Disputationes metaphysicae

1. There are causes acting necessarily, if the requisites for acting are present.—What these requisites are.—This question is easy, and therefore it must be said briefly, first, that among created causes there are many which operate necessarily, if all the things which they need in order to operate are applied. This is established by experience and easy induction; for the sun necessarily illuminates, fire heats, and so of others. The reason, however, is to be taken from the intrinsic condition and determination of the nature, as we shall declare in the following assertion. That condition, however, if all necessary things are present, is added because a sufficient cause, proximately apt and with all the conditions required for acting, must be supposed. For if any of these is lacking, action will not follow, not indeed from the indifference or indetermination of the cause, but from the defect of some concause, or from the defect of power or of a condition necessary for operating. Among these things necessary for acting, however, the action itself must not be numbered, as is known per se, because otherwise nothing special would be said of these agents, but what is common to all, not only agents but also things, namely, that if they have the form by which they are constituted in such being or notion, it necessarily follows that they are such. For just as, if someone has whiteness, he is necessarily white, so if he exercises action, he necessarily effects; which is only necessity of the consequence (as they say), or conditional, not of the consequent or absolute; which is irrelevant to the purpose, because in it causes cannot be distinguished. In order, then, that the discourse be of true and proper necessity, the action itself must not be included when it is said that a cause acts necessarily, if all requisites are applied. From which it follows a fortiori that whatever is posterior to the action and consequent upon it must not be numbered among these either, as is clear per se. Indeed, properly speaking, what is of this kind cannot be said to be necessary for action, but rather necessary from action.

2. The first and second requisite for acting.—The third.—The fourth.—The fifth.—Under that condition, therefore, must be included all and only those things which are preliminary to action. These, however, are numbered as many by authors, as may be seen in Scotus, In IX Metaph., q. 14, ad 2; Antonius Andreas, q. 1, ad 2; Zimara, theorem 112, who posit six conditions. The first is that the cause have integral and sufficient power of acting, which is known per se, because action must presuppose sufficient power; and, in order that it act necessarily, it must be supposed simply and absolutely able; but it is not absolutely able without sufficient power. The second, that it have a capable patient sufficiently brought near, because created agents can do nothing except from a presupposed subject; and because they are finite, they require it within a proportioned sphere, outside which they have no power of acting. The third, which follows from this,¹ is that the medium, if any lies between agent and patient, be unimpeded and capable of the action of the agent; for we suppose that agents can effect nothing on a distant thing except through the medium. The fourth, that there be nothing impeding the action of equal power for resisting; because nothing can overcome by acting unless it exceeds in active power, and therefore it was shown above that for action a proportion of greater inequality is necessary. The fifth, that the patient not be already in the terminus, or have the whole form which the agent can effect. For on account of this cause alone gravity does not move earth existing at the centre; and this condition is contained in the second, for the patient is required for action in that state in which it is capable of action; but after it is in the terminus, it is no longer capable of action. Finally, this condition coincides with that treated above, that agent and patient must at the beginning be in some way unlike.

3. The sixth.—A sixth condition is applied: that, if some action is naturally prerequired, it be already presupposed; as the appetite of a brute, although it operates naturally, does not always act, because it necessarily prerequires a condition which is not always present. And similarly sight does not act unless the action of the object upon it precedes. And this condition is virtually contained in the preceding ones; for when one action is prerequired for another, either this is because through it the power of acting is completed, as in the example of sight, which must first suffer from the object, because without the species it does not have the power of acting complete. And many think the same of the knowledge of the object necessary for appetite, namely, that it completes its power of acting. But it is more rightly said that it applies the object in a sufficient and proportioned mode. For what we said in the second condition, that a sufficiently near patient is necessary, is to be extended, as regards immanent acts, to the object, which behaves as the matter about which such acts are concerned. And universally, whenever some efficient cause needs other concauses, even of diverse genera, in order to effect, it cannot begin the action unless all the necessary concauses are so disposed that they can concur in their genus; for this is why the patient is necessary, because the action of a created agent cannot take place without a material cause. Thus, then, because the known object or the knowledge of the object is a necessary concause for vital appetition—whether it concurs by way of efficient, or by way of end, or by way of extrinsic form, or by way of matter about which (for about all these there can be opinions which are irrelevant to the present matter)—the knowledge of the object is an action preliminary of necessity to the efficiency of the appetite.

4. The seventh.—The eighth.—A seventh condition is added, that the cause not be free; but this condition is not necessary for us, because this is what we assert in the assertion, namely, that some causes are not free in operating, but, the requisites being posited, act of necessity. An eighth condition can likewise be added, that the cause have the necessary concurrence of the first cause. But of this concurrence we must treat ex professo below. As regards the present matter, however, this condition either is not among the prerequisites, or is contained in the preceding ones as explained by us. For if the discourse is of actual concurrence, this is not distinguished from the action itself; and therefore, just as action is not comprehended among the conditions prerequired for acting, so neither is actual concurrence. But if the discourse is of aptitudinal concurrence (so to speak), or of the sufficient application and conjunction of the first cause for concurring, in this way that condition is indeed necessary; it is contained, however, in what we said, that a cause having integral power and every concause is necessary; for the power of a secondary cause without the power of the first is either not integral, or, if it is called integral and total in its genus, it needs the conjunction of every other necessary cause in whatever genus or notion of causing. Wherefore under that condition is comprehended every concurrence of a superior cause to which the inferior is essentially subordinated, whether this subordination among efficients be only between created causes and the uncreated, or also among created causes themselves; which we shall see below.

5. Whether there are some natural agents indifferent to several effects.—A ninth condition can be added, that the natural cause not be equally indifferent among several effects; for then, by the very fact that the cause is not free but natural, it will not of necessity make either, and consequently will make neither, because there is no greater reason for the one than for the other; and because it is not free, it cannot be determined to one more than to the other, unless the indifference is taken away from elsewhere. Many examples are commonly applied; we shall, however, bring those which suffice to explain the root of this indifference. The first is of fire existing at the centre of the earth in a circular figure, which according to every part of itself is equally distant from the highest place; for it would not be moved to one part rather than to another, because there is no determining reason or cause. Nor would it be moved towards every part, because otherwise it would be divided according to every part of itself. The second is of perfectly flat glass placed on a perfectly flat stone, upon which another perfectly flat rock falls; for it will not break it, because either it will divide it according to every part, which is impossible, or there is no greater reason why it should divide some parts rather than others. The third, a common one, is of a brute having at once two equally lovable objects, which would be moved to neither. The fourth is of superior causes able to effect contraries, which of themselves cannot be determined to either, if they are applied for acting with that indifference. The fifth, and more difficult, is of every natural cause which, although it is determined to effecting a form in one species, is yet indifferent to the various individuals of that species.

6. Where a spherical fire existing at the centre of the earth would tend.—But nevertheless it seems it must be said that this condition is rather to be reduced to some one of those posited above, or to the defect of some one. For this condition of indifference, considered per se, is in a certain way repugnant to the proper determination of natural agents, for it is proper to them to be determined to one thing; how, then, can they have indifference of themselves? Nor is it enough if it be said that they are determined to one according to some common notion; for in this way the free agent too is determined to one, namely to good in general. But if it be said that the natural agent is determined to one in species, but not in the individual, first, from this at most there is found in these agents the indifference indicated in the last example, not that which is signified in the others. And still it can be objected against that, because this very thing seems to be beyond the fitting institution of nature, namely, that these agents should be founded with some indifference and that they themselves cannot determine themselves; for in this way they would be of themselves most inept for acting. Moreover, in the first four examples, so far as they contain some truth, the lack of action does not seem to arise from indifference, but from some impediment or the defect of some necessary condition from those posited above. For example, in the first example it is very probable to me that the fire in that case would not be moved from within. The reason, however, arises from the equal activity and resistance of all the parts; but among the conditions required for acting of necessity, one was that equal power not resist the action; but in that case all the parts of the fire equally incline to motion upward in a straight line with respect to each, and so they have among themselves equal activity and resistance, and thence it comes about that none is moved. Nor indeed are they wholly divided among themselves by those as it were contrary propensities. First, because they are more inclined to their conservation than to their place. Secondly, because the division itself would have to take place through local motion; hence, by the very fact that they cannot be moved, neither can they be divided.

7. Why perfectly flat glass, struck by a flat rock, is to be broken.—The second example, in the first place, cannot happen naturally, because a perfectly flat thing cannot naturally fall equally firstly upon a flat thing, just as a flat thing cannot be equally separated from a flat thing, because it would be necessary either that there be a vacuum or that air fill that whole place in an instant. For thus, conversely, it follows that, if a flat thing falls equally upon a flat thing, either some part of the air goes out together in an instant, so that it passes through a remote space as quickly as a near one, or remains there penetratively, or certainly, if the air remains in between, those two flat things do not touch each other. It is necessary, therefore, that the falling flat thing touch according to one part before another; although about this very thing the same difficulty can arise, namely, why it falls and touches according to one part before another, if the flat thing is equal and of equal weight according to every part. On account of which either some extrinsic cause of this inequality must be sought, such bodies and such motion being posited—namely, that the medium is not equally divisible according to every part, or something of this kind. Or certainly, if none of these intervenes, it must be said that that flat thing which falls equally cannot exclude all the intermediate air, and for this cause does not touch the glass nor break it. The reason is that even the least particle of air, while it cannot be penetrated nor pass through some space all at once, resists any heavy thing falling, lest it be expelled from there; just as, conversely, no force however great can separate two flat things all at once according to every part, because air cannot enter all at once to fill the vacuum. And so in that case the effect does not follow, because there is a sufficient medium for impeding.

8. But if, pressing the difficulty, we grant either that the air goes out all at once or that that fall takes place through a vacuum, two likely things can be said. The first is that the rock would act naturally as much as it could, and so would not divide the glass, but would so compress it that it would corrupt it and change it into another nature, as we see happen in wheat ground by a mill; but that body which would arise from it could be continuous; for if it were divided into particles, as flour is, scarcely could a natural reason be given why some parts rather than others should be divided, except by reducing that variety or inequality in the effect to some inequality in the contact and in the alteration arising from it on account of the pores of the bodies themselves or on account of some other causes concurring there. Or certainly, if that contact were not enough for there to result from it an alteration sufficient to corrupt the glass, it is not unfitting, but necessary, to say that it would not be broken. The reason is that, while one body falls upon another, it does not break it except on account of some local motion unequally made in the parts of the broken body; for while one part of it is pressed down before another, which can neither resist on account of defect of power nor yield or bend on account of hardness, breaking takes place; but in the said case the glass could not be moved locally, because it is both equally touched and impelled according to every part, and is also resisted together and equally by the body placed beneath according to every part. Hence, if that were not equally flat or equally solid and yielded more easily according to some part, the glass would be broken according to that part. And so in that example the action never ceases on account of indifference, but on account of an impediment equally resisting.

9. Towards which of two equal and equally proposed objects a brute would be moved.—In the third example too it can easily be denied that that equality can naturally happen in all respects, because those objects cannot be equally considered and presented at once; or even if we grant that they are represented at once as equally lovable, we shall say that they are also loved at once, but that it is moved to attaining the one before the other, because motion towards that part is apprehended as easier on account of some circumstance. Finally, if we admit equal apprehension in all circumstances, both with respect to appetition and to execution, it seems it must be conceded that there is not in the appetite of the brute the faculty of determining itself to one rather than to the other, on account of the lack of freedom. Hence that indetermination does not come from indifference, but rather from natural necessity and determination in the mode of operating, and from the defect of a condition necessary for operating in that way; which defect comes from causes equal in their genus and mutually resisting each other. For, as we said, the sensitive appetite cannot operate except with sufficient proposal and motion of the object; but this is lacking in that case, because neither of those objects is apprehended absolutely as to be loved and pursued, as is necessary in order that the effect of the appetite follow necessarily. The reason, however, why that apprehension or judgement is not had in that case is that those objects mutually impede each other while in their mode of causing they move and resist equally. And so in that case too the conditions enumerated above are lacking.

10. Why an equivocal natural agent effects this rather than that effect.—In the fourth example we can deny, in the first place, that there is any natural cause which per se is equally indifferent to effecting contrary effects; rather Aristotle, as we shall see below, places the difference between free and natural powers in this, that the former are powers for opposites or contraries, but the latter by no means, but for one only of the opposites. Which is to be understood per se, and all other things being the same; for per accidens it happens that contrary effects follow from the effect of the same natural agent, as we declared above concerning antiperistasis. Likewise, from the diverse disposition of matter it happens that the same sun renders wax softer and hardens mud; and from the various concurrence of causes it also happens that the sun concurs to various or repugnant effects; yet it always acts with natural necessity and determination, all the causes concurring together being supposed. Indeed, so far as concerns itself, it always begins the action in the same way, by illuminating and heating; and then, according to the disposition of the patient or the concurrence of other causes, a proportioned effect follows with the same necessity. And in this sense Aristotle said, II De Gener., text 18, that a natural agent, the same and in the same way disposed (namely, in itself and with respect to others), is apt by nature always to do the same. Therefore on account of the power of acting contraries there is no indifference in natural causes either, because they can never by themselves alone effect contraries, but with others added, which being posited they of necessity make one or the other effect.

11. Whence any efficient effects this singular effect rather than that in the same species.—In the fifth example there is somewhat greater ambiguity about the indifference or determination of any natural cause to individual or singular effects. In which there is a not improbable opinion that, although the power of a natural cause, considered absolutely, is indifferent to many individuals by way of a superior cause sufficient for all of them, yet, applied in particular to this patient with these circumstances, it is naturally determined to effecting such a form in the individual; but when we say that a cause acts necessarily, all requisites being applied, the discourse is of all things in particular which are required for action. It is more probable, however, as I touched upon above, that this determination to the individual effect comes from the concurrence and definition of the first cause; which being posited, it must be said that this condition too is contained among the prerequisites for acting, according to what was explained by us. For the secondary cause needs the concurrence of the first determined to a particular effect; which concurrence being shown in first act, and all other requisites being added, such a cause is necessarily determined to such an effect in particular. And so in this way too no indifference intervenes here which is repugnant to the natural necessity of acting. Nor is this last indifference, as was objected, against the due institution of nature, that natural agents cannot determine themselves to individual effects unless the determination begins from the first cause. But this is a natural imperfection and need of such agents, and a certain subordination which they have to the first cause, on account of which they are reckoned as it were certain instruments of it; and therefore, just as they depend on it in operating, so also in the determination to operating this individual rather than another. Indeed, from this effect we rightly understand that the work of nature is the work of an intelligence; and that the effect, however necessary with respect to the particular cause, is free with respect to the universal. It is established, therefore, from all these that in natural causes there is no proper indifference which is repugnant to the necessity of acting, so as to prevent such a cause, all other concauses and the conditions required for operating being posited, from operating of necessity without any indifference whatever.

What causes act necessarily

12. Secondly, it must be said that all causes which operate without the use of reason, as such, operate with the aforesaid necessity. This is taken from Aristotle, bk. IX Metaph., c. 2, where he places this distinction between rational and irrational powers, that irrational powers are determined to one, while rational ones are indifferent to opposites. But what he understands by rational powers, and whether that mode of operating belongs to all of them, we shall see below; now we assert only that all faculties which wholly lack the use of reason exercise their operations with natural necessity. Which can also be confirmed by induction; for so it is established by experiment in all grades of things down to brute animals.

13. Whether the sensitive appetite of man acts freely or necessarily.—Only about the sensitive appetite of man could there be doubt, to which some attribute I know not what trace of freedom. Indeed there are those who extend this to the appetite of brutes, as we shall touch upon again below. But in that matter, which is disputed more at length in theology, the truth is that, if there is any participation of freedom in the sensitive appetite of man, it is there in so far as there is a participation of reason in the cogitative power of man. But if in the latter there is not true reasoning, as in truth there is not, neither in the former, taken per se, is there true freedom which excludes the necessity of operating, all requisites being posited. And so by this example the induction made is rather confirmed and as it were completed. Its reason, however, is that the adequate root of freedom is the use of reason, as we shall see below; and therefore the lack of the use of reason is also the adequate cause of the lack of freedom, and consequently of necessity in operating. But if we inquire into the intrinsic and as it were positive root of this mode of operating, there is none other than the very nature of such things or faculties, which from their nature have this determination in the mode of operating, because they are not so perfect that they could participate dominion over their operations. Likewise, because indifference in operating arises intrinsically and adequately from the amplitude of the rational faculty, as we shall declare below; but just as affirmation is the cause of affirmation, so negation of negation.

14. From which, finally, it may be inferred that necessity of this kind is so great that it cannot be taken away, or impeded from going forth into act, not only by the intrinsic power of the faculty itself, but also by any other natural causes whatever. Natural causes can indeed, as we said, impede one another by resistance or contrary action; and so they can also take away all the requisites for operating; yet, these being posited, they cannot restrain the action of a necessary agent, because they cannot change the natures of things nor wholly take away intrinsic properties. God alone seems to have this power; for through it He brought it about that fire did not burn the three children, and similar things; yet, if the matter is attentively weighed, even God Himself does not seem able to make a cause which by its nature acts necessarily cease from acting in the composite sense (as they call it), all the requisites for action being posited; but He can only take away some one of the requisites, and so simply, or in the divided sense, can make such a cause not operate; as in the said example God impeded the action of the fire by denying His concurrence to the fire, that is, by not applying His power to operate with the fire; but this is one of the prerequisites in order that fire may act. God, therefore, did not bring it about that fire did not act, all the requisites being posited, but He took away one of them. For if God had determined to give concurrence so far as concerns Himself and to leave the other required conditions intact, He could not impede that action, because it implies a contradiction to take away what is natural without any contrary efficiency, or at least without the denial of help or of efficiency necessary on the part of God. For how can a natural action be impeded with no impediment posited? Or what other impediment can be understood, if none of the aforesaid intervenes? Thus, the said supposition being made, as it has been declared, the action arises with so great a necessity that it cannot be impeded except by taking away some part of the supposition. The difference, however, between God and other created agents is in this, that, all things being posited which are required outside God for the actions of natural agents, He can by His will alone impede the action by denying what is necessary on His part; but other created things cannot do this, but only by opposite action or resistance, or certainly because by some local motion they can place some impediment or take away the matter or another necessary condition. And so it is sufficiently established what and how great this necessity is.

1. Arguments for the negative side.—The first.—This question is most weighty and most broad, and in great part depends on theological difficulties which arise from the supernatural mysteries of grace and divine predestination; in this place, however, it is to be treated only so far as it can be determined from natural principles. If, then, we look to natural reason, it seems to be proved by many reasons that there can be no efficient cause without intrinsic necessity of acting. First, because the first cause, from which all others flow, operates from necessity of nature, nor can anything else be understood by natural reason; therefore much more all the causes which operate under it. The antecedent is commonly supposed from the opinion of Aristotle and other philosophers; and it is evident by reason, because unless God operated from necessity of nature He would not be immutable, for He could now be otherwise than before. The first consequence is proved because the secondary cause does not act except as moved by the first; therefore, if the first necessarily moves the second to operate, the second is necessarily moved; therefore it also necessarily operates, because neither can active motion stand without passive, nor actual motion to operating without actual operation, both because there cannot be motion without its terminus, and also because the divine motion cannot be frustrated.

2. The second.—And hence arises the second reason, which proceeds even if we do not suppose that the first cause acts from necessity but freely; because, although from this it rightly follows that with respect to the first cause the effects are not necessary, yet by the same efficacy it seems to be inferred that under the first cause there is no other which does not operate of necessity, because there is none which operates not moved by it; for every secondary cause needs to be moved by the first; but every moving cause that is moved operates of necessity, because that it be moved is not in its power but in that of the mover, whose motion it can neither posit nor impede; but that, being moved, it operate has necessary consecution, as we argued before.

3. The third.—Let the third reason be that in the preceding section it was shown that every cause operating without reason acts of necessity; if, then, some cause effects anything without necessity, it will be either man or a created intelligence (to omit now the first cause, because here the discourse is chiefly of created ones); but of neither of these causes can this be said, following natural reason. Which is proved, first, of the intelligences, because by natural reason they are known only as movers of the heavenly orbs; but in that action they cannot be reckoned causes acting freely, otherwise the motions would not be necessary nor inevitable, and created intelligences could by their choice invert the order of the universe. Hence for this cause the second intelligences were posited by the philosophers as equally immutable with the first; since, therefore, the reason is the same of this effect and of others, the intelligences are to be reckoned causes acting necessarily in all things, so far as they can be known by natural reason. And hence the other part, about man, is proved a fortiori; first, indeed, because either to act without necessity pertains to perfection or to imperfection; if to perfection, since the intelligences do not participate it, how shall we attribute it to men? If to imperfection, why shall we attribute it to men rather than to brutes? Secondly, because man is subject to heavenly influences as are other lower things; but lower causes have from heavenly influence a certain necessity in their effects; therefore from the same human actions and morals participate necessity; which experience itself and the predictions of astrologers seem sufficiently to persuade.

4. The fourth.—Let the fourth reason be: for if some cause operates without necessity, it must have some faculty or power which has the power of restraining its operation, even all the requisites for operating being posited; but there is no such power in created things; therefore neither freedom or lack of necessity in acting. The major is established from the contrary from what was said in the preceding section; for a secondary cause operates nothing except through some faculty of its own; but that faculty is the principle of necessary operation, which exercises it necessarily, all requisites being posited; therefore, in order that some action be not necessary, it is necessary that some power have the opposite mode of operating. The minor is proved, for if there were any power of this kind, it would be either the intellect or the will, for in all lower ones we said there is none of this kind; but this cannot be attributed to the intellect, because it gives assent of necessity when the truth is sufficiently known, as is known by experience; the intellect, therefore, is of itself a power determined to one. But if sometimes it is not sufficiently determined, this is only from insufficient application of the object or on account of the reasons proposed fighting among themselves and as it were resisting one another; which is not enough for indifference in operating, as we declared above in lower powers, proportion being kept.

5. Nor does the will seem to have that mode of operating, for the intellect is a more perfect power than the will; therefore, if that does not participate this mode of operating, neither does the will. Next, because the will does not operate except as moved and efficaciously determined by the intellect; for the will is a blind power, which cannot go forth into act unless it is led by the intellect, nor can it resist it if it efficaciously moves and commands; otherwise there could be a defect in the will even if the intellect, so far as concerns itself, does what is required to direct it, which moral philosophers do not admit.

6. And this reason is confirmed, first, for the will (and the same holds of the intellect) operates of necessity in its chief acts, as in the love of good as such and in the intention of the ultimate end; therefore in all. The consequence is evident, both because of one faculty there is one mode of operating, and also because either to operate of necessity is better than to operate without it, or not. If it is better, then, if the will attains that mode of operating in its most perfect acts, it will attain it in all. If it is not better, then for the reason for which the will does not have the more perfect mode of operating in all its acts, and especially those most proper to it, it will not have it in the rest.

7. It is confirmed, secondly, because, if the will is free in some operation of its own, either it has that freedom in the instant in which it operates or before it operates; not in the same instant, because then it already necessarily operates; because, just as a thing, when it is, necessarily is, so when it operates, it necessarily operates. Nor before it operates, because then it exercises no non-necessary action. And moreover, because even then it does not operate of necessity.

Notes by which the sense of the question is expounded

8. Free and necessary are taken in many ways.—Although this question is general about all created causes, and indeed can be extended also to the uncreated one, we shall treat it specially of human actions, both because they are better known to us and are more frequently disputed, and also because of all lower agents we suppose that no other mode of acting has place in them except of necessity, as was touched upon in the preceding section; but of the superior ones we cannot philosophize except according to a certain proportion to our things, inasmuch as we agree with them in intellect and will. In order, however, that the terms be established, it must be noted that these words of necessity and of freedom, and free and necessary, can be taken in various ways. For properly and speaking in the dialectical manner, the necessary is opposed both to the impossible and to what is possible not to be, in which way that action is called necessary which cannot not be or not take place, always understanding that hypothesis, namely, all the requisites for acting being posited; and of this necessity of action we spoke in the preceding section. In another way, however, the necessary is commonly taken as it is opposed to the voluntary, in which way, in order that an action be called necessary, it is not enough that it cannot not be exercised, but it is also necessary that it not be voluntary; which can happen in two ways, namely, either negatively or contrarily. In the former way all the actions of things lacking cognition are called necessary, even if they are most natural; for although metaphorically they can be called spontaneous, inasmuch as they are conformed to natural and metaphorical appetite, yet properly they are not voluntary, since they are not from cognition, without which the voluntary cannot exist, as is established from III Ethic., c. 1, and as St. Thomas treats, I-II, q. 6, aa. 1 and 2. In the latter way that is called necessary which is violent and coerced, because it is against the proper elicited appetite, either perfect, as is the rational, or imperfect, as is the sensitive. And in this way the action of a brute, if it proceeds from mere appetite, although it is necessary in the first way, is not so in these latter ways, because it is neither violent nor merely natural, but spontaneous; but an action will be necessary in this way if the brute is compelled to do something against its proper appetite; and as to this the same holds of human action. In which way it is said in II Cor. 9: Not with sadness or of necessity, etc.; although human actions can also be called necessary in other ways, even if voluntary, indeed although they are free, namely, because they are done from the necessity of a precept, of which is said in I Cor. 7: Having no necessity, but having power over his own will. Or because they are done from a certain servile subjection, in which way the actions of a slave are called necessary, especially if he does them from fear.

