Summa summae S. Thomae, Tomus II

St. Thomas, I p., q. 83; q. 24 de Veritate; q. 6 de Malo, and elsewhere.

Note 1° that among the various acceptations of liberty two especially are distinguished.

The first is liberty from violence or coercion, and it is called spontaneity or free inclination. It is found in all who act not compelled by external force, but from inclination, even though necessitating. With this liberty the blessed love God, and God loves himself. It extends even to brute animals, nay even to inanimate things. Thus water is said to flow spontaneously, the stone to descend downward of itself.

The second liberty is from necessity, and it is immunity not only from coercion or violence, but also from natural instinct and determination to one thing without power toward the opposite : with which liberty he enjoys who can will or not will, will this or that. It is called the liberty of indifference, because it is toward opposites. And since indifference is twofold, namely as regards specification and exercise, so liberty from necessity is twofold, namely of specification and of exercise. Liberty of exercise, which is also called liberty of contradiction, is toward an act and its omission, whereby indeed one can act and not act, love and not love. Liberty of specification is toward acts specifically diverse, which acts, if they be contraries, as to love and to hate, to sit and to stand, is called liberty of contrariety; if they be disparate acts, as to pray or to study, it is called liberty of disparity. That the liberty of the will lies in this liberty from necessity we now suppose, and we shall prove below.

Note 2° the various errors concerning free will. The Stoics denied it, from fate; the astrologers, from the influx of the stars; the Manichaeans, from a twofold soul, one good, the other evil, one of which necessarily coerced the other by this very fact that it prevailed; the Wiclefites, Lutherans and Calvinists, from original sin and from the force of necessitating grace; Baius and Jansenius¹, from the same principles.

As regards Jansenius, it must be observed that he admits verbatim a liberty of the will compatible with necessity. He says therefore that the liberty of the will, which he calls essential, is compatible with a necessity fixed, invariable and perpetual, which can vary in no circumstances, such as that by which God loves himself, by which the blessed love God. The liberty of the will as regards the present state of man wayfarer he says subsists with a necessity not fixed and invariable, but transitory and relative, which, the present circumstances standing, relatively to a superior opposing force cannot be overcome, although absolutely and in other circumstances it could be overcome. Whence the whole liberty of the will which Jansenius acknowledges in this state of fallen nature is nothing else than alternative necessity, or turnability from one necessity to another; because wayfarers are not immovably fixed in evil, like the damned, but flexible now toward good, now toward evil, according as celestial or earthly delectation prevails, yet always necessarily : in almost the manner in which a dog now fawns, now grows angry, yet always necessarily.

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On the other hand the Pelagians erred concerning free will, extolling it too much. They said 1° that it avails toward good just as toward evil without the grace of God; 2° that it cannot stand together with the necessity of preventing grace; 3° that Jesus was in no way touched by the sin of Adam, which they denied was transmitted to posterity; but that, placed as it were in equilibrium, he had equal indifference and facility either toward good or toward evil, as in the state of innocence; 4° they wished the power of sinning to belong to the essence of liberty.

Note 3° that there is a twofold root of liberty, one external, the other intrinsic. The intrinsic root of liberty is the supreme efficacy of the divine will³ ; because, since God is the most universal cause of all being and all its modes, and the liberty of the will, both potential and actual, is one of its modes and perfections, as well as of all its actions, it plainly follows that liberty flows from the efficacy of the divine will, as from an external root.

The intrinsic root of liberty is threefold. The first and remote is the very condition of intellectual nature⁴ , which, on account of its immateriality, obtains that capacity that, without alteration of itself, it can receive within itself the forms of all things and become all things in intentional being. Hence follows the universality of the intellect, by which it can know all things, search them out, examine them, turn itself in all directions, judge of them what is to be fled, what pursued, likewise reflect upon its own judgment above itself, amend it, change it and reprove it. And this is the second intrinsic root of liberty. Now upon this universal intellectual form follows the inclination of like condition, namely the will capable of every universal and infinite good, and its eminence above all particular goods. And this is the third and proximate root of liberty; for from it there results in the will dominion over its own acts, and the right of disposing of them at a nod, in which formally consists the liberty of the will.

