The following is a survey of freedom and free will in Thomas Aquinas and Servais Pinckaers's book Sources of Christian Ethics.Footnote 1 In the first part of this discussion of freedom and free will, I explore the use of the Latin libero, libertas, liberum arbitrium, and variations thereof, in Thomas Aquinas's Summa theologiae, along with “free” and variations in the English version.Footnote 2 Second, I summarize Aquinas's thoughts on free will in the questions in the Summa theologiae, to which Servais Pinckaers refers in chapters fourteen through sixteen of his book as the most important for a discussion of freedom.Footnote 3 Third, I summarize and critique Pinckaers's discussion of freedom of indifference, freedom for excellence, and Aquinas's view of freedom and free will.
I. Libero, Libertas, Liberum Arbitrium
A. Free Will
In the Summa, the Latin liberum arbitrium is translated into English as “free will,” although sometimes the English “free will” does not correspond to the Latin liberum arbitrium.Footnote 4
Human beings have free will. Free will, “the act of which is to choose,” is a power of the will and is the “faculty of will and reason.”Footnote 5 “Man is master of himself through his free will” (II-II, q. 64, a. 5, ad. 3). It follows, therefore, that human beings have no free will (nor are they masters of themselves) before the age of reason.Footnote 6 Free will is indifferent, flexible, and changeable, that is, it can choose either good or bad.Footnote 7 No matter how good we are or how much grace we have, our free will always has the power to choose evil (or good).Footnote 8
Free will is not the act of a bodily organ, and heavenly bodies influence but do not directly cause the free will to function.Footnote 9 This has interesting ramifications for the criminally insane or those who are judged to have committed a crime through mental defect. If we take “heavenly bodies” to be any and all external physical influences on the human being and if the act of the free will is not directly located in the brain, that is, more than simply physical like the heart beat, then there is a limit to the amount of blame that can be attributed to mental imbalance. One could say that a human being who is rational is by that very fact acting out of free will and accountable for their actions.Footnote 10 Only the truly insane or delirious, who have very limited ability to string two consecutive thoughts together logically could be said to have no free will and, therefore, no responsibility for their actions.Footnote 11
Free will is also not constrained by the situation in which human beings live or by others. Even slaves or subjects under rule are moved by free will.Footnote 12 But “the intensity of the free will” can be diminished by obstacles.Footnote 13 In this passage, II-II, q. 24, a. 10, ad. 3, Aquinas says that charity can be diminished by a diminishment in the intensity of the free will. But he does not explain exactly what he means by intensio, diminuo, or impedimentum in reference to free will, therefore it is difficult to say, from this passage of the Summa, just what he means. One explanation can be found in his Commentary on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, book 3, in a discussion of the involuntary, the voluntary, and choice.Footnote 14 The act of free will can be hindered by force or by ignorance. It can be hindered by force, only simply, not particularly.Footnote 15 Whether an act of the free will is voluntary or involuntary changes with time, that is, over the course of making a decision and then acting on that decision. When one is first confronted with a decision involving fear, one is forced out of fear, because, without fear, one would not make that particular choice. When one actually performs the forced choice, one is acting voluntarily (unless one does not move oneself but is physically moved by another). I am afraid that the ship will sink in this storm, so I choose to throw things overboard. My free will is impeded here at the beginning by fear. Then I pick something up and throw it overboard. My free will here is not impeded, I have already made my choice and am now acting voluntarily. The time of the involuntary is past.
A second obstacle to free will is lack of knowledge.Footnote 16 If one had had full knowledge or at least more knowledge, one would choose differently than one did. Another obstacle to free will is lack of physical maturity as was pointed out above.Footnote 17 Also, there is a limit to the act of free will—it stops at some point. Once one has a sufficient motive to believe something, one is “no longer free to believe or not to believe,” that is, one believes.Footnote 18 The act of the free will in that situation ends.
The soul naturally moves towards God, and since “the free will's movement is a movement of the soul,” it naturally moves towards God also.Footnote 19 The free will is intimately involved in the movement of grace in the human being. God infuses grace into the human being. Free will is moved by the grace. The grace is received (or rejected).Footnote 20 Also, it is in the nature of the rational creature to possess the good. Free will is the master of using or enjoying the good.Footnote 21
B. Freedom and Free Will in God
There is a difference between freedom and free will in human beings and in God. It is interesting that, although Aquinas says that Christ had free will (liberum arbitrium),Footnote 22 he never refers to Christ as exercising free will, but only as exercising will (voluntas).Footnote 23 Christ's “will was firmly fixed on the good.”Footnote 24 Consequently, any exercise of free will (which is a power of the will) was always a choice for the good. Christ had free will in that He could choose between multiple goods, but not in that He could choose evil. Since He had free will, He had the ability to choose evil, but since his will was fixed on the good, He never actually chose evil. So we can say that He could not choose evil. Another way to look at it is that the will is not something that exerts pressure or issues a command, rather it is “the faculty of love and desire.” Rather than exercising a choice (free will), Christ exercises love and desire directly.Footnote 25 Human beings, on the other hand, can and do exercise their free will to choose evil over good at times.