9. Since, however, the free is opposed to the necessary, it is said in almost as many ways as the necessary itself. For if liberum is believed to be named from the verb libero (I free), so that that action is called free which is free from all necessity, that action will be free in all ways which has none of the aforesaid necessities; which will scarcely be found except in the divine action; although in some human ones too it is found in its manner, most of all in those which are honest and are done only from counsel and the appetite of rectitude and justice. And thus free is sometimes taken as it excludes not only proper necessity but also servitude, in which way, in Scripture,¹ those sanctified through grace or glory are peculiarly called free, namely, from the servitude of sin. In another way that action is called free which is not coerced, but voluntary; which freedom does not exclude the first necessity, which consists in determination to one with impotence of suspending the action, but excludes only violence and coaction; in which way it is most evident that there are actions not necessary, not only in men but also in brutes, although those actions are the more perfect in men the more perfect the notion of the voluntary is found in them. From which some, especially heretics, took the occasion of saying that the actions of man are free for no other reason than because they are perfectly voluntary, so that liberum is named not from the verb libero but from the verb libet (it pleases). In the last and most proper way, however, that action is called free which is truly free from that necessity which natural and irrational things have in acting, as was declared in the preceding section. And of this freedom, or non-necessity, we properly dispute in the present question; and in this sense it was always disputed even by the ancient philosophers; for no one ever doubted, or could doubt, whether men in many of their actions operate spontaneously and by their own will, moving and applying themselves to the work with preceding cognition; but whether in this very voluntary there is mixed necessity and determination to one, this is what has been called into controversy.

The first error, denying freedom

10. In this matter, then, there was an ancient error of certain philosophers, who said that all the effects and actions of the causes of the universe, even of human wills, come from a certain fatal necessity, arising from the connection of all causes and from the influx of the heavens and stars. So Augustine reports, bk. IV Confess., c. 3, and bk. V De Civitate, c. 1, where Luis Vives notes Democritus, Empedocles and Heraclitus for this opinion, which is also commonly attributed to the Stoics, but undeservedly, as I shall say below. This error was afterwards followed by many heretics, such as Simon Magus, Bardesanes, Priscillian, Manichaeus and others, as is established from Augustine and other ancient writers.² And the heretics of these times have stirred up the same error, as modern Doctors report at length, who have disputed against them most wisely. Nevertheless they did not teach this error in the same way nor under the same principles, as I think; for some attributed this necessity to the influence of the stars, others to the divine concurrence or motion, or to the efficacy of the divine will, or of grace. Again, some denied freedom wholly and in all acts, both internal and external, both good and evil, others only in moral or honest actions, but not in civil or indifferent ones.

11. Almost none, however, of the aforesaid philosophers or heretics sufficiently declared whether this necessity which they attribute to human actions arises from the intrinsic nature of man or only from the action of some extrinsic cause; for they declare this necessity only in this latter way. Nevertheless, if they spoke consistently, it is necessary that they thought this necessity to be founded also in the intrinsic nature of man, namely, because there is in him no faculty by its nature indifferent in its actions. Because, if things are moved not violently but according to the due of their nature, each thing is moved as of itself it is apt by nature to be moved; since, therefore, the influx of the heavens and the concurrence of God is not violent but natural, if from causes of this kind man always operates necessarily, it is a sign that by his nature he demands a mode of operating of this kind. I omit the opinions of those who attributed this necessity either to divine grace or to original sin, which are not natural causes, but merely extrinsic and beyond or above nature; for the treatment and refutation of these errors pertains not to the metaphysician but to the theologian, since the consideration of original sin and grace, and other similar causes, exceeds natural reason. Against these errors, then, two things are to be shown by us. First, that there is in man some active faculty which of itself and from its intrinsic and particular nature is not determined to one only, but of itself indifferent to operating this or that, and to operating and not operating, all the requisites for acting being posited. Next, it is to be shown that no extrinsic cause always impedes this mode of operating. For so it will have been shown that among created acting causes there are some which can operate not from necessity of nature but from freedom, and often in fact do so operate.

It is demonstrated that man often operates freely

12. I say, then, first, that it is evident by natural reason and by the very experience of things that man in many of his acts is not borne of necessity, but by his will and freedom. This conclusion is proved, first, from the common consent of philosophers. For so Aristotle and the Peripatetics think of the freedom of man, as is established from Aristotle, bk. IX Metaph., c. 1 and following, where he distinguishes rational powers from irrational ones, and grants only to the former an intrinsic power of operating contraries per se, namely from internal freedom; and in III Ethic., from the beginning, he establishes this freedom as the foundation of the whole of moral doctrine. Plato acknowledged the same, as is established from the Gorgias and from the last book of the Republic; the Stoics too, from the necessity of fate which they asserted in other things, excepted human wills, as Augustine testifies, bk. V De Civit., c. 10, where Vives reports from Plutarch, bk. I De Placitis, that the Stoics thought the same as Plato about human freedom. Cicero too, in the book On Divination and On the Nature of the Gods, in order to defend the freedom of man, denied divine foreknowledge, because he thought it fought with human freedom, which he believed to be evident by the very experience of things. And thus, as Augustine says above, in order to make men free, he made them sacrilegious. It is a sign, therefore, that this truth is sufficiently perspicuous by the light of nature, since it has been received by the common consent of the wiser philosophers and their schools. The Fathers of the Church too, and all the scholastics and Catholic philosophers, most constantly defend this truth; whom it is not necessary to report all now, but only those who treated this truth from philosophers and the principles of philosophy, as Eusebius, bk. VI De Praeparat. Evang., throughout; Gregory of Nyssa, in the four last books On Philosophy which are attributed to him and are found in Nemesius, book On the Nature of Man, where from c. 32 to 42 he disputes this matter; and Damascene, bk. II De Fide, c. 25; and Augustine, vol. I, in the three books On Free Choice; in vol. VII, however, disputing against Pelagius and defending free choice and reconciling it with grace, and proceeding from theological principles, he supposes this natural truth as certain and shows that grace does not destroy nature but perfects it. And in almost the same way proceed Prosper, Anselm, Bernard and other Fathers who wrote on the concord of free choice with grace and foreknowledge. Hence, by the way, it is established that these and other ancient authors, when they defend free choice, do not treat of freedom as it is opposed only to coaction, but also as it excludes necessity in operating; otherwise they would not have laboured in reconciling grace, providence or predestination with freedom, since it is most evident that what we do by will we do not coercedly but spontaneously. The difficulty, however, could only be about indifference in operating; in defending this, therefore, and in composing it with divine grace and motion, they labour.

13. The assertion is proved by experience.—Secondly, we can argue from experience; for we evidently experience that it is placed in our power to do or omit something, and for this we use reason and discourse and consultation in order that we may be inclined to one part rather than another; election, therefore, is placed in our choice; otherwise, as Damascene rightly said above, this power of deliberating and consulting would have been given to us superfluously. To this is added the customary mode of operating and governing human actions through counsels, through laws and precepts, through exhortations and reproofs, through promises of rewards and threats of punishments, all of which would be superfluous if man operated by necessity of nature and not by his freedom.

14. An objection weakening the experience.—Someone will say that by all these indications and experiences it is evidently proved only that man is led and moved by reason in his operations, not that he exercises them freely. For all those things which are proposed in the argument, namely punishments and rewards, exhortations, consultations, etc., seem to contribute only to this, that the actions themselves, or their objects, be apprehended and judged as desirable or as to be fled, not that they be freely chosen. Hence he who is obstinate in the contrary opinion will consequently say that, the apprehension being posited which arises from all those causes and circumstances, man is necessarily determined to operating this or that; but that the apprehension itself or judgement is necessary when such causes are applied; but that the application of such causes is often from without, and then too it cannot be free, but necessary to man himself; sometimes, however, it is from his own will, as when a man voluntarily consults or inquires in order to choose; and then of that very will it will be said that it arises necessarily from another apprehension or judgement; and so one must always stop at some first apprehension or judgement proceeding from eternal causes. And this evasion can be confirmed, for in some brutes too we experience that by inflicted punishments they are restrained from doing something, so much so that the memory of a preceding punishment often suffices for this. And similarly they are induced by benefits and by some signs or words by way of exhortation or arousing; all which and similar things are not done about brutes because it is in their power to act or not to act, but because according to diverse apprehensions they are moved in diverse ways, spontaneously indeed, yet of necessity, according to the demand of the apprehension; therefore in this way someone can contend that man is moved to operate through exhortations, counsels, etc., with greater perfection indeed as to the discourse of the mind and the perception of all the reasons which can determine the appetite or will, yet not as to indifference or lack of necessity. It can be confirmed, secondly, for if we suppose that God sometimes necessitates the will of a man using reason (for we suppose God can do this), in that case it would seem to the man that he operates by his own choice and will just as he now operates, because he would experience himself moved by his reason and will and would have no principle for knowing the necessity brought in from without by God; therefore it cannot be sufficiently gathered from experience alone that there are free operations in men.

15. The objection is dissolved.—It is answered that these arguments conclude that this experience is not so perspicuous and known per se that some room for evasion is not left to an obstinate man; otherwise there could have been no diversity of opinions or errors about this matter among men themselves. Nevertheless, if we wish to consider our mode of operating fully, we shall easily meet the aforesaid objections. Thus we experience not only, when the cognition or apprehension of the object is changed, but also when it remains the same, that it is placed in our will to sit or stand, to go by this way or that, and similar things. It is a sign, therefore, that this varied mode of operating does not formally or proximately consist in the discourse and apprehension of reason, but in freedom or indifference. Moreover, we also experience that, after the threat of punishment or promise of reward has been known, it is placed in our power to be moved or not moved by that reason; and the same holds of prayers, exhortations and similar arousings. Finally, after consultation about means we often choose one before another solely because we will to. And so it is also established that what was brought about brutes is not similar. To the confirmation about the divine power of bringing in necessity, we say, first, that this natural evidence excludes miracles or extraordinary actions of God. Hence it is enough if from the effects we show that there is in our intrinsic faculty this mode of operating, and consequently that it is not connatural or consonant with the natures of things that it be moved otherwise from without by God; nor can this be affirmed of any work of ours, let alone of all, unless it is established from revelation.

16. Next, we can add an experience taken from morally evil human actions, which cannot be attributed to divine motion bringing in necessity without manifest impiety contrary to the very light of nature; evil actions, therefore, come forth from our free determination. Especially because God not only prohibits but also most gravely punishes these actions; but this would be most unjust if He brought in necessity to them. Hence it is also established that punishment and reward are not conferred on man only for the sake of subsequent actions, namely, so that he may be either attracted to them or drawn back from them, but also precisely and per se on account of the good or evil which he has worked in them. And for the same cause man is reckoned worthy of praise and honour on account of his actions, all which cannot be understood without freedom. And hence too it is confirmed that this is the common mode of thinking of all men about human actions. For all judge those to be worthy of punishment who operate evilly, because so to operate was placed in their will and power, and therefore they bear with indignation an injury inflicted by a man using reason, but not one inflicted by a madman or one not adverting; indeed damage inflicted by these they do not reckon among injuries. Hence, as Eusebius rightly noted above, even those who deny free choice, while they bear gravely the injuries inflicted on them by other men and try to avenge them, willy-nilly confess them to have been freely inflicted; because, if it had not been in the power of others not to inflict such harms, there would be there no notion of injury or of just anger or vengeance. And hence too Damascene, bk. II De Fide, c. 7, says that there is neither virtue nor vice in what is done from necessity; which Dionysius too gravely taught, c. 4 De Divin. nominib.; and Augustine, book On True Religion, cc. 13 and 14, and epist. XLVI, saying that, free choice being taken away, judgement and just punishment, or even reproof, are taken away; and Chrysostom, homily LX on Matthew, and in the orations on providence; and Clement of Alexandria, bk. I of the Stromata, and very many others.

17. Finally, we can argue by an a priori reason, which is to be taken from the mode and perfection of knowing of the nature of the intellect; because freedom is born from intelligence, for vital appetite follows cognition, and therefore a more perfect appetite accompanies more perfect cognition; therefore universal and in its way indifferent cognition is also followed by universal and indifferent appetite; but intellectual cognition is so universal and perfect that it perceives the proper notion of end and means, and in each can weigh what it has of goodness or evil, of utility or disadvantage; likewise which means is necessary for the end, and which indifferent because others can be applied; therefore the appetite which follows this cognition has this indifference or perfect power in appetising, so as not to appetise necessarily every good or every means, but each according to the notion of good judged in it; therefore that good which is not judged necessary but indifferent is not loved necessarily but freely; and for this reason, as I said above, free election follows upon rational consultation. And it is confirmed, for God is a free agent because He freely wills goods not necessary to Himself; therefore creatures too which participate the intellectual grade and in it in some way agree with God participate also the free mode of operating. The antecedent will be proved below in disputing about the perfections of God. The consequence is proved, both because the most perfect freedom follows, according to our way of understanding, upon the most perfect intellectuality; therefore according to the participation of intellectuality there will also be a participation of freedom; and also because the same proportional reason intervenes, namely, that an intellectual creature can perceive some good as necessary or as indifferent, or as good simply or only in a qualified way, or having joined to it something of evil, disadvantage or difficulty; therefore the creature which participates the intellectual grade participates also freedom.

It is demonstrated that there is some free faculty in man

18. From this first conclusion follows the second, which is no less evident, namely, that there is in man some active power free from its own force and intrinsic nature, that is, having such dominion over its action that it is in its power to exercise it and not to exercise it, and consequently to elicit one or another or the opposite action. All the parts of this assertion are so connected that one follows upon another. Thus, in the preceding assertion we proved the use of freedom which we experience in ourselves; but from this use some free faculty is evidently gathered, just as a power is inferred from an act. We add, however, that this faculty, as free, cannot be other than active, or conversely that a faculty cannot be free unless it is active and inasmuch as it is active. Which part is very much to be noted for rightly explaining and defending the freedom of choice. It is proved thus: for passion as passion cannot be free to the patient as such, but only inasmuch as the action from which such passion comes is free; therefore freedom formally and precisely is not in the suffering power as such, but in the acting power. The consequence is manifest, because to passive power as such corresponds only passion, as to active power action; therefore, if passion is not free except by denomination from free action, the faculty or dominion of freedom cannot be in passive power as such, but in active. The antecedent is proved, because action, if it is from a subject, as we are now speaking of it, necessarily brings in passion; and conversely passion can neither be except inasmuch as it is brought in through action, nor can it not be, if the action flows from the agent; therefore the whole freedom and indifference is about action as action, not about passion except inasmuch as it is brought in from action; therefore the free power must be an active power as active, and not as passive.

19. Passive power as such is not free.—You will say: passive power as passive can be of itself indifferent to various acts or contrary modes, as is evident in prime matter and in a surface of itself indifferent to whiteness and blackness; therefore for the same reason passive power as such can be a free faculty. It is answered by denying the consequence, for indifference to various acts and their lack is not sufficient for freedom, but an internal power is necessary by which such a faculty can determine that indifference to either part; but this power cannot be in a faculty passive as such, but in an active one. The reason is that, if the faculty is indifferent without an internal power of determining itself, so far as concerns itself it will always and necessarily remain in the same disposition and indifference, or lack of every act, until it is determined by another. Which could indeed be free to another efficient cause of the determination, but not to the recipient. As, if we suppose the heaven to be merely passively indifferent to motion and rest, it cannot be understood that motion or rest is free to the heaven itself, because it does not have the power of defining either of these; but with respect to another agent that motion could be denominated free, if it proceeds from a free will. And the same holds universally of every passive power inasmuch as it is passive; because passive power as such cannot change its natural disposition; for this is why beyond the material cause an efficient is required, because the patient as such cannot transmute itself; therefore neither can passive power, inasmuch as it is passive, have the power of beginning its determination, because determination does not take place without some change, and consequently not without some effecting.

20. An objection is dissolved.—You will say: passive power as such can resist action or not resist; therefore in this way freedom could be understood in passive power as such, namely, if we imagine it placed in its power to resist the agent or not to resist. As those who say that love is not elicited by the will, but impressed by the known object or by the cognition itself, will say nevertheless that, although the object or the cognition, so far as concerns itself, effects necessarily, nevertheless love is free to the will, because it is in its power to resist or not resist such effecting or impression of love. It is answered, first, that, since the will taken barely is of itself indifferent to receiving or not receiving love, it cannot be understood that through itself and its pure entity and passive power it resists the impression of love; for resistance formally can only be from some contrary or repugnant thing, not from the capable subject itself as such. Next, hence it comes about that such resistance cannot be indifferent and free, because it arises only from the formal repugnance or opposition of entities; and therefore, if the will, for example, through its very entity formally resists sometimes the impression of love, it will always and necessarily resist, because it will always have the same formal repugnance; but if it does not have this, it will never resist, unless something else is added by which it is repugnant and resists, and then freedom could be discerned in effecting or not effecting that. As in the example posited, if we admit that there is in the object or the cognition an active power of love, the will could resist the activity only in one of two ways, namely, either by removing the object or its consideration, which it cannot do except by doing or willing something, or by not cooperating with the object itself or the cognition, which supposes that the will itself is at least a partial efficient cause of the love itself; and so the indifference of freedom is always reduced to the faculty of doing something, inasmuch as it is such.

21. What divine freedom is.—In what created freedom is placed.—You will say finally that in God there is most perfect freedom, although it does not formally consist in a faculty of acting. Which is proved, both because the faculty of acting in God is only with respect to actions ad extra, while freedom is formally and per se primo in the very act of love, which is immanent in God, to speak in our manner; and also because, as we shall say below, active power in God is distinct in reason from the will; but the will alone is formally a free power, as we shall say a little later. It is answered that we are speaking of created freedom, which is proximately and primarily exercised about the acts of the free faculty itself. For, as Scotus rightly noted, In I, dist. 39, § Quantum ad primum dico quod voluntas, freedom can be understood either in order to diverse acts immanent in the power itself, or in order to diverse objects, or in order to diverse extrinsic effects. This last relation or indifference is posterior and as it were consequent upon freedom, inasmuch as the power freely willing is also efficacious of those things which it wills, or can apply a power which effects them. The second relation, however, is formally required and per se sufficient for freedom, if there is indifference in it; yet to have this indifference in the very act immediately with respect to objects, without any addition or change, is proper to God alone, as we shall show below in disputing about Him; and therefore the freedom of the divine will is not formally in a faculty of acting, nor yet in a faculty of receiving, but in a certain sole eminence of the most pure act itself. But the freedom of a creature cannot be determined to objects except with the intervention of some second acts which are added to the free faculty itself, with respect to which it is indifferent by way of first act. And with respect to the same we say that freedom is in a faculty of this kind inasmuch as it is active of such acts, and not formally inasmuch as it is receptive either of the acts themselves or of another thing which is ordered to them.

22. According to the opinion of the philosophers.—And so all philosophers, especially Aristotle, declare our freedom through the power of acting and not acting, or of acting the opposite; as in bk. I Magn. Moral., c. 9, he says that it is in our choice to do good and evil things, which he pursues at length in III Ethic., especially c. 5; but moral goods and evils, of which the discourse is there, formally and properly consist in the acts of the will itself. Hence too similar expressions of Scripture are consonant with this truth: Who could have transgressed and has not transgressed, and could do evil things and has not done them, Ecclus. 31; and that: Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree evil and its fruit evil, Matt. 12. Treating which words, Augustine, book Against Adimantus the Manichaean, c. 26: It is placed (he says) in the power of the will to be so changed that it can work good. And Methodius, book On Free Choice, declares freedom through this, that the power was given to man of doing what he wills; and similar things are read in Basil, homily That God Is Not the Author of Evils; Nazianzen, oration 1, and others to be reported below. And finally the Council of Trent, sess. VI, c. 4, and cann. 4 and 5, in order to safeguard the freedom of our will, teaches that it does not behave merely passively in its acts, but actively works them, intimating that the use of freedom consists in action, and the faculty of freedom in some power inasmuch as it is active. And so at the same time it remains proved that among created efficient causes there are some acting freely, which we principally intend in the present disputation.

23. Now, however, it occurred to declare which this faculty, thus free in acting, is. Likewise what its indifference is, and in what it is placed. But these things will be treated in solving the arguments; for each of the arguments proposed demands grave difficulties.

1. The first argument, then, asks in the first place whether the first cause operates freely or from necessity of nature; but this is to be treated below in the proper disputation on the divine perfections; here we suppose that it effects not necessarily but freely whatever it properly effects outside itself, which is not only certain by faith, but we believe can also be sufficiently proved by natural reason, as we shall show in the said place. And so that first argument remains solved by denying the antecedent.

2. The opinion of Scotus and its foundation.—There still remains, however, concerning the same argument a hypothetical question: whether, if God acted from necessity of nature, a created cause effecting freely could still be understood; for this question is controverted between Scotus and the chief followers of St. Thomas. For the former absolutely denies that it can come about that a secondary cause effects freely if the first acts from necessity of nature; and he thinks that Aristotle, or any other philosopher who taught those two things together, namely, that God operates necessarily and man freely, taught contradictory things. The foundation of Scotus was touched upon above in the first argument, namely, that the secondary cause does not act except as moved by the first; hence, if the first acts and moves necessarily, it is necessary that the second be moved and act with the same necessity. So Scotus holds, In I, dist. 1, q. Y; dist. 4, q. 4; dist. 38, ad 1; dist. 39, § Quantum ad primum; and In II, dist. 1, q. 3; and the followers of Scotus think the same, as may be seen in Cordova, in bk. I, q. 55, dub. 4; and some of the modern commentators of St. Thomas follow the same opinion, I, q. 19, a. 8.

3. Others, however, more ancient, think that from that hypothesis that God operates from necessity of nature it does not follow that every secondary cause operates from necessity, but that there can be a contingent effect by reason of the proximate cause, although the first inflows with natural necessity. The foundation is that, when an effect depends on several causes, it can have a peculiar condition or defect by reason of one cause and not by reason of another. For so from two assents to the premisses, one certain and the other uncertain, an uncertain assent to the conclusion is effected; and from a perfect first cause and a defective second one an imperfect effect follows; because, as is said, good comes from an integral cause and evil from any defect. Thus, then, in order that an effect be free or contingent, the freedom of the secondary cause can suffice, although the first cause operates necessarily. For, since the effect depends on both causes, the influx of both is required in order that the effect follow; but in order that it not follow, it is enough that one cause be lacking; and by parity of reasoning, in order that the effect follow necessarily, it is necessary that both causes inflow of necessity; but in order that it be free or contingent, it is enough that one can not inflow. So, roughly, Cajetan, I, q. 14, a. 13, about ad 1, and q. 19, a. 8; and Ferrariensis, II Cont. Gent., c. 67, about reason 5; and Capreolus, In I, dist. 38; who attribute this opinion to St. Thomas, because in the aforesaid places he says that, although the knowledge of God is a necessary cause, contingent effects come forth from it because its influx is modified in the secondary cause; and the same St. Thomas has similar things in q. 2 De Veritate, a. 14, ad 5, and q. 5, a. 9, ad 10. Gabriel holds the same opinion, In I, dist. 38, q. unica, a. 1, part 2 of it; and Palacios, disp. 2.

4. Each of these opinions contains something true; neither, however, exactly declared or confirmed the matter; for that conditional or hypothetical question can have several senses, which it is necessary to distinguish; for according to them the question is to be determined in diverse ways.