Note 4° that among the various definitions of liberty which St. Thomas hands down, the following is more frequently used by him, and is the best⁵ , namely : « The elective power of means, the order of the end being preserved. »

It is explained. It is called power, that is, faculty or active potency. It is called elective power, because from this we are said to have free will, that we can take one thing, another refused; which is to choose. It is called elective power of means, because election properly is not about the end as end⁶ , but only about means; because election, in things doable, stands to them as conclusion stands in things speculative, and the end as principle; whence, as conclusion is not about principles, but about their consequences, so election is not about the end, but about the means to it. I said, « about the end as end; » because, as in speculative matters nothing hinders what is the principle of one demonstration from being the conclusion of another demonstration (yet the first principle among demonstrables cannot be the conclusion of another demonstration), so also it happens that what is as end in one operation is ordered to something else as to an end, and in this way the end falls under election : thus, in the operation of a physician, health stands as end, whence it does not fall under the physician's election, but he supposes it as principle; but bodily health is ordered to the good of the soul, whence for him who has care of the salvation of the soul, being healthy or being sick can fall under election. But the last end falls under election in no way, because it cannot be ordered to anything else.

It is called, the order of the end being preserved ; because free will stands to choosing those things that are toward the end as intellect stands to the conclusion. But it is manifest that it pertains to the power of the intellect that it can proceed into various conclusions according to given principles; but that it proceed into some conclusion passing over the order of principles, this is from its defect. Similarly therefore, that free will can choose various things while preserving the order of the end, this pertains to the perfection of liberty; but that it choose something turning aside from the order of the end, this pertains to the defect of liberty. Whence the liberty of the will is greater and more perfect in God, in Christ and in the angels, who cannot sin, than in us, who can sin. And hence already it is clear that the power of sinning is not of the essence of liberty, but is its blemish : of which again below.

The other definition, now very commonly circulated, of liberty, is namely : « The faculty by which, all prerequisites for acting being posited, one can act or not act. » Truly that definition is ambiguous, and put forward by those who reject physical premotions. If then it be understood of the requisites temporally prior to acting, we admit it, both in the composite and divided sense, both of consequent and antecedent potency. But if it be understood of the requisites naturally prior only to acting, we do not admit it except in the divided sense and of antecedent potency for not acting; because, in this very instant in which the requisites for acting exist naturally only, there is action, and so with requisites of this kind for acting there remains indeed a potency for not acting, but it cannot conjoin non-act with them. Whence, according to this sense, it is improperly said in the definition, « by which one can act or not act », but it ought to be said, ibid. « which actually acts with the potency of not acting. »

Therefore R. P. Franciscus Henno was gravely hallucinated when, tract. de Principiis actuum humanorum, q. 3, he wrote that Thomists teach a physical premotion, « while it stands, non-action cannot be, unless in the divided sense of premotion, that is, premotion taken away, » and similar things. This doctrine is Calvinian, not Thomistic. For the Thomists teach that, the premotion to act standing, and in the composite sense of premotion, there remains a complete and expedite potency for non-act, because premotion supposes on both sides the complete potency, and holds itself only on the side of second act.

Note 5° that it does not pertain to free will to be the first determiner.

It is evident, first, from the nature of created being, to which dependence both in being and in operating upon uncreated being is so essential that it can by no reason be torn from it; since indeed the character of created being cannot be conceived, nor any of its perfections, which does not arise from God and depend upon him. Whence God is called not only first being, but first cause, first principle, first mover, first determiner, first free; because, as no being exists except participated from him, so no cause, no mover, no determiner, no free agent, except subordinated to him. And as, if there were some being not participated from him, it would cease to be first being; so, if the will were the first mover and determiner of itself, it would cease to be first cause, first principle, first mover, first free, and a creature would be adorned with these prerogatives, and would become as it were another God; for first is said of that which supposes no other prior.