On the one hand, Aquinas, in the Latin, prefers to use voluntas for Christ rather than liberum arbitrium. On the other hand, the translators prefer to use “free will” rather than “will” for human beings when translating voluntas.Footnote 26 It is not only Christ, but also human beings, who can do things by will. They can give something by will (though voluntas is translated as free will) or willingly (translated as freely) to someone else that is not owed to the other person.Footnote 27
Freedom exists where the Holy Spirit is. Charity, which comes from the Holy Spirit, makes us free. It releases us from the slavery of fear.Footnote 28 The Holy Spirit does not prejudice free will.Footnote 29 God bestows grace freely.Footnote 30 He is free (expers) from evil and from death.Footnote 31 Free will is not the internal cause moving man to faith, God is that cause.Footnote 32 God is free (that is, under no obligation or ruler) to remit punishment, especially for sin.Footnote 33
C. Freed From
Libero is sometimes translated as “deliver” instead of “free,”Footnote 34 and libertati as “liberty” instead of “freedom.Footnote 35” To be free is to be unrestrained or without attachment.Footnote 36 We are not free when we are under the power of another, such as, a ruler.Footnote 37 To be free is to be “in one's own power.”Footnote 38 However, the soul is free, even if the body is ruled by another.Footnote 39 Slavery and imprisonment are the opposite of freedom.Footnote 40 There is a direct relationship between slavery and sin, sin is a type of slavery.Footnote 41 Man is free, existing for himself, until he sins, then he is in slavery, existing for the use of others.Footnote 42 Our intellect can be freed (by us) from sensible phantasms, and it works better so freed, setting things in order and commanding.Footnote 43 Christ freed us from sin and its spiritual bondage but not from bodily bondage.Footnote 44 The flesh can be enslaved.Footnote 45 He also freed us from the power of the devil.Footnote 46 We are freed from the guilt and debt of punishment.Footnote 47 We are, also, freed from the fear of death.Footnote 48 We are not freed, however, from purgatory as we are from death.Footnote 49 We can even free ourselves from death, that is, from others attempting to killing us.Footnote 50 In summary, we are freed from sin and death, bondage and being ruled.
D. Free To
We have “free use of our members,” we abuse this freedom by sinning and therefore are proper matter for imprisonment.Footnote 51 We need to leave nonbelievers free to believe.Footnote 52 We are free to appeal unjust oppression.Footnote 53 Every virtue is a “free exercise of the will” (voluntas), it takes a position.Footnote 54 Human beings have “free choice proceeding from [their] own counsel” (libera electione).Footnote 55 They can do things of their own free will, that is, by their own choice (libera voluntate).Footnote 56 Since sin is slavery and departure from order, only when we choose good are we truly free.Footnote 57
There are some exceptions in the English translation where the Latin is translated as “free will” and may be better translated in a different way. For example, in II-II, q. 80, ad. 4, in a sentence on good judgment, “free will” is the translation of proprius arbitrium, which could be better translated as “individual choice” or “one's own judgment.”Footnote 58
E. Other Latin Words Translated as “Free”
Other words are used to express being free or freed or variations: careo,Footnote 59 immunitatem,Footnote 60 purificandum,Footnote 61 absolutio,Footnote 62 sponte,Footnote 63 vacent,Footnote 64 gratis,Footnote 65 absolvi,Footnote 66 securitatem,Footnote 67 quietem.Footnote 68 These uses of words that are translated as “free” and variations are different from Aquinas's use of the word liber.