The first sense of the question and its resolution

5. The first sense, then, is: if in the first cause there were no freedom in acting, whether there could be freedom in some secondary cause. And in this sense it must be wholly denied that any secondary cause can be free if the first is not. In which sense what Scotus says is true, that the philosophers were deluded who said that God acts from necessity of nature but men freely; although Scotus neither intends this sense nor does his reason prove it, as we shall see. The first reason, then, is that, if God does not have freedom, there is no source from which the creature should participate it. You will say: in the same way someone could argue that, because God does not have sense, there is no source from which the creature should participate it. I answer that it is not similar, because freedom as such pertains to pure perfection, which, if it is not formally in God, cannot be in the creature either. Hence the more similar argument is that, if there were no cognition in God, neither could there be any in the creature, and consequently neither intellect nor sense. The second reason is that, if any secondary cause is capable of freedom, most of all the intellectual creature; but if there is no freedom in acting in God, neither can there be in the intellectual creature; therefore. The minor is proved, for God is intellectual by essence, the creature by participation; therefore whatever of perfection can be devised in the intellectual grade from which freedom might arise is in God in a more excellent way. As, for example, perfection of understanding, universal cognition of all goods, immateriality of powers, non-necessary connection with extrinsic goods or independence from external things, or whatever else of this kind there is which, either on the part of the object or on the part of the subject or of its own nature, can be the reason of freedom—whatever (I say) is of this kind is found in God in a more excellent way. If, therefore, all these things cannot suffice in God for Him to be free in acting, neither will they suffice in the creature.

6. Of what genus of perfection freedom is.—You will object: freedom requires perfection mixed with some imperfection, namely potentiality or mutability, and from this head that consecution may not be evident. Hence we too confess that in the creature there is freedom with indifference to various acts, but not in God. It is answered by denying the assumption; for freedom, taken precisely and absolutely, includes no imperfection, because it can be saved with indifference to objects or effects without any composition or potentiality with respect to diverse acts, and it says only a certain dominion and independence with respect to such things or objects. And in this way there is freedom in God, because it is freedom by essence; but in the creature it is only by participation, and therefore it has joined to it that imperfection which indifference to diverse acts includes, in which whatever there is of potentiality and composition is of imperfection; but, this imperfection being supposed, the very indifference and dominion over its own act is of perfection, which perfection could not be participated by the creature unless the very perfection of freedom were in God pure and without imperfections. Nor does the reason of the second opinion proceed against this sense; for it supposes indeed that, the necessity of God in acting standing, there are free secondary causes, the opposite of which we have shown to follow from the aforesaid hypothesis.

The second sense of the question and its resolution

7. The second sense of the question is: if by an impossible supposition it happened that God acted from necessity of nature, but the creature had a faculty of acting free by its nature, whether God, on account of His natural mode of acting, would impede in the creature the use of freedom, so that in fact it would not have free action even if it had free power. And indeed the negative part seems manifestly to follow from the opinion of certain Thomists, who think that for the free action of the creature it is enough that it operate through a faculty of itself free and that it not be drawn of necessity by the object, or determined to one. But God would not take away these two things, even if He acted from necessity of nature with all His power in the will and with the created will; therefore, notwithstanding that mode of acting of God, the creature would still act freely.

8. This foundation, however, is false and offers great occasion of erring in this matter. For in the first place it does not sufficiently distinguish between these two things, namely, to have a free faculty and to have the unimpeded free use of such a faculty, although they are very distinct; for the former pertains to the power alone or first act, the latter to second act. But although a free act cannot exist without a free faculty, because second and vital act essentially supposes first, yet a free faculty can exist without the use of freedom, not only when it does not operate, but also while it operates it is impeded from having that dominion over its act which by its nature it could have. For this dominion consists in the power of not doing what one does, or of doing something else. But it can happen that an agent, otherwise of itself indifferent, is so borne or determined to acting by another superior agent that with respect to such action or mode of acting it does not have the power of not acting; and so, retaining the innate free faculty, it can be deprived of the use of freedom. It is confirmed, for all theologians teach that God can bring in necessity to our will; but then He would not take away the free faculty, because this is not distinguished from the will itself, but would impede its free use and change it into necessary. These two, therefore, are to be distinguished; and God can bring it about that a faculty of itself free, and remaining free in first act about some object, is not freely borne into it, but by some necessary motion which impedes the use of freedom. In which the theologians seem to agree, In II, dist. 15, and St. Thomas supposes it, I-II, q. 6, a. 4; and Scotus holds it, In IV, dist. 49, q. 6, § Duo ergo.

9. From which it further follows that what that opinion supposes is false: that for free use and act a faculty of itself free, and an object of itself indifferent or which per se does not suffice to bring in necessity to the faculty, are enough. For this opinion supposes that no other cause can bring in necessity to the will except the object or by means of the object, which is false; for God too can bring in necessity to the will, not as object, but as agent of infinite power. Indeed, if the will could suffer necessity only from the object, it could never be drawn out of its connatural mode of operating, or be moved necessarily, except when it itself from its nature and intrinsic impulse is borne necessarily. For the object, as object, does not move the will in a preternatural mode, but in the most connatural and intrinsic one; and therefore the object in its genus does not necessarily move a power otherwise free, except when with respect to such an object it is not free; therefore, if the will can be necessitated only by means of the object, in truth it is not necessitated about that to which of itself it was free, as in the fatherland the will is necessitated by God as object clearly seen, because with respect to such act it is not of itself free.

10. And thus it comes about that according to that opinion God could never necessitate the will to an act to which of itself it is free; for either God proposes an object of itself sufficient to move the will necessarily, and then in truth the will is not of itself free to such an act, and so suffers no extrinsic necessity; or He proposes an object which in its genus is not able to move the will necessarily, and by virtue of such an object the will will never be moved necessarily unless God brings in necessity from elsewhere. You will say: an object of itself insufficient to move necessarily can be proposed, yet in such a mode or under such a judgement that it brings in necessity to the will. I answer, first, that this cannot take place without a false judgement, namely, by judging to be the highest good or a necessary good what is not such, which judgement God cannot send. Next, even that being posited, the will would not then be moved as a power of itself free, but as a power determined to one, because, just as by its nature it is borne not only to the true good but also to apparent good, so by its nature it is apt to be borne necessarily to an apparent necessary good. And so it is never saved that the will can be necessitated by God to an act which of itself it would elicit freely. Which is surely false and against the common opinion, and derogates from the omnipotence of God. For, since He is the author and lord of the will, He can move and impel it however He wills so that it act necessarily, or impede it so that it does not act at all. And it is confirmed, for the power which the created will has for willing or not willing is not of infinite efficacy, since it is commensurate with the finite power of such a faculty; therefore in each it can be overcome and surpassed by an extrinsic agent of infinite power, as God is; the created will, therefore, can be so moved by God to will an object otherwise of itself indifferent that the will so moved is wholly unable to resist or to use the power which it has for not willing such an object. Indeed Augustine sometimes seems to teach that this pertains to the divine omnipotence, and not undeservedly, since no repugnance is involved in that effect or motion. Then, therefore, although the will is of itself free and is not moved of necessity by the object, nevertheless the use itself and the act is not free to the will, because it is not permitted by the superior agent to use its free faculty; nor does it have power with respect to the superior agent to resist it when He uses His absolute power.

11. Therefore for the free act or use of the will a faculty of itself free with indifference of object or of judgement is not enough, unless also the superior cause brings in no force or preternatural efficacy, but permits the will itself to operate in its connatural mode, as the Fathers of the Church also speak, whom I shall indicate at once. The foundation of that opinion, therefore, is not solid. Wherefore it now remains to be seen whether, that hypothesis being posited that God acted from necessity of nature, and that there were in man a faculty of itself free, it nevertheless rightly follows that there would then be no free use or act in the created will.

12. If God acted from necessity of nature, there would be no exercise of freedom in causes.—And in this sense it seems it must be said that, that hypothesis being granted, no use of freedom is left in the created agent. And in this sense too it is truly said by Scotus that the philosophers erred who posited that God acts from necessity of nature and admitted free and contingent effects from secondary causes. The reason of Scotus, however, neither proceeds in this sense nor is approved by me, as I shall say below. The proper reason, therefore, is to be taken from what was said a little before, because God by His infinite power can so move the will as to bring in necessity, as has been proved, and He could do the same even if He acted from necessity of nature, because then He is not posited to be of less power, but only of less indifference or freedom; but if God acted from necessity of nature, when He acted on the created will He would act with as much efficacy as He could; therefore He would always act bringing in necessity, and so there would never be use of freedom in the created agent. The minor is evident, because this is the condition of a natural agent, that it act as much as it can, because it does not have the faculty of tempering its action, or of applying it more or less, because this does not take place except through a free power.

13. An objection is satisfied.—But the philosophers would perhaps say that God, acting from necessity of nature, does not always act as much as He absolutely could, but as much as the nature of secondary causes demands, by which He is determined to act more or less and in this or that way. But in the first place we are speaking only from the hypothesis that the divine power has absolute necessity in acting. Next, we add that, in whatever way God is said to act from necessity of nature and not from freedom, He cannot have the determination of His action from the natural capacity of the secondary cause; for the power of God does not adequately regard that capacity, but a wider one; therefore it cannot be determined by it. For why would it be so limited by it that it could never do more, since it has greater power? I confess indeed that from that hypothesis, and from the infinity of the power of God, many impossible things follow; nevertheless, that being posited, it follows by an extrinsic topic¹ that God through His power always so moves the created will as to bring in necessity to it. And therefore the holy Fathers attribute to the divine wisdom and free providence that in acting and moving the created will He so accommodates Himself as not to bring force to it, but to permit it to move itself in its own way. As may be seen in Augustine, On Predestination and Grace, c. 15; Prosper, to the Objections of the Gauls, cc. 1 and 11; Cyril, bk. IV on John, c. 7; Damascene, bk. II De Fide, c. 30.

14. Nor does the foundation of the second opinion proceed against this decision of the question in this sense; because for the freedom of the act or contingency of the effect it is not enough that the secondary cause be in itself free or contingent, but it is necessary that, inasmuch as it is such, it be permitted to exercise its action; because otherwise it is only materially (so to speak) free, but does not act as free; but an act does not take its notion and denomination from the cause taken materially, but as actually inflowing. That reason, however, does not prove that the necessity of God in acting would not impede the free use of the created faculty. Nor does St. Thomas, cited there, contradict either in this or in the prior sense, because he does not treat of the absolute necessity of God in acting, but of the necessity of immutability, which does not exclude absolute freedom, as we shall declare below in the disputation on God.

The third sense of the question and its resolution

15. If God gave necessarily the concurrence which He now gives to free causes, they would remain free.—The third sense of the question is: if God acted from necessity of nature, and did no more nor gave any other concurrence or motion to the free created will than He now gives, whether He would then take away the contingency of action and impede the use of freedom. Which sense is very diverse from the preceding, and proceeds from several suppositions, as is sufficiently established. Hence in the immediately preceding assertion we said that from the necessity of the action of God there would be an impediment² to the use of freedom, because the motion of God would be greater than it now is, God concurring freely; now, however, we inquire, if we suppose that the motion is not greater nor diverse in magnitude (so to speak), but only in the mode of giving it—namely, because the same which is now given freely would then be given from necessity of nature—whether from this precisely it follows that the use of freedom is impeded and the contingency of things taken away. And in this sense the opinion and reason of Scotus seems to proceed.

16. I judge, however, that it must be said that, even if the first cause acted from necessity of nature in that way, it would not impede the use of freedom nor take away all contingency of the effects of secondary causes. And as to this I approve the second opinion adduced above, because, although several causes concur to one act, in order that it be free it is enough that the proximate cause be free and that through the cooperation of the other cause it not be drawn out of its natural mode of operating; but so it would happen in that case; therefore. The major is sufficiently proved by the foundation of the second opinion; for, although several causes concur, and all except one, so far as concerns themselves, operate necessarily, if one can by its sole freedom not elicit the act, that is enough for the effect to be free or contingent; because it can simply not be, nor does the necessary mode of acting of the other causes impede the use of this power in the other cause, as is supposed from the said hypothesis. And it is easily declared by proving the minor, because God in that case would not move the created will more strongly or vehemently than He now moves it; but now the motion of God does not draw the will out of its connatural mode of operating; therefore neither would it then change it; for whether that motion or concurrence is given freely or necessarily on the part of God matters nothing to the effect which it produces outside, if the concurrence or motion itself is not in itself greater.

17. Hence I argue, secondly, because otherwise it would follow that the act of our will is now free³ only because God concurs to it freely; but the consequent is false, both because formally and immediately I do not have dominion over my act on account of the freedom of God, but on account of my freedom; and also because otherwise the appetition of a horse or a lion would be free, because God concurs to it freely; an act, therefore, is free with respect to some cause which is so made by it that there is in it the power and faculty of not effecting it, notwithstanding other causes concurring to the same act, whether these, so far as concerns themselves, concur naturally or freely; but so the created will would behave in the aforesaid case, as has been shown; therefore.

18. Thirdly, the same can be proved not only by satisfying the foundation of Scotus but also by retorting it; for, if it were of any weight, it would prove that even now the contingency of effects and the use of freedom is taken away from every act of the secondary cause, inasmuch as it is from it, and that nothing is free except by relation to the freedom of the first cause. But the consequent is not only against natural reason but also against faith, because otherwise free acts could not be imputed to us. The sequel is proved, because even now the secondary cause does not act except as moved by the first, or with the first concurring, and now too the first cause inflows or moves prior in nature, with the same priority with which it would move if it acted from necessity of nature. This motion of God is also now equally efficacious, as is supposed, and it can also be proved by the very argument of Scotus, because it does not stand that God move and the creature not be moved; therefore, the motion of God being posited, the created will is necessarily moved; therefore, if such motion, given by God from necessity of nature, would take away freedom in the act of the human will, it also takes it away now, because it equally precedes. Or certainly, if now it does not take it away, because, although in some way it precedes, yet absolutely it is given dependently on the created will itself, as we shall explain shortly, by the same reason in the aforesaid case it would not take it away, because, although it would be given necessarily on the part of God, nevertheless it would also be given dependently on created free choice.

19. Nor does the reply of Scotus satisfy, namely, that if God acted from necessity of nature His motion would be simply necessary, and so would take away all contingency of the effect; but now it is free, and therefore does not take it away. This (I say) does not satisfy, both because at most it declares that the contingency or freedom of the effect is now saved with respect to the divine will, not with respect to secondary causes; and also because, if he understands that, that hypothesis being granted, the motion of God would be absolutely necessary, that is, necessarily to be posited in reality, he assumes something false; for it would be necessary only so far as concerns God; but because it would at the same time depend on the created will and could not be posited in reality without it, it would therefore not be absolutely necessary. Thus God would then be said to act from necessity of nature, because He would be from His intrinsic nature and of Himself determined to concur with the will; yet, because that concurrence is not posited in reality except with the will itself cooperating, it would therefore not be posited in reality with absolute necessity, but according to the demand of the cooperation of the free will.

20. And hence is gathered a general rule which confirms the proposed opinion, namely, that it is no obstacle to the freedom or contingency of an act or effect that some cause concur to it with natural necessity, provided that some cause effect it with indifference, with respect to which the effect is denominated free. The reason of this has been sufficiently declared in explaining the foundation of the second opinion; it can, however, be further illustrated by some examples. One is, according to a probable opinion, that cognition or the known object concurs effectively to the act of the will; for that concurrence, as it is from the cognition, is natural and without freedom, and nevertheless the act is simply free on account of the indifference of the will. Hence, although the cognition, so far as concerns itself, inflows from necessity of nature, yet, because its actual influx is not posited in reality without the actual influx of the will, it is therefore not absolutely necessary. Something similar can be said of the influx of a habit concurring with a free power; for a habit of itself does not have indifference or proper freedom, but operates from necessity of nature when its power operates. Another example is of the effects of natural agents, as they are from them and from God; for that action, although from the proximate agent it is from necessity of nature, is free with respect to the first cause, because according to the true doctrine God freely gives His concurrence. Hence from the power of God that action absolutely can be and not be, although this power is not in the proximate agent. In fact, however, that action is denominated simply natural, both because, just as it receives its determination and specification from the proximate agent, so also these denominations; and also because from a certain general law and definite will God now concurs to these actions according to the demand of nature or of the secondary cause. In which sense is to be taken what is commonly said, that the influx of the first cause is modified in the second or by the second. Thus, then, the hypothesis being granted in which we are engaged, the action would be free from its relation to the secondary cause, although the first gave its concurrence from necessity of nature.

21. Whether one and the same action can be free to one and necessary to another.—Wherefore what Scotus assumes above, that the same action cannot be necessary with respect to one cause and free with respect to another, because necessary and contingent are contradictorily opposed, either is not true or, in the sense in which it can be true, is not to the point. For that two causes can inflow into the same act, one freely and the other by natural impulse of nature, has been demonstrated; in this sense, therefore, it is not repugnant that the same effect be contingent and necessary with respect to diverse causes; for for the same cause there is no contradiction, since contradictories must be taken with respect to the same. But if the necessary is taken not only respectively but absolutely for that which simply cannot not be, in this way it is true that it is repugnant for an effect to be necessary and to have contingency from some cause; yet in this sense it is not true that that effect is necessary to which some cause acting necessarily concurs, because it is enough that respectively, and so far as concerns the force of that cause, it be made necessarily, with which it is consistent that from another head, or with respect to another, it can have contingency or freedom.

1. This difficulty is sought in the second argument posited at the beginning of Section II, and Scotus also touches it in that argument, that the secondary cause or created will cannot do anything except as moved by the first; but when it is moved by God, it necessarily moves itself; therefore its motion with respect to the same is never free and contingent. The major is in terms that of St. Thomas, I, q. 105, a. 1, ad 3, and aa. 4 and 5, and will be proved below when we treat of the dependence of secondary causes on the first. The minor is that of the same St. Thomas, I-II, q. 10, a. 4, ad 3, where he says: It is impossible that God move the will and the will not be moved. And it can easily be persuaded, both from the efficacy and perfection of the divine motion and from the mutual relation between moving and being moved. The same difficulty is proposed in another way; for a free cause is one which, all the requisites for acting being posited, can act and not act; but one of the requisites in order that the secondary cause act is the motion of God, which being posited it cannot act and not act, but necessarily acts, just as, that not being posited, it necessarily does not act; therefore that definition is repugnant to every secondary cause, and so with respect to it there is no contingency or freedom, but only with respect to the first.

The first way of speaking is proposed

2. This difficulty is one of the chief ones of this matter, and offers occasion to declare further what a free cause is, or what conditions it requires, where at the same time the common and received definition of a free cause will be expounded. The authors, then, whom I reported above, placing the whole notion of freedom in objective indifference (so to speak), will easily dispatch the present difficulty by saying that a free power is that which, all the requisites on its part being posited, still remains indifferent, or not determined to one by virtue of the object; and therefore that it is no obstacle to the use of freedom that, the motion of the first cause being posited, the will now remains determined to one, so that it cannot not exercise the act to which it is moved. And in this sense, to solve the former difficulty, that common distinction of necessity in the composite sense and in the divided sense is applied; for that the will moved by God operates necessarily is only necessity in the composite sense, and therefore it is not repugnant to the freedom of an act so necessary. To the latter difficulty, however, they will answer by limiting the major and common definition of a free faculty, namely, that it is that which can act and not act, all requisites being posited, namely on the part of the intellect and of the will itself, but not on the part of God. Which modification Almain had indicated before these modern authors in his Moralia, which, however, he does not approve, although he does not sufficiently attack it.

3. Hence the said new theologians devised another definition of a free act, namely, that it is a motion of the will made from such a judgement of reason as by itself, or through the object which it proposes, is not sufficient to determine the will to one. Which they confirm, first, because the whole freedom of the will arises from the judgement of reason; therefore a free act is best and sufficiently defined through its order to such judgement, or, what is the same, through its order to all the requisites on the part of the intellect and the will. Secondly, because for freedom indifference of the object suffices and indifference of the power is not required, as is evident in the divine will, which of itself is always determined to one; yet, because created objects are indifferent, that is enough for it to will them freely; the same, therefore, will suffice for the free act of the will.

The said opinion is refuted

4. This whole doctrine proceeds from a false foundation, as I proved in the immediately preceding section; and the occasion of erring seems to have been that the root of freedom is not sufficiently distinguished from the formal freedom of the power and of the act. For the indifference of the judgement is the root of freedom, as was touched upon above and is the common opinion of theologians; it is not, however, formal freedom itself, because the judgement itself is not free in itself nor is it proximately from a formally free power, as I shall say below; but it is called indifferent objectively, or on the part of the object, because it proposes the object as so indifferent that it does not draw the will of necessity. And hence it comes about that an indifferent judgement sufficiently indicates, in a nature which can so judge, some formally free faculty, and consequently also free use or act, if such a faculty is permitted to operate in its proper mode and suffers no extrinsic force by which it is coerced, or, more properly speaking, necessitated to tend to an object otherwise of itself indifferent. For it was proved above that this is possible, from which we deservedly inferred that absolutely, and without the aforesaid limitation, an indifferent judgement and a faculty of itself free are not enough for free use.

5. The first inference.—From which we further gather that the received description of the free faculty, namely, That which, all the requisites for acting being posited, can act and not act, is not rightly limited—is not rightly (I say) limited to the requisites on the part of the judgement and of the will itself, because, all the requisites on the part of the judgement concurring, and the faculty itself being of itself free, it can be not free in the use itself, or, what is the same, the act can be not free; therefore, in order that that definition comprehend not only the faculty free in itself (so to speak) or in first act, but also the free use or act, those requisites do not suffice. Hence the heretics of this time, when they see that we operate from judgement and advertence of reason and are not borne or determined of necessity by the objects themselves, nevertheless say that we do not operate freely, because we suffer necessity from God Himself. In which indeed they err, asserting that God in fact always operates so in us, which is repugnant to faith and to the divine Scriptures and to right reason; they do not err, however, in the inference, namely, that, if God brings in extrinsic necessity to the act, it is not in fact free; nor would they err if they said only either that this mode of operating of God is possible, or that, it being posited, indifference of judgement does not suffice for free use.

6. The second inference.—It is further inferred that the difficulties posited are not satisfied by the replies of that opinion. For that distinction of the composite and divided sense, by which the former difficulty is dispatched, although rightly explained it satisfies, as we shall see below, yet taken so generally it cannot be enough; for we shall show that some necessity, even in the composite sense, is repugnant to the use of freedom and destroys it. And it is evident easily from what has been said; for God by some motion and activity of His can bring in necessity to the will, and then the act would not be necessary in the divided sense, because the will of itself, and that motion being excluded, could not exercise that act; but it would be necessary in the composite sense, because, that motion being posited, it cannot not be exercised; and yet that necessity in the composite sense would take away free use, because we suppose that God then necessitates the will as much as He can; something, therefore, must be added in order that that distinction satisfy. Again, that limitation of the common definition of freedom, by which the latter difficulty is solved, has already been disproved, besides the fact that it is arbitrary and offers occasion to introduce any similar one at pleasure in this matter. For by parity of reasoning someone could say that, a certain influence of the heaven being posited, or a special motion of a demon being applied, our will cannot not operate following it, and nevertheless will then operate freely, because, all the requisites on the part of the judgement and of the intrinsic faculty being posited, that operation does not follow necessarily, even if from another supposition it follows necessarily.

7. The third inference.—Finally, it is established from what has been said that that new definition of a free act was falsely devised, namely, that it is that which is done by the will from a non-necessitating judgement of reason, because an act can be necessary from elsewhere with a necessity impeding free use, as has been declared; therefore that definition can belong to some absolutely necessary act. The first reason, however, on which that definition is founded proves only that indifferent judgement is the root of freedom; it does not follow from this, however, that the definition of a free act is completed by its proceeding from such a judgement, but it must be added that it proceed from a faculty consonant with the judgement, not impeded nor suffering extrinsic necessity, which the common definition explained in those words, that, all the requisites being posited, it can act and not act. In the second proof, however, something false is assumed when it is said that for a free act indifference of the object so suffices that indifference of the power is not necessary; for how will an act be free if the power is not indifferent to exercising it? Or why is the object, in the notion of object, called indifferent, except because it does not bring in necessity to the power, but leaves it indifferent? The example of the divine will, however, either assumes something false or is not to the point, because it is brought in what is not similar. For the divine will, although in a higher and more perfect way, is yet truly of itself indifferent to willing created objects; for it is not naturally determined to this; otherwise how would it be free? And although it determined itself from eternity and in that determination necessarily always perseveres, yet that very determination (whatever it may be) is from freedom; and its necessity is not of nature, but of immutability, which does not take away the proper indifference which a free thing has of itself. Yet, because in the will of God there is not the efficiency of its own act, nor composition of potency and act, therefore that indifference is not in a potency with respect to an act, but in pure act with respect to objects, and therefore in this the indifference of created freedom is not to be compared with the divine.

