De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio

In order that what is said may be made plain, and that we may the more completely attain unto the end we seek, it needeth, I think, that we go somewhat further back in our enquiry. In the material world life is not the same thing as sense-perception; nor sense-perception as appetite; nor appetite as consent. This will be the more plain if we define each of these. There is in every corporeal being¹ a life, which is an internal and natural movement, energizing only within the confines of such a being.² Whereas sense-perception, which is a movement in the body and proper to its life, energizes outside its confines.³ The natural appetite, however, is an active force in the living being, whose function it is to move the senses to self-gratification.⁴ But consent is spontaneous assent of the will; or, indeed (as I remember that I have already said), it is a habit of the mind, self-determining.⁵ Further, will is a movement of reason, and rules over both sense-perception and appetite.⁶ In fact will, in whatever direction it determine itself, always hath reason as its companion, we may say, as its follower: not that it is always moved by reason, but that it never moveth without reason, in such a way that it doth many things by means of reason against reason, that is to say, as it were by the aid of its ministry but against its advice or judgement.⁷ Whence we read: “ The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light,"⁸ and again: "They are wise to do evil."⁹ For no creature can be intelligent, even in wrong doing, save only by the aid of reason.

But reason hath been given to the will in order to instruct it, not to destroy it. It would, however, destroy it, were it to impose upon it such necessity that it could not freely of its own choice determine itself, whether by wrongly consenting either to the appetite or to some evil spirit¹⁰ (in which case it would be merely animal, incapable of perceiving, in any case, of following after, the things which belong to the Spirit of God), or by accepting the leading of grace unto well-doing, and thus becoming that spiritual will which judgeth all things, but is itself judged of none.¹¹ If, I say, the will were unable, owing to the prohibition of reason to take either of these courses, then it would cease to be the will. For where necessity is there is not free will.¹² But if right or wrong could be done under compulsion, and without the consent of free will, in such case a reasonable creature ought indeed, on no valid ground, to suffer the doom of misery, nor could it fully enjoy blessedness, seeing that that faculty in it, which alone is capable either of misery or of blessedness, namely, the will, would be lacking. The aforesaid life, sense-perception, appetite, plainly do not of themselves produce either misery or blessedness; otherwise would the plants which possess life, and the beasts which possess the remaining two attributes also, be either liable to misery or fit for blessedness, which is altogether impossible. We possess, therefore, on the one hand, life in common with the plants, and on the other hand, as well as life, sense-perception and appetite in common with the beasts, while that which distinguisheth us from both is what is called will. And it is consent of the will, free, not necessitated, which, seeing that in it consisteth our righteousness or unrighteousness, maketh us deservedly blessed or the reverse. Such consent, then, on account both of the inalienable freedom of the will, and of the inevitable judgement which reason everywhere and at all times exerciseth when we act,¹³ is not (as I think), unfittingly called free choice,¹⁴ being self-determining on account of the will, and self-judging on account of the reason. And rightly doth judgement accompany freedom, seeing that he that is free to determine himself, when he sinneth, judgeth himself. There is a judicial sentence passed, because, if he sinneth, he, who need not sin unless he would, justly suffereth what he would not.¹⁵

Moreover, were the will not acknowledged to be free, how could either good or evil justly be imputed to it? Necessity, indeed, removeth responsibility for both of these.

Further, where necessity is, there is not freedom; where freedom is not, there is neither merit,¹⁶ nor its correlative, judgement, excluding altogether original sin, which it is agreed is of a different order from personal sin. Thus it remaineth that whatsoever hath not this liberty of free consent, undoubtedly can neither merit nor be subject to judgement.¹⁷ Therefore, save only the will, all that belongeth to man, seeing that it is incapable of self-determination, is a matter neither for the award of merit nor for judgement. Life, sense-perception, appetite, memory, thought,¹⁸ and anything else of such kind that there may be, are subject to necessity, except in so far as they are subject to the will.¹⁹ But it is impossible for the will, which cannot of its very nature do otherwise than obey itself (for there is none who doth not will what he willeth, or who willeth what he doth not will), to be deprived of its freedom. The will can, indeed, be changed, but only to another will,²⁰ in such a way that it never loseth its freedom. Therefore it can no more be deprived of its freedom than it can be deprived of itself. Were a man ever able either to will nothing at all,²¹ or to will anything unwillingly, then and then only would the will be able to be deprived of its freedom. Hence it is that to the insane, to infants, and also to persons asleep, nothing which they may do, whether it be good or bad, is imputed; because, plainly, just as they are not in possession of reason, so do they not possess the use of their own wills, and therefore their freedom is not subject to judgement. Seeing, then, that the will hath nothing free save itself, it is only rightly judged as it is in itself. Indeed, neither slowness of intellect, nor lapse of memory, nor restlessness of appetite, nor obtuseness of sense-perception, nor feebleness of vitality, of themselves bring a man into condemnation, even as their contraries do not make him innocent; and this for no other reason than that these conditions are proved to be caused necessarily, and independently of the will.²²