II. Aquinas on the Human Being and Free Will
Servais Pinckaers highlights questions 75, 76, and 79–83 of the prima pars, and question 13 of the prima secundae as the most important for a discussion of freedom. In question 75 of the prima pars, Aquinas describes the soul and its properties. The soul is the “first principle of life” in living things. The soul “is not a body but the act of a body” (a. 1). It is not corporeal, because if it were then all bodies would be living (even inanimate ones). The body “is moved essentially,” but the soul “is not moved essentially, is moved accidentally … [and] does not cause an invariable movement” (a. 1, ad. 2). The soul is in contact with and moves the body via power not contact (a. 1, ad. 3). The rational soul is a substance (a. 2), whereas sensitive and vegetative souls are not (a. 3). Human beings are both body and soul (a. 4). Whatever is common for a species belongs to its substance. Both body and soul are common to human beings so both belong to its substance. Also, “whatever performs the operations proper to a thing, is that thing.” Sensation is an operation of the body, and other things are the operations of the soul of a man, therefore the body is the human being, and the soul is the human being. “The soul has no matter” and is “the form of a body” (a. 5). It is an intellectual principle (a. 6). It is incorruptible because it is an immaterial substance. A form in itself is not corruptible, that is, it is eternal. “It is impossible for a form to be separated from itself; and, therefore, it is impossible for a subsistent form to cease to exist.” Souls and angels are different species and therefore are not the same (a. 7).
In question 76, Aquinas describes the union of the body and the soul. The intellect is the primary thing by which the human body acts (a. 1). Therefore the intellectual principle (the soul) is the form of the body. “This principle by which we primarily understand, whether it be called the intellect or the intellectual soul, is the form of the body.” “The intellect does not move the body except through the appetite, the movement of which presupposes the operation of the intellect.” Each individual has his own intellectual principle (a. 2). “No matter how the intellect is united or coupled to this or that man, the intellect has the precedence of all the other things which appertain to man; for the sensitive powers obey the intellect, and are at its service.” Man has only one soul (a. 3). Since the soul is the form of the human body and a thing can have only one form, there is only one soul in human beings. The intellective soul of man contains all the operations of the sensitive and the nutritive souls. The human body does not have an intermediate form between the body and the soul (a. 4). Because the soul is united to the body and not separate like a motor, there is only one form in the body—the soul—and not a separate form between the body and the soul. “The intellectual soul is properly united to such a body” (a. 5). It is the body which is for the soul, not the soul for the body. “The intellectual soul [has all the powers of the body] in all its completeness; because what belongs to the inferior nature preexists more perfectly in the superior.” The soul and body are united through substantial form (that is, the soul), not through any accidental form (a. 6). There is no other body between the soul and the body, uniting them (a. 7). “The whole soul is in each part of the body” (a. 8). Because the soul is substantial, therefore it is in each part. By “logical and essential perfection” or “totality of species and essence,” the soul is in the whole body and all its parts. The totality of power of the soul is not all in each part. Also the soul is related only secondarily to any part and primarily to the whole body. “Since the soul requires variety of parts, its relation to the whole is not the same as its relation to the parts; for to the whole it is compared primarily and essentially, as to its proper and proportionate perfectible; but to the parts, secondarily, inasmuch as they are ordained to the whole.”Footnote 69
In question 79, Aquinas describes the intellectual powers. “The intellectual faculty [is] a power of the soul” not the essence of the soul (a. 1). Because our intellect is not our being, as it is in God, our intellect is a power not an essence. The intellect is a passive power (a. 2). If it was in act rather than in potency, it would be an infinite being. But it is not an infinite being, therefore it is in potency. Because we do not have all knowledge, but only come to understand things over time, the intellect is a passive power moving from potency into act. There is an active intellect (a. 3). Something in act is needed to move something from potency to act. Since the intellect is a passive power, it needs something to move it to act. That is the active intellect, which moves potential understanding to actual understanding. Both the passive and active intellects are in the soul (a. 4). Because understanding in the soul is imperfect (that is, “it does not understand everything”; and it is not in act, therefore, perfect, but moves from potency to act), it needs a higher intellect from which to get its power. “The power which is the principle of this action” must be in the soul or else it would not belong to the soul or even to the human being itself. “The separate intellect, according to the teaching of our faith, is God Himself, Who is the soul's Creator, and only beatitude…. Wherefore the human soul derives its intellectual light from Him.” “The same active intellect is not in various men” (a. 5). Memory is in the intellectual part of the soul (a. 6). “Augustine says that memory, understanding, and will are one mind.” The species are remembered in the intellect, the passage of time in both the intellectual and the sensible parts of the soul. Memory is not a separate power from the intellect (a. 7). Memory is a passive power of the intellect. “Reason, intellect, and mind are one power (a. 8). To understand is to apprehend truth (rest); to reason is to move from one truth to another (movement). The higher reason, intent on contemplation of God, is not a distinct power from the lower reason, intent on earthly things (a. 9). The intelligence and the intellect are the same power (a. 10). Intelligence is act; intellect is power. The speculative and practical intellects are the same power (a. 11). “The speculative intellect by extension becomes practical.” They differ by accident only. “It is the speculative intellect which directs what it apprehends … to the consideration of truth; while the practical intellect is that which directs what it apprehends to operation.” The end is different, not the power. “Synderesis is not a power but a habitus” (a. 12). Synderesis is “the first practical principles, bestowed on us by nature … a special natural habitus.” Because it is a habit, it does not consider opposites, whereas a power would. It rouses us to good and “murmurs against evil” (a. 12, co). “Conscience is not a power, but an act” (a. 13). Conscience “follow[s] the application of knowledge or science to what we do”: 1) recognizing something we have done or not done, it witnesses; 2) it judges, incites, or binds; 3) it excuses, accuses, or torments.