The definition of freedom is explained

8. In order, then, that we may satisfy the difficulties proposed, that description of the free faculty must first be retained and explained, in which two things are demanded. One is that it be an active power, having of itself and from its internal faculty the power of exercising and suspending its action. The other is that that faculty, while it exercises the act, be so disposed and proximately (so to speak) prepared for the work that, all the requisites for acting being posited, it can act and not act. In the first part of this sentence there is no difficulty, nor is new explanation almost necessary, what was said in Section II being supposed, where we showed that freedom consists in an active faculty as such; for from this it manifestly follows that freedom requires an active faculty indifferent to acting and not acting. Hence, for the sake of clarity, we can prescind in a free power two powers, or as it were two parts of one power. One is for willing or exercising the act; the other for not willing or suspending the action. For this latter part of this power, although in itself it is a certain positive perfection, yet in use it can be exercised by the sole negation or lack of the act of such a faculty, if we speak of its absolute power, as is taken from St. Thomas, I-II, q. 6, a. 3, and other theologians there, because not willing, as such, can be free, while not willing taken precisely does not include an act, but the lack of an act, which, if it is with perfect advertence of reason and full power of willing, will be free. I say, however, if we speak of absolute power, because morally or ordinarily lack of appetition of this kind is not exercised without a positive act, which is either a nolition by which the proposed object is rejected, or another act about it, for example, love or intention of it, or is a turning to another repugnant or diverse object, as is sufficiently established by experience; because it would be most difficult, perfect and practical advertence of reason existing, to suspend every act of the will.

9. From which, by the way, it is understood that this indifference of the free faculty is first and precisely sufficiently saved through its relation to the act or the lack of the act, which is commonly called freedom as to exercise, because through it the very exercise of the act is indifferent. Since, however, this free faculty is vital, and so perfect and spiritual that it can reflect upon itself and its motions, whenever it can freely not exercise some act it can also through another positive act will that lack, or not will to exercise such an act. And in this way there is never freedom as to exercise without some freedom as to specification; for whenever the will can freely not love, it can also elicit some act according to its notion and species repugnant to love, and so there is there some indifference as to the specification of the act. Besides which another can intervene in order to contrary acts with respect to the same object, inasmuch as it can be either freely loved or also hated. Which twofold power the free faculty also includes, taken according to itself and absolutely, although it is not necessary that it have it about each and every object, because it is not necessary that it be equally free about all of them, as we shall touch on below. And so much about the first part of this sentence.

10. In the second part of the sentence proposed is declared not only the notion of the free faculty, but also what is necessary for the use of freedom or the free act; for the aforesaid definition of freedom comprehends all this, and deservedly, because the whole difficulty of freedom and its utility is placed in the very use and exercise of freedom. It must be considered, however, that something can be said to be required for an act in two ways: in one way, as prerequired for the action; in another way, as intrinsically or essentially included in the action itself. The former is commonly said to be prerequired antecedently, or on the part of first act, whether it is a proper principle of the action or a condition prerequired for it in any way or in any genus of cause. The latter, however, can be said to be required concomitantly, or in the second act itself, because it is not distinguished from the free action itself, which is the second act of the free faculty. When, therefore, it is said that that is free which, all the requisites for acting being posited, can act and not act, it is to be understood of the requisites antecedently and in first act, not of the others. And this very thing is intimated in the aforesaid sentence when it is said that the free faculty must be so disposed and proximately prepared for the work that with that disposition it can act and not act; for in that preparation are included all those prerequisites in first act for operating.

11. And indeed that for free use it is necessary that with all those the said indifference and as it were twofold power remain intact can easily be shown. First, because otherwise cessation from work, for example, would not be from intrinsic power and faculty, but from the defect of some required condition; but this contributes nothing to freedom, for there is no natural power acting so necessarily that it cannot sometimes not act from the defect of a required condition, such as the nearness of the patient or another similar one. Indeed, if one rightly weighs it, that is not to be able not to act, but rather inability to act, or not to be able to act with such a defect; but the indifference of freedom is not founded on inability to act, but on power not to act. Hence, when the will itself lacks some act on account of natural inadvertence of reason, that lack of act is not from power not to act, but from inability so to operate or to will, and therefore such lack cannot be free. In order, then, that a faculty have free use, it is necessary that, all the conditions prerequired antecedently or in first act being posited, it can from its internal power and faculty act and not act. When, however, we say from its internal power and faculty (to meet objections), we do not exclude the divine concurrence, or greater help necessary for the quality of the acts, but we leave that to the theologians.

12. That the said definition is not to be understood of the requisites concomitantly is proved because these, as we said, are included in the action itself; for just as action is required for acting, so whatever is included in action can be said to be required. But action is required as that by which the power is formally determined and constituted acting in act, and therefore it cannot be included in those conditions with which the power must be indifferent to acting and not acting, because a manifest repugnance is involved; therefore neither must there be included in those requisites all that which is of the intrinsic notion of the action or is essentially included in it; for the reason is the same of all those as of the action itself. And this interpretation of that definition is gathered from the common opinion of theologians, In I, dist. 38 and 39, and In II, dist. 24, and from the doctrine of Anselm, which we shall explain at once.

The former difficulty is dispatched

13. The twofold motion of our will by the divine.—And from this interpretation the two difficulties touched upon at the beginning are easily dispatched. To the first, then, it is answered that a twofold motion of God with respect to our will can be understood. One is antecedent to the actual concurrence to the act of the will; the other consists in the actual concurrence itself. The former is little known in metaphysics, or from the principles of nature alone; in theology, however, it is certain, and whatever it may be, it is contained under the conditions required for the act antecedently, or by way of principle or first act. For, although this motion takes place through a vital act, which is second act with respect to the power in which it is, yet with respect to the other act for the sake of which that motion is given it is compared by way of principle, and for that reason is said to be by way of first act; as the judgement about good to be done is the principle of the act of the will by which such good is loved; hence, although in the intellect it is second act, yet with respect to the will it is compared as first; and the same holds of other similar cases. The latter motion is better known by natural light, because physically it is more intrinsically necessary for the action of the creature; that motion, however, is counted among the requisites for the act concomitantly, because the concurrence of God is essentially included in the action of the creature.

14. Of the former motion, then, it must be said that, it being posited, the will can still not operate that act for the sake of which such motion is given, because, since that motion is among the conditions prerequired for the free act, unless it left that power unimpeded it would take away free use, for it would determine the power to one. For what freedom or choice would there be where only one part had been granted? as Evodius rightly said to Constantius, in Turrianus, bk. IV for the Pontifical Epistles, c. 2. And therefore the Council of Trent, sess. VI, c. 4, defines of a prior motion of this kind, even in works of grace, that, it being posited, it is still in the power of the will not to consent. Nor is this against the efficacy of the divine motion, both because it does not come from impotence but from the wisdom, providence and will of the first mover Himself, and also because, when He wills, He also efficaciously brings it about that the will infallibly consents, although it can not consent. But per se and absolutely it is not repugnant, this motion standing, that the will be not moved by that act or free motion for the sake of which such motion is given; nor as to this are moving and being moved correlatives, when one motion is compared to another act as its principle and not only as the way to a terminus. In which way Augustine said elsewhere that he who is so moved cannot not feel the motion, but can not consent; but this matter has in theology a grave and prolix disputation, from which we deliberately abstain, and, abstracting from all opinions, we are content with that reply which all embrace under the aforesaid words, although there is dissent in their sense, about which we do not now pass judgement.

15. Of the other motion, however, the difficulty which we are treating properly proceeds; for it is that by which the action of the secondary cause per se and essentially depends on the first; and, as I said, it is nothing else than the very concurrence of God, why it is called motion we shall say below in treating of the dependence of the secondary cause on the first in operating. Of this motion, then, it is true that, it being posited, the will cannot not be moved; we deny, however, that this is repugnant to the use of freedom, because that motion is not among the conditions prerequired for the act, but is essentially included in the very action of the will. But what this concurrence or motion of God is, and how it is together with the influx of the created will itself, and whether it can be called in some way prior without injury to freedom, and finally how it is in the power of man to have or not have this motion of God (for this too is true and necessary for freedom), we shall say in the place cited a little before.

Reply is made to the latter difficulty

16. Finally, the second difficulty has already been dispatched from what has been said; for, the former motion being omitted, which neither pertains to us nor is the discourse about it in the argument, of the latter, or the concurrence of God, it is denied that it is among the antecedent prerequisites of which the definition of freedom speaks, as we explained; and therefore we confess that, it being posited, the will cannot not be moved, because it is now supposed constituted under its action, yet not without its free determination. And in this sense too it is answered excellently by that distinction of the composite and divided sense; for, this motion being posited in the composite sense, the will cannot not operate, because it is now supposed operating; hence this is not repugnant to freedom, because in the very supposition is included and already supposed the use of freedom, of which, as of any other thing, it is truly said that, when it is, it necessarily is, although simply and absolutely (which is said in the divided sense) it could not be. And this very thing is what Anselm said, book On the Concord of Foreknowledge, from the beginning, and bk. II Cur Deus Homo, cc. 17 and 18, that necessity from antecedent supposition takes away freedom, but not from consequent supposition. For he calls antecedent supposition all that which we have said is prerequired antecedently, or on the part of first act, for the free act; hence he calls this antecedent supposition the cause of the thing, and therefore, if from such supposition the act necessarily follows, freedom is taken away, of whose notion it is that with all those prerequisites the power remain intact for acting and not acting, even in the composite sense with respect to such antecedent conditions, as has been declared. But he calls consequent supposition every one which includes the very action of the creature, because it already supposes the free use, as has been declared. Hence necessity from it cannot take away the free use itself, because it is not necessity of the thing, but of inference only, as St. Thomas said, q. 24 De Verit., a. 1, ad 13, who confirms this doctrine in bk. II Phys., lect. 15, at the beginning; St. Augustine too favours it, V De Civit., c. 10.

1. Every rational agent, and only such, is capable of freedom.—In the third and fourth reasons for doubting proposed in sect. 2, it is asked that we declare more distinctly which created causes are not subject to necessity in acting, and through what faculty they have this dominion. And indeed, concerning principal causes, or those operating ut quod, the resolution is easy from what has been said; for we showed that all things lacking reason also lack freedom on account of their imperfection. Whence it comes about, conversely, that all rational or intellectual agents are also free agents; for that negation of the use of reason is the sufficient and adequate reason of the lack of freedom; therefore the opposite affirmation is also the adequate reason of the opposite affirmation. And it is confirmed; for it has been shown in particular that man is a free agent, although in the intellectual grade he is the lowest of all; therefore a fortiori it must be said that all created agents which have intellect also have freedom. Which we shall say again of the created intelligences in particular below, in disputing about them. Nor does the argument taken from the motions or influences of the heavens stand against this. For, as regards the intelligences that move the heavens, although they are free in other things, they can be led by some necessity in moving the heavens, either from the motion and command of a superior agent or from a preconceived end which they immutably love and intend. As regards the influence of the heavens, however, it must be said that it does not extend directly and per se to spiritual and immaterial things, both because they inflow only through physical motion, of which a spiritual thing is incapable, and also because a spiritual thing is of a superior order, and therefore a material thing cannot act directly on it. But the minds of men are in themselves immaterial and have freedom inasmuch as they are immaterial and operate through an immaterial power; and therefore the influence of the heavens cannot impede the use of freedom in men, even if indirectly, by means of the body and its affections, it can incline them more or less to one or the other side, which inclination man can overcome by his freedom and rule the stars.

2. A spiritual substance is the radical principle of free action.—From which it is further established that the principal principle quo of free action is always some substance or spiritual substantial form. It is proved, because a principle of this kind is either the rational soul or some superior substance; but the rational soul is immaterial, and much more every superior substance; therefore. And it is confirmed, for every material form, as such, operates without intelligence and reason, and therefore operates in a merely natural mode; therefore the form which is the principle of free action must be spiritual.

3. The proximate principle of free action is always a spiritual power.—A free act is either elicited or commanded.—Thirdly, it is hence also established that the proximate principle of free action is some power of a spiritual substance inasmuch as it is spiritual or intellectual. Which I add on account of the human soul, which, although it has many faculties, many of them are nevertheless material, because they do not belong to it inasmuch as it is intellectual, and therefore they are not the proximate principle of free action. The reason of this assertion is that the proximate principle must be accommodated to the principal. Likewise, because a thing does not have dominion over its act except inasmuch as it is intellectual; therefore it does not have this dominion except through a faculty pertaining to the intellectual grade; but this grade is immaterial according to itself and according to all the powers proximate to it; therefore. It is only to be noted that an action is denominated free in two ways, namely, as an elicited act, or proximately in order to the power effecting the action, in which way willing itself is free; or as a commanded act, or remotely in order to the power moving or applying an inferior faculty to acting, in which way walking is free. When, therefore, we treat of the proximate principle of free action, it is to be understood of action properly free in order to its immediate principle; and in this way we say that the proximate principle of free action is a spiritual faculty; for the proximate principle of an action which is free only imperatively can sometimes be a material faculty, as is the motive power according to place residing in the members of the body, because it can be subordinated to a superior spiritual substance, in which is the proper dominating power over its own act, and by means of that over the inferior power and its action. Hence it can also be said that, although an imperatively free action, physically and according to its entity, is proximately made by another power, yet it does not have the denomination of freedom except from the superior power by means of its act; that power, therefore, which is the proximate principle of an act per se and immediately free must be spiritual and per se pertaining to the intellectual grade, inasmuch as it is such.

Free choice consists not in an act or a habit, but in some power

4. And hence, fourthly, we conclude that created free choice directly and formally consists in a power of this kind, which has the aforesaid force and dominion over its own act. Nor is it necessary to linger in refuting the opinions of those who said that free choice consists in some act, or in a habit, or in a power as affected by some habit. Of which opinions Hervaeus held the first, Quodl. I, q. 1; Bonaventure the second, In II, dist. 25, a. 1, q. 4; Albert the third, In II, dist. 24, a. 5. But these opinions either are not probable or use words otherwise. For man has free choice even when he would operate nothing; otherwise he would lose free choice by mere cessation from act, which is absurd; free choice, therefore, cannot consist in an act. Likewise, man is of free choice because he can operate and not operate, all the requisites for acting being posited; but he is proximately able to operate through some power; therefore he has freedom proximately through some power of the soul; such a power, therefore, will be free choice. Next, if the freedom of choice consists in some act, I ask whether that act is elicited by a free power or not. If the first is said, then freedom precedes that act; it is, therefore, in the power itself before the act. But if the second is said, that act is necessary; how, then, can the freedom of choice consist in it?

5. An objection is answered.—It will perhaps be said that that act, although it is necessary, can be the principle of free election or deliberation; for so Hervaeus seemed to philosophize. For he thinks that a power is not apt to elicit a free act unless a necessary act precedes which is its principle; for a free act (he says) is preceded by deliberation, and deliberation by the will to deliberate. But this can be understood of an act of the intellect or of an act of the will. It is true, then, that before the first freely elicited act there must necessarily precede an act of the intellect, not free nor properly voluntary, but natural; because, since nothing can be willed unless it is foreknown, before every volition some judgement must precede; that judgement, therefore, which precedes the first volition cannot have proceeded from the will, and consequently cannot be free. But it will be said most improperly and falsely that that judgement is free choice itself because in its genus it can be the foundation and origin of free use, because it is only a required condition and an application of the object in order that the free power may be able to use its faculty. And even if we granted that that judgement concurs actively to the act freely elicited by the will, freedom would nevertheless not consist in it; for rather it of itself inflows naturally, but it awaits (so to speak) the consent or influx of the will, in whose power it is to grant it or suspend it; freedom, therefore, is not rightly attributed to the judgement or act of the intellect as to the principle in which it proximately resides.

6. But if it is understood of an act of the will, it is not universally true that before every free act of the will there precedes some natural act which is the principle of the free act; for what is such an act, or what necessity is there why it should precede? It will be answered that it is the will to deliberate. But against this: in the first place, in God there is perfect freedom without such a will, there pre-existing in the intellect (according to our way of understanding) a perfect knowledge of things merely natural and necessary. The angel too in the first instant had a free act of the will without a previous will to deliberate through the intellect, but supposing only some actual cognition of the intellect, which it had concreated and received rather than acquired by its own will. And similarly man, if he has in the intellect sufficient proposal and consideration of the object, even if he does not have it from the application of the will but from the arousing of an object offered, or from the speech or infusion of another, can immediately freely will or not will such an object. And next, although in man the will to deliberate, or to inquire or consider something further about such an object, often precedes, that will to deliberate too is not natural, but free, because there is nothing which necessitates having it; therefore neither does that will to deliberate always precede another free act about every object, nor, when it precedes, is it always natural and necessary. And the reason is that, in order that the will will an object, it is not necessary that it have first willed the consideration of the object, but it is enough that it have such consideration, whether it has that consideration from nature, or from the will, or from elsewhere. For of the necessity of the object to be willed there is only that it be foreknown; but that that cognition comes from here or there is accidental. And for the same reason, even if it often happens that the consultation and inquiry of the intellect is directly voluntary, it is not necessary that it be from some natural or necessary volition, but it can be from a free volition; indeed morally it so happens, and therefore inconsideration is often culpable, because the consideration could have been had through the free will. From this head, therefore, it is not necessary that some natural act of the will precede the free one.

7. Whether every intention of the end is necessary.—It can be objected otherwise, because the intention of the end always precedes the election of means; but the intention of the end is necessary; for freedom, as Aristotle and St. Thomas think, is only in the election of means; therefore from this head before a free act there always precedes some necessary act, which is the proximate principle and reason of free election; therefore the freedom of choice is first to be placed in it. I answer that both something false is assumed and the inference is badly drawn. For not every intention of the end is necessary; for there are many particular ends which we will freely not only as to exercise but also as to specification, and only the ultimate or highest end do we love necessarily, and that only as to specification, not as to exercise, at least for the state of this life, as we shall touch upon a little below, and there we shall declare how freedom is said to be concerned with election. Next, even when the intention of the end precedes, the freedom which is in the election of means is not to be attributed to it as to its proper principle, but the faculty from which both the intention and the election are; both because it is still uncertain whether the intention is the proper and per se principle of effecting the election, or only a previous disposition or condition necessary for it, and most of all because, even if the intention concurs actively with the power to the election, yet the determination to choosing this means rather than others is not from the intention, but from the power of the will itself, from whose influx the election itself is intrinsically voluntary, and consequently determined to this means rather than to another. In no way, therefore, can it be understood that the faculty of freedom properly resides in some act, but in the power from which the free act proximately is.

8. And by similar arguments it can easily be shown that free choice is not some habit. First indeed, because such a habit would be either natural and congenital with the power, or acquired through acts (I omit infused habits, because we are now speaking of natural freedom and of acts of the natural order); the first cannot be said, because, according to the true doctrine, there is no natural habit naturally implanted in the will, if we speak properly of habit as it is a quality distinct from the power, adding facility or inclination; for this nature does not give, but use. Nor does experience or reason teach anything else; for the inclination or power which nature implanted in the power is nothing other than the power itself. Hence, if perhaps St. Bonaventure or Albert understand by the name of habit the ability or connatural force of such a power, they differ from us only in name. Nor can the second be said, because the habits of a free faculty are acquired through free acts; the use of free choice, therefore, precedes a habit of this kind; therefore free choice itself cannot consist in such a habit. Moreover, there is the general reason that a habit can be the principle of a free act only in so far as we can use it when we will; the habit itself, therefore, does not give freedom, but rather (so to speak) receives it from the power in which it resides, inasmuch as it is the power that uses the habit, and in whose faculty it is placed to use it or not use it. Let the third reason be that a habit does not give being able to operate, but gives facility in operating; hence the will affected with a habit can effect no act of the natural order which it could not absolutely effect without the habit; but free choice does not necessarily require this facility in operating, but absolute power of acting and not acting, all requisites being posited; hence a man using reason is free from the beginning, before he acquires that facility; freedom, therefore, does not consist in some habit, nor in the power together with a habit, since the power of itself has absolute power. Only in per se infused habits can this seem probable, inasmuch as these habits give not only facility but also being able itself. Hence it can be granted that these habits complete from this side intrinsic freedom with respect to supernatural acts. Although even without them the power, if it otherwise has proportioned help, can be called simply free for such acts, because for not eliciting them it suffices per se; for eliciting them, however, it can be completed not only through habits but also through helps. Nor does any difficulty occur in this doctrine, nor do St. Bonaventure or Albert object any argument which needs our reply.

Free choice is not a power distinct from intellect and will

9. The opinion of Alexander of Hales is disproved.—Supposing, then, that the free faculty is proximately placed in some power of the soul or of the intellectual substance, it remains to inquire which power that is. And in the first place there were not lacking those who said that it is a power distinct from intellect and will. So holds Alexander of Hales, II p., q. 72, memb. 2, a. 1, § 3, where he says that free choice, taken properly and specially, is a certain motive power distinct from intellect and will. Nevertheless this opinion can be neither proved nor understood. For either the discourse is of a power moving according to place, or of a power moving the other powers to their acts. Of the former it is probable that there is in the soul, or also in the intelligences, one distinct from intellect and will, whether for moving itself or for moving other things, as was touched upon above and will also be said below in treating of the created intelligences. Nevertheless freedom cannot be formally constituted in this power. First, because that power does not properly elicit an immanent act, but a transient action; and therefore it is more imperfect than is necessary in order that it be capable of formal freedom. Secondly, because that power does not go forth into act unless applied by the will; for the angel or man moves himself or other things when he wills; indeed, universally, the principle of motion in more perfect living things is appetite; therefore that power is not free actively (so to speak) or elicitively, but passively or imperatively; it is not, therefore, in itself a free power, but is subject to a free power. Hence its act is voluntary only by denomination from the act of another power, not intrinsically through itself, which is necessary for a formally free power, as I shall expound a little below. But if the discourse is of a power moving the other powers, such a power in an intellectual creature is not other than the will and the intellect; for, speaking of objective motion, the intellect so moves the will; but if of effective motion, or application to the work, so it is the will which moves both itself and the other powers; for we are not applied to operating freely except because we will; to devise another power, therefore, is both superfluous and unintelligible, because we are not inclined and applied to operating except by appetising and willing.

10. But if perhaps Alexander of Hales distinguishes this power moving the powers from the will not in reality but in reason, and in this sense calls free choice a power distinct from the will, first, he will differ from us only in words. Next, he does not sufficiently declare the office of free choice; for it does not adequately consist in the motion of other powers, but also in willing any object, with the power of not willing it. Let it be constant and certain, then, that this faculty in which formal freedom proximately is, is not other than intellect and will. But which of these powers it is remains to be explained.

Formal freedom is not in the intellect, but in the will alone

11. Freedom does not formally coalesce from reason and will.—In which matter there can be three ways of speaking. The first is that intellect and will together and formally complete the freedom of choice, so that each of these powers is formally free in its acts and the perfect freedom of man with his human acts consists of the freedom of both. This Durandus held, In II, dist. 24, q. 3, where he first says that the intellect together with the will is a formally free power; and he thinks it is the opinion of Aristotle, IX Metaph., c. 3, where he says indistinctly that rational powers are free. Next, Durandus adds that the intellect is prior and more perfectly free, because, since it is proper to a rational power to be free, that which is more perfectly rational will be more perfectly free; but the intellect is the more perfect rational power; indeed it alone is properly and as it were essentially rational, while the will is so only by participation or a certain subordination, inasmuch as it is apt to be directed by reason; therefore the intellect is also primarily free. And it is confirmed, for the intellect is not only free but is also the root of the freedom of the will; for from the indifference of the judgement, which pertains to the intellect, arises the indifference of election, which pertains to the will; therefore freedom is prior and more perfect in the intellect, for that on account of which each thing is such is itself more such. Finally, Durandus seems tacitly to conclude from this that free choice formally coalesces as it were from intellect and will. Hence it is also defined by the Master there, and by St. Thomas, I-II, q. 1, a. 1, that free choice is a faculty of will and reason; for that particle and is to be taken not copulatively but collectively. Hence the office of free choice consists not in the judgement alone nor in the election alone, but in both together.

12. Freedom is not formally in the intellect alone.—A second way of speaking can be that freedom is formally in the intellect alone and not in the will. I do not find this in any author; it seems, however, that it can be founded quite probably on a certain opinion received by many, namely, that the will is wholly determined to election by the judgement of the intellect, so that neither without it can it be determined to choosing anything, nor, it being posited, can it diverge from it or not conform to it. For from this principle it openly follows, first, that the power of the will is not formally free. First, because it is never in its power to act and not act, all requisites being posited antecedently, as was declared above. For one of these requisites is the judgement of reason, which being posited it is not in the power of the will either not to act, if it has been judged that it must act, or to act, if it has been judged that it must not act. Secondly, because the will in its determination behaves more passively than actively, since it follows with a certain necessity the motion of another faculty; but formal freedom cannot be in a power as moved, but as moving itself, as has been shown. Thirdly, it is declared by the example of the executive power, or power moving according to place; for it can both move and cease from motion, and effect this motion or the contrary, and yet it is not formally free, because it cannot do this as moving or determining itself, but as moved and necessarily following the motion of the will; therefore the same will have to be said of the will, since with equal necessity it obeys the judgement of the intellect. But from this part so proved the other is necessarily concluded, namely, that freedom is formally in the intellect as regards the power of passing judgement and not passing judgement, because otherwise no formal freedom would be left anywhere. And this part too can be confirmed by the arguments of Durandus.

13. Freedom formally resides in the will alone.—The third way of speaking is that freedom is formally in the will and not in the intellect. This is the opinion of St. Thomas, I, q. 83, a. 3, and I-II, q. 13, a. 1, together with a. 6, and In II, dist. 24, q. 1, in which places Cajetan, Capreolus, Conrad and other Thomists hold the same; Richard too agrees, the said dist. 24; and Scotus, dist. 25; from Henry, Quodl. I, q. 16. And I judge this opinion to be most true; which will have been sufficiently proved against the preceding ones if we show that formal freedom is not in the intellect, because no power besides the will is left in which it could be. This, however, can be demonstrated in this way: because the intellect according to itself is free neither as to the specification of its act nor as to exercise; therefore it is in no way free; for no other mode of freedom can be devised.

14. The first part is proved, because the intellect from its nature is determined to assent to the true and to dissent from the false; but if neither of these notions is in the object, or it itself does not perceive it, it can elicit neither act, because it cannot operate without an object. You will say that between these members there can be a middle, namely, that in the object the intellect does not clearly see truth or falsity, yet it appears in some way through probable reasons or through the testimony of someone. Then, therefore, the intellect could be free as to the specification of the act. It is answered, first, that the intellect cannot of itself be determined to the species of the act unless it can also determine itself to exercise, because a power does not determine itself to such an act except by exercising it, and because, as we said above, freedom is first and per se discerned in the exercise of the act; if, therefore, we show that the intellect is not of itself free as to the exercise of its act, it will also be established that about such objects it does not have formal freedom as to specification.

15. Moreover, it can be declared and proved a priori, because the intellect, about such objects so proposed, does not remain of itself as it were suspended and undetermined because it has intrinsic power and dominion over its act, but only because the object is not sufficiently applied for it to be borne to it of necessity by the natural impulse by which it is inclined to the true. In which is discerned a great difference between the will and the intellect; for the intellect cannot be in any way undetermined about its act except on account of imperfect proposal of the object. But the will, even about an object exactly proposed, can be indifferent according to the capacity of the object. And for this reason in the divine intellect there is properly no indifference as to judgement, because there is always an evident act of knowledge and with perfect manifestation of the object; but in the will there is indifference with respect to objects, even if they are most perfectly proposed.

16. And a reason more a priori can be taken from the diversity of the objects of intellect and will; for the formal object of the intellect is truth; but in the same object there cannot be truth and falsity, because truth consists in an indivisible, as was treated above; and therefore per se, and so far as concerns the merits of the object, the intellect is always determined to one as to the species of the act; hence, if sometimes it is not sufficiently determined, it is only because the object is not sufficiently proposed or does not sufficiently appear, not from the internal power and dominion of the intellect itself over its act. But the object of the will is the good; and the same object can be at once good and evil, or fitting and unfitting in order to diverse things or under diverse notions; and therefore, perfect proposal or cognition of the object standing, the appetitive power can be indifferent as to specification for pursuing or rejecting such an object; indifference, therefore, as to specification is not per se and formally found in the intellect, but in the will.

17. The other part, about necessity as to exercise, is proved, because no power whose act is not intrinsically voluntary can be formally free as to exercise; but the act of the intellect is not intrinsically voluntary; therefore the intellect is not a formally free power. In order that the antecedent be understood, I suppose that an act can be voluntary in two ways: first, extrinsically, by denomination from the act of another power moving or applying another power to the work, in which way walking is voluntary when someone moves himself of his own accord. In the second way, an act is voluntary intrinsically and through itself, as the act of love is voluntary; for what is more spontaneous than to love? And yet, per se speaking, it is not voluntary by denomination from another act, but through itself. For it is not necessary that he who loves should will to love by a prior and distinct act; and although sometimes someone can do this for his freedom, yet it is accidental to voluntary love; for someone can elicit love immediately and without a prior act, and to love itself is intrinsically to will love. But there is the difference that in the former mode of the voluntary, the act which is denominated voluntary from another is its object and effect; object indeed, because the prior act tends to it; effect, however, because such an act is not only willed as object but also caused, at least mediately, inasmuch as by virtue of the act of the will or of appetite the inferior power is applied to operating. But the act which through itself is intrinsically voluntary is not compared as proper object or effect to that act by which it is voluntary, because it is voluntary by itself, and is not properly the object or effect of itself; it has, therefore, another object to which it directly tends, and is the effect of the power by which it is elicited, and is voluntary only through a certain virtual reflection which it includes in itself; hence it is commonly said to be willed by way of act, not by way of object.

18. An act voluntary in itself is always elicited by appetite.—From which it is understood that no act can be intrinsically and through itself voluntary except that which is elicited by an appetitive power. It is proved, because the proper voluntary, as it is distinguished from the connatural, formally comes from some act elicited by vital appetite; and thus in the former mode of the voluntary the act which is extrinsically called voluntary receives that denomination from some act elicited by some vital appetite by which it is commanded; therefore the act which through itself is voluntary, since it does not receive this denomination from another act elicited by appetite, must necessarily be elicited by vital appetite. And the reason can also be given from the very notion and mode of such an act; for the act elicited by the will is by way of intrinsic and spontaneous tendency and inclination to the object, and therefore such tendency is also spontaneous of itself; but this mode of tendency is proper to the appetitive power; therefore it is also proper to it that its act be through itself intrinsically voluntary; since, therefore, the intellect is not an appetitive power, it is established that its act is not through itself intrinsically voluntary, which was the latter part of the assumed antecedent.

19. The former part, however, namely, that only that power can be free as to exercise whose act is intrinsically voluntary, is declared in this way: because the exercise of an act, or (what is the same) the determination of a power to operating, must be either natural, from the sole impulse of nature, or voluntary, from the elicited inclination of the operator. For no other reason can be understood why some cause goes forth into some work, except either because it is of such a nature as is of itself determined to that work, or because it wills and appetises such operation. But a power free as to exercise is not determined to the work from the sole impulse of nature; therefore it is to be determined voluntarily; therefore either extrinsically, through a voluntary elicited by another power, and so it will not be a formally free power, but imperatively, because it does not move itself as to exercise, but is moved and determined by another; or through an intrinsic voluntary, and so it is necessary that such a power be appetitive; therefore, in order that some power be formally free as to exercise, that is, able to determine itself to exercising a free act, it is necessary that it be a power intrinsically operating voluntarily through its act; since, therefore, the intellect is not such a power, as is established per se, it is rightly concluded that it is not a formally free power in the exercise of its act.

20. Which indeed can be confirmed, first, from the common mode of thinking and speaking of all men; for, since a man can consider this thing or that, if someone is asked why he is occupied in the consideration of this thing rather than of another, he will answer that he does it because he wills to; indeed he too who believes those things which he does not manifestly see believes because he wills to, with a will regulated by reason, if he believes prudently; and therefore theologians say that to believe is meritorious and depends on the pious affection of the will; it is a sign, therefore, that the intellect is never freely determined to either side except through the will; it is not, therefore, in itself formally free. And it is confirmed finally, for when an act, or the exercise of an act, of the intellect is not had from necessity of nature, it cannot be taken up or preferred by man to the lack of such act or exercise except through a certain election by which this is preferred to the other; but election is an act of the will; therefore the determination of a power to the exercise of an act is always through the command or motion of the electing will, and so the whole freedom of such an act is formally from the will and not from the intellect. And the same is concluded with greater reason when the election is not only about the exercise of the act of the intellect but also about its species, as when someone chooses to believe firmly rather than to disbelieve or doubt; for this must be done through the will determining the intellect, as St. Thomas rightly said, II-II, q. 2, a. 1, ad 3.

21. The use of reason is the root of freedom.—From the proof of this part, then, the opinion of Durandus is left sufficiently disproved in the first place; for if the intellect is not formally free, free choice cannot formally consist in the collection or aggregate of both powers, intellect and will. I say, however, formally, for radically the intellect or reason pertains to free choice. In which sense it has been said that free choice is a faculty of will and reason. For it is of the will formally, of reason presuppositively or radically. Nor is it necessary to dispute with Scotus, Henry and others, who deny that reason is to be called the root of freedom, but only a condition necessary for freedom; for these authors seem to contend about the mode of speaking rather than about the thing. For, because cognition is only a necessary condition previous to volition, they therefore wish to call the mode of cognition only a condition necessary for the mode of volition, which consists in freedom. Yet it can very well be said that the root of freedom is the use of reason or intelligence; for, if we speak of the powers themselves, appetitive powers follow cognitive ones, so that, although their root is the soul, yet it is immediately the root of the cognitive power, and by means of that of the appetitive; and so a more perfect appetite is rooted proximately in a more perfect cognitive power; therefore this perfection of formal freedom too arises from the perfection of understanding or reasoning. As, therefore, one passion is the root of another, so the freedom of the will will be said to be rooted in the intelligence of reason. And the proportion is the same between acts, because, just as there is a per se order between powers, so between their acts; and because morally this is per se causality, while the foundation of all moral being is freedom, therefore the indifference in the acts of the will also comes from the judgement of reason, as St. Thomas rightly teaches, I, q. 83, a. 1, and in other places cited above, whom the Thomists follow in the same places; and Soncinas, Javellus and others, IX Metaph.

22. It is only necessary to observe that the said authors often say that the indifference of the act of the will arises from the indifference of the judgement of reason, in which expression an equivocation of the word indifference must be avoided; for, attributed to the will, in the power itself it signifies formal freedom or power for either alternative; but in its act it signifies the immediate relation to the power eliciting the act, with proximate power for the opposite. Hence, if it is said in the same sense that the indifference of the act of the will arises from the indifference of the judgement, the opinion is not true, because in the judgement, as it precedes the will, there cannot be this formal indifference, as has been demonstrated. The indifference attributed to the judgement as the root of freedom, therefore, must be taken otherwise, and can be called not formal but objective indifference; for because the judgement of reason, on account of its perfection and amplitude, proposes in the object various notions of fittingness or unfittingness, and similarly proposes a means not always as necessary but as indifferent, because it both discerns the grade of its utility and difficulty and at the same time finds or proposes other means, it is therefore the foundation of the free election of the will. But that no other indifference or freedom is necessary in the judgement is sufficiently established from what was said above against the opinion of Hervaeus. And it is easily evident in the divine freedom; for, only the natural knowledge of all possible objects being presupposed, the divine will freely wills this or that outside itself, on account of the sole indifference or non-necessity of the objects, which through natural knowledge it most clearly and necessarily understands.

23. And so all the foundations of Durandus have been satisfied; for to be a formally free power is not the same as to be a rational power, nor necessarily concomitant with it, but it accompanies only the rational appetitive power; but upon the rational power as such it only follows that it be free either formally or radically. And in this way Aristotle is to be understood, IX Metaph., where he speaks indistinctly of the rational powers by way of one, and only intends to teach that in the rational part which we call mind there is indifference in operating; but how the single powers of that superior part concur to this indifference he does not treat; it has, however, been declared by us.

24. Secondly, from the proof of the same part the second opinion is left disproved, which denied formal freedom in the will; for, if formal freedom is not in the intellect, as has been shown, it is necessary that it be in the will, otherwise it would be nowhere. Next, that opinion is of itself very improbable and foreign to the whole sense of men; for all judge that man is free because, if he wills, he operates, and, if he wills, he ceases. Hence sacred Scripture too attributes this indifferent power most of all to the will, I Cor. 7: Having no necessity, but having power over his own will; and therefore also all goodness and malice, and every notion of reward or punishment, is judged to be in the will, as theologians hand down more at length. And the Council of Trent expressly, sess. VI, c. 5, when it had taught that it is in the power of man freely to cooperate with or resist grace, expressly declares that man does this by his free will, either alone, if he resists, or helped by the grace of God, if he cooperates. And finally the ancient Fathers for this reason often name free choice itself free will, as may be seen in Augustine, bk. III De Lib. arb., c. 1 and following, and in Damascene, bk. II De Fide, c. 25; sometimes, however, they call it the free choice of the will, as is evident in Augustine, bk. V De Civit., c. 9, and Ambrose, bk. II De Fide, c. 3.

25. And from this part, that the will is formally free, the other can be confirmed, namely, that the intellect is not formally free, because there are not to be posited in man acts elicited by two powers per se free from their sole relations to their powers; otherwise there would be a twofold moral disorder in acts of this kind of intellect and will. Thus, as soon as the intellect judged this evil object to be eligible, in this act taken precisely, and before another consent of the will, there would be malice, because of itself it is discordant with reason and otherwise is formally free. Again, in the election of such an object there would be a new malice, because that is a new free act which man could avoid, and about an object contrary to reason. But if, that judgement standing, the will still did not consent, the man would nevertheless be worthy of reproof by reason of such judgement, not by reason of any prior will, formal or virtual, but precisely on account of the freedom of the intellect. And by the same reason inconsideration or error could be culpable by reason of the intellect alone without the intervention of the will, all which are absurd, since nothing is more repugnant than that there be sin without the voluntary. As, therefore, there is in man no other formal moral goodness or malice except that which comes from the will, so neither is there another formally free power besides the will. Nor is this against the perfection of the intellect, because it is simply a greater perfection to be the rule of the will, to which perfection formal freedom in the same power is repugnant, both because a rule must be certain and of itself immutable, and also because that operation which is a rule is not through inclination and tendency to the thing regulated, but through a certain commensuration to it, which commensuration is not indifferent, but certain and determinate; but the will, because it is as it were blind, needs the rule or direction of the intellect; because, however, it tends to its object by perfect voluntary inclination, it is capable of freedom; and in this it can exceed the intellect in a qualified sense, although simply it is inferior in perfection.

1. The first opinion.—It still remains, however, that we reply to the difficulty proposed in favour of the second opinion, which requires another question, namely, how the will, while it wills freely, is determined by reason. In which the disciples of St. Thomas cited above, and other more recent writers, contend absolutely that the will cannot be determined to a free act unless there precedes in the intellect a definite practical judgement or, as others say, a command by which here and now, all things weighed, it pronounces a definite sentence that this is to be chosen by the man, or effects an impulse which is expressed by this word: do this. The reason can be that the will cannot be borne except to an object known and proposed by reason, since it is rational appetite, III Ethic., c. 2; therefore, until reason determinately judges what is to be chosen, the will cannot choose; otherwise it would tend to an unknown object, because true cognition is not without judgement; for by pure apprehension it is not yet known whether a thing is such or is not; therefore also conversely, that definite judgement standing, this is to be chosen, the will cannot not choose, because otherwise even then it would be led without reason, and formally, or at least virtually, would be borne to the unknown, because by not choosing, either by a formal or a virtual act, it rejects that object, or wills not to embrace such a means without any reason or judgement; it is repugnant, therefore, that the will operate so. On account of which perhaps Bernard said, in the book On Grace and Free Choice, that the will always has reason as its kinsman, because, although it is not always moved from reason, yet it is never moved without reason.

2. The second opinion.—This opinion, however, does not please Henry, nor yet Scotus and his disciples, as is evident from the places cited and from Antonius Andreas, IX Metaph., q. 2. And certainly the reason intimated in the preceding section, in reporting the second opinion, is irrefutable for me; for, if that judgement of reason is so prerequired for operating that in its genus it is a necessary cause of the free act of the will, and, that judgement being posited, the will cannot not consent to it, then the will is not such a power as, all the requisites for operating being absolutely posited, can will and not will; therefore it is not a free power. The whole inference seems evident according to the principles demonstrated above. And it is declared further; for, the judgement being posited, the will wills of necessity in the composite sense (as they say); which the authors of that opinion will easily grant, so much so that Medina, I-II, q. 9, a. 1, dub. 2, after the second conclusion, says that, an efficacious command standing on the part of the intellect, no freedom remains in the will to contradict. And he adds that the command does not have this efficacy from that will, per se speaking, because, since there is no going off to infinity, one must necessarily come to one command of the intellect anticipating every action of the will, which efficaciously carries the will along with it. And Bellarmine, who holds that opinion, bk. II De Grat. et libero arbit., c. 8, says that, just as the will of the blessed is determined to loving God when the vision of God is posited, so in any particular thing to be chosen the will is determined to one as to specification and as to exercise, and will in fact necessarily choose when there is present a particular practical judgement dictating here and now absolutely, all things considered, that this is to be chosen.

3. But then I ask again whether that judgement is absolutely and simply necessary, so that it is passed by the intellect by virtue of the object alone and an evident middle term, or of another cause necessitating the intellect to such judgement, or whether it is a simply free act. If the first is said, the use of freedom is evidently destroyed, because such use is discerned neither in passing the judgement itself nor in the act of the will which necessarily follows upon it. Nor does the composite sense help anything here, because that supposition with which the act is necessarily composed is in itself simply necessary and not free, and is antecedent as a cause necessitating the subsequent act; which mode of composition is found in beatific love, nor can an act of the will be necessary in any other way. But if it is said that that judgement is free (as Javellus finally concedes after useless and obscure distinctions, IX Metaph., q. 4), I ask again whether that judgement is free elicitively by the power of the intellect, or imperatively by the will. The first cannot be said in the opinion in which we who dispute this point agree, that the intellect is not a formally free power. But if the second is said, either there is a process to infinity or that opinion is wholly destroyed; for of that act of the will which determines the intellect to such judgement I ask whether it is determined by another judgement of the intellect, and of that the same argument will return, and so there will be a process to infinity. But if that free act of the will is not from the determination of a similar prior judgement, two things contrary to the opinion are inferred. The first is that the will is not determined in all its free acts by the judgement of the intellect; the second is that it is never so determined except in virtue of some prior free volition, by virtue of which the rest follow and participate freedom from it.

4. Someone will perhaps say that, that judgement standing, it is impossible for the will not to consent, but that the will can take away that judgement, and therefore its act is free and not necessary; but this reply does not satisfy the proposed argument, but tacitly and implicitly admits that that judgement is free; otherwise the will could not take it away; it does not declare, however, through what will it is free from the beginning. Nor is it enough if it is said that it is indirectly free because the will did not impede it, both because at least the will could have had a free volition by which it would impede that judgement, about which the same argument returns, and also because, although for the negation of an act the indirect voluntary may perhaps suffice, yet for the positive exercise of a free and commanded act it does not suffice, but a formally free act, commanding and determining the power, is necessary. Another evasion besides, which can be taken from Javellus above, does not weaken the force of the argument; for he says that that judgement is radically free, which it has from the intellect and not from the will; but this is not to answer the dilemma made, but to elude it, because to be radically free is nothing else than to be the root of the freedom which is in the will, about which there is no inquiry, but about formal freedom; for that very act of the intellect which is the root of the act of the will is truly and formally elicited by its power, and about it the inquiry is whether it is elicited by the power of necessity or with indifference. Others answer by distinguishing between speculative and practical judgement, because not the speculative but the practical determines the will. And this they say is free, even if it happens that the speculative is natural. But this does not weaken the proposed difficulty; for if, the whole speculative judgement about the fittingness, utility, honesty or baseness of the object being posited, and the other reasons or circumstances, the practical judgement about loving or choosing such a thing is free, about it the whole argument made returns, namely, by what the intellect is determined to such judgement. If by the intellect, then the intellect is free; if by the will, what determines it? And so it is concluded that the first free determination of the will takes place without such judgement, and that there is no judgement wholly determining the will to any act except in virtue of a prior free volition.

5. The third opinion.—Some say finally that that practical judgement is free by virtue of the will loving that object, and that the will itself loves that object by virtue of such judgement, and that those two acts are causes of each other in diverse genera of causes, because both the will determines the intellect to judge so practically, and the intellect determines the will to will such a thing. Nor is it repugnant (they say) that those two mutually precede and follow each other, because this takes place in diverse genera of causes. For the will determines the intellect efficiently, but the intellect the will finally. But this doctrine does not satisfy me; for first it is founded on no reason, nor is it necessary for anything; and from elsewhere that mutual priority and motion between those two acts can scarcely be conceived by the mind. And moreover I show that it is impossible; for in every vital act the sufficient application of the object necessary for the act precedes such act simply and in every genus of cause, nor can it happen that the very application of the object comes effectively from the act to which it is ordered; but the judgement of reason is required for the act of the will as applying the object; therefore it is impossible that the judgement of reason necessary for the act of the will should come effectively from the same act. The major can be shown by induction in all other vital acts besides that of which we are treating. And from natural things a proportional argument can be taken, because it is impossible that an agent which needs a patient in order to act should not suppose, absolutely and in every genus of cause, the application of the patient to such action, or that through the action itself it should apply the patient to itself. And the reason can be given, because the agent is unable to act except about applied matter; therefore it is impossible that through that action it should effect the application itself, but it must wholly suppose it. Likewise, because otherwise such action, as applicative of the patient, would not be concerned with it as applied but as distant, which will be declared more at once in the matter of which we treat.

6. The minor of the first syllogism, however, is certain from that principle that nothing is willed unless it is foreknown. But if someone contends that the judgement of reason is not only a condition and application of the object, but also an efficient principle with the will of its act, he does not weaken but increases the force of the argument; for from this it will be more repugnant that that judgement be effectively from the motion of the act of the will, since that very judgement is said to be an efficient principle of such act of the will. And it is confirmed moreover, first, because the will does not apply any power to its act except by willing that act; therefore, if the will directly applies the intellect to that judgement, it will do this by an act by which it wills that the intellect so judge; what, then, moves the will to will this? Is it another prior judgement, or the very one which is to be willed? If another, then the will is not determined to that act by the judgement which it wills, but by that which precedes. If that same one, then that judgement by way of object moves the will before it has been judged about in any way. And it is confirmed, secondly, for otherwise the first act of the intellect could be from the will itself, which is against the opinion of all, founded on that principle: Nothing is willed unless it is foreknown. And the sequel is proved, because of the first act of the intellect too it could be said that it is free and voluntary from the motion of the will, and nevertheless in its genus is the cause of the same act of the will by which it itself is voluntary. But if in the first act this is impossible, as in truth it is, it is not because it is simply first, but because it is in such a way the cause of the act of the will that it is presupposed to it simply and in every genus of cause; but this reason proceeds in every other act; it can never happen, therefore, that the judgement of the intellect be free through an act of the will subsequent to it. Or otherwise it cannot happen that the will be determined to a free act through a judgement which is born from the same free act. And so it comes about that either it is determined through a wholly necessary judgement, which is repugnant to freedom, or that the free determination does not arise from such judgement, which is what was intended.

Resolution of the question

7. On account of these difficulties, then, I think that for the free determination of the will such a practical judgement wholly determining it is not necessary. Which, besides the discourse made (which seems to be a posteriori and from the drawback), can be declared a priori and from the thing itself, because the judgement of the intellect does not move the will except by means of the object which it proposes; but the proposed object does not always bring in necessity to the will or determine it to one, nor is this necessary in order that the will can tend to the object; therefore neither is such determination necessary on the part of the judgement, indeed not even possible. The major is proved, because either the judgement moves only by reason of the object, or it itself by reason of itself has a peculiar efficacy for determining the will. This latter cannot be said, both because such efficacy would be repugnant to the freedom of the will, as has been said, and also because such a mode of moving is foreign to the office of the intellect, which is to illuminate and direct and regulate the operations of the will, and finally because that mode of moving is proper to the will, which was given specially for this end, that it should move the other powers efficiently as to exercise; it cannot happen, therefore, that the intellect, which is moved efficiently by the will, should in turn move it in the same way. And this St. Thomas expressly teaches, I-II, q. 9, aa. 1 and 3.

