ARTICLE X

In the Tenth Article We Ask: CAN THE FREE CHOICE OF ANY CREATURE BE OBSTINATE OR UNALTERABLY HARDENED IN EVIL?

Difficulties:

It seems that it cannot, for

1. Sin is "contrary to nature," as Augustine says. But according to the Philosopher nothing contrary to nature is permanent. Hence sin cannot remain permanently in free choice.

2. A spiritual nature is stronger than a corporeal one. But if there is introduced into a corporeal nature an accident which is beyond its nature, it returns to what is in keeping with its nature unless the accident introduced is preserved by some cause acting continually. If water is heated, for example, it returns to its natural coolness unless there is something constantly keeping it hot. Then a spiritual nature having free will, if it should happen to fall into sin, will likewise not remain permanently subject to sin, but will eventually return to the state of justice unless some cause is assigned to preserve the evil in it constantly. But it seems that no such cause is to be assigned.

3. It was said in answer that the cause introducing and preserving sin is internal and external. The internal cause is the will itself. The external is the object of the will, which attracts it to sin.--On the contrary, the thing which is outside the soul is good. Now a good cannot be the cause of evil except accidentally. The thing existing outside the soul is therefore only accidentally the cause of sin. But every accidental cause is reduced to an essential cause. Something must therefore be assigned which is the cause of sin essentially. But that cannot be anything but the will. Now when the will inclines to anything, it retains the ability still to tend to the opposite, since the object of its inclination does not take away from it its nature, by which it can be directed to opposites. Then neither the will nor anything else can be the cause making free choice invariably and more or less necessarily adhere to sin.

4. According to the Philosopher there are two kinds of necessary being: one has its necessity of itself; the other has it from something else. That sin should be in free choice cannot be necessary with a necessity of itself, because to be necessary in this way is proper to God alone, as even Avicenna says. Nor again is it necessary with a necessity from something else, because everything necessary in this way is reduced to what is necessary of itself. God, however, cannot be the cause of sin. It can therefore in no way be necessary for free choice to remain in sin; and so the free choice of no creature adheres immovably to sin.

5. Augustine seems to distinguish two kinds of necessity: one, called the necessity of constraint, takes away freedom, removing something from our power; the other, which is the necessity of natural inclination, does not take away freedom. Now it is not necessary that sin be in free choice by the latter necessity, since sin is not natural but rather against nature; nor again by the former, because then the freedom of choice would be removed. It is therefore in no way necessary; and so the same must be concluded as before.

6. Anselm says that free choice is "the power of preserving the rectitude of the will for its own sake." Then if there is any free choice which cannot have rectitude of will, it will lose the character of its own nature. But that is impossible.

7. Free choice is not susceptible of degrees. But a free choice which is incapable of good is less than one which is capable of it. Consequently there is no free choice which is incapable of good.

8. Voluntary motion is related to voluntary rest as natural motion to natural rest. But according to the Philosopher, if the motion is natural, then the rest in which it terminates is also natural. So too, if the motion is voluntary. Then the rest by which one persists in a sin committed is also voluntary, and therefore not necessary.

9. The will stands to good and evil in the same relation as the intellect to the true and the false. But the intellect never so clings to the false that it cannot be brought back to the knowledge of what is true. Then the will never so clings to evil that it cannot be brought back to a love of good.

10. According to Anselm "the ability to sin is not freedom nor a part of freedom." The essential act of free choice is therefore the ability to do good. Consequently, if the free choice of any creature were unable to do good, it would be useless, since nothing is of any avail if it is deprived of its proper act; for "each thing exists for the sake of its operation," as the Philosopher says.

11. Free choice is incapable of anything but good or evil. Consequently, if the ability to sin is not freedom nor a part of freedom, it remains that the whole of freedom consists in the ability to do good; and so a creature which could not do good would not have any freedom. Free choice can accordingly not be so confirmed in evil that it cannot do any good at all.

12. According to Hugh of St. Victor a change in accidentals does not change any of the essentials of a thing. But the ability to do good is essential to free choice, as has been proved. Since sin comes to free choice accidentally, this power cannot be so changed as to be rendered incapable of good.

13. Natural endowments are wounded by sin, as is commonly said; but they are not entirely taken away. But the capability of good is natural to free choice. Hence this power is never so hardened in evil by sin that it is impotent regarding good.

14. If sin causes in free choice obstinacy in evil, it does this either by subtracting something from natural endowments or by adding something to them. Now it does not do it by subtracting, because even in the demons natural gifts remain intact, as Dionysius says. Neither is it done by adding, because what is added, being an accident, must be in the recipient in the manner of the recipient. Thus, since free choice can be directed to either of two alternatives, it is not thereby made to cling immovably to evil. Free choice can therefore in no way be entirely confirmed in evil.

15. Bernard says: "It is impossible for the will not to obey itself." But sin and a good act are committed by willing. It is therefore impossible that free choice should not be able to will good if it wished. But whatever a person can do if he wishes is not impossible. It is therefore not impossible for anyone having the free choice of will to do good.

16. Charity is stronger than the cupidity which attracts us to sin, because "charity loves the law of God more than cupidity loves thousands in gold and silver," as the Gloss says in comment upon the words of the Psalm (118:72): "The law of thy mouth is good to me, above thousands of silver and gold." But the demons and even men have fallen from charity into sin. So much the more, then, can they return from sin to an attachment to good. Thus the conclusion is the same as before.

17. The goodness and rectitude of the will are opposed to its obstinacy. But the demons and the damned have a good and correct will, because they desire what is good and the best: "to be, to live, and to understand," as Dionysius says. They therefore do not have a free choice obstinate in evil.

18. Anselm traces out the common nature of free choice in God, in the angels, and in men. But God's free choice cannot become obstinate in evil. Then neither can it in angels and in men.

To the Contrary:

1'. The misery of the damned is opposed to the happiness of the blessed. But it is a property of the happiness of the blessed that they have a free choice so strengthened in good that they can by no means turn aside to evil. It is therefore also a property of the misery of the damned that they are so confirmed in evil that they are by no means capable of good.

2'. Augustine expressly says the same thing.

3'. There is no means of return from sin to good other than by repentance. But repentance does not take place in a bad angel. He is therefore unalterably confirmed in evil.--Proof of the minor: Repentance does not seem to take place in one who sins from malice. But an angel has sinned from malice, because, having an intellect like God's, when he considers anything he at the same time beholds everything which pertains to that thing; and so he cannot sin except with certain knowledge. Repentance therefore does not take place in him.

4'. In the words of Damascene, "the fall is the same for the angels as death for men." But after death men are incapable of repentance. Then so too are the angels after the fall.--Proof of the minor: Augustine says that, because there will be no room for conversion after this life for those who depart without grace, no prayers are to be offered for them. Thus it is evident that after death men are not capable of repentance.

REPLY:

On this question we find that Origen has erred. He held that after a long course of time the way would lie open for both demons and damned men to return to justice; and he was led to affirm this because of the freedom of choice. Now this opinion has been disliked by all Catholics, as Augustine says, not because they begrudged the demons and damned men their salvation, because it would seem necessary to say with equal reason that the justice and glory of the blessed angels and men is at some time to come to an end. For a verse in Matthew (25:46) makes clear at the same time that the glory of the blessed and the misery of the damned will be everlasting: "And these shall go into everlasting punishment: but the just, into life everlasting." And Origen seems to have been of this opinion also. It must therefore be simply granted that the free choice of the demons is so hardened in evil that it cannot return to right willing.

The basis for this conclusion is to be sought in the cause of deliverance from sin. Now two things concur in this deliverance: divine grace working as the principal agent, and the human will cooperating with grace; for according to Augustine "He who created you without you, will not justify you without you." The cause of obduracy in evil is therefore to be found partly in God and partly in free choice. It is to be found in God, not as causing or preserving evil, but as not bestowing grace. And indeed His justice demands this, for it is just that those who have not been willing to will rightly when they could, should be brought to such a pass of misery that they are altogether unable to will rightly. On the part of free choice, however, the cause of the possibility or impossibility of turning away from sin is to be found in the things by means of which man falls into sin. Now, since there is naturally in any creature the desire for good, no one is led to commit a sin except by some appearance of good. Though a fornicator, for instance, knows in general that fornication is evil, nevertheless when he consents to fornication he judges that fornication is good for him to commit at the time.