In question 80, Aquinas describes the appetitive powers. Each power of the soul, the sensitive and the intellective, has a natural inclination, the natural appetite, which is specific to each of the powers. Beyond the natural inclination of each power there is also an appetite of the power specific to the animal itself, a power of the power, so to speak—the appetitive power. The appetitive power is that by which we desire things beyond our natural inclination (a. 1), that is, things which we perceive or understand. We are naturally inclined toward seeing because it is suitable for the sensible power of sight. But the sensible power also desires things that are suitable to the animal. Seeing the inside of St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome or seeing paintings in an art museum are desired because they are suitable to the human being. We are naturally inclined toward knowledge because it is suitable to the power of intellect, but knowledge of Scriptures is desired by the intellect because it is suitable to the human being (or knowledge of medicine because it is suited to the physician). The difference is between being inclined toward something naturally and desiring as good that which we apprehend (a. 1, ad. 2).Footnote 70 Fire inclines naturally upward, but it does not understand what upward movement is nor does it desire to go upward. It just does so naturally. “The sensitive and intellective appetites are separate powers” (a. 2) because they apprehend different things. The intellective appetite can perceive and understand knowledge or virtue, but the sensitive appetite cannot because these things are immaterial (a. 2, ad. 2). Animals cannot understand immaterial things because they do not have an intellect.
In question 81, Aquinas discusses “the power of sensuality.” Sensuality is appetitive (that is, of the body), not cognitive, and can spur us to sin (a. 1) The sensitive appetite has two powers, the concupiscible and the irascible (a. 2). The concupiscible power inclines us toward the good and away from the harmful.Footnote 71 The irascible power guards against the harmful. Reason commands both the concupiscible and the irascible powers, even though they are part of the sensitive appetite which is not governed by reason, because both powers have to be moved by a choice between things, the good and the harmful and how to avoid the harmful (a. 3). A judgment must be made, which the sensitive appetite cannot make but the intellective appetite, in the form of the cognitive power, can make. Therefore the powers are moved by the cognitive power. Also there is a hierarchy of motion, higher powers move lower ones. In this case, the will is higher than the sensitive appetite, so it moves the sensitive appetite. But because the sensitive appetite is also moved by imagination and sense, the concupiscible and irascible powers can resist the movement of the will, but they still obey the will (a. 3, ad. 2).
In question 82, Aquinas discusses the will. Everyone's will desires happiness of necessity (a. 1). This is not necessity of end (utility) or necessity of coercion, but absolute necessity, that is, it is natural. “The will must of necessity adhere to the last end, which is happiness” because the last end belongs to the will “by an intrinsic principle,” nature (a. 1, co).Footnote 72 The will's desire for the last end relates to the intellect, and free will relates to reason (a. 1, ad. 2). The article 1 reply to objection 3 is especially pertinent to this discussion on freedom:
We are masters of our own actions by reason of our being able to choose this or that [free will]. But choice regards not the end, but the means to the end, as the Philosopher says (Ethic. iii, 9). Wherefore the desire of the ultimate end does not regard those actions of which we are masters.
