Summa I q.83 a.1: Is Man of Free Judgment? Reason, Contingency, and God Moving the Will

Orientation #

He begins the treatment of free judgment (q. 83) and lays out its four articles, saying “we better get the first two articles this day”; the reply to the first objection opens “as it has been said above” (the sense appetite obeying and fighting reason), which he takes as settled from earlier. He defers the question of naming (liberum arbitrium vs. free choice) to “the next article”. The previous class finished q. 82 a. 5 on irascible and concupiscible in the will and previewed q. 83; the next takes up objection 5 and article 2.

The class, in order #

1. The four questions of q. 83 (“about this, four things are asked”) #

Point: he lays out the structure of the question on liberum arbitrium (“free judgment”, which he often renders “free will”).

1. Whether man is of free judgment.
2. What liberum arbitrium is: a power, an act, or a habit — the same question Thomas asks about conscientia (name of a power or of an act of reason).
3. If a power (which article 2 will conclude), whether appetitive or knowing — he flags that Thomas will say appetitive, “even though that way of naming it might seem kind of strange”, since judgment is obviously an act of reason.
4. If appetitive, whether the same power as the will or another.

• Aside on the Latin: liberi arbitrii is genitive — “a man of free judgment” like “a man of power / of wealth”, one possessed of it; the genitive “has a lot of different meanings”.

2. Objections 1-4, each from Scripture (“the sacred page is the soul of theology”) #

Point: the first four objections each rest on one or two texts of Scripture.

• Obj. 1: whoever is of free judgment does what he wills; but man does not (Romans 7:15, Paul himself: not the good I will do I do, but the evil I hate). He notes it is “a kind of interesting text” that Paul says this of himself.
• Obj. 2: to have free judgment is to have in one’s power to will or not will, do or not do; but Romans 9:16, “not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth”. He reads it as saying man doesn’t have his freedom in his own hands.
• Obj. 3: Aristotle’s definition in Metaphysics I — the free is what is causa sui (contrasting free man, who is for his own sake, with the slave, who is for the master’s); what is moved by another is not free; but God moves the will: Proverbs 21:1 (the heart of the king in the hand of God, he turns it where he wills) and Philippians 2:13 (God works in us to will and to accomplish). “You can see how someone could say, hey, that means we’re not free.”
• Obj. 4: whoever has free judgment is lord of his own acts; but Jeremiah 10:23 — the way of a man is not in his power, nor to direct his own steps.

3. Objection 5 and the sed contra (“in the hand of his own counsel”) #

• Obj. 5, from “the philosopher” (Aristotle, named by antonomasia), Ethics III: as each one is, so the end seems to him; but it is not in our power to be such — it is in us by nature; therefore we follow an end naturally, not freely. His gloss: I am disposed one way by nature, you another, so different things seem desirable to each; so I’m not free.
• Sed contra: Ecclesiasticus (Sirach): God made man from the beginning and left him in the hand of his own counsel; the gloss: in the freedom of his own judgment. He points to the clash of images: obj. 3 has the king’s heart in the hand of God, the sed contra has man in his own hand. Aristotle’s seventh of the eight senses of “in” is “I’ve got you in my power”; our “out of my hands” means not in my power.
• Student asks about the glossa (interlinear): excerpts of the Church Fathers attached to the Bible, of considerable authority, sometimes identified (e.g. “gloss of Augustine”), sometimes with the author lost; compared to the later Catena Aurea (“golden chain”) of Thomas, and to Cornelius a Lapide, “not as good”, but handy when puzzling over a Mass reading — “all you really need sometimes is a couple sentences” of the Fathers to satisfy the desire to understand a text.

4. Body: the signs that man is free (“otherwise in vain would be counsels”) #

Point: Thomas starts from a sign — counsels, exhortations, precepts, prohibitions, rewards and punishments would all be “out the window” if man were not of free judgment — before showing how it is so.

• Exhortation “comes last”: we urge. His example for introduction-to-philosophy students, “Shakespeare’s exhortation to use reason” (Hamlet: what is a man if his chief good be but to sleep and feed — a beast; God gave us not that capability and godlike reason to fust in us unused) — “the best exhortation to use your reason”.
• The seven wise men of Greece at Delphi: “gnothi seauton”, know thyself, and “nothing too much” — brief exhortations; Scripture is full of them.

5. Three ways of acting: no judgment, natural judgment, free judgment (“some things act without judgment”) #

Point: freedom is located in judgment from a collatio of reason rather than from natural instinct.