In this judgment three influences are to be taken into account. The first is the surge of passion, such as concupiscence or anger, by which the judgment of reason is hindered from actually judging in particular what it habitually holds in general, but is moved rather to follow the inclination of passion so that it consents to that to which passion is tending as good in itself. The second is the inclination of habit, which is a sort of nature for the one having it. The Philosopher says, for instance, that custom is a second nature; and Tully says that virtue accords with reason after the manner of a nature, and in the same way a habit of vice inclines one as a sort of nature to what agrees with it. The result is that to the one who has the habit of lust whatever fits in with lust as being of the same nature seems good. This is the Philosopher's meaning when he says that "each person judges of the end in accordance with his own character." The third is a false judgment of reason in regard to a particular object of choice. It comes either from one of the two influences mentioned above, the surge of passion or the penchant of habit, or else from a universal ignorance, as when one is of the erroneous opinion that fornication is not a sin.

Against the first of these influences free choice has a remedy whereby it can abandon sin. He in whom the surge of passion occurs has a right judgment of the end, and the end is equivalently a principle in matters of operation, as the Philosopher says. By means of the true judgment which he has of the principle, a man can do away with any errors that he may have fallen into regarding his conclusions. In the same way by being rightly disposed regarding the end, he can do away with every surge of passion. The Philosopher accordingly says that an incontinent man who sins because of passion is capable of repentance and remedy.

Against the penchant of habit there is likewise a remedy. No habit corrupts all the powers of the soul. Consequently, when one power is corrupted by a habit, a man is led by any rectitude that remains in the other powers to ponder and to take action against that habit. If, for example, someone has his concupiscible power corrupted by the habit of lust, he is urged by the irascible power to attempt something hard, and its exercise will take away the softness of lust. Thus the Philosopher says: "A wicked person who is brought to better practices will advance and become better."

Against the third influence too there is a remedy. What a man assents to he assents to in a rational manner, by way of inquiry and comparison. Consequently, when reason errs in one respect, from whatever source the error may have come, it can be removed by contrary reasonings. This is why a man can abandon sin.

In an angel, however, sin cannot be from passion, because, as the Philosopher says, passion is only in the sensitive part of the soul, which an angel does not have. In the sin of an angel, therefore, only two influences concur: a habitual inclination to the sin and a false judgment of the cognitive power about a particular object of choice. Now, since angels do not have a multiplicity of appetitive powers as men have, when their appetite tends to something, it inclines to it altogether, so that it does not have any inclination drawing it to the contrary. And because they do not have reason but intelligence, whatever they judge, they accept in the manner of understanding. But whatever is accepted in the manner of understanding is accepted irreversibly, as when one accepts the proposition that every whole is greater than its part. As a consequence angels cannot put aside a judgment which they have once accepted, whether it be true or false.

It is therefore clear from what has been said that the cause of the confirmation of the demons in evil depends upon three factors, to which all of the reasons assigned by the doctors can be reduced. The first and principal one is the divine justice. There has accordingly been assigned as the cause of the obstinacy of the demons that, because they have not fallen through the instrumentality of anyone else, they should not rise through the instrumentality of anyone else--and any other such reason based upon congruity with divine justice. The second factor is the indivisibility of the appetitive power. In this connection some say that, because an angel is simple, it turns entirely to whatever it turns to. This must not be understood of the simplicity of its essence, but of a simplicity excluding the distinction of different powers of the same genus. The third is intellectual knowledge. This is the cause assigned by some who say that the angels have sinned irremediably because they have sinned against an intellect like God's.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. Something is said to be natural in two ways: (1) A sufficient principle exists from which it follows necessarily unless something interferes. In this sense it is natural for the element earth to move downward. And this is the Philosopher's meaning when he says that nothing which is against nature is permanent. (2) Something is called natural for a thing because it has a natural inclination to it, although it does not have within itself a sufficient principle from which it necessarily follows. In this sense it is said to be natural for a woman to conceive a son though she cannot do so without receiving the male seed. Now nothing prevents what is contrary to nature in this sense from being permanent, as that a particular woman should remain permanently without issue. But it is in this second sense that it is natural for free choice to tend to good, and also to sin against nature. The argument therefore proves nothing.

Or the answer may be given that, although sin is against nature for a rational mind as it was established, yet inasmuch as it has already adhered to sin, sin has become in some sense natural for it, as Augustine says. The Philosopher also says that, when a man passes from virtue to vice, he becomes in a way another man because he takes on, as it were, another nature.