8. But some object that the intellect through practical command efficaciously moves the will to the work. It is answered that the practical command of the intellect, by which someone is understood to command himself or his will, is not other than a perfectly practical judgement, wholly definite with all circumstances. Nor can an impulsive act of the will be understood in the intellect except by way of judgement; just as, with respect to others, command is not understood except by way of speech intimating what is to be done; and whatever else is imagined in the intellect is both gratuitously asserted and it cannot be explained what it is, and it is outside the notion of the intellect, which essentially and adequately is a cognitive and judicative power; and therefore it cannot have an act except by way of apprehension or judgement. Since, therefore, this command of which we treat is not mere apprehension, as is established per se, it can only be a practical judgement. Nor do Aristotle or St. Thomas ever declare command otherwise than by way of a wholly practical judgement, as is treated more at length in I-II, q. 17. This judgement, then, of itself moves only on the part of the object, as has been declared. But if sometimes it seems to impel efficaciously, it is only in virtue of some efficacious act of the same will which preceded; for if the will has efficaciously proposed or intends to attain this end, or has chosen to apply such a means, the intellect, the occasion being found, judges here and now that this is wholly to be done, the prior will being supposed. And then the will is wholly determined, not so much by the judgement as by itself. A sign of which is that it is determined not absolutely, but as it were conditionally, namely, if it wills to persist in the intention or election made. Hence, if it wills to withdraw from the prior will, it can, and can impede a command of this kind. But when such an efficacious will does not precede, it is impossible that the command of the intellect have that efficacious impulsive force; otherwise it would destroy the freedom of the will, and praise or blame would be attributed not to the will but to the intellect. And Medina finally confesses this, on account of the authority of St. Thomas, I-II, q. 17, a. 5.

9. It remains to prove the other part, namely, that the will is not always determined to one by the proposed object, which is certain and received by all, and St. Thomas proves it ex professo, I-II, q. 10, a. 2. For it is the same to say that the will is not necessitated by another as that it is not determined to one by it, as the arguments made above prove; but it is certain that it is not necessitated by all objects; therefore neither is it determined to one; therefore as to exercise it is determined to one only in the fatherland, by the infinite goodness of God clearly seen, according to the received doctrine; as to specification, however, by good in general or other similar objects, as we shall touch upon below; but not by all, because not in all does some necessary notion of good appear, or such goodness does not appear as does not have mixed with it either malice or some disadvantage or defect. But although the object does not so determine the will, it can be so sufficient to arouse and attract it that the will by its freedom determines itself or is borne to it, because, if some notion of good is represented in the object, that is of itself sufficient to move the will; therefore that necessary determination is not required in order that the will be moved.

Reply to the contrary foundations

10. From which not only has our opinion been proved, but also reply has been made to the foundation of the opposite opinion. For from the fact that the will cannot be borne to the unknown it is only had that the judgement of the intellect is necessary in order that the will can choose; it does not follow, however, that that judgement must determine the will to one. Which Bernard elegantly said, in the book On Grace and Free Choice, in these words: Reason is given to the will to instruct it, not to destroy it; but it would destroy it if it imposed any necessity preventing it from turning itself according to its own choice. Hence, when it is assumed in the argument that it is necessary that the intellect first judge what is to be chosen, the proposition can be ambiguous; for if the sense is that it first judges what of goodness, utility or fittingness the means to be chosen and the election itself have, the proposition is true; but if the sense is that it must first be judged absolutely and wholly that this is to be chosen, the proposition is false. For it gives this sense, that, all things weighed and considered, it is now here and now under some notion necessary to choose this, and therefore it is wholly to be chosen; but there is no reason why such judgement should be necessary before every election; indeed this is repugnant to the freedom of election, as has been shown. That judgement suffices, therefore, by which this means is judged useful and, all things weighed, apt to be able to be chosen; and the same holds of any good object, namely, that it be judged sufficiently good to be able to be loved. For, just as, in order that sight can be borne to an object, it is not necessary that it be applied as seen or as to be seen, but as visible, so, in order that the will be moved by the object, it is enough that it be proposed as lovable, although it is not judged wholly to be chosen.

11. Which is declared, first, in the divine will and intellect; for in order that God in His eternity will something outside Himself determinately and freely, it is not necessary that before every free determination there precede in the divine intellect, according to our way of understanding, this judgement: This is wholly to be loved or chosen by me; for such judgement would be rash and without foundation and in strictness false; for it includes that such an object outside God is in some way necessary to Him; therefore only the judgement precedes that such an object is fitting or eligible; therefore the same is to be understood in the created will. It is confirmed and declared, secondly; for, in order that the will choose one means, it is not necessary that the intellect so judge of it as to have no judgement of any other, because the will needs only cognition of that object to which it is borne; ignorance or inconsideration of another object is irrelevant to it, per se speaking; therefore, if the intellect judges this means to be useful or eligible, even if at the same time it judges another to be useful, the will can choose one, nor is it necessary that the intellect first judge determinately of the other that it is to be chosen, nor even that it is more eligible than the other.

12. An objection is answered.—You will say: if the judgement of the intellect is undetermined, how can the election of the will be determined? It is answered that a judgement cannot be called undetermined when through it it is judged what the object is like and what fittingness or lovableness it has; but it can be called either a multiple judgement, when it is judged about several objects what they are like, or it can be called a determinate judgement about an indifferent object, that is, one not having necessary conjunction with the will, although it has some goodness or fittingness; and such determination of the judgement, although it does not suffice to impose necessity on the will, yet suffices in order that the will by its freedom can determine itself and follow that judgement.

13. But you will press: for if only one judgement is present, the will will wholly follow it, because it has no other to which to turn. But if several are present, it will necessarily follow that which is of the more useful means or the better object, and so it will always be determined by the judgement. It is answered, first, that there can be judgements of equal means, and then the will will neither be able to be determined by the judgement nor will it necessarily be suspended; but this is its freedom, that it can choose one and omit the other. But if it cannot do this, I do not see how it can be called free; but in truth it can, because it is free for this, that it can will what is good and not will what is not necessary. And an illustrious exemplar of this freedom is the divine will, which between this matter and another wholly equal and similar, and between these heavens and others wholly equal (and so of other things), chose to create these rather than others, which cannot be referred to an unequal judgement, because neither on their part nor on the part of God is there any reason on which such a judgement could be founded which would be true; that preference, therefore, is only from the free determination of the divine will. Again, even when objects or means are judged unequal, I judge it more probable (although less certain) that the will is not necessarily determined to that which is better by virtue of the judgement. It is proved, because, by the very fact that neither is proposed as necessary, the will can not love either; therefore it can also indifferently love either of them, the other being passed over. And in the divine will this seems necessary to many, because He could have made better things than He made, and yet He did not will to. Hence all theologians teach that the Incarnation of God was the best means for redeeming men, and that God judged this necessarily prior in reason to willing it, and nevertheless, that judgement standing, God could not have willed it, but something else. The judgement, therefore, of the better or more useful means does not determine the will to willing it. I said, however, by virtue of the judgement, because by virtue of a prior act or intention of the will it can happen that it is wholly determined to choosing the more useful means, if that greater utility is necessary for attaining the end as it had been intended; for then it is no longer only more useful, but necessary for fulfilling such intention. But if that greater utility is not necessary for the intention of the end, the judgement about it will not determine the will to will such a means wholly.

14. From which, finally, it is established what is to be said when only one judgement is present; for, even if the intellect thinks of one object only, and judges it to be fitting and worthy to be desired, and, so far as it can, practically invites the will to desire it, the will can still by its freedom not love it, because for not exercising the act precisely it does not need another judgement, but it is enough that through that which the man now has he does not judge this good to be here and now necessarily to be loved by him. Hence the will can then either suspend the act, or divert the intellect from thinking of that object, or apply it to inquire more diligently about such object how great its goodness is, and whether it has joined to it some malice or unfittingness, on account of which it can not only not love it, but even hate it. Never, therefore, does judgement as such wholly determine the will, unless otherwise the object on account of the excellence of its goodness has that force, which we shall touch upon below. In this way, then, the whole proposed difficulty is excellently solved and our freedom is excellently defended; and it is clearly understood how it is formally in the will, and how the intellect operates towards it and towards its use.

1. But there still remain to be solved three difficulties touched upon in the fourth reason proposed in section 2, and in its confirmations. The first is: if the will can at pleasure will something against the judgement of reason, how is that dogma of the philosophers and of many theologians true, that there cannot be a defect in the will unless it precedes in the judgement, as something erroneous, or at least imprudent and inconsiderate? Which principle Aristotle handed down, bk. III Ethic., cc. 1, 3 and 5, and bk. VI, cc. 12 and 13, and bk. VII, c. 3, and bk. III De Anima, text 58, from which places that axiom was taken: Every sinner is ignorant. Which the Wise Man also seems to have taught, Prov. 14, saying: They err that work evil. And it can be confirmed, for otherwise it could happen that a man should always judge prudently through the intellect and yet be vicious in the will, which is against all moral philosophy and experience.

2. The first opinion.—In this difficulty Scotus and other authors do not reckon it a drawback to grant that there can be a moral defect in the will with no pre-existing defect in the intellect, because for failing morally the freedom of the created will suffices, whatever the intellect operates, as is evident from Scotus in the places cited above, with whom Gabriel and the nominalists commonly agree, In III, dist. 36; and Almain, Moralia tract. III, ch. on Prudence.

3. And Adrian follows almost this opinion, Quodl. IV; he limits or expounds it, however, saying that he who operates evilly always has a practical judgement by which he simply judges, consonantly with his affection, that this is to be done by him, or that it is fitting that this be done by him, such affection being supposed, although otherwise he is ignorant of nothing nor errs in the judgement about all the honesty and malice of the object or work.

4. This limitation, however, does not seem to be consistently added nor fully to satisfy, because it is not necessary that every evil affection of the will proceed from that practical judgement by which something is simply judged to be done consequently upon a prior affection. For either that affection or appetite which precedes such practical judgement is elicited by the will, or it signifies only the natural or even habitual propensity of the will. But in neither way is it necessary that such affection or a conformable practical judgement precede. For I take the first evil will which is in a man or an angel previously well affected and disposed even in natural or habitual inclination: in him no practical judgement precedes from some prior affection either evil or inclining to evil.

5. It can be answered that even then some natural or elicited inclination precedes, which, although it is not evil in itself, yet, because the man lets himself be so led by it that he judges not prudently but inconsiderately that something is to be done or loved by him, can be the occasion of sinning. As, for example, in the example which Adrian uses, if someone has the affection of freeing a man from death, and then understands that he cannot free him except by lying, even if that prior actual and elicited affection is not evil, the man can judge absolutely, consonantly with that affection, that he must lie. Similarly, from natural self-love, not evil, or even not elicited, someone judges that this delightful good is to be pursued by him. And in this way, before every morally evil act and before the first evil affection, there always precedes that practical judgement by which some less good object is simply proposed as to be loved, chosen or preferred even to another greater good, which judgement is called practically false because it is not conformed to right appetite.

6. But a difficulty still remains, because it is never sufficiently proved that this judgement so absolute is necessary in order that the will be moved, since I said above that a judgement is necessary not about the object as to be loved, but as lovable, nor as to be chosen, but as eligible, nor is a comparative judgement (so to speak) always necessary, namely, that this is eligible before others, but an absolute one suffices, namely, that this is eligible or useful. Or if it is comparative, it can be with equality, or with excess not simply but in such a notion of good, for instance of the delightful, etc.; for example, if from the intention of obtaining health someone consults about two means, and judges both to be apt and useful, but this more honest and that more delightful, and at the same time actually judges that according to reason or the law of virtue the former is to be preferred, but according to the inclination of the body or of sense the latter is to be put before it, no other practical judgement seems to be required in order that the will by its choice elect one of them; for no necessity of another judgement can be explained; for through what we have said the object is already sufficiently proposed, and judgement is required only to propose the object, as was said above from the opinion of St. Thomas, which he also has in I-II, q. 82, a. 4, and best in q. 22 De Verit., a. 11, ad 5, and a. 12.

7. And this can be declared further; for this absolute judgement, This is to be done (as Adrian noted above, and it is much to be noted for understanding all that we have said), can have three senses. The first is that it says only the futurity of the act, as when we say that Peter is to be chosen for the episcopate; and this sense is irrelevant to moral actions, as is established per se. The second is that it signifies the debt of law and honesty. And this sense too is irrelevant in the present matter, because it is clear that it is not necessary that everyone who operates freely judge so; otherwise, in order to operate evil, it would be necessary to have a heretical judgement, such as would be to judge of such an act that it is to be done in that sense. The third is that it signifies the necessary consecution of one thing from another, or the necessary connection of a subsequent work with a prior purpose or intention. As he who has decreed to take vengeance on an enemy, an occasion being offered, at once judges that he is to be killed. And this sense pertains more to the matter; yet it seems evident that such judgement too is not always necessary for operating either good or evil, because there does not always intervene that necessary connection between the work which is judged to be done and some antecedent affection, as the arguments made sufficiently prove.

8. We can add further a fourth sense, namely, that it signifies the absolute (so to speak) resolution of the man about executing such a work or willing an object. And this act, if the matter is attentively considered, cannot precede the free decree of the will, but follow it: both because that judgement in that sense cannot be inferred by virtue of the consultation from any premisses, which show only on the part of the object its goodness or utility, not the resolution of the man; and also because that resolution is free, and in reality is nothing else than free election or execution; for no other object of that judgement in that sense can be understood; but a man could not truly judge of such a free resolution unless he already had it; and finally because, since that judgement is absolutely free, it must arise from some free will; but there is no other free will from which it could arise except that by which the man decrees to do that which he so judges is to be done by him; therefore in no sense is it true that that practically false judgement necessarily precedes every evil deliberation of the will.

Resolution of the question

9. Wherefore in the proposed difficulty I think it must be said that we can speak of the judgement, disposition or defect of the intellect which precedes the free deliberation of the will, or which follows it, at least in the order of nature. Likewise, that the discourse can be either of physical and absolute necessity in order that the will be able to operate, or of moral necessity according to what, morally speaking, always happens.

10. First, then, I do not think it absolutely necessary, for operating evil through the will, that a defect of error precede in the judgement of the intellect, either speculative or practical. Which the arguments made sufficiently prove to me; and we confess that this follows from that principle that no judgement of the intellect per se suffices to determine the will. Nor can the opposite be founded on the words of Aristotle, since he speaks not of error but of ignorance. Nor on the words of the Wise Man, both because he does not speak of error preceding the will, but can be understood of that which follows, as I shall at once say; and also because Adrian expounds those words, and not badly, of an error of morals, not of understanding, as he is said to err who departs from the right way, even if he does not have a false judgement in the intellect.

11. Some defect of the intellect morally precedes the defect of the will.—Secondly I assert that, morally speaking, the will never slips without there preceding in the intellect some defect, at least some inconsideration of several reasons or motives which could restrain the will from that affection in which it sins. Experience sufficiently proves this, and the Philosopher can be understood of this inconsideration; for this inconsideration is called a certain practical ignorance. Indeed St. Thomas interprets the words of the Wise Man of it, I-II, q. 78, a. 1, ad 1; because the judgement about things to be done or desired, absolutely pronounced with such inconsideration, is a certain practical error, for it is an imprudent act and of itself unconformed to right appetite. I do not understand, however, that it is necessary, even morally and according to what regularly happens, that this judgement be either formally comparative, namely, that this is to be chosen before another, or that it be formally about the object as wholly to be loved or done in any of the senses posited above; for against this the arguments made above sufficiently proceed; but I understand that morally and regularly there intervenes a judgement by which it is absolutely judged that this object or this work here and now is fitting on account of delight or honour or another similar reason, and worthy or sufficient to be sought here and now. For this judgement suffices in order that the will can be moved, as has been broadly proved, and I shall say below in the disputation on the final cause. But such judgement is frequently had in that absolute and simple mode; for regularly several judgements are not had together, nor are various objects compared among themselves, nor several notions of good and evil of the same object; indeed, although this comparison sometimes precedes, in that moment in which a man freely wills an evil object he regularly turns away the eyes of the mind from the other reasons and attends to that one which moves the will to such act, and so conceives the aforesaid judgement. And this is enough for it to be reckoned practically erroneous; for virtually it includes a comparison and preference of that object to others, and consequently includes unconformity to right appetite.

12. The practical judgement follows the free act of the will.—But I add, thirdly, that it is probable that from the free consent of the will about things to be done there follows of necessity in the intellect that practical judgement about the same things by which it is simply judged that this is to be done, in the third and fourth sense declared above. And if this is true, by reason of such judgement those who operate evil can deservedly be said always to err, even according to the intellect, not with speculative error but practical, and not with an error which precedes the free consent, but which follows from it. You will say: if such judgement in no way precedes the free consent, then it is not posited to represent the object to the will nor to induce it to consent; for what, then, is such an act necessary? It is answered that it seems necessary, first, from the natural sympathy and consensus of these powers, which was necessary in order that man might better execute what he decrees is to be done. Next, because prior in time or nature to a man's consenting, he does not know that he will consent; and therefore it is necessary that, as soon as he consents, he know and (so to speak) notify or promulgate to himself his consent; but this takes place through that judgement.

13. And hence it further comes about that, if that free consent is about some thing to be done, and therefore is to be committed to execution through some action, at once the intellect judges wholly practically that it is to be done; and this is the command which St. Thomas places in the intellect after the efficacious election of the will. But if the consent of the will is through simple love or delight without order to another action to be executed, then there does not follow in the intellect a judgement about some thing to be done which is as it were impulsive to the work; there follows, however, a judgement about such consent as already exhibited, and it can be called as it were a certain knowledge of approbation by which the man, by virtue of the evil free consent, as it were approving that consent, practically judges that that is to be loved by him. That, however, cannot be called command with respect to such consent of the will, because command as such regards a subsequent act; for what has already been done is not commanded, but what is to be done, as St. Thomas rightly notes, I-II, q. 17, a. 3. And these things seem enough about that first difficulty for the opportunity of this place. (See St. Thomas, II Cont. Gent., c. 48, and there Ferrariensis, about the third reason.)

1. The second difficulty touched upon above was how the will is called a formally free power, since in its chief acts it is found not free. In which difficulty two questions are intimated. One is whether the will can elicit some acts freely and others of necessity. The other is, if it can do both, which acts it exercises freely and which necessarily.

The former point, on the twofold mode of operating of the will

2. On the former part the opinion of Scotus can be reported here, In I, dist. 2, q. 7, and dist. 10, q. 1, and in Quodl., q. 16, in which places he asserts that of one power there can be only one mode of operating; and therefore, since the will by its nature is free in operating, it cannot have another mode of operating in its acts; and so he concludes that the will exercises all its acts freely, so much so that he asserts that God too loves Himself freely, and that the Father and the Son (for the same reason) freely produce the Holy Spirit. But in this there cannot be controversy among Catholics, if there is no equivocation in the word freedom. Scotus, then, in the place cited, does not take free as it is opposed to necessary, but as it is opposed to coerced or non-voluntary. For there he expressly confesses (nor could he have denied it without heresy) that the procession of the Holy Spirit is wholly necessary, so that it implies a contradiction that it not be, or that God not love Himself; he contends, however, that necessity is not repugnant to freedom, but rather confirms and perfects it; and conversely that the natural mode of operating is repugnant to the will, because free and natural are modes of operating not only diverse but also opposed.

3. Nevertheless the whole discourse of Scotus is founded on an equivocation of names; for he clearly takes free for the perfect voluntary which follows upon intellectual cognition and without controversy sometimes admits necessity; and we freely grant to Scotus that this acceptation of the word free is not wholly unusual; for St. Thomas too sometimes uses it, as is evident from q. 10 De Potent., a. 2, ad 5, when he says that God loves Himself freely. We, however, as we noted in section II, do not take free in this way, but as it adds something beyond the voluntary; for it is distinguished from it by the Philosopher, III Ethic., cc. 4 and 5; but it is not distinguished from it with respect to the human will unless the free excludes necessity in operating, as the other theologians taught, In II, dist. 24 and 25; and Alexander of Hales, II, q. 72, memb. 3, a. 5; and St. Thomas, q. 6 De Malo; and it is sufficiently established from those things by which we proved that we are free from the necessity of acting.

4. The same will can love some things freely, others necessarily.—This true sense, then, being supposed, it must be said in the present matter that it is not repugnant that the same will love some things freely, and others not freely but necessarily. It is evident by induction, because the divine will necessarily loves God Himself, but other things not necessarily but freely; and the same is found, due proportion being kept, in the created will. The a priori reason, however, which at the same time dissolves the foundation of Scotus, if it is applied against this, is that those two do not include opposition, because they are not with respect to the same. For that the same act should be at once and according to the same free and necessary plainly involves contradiction; but that diverse acts, and about diverse objects, or through diverse means, one proceed freely and the other necessarily from the same power, there is no repugnance. Nor is it necessary that the other mode of operating be adequate to such a power, for it can be a superior and more universal power; likewise it can have about one act a twofold power, namely, of acting and of not acting, but about another only one, namely, of acting. Finally this difference can be founded in the objects themselves, and thence the a priori reason is taken, as will be declared at once in the other part proposed in this section.

5. From which it is understood what is to be said of this same thing under those terms freely and naturally; for in this latter word too there is an equivocation in Scotus above. For sometimes that is said to operate naturally which operates not only from the impulse of nature but also without previous cognition, and consequently without elicited appetite; and this natural excludes not only the free but also the voluntary, in which way we say that earth is moved naturally, fire heats, etc.; and in this sense what Scotus says is true, that the will cannot operate freely and naturally, even in diverse acts, because it must operate with previous cognition and voluntarily. In another way, however, not less usual, that operation is called natural which is from the inclination of nature as wholly determined to one, even if at the same time it is from previous cognition and from vital appetite, and finally voluntarily, in which way brutes are said to move themselves naturally or to desire something; and in this way St. Thomas says excellently, I, q. 41, a. 2, and q. 8, aa. 1 and 2, that it is not repugnant that the same power of the will which exercises several acts freely should elicit some naturally, because the will itself has its proper nature, by which it can be determined to some act, although it is not determined to all on account of the difference of objects, as we shall see at once.

6. Why the will cannot be moved except voluntarily.—But someone will ask: since the will operates both voluntarily and freely, why is it repugnant to it to have another mode of operating than the voluntary, but not repugnant to have another mode of operating than the free? It is answered that this happens because the former mode is adequate to the will, but not the latter; for the will is adequately will, but is not adequately free choice; for this is as it were inferior or more limited; for free choice necessarily includes the will or principle of a voluntary act, as was declared above, and adds freedom, that is, indifference or power of not operating. Next, this reason can be explained more from the objects; for the adequate object of the will is the good, which must necessarily be supposed known, because the will essentially is an elicitive appetite; and therefore it necessarily operates with previous cognition and by way of appetition; and this is to operate voluntarily. But under this adequate object there can be various objects differing much in goodness, and therefore also lovable in diverse ways as to freedom or necessity. Finally, that an act elicited by appetite is voluntary consists in a positive mode of such act, so intrinsic that it is not distinguished from the act, and therefore is inseparable from it; but free in the act only superadds a denomination from the power, inasmuch as it is able not to elicit or to suspend it, which denomination can fail to belong to the act if the will does not have such power over the act.

The latter point: to what objects the will is necessitated

7. About the latter part various questions could be treated about the necessary acts of the will, either in the present life or also in the future. But those questions have their proper places, either in the science of the soul or in theology; here they are touched upon only so far as they are necessary to explain in general the various modes of efficient causes and the necessity or contingency of the effects of the universe, and to solve the difficulties occurring about this; for the whole of this disputation tends to this. Chiefly, however, a certain opinion of many is to be treated, saying that the will is free only in the election of means, not in the love or intention of the end. Which opinion can have a foundation in Aristotle, III Ethic., cc. 2 and 3, where he says that consultation is not about the end, but only about means. From which an argument can be constructed; for everything free can fall under consultation; but nothing can fall under consultation except election; therefore nothing is free except election. The major is evident, for in everything free there is some indifference and reason of tending or not tending; therefore it can fall under consultation whether such object or such act is expedient or not. And it is confirmed, first, for the will is so compared to free choice as the intellect to reason; but the intellect, as it is reason, is not concerned with principles, but with what it gathers from principles; therefore the will, as free choice, is not concerned with the end, but with what it chooses for the sake of the end; for, as Aristotle said, bk. VI Ethic., c. 2, as principles are to speculable things, so are ends to operable things. It is confirmed, secondly, because it is necessary that everything variable and mobile be founded on something invariable and immobile; but free election is of itself variable; therefore it must be founded on something invariable; but it is founded on the intention of the end; therefore this must be invariable and not free.

