29. The Sin Of Lucifer
The Sin of Lucifer
about created liberty and its capacity to choose badly, then this is only a part of what pertains to the perfection of the will, whereas the basis for choice itself [namely, the freedom to act in diverse ways] is a matter of perfection purely and simply, for this power is a positive reality and thus is in God, from whom and in whom and through whom all things exist, to him be honor and glory. Amen.
29. THE SIN OF LUCIFER
(Ordinatio II, dist. 6, q. 2) First we must examine the order that exists among the acts of the will. And here I say there is a twofold act of the will, namely, to like and to dislike, for dislike is a positive act of the will whereby it turns away from the distasteful and shuns the inconvenient, whereas to like or love is the act whereby it accepts some appropriate or suitable object. Furthermore, there is a twofold like or love, one which can be called the love of friendship [or benevolence], another called the love of desiring or wanting or coveting. Friendship or benevolent love concerns an object of well-wishing, whereas the love of desire concerns some object I want for some other beloved.
The order among these acts is clear, for every dislike presupposes some liking, for I tum away from something only because it is inconsistent with something I regard as suitable; and this is the point of Anselm's example of the miser who gives up his money to buy bread (The Fall of the Devil, ch. 3). And the order that exists among the two forms of love is also evident, because the coveting presupposes the other love of friendship. For, with respect to what is desired, the one befriended becomes a quasi-end for the sake of whom I want this good
(since it is for the sake of the beloved that I desire the good I wish that person to have). And since the end has the distinction of being the first object willed, it is clear that friendship or benevolent love precedes the love of desire or coveting.
And it follows further, from what has been proved, that there is a similar process in disorderly acts, for the first inordinate act can never be one of dislike, since it is only in virtue of something liked or loved that an act of dislike is possible. And if the love is orderly as to its object and all the circumstances, then the dislike that is a consequence of such a love would also be in order. By the same token, if the friendship-love would not be inordinate, the consequent love of desire would also be ordinate. For if that for which I desire some good is loved ordinately, then the will whereby I desire something for the one
I wish well will also be in order.
Sin It follows, then, that [Lucifer's] very first inordinate act of will was the first benevolent love he had towards one to whom he wished well.
But this object was not God, for God could not have been loved inordinately, speaking intensively of friendship-love. God is so lovable solely by reason of the object he is, that he renders the most intensive act of love completely good. Neither is it likely that something other than oneself could have been loved too much by an act of friendshiplove, first because a natural inclination tends more towards self than towards any other creature, and also because friendship, according to Bk. VIII of the Ethics, is based on oneness, and (from Bk. IX) what is amicable for others has its roots in what is amicable for oneself. The first inordinate act, therefore, was one of benevolence towards himself.
And this is what Augustine says in The City of God, Bk. XIV : "Two loves created two cities; the love of God to the contempt of self created the city of God and the love of self to the contempt of God created the city of the devil." The first source from which the city of the devil stems, then, is inordinate friendship-love, which root germinates until it yields contempt of God, in which malice reaches its peak. It is clear, then, that the initial disorder in an unqualified sense consists in that inordinate love that was simply first.
What remains to be seen is what the initial disorder was in regard to the love called desire. And here it seems we have to say that [Lucifer] first coveted happiness immoderately. The proofs are these:
First, the initial inordinate desire did not proceed from an affection for justice, as no sin proceeds from such. Hence, it must have come from an affection for the advantageous, because every act elicited by the will stems from an affection either for justice or for the advantageous, according to Anselm. And a will that fails to follow the rule of justice will seek most of all what is most advantageous, and thus it will seek such first, for nothing else rules that unrighteous will but an inordinate, immoderate appetite for that greatest beneficial good, namely, perfect happiness.-And this reason can be gleaned from what Anselm says in ch. 4 of The Fall of the Devil. Look for it there.
The second proof is this. The first sin of covetousness will be one of love or desire (for nothing is shunned to avoid disaster except it be that one desires the opposite of such a calamity). And this first love called "desire" is either just, utilitarian, or hedonistic (for nothing is loved save in one of these three ways). But it was not a just or honorable love, for then the angel would not have sinned; neither is it utilitarian, for this is never first (inasmuch as this regards someone for whom it is useful, and no one covets the useful first, but rather that for which it is useful). Hence he first sinned by loving something exces-
The Sin of Lucifer
sively as his supreme delight. What is supremely delightful, however, is the honