Commentaria in Summam contra Gentiles, Liber III

The third doubt is ¹: because divine providence seems to take away freedom of choice.

I. To exclude this, St. Thomas posits this conclusion: Divine providence is not incompatible with the freedom of the will.

It is proved first. What belongs to perfection is to be preserved by providence more than what belongs to imperfection and defect. But in inanimate things the contingency of causes is from imperfection and defect: but that the will is contingent arises from its very perfection. Therefore it belongs more to divine providence to preserve the freedom of the will than contingency in natural causes. Therefore etc.

The major premise is proved. Because the governance of one who provides is ordered either to attaining, or increasing, or preserving the perfection of the things governed. — But the minor premise is proved. With respect to the first part indeed: because they are determined according to their nature to one effect, which they always attain unless there is an impediment either from weakness of power, or from some exterior agent, or from the indisposition of the matter. But with respect to the second part: because the will does not have a power determined to one thing, but has in its power to produce this or that effect; on account of which it is contingent to either alternative.

2. Concerning that proposition, That the will is contingent arises from its very perfection, a doubt occurs. For although the freedom of the will, with respect to the fact that it is able to tend toward diverse things ordered to the end, arises from its perfection, inasmuch as, as is said here, it does not have a limitation to one thing, but has power over diverse things; nevertheless, with respect to the fact that it is able to tend to good and evil, and is able to be changed, namely so that it can not-will what it previously willed, it arises from an imperfection of the will; because, as St. Thomas says in Qu. de Malo, q. xvi, a. 5, the first of these arises inasmuch as free choice is found in a nature capable of failing; but the other arises from the fact that it is found in a changeable nature. Therefore it is not universally true that the freedom and contingency of the will arises from its perfection.

He answers that this argument concludes that providence does not take away free choice absolutely, not determining the mode of free choice. Therefore it suffices for the truth of that assumed proposition that what is common to all free choice, as belonging to it per se inasmuch as it is such, belongs to it from perfection, namely this fact that it is able to tend toward diverse things ordered to the end, and is not determined to one thing: although something else belongs to free choice from the imperfection of the nature in which it is, and per accidens. Hence St. Thomas does not show that the contingency of the will arises from perfection except from that which belongs per se to free choice: namely from the fact that it is not determined to one thing, but has it in its power to be borne toward diverse things.

II. Secondly. It belongs to divine providence to use things according to their mode. But the mode of the will is that it can produce multiform effects. Therefore etc. — The minor premise is proved. Because the form through which a voluntary agent acts, namely the form apprehended through the intellect, is not determined: since the intellect does not have one determined form of an effect, but grasps a multitude of forms; but the mode of acting of any thing follows its form, which is the principle of action.

2. For the evidence of this reason, it must be considered, from the teaching of St. Thomas in Verit., q. xxiv, a. 2, that, since appetite follows cognition (for the apprehended good, or known good, is its object), the whole character of freedom depends on the mode of cognition. Hence, if the judgment of the cognitive power is not in someone's power, but is determined from elsewhere, the appetite will also not be free and indifferent, but will be determined to one thing: as happens in brute animals. For because a sheep, seeing a wolf, cannot judge it not to be an enemy, but has naturally implanted in it the judgment by which it judges it to be an enemy and to be fled from, it therefore cannot not flee from it. But if the judgment is not naturally determined to one thing, but is in the power of the one judging to judge this or the opposite, the appetite following such a cognitive power will also be undetermined and free: as we see to be the case in human beings. For because a man, seeing a wolf, can judge it to be fled from, and can judge it not to be fled from, it is therefore in the power of the will to choose flight, and to choose remaining. On this account St. Thomas says in this argument that the will can produce multiform effects, because the form through which a voluntary agent acts is not determined. — Which indeed is to be understood of effects ordered to the end, and not subordinate to one another. For if we speak of effects having an order among themselves by comparison to an end, even the appetite of brute animals can produce multiple effects: for we see birds first gather straw and mud, then construct a nest, for the generation of offspring; and we see bees first gather flowers, then make honey, so that they may have food in winter. But a man, just as he can apprehend many forms and natures through the intellect, and judge diverse things suitable to an end of which one is not subordinate to another, so by the will he can be borne toward diverse things ordered to the end having no order among themselves.