(original emphasis)According to Aquinas, then, the desire for happiness is prior to any act of the free will, therefore, free will is not and cannot be indifferent in the manner of freedom of indifference. Not all things are desired by the will of necessity, but only those “things which have a necessary connection with happiness” and in which the will sees this connection (a. 2). The will can desire or not (there is no necessity) those things in which it does not see a connection with happiness. Certitude (and therefore desire of necessity) is only found in the Divine Vision. The sensitive power apprehends one thing simply and moves the sensitive appetite in one way (of necessity), reason compares different things thereby moving the will in different ways (not of necessity). The intellect is a higher power than the will (a. 3). Absolutely, the intellect is the higher power, but relatively, it depends on the object. For example, loving is more excellent than knowing. Loving is the object of the will, and knowing of the intellect. In this case, the will is higher than the intellect. Truth is the end of the intellect, just as the good is the end of the will (a. 3, ad. 1). When considering these ends, truth is more absolute, but the good is nobler; the good is true, and truth is a good. Aquinas ends by saying that truth is the most excellent end, and intellect is the most excellent power. The intellect is also higher than the will in another way, as the mover is higher than the moved and act is higher than potency (a. 3, ad. 2). But even though it is lower, the will can move the intellect (a. 4). We learn by the intellect, but things are in our power by the will, so the will moves the intellect. It depends on your perspective: the intellect moves as an end, the will moves as an agent. “The intellect understands that the will wills, and the will wills the intellect to understand” (a. 4, ad. 1). In the end, the intellect is the highest because understanding and knowing must precede every action of the will, but not all acts of understanding and knowing are preceded by an act of the will (a. 4, ad. 3). Ultimately, understanding and knowing come from the mind of God. The will cannot be divided between concupiscible and irascible powers, because these two are sensitive powers and not intellective powers, and the will is an intellective power (a. 5). The sensitive power has two aspects, as shown above, but the will has only one aspect, the good in general.Footnote 73
In question 83, Aquinas discusses free will. Human beings have free will, otherwise there would not be commands, advise, rewards, etc. (a. 1). Inanimate objects act without judgment, irrational animals act from instinct (natural judgment), human beings act from rational (or free) judgment. Human beings act from a rational comparison of things, they “make up their own minds.”Footnote 74 The first cause of free will is God (a. 1, ad. 2). Free will moves itself (even though God is the first cause) because God acts through human nature (a. 1, ad. 3). Even if an obstacle is put in the way of our carrying out our choice, we still have the free will to choose that way (a. 1, ad. 4). Desire for the last end is a natural desire rather than a choice of the free will, it is part of human nature (a. 1, ad. 5). This natural inclination, whether it be genetics or upbringing or the character we have developed (that we have freely chosen to develop), does not limit free will, we still must choose for or against what nature inclines us toward. “Free will is a power” (a. 2). Free will is the principle of the act of judging freely, therefore it is either a power or a habit (an ability or a dispositionFootnote 75). Since it is not something which makes us well disposed or not to something—it “is indifferent to good or evil choice” (a. 2, co)—it is not a habit. Consequently, it is a power. Free will, that is, “freedom from fault and unhappiness,” is lost through sin, but not “natural liberty which is freedom from coercion” (a. 2, ad. 3). When we sin, we are no longer free from fault because we have chosen a fault; we are no longer free from unhappiness because happiness is the good—in this case, choosing the good—and we have chosen evil. “Free will is an appetitive power,” not a cognitive power because it is desire which is appetitive (a. 3). Choosing, which is the act of free will, has two parts, judging (cognitive) and acceptance of the choice by the appetite (appetitive). Aristotle does not place free will under either power, but leaves it hanging. But since “the proper object of choice is the means to the end” (a. 3, co), which is the useful or the good, and the end of the appetitive power is the good, therefore free will is an appetitive power. The answer to the question of article 4, “Whether Free Will Is a Power Distinct from the Will? is both yes and no. “Free will is nothing else than the will” (a. 4). The will considers the end, the free will the means. Since the means is desired because of the end, both the end and the means are related. Therefore, although the will and the free will can be separated, they both belong to the same power, and are therefore, one power.
In question 13 of the prima secundae, Aquinas discusses choice. Choice is an act of the will, because it is “the desire of things in our power” and “desire is an act of the will” (a. 1). Aristotle says that “choice is either ‘intellect influenced by appetite or appetite influenced by intellect,’” similar to the embodied soul or ensouled body of human beings. And since there are two things coming together to make one, one is the form. Since inferior powers are moved by superior powers, and reason is superior to will, therefore, reason is the form and will the material. And since substance is comparable to matter, choice is substantially an act of the will.
III. Servais Pinckaers on Freedom
In Sources of Christian Ethics, Servais Pinckaers emphasizes the importance that Aquinas places on human freedom and free will.
