Chapter Two of the Second Decade
Sole Question
Whether free choice is found in God, in angels, in the blessed, in demons, in the damned, and in wayfarers
It is asked whether free choice is in angels and the blessed, in demons and the damned, as also in wayfarers and in God himself.
And it seems, first, that it is not in angels and the blessed, because it pertains to freedom of choice that someone can choose good and evil. But election does not pertain to them, since election is a pre-counseled appetite, according to Book IV of the Ethics. Counsel, moreover, is a certain inquiry and discursive process, according to Book IV of the Ethics; and this does not befit angels, since they are intellectual beings, nor the blessed, who see all things in the Word. Therefore, [election does not pertain to them].
Likewise, election concerns those things which conduce to the attainment of the end. But the angels and the blessed have now attained the end, namely God. Therefore, election is lacking in them and, consequently, freedom of choice.
That it is likewise not in demons and the damned is proved. For the obstinate have a will fixed only in evil and not free toward either alternative. But demons and the damned are obstinate, according to that saying of the Psalm: “The pride of those who hate you rises continually,” which is expounded of demons. Therefore, [free choice is not in them].
Likewise, it belongs to the nature of free choice to be able to be bent and borne toward opposed and diverse things. But neither God, nor the blessed, nor the damned can be borne toward diverse things. Therefore, and so forth.
Likewise, [free choice is] not in human wayfarers, because it belongs to the nature of freedom to be able to do what one wills. But a human being cannot do what he wills, according to that saying in Romans, chapter 7: “For the good which I will, this I do not; but the evil which I hate, that I do.” Therefore, [free choice is not in human wayfarers].
That it is also not in God is proved, because free choice can be bent toward either part, namely toward good and evil, as the Master of the Sentences says in Book II, distinction 25, saying:
“Free choice is a faculty of reason and will by which, through voluntary and spontaneous appetite, someone can be borne toward those things which he judges, or is capable of judging, to be good or evil.”
But God cannot be bent toward evil. In On Penance, distinction 3, chapter Inter haec, first, where it is said: “Not to sin belongs to God alone; to amend belongs to the wise.”
To the contrary: God lacks no perfection simply. But free choice is a certain perfection simply. For the poet says:
Freedom is not rightly sold for all the gold; This heavenly good surpasses the riches of the world.
Therefore, [free choice is in God].
Likewise, an angel, according to Damascene in Book II, is “an intellectual substance, always movable, free in choice.” Therefore, [free choice is in an angel].
Likewise, the blessed do not lose the dignity of nature, because grace perfects nature. But freedom pertains to the dignity of human nature.
Likewise, demons have not lost their nature, nor have the damned. But freedom of choice also pertains to intellectual nature. Therefore, [it is in them].
Likewise, human beings have free choice through that saying of Ecclesiasticus, chapter 15: “God from the beginning established man and left him in the hand of his own counsel.” The Gloss says: “That is, in free choice.” Therefore, free choice is in all the aforesaid.
I respond that it must be said that many have fallen into various opinions and heresies through ignorance of how freedom of choice stands in relation to good and evil.
For Origen, as Augustine relates in Book XXI of The City of God, maintained that, on account of the freedom of choice which it possesses, the will of every creature can be bent toward good and evil, with the exception of the soul of Christ on account of its union with the Word.
And from this he said that the saints can fall and pay penalties after the limits of a certain time and after long courses of time; that justice will be opened both to demons and to damned human beings, and they will be saved. Indeed, as the Master relates in the Scholastic History, the same Origen said in the book Peri Archon that Christ must yet suffer in the air for demons, just as he suffered on earth for human beings.
But this opinion, says Thomas in the First Part, question 64, article 2, takes away from the holy angels and human beings the truth of beatitude, which posits everlasting stability, whence it is also named eternal life.
It also conflicts with the authority of Sacred Scripture, which pronounces that demons and evil human beings are to be sent into eternal punishment, but that good spirits are to be transferred [to eternal life].
Concerning Christ it is also said: “Christ, rising from the dead, now dies no more; death shall have no dominion over him,” and so forth.
