Disputationes metaphysicae

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.