III. But a doubt occurs from Scotus, in I Sent., d. xxxviii². For no act preceding the act of the will can be free, but is natural: since free choice is nothing other than the will. Therefore the act of the intellect preceding the will is not free, but natural. Therefore it is false that the will is able to produce multiple effects because the understood form is undetermined. And this argument of Scotus can be confirmed. Because an action cannot proceed from an undetermined power unless the power itself is determined by something: as the Commentator says, II Phys., comment 48. Therefore it would be necessary to find something else by which the intellect is determined to this judgment or to another. But it does not appear what that is, prior to every act of the will.

IV. For the evidence of this, it must be considered that an operation can be called free in two ways: in one way, because it is an operation produced and elicited through choice of the will; in another way, because it is an operation proceeding from a power no more determined to this particular object than to that one, nor more to this judgment than to that one. An operation free in the first way is called properly and formally free: because, as is said in Prima, q. lxxxiii, a. 3, choice is proper to free choice: since we are said to have free choice from the fact that we can accept one thing, refusing another. But in the second way an operation is not called properly and formally free, but only originally and radically: inasmuch as from such an operation the appetite following it has the fact that it can choose one in preference to another, and is not determined to one.

In the first way, therefore, the operation of the intellect preceding every act of the will is not free: for it is incompatible that it precede every act of the will and that it be elicited through choice; since choice is an act of the will. But it can well be free in the second way: because it is some operation of the intellect whose opposite the intellect could have elicited; for the intellect judges that something is to be pursued which it could have judged was to be fled from. — From which it is also apparent that, if an act is called natural as natural is opposed to free taken in the first way, an act preceding every act of the will is natural. But if it is taken as opposed to free taken in the second way, as a natural operation is called that which proceeds from a power determined to one thing, thus not every such act is natural.

Hence in the first sense, all the premises having been admitted, the final inference made in the objection is denied. But in the second sense, the antecedent is denied.

2. To the confirmation, it is said that the intellect is determined to one judgment rather than to another through counsel and the discourse of reason originating from sense, from which, through resolution to certain known principles, it arrives at such a judgment: although it could nevertheless, through another discourse and another reason, make another judgment. For example, if bread and iron are set before someone's eyes, this hungry person, knowing that this is bread and that is iron, considers that bread is suitable food for human nature, and reasons that it is to be chosen for now rather than iron, from the fact that he knows that a human being cannot live unless nourished by suitable food: he could nevertheless, from another principle, have judged that iron was to be preferred for that time; for instance, if he desired to build a house, and knew that for the building of a house it is necessary that timbers be joined together with iron, or that through it walls are made stable and firm. And thus it is clear that there is not lacking to the intellect, undetermined in itself, something determining it to a certain judgment, prior to every act of the will concerning that about which judgment is made.

V. Thirdly. It is incompatible with divine providence that there be taken away from a thing that through which it attains divine likeness. Therefore freedom of the will is not taken away by it. — The antecedent is proved. Because through the governance of any provider, the things governed are led to a suitable end: as is proved from Gregory of Nyssa. But the end of every creature is to attain divine likeness. — The consequence is shown from the fact that a voluntary agent attains divine likeness from the fact that it acts freely: since in God also there is free choice.

Fourthly. If freedom of the will were taken away, many goods would be removed: namely, the praise of virtue, the justice of one rewarding and punishing, circumspection in counsels, etc. Therefore it would be contrary to the nature of providence to take it away. — The consequence is proved. Because providence is productive of goods in the things governed.

The conclusion is confirmed by the authority of Eccli. xv.

By this is excluded the opinion of the Stoics positing that all things happen of necessity, according to a certain unchangeable order of causes, which the Greeks called imarmenen.