One of the first foundations of moral theory is the concept of freedom, together with some idea of human nature and human powers. St. Thomas's moral theory elaborated in the Summa is based on his study of the human person (I, qq. 75–6), who possesses cognitive (q. 79) and appetitive powers (qq. 80–3). These powers focus on the exercise of free will. It is in our free will that St. Thomas perceives the true image of God within us, for it is in our mastery over our actions that we show forth his image (prologue, I-II). We may even say that our idea of God and of our relationship with him depends largely on our concept of freedom. This is not to say that we necessarily conceive God in our own image, but our ideas about God and our relationship with him are inevitably influenced by our concept of human freedom.Footnote 76
While freedom is the thing that human beings are most aware of, they are at the same time least able to define and articulate it. It “is at the heart of our existence … at the core of our experience and is the source of our willing and acting,” yet it is also beyond our understanding (p. 328). There are two ways we can overcome our lack of understanding: 1) by examining “our actions and feelings, which are the direct results of our freedom” (p. 328); and 2) by examining moral theory from the view point of freedom. Pinckaers divides moral theory into the morality of obligation of the modern period (starting with William of Ockham with roots in St. Bonaventure) and morality of happiness and virtue of the scholastic era (centering on Aquinas). Each of these has a different view of freedom. The morality of obligation views freedom as “freedom of indifference” and the morality of happiness as “freedom for excellence” (p. 329). The basis of this difference is, respectively, whether reason and will are skills or abilities of free will or whether free will is a skill or ability of reason and will (pp. 330–1). Does free will move or is it moved?
A. Freedom of Indifference
“The freedom of indifference implies the power to choose between good and evil as a first form of choice. The choice between good and evil appears to be the essence of this freedom” (p. 374), that is, freedom is “an indifference to opposites” of the will (p. 332). Freedom is the will which is “the power of self-determination” which is “the very being of the person, at the source of all action” (p. 332). It is not the “I will to do this” of a choice of the free will by a free person attracted to the good, but the “I will that this be done” of a command of the will, a tyranny of the self-made individual who is indifferent to both good and evil. Pinckaers lists six ways in which the freedom of indifference broke from the previous moral theory. First, natural inclinations, rather than inclining toward the good and inclining the will toward the good, are subordinate to the will and can be chosen or rejected (p. 333). One can love one's life and preserve it according to natural inclination or choose the opposite and hate one's life. Contrary to Aquinas, the will is not naturally inclined to happiness and the good but is indifferent and can choose the opposite. Since the inclination to the good is removed, the freedom of indifference has no teleology, no final end toward which it tends. Second, the passions, instead of being utilizable for the good, became a threat to freedom and a limitation to choice that must be fought against and overcome (p. 335). One can see that, carried to its end, this leads to a break between the body and the mind or will. For example, all pleasure is bad, whether it be conjugal pleasure in marriage or the pleasure of a good meal. Since the human being is a bodily soul, the mind tries to shut out all passions from the body but cannot because the body and mind are so intertwined. The mind gives in to the body, then takes control again with feelings of extreme guilt, and this continues in a cyclic pattern. Instead of working with the body to achieve control through developing virtues, it works against the body by trying to suppress every passion.Footnote 77 Third, virtues and habitus, rather than bringing natural inclinations to perfection, were rejected as restraints on freedom (pp. 335–6). Fourth, actions were separated from the final end and viewed individually (pp. 336–7). In order for the will to be indifferent, it needed to separate actions from the past and the future and view each action as isolated. Nothing could interfere with the will's freedom to choose. Therefore, there could be no final end toward which all our choices and actions are aiming. Or if there was a final end, it was telescoped down to the final end of a single particular act. With no final end, there was no continuity between acts. Fifth, loyalty was thrown out, because that implied a dependence on or a bond to someone or something outside the self, a bond that would influence the will and destroy indifference (p. 340). Sixth, will broke with reason (pp. 340–1). If freedom was to be indifferent, it could not have a “reason” for its choices. Anything that threatened indifference and influenced the will to lean one way or another was rejected. This gave rise to reason becoming its own universe, forever battling it out with will, rationalism battling voluntarism. The end result is that morality became the province of the will and consisted in a show of power over desires (p. 341). Law came from the will, and foremost, from God's will (p. 342). Moral law was imposed from without, and the will, with its freedom of indifference, could choose to obey or not (p. 343). Disconnectedness and tension followed between freedom and law, reason, nature, grace, sensibility, God; between the person and the world, my freedom and yours, the individual and society (pp. 350–1).