• (a) Without judgment: the stone moving downward; all things lacking knowledge — the tree grows, branches toward the sun and roots toward water, without judging that it should.
• (b) By judgment but not free: the brute animals. The sheep seeing the wolf judges it as to be fled, but by a natural judgment, from natural instinct, not from a collatio; and so in every judgment of brutes.
• Collatio = literally bringing together. Albert the Great calls reason collativus et discursivus; collatio precedes discursus. The two main kinds of discourse are reasoning and calculating: before adding or dividing I must bring together two numbers; before syllogizing I must bring together two statements. “Only the cat doesn’t do that” (his house cat vs. us).
• (c) Man judges by his knowing power that something is to be fled or pursued, and because this is from a collatio and not from instinct in some particular thing to be done, he acts by free judgment, “being able to be borne to diverse things”. Primary reason: reason brings together something universal with the singular. Stock example: “adultery is a sin; this is adultery; therefore not” — vs. “this is pleasant; the pleasant is to be pursued; therefore…” — freedom to apply many things, and to apply them imperfectly (“be nice to get more sleep, I think I’ll skip Mass”).
• Asides: “you brute” / “beast” as insult from animalia bruta; brute memory (a direct remembering) vs. recollection (working back from the 12:30 class to the office to the beer — “reasoning with your memory”, which Aristotle treats in On Memory and Recollection; animals have memory, not recollection); the wolf at the origin of Rome and the feast of Lupercal in Julius Caesar (“I thrice presented him a kingly crown”).

6. Reason about contingents is open to opposites (“reason about contingent things”) #

Point: reason about what can be or not be has a way to opposites, as is clear in dialectical syllogisms and rhetorical persuasions, where one can argue both sides; particular operable things are contingent, so the judgment of reason about them is not determined to one — hence man is of free judgment from the fact that he is rational.

• Dialectical: more in universal matters; rhetorical: in particulars. Political philosophy: reasons why this or that government is better. Student asks whether Thomas’s own articles are dialectical: yes, the sed contra format begins dialectically, texts of Scripture seeming to point opposite ways.
• Rhetoric’s main parts: political and courtroom — one lawyer proving guilty, the other not guilty.
• Examples of contingency: his shelf of read books, each worth rereading for many reasons, but a reason to read this one prevents reading that one; must we be studying this now rather than logic, ethics, Scripture?; three routes home (South Street, over the hill, Walnut) — the red light, the shorter route, fewer turns, tiredness with the same way; “what shall we eat, what shall we put on” — meat and potatoes. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

7. Reply to objection 1: the emotions not wholly subject to will (“although it obeys reason to some extent”) #

Point: the sense appetite, though it obeys reason somewhat, can fight it by desiring against what reason dictates; so man does not do what he wills, i.e. not to have sense desire against reason (the gloss of Augustine).

• Adultery can be pleasant to the senses, so there is some desire for it — emotions not entirely subject to will. St. Benedict throwing himself into the bramble bush against the temptation of the loose woman: one does not have entire control of his emotions.
• Context of Paul: “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” — the flesh not entirely obedient to will and reason as one would want.

8. Reply to objection 2: God moves the will according to its nature (“free will for this is not sufficient”) #

Point: Paul’s word is not that man does not will and run by free judgment, but that free will does not suffice unless moved and aided by God — anticipating the later objections.

• “The apostle” = Paul by antonomasia; Peter and Paul call themselves apostles in their epistles; John Paul II called them princes of the apostles; Paul the apostle of the Gentiles.
• Argument: (1) God moves my will; (2) but not contrary to the will’s nature, i.e. not so that I am forced — that would be against the very nature of will; (3) so God moves the will so that I freely will. Divine providence: not only does what God wills take place, it takes place in the way he wills — by necessity, chance, luck, nature, or freely; his power extends to how it takes place. Wisdom “moves from end to end sweetly” because in accordance with the nature of the thing. “That’s why it’s very hard for us to understand.”
• Student: different senses of “move”? Answer: God does not move free will as you would move a ball; it is the will’s nature to will freely, so he moves it to will freely. Student: does he persuade us? No — angels or another man can persuade; God moves inwardly. Student: this is not coaction or violence. Answer: God is the source of our very existence, “more within me than I am within myself”, source of the nature and of the will, so he moves inwardly; force is always exterior. Some things are moved from outside, some from inside; God is more inside than they are. Reference: he was reading this again “this morning” in Summa Contra Gentiles III on providence — nothing moves without God moving it, but he moves all things according to the nature he gave them. Providence will be “a very splendid thing to understand”, showing how dependent we are on God.

9. Reply to objection 3: cause of itself, not first cause (“it is not of the necessity of liberty”) #

Point: free will is cause of its own motion — man through it moves himself to act — but liberty does not require being the first cause of itself, just as being the cause of another does not require being its first cause.

• Illustration: this paper pushing the book truly pushes it, and that is not opposed to its being moved by me; it is not the first mover. Same for free will moving itself.
• God is the first cause moving both natural and voluntary causes, being source of their very being and conserving them; as in moving natural causes he does not take away their being natural (from an intrinsic cause), so in moving wills he does not take away but makes their acts voluntary — he works in each according to what is proper to it. “You’re going to have to thank God for moving you to freely choose Him.” “That’s really kind of marvelous that God’s power extends there.”