8. How the intention of the end is necessary.—But this opinion needs moderation and declaration. Let us suppose, then, in the first place, the common distinction of twofold necessity and freedom, namely, as to the exercise of the act or as to specification, the exposition of which terms is sufficiently established from the foregoing. Again, let the distinction of twofold end be supposed, namely, proximate or particular and ultimate or universal; of which partition we must speak ex professo below in the disputation on the final cause; now briefly, a particular end is called any private good which is loved for its own sake, as health or knowledge. But the ultimate is called the very happiness of man, whether this is constituted in some determinate thing or taken in general, or under the formal notion of beatitude absolutely, or under the more universal notion of good in general. Moreover, let us now omit the state of the future life, and especially of supernatural happiness already obtained, about which it does not pertain to the metaphysician to consider. The theologians, however, dispute at length whether in that state the will is determined of necessity even as to exercise to the love of God; for Scotus, In I, dist. 1, q. 4, denies that even in that state this necessity has place in any act of the will; but St. Thomas teaches the contrary opinion, I, q. 82, a. 2; Capreolus, In I, dist. 1, q. 3; Cajetan, there, a. 2; Ferrariensis, III Cont. Gent., c. 62; and others commonly, which opinion we suppose as truer; here, however, we treat only of the will operating according to its nature, and especially for the state of this life.

9. And in this sense we say, first, that the will has no act simply necessary as to exercise, whether about the end or about means. So St. Thomas, in the said place, I, and I-II, q. 10, a. 2, and the Thomists commonly. It is proved, however, by St. Thomas, because the will in this life can always turn away the thought of any good proposed to it. Which reason does not seem universal or universally true, and so not sufficiently to prove the assertion; for the first thought of a man is merely natural, which the man cannot turn away; therefore it is not always in the will of man to turn away the thought. Which difficulty Cajetan touched upon in that article, and grants that the first thought is not in the power of the will; and similarly he grants that the first love or first act of the will is necessary as to exercise, as he taught in I-II, q. 9, a. 4. Nor does he think this is against St. Thomas in the former place, because St. Thomas (he says) does not simply deny that the will has some act necessary as to exercise, but denies that the will suffers that necessity from the object, which is true, because it comes only from the natural condition and propensity of the will itself. And similarly he says that the will, so far as concerns the force of the object, can turn away every thought, and that St. Thomas asserts only this, to whom it is not repugnant that sometimes from such disposition or another cause it cannot turn away such thought.

10. I, however, in the first place think that interpretation contrary to St. Thomas and to the truth. The first is evident, for St. Thomas, I, q. 82, a. 2, absolutely denies necessity as to exercise in our will outside the beatific vision, and does not speak only on the part of the object, but absolutely of the will itself. The second is evident, because, just as the will has no act except with the object concurring in its genus, so it suffers no necessity in its act (I speak of intrinsic and connatural necessity) which is not caused by the object in its genus, namely, in the notion of final cause, attracting and moving metaphorically. Hence even in the state of beatitude God clearly seen so moves the will that in the notion of object and ultimate end He determines it of necessity to one; for that necessity too is intrinsic and connatural to the will as informed by charity. Which is not repugnant to St. Thomas in the other place, I-II, q. 10, a. 2, because there he speaks of the will of the wayfarer tending to beatitude; rather this doctrine is taken from the same St. Thomas, I, q. 82, a. 2, argument 2, with its solution; for the argument was that the object is compared to the will as mover to mobile; but motion follows of necessity in the mobile from the mover. He answers, however, that the mover then of necessity causes motion in the mobile, when the power of the mover exceeds the mobile, so that its whole possibility is subjected to the mover; but since the possibility of the will is with respect to universal and perfect good, its whole possibility is not subjected to any particular good; and therefore it is not moved of necessity by it. Therefore St. Thomas clearly thinks that the whole possibility of the will is subjected to universal and perfect good, and therefore it is moved of necessity by it. Hence, whenever St. Thomas gives the reason of some act of the will necessary from within, he always assigns it on the part of the object, as may be seen in the places cited.

11. The first act of the will in one using reason is not necessary as to exercise.—And hence further I think that what Cajetan says is false, namely, that the first act of the will in a man already using reason is necessary as to exercise; although other Thomists think the same about this, as Ferrariensis, bk. I Cont. Gent., c. 23, and more clearly bk. III, c. 89; and Capreolus, In II, dist. 24, q. 1, ad 7, who also adds that that act is not actively from the will, but only passively, which is improbable, as we touched upon above in disputing about the efficient cause. And similarly it is false that it is simply necessary, as Scotus rightly taught, in Quodl., q. 21, and Henry, Quodl. XII, q. 26; and Conrad thinks the same, I-II, q. 9, a. 4, and other expositors there. And it is proved, because the will is never moved necessarily as to exercise unless the object itself in its genus sufficiently concurs to that necessity and wholly subjects the will to itself; but the object which is proposed through the first thought is not of this kind, because often it is some particular and deficient good; therefore. Likewise, otherwise the first volition of the angel would have been necessary as to exercise, and consequently there would have been no merit in it, which is foreign to the common doctrine of the theologians, especially of the school of St. Thomas. Likewise, if the foundation of Cajetan or Ferrariensis were solid, not only the first act of the will of the whole life would be necessary as to exercise, but also the first on each day, or whenever a man begins to advert through the intellect and to consent through the will. But the consequent is plainly false and against experience. And the sequel is evident, because the first thought on each day too is natural, and the first act of the will is from that alone, tending to the object by its own efficacy. But neither reason is of any weight, because, although the thought is natural, it can apply a non-necessitating object; and although the will alone effects that act, it can effect it freely, because through its very entity it has a certain eminent power for making that act and a natural inclination to it, and at the same time it also has the power by which it can restrain and suspend it.

12. The first act of the will of a man first using reason is not necessary as to specification.—From which, moreover, I add that that first act is not only not necessary as to exercise, but not even as to specification. It is proved by a proportional reason, because it can happen that the object applied through the first thought is not sufficient to bring in necessity, even as to specification; for it can happen that it is not beatitude nor good in general, but some particular good nearer to the senses, as health or some pleasure. Hence below, in treating of the final cause, we shall show that it is not necessary that the first act of the human will be about the ultimate end simply. And it is confirmed, for this first act in the human will can be both morally good and evil; for the first object proposed can be evil, which the will can either reject or embrace, and so operate well or badly. But whether the same holds as to this in the angelic will is a matter for another consideration.

13. To the objection made against the reason of St. Thomas, then, it is answered that, although the first thought of a man is natural, and therefore it is not in the power of the man not to have it for that instant in which he naturally receives it, yet it is in his power, as soon as he sufficiently adverts, to take it away; and this is sufficient for the will not to be necessitated as to exercise, since it is free either to consent or not to consent, but to divert the thought. Next, even if the first thought is natural, yet the judgement about the object to be loved or not loved can be not wholly natural, because, that natural thought standing, the will can apply the intellect to consider and inquire more into the thing in order to pass judgement. But if the intellect has not yet so sufficiently adverted that this is in the power of the will, there is not yet sufficient actual use of reason; and therefore there is not yet full freedom either; and thence follow the motions which theologians call indeliberate.

14. Finally I add that, even if full and perfect thought were wholly natural, if it did not propose the object as a wholly necessary good—indeed not only the object but the act itself—the will would not therefore be moved of necessity. And this I think is the a priori reason of the conclusion laid down. For the will, when it is borne to an object, not only wills the object, but also virtually wills the exercise of its act, because it is intrinsically voluntary, as was declared above; and therefore, in order that the will be necessitated as to exercise, it is necessary that the man apprehend and judge such exercise here and now as a simply necessary good, so that the lack of such act can be apprehended under no notion of good; but this in this life never happens about any act of the will, as is known by experience, and because there is no reason or occasion of such necessity. But if someone imagines that someone from error has here and now such a judgement about some object, and the exercise of the act about it, I shall easily grant from the hypothesis that such a man will operate necessarily; I say, however, that the supposition is humanly impossible in a man who is not stupid, or who does not lack sufficient use of reason.

15. The second assertion.—Secondly it must be said that, although about the end proposed under the notion of universal good the will is borne necessarily as to specification, yet, while it loves or intends other particular ends, it is done freely even as to specification. This assertion I think is consonant with the doctrine of St. Thomas in the places cited, and as to the former part it is declared and proved, first, for, good in general being proposed, although the will is not compelled actually to love it, yet it cannot hate it, because it finds no notion of evil in it; and therefore, if it wills to exercise an act, it must be one of love and not of hate. And this is necessity as to specification. The same holds of happiness in general, for, as Augustine often says,¹ if a man is asked whether he wishes to be happy, there is no one who answers or can answer that he does not wish it, but he will either be silent or answer that he wishes it most of all; but this is necessity as to specification. The reason, however, is that in these and similar objects no notion of evil appears; but we suppose that nothing can be hated except under the notion of evil, just as nothing can be loved except under the notion of good.

16. As to the other part, the conclusion is also easily established by induction and reason; for he who intends to obtain knowledge, health or similar goods does not so love them that he cannot also hate or reject them; for in these particular goods there is sometimes found some defect or some disadvantage or difficulty, by reason of which they can displease the will. Indeed, under this notion even the love of God Himself is free, not only as to exercise but also as to specification, because, although God according to Himself is the universal good, yet He can be apprehended by way of a certain particular good, and in Him some notion of evil or disadvantage can be apprehended, at least in order to His effects; and much more can this disadvantage or difficulty be found in the intention or love of God Himself, and therefore He can easily be rejected by the will, and sometimes God Himself can even be held in hatred.

17. An objection taken from St. Thomas.—But someone will object St. Thomas, I-II, q. 10, a. 1, saying that man naturally through the will desires certain particular goods, as the cognition of truth, to be, and to live, and similar things; but natural appetition includes necessity at least as to specification. Hence in the same place, ad 1, he declares that in appetition of this kind the will operates by way of nature; but when the will operates as nature it tends with some determination to one, for this is the mode of operating of nature.

18. Solution and explanation of St. Thomas.—It is answered, first, that St. Thomas there does not speak of any necessity even as to specification, but of the mode of operating naturally, as is established from the title of the article; but that word naturally does not there signify the same as necessarily; for St. Thomas openly distinguishes these two words in that article and in the second. To be moved naturally, therefore, there signifies the same as to be moved from the propensity of nature; for St. Thomas intends there to teach that the will has a natural propensity not only to private advantages but also to the proper goods of the other powers or parts of the whole man. And in this way he says that it naturally desires knowledge, life, etc. With this natural propensity, however, freedom as to specification stands in the elicited appetite of these goods; because, as I said above, the will has the power either of suspending the act to which it is inclined or also of eliciting the contrary, when there can be in the object some other notion on which an act of this kind can be founded. And that this is the mind of St. Thomas is established from the solution ad 3, where, notwithstanding that natural motion or propensity, he adds that the will is determined to no particular good, but only to good in general. Where he speaks of determination as to specification; for, as he at once declares, a. 3, even to good in general the will is not determined as to exercise, but only as to specification. But it can further be added that with respect to these goods some necessity as to specification can be admitted, namely, either per se speaking and extrinsic reasons being excluded; for some of these goods are so consonant with nature that they can scarcely or in no way be hated, except very per accidens and on account of very extrinsic reasons. Indeed, even on account of these, these goods are very rarely hated in themselves, but their pursuit and procurement displeases on account of its difficulty, or because it impedes other sensible advantages. Or these too can be necessarily loved if they are apprehended as simply necessary for happiness; although then they are loved not so much as ends as means or parts of the necessary and universal end.

19. Thirdly it must be said that the freedom of the will is more evidently and perfectly exercised in the election of means, so much so that every free act, as such, participates in some way the notion of election, and under that notion can fall under consultation. The reasons made at the beginning of this doubt persuade this conclusion. And it is declared briefly, because the will is borne to the intention of the end from some natural inclination only, although it is borne freely; but to the election of means it is borne by virtue of the appetition of the end, which the will itself has joined to itself beyond the natural inclination; and therefore in a more special way, and more from its own resources, the will is said to move itself in the election of means than in the intention of the end; but it operates more perfectly freely when it moves itself more perfectly; therefore. Moreover, the other part is declared, because the freedom of any act comes from various notions which are in the object or in the act itself, and from the formal or at least virtual comparison of them. For if there is freedom as to specification, it is necessary that in the object there be some notion of good on account of which it can be loved, and some defect or some notion of evil on account of which it can be hated; but if there is freedom only as to exercise, it is necessary that either in the object or at least in the act itself there be some defect or lack of goodness on account of which it can be apprehended as here and now unfitting or at least not necessary; and so, whenever the act and its omission are free, there takes place between these notions a certain explicit or implicit comparison, and so there also takes place a certain election of one act before another, or of one act before its omission, or the contrary.

20. In this election of one before another, however, it is necessary that the comparison be made in order to some third thing or to some common notion, to which the will is in some way affected formally or virtually, in order that it can have some principle or foundation of the election to be made, as was proposed in the arguments at the beginning and is declared from the thing itself. For he who chooses between honest and delightful good is certainly supposed affected to good as such; otherwise he would not at once choose between special goods, but would first determine with himself whether good was to be pursued by him; and the same holds in all similar cases. Thus, then, although the tendency to a particular end, inasmuch as it is a motion to some object for the sake of its goodness and to others for its sake, is love or intention of the end, yet, inasmuch as it is a free act by which this good is preferred to others, it is a virtual election of this good as a means, or certainly as a part of the happiness which the will intends in its acts. And the very act of intention or love even of ultimate happiness, inasmuch as it is exercised freely here and now and is preferred to its lack or to idleness, is a virtual election by which such act here and now is chosen as a means to beginning or obtaining happiness. And for this reason it is commonly said that every intention of a particular end is a virtual election of happiness, for which it is not always necessary that an elicited intention of happiness itself precede, but a natural and necessary propensity suffices. Thus, then, every consultation is concerned in a proportioned mode with election, and every free action participates some notion of election; and therefore formal election itself, so properly so called, which proceeds from proper and elicited intention of the end, is reckoned the most free action; and for this reason free choice is said, as it were by antonomasia, to be concerned with election, although it has several other free acts, as has been declared.

21. Whether it is more perfect to operate freely or necessarily.—And by these things the reasons posited at the beginning of this doubt have been sufficiently answered. But to the difficulty referred here from the second section, on the occasion of which we made this section, it has already been declared how the same will is capable of both modes of operating, freely and necessarily. But when it is asked, if the mode of operating freely is more perfect than the mode of operating necessarily, why the will attains it in some acts and not in all, and in the less perfect and not in the more perfect, it must be said that to operate freely is not always and in all things better than to operate necessarily; but the rule of perfection is that the object be loved according to its dignity and capacity, so that, if the object is the highest and most necessary good, it is loved with complete necessity; but if the object is a less good one, or not necessary, the act too about it is under the dominion of the one loving. And for this reason God loves Himself necessarily and other things freely, although His act is most perfect under every notion; the same, therefore, must be said, due proportion being kept, in the created will.

1. The last difficulty resulting from the second section is whether the free cause has actual freedom when it operates, or before it operates; because, if it already operates, it operates necessarily, so that it is impossible for it not to operate for that time; and the same argument can be made about the lack of operation; but if freedom always regards the future, no act existing in reality will be free, because a future act, as such, is not existing, and so in fact no effect will be free; besides which, it is repugnant that the future as future be free and afterwards in the present not be exercised freely, since the future is future for no other reason than because it will at some time be present.

2. In this difficulty Ockham, Gabriel and other nominalists, In I, dist. 38, teach that the will is not free with respect to the act which it already exercises, for that very instant in which it exercises it, except either inasmuch as it proceeds from the indifference and freedom which the will had immediately before that instant, or inasmuch as in that instant the will has the power to omit it in the time immediately following, even if all the other conditions or causes concurring to it are present, in which they say the free cause differs from the natural. Which opinion the Master seems to embrace, In II, dist. 25, c. 2, where he says that free choice is not referred to the present and the past, but to the future. And its foundation was touched upon above, because in the present the will is already determined to one, and because that which is, when it is, necessarily is, as the Philosopher says, I De Interp., last chapter. Hence Boethius, I De Consolat., last prose, says that the rising of the sun and the walking of a man agree in this, that while they take place they cannot not take place; but differ in that the rising of the sun, even before it took place, was necessarily future, but the walking of a man not so.

3. The will most properly exercises freedom in the instant in which it operates.—This opinion, however, is false, and to me plainly improbable. Wherefore it must be said that the freedom of the will is properly exercised in the very same instant, and about the same act which it presently elicits or exercises. So Scotus taught, In I, dist. 39; and Hervaeus, Quodl. I, q. 1, doubt 6; Capreolus, In II, dist. 25; Gregory, In I, dist. 39, who, however, added something false, as I shall at once show. This opinion is proved, first, by the reason intimated, which for me is a demonstration; for, if the will in the instant in which it elicits the act does not proceed freely to the act, it was never before free in order to that act, because it was free only with respect to that instant in which it was going to effect such act freely. Likewise, because, if in that instant it has the act not freely but necessarily, then by parity of reasoning in the whole preceding time in which it lacked the act it lacked it not freely but necessarily; and the same reason will hold of future time; therefore in truth there is never use of freedom.

4. Secondly it is declared a priori, because the authors of the former opinion err in that they do not distinguish priority of time and of nature, and the true composite sense from the divided; the will, then, in the same instant in which it elicits the free act, prior in nature to its eliciting it, is understood to have the power of eliciting it and then from that power is understood to elicit it; therefore in the same prior of nature it is to be understood as able to elicit and not to elicit such act; otherwise it is not in truth understood to be free for eliciting that act. And it is confirmed and declared; for in the time immediately before that instant the will is supposed having that power for eliciting and not eliciting the act. And in that instant, prior in nature to that power's determining itself to the act, there is nothing which has taken away from it the power for eliciting it; therefore the will retains both powers in that instant, and from that elicits or does not elicit the act for that very instant. Wherefore, if the will is taken simply and absolutely in that instant with all the prerequisites for acting, in truth it can not elicit such act in it, which is power in the divided sense, or in priority of nature, which is necessary and most sufficient for freedom. But if it is considered as already in that posterior of nature in which it has already elicited the act, it can no longer go back for that same instant; but this is only necessity of composition from the supposition consequent upon the determination or action of the will itself.

5. And it is confirmed; for God from eternity freely loved creatures, and yet for no instant or real duration did He lack that free determination, which is so compared to the divine will as a free act to ours; therefore the freedom of the will is not only with respect to an act posterior in real duration, but also with respect to an act existing in the same instant, posterior indeed in nature, if such act is truly elicited and caused by the power, or only according to reason or understanding, if it is only a free determination of the same act. Otherwise free love could not be understood in God, because neither would He have loved freely from eternity, since He always perpetually loved, nor after the instant of eternity, because much less can He either begin to love what He never loved, or cease to love what He loved and as He loved from eternity. The same argument can be taken from the free action of the angels, which they had in the first instant of their creation, since in it they had merit according to the truer opinion. Nor is what Ockham signifies of any weight, that that act was meritorious because it was in the power of the angel to continue or not continue it in the time immediately following; for this power could contribute to the continuation of that act being meritorious and the cessation being a lack of such merit¹; yet it contributed nothing to merit in the first instant, both because that power was not exercised in the first instant, and we do not merit formally through free power but through its use; and also because cessation from that act cannot contribute to merit, and yet the evil angels, who immediately after the first instant ceased from that act, nevertheless merited in the first instant; therefore for that instant that act was free, at least as to exercise. And the same argument can be made about the merit of Christ, of which it is more certain that it began from the first instant of His conception.

6. Finally, proportional arguments can be made in men; for, as I said above, a man can in the first instant of the use of reason have a free act, both good and also evil. Likewise, whenever a man sins, he does not demerit or lose grace in the time immediately before the instant in which he exercises the sinful act, as is evident per se; for no one sins or demerits in what he is going to do, but in what he does, as Augustine broadly, epist. 107. It is necessary, therefore, that in the same instant in which the act of sin is exercised it be free; because no one truly sins except then when he can avoid what he does or do what he omits. Likewise, there is a similar argument when a sinner is contrite; for he does not obtain grace before or after the instant of contrition, but in the very moment in which he elicits contrition, and in the same only does he sufficiently dispose himself, although the disposition must be free, and in the same he merits glory; therefore in the same and for the same he exercises a free act.

7. The reason of the contrary opinion is destroyed.—The foundation of the former opinion has already been solved. For Aristotle clearly speaks of conditional necessity and from consequent hypothesis, and Boethius is to be understood of the same; for what he says, that the rising of the sun was previously necessary, is to be understood not only of priority of time but also of priority of nature or cause. Indeed, it was true in the prior time to say that that effect was of necessity future precisely because it has necessity in its cause. But what they say, that the same power cannot at once effect and not effect, is a sophism consisting in an equivocation of words; for both powers are at once in the same instant, not however for exercising both acts conjointly, but dividedly, that is, either one or the other at its choice. Hence, although it exercises one part of the power, for example by eliciting the act, it nevertheless retains the power for the opposite, which it could exercise in the same instant, not indeed together with the other act nor making composition with it, but absolutely.

8. An act of the will does not necessarily last for some time.—Gregory above adds, however, that, supposing the will has elicited the act, it can not only not abandon it for the same instant, but not even in the time immediately following, because he thinks it repugnant that an act cease in the same instant in which it begins to be. But this opinion has foundation neither in theology nor in philosophy. For it is not repugnant that a thing which is made last for one instant only; for the same instant can be the first and the last of the being of a thing; for what repugnance is there in this? He answers that it is repugnant that a thing at once begin and cease. But if the beginning takes place through an intrinsic instant, and the ceasing through an instant extrinsic to the ceasing itself or intrinsic to the existence, there is no repugnance, because it does not follow that the thing at once is and is not, but only that it so is that it neither was immediately before nor will be immediately after; in which way the instant itself has being, and in it God could create an angel and conserve it no longer; therefore from this side there is no necessity of continuing the free act. Nor from another; for the evil angels, as is probable, lasted for one instant only in good acts; and he who sins is compelled by no necessity to persevere in sinning; otherwise a man could in this life for some time sin of necessity and not desist from sinning, which is most absurd. And conversely, he who has begun to merit perseveres freely in merit; otherwise he would merit nothing in that perseverance in the good work; but this matter is disputed more broadly by the theologians.

1. An act is called contingent in two ways.—In order that there be no ambiguity in the word contingency, it must be noted that an effect can be called contingent in two ways: in one way, because it takes place by chance and beside the intention of the agent; in which sense the word contingency is taken very strictly and rigorously; but now we do not speak so, for of the chance effect we shall speak in the last section of this disputation. In another way, then, contingent is taken as it says a certain middle between the necessary and the impossible, in which way the contingent is said by the dialecticians to comprehend at once the possible to be and the possible not to be; and in this signification it is taken in the present matter, and so too it seems to have been taken by Aristotle, I De Interpret., last chapter, where he disputes about future contingents.

2. Secondly it must be observed that an effect can be compared either to its proximate cause only according to its intrinsic power, or to the same as conjoined to the concurrence or opposition of other causes, which in the whole order of the universe can meet it or concur with it; among which we can either comprehend the first cause, or only the series and order of secondary causes. And in this latter way we now speak; for we suppose that in order to the first cause no effect of the universe comes about from absolute necessity, because all depend on its concurrence, which it can deny by its freedom; and therefore in order to it there is nothing so necessary, nor any effect having a cause acting so necessarily, which cannot be and not be, and in this sense be contingent. Now, however, although God acts freely, we suppose that He is ready to concur with secondary causes and supplies His concurrence by a definite law; and therefore we consider the contingency or necessity of natural effects in order to the secondary causes as if they did not depend on the first, or as if the first could not deny its concurrence or impede or change the actions of these causes. For the miracles which God can do in this, philosophy does not consider, nor does it deny them if they are true, but says that they are exceptions from the general rule, which do not pertain to it.

