Tractatus de vera et legitima concordia liberi arbitrii creati cum auxiliis gratiae Dei

1. — To the first argument it is easily answered from the aforesaid conclusions: I grant the major, and I distinguish the minor. For if it be understood of privative or passive indifference which subjectively is or is understood to be in God, I grant the minor. And I deny the consequence, because such indifference does not pertain to the formality of free choice. If, however, it be understood of negative indifference which befits the active faculty of God, I deny the minor; indeed the divine faculty is not determined of itself to creating, nor is determined to not creating, but is only the power of creating.

2. — To the second argument it is answered that the supervening precept does not destroy the formality of freedom nor its root, because with the cognition of the indifference of some means according to itself to the end existing, the will also which serves under that cognition freely elects that means in obeying the extrinsic precept, which does not destroy the formality of freedom.

If, however, anyone sophistically urge that, with the precept standing, in the composite sense Christ could not not operate, since otherwise He could have sinned: it is answered that the formality and perfection of freedom does not consist in that He can not operate by sinning, but in that absolutely speaking He could not operate or operate. For free choice is not defined through indifference to opposites in the composite sense, but in the divided sense, in that it is said to be a faculty for either alternative. Therefore even if these two could not stand together: Christ has the precept of obeying unto death, and Christ does not will to die, nevertheless through this it does not follow that absolutely speaking He could not not will to die.

But if again the sophist urge that at least in respect of this act which is to obey, Christ did not have the faculty for obeying or not obeying: therefore He did not obey freely: it is answered, whatever be of the consequence, that what is inferred implies a contradiction, therefore He did not obey freely, if He obeyed, since the act of obedience is an act of moral virtue, in whose account it is included that it be a human and free act. Therefore to obey and not to obey implies a contradiction. But it is answered more to the form, I distinguish the antecedent. For if that act of obeying presuppose the precept, so that not to obey is disobedience, I grant the antecedent. And I deny the consequence, since to obey freely it is not necessary that the one obeying can sin. If, however, not to obey be taken purely negatively, I deny the antecedent. Indeed Christ was able not to obey, because it was possible not to have the precept; just as this negative is true: Christ did not obey unto the death of stoning or of beheading, because this negative posits nothing in to-be nor presupposes a precept.

We have, therefore, that to the freedom of obeying, even with the precept standing, it suffices that the will electing to obey serve under the cognition of the indifference of that means in order to the ultimate end, notwithstanding that it cannot sin. Just as God absolutely speaking most freely conserves the universe, and nevertheless with the promise of eternal life standing, it is incompossible for the world to be annihilated, just as it is impossible for God to lie. It is to be observed, therefore, always for dissolving importunate sophisms that, whatever coming upon from without does not destroy the formality of freedom nor the formal use of it, which consists in the subordination of the will to the cognition of the indifference of the means to the end, cannot destroy free choice nor the exercise of it.

3. — To the third argument are to be seen the things we said more broadly on the First Part, q. 64, a. 2, dub. 1 ad 2 arg. Now, however, it is answered that, although the evil angel is obstinate through fully deliberated operation, nevertheless this does not destroy the indifference which is required to free action. And the reason is because a free action is not said because it itself is not determined to the object which falls under election, but it is said free from the faculty and from the mode of the faculty from which it proceeds, namely from the faculty of intellect and will, which of itself has itself indifferently to either alternative, whether with negative or privative and passive indifference. Since, therefore, the election of the angel had such a beginning and such a root, it is necessary that as long as it endures, it be a free election, although it itself be determined to a particular object, which is verified also in human election. But in the angel election has another condition, on account of the inflexible nature of the angel, so that what it once elects, it cannot not elect, nor can it reject it. But nevertheless this inflexibility is so far from derogating from the faculty of freedom that rather it attests the greatest perfection of the angelic free faculty, insofar as the angel, as the divine Thomas teaches in that article cited, elects with the highest cognition of the indifference of the means to the end and of all the circumstances, and consequently cannot depart from the election once elicited, at least by refuting what it once elects. Men, however, even after they have elected, can refute what they once elected. Which changeability indeed does not arise from much perfection of free choice, but from the excessive potentiality of the faculty of intellect and will; because while man elects, he does not have perfect cognition of all the circumstances, and therefore with a new circumstance coming upon, he elects other than he had elected.

And this doctrine is proved abundantly enough. For if to the perfection of the use of free choice it pertained to be able to cease from the election of that which is once elected, there would not be in God the perfect faculty of free choice. For it stands that after God has decreed something to be done or to do, it implies a contradiction that God elect the opposite of what He elected, according to that: My counsel shall stand and all my will shall be done (Is., 46,10), and that I Reg., 15 (v. 29): The Triumpher in Israel will not spare nor be bent by repentance; for He is not a man that He should do penance. From which it follows that the more perfect free choice shall have been, the more constant it will be and the less changeable from what it once elects.

We have, therefore, that the demons now obstinate in evil sin no less than they sinned in the beginning of perfect deliberation. For knowing that they are of inflexible nature, they deliberated to remain in themselves, in not referring themselves to the supernatural end, as they were bound from the supernatural precept which they knew by faith, as the divine Augustine teaches in the Enchiridion, ch. 105: «Much more freely will free choice be free, which will be altogether unable to serve sin».

There follows also from the preceding doctrine that those confirmed in grace not less freely keep the mandates, indeed more perfectly freely than those not confirmed in grace; since their free choice through the grace of confirmation is stabilized and determined to the good, to the likeness of God.

From this doctrine, finally, we shall afterwards gather how the efficacious aid of God perfects freedom and the use of free choice.

4. — To the fourth argument it is already clear from the first and second conclusion. For we do not deny to God the negative indifference of the divine free choice. The argument, however, proves that, if there were given in God some privative or passive indifference, He would not be altogether immutable, since He could have Himself in Himself otherwise than He now has Himself. The whole most formal account of free choice, therefore, consists in the active faculty not determined to one, but having negative indifference to either alternative of acting or not acting. This power and faculty, moreover, is in the intellect and will. In the intellect indeed radically, insofar as in it there is the cognition of the indifference of the means to the end; in the will, however, formally there is the faculty of electing either alternative which is proposed by the intellect with indifference. The use itself, finally, of this faculty does not consist in some negative or passive indifference of the election itself; for every election is specifically determined and in the individual to one object with its circumstances. But the denomination of the use of free choice befits the election on the part of the principle from which it sets out, namely from the cognition of the indifference of the means to the end, and from the will, which serving under that cognition and subordinated to it, determines one to be elected. And thus the intellect is moved by the will to the act of command, which is explicated through the word of the imperative do.

Whence it stands how far we are from that opinion which Suarez judges us to hold, that the account of freedom and the use of it consists formally in the cognition and judgment of the indifference of the object. For we assert that the use of freedom consists in this radically, by means of which root God Himself in most perfectly illuminating the intellect and intimately inspiring in the will effects that the will determine itself as freely as if it were not acted from without. And nevertheless it is moved strongly on the part of God the first mover. Whose motion and aid does not bind the free faculty, but in perfecting it effects that it operate infallibly, as we intend to explicate more fully in what follows. Thus far concerning the first part of this treatise.