2. The situation is different for a corporeal nature and for a spiritual nature. A corporeal nature is determinately of a single genus. Consequently nothing else can be made natural to it without entirely corrupting its nature. Thus heat cannot be made natural to water unless the species of water is destroyed. And because its heat is not natural, when the obstacle is removed, the water returns to its own nature. But a spiritual nature is created undetermined and capable of becoming all things in its secondary act of being. Thus it is said in The Soul, "The soul is in some sense all things." By adhering to something it is made one with it, as the intellect in some sense becomes the intelligible object by understanding it, and the will becomes the object of appetite by loving it. And so, although the inclination of the will is naturally directed to one determined object, the contrary can be made natural to it by love to such an extent that it does not return to its original disposition unless some cause brings this about. In this way sin is made as it were natural to the one who clings to sin. Hence nothing prevents free choice from remaining permanently in sin.

3. The essential cause of sin is the will, and by it sin is preserved. Although in the beginning the will was equally determinable to sin or to good, after it submitted to sin, sin became in a sense natural to it. As a consequence, as far as depends upon itself it remains unalterably in it.

4. The necessity of remaining in sin is reduced to God as its cause in two senses: (1) from the point of view of His justice, as has been said,* inasmuch as He does not confer healing grace; (2) inasmuch as He established such a nature, which was also capable of sinning and had from the condition of its own nature the necessity of remaining in sin after having submitted to it.

5. Since sin has been made in some sense natural to the rational mind, the necessity in question will not be one of force but one of a quasi-natural inclination.

6. The power of preserving the rectitude of one's will when one has it is in everyone having free choice, as Anselm says. But the demons and other damned cannot preserve it since they do not have it.

7. Free choice is not susceptible of degrees in so far as it is said to be free from force. But when freedom from sin and from misery is taken into account, it is said to be freer in one state than in another.

8. An effect of nature is always natural. For this reason the motion and action of nature always terminate in a natural rest. But the action and motion of the will can terminate in a natural effect and natural rest inasmuch as the will and art help nature. A motion can accordingly be voluntary while at the same time the effect or the rest consequent upon it is natural and has a natural necessity. Thus from a voluntary blow death follows as natural and necessary.

9. If the intellect of an angel accepts some false judgment, it is unable to set it aside for the reason given above.* The argument is therefore based upon a false supposition.

10. Even though something is deprived of its proximate end, it is not as a consequence altogether useless, because it still retains its ordination to its ultimate end. Accordingly, even though free choice is deprived of the good operation to which it is naturally destined, it is still not without purpose, because this very fact turns to the glory of God, who is its ultimate end, inasmuch as His justice is thereby manifested.

11. A sin is not committed through free choice except by the choosing of an apparent good. In any sinful action there accordingly remains some good, and in this respect freedom is preserved. If the aspect of good were taken away, the act of free choice, choosing, would cease.

12. The ability to do good is not essential to free choice as belonging to its primary existence, but rather as belonging to its secondary existence. But Hugh is speaking of essentials with reference to primary existence.

13. That argument is speaking of the natural in the sense of that which belongs to the constitution of a nature, not in the sense of that to which the nature is ordained. But it is in the latter sense that it is natural to be able to do good.

14. The sin which comes to free choice does not take away any of its essentials, because in that case the species of free choice would not remain. But something is added by sin--the coupling of free choice with a perverse end; and this becomes in a sense natural to it. It thereby has necessity, like the other things which are natural to free choice.

15. In some sense the will always obeys itself, so that, however a man wills what he wills, he wills that he will it. But in another sense it does not always obey itself, inasmuch as a person does not perfectly and efficaciously will what he wishes that he perfectly and efficaciously willed, as Augustine explains. Nor does it follow that, if the will of the demons obeys itself, it is for that reason not confirmed in evil, because it cannot possibly will that it efficaciously will good. Hence, even if the conditional proposition were true, it would not follow that the apodosis is possible, since the protasis is impossible.

16. In itself charity is more powerful than sin if the two are compared as had under the same conditions; that is, if for both of them we take the free choice either of one who has reached his final state or of one who is still on the way. One in the final state of wickedness, however, is more firmly established in evil than one going along in the way of charity is established in charity. Now the demons either never had charity, as some hold; or, if they ever had it, they never had it except as being on the way. Damned men, however, could not similarly have fallen except from the grace proper to wayfarers.

17. That argument proceeds on the supposition of the goodness and rectitude of the nature itself, not the goodness and rectitude of free choice. The appetite by which demons desire good and the best is an inclination of their very nature, not one by the election of free choice. Such a rectitude is consequently not opposed to the obstinacy of free choice.

18. Anselm is searching for that element in the nature of free choice which is common to God, to angels, and to men on the basis of a very broad analogy. It is therefore not necessary that likeness be found from the standpoint of all the special conditions.