B. Freedom for Excellence
In freedom of indifference the “rules,” whether they be commandments or laws or whatever, are irrelevant. What matters is that one can choose to obey them or not. In freedom for excellence, the rules are important. They provide the grounding for freedom. When the rules have been learned, understood, and internalized, and talent developed through practice and experience (habitus), then one has the freedom to improvise and compose and show one's individual brilliance (pp. 354–5). Freedom lies in not making mistakes, in making the right choices, rather than in being able to make any choice one wishes (p. 356). This is freedom for excellence. Our natural inclinations are our talent, and our natural moral sense provides the basic rules (p. 357).
The natural root of freedom develops in us principally through a sense of the true and the good, of uprightness and love, and through a desire for knowledge and happiness…. Far from lessening our freedom, such dispositions are its foundation. We are free, not in spite of them but because of them. The more we develop them, the more we grow in freedom.”
(pp. 357, 358)We are attracted to the good and the true, resulting in a “morality of attraction” (p. 359), which is very different from freedom of indifference's morality of obligation and its repulsion of all that could restrain indifference.
There are three stages in our progress in freedom for excellence: discipline, progress and virtue, maturity and freedom. Learning and practicing “the principal rules of moral life” require teachers and discipline (pp. 359–60). This is not the tyranny of an authority imposing rules upon an unwilling subject, but the collaboration of teacher and disciple through the “communication of knowledge and the formation of mind and will” (p. 360). It is a process of removing excesses, protecting against errors, and developing skills. The rules seem to be imposed from without, but as we develop our inner moral sense, we begin to feel it in our bones. “If we have ears to hear, this law resonates within us, revealing a hidden, vigorous harmony with our intimate sense of truth and goodness at the root of our freedom” (pp. 361–2). This stage is associated with the Ten Commandments (p. 362).
In freedom for excellence on the other hand, the ability to commit faults in our moral life as well as in the arts is a lack of freedom, lessened if not eliminated by progress. The ability to sin is accidental to freedom, even though it is a part of the human condition in this world.
(p. 376)The second stage, progress and virtue (pp. 363–6), is characterized by increasing in experience (practice in acting morally) and developing the virtues (progress). Habitus, “a power for progress and perfection,” is developed (p. 364). This stage is associated with charity and the Sermon on the Mount.
The third stage, maturity and freedom (pp. 366–371), is characterized by mastery and creativity, the perfection of charity and the contemplative life. It is associated with “the New Law, whose chief element is the grace of the Holy Spirit working within us through faith and charity, and also to the teaching about the action of the Holy Spirit through his gifts” (p. 369). These stages have no sharp separations, and the final stage is not an end and has no end (except in heaven).
Freedom of indifference is exclusive of anything and everything that could affect free will and make it no longer indifferent. Freedom for excellence is inclusive of the whole human being and all that affects the human being including God (Scriptures and the final end) and the world (teachers and society).Footnote 78
C. Aquinas's Freedom
Ancient philosophy saw the ends of the human rational nature (pleasure, goods, needs, virtue, etc.) as the basis for moral theory (p. 334). The highest of all these ends, or “the first desire of human nature,” was happiness and the happy life. The Fathers of the Church added Scripture to this: the ordering and subjection of nature to God and the happy life ordered by the Beatitudes and open to God.
According to St. Thomas, freedom was rooted in the soul's spontaneous inclinations to the true and the good. His entire moral doctrine was based on the natural human disposition toward beatitude and the perfection of good, as to an ultimate end. A person can never renounce this natural order of things, nor be prevented from desiring it.
(pp. 332–3)For Aquinas, the passions are utilizable for the good (p. 335), virtues and habitus bring natural inclinations to perfection (pp. 335–6), all actions are connected and interconnected through the virtues to the final end, happiness (p. 337), choices are made through a unity of freedom and the will (p. 340), the will is free to choose for good or against it, but to choose against it is weakness and slavery (p. 341), law is an implementation of order, “the work of the wisdom of the lawgiver” and the will (p. 342).
Pinckaers states that “it was in man's freedom, in his control over his own actions, that he imaged God” (p. 380). Freedom and control of actions are only two-thirds of Aquinas's definition of the human being as the image of God. As Aquinas says, “Man is said to be made to God's image, in so far as the image implies an intelligent being endowed with free will and self-movement.”Footnote 79 Pinckaers misses the intelligent (intellectuale) part of the definition of the image of God. This is extremely important in any discussion of freedom and free will. Without intellect, a being is not free nor has free will, as was stated above when discussing judgment in inanimate objects, irrational animals, and human beings.