10. Reply to objection 4: choice vs. its carrying out; Hamlet on “mistress of her choice” (“the way of a man is said not to be in his power”) #

Point: man’s way is not in his power as to carrying out his choices (electio), in which he can be impeded, “willy nilly” (Latin garbled in recording, likely velit nolit); but choices are in us, presupposing divine help — God moves us to choose, not to will by necessity.

• Electio → “election”; Shakespeare’s “election hath sealed thee for herself”. “The beginning of our action is in our power, but the ends are not”; “the best laid plans of men and mice oft go astray.”
• Student: could Thomas have said free choice (electio) instead of free judgment? Deferred to the next article on naming; but he notes he often translates liberum arbitrium “free will”, though arbitrium means judgment (as in arbitration); free will presupposes use of reason giving not only judgment but freedom in judging.
• Hamlet: “since my dear soul was mistress of her choice and could of men distinguish, her election hath sealed thee for herself” — the soul became mistress of her choice when reason developed enough to distinguish among men (Horatio “not passion’s slave”, taking fortune evenly) and see who is better or worse as a friend: not a coward (can’t trust him with wife, sister, daughter), not a thief (Johnson after the free-thinking dinner guest who said nothing wrong with stealing: “count our spoons”). Hence the “age of reason”, seven, somewhat arbitrary; a child of two or three is not fit for confession, not yet having choice in the full sense. Losing one’s mind removes responsibility — no longer master of one’s choice. So free will = ability to choose, but one has it only with liberum arbitrium, the use of reason judging good, bad, better.
• Closing aside: advising students choosing next semester’s courses — one course, then another occurs to them — shows the contingency.
• Not reached: reply to objection 5.

His words #

• free judgment / free will; his rendering of liberum arbitrium; he notes “free will” is not really the Latin, arbitrium being judgment [ed.: free choice / free decision]
• ability / power; his word for potentia [ed.: potency]
• what habitum; habit
• conscientia; conscience — power or act of reason
• antonomasia; naming by the common term (“the philosopher” = Aristotle, “the apostle” = Paul)
• causa sui / sui causa; the free as cause of itself (Aristotle, Metaph. I)
• glossa (interlinear); Church Fathers’ excerpts attached to Scripture text
• gnothi seauton; know thyself
• animalia bruta; the brute animals, beasts
• brute memory vs. recollection; direct remembering vs. “reasoning with your memory”
• collatio; bringing together (numbers, statements, universal with singular); reason collativus et discursivus (Albert)
• discursus; reasoning and calculating, the two kinds of discourse
• natural instinct; source of the brute’s judgment
• dialectical syllogisms / rhetorical persuasions; argument on both sides, universal vs. particular
• coaction / violence; force, always exterior (student’s term, accepted)
• electio; choice, “election”
• velit nolit (garbled; “willy nilly”); whether one wills or not
• age of reason; about seven, “kind of arbitrary”

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, ST I q. 83 prologue and a. 1: objections 1-5, sed contra, body, replies 1-4
• Romans 7:15; Romans 9:16; Proverbs 21:1; Philippians 2:13; Jeremiah 10:23; Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) on man left in the hand of his own counsel, with gloss
• Aristotle, Metaphysics I (the free is cause of itself); Nicomachean Ethics III (as each one is, so the end seems)
• Shakespeare, Hamlet: “What is a man…” and “since my dear soul was mistress of her choice”

Mentioned

• Thomas on conscientia (power or act); ST q. 83 aa. 2-4
• Aristotle, eight senses of “in” (Physics, inferred)
• Aristotle, On Memory and Recollection
• Albert the Great, reason as collativus et discursivus
• Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (Lupercal, the crown thrice offered)
• Thomas, Catena Aurea; Cornelius a Lapide
• Life of St. Benedict (bramble bush)
• “Spirit is willing, flesh is weak” (Gospels)
• Wisdom “moves from end to end sweetly” (Wisdom, inferred)
• Thomas, Summa Contra Gentiles III on providence
• Boswell, Life of Johnson (“count our spoons”)
• John Paul II on Peter and Paul as princes of the apostles

His questions #

• What does “man of free judgment” (genitive) mean? A man possessed of free judgment, as a “man of power” has power.
• What would be in vain if man were not free? Counsels, exhortations, precepts, prohibitions, rewards and punishments.
• What does brute memory mean, as against recollection? Direct remembering; recollection reasons from one memory to another, and animals lack it.
• Why is the sheep’s judgment of the wolf not free? It is from natural instinct, not from a collatio.
• Why does having reason make man free? Reason brings together universal and singular and, about contingents, is open to opposites, not determined to one.
• Is there one book I must be reading now, one way I must drive home? No — reasons on each side, the matter is contingent.
• How does God move the will without taking away freedom? He moves each thing according to its nature; the will’s nature is to will freely, and God is more within us than we are within ourselves.
• Must what is free be the first cause of itself? No — cause of its own motion, as the paper pushes the book though moved by me.
• When was Hamlet’s soul mistress of her choice? When he had the use of reason to distinguish among men.
• Could Thomas have said free choice rather than free judgment? Left open, deferred to the next article on naming.