Whence Augustine says in the place cited above:
“But not undeservedly did the Church condemn Origen, because, although he seemed merciful in this—that he believed the devil and his angels and damned human beings, after the limits of a certain time, were to be rescued from those torments and associated with the holy angels—he also admitted, by doing so, that the saints would have true miseries, in which they paid penalties, and false beatitudes, in which they would not possess the true and secure—that is, certain without fear—and everlasting joy of the good.”
These are his words.
And when he said that, by reason of freedom of choice, the will of every creature could be bent toward good and toward evil, it is answered that this had truth in the good angels before the confirmation of their will in good; in the evil angels before the obstination of their will in evil; and in human beings before death, because death does for human beings what the fall did for angels, as Damascene says. See Thomas in the place cited above, and in the First of the Second Part, question 79, article 3, and in the Third Part, question 76, article 1.
Concerning the soul of Christ, however, what Origen says is true, because that soul, insofar as it was a wayfarer, was filled with such great grace that it could not sin; nor could it sin insofar as it was a comprehensor, because in this respect it was joined to the end and, consequently, could act only according to an order toward the end.
Whence Christ could in no way sin: neither insofar as he was God, nor insofar as he was a wayfarer, nor insofar as he was a comprehensor.
Others, accepting the definition of free choice which the Master adduces in Book II of the Sentences, distinction 25, and rejecting the things it says—that “free choice,” and so forth, as I adduced above in the objection—say that free choice is not in God.
And since angels and the blessed are also confirmed in good and, consequently, cannot be borne toward evil; and likewise, since the evil damned are obstinate in evil and cannot be borne toward good, they concluded from this that freedom of choice is in none of these, but only in human wayfarers.
But let them hear Augustine in Book XXII of The City of God, speaking of God: “Certainly God himself—surely because he cannot sin, is it therefore to be denied that he has free choice?” As if he were to say: No.
Concerning angels and the others, see, in the place above, the arguments for the affirmative part that they possess freedom of choice.
There is a third manner of speaking, true and catholic: that free choice is in God and in all the others mentioned above, with the exception of brute animals.
The first part is proved. All things possessing intellect and will, in which there is some action for the sake of an end known and determined by themselves, possess free choice. But God and all the aforesaid possess some action for the sake of an end known and determined by themselves. Therefore, they all possess free choice.
The major premise is proved. For free choice, according to Augustine—and as it is set down by the Master in the text of Book II of the Sentences in the place cited above—is a faculty, that is, a power, of reason and will: of will as regards election, which is in free will; and of reason as regards counsel, which is in reason, for that which is not foreknown is not rightly chosen.
Therefore, the Philosopher says in Book III of the Ethics that election is a habit of something pre-counseled. Election, moreover, concerns those things which we desire for the sake of a known and determined end.
But God by natural necessity wills his own beatitude as the end which he cannot fail to will, and to which he has ordered the diverse orders of things, for “the Lord has made all things for himself.” Yet he is not borne toward one thing among his effects in such a way that, considered in himself, he could not be borne toward another. Therefore, free choice is in him.
Similarly, angels, human beings, the damned, the blessed, and wayfarers, considered in their pure natural powers, have an end naturally set before them, namely beatitude, which they naturally desire; nor can they will misery, as Augustine says in Book VIII of On the Trinity. To attain this beatitude they were able, and are able, to order diverse things by choosing those which conduce to the end. Therefore, free choice is similarly in them.
But brute animals, because they do not have an end determined for themselves by themselves, but by God and by nature, and consequently do not perfectly know the end or possess a free election of their acts for the sake of the end, therefore do not possess free choice.
Nevertheless, it must be noted that free choice is in the aforesaid in different ways.
For in God freedom exists generally and supremely, insofar as free choice is the power of freely choosing what one wills without any turnability or flexibility toward evil.
In the others, however, free choice exists specifically and as contracted to creatures; and thus in them free choice signifies the power of freely choosing the things willed, together with a turnability and flexibility, according to their natural condition, toward evil and good.
And for this reason it is said in the text that free choice is found in one way in God and in another way in others.
But if it should be said: According to you, all except God possess free choice contracted toward evil and good. Since, therefore, the good angels and the blessed cannot be bent toward evil, and the evil and the damned cannot be turned toward good, free choice is therefore not in them.