Neither say you, with the adversaries, that although the will determined itself first, it would not therefore be the first cause and first principle; because the character of first cause and first principle requires not only that it be not moved by another, but also that it be from itself. This character indeed St. Thomas attacks as false in II Sentent., dist. 37, q. 2, a. 2, c. Because, he says, « it seems unfitting that what has not being from itself can act from itself...; for all power proceeds from essence, and operation from power. Whence whose essence is from another, his power and operation must be from another. » He adds : « Besides, although by this answer it were avoided that it not be simply first, still it could not be avoided that it be the first agent, if its action were not reduced to some prior agent, as to cause. »

It is evident, secondly, from observation, because nothing forbids the will to be first moved and determined by God, if under that motion of God it also moves and determines itself, and so preserves its liberty, and the character of praise and merit. For the adversaries deny that the will is first determined by God for no other reason than that they think, under that determination, the will does not move and determine itself, but is so determined to one that the opposite is not possible, and so is despoiled of its liberty. But it is thus that under the determination of God the will itself moves and determines itself. For to what purpose is given that motion and determination of God? Certainly not that the will do nothing, but that it act in a manner consonant to itself, that is, freely, so that it can act and not act. Whence the divine motion and determination not only does not prevent the will from moving and determining itself, but rather effects this very thing, that under that motion and determination it moves and determines itself. Therefore.

And this is the constant and perpetual doctrine of D. Thomas in all his works. Ia p., q. 83, a. 1, ad 3 : « Free will, he says, is the cause of its own motion, because man by free will moves himself to act. Not however is it of the necessity of liberty, that that which is free be the first cause of itself : as neither for a thing to be the cause of another is it required that it be the first cause of it. God therefore is the first moving cause both of natural causes and of voluntary ones. And as by moving natural causes he does not take away that their actions be natural; so, by moving voluntary causes, he does not take away that their actions be voluntary, but rather he effects this in them; for he operates in each thing according to its property. »

I say: Of faith it is that there exists in fallen man liberty of arbitrium or of indifference ¹. It is against Lutherans and Calvinists, to whom, as to the thing, Jansenius subscribed, although, as to the word, he admits free will, as is plain from what was said in the preceding article.

It is proved from Scripture. Ecclus., XV, 17 and 18: He added water and fire before thee: stretch forth thy hand unto which thou wilt. Before man is life and death, good and evil, that which shall please thee shall be given thee. ibid., XXXI, 10: Eternal glory shall be his who could transgress, and hath not transgressed, could do evil, and hath not done it. I Cor., VII, 36: Let him do what he will; he sinneth not if he marry. And soon after, 37: Having no necessity, but having power of his own will.

It is proved from the Council of Trent, session VI, canon 5: « If anyone say that it is not in the power of man to make his ways evil... ; let him be anathema. »

It is proved from the Fathers, especially from Augustine, whom the heretics claim. Above all, St. Augustine wrote the book On Grace and Free Will for this very end, that he might prove that both ought to be admitted: « Because, he says, c. 1, n. 1, there are certain ones who so defend the grace of God that they deny the free will of man, I therefore took care..... to write something. » And cap. 2, n. 2: « The divine precepts themselves would profit man nothing, unless he had the free choice of will, by which, doing them, he might arrive at the promised rewards. » And further below, n. 4: « How does he command, if there is no free will? » Lib. II de Nuptiis et Concupisc., c. 3, n. 8, addressing the Pelagians: « That free will exists in men..., we say to both parties. Hence you are not Celestians and Pelagians. » For this indeed speaks the Catholic faith.

It is proved by reason, which Augustine himself urges in the places cited and in many others ². If man were not free with liberty of arbitrium and indifference, vain would be counsels, exhortations, precepts, prohibitions, rewards and punishments. For either man would be necessarily determined to do the things commanded or counseled, and thus in vain would be commanded or counseled what he could not fail to do; or he would be necessarily determined not to do them, and thus in vain would he be prohibited from that from which he could not abstain. Therefore.

It is confirmed. Man in this state of fallen nature sometimes elicits meritorious and demeritorious acts ³. But for this is required liberty from necessity ⁴, as I shall say in the following article. Therefore.

It is proved by reason a priori ⁵. Man by sin did not cease to be of intellectual nature. But intellectual nature free will follows inseparably, as is plain from what was said of the root of liberty. Therefore.

It is proved from experience, whereby it appears that man freely chooses one thing and rejects another ⁶.

