluntary the consent of the will and the cognition of the intellect are essentially required, hence whatever takes away either consent or cognition causes the involuntary. Because of defect of consent, all things which occur coercively are involuntary; but because of defect of cognition, those things are involuntary which occur from antecedent ignorance, as was already said above.
The involuntary is divided into perfect (which others call involuntary simply) and imperfect (which also is customarily called in a certain respect). The first is that which in no way is sought by the will and to which the will resists with every effort; for example, a martyr who by external violence is compelled to sacrifice to an idol exercises a perfectly involuntary action. The other is that to which the will resists not with every effort, but languidly; indeed because of some other good to be had it admits it. For example, the casting of goods done by a merchant because of danger of shipwreck in order to save life is involuntary in a certain respect or in an imperfect manner.
42 St. Thomas, Quaest. disp. de malo q. 3, a. 8.
43 S. theol. I-II, q. 6, a. 8.