It is answered that this is not by reason of their nature, which remained integral in all the blessed and the damned according to Dionysius. Rather, in the blessed it is by reason of their perfect conjunction with the highest good, God; and in the damned it is on account of their guilt and malice, which incline them toward evil and render them obstinate because of the condition of that state, in which there is no redemption.
In wayfarers, however, free choice exists simply, because they can merit and demerit, since they are neither joined to God through consummated grace nor turned away from God through obstinate guilt.
To the first argument to the contrary, therefore, it is answered that the Philosopher speaks of election insofar as it belongs to a human being. See the First Part, question 59, article 3.
To the second it must be said that election is twofold. One election is ordered toward the end, and this ceases when the end is possessed; thus now someone chooses to will to believe the articles [of faith], but this ceases in the fatherland. Another election is conjoined to the end, and this does not cease when the end arrives, but remains with the end. See Thomas in Book II of the Sentences.
To the third, concerning demons and the damned, it is answered that this is not by reason of nature, but by reason of the state in which they have been turned away from God unchangeably.
But if you desire to know the cause of the unchangeable obstination of demons and the damned, and of the firmness of the blessed and the angels, see Thomas, First Part, question 64, article 3, in the body of the article, and Book IV of the Summa Against the Gentiles, chapters 92, 93, and 94.
To the fourth it is said that the diverse and opposed things toward which free choice can be bent can be considered in three ways.
In one way, according to the difference of the things which are chosen for the sake of the end; and this diversity belongs to free choice in itself. According to this, free choice belongs to God, angels, and human beings, as was said above.
There is another diversity according to the difference between good and evil, which does not belong to free choice except accidentally, insofar as free choice is found in a nature capable of defect.
For since the will of itself is ordered toward good as toward its proper object, its tending toward evil can happen only because evil is apprehended under the aspect of good. This pertains to a defect of the intellect or reason, from which, together with the will, free choice is caused.
But it does not pertain to the nature of any power that it fail in its act, just as it does not pertain to the nature of the visual power that someone see obscurely.
And therefore nothing prevents there being found a free choice which tends toward good in such a way that it can in no way tend toward evil: as in God by nature, and in good angels and human beings by the perfection of grace.
There is a third diversity, which is considered according to the difference of change into which free choice can enter. This does not consist in the fact that at different times it wills diverse things; for God himself also wills that diverse things come to be according as is fitting for diverse times and persons.
Rather, a change of free choice consists in this: that someone, concerning the same thing and for the same time, does not will what he previously willed. And this diversity likewise does not belong in itself to the nature of free choice, but occurs according to the condition of a mutable nature.
For it does not belong to the nature of the visual power that it see in diverse ways, but this happens from the diverse disposition of the one seeing, whose eye is sometimes clear and sometimes disturbed.
And similarly, the mutability or diversity of free choice does not belong to its nature, but occurs to it insofar as it is in a mutable nature, as in us.
Thomas states all these things in the disputed questions On Demons, question 5. If they are well considered, they empty out all the things that could be said for and against in this matter.
To the fifth, concerning human wayfarers, it is answered that this occurs by reason of the sensitive appetite, which, although it obeys reason, can nevertheless in some respect resist it by desiring against that which reason dictates.
This, therefore, is the good which a human being does not do when he wills it: namely, not to desire against reason, as Augustine says there. See Thomas, First Part, question 83, article 1.
To the sixth, concerning God, it is answered that it does not pertain to the nature of free choice that someone stand indeterminately toward evil and good.
The reason for this is that free choice is of itself ordered toward good, since good is the object of the will; nor does it tend toward evil except on account of some defect, by which evil is apprehended as good, since election, which is the proper act of the will, is only of a true good or of an apparent good.
And therefore, where free choice is most perfect, it cannot be borne toward evil.
And when it is said that free choice has a relation to opposites, it is answered that this can be understood in three ways.
First, because it can will good and evil; and in this way it does not belong to God, because it implies defectibility.
Second, in such a way that it first wills something and afterward does not will it; and this likewise does not befit God, because it implies mutability.
Third, because it can will this and can not will it; and this befits God.
These things are from Thomas in the questions On Truth, question 24.