Obj. from Augustine: The holy Doctor 1° in Enchir., c. 30, says: « By ill using free will, man lost both himself and it. » 2° In the imperfect Work against Julian he is wholly bent upon impugning the liberty of indifference, as the basis of the whole Pelagian heresy. 3° Ibid., lib. I, c. 105, acknowledges from original sin a necessity of sinning: « Thou errest greatly, he says, who thinkest that there is no necessity whatever of sinning. » 4° In cap. v ad Galat., that famous saying: « That which more delights us, according to it we must needs work. »

I answer, to the first: free will is said by Augustine to have been lost by the sin of Adam, not as though it were extinguished as to substance, but because it was made worse and weakened as to good; in about that sense in which a father is said to lose a son whom excessive indulgence suffers to become scandalous. Moreover this is plainer not from the Pelagian sense, but from the very words objected. For he says that man by sin lost free will, just as he lost himself. But he lost himself not as to substance, as though he had ceased to be man, but as to perfection of justice and facility of virtue, insofar as he lies subject to ignorance, concupiscence and disease. Thus Augustine himself explains himself in express terms lib. I ad Bonifac., against two Epistles of Pelagius, c. 2, n. 5: « Who of us, he says, would say that by the sin of the first man free will perished from the human race? Liberty indeed perished through sin, but that which was in paradise, of possessing full justice together with

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immortality; wherefore human nature needs divine grace. »

To the second. St. Augustine impugns the liberty of indifference, not in the sense of Catholics, but in the sense of Pelagians, against whom he is writing. The Pelagians contended that the liberty of man was in no wise wounded by original sin, whose existence they denied, nor inclined more to sin than to good, but constituted in perfect equilibrium, moving itself with equal moment toward virtues and vices, as in nature integral. This Pelagian indifference Augustine impugns, but not that which the Catholic faith establishes, whereby, although attenuated in force and inclined to evil, man so remains lord of his own acts that he can act or not act, act this or that — aided, namely, by grace, where the question is of salutary work; but grace, urgent necessity pressing, fails him not according to its exigency, as I said in the treatise on God.

To the third ⁹. St. Augustine speaks of a moral necessity of sinning, taken for great difficulty of abstaining from sin, because of the vice of nature corrupted by original sin, whence follows a certain vague and indeterminate necessity of sometimes sinning. Moreover Augustine sometimes speaks of sins taken materially, such as the undeliberate motions of concupiscence and involuntary ignorance, which are called sins materially and improperly, inasmuch as they are effects of sin and move to sin, and from which man cannot be without in this life.

To the fourth. Augustine speaks either of delight deliberate or undeliberate. If of the undeliberate, a moral necessity must be understood, taken for great difficulty of acting otherwise. For Augustine himself teaches that resistance can be made to greater delight: « Man, he says, lib. LXXXIII quaest., q. 70, even with pain can restrain the great delight of hunting ¹⁰. » If he speak of deliberate delight, as it is commonly understood, necessity must indeed be understood

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simply so called, but hypothetical, and consequent upon the will. For that which delights us the more deliberately is that which we deliberately love and choose before another. But we must needs embrace and follow in external work what we deliberately choose before another, just as it is necessary that I speak while I am speaking. But this necessity, as is plain, follows the very free determination of the will, and thus injures not its liberty. Of which again, when treating of grace.

The dogma of faith being posited, namely that man in the state of fallen nature enjoys liberty from necessity or indifference, which we call liberty of arbitrium, we now ask whether this liberty from necessity is altogether required for meriting or demeriting in this same state; — or whether the liberty of spontaneity, or from coercion, does not suffice.

I say 1° : To merit or demerit in the state of fallen nature there is required in man liberty from necessity, or liberty of indifference, and the liberty from coercion does not suffice ¹ .