Resolution of the question

3. These things being posited, the resolution of the present question is very easy; and therefore it must be said, first, that in order to a proximate cause operating from necessity of nature there is no effect contingent through the intrinsic power of such cause; it can, however, be contingent from the imperfection or defect of such cause, which can be impeded by the concurrence or opposition of another cause. The former part of this assertion is clear; for if the cause is by its nature determined to one, it is so able to act that from its intrinsic power it cannot not act; therefore the effect from this side has not contingency but necessity. Hence, if someone looks only to the intrinsic power of the cause and to its natural mode of acting, he will not be able to gather from it either that the effect will not be future, or that it can not be, but rather that it has necessity of being, so far as concerns that head; therefore the effect cannot have contingency from this relation to a cause of this kind. Nevertheless, the other part of the conclusion is equally true and easy; for, although the proximate cause acts necessarily, it is unable to resist every contrary cause meeting it, or to conquer and overcome every resistance which can be made by another cause; therefore from this head it can happen that the effect does not come about which from elsewhere would necessarily come about, so far as concerns the power and mode of acting of the proximate cause; therefore such effect is contingent, not from the power, but rather from the defect of power, of its cause, the possible concurrence or opposition of other causes being added; under which we comprehend not only efficient causes, but also material causes and those in any way resisting or impeding the natural action of the cause. And in this way the philosophers rightly admit contingency in the effects of natural causes, because a contingent effect is that which can be made and not made by its cause; but this effect can absolutely be made and not made by its cause, whether this comes from power or from defect of power, from possible impediments; therefore.

4. A contingent effect both intrinsically and extrinsically.—Hence, however, for the sake of greater clarity, a twofold contingent effect is rightly distinguished, namely, either intrinsically or only extrinsically. In the former way an effect is called contingent from within because it flows from a cause which from its intrinsic force and power can give contingency to the effect. Not that this contingency is ever an intrinsic mode inhering in the effect itself; for it is nothing other than a denomination taken from the power and mode of acting of its cause; but that such denomination comes from the sole intrinsic power and perfection of its proper cause. And this contingency is only in order to a free cause. In the latter way, however, or extrinsically, an effect is called contingent when the lack of necessity which is in it is only from extrinsic impediments. From which it is also understood that contingency of this kind does not depend on the freedom of any cause, even of the first, because it consists only in the relation to the proximate cause, which can be impeded; which relation is the same whether free causes intervene or not, indeed even if God acted from necessity of nature, provided He had produced the same natural causes which now exist.

5. Free causes being excluded, in the whole series and collection of the others no effect is contingent.—I say secondly: an effect which is contingent with respect to a proximate cause operating naturally, if it is compared to the whole order and series of the causes of the universe, and among these causes no freely acting one intervenes, at least as applying other causes or removing impediments, has not contingency but necessity. This is taken from St. Thomas, I Cont. Gent., c. 67, reason 3, where he says: As from a necessary cause the effect follows with certainty, so from a complete contingent cause, if it is not impeded. Where Ferrariensis rightly notes that this is to be understood of the effects of natural causes. It is also taken from Durandus, In I, dist. 38, q. 3; and Scotus, In I, dist. 1, q. 1; dist. 8, q. 2, and dist. 39; but Gabriel proposed it more clearly, In I, dist. 38, q. unica, a. 1. And it is proved, because, if all the causes which in every genus concur to the effect, and can either promote or impede its production, act from necessity, then with the same necessity such effect will follow as can follow from all those causes so disposed and applied. And it is declared; for, just as a natural proximate cause not impeded and having apt matter sufficiently applied necessarily produces a proportioned effect, so, if the same cause is wholly impeded, with the same necessity it will operate nothing, or, if not wholly but partly impeded, with the same necessity it will make an imperfect or monstrous effect; therefore, if all the causes, both acting and impeding, so come together from the sole natural and necessary course, and each also operates with necessity in its way, that is, that which impedes impedes necessarily, and that which applies matter applies it necessarily, and so of the others; therefore such effect, considered in order to the whole series and collection of such causes, has not contingency but necessity.

6. Nor do I find in this conclusion a reason for doubting; for this whole necessity is understood to be subordinated to the divine will, as we supposed at the beginning, and with respect to it any of these effects has contingency, that is, possibility of not coming about; yet in this very thing divine freedom too intervenes. And so it is simply and without doubt true that, with respect to the whole order or collection of acting causes, there can be no contingency in effects unless in that collection of causes some free cause intervenes.

7. And from these two assertions it is understood by the way how difficult it is to foreknow with certainty these future contingent effects, even merely natural ones, which with respect to one or another, or even several causes, have contingency, and have infallibility and necessity only with respect to all together. For it is most difficult, at least for men, to omit the angels, to know all causes of this kind, both because some are most remote from the senses and very hidden, as are the stars or their powers; and also because they are in great multitude, and their concurrences and oppositions are various and manifold; and finally because these causes do not act without matter, whose disposition is also various and often unknown; and therefore it is very laborious so to compare and observe all these things among themselves that from them something future in particular could be foreknown by sufficiently probable conjecture, let alone by infallible certainty. On this matter Benedict Pereira may be read, bk. II on Genesis, cc. 2 and 3.

8. In whatever way a free cause intervenes in the series of natural causes, the effect can be contingent.—I say thirdly: if to any effect, even of natural causes, a free cause concurs, whether as a cause per se or as a cause per accidens, applying the agent or the matter, or removing what prohibits, that is enough for the effect to be simply contingent, even if it is compared to the whole collection and series of causes. It is proved, for a contingent effect is that which can be and not be by virtue of its cause; but an effect of this kind, compared to the whole collection of its causes, can simply be and not be, even from this alone, that among those causes some free one intervenes, from whose choice it can happen either that the matter is not disposed for such effect, or that the proximate and per se cause is absent, or that some other similar impediment intervenes, which is enough for the effect not to follow. As, if the farmer does not plough the earth, which is free, the natural fruit is impeded, even if there are fitting rains and all the other causes concur; and the same reason holds of any other effect demanding some concurrence of a free cause without which it cannot be.

9. The difference between natural effects and contingent non-free ones.—And hence we may gather the difference between these contingent effects, which in a certain broad way we can call free, and the former natural ones: that the latter are contingent only in a qualified sense with respect to one or several causes, not however with respect to all collectively taken; but the former, namely the free, are simply contingent, whether they are compared to their single causes or to all taken together. From which it also comes about that these free effects can much less be foreknown in their causes than those. For a natural effect, although formally as it is contingent it cannot be known in its cause as certainly future, that is, in the proximate cause alone considered in itself, yet it can be known in the collection and comparison of all causes, because it is then known not as contingent but as necessary; but a simply contingent effect can be certainly foreknown as future neither in one nor in all causes together, because in both respects it is simply contingent, and so by virtue of the causes undetermined and indifferent to being and not being; and therefore, unless the free determination of the cause sufficient to determine the effect is known from elsewhere, it can in no way be certainly foreknown by virtue of the causes.

10. Here, however, the occasion at once offered itself of disputing about the foreknowledge and prediction of these contingent effects inasmuch as they are future; for, if before they take place they do not have in their causes determination to being or not being, then there can be no determinate truth in the propositions in which either of these is announced as future; which Aristotle plainly seems to have consistently granted, indeed even to have proved ex professo, bk. I De Interp., c. 8. But from this it further follows that neither part, affirming or denying such effect to be future, can be foreknown as determinately true, even by God; for what is not true is not knowable; therefore what is not determinately true cannot be known as determinately true either. And so Cicero granted it, in the books On Fate and On Divination, as Augustine reports, V De Civit., c. 9.

11. The determinate truth of future contingents.—But this difficulty requires a higher and more extended disputation, about which the theologians, In I, dist. 38, and I, q. 14, a. 13. Now it is briefly answered that the determination of truth in a proposition about a future contingent is not to be taken from the fact that the cause from which such effect will come is already determined to it in its power and faculty from that time or instant from which it is true to say that that effect is future, but only from the fact that at some time such cause will be determined in its action to the free effect; for this alone is enunciated by that proposition, and not that the cause, of itself and from its power, is already determined to such effect. Wherefore with the absolute contingency of these effects there can stand the determinate truth or falsity of those propositions in which they are enunciated as future, because this determinate truth is not more repugnant to contingency than in a proposition about the present. Because, although the effect can be made and not made, from which it has that it is contingent, yet in fact one or the other will determinately happen, and thence it has that it is a determinately future contingent. And in this we think Aristotle was deceived and spoke against the principles of our faith, although there are not lacking Catholics who try to interpret and defend him. Hence, however, it further comes about that it is not wholly repugnant that these free effects, before they take place, can be certainly foreknown, at least by that knowledge which on account of its infinity comprehends and intuits all truth and every knowable object in the way in which it is; in which Cicero erred more shamefully, denying to God the foreknowledge of all future things. Nor does that knowledge destroy this contingency, both because it does not change or alter (so to speak) its object—otherwise it would render itself false, if by knowing an effect to be going to be contingent it made it necessary—and also because this knowledge of future things as such is not their cause, but pure intuition; but of these things elsewhere.

12. Two other difficulties remained about the last conclusion. The first is whether the freedom of the secondary cause alone suffices for the said contingency, even if by an impossible supposition there were no freedom in the first cause; and this has been treated above; for it is the same to ask whether with that hypothesis simple contingency could arise in natural effects as to ask whether with it there could be freedom and use of freedom in the creature. For, if there were use of freedom, there would also be simple contingency; but without it there would not be; and therefore the reply handed down above is to be applied here. The other difficulty is whether, conversely, the freedom of the first cause alone suffices for the contingency of the effect, even if no secondary cause were free; but this has an easy reply from what has been said, for in the way in which that effect is free it can be called contingent, as we now speak. But whether one should simply so speak that effects, inasmuch as they are made freely with respect to God, can be called contingent, we shall touch upon below in disputing about God and His free will.

13. In what free agent the root of freedom is.—And hence too the other difficulty which is usually treated here remains dispatched, namely, in what cause the root of contingency is placed, whether in the freedom of the first cause, or in the freedom of the second, or of both together; for it must be said that, if the discourse is of contingency only extrinsic and in a qualified sense, its root is not placed in any freedom, either of the secondary or of the first cause, but proximately in such a nature and condition of the secondary cause as can be impeded, such an order and series of other natural things and causes being added from which such impediment is wont to occur. But the first cause, or God, can only be called the first root of this contingency, as it is the first cause of all the effects of the universe; because, namely, such secondary causes were both created by it and so disposed and ordered that from them effects of this kind contingent would come. For this, however, formally speaking, it matters nothing that the first cause produced all these things freely; for the same contingency would follow even if it had created all these things of necessity, provided it had ordered them in the same way and afterwards concurred with them. But speaking of simple contingency, its immediate reason is placed in the freedom of the proximate cause and some use of it, as has been declared; but its primordial root is the freedom of the first cause, in the way declared above, sect. 5.

Various errors

1. There was an ancient opinion of some philosophers who attributed all the effects of the universe to fate. They placed fate, however, in a certain connection and order of the causes of the universe, from which they said that all things come of necessity, as Cicero reports of the Stoics, bk. I De Divinat., near the end, and Diogenes Laertius, bk. VII, in the life of Zeno. That force, however, they attributed chiefly to the stars and to their positions and dispositions, the motions of the heavens being added; for from these, by inevitable necessity, come the various aspects and concurrences of the causes of the universe, from which they said that with the same necessity all effects in this lower world come about. Hence they defined fate as the binding together of causes, drawing its efficacy from the motions and power of the stars, as Albert reports, bk. II Phys., tract. II, c. 19, from Apuleius and others. And many of them asserted this not only of natural effects but also of human actions, both virtuous and evil. For they thought that the heavenly bodies inflow with the same force and direct action into human wills as into other things, as Augustine reports, bk. IV Confess., c. 3, and bk. V De Civit., c. 1. Where he also notes (which Plotinus too reports, Ennead III) that some of these were so stupid as to deny that this disposition of the causes of the universe, to which they ascribed fatal necessity, had proceeded from the divine wisdom or will, but held that it has of itself an intrinsic and wholly inevitable necessity.

2. Others, however, although they did not deny that this order of secondary causes proceeded from the divine will, nevertheless attributed to it a wholly inevitable necessity, even with respect to God, because perhaps they believed that God acts from necessity of nature. Castro, Against the Heresies, under the words Freedom and Future contingent, reports that among the heretics Peter Abelard thought so; and he reports the same of Wyclif, that he said all things come about with so inevitable a necessity that not even God Himself could have founded things otherwise than He founded them, nor govern them otherwise than He governs them; and that from them so founded and governed no other actions can come forth than come forth. Many other heretics too have in fact followed this opinion as it was asserted by the said philosophers.

3. Others, however, placed the necessity of fate not in the stars but in the divine will; so Seneca, bk. II Natural. Quaest., c. 35: As (he says) the water of rushing torrents does not run back upon itself, nor even delay, because that which comes on hurls down the former, so the eternal series rules the order of fate, whose first law is to stand by its decree. And at once, c. 36, defining fate, he says it is the necessity of all things and actions which no force may break. The same very well in bk. IV De Beneficiis, c. 7. And Plato seems to have been of the same opinion, last dialogue of the Republic. Certain new heretics too (which we can attribute to Calvin and his followers) introduced this kind of fate, although perhaps not under that name; for they teach that all things come about of necessity, not from the influx of the heavens alone, but from the superior influx of God so moving and applying all secondary causes to acting that they of necessity do that to which they are impelled, and nothing else. This necessity, however, they subject to the divine will, and with respect to it they say it is simply variable; although, the eternal disposition of God being supposed, now immutable, by which He decreed so to found, govern and impel all things that all come about of necessity, it is with respect to creatures simple necessity, but with respect to God necessity of immutability.

Resolution

4. In this doctrine of fate so explained many errors are contained, not only against the Catholic faith but also against natural reason, as can easily be established from what has been treated so far. On account of which the thing itself has been condemned by the Church in some councils, and has been most diligently attacked by the holy Fathers, and the very name of fate is odious to all Catholics, although some, a sound interpretation being added, do not think it wholly to be rejected.

The said errors are noted and refuted

5. The first.—First, then, to attribute to secondary causes a fatal necessity independent of God is plainly foolish and against natural reason. This is to be proved in no other way than by demonstrating that all things depend on God in becoming, being and operating; which we shall carry out in the three following disputations.

6. The second.—Secondly, to establish the necessity of fate under the causality and influx of God, inevitable even to God Himself, is repugnant to natural reason. It is proved, because that opinion includes either two errors or one only, namely, either that God is not omnipotent, or at least that He does not operate freely whatever He operates outside Himself; for, if God has these two perfections, what disposition, influence or necessity of secondary causes can there be which He cannot change or impede by His omnipotent and free will? But that there are in God omnipotence and free will we shall demonstrate below, disputing about God and His attributes. The conclusion, however, is to be understood of simply inevitable necessity; for if the discourse is of inevitability only in a qualified sense, coming namely from the immutability of God, from this side there will be no error, if it is not mixed in from elsewhere, as we shall say.

7. The third.—Thirdly, to establish such a necessity of fate as flows from the influx of the stars and of other natural causes to all inferior causes, comprehending under them human wills too, is an error also repugnant to natural reason. This conclusion is understood, however, even if this necessity is posited as dependent on the divine will and changeable through it. It is proved, because a fatal necessity of this kind destroys the freedom of choice. On which title that opinion was condemned in the First Council of Braga, c. 9, and by Leo I, epist. 91, cc. 11 and 13, and against it Eusebius gathers much, bk. VI De Praepar. Evang., c. 5 and following, and Chrysostom also writes at length in the orations on Providence, and Augustine, the said bk. V De Civit., almost throughout; and Gregory of Nyssa or Nemesius, bk. VI of his Philosophy; Boethius, bk. VI De Consolat., and others frequently. Indeed the philosophers too attacked this kind of fate, as is taken from Aristotle, bk. I Ethic., c. 1, and bk. I De Interp., last chapter, and Ammonius and other interpreters there, and bk. II Phys., c. 6, where Simplicius, Themistius and others; and Alexander of Aphrodisias, book On Fate; Plutarch, book On Fortune; see other things in Julius Sirenus, book On Fate. The foundation of that opinion also includes another error, namely, that the influx of the heavens falls directly and per se on human souls and wills; which is against the immateriality of the soul, and consequently against its immortality.

8. Fourthly, to establish that fate by attributing it to the efficiency and influx of the first cause necessitating all secondary causes, even rational wills, to single effects, is an error both against faith and also against natural reason. It is proved from what has been said, because in this way too free choice is destroyed. Hence in this sense too this fatal necessity has been condemned, although not under the name of fate, in the Council of Trent, sess. VI. And it is declared by philosophical reason; for either among secondary causes there are some which by their nature do not need for acting that necessitating motion of God, or there are none such; if the latter is said, then there is no cause of itself free and indifferent. But if the former is said, then either the first cause always draws the secondary cause out of its natural mode of operating, which is foreign to all right reason, because the first cause, according to the ordinary mode of providence, cooperates with the secondary only so far as it needs, as we shall say below; or certainly the secondary cause is not always so necessitated to act by the first, which is what we intend; therefore hence it comes about that the position of fate in the aforesaid sense is wholly false.

In what sense fate can be admitted as to the thing itself

9. Fifthly, to establish fate in that sense in which it extends only to the effects of natural causes to which neither the angelic nor the human creature in any way concurs by its freedom, and in those effects to posit fatal necessity coming from the series and order of the causes of the universe, inevitable by secondary causes, and by the first according to its ordinary power and according to the mode of operating and concurring connaturally due to causes of this kind, or also from the immutability of some decree or predefinition of God Himself, not however from His absolute power and will—in this way (I say) the establishment of fate contains no error, but true doctrine, although in the use of words moderation must be kept, as we shall say below. This whole assertion is established from what was said in the preceding section, nor is it necessary to add any other proof or declaration. In this sense, however, Luis Vives reports from Plutarch and others, on V De Civit. Dei, cc. 1 and 10, that the Stoics and Plato posited fate, for they excepted human wills and free actions from the necessity of fate. Hence Damascene too, bk. II De Fide, c. 25, without naming them, reports that the philosophers did not posit fate about human actions which are contingent, but about necessary ones. And similarly Tertullian, book On the Soul, c. 20, says that the philosophers too distinguished fate and the freedom of choice; and he adds from his own opinion: And we according to faith already know that these are to be distinguished by their proper title.

10. But you will ask whether fate, with respect to such effects, is an efficient cause, or what it is; for some think that fate formally signifies a certain relation, because Boethius, De Consolat., prose 4, defines fate as the order of secondary causes executing divine providence; but order imports relation. So it is taken from St. Thomas, I, q. 116, a. 2, ad 3. But it must be said that fate of this kind is neither a relation alone—for this contributes nothing to effecting—nor some one efficient cause—for none by itself alone suffices to induce that necessity which fate indicates—but is a collection of causes so disposed by divine providence as is necessary in order that such effect follow. This is established from the very explanation of fate which we have handed down and from the assertion laid down. But that disposition of causes, which others call order or series, is not a relation, but says in the single causes and in all an application accommodated so that such effect can follow; which application indeed is not a relation, although perhaps it is the foundation of a relation, or is declared by us by way of relation. And so St. Thomas above can be expounded of relation for its foundation, from the same St. Thomas, opusculum On Fate, which is the 28th, c. 5, where he thinks that fate says a condition of the cause. And the same is meant by those who number fate among efficient causes. See Alexander, the said opusculum On Fate, c. 2. But from what has been said it may be understood that under this collection of causes are comprehended not only efficient but also material causes; for on these in great part the necessary consecution of such effect depends; fate is reduced rather to the efficient cause, however, because this is what per se induces the effect, such matter and the other conditions required for acting being supposed. Again it is gathered from what has been said that fate, according to this interpretation, is not always the per se cause of all effects; for some are effects per accidens which are chance with respect to particular causes, as we shall say below, which do not have a per se cause, as will be proved there. Hence with respect to the collection of all natural causes they come about necessarily, yet they cannot be attributed to any per se natural cause which may be called fate; so, then, the said conclusion is to be limited.

What is to be thought of the name of fate

11. Sixthly, to place fate in the disposition of natural causes inasmuch as they are subject to divine providence and operate infallibly according to its preordination or permission and foreknowledge contains in the thing itself no error, but rather Catholic doctrine, consonant also with natural reason; the mode of speaking, however, must be corrected or sufficiently explained. This whole conclusion is taken from St. Thomas, I, q. 116, a. 1, and from Augustine, whom he cites, V De Civit., c. 1, saying: If anyone calls the will or power of God by the name of fate, let him keep the opinion and correct the tongue. And Boethius intends the former part of this assertion in the place cited above, while he tries to bring the name of fate back to a fitting and true signification. And many think the opinion of Plato and Seneca reported above can be reduced to the same; for they did not intend to deny the freedom of our choice. Which Plutarch also seems to think, bk. I De Placitis, c. 27, and Aristotle, book On the World to Alexander, near the end, where he speaks very well on this matter. Indeed Augustine, V De Civit., c. 10, teaches that the Stoics too did not think otherwise of fate nor take away the freedom of choice, as was touched upon above. And finally it is declared, because through fate so expounded nothing else is signified except that secondary causes are subordinated to divine providence, inasmuch as all these causes are ordered by God to producing these effects, which is most certain. Next it is signified that these secondary causes operate nothing which is not both foreseen and preconceived or pre-spoken by God (for the name fatum is thought to be said from fari, to speak) and also in some way preordained or permitted, and, speaking more generally, provided for; which also is most certain and consonant with natural reason, as we shall show below in disputing about the attributes of God. And hence it comes about that in order to divine providence there is a certain infallibility, or, as Boethius says, immobility in the effects of secondary causes; because they can never wholly escape the order of the providence of God. And this immobility is declared by the name of fate. Which does not exclude the contingency or freedom of some causes, because it does not consist in absolute necessity, but in the infallibility of divine foreknowledge and providence and its immutability, to which corresponds a similar necessity in the effects of secondary causes, which is called necessity from supposition or of consequence; because it cannot happen that they come about otherwise than they were foreknown, as St. Thomas explains above, a. 3. It must be noted, however, that even this signification being admitted, it is not rightly attributed to God, as St. Thomas notes in the same place from Boethius above. For fate is the disposition of causes as it is under God, but is not properly God Himself or the will of God except causally, as Augustine sometimes speaks, bk. V De Civit., c. 1, and Seneca and Aristotle above. And the very name fatum agrees, which is said from fari, whence it signifies that which has been spoken, not him who has spoken. Add that neither is fate properly attributed in the said signification to the free acts of the created will, because free choice is subject immediately to God and not to other causes or their disposition except per accidens and remotely; and therefore the proper acts of free choice can be attributed to fate either in no way, or only most improperly, by calling the very providence of God and His immediate influx fate.

12. And hence finally the last part of the assertion is established, which is only about the use of this word fate; whose use St. Thomas says the holy Fathers refused on account of those who placed fate in the influx of the stars. Which is established to be true from those cited above, and from Augustine, bk. V De Civit., c. 9, and tract. XXXVII on John, and Gregory, homily 10 on the Gospels, and Gregory of Nyssa, bk. VI Philosoph., c. 2, or otherwise Nemesius, book On the Soul and its Faculties, cc. 35 and 36. And the reason is that fate from its primitive imposition was instituted to signify the root of fatal necessity, which those who invented the name fate thought to be absolute necessity; and therefore in its proper signification it cannot be attributed to all secondary causes, even as they are subject to divine providence. From which it also comes about that neither are the natural effects which come about in this lower world to be said to come about by fate in that propriety, because regularly they never come about without the intervention of some free cause, either angelic or human; so that neither rains, winds and similar effects, which seem most natural, are to be said to come from fatal necessity; for, God permitting or ordaining, they are often impeded or aroused by means of some action of good or evil spirits. For this reason, then, the name of fate is not to be used by us absolutely; but if someone, correcting its signification, wishes to use it, one must not contend with him; the declaration or correction, however, is that the name fate signify only the series of causes subject to divine providence, which does not impose necessity on them, but lets each act in the mode proportioned to itself. Alexander of Aphrodisias adds, book On Fate, c. 3, that fate sometimes signifies the nature of each thing, and that signification has a foundation in Aristotle, bk. V Phys., c. 6, text 57, where they call natural generation or corruption fatal. According to which signification fate has neither greater necessity than nature nor greater universality. Hence, just as not all things come about by natural order or necessity, but some freely, others by chance, so not all things take place by fate. Nevertheless, this signification of that word neither seems to be in common use nor to have foundation in the etymology of that word by which fatum is said from fari, as we noted from Augustine; wherefore, in order that fate be something, divine foreknowledge and providence is not to be excluded.