Freedom “had two aspects, one in relation to God whose work it was, and the other in relation to man with his own works” (p. 380), because of this Aquinas put the discussion of freedom towards the end of the discussion of God's acts (prima pars) and before the discussion of the acts of human beings (secunda pars). Rather than giving free will command over all other powers (Ockham, et al.), Aquinas put intellect and will over free will (p. 381). “Free will was not a faculty distinct from reason and will. It was the prolongation of each. It united and clarified them in order to produce a concrete action” (p. 381). As was stated above in the discussion of question 83, article 3, free will is both judgment and choice (cognitive and desiring). Because the end of the intellect is truth and the end of the will is the good, free will is the product of these two inclinations.
Aristotle may have been in doubt whether free will was an appetitive or a cognitive power, but Aquinas searched deeper. Choice falls more under the will because it is a “well-considered desire” (from I-II, q. 13, a. 1), that is, after deliberation, an end (a good) is willed (p. 382). Despite this, both aspects of free will—judgment and desire (reason and will)—must be analyzed together (p. 383).Footnote 80 Will is related to free will as intellect is related to reason (p. 384). Just as reason works on what intellect gives it, so free will determines the means to the end that will gives it (see I, q. 83, a. 4). In addition, free will teams up with reason to determine an action to take.
Pinckaers says that “do good, avoid evil” is a definition of synderesis.Footnote 81 Yet Aquinas says, in I, question 79, article 12, that “synderesis … inclines to good only” because it is a habit and does not consider opposites. But a power does consider opposites. “Do good, avoid evil” sounds more like Aquinas's definition of the concupiscible power (I, q. 82, a. 2). The confusing thing is that Aquinas also says that synderesis “murmur[s] at evil” (I, q. 79, a. 12). This seems to imply that synderesis does consider opposites. This may just be a confusion between the modern “habit” and Aquinas's habitus. A habit is something that we do without thinking about it, therefore a habit does not “murmur.” In fact, the thing that murmurs seems to be something superior to a habit. When we do something out of habit that goes wrong, we get a “hey, wait a minute” moment, in which we realize afterwards that something did not go right. For example, out of habit, we use the house key to unlock the front door but when we go to open the door we find that it is locked. We realize that “hey, wait a minute” the door was probably unlocked in the first place. Or we habitually drive home, pull in the driveway, and realize “hey, wait a minute” we were supposed to stop at the grocery store. When nothing goes wrong with the habitual action, we do not even notice it or think about it. Habitus works in a different way. Pinckaers defines it as “a principle of progress and resourcefulness through full commitment” (p. 225). Since it is a principle, code, or rule, it is an active process rather than a passive one. We are confronted with an action, and if it fits the principle, things run smoothly. In addition, the action reinforces the principle, as in the development of character or virtues. If the action does not fit, then we hear murmuring and avoid it. Habitus grows stronger with experience and reinforcement, making the murmuring louder and our ability to follow the inclination of the habitus easier (p. 336). It seems to me then that since synderesis is about first principles and inclines to the good, therefore, it is the starting point of a habitus inclined to the good. And, to get back to the beginning of this discussion, as Aquinas says, synderesis does not consider opposites, instead, it considers principles. Some of those principles are “it is good to be alive, to eat, to know the truth, to love” (p. 384).
In Aquinas, it is not human beings’ being free that is indifferent but free will that is indifferent.Footnote 82 Even if free will is influenced by an inclination, it is still free (or indifferent) and can choose against the inclination. This is what allows evil or sinful human beings to become good, they can choose against their inclinations to evil and sin. This, to me, is the joy (and power) of having free will, even with external influences and internal influences, pressures, urgings, and hints, nature and nurture, it still my personal decision, my free will. This is also what makes temporary insanity pleasFootnote 83 and pleas that “he couldn't help himself, it's in his genes” so reprehensible. We have free will, which means we are personally responsible for our decisions.
Free will is indifferent. While not being free from influences, it can still choose against those influences. Freedom, on the other hand, is not indifferent. Freedom is the disposition or inclination of a thing to be what it is by its nature. A rock is free to be a rock. An animal is free to be an animal. Neither has a choice to be anything else. Human beings are free to be human beings and are naturally inclined, as human beings, to truth and the good, and ultimately to the last end, happiness. Because human beings are rational, they can choose against their inclinations, but this results in slavery, rather than in freedom. This results in being less than human. Choosing against good and truth means choosing for sin, deception, and unhappiness, and all things which bind us and inhibit our freedom. The good and the true, which human beings know by intuition if nothing else, are what make us truly free. The more we exercise our rational nature, the more we know and learn about the true and the good, the more we will become fully human, fully the image of God. This is the heart of freedom for Aquinas, and this is the Servais Pinckaers's freedom for excellence.