Thus defined it Innocent XII and Alexander VII, condemning as heretical this third proposition of Jansenius contradictory to our conclusion, in the sense intended by the author: « To merit and demerit, in the state of fallen nature, there is not required in man liberty from necessity, but the liberty from coercion suffices. » S. Pius V and Greg. XIII, condemning this 67th proposition of Baius: « Man sins, even damnably, in that which he does necessarily. » St. Thomas preceded these Pontiffs, q. 6 cit. de Malo, where he says the contrary opinion to be

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heretical and to subvert all the principles of moral philosophy: « For if, he says, something be not free in us but moved from necessity toward willing, deliberation, exhortation, precept, punishment, praise and blame are taken away. »

It is proved by further reason. Our acts, as purely spontaneous, are not moral. Therefore neither meritorious nor demeritorious. — Prob. ant. Insofar as acts are called moral, insofar are they subjected to rules of morals and can be directed by them. Yet necessary and purely spontaneous acts cannot be subjected to rules of morals nor directed by them. Therefore. — Prob. min. Acts invariable in themselves cannot be subjected to rules of morals nor directed by them; for it would be vain, nay foolish, to apply a rule to an action which could not be otherwise. Yet necessary and merely spontaneous acts are invariable in themselves, as appears in beatific love, in love of beatitude in common, and others. Therefore.

I say 2° : To merit or demerit there is not necessarily required liberty of contrariety toward good or evil, but the liberty of contradiction suffices.

Prob. 1° in Christ, who was impeccable, and yet merited; 2° in the angels, who merited in the first instant, yet could not sin, as I said in the treatise on Angels; 3° in the very holy Virgin, Apostles and other saints confirmed in grace, who merited without that they could sin; 4° By reason, because by this very fact that an act is free with the liberty of contradiction, so that it can be placed and not placed, it falls under rules of morals; for law and reason can dispose concerning it, command or forbid it. Therefore it is moral, consequently meritorious or demeritorious.

You will say against the first conclusion: St. Thomas, in III Sentent., dist. 18, a. 2, ad 5, says thus: « It must be said that although the free will of Christ were determined to one numerically, as to loving God, which he cannot not do, nevertheless from this he loses not liberty or the notion of praise or merit; because he tends toward it not coerced but spontaneously, and thus is master of his act. » Therefore to merit or demerit liberty from necessity is not required.

Resp. the sense of St. Thomas to be that, although the free will of Christ were determined necessarily to loving God in itself, he could nevertheless merit, because with such determination he remained free toward that same love of God as it is the ratio of loving creatures. Whence he wills that merit be found only in the same necessary act not in the part wherein it is necessary but in the part wherein it is free; otherwise he would contradict his former answer, in which he requires for merit immunity from determination to one numerically. Nor do these words stand in the way: « Because he tends toward it not coerced, but spontaneously; » for τὸ « not coerced but spontaneously » is the same as not necessarily but freely. For often with St. Thomas and the ancients coactum is taken for necessarium, and spontaneum for liberum. And that it is thus taken here these following words plainly indicate: « And thus he is master of his act, » which would be false if he understood it of a necessary act; for we are not masters of necessary acts, as the same holy Doctor attests: « We are, he says, 1ª p., q. 82, a. 1, masters of our own acts according as we can choose this or that. »

You will ask whether, the indifference of judgment standing, the will can be necessitated.

Resp. That the will, the indifferent judgment standing, is necessitated.

It is proved ³ . The will is rational appetite following cognition and the lead of the intellect, since it is only of good proposed to itself through cognitive power. Such are the words of St. Thomas at the place cited, and such is the principle he everywhere inculcates and which no one calls into doubt, as founded in the nature of things. For whatever form or nature follows its inclination proportioned to itself, as appears in all things; and thus the inclination of intellectual nature is rational appetite following the form through intellect appre-

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hended. Therefore, as it implies that the will desire an object which is not proposed to it through intellect but unknown, so it implies desiring otherwise than proposed to itself, consequently desiring necessarily what is proposed to it under indifference; otherwise, as in the first case, so also in the second rational appetite would be and would not be.

It is confirmed. It implies the will acting without any cognition; because, as said, it is essentially rational appetite following cognition and the lead of the intellect. Yet that would happen if it were borne necessarily toward the object proposed under indifference. Therefore. — Prob. min. It would not act nor be regulated by that cognition which represents the object as indifferent; otherwise it would be borne also toward it indifferently, nor would it be another cognition, as supposed. Therefore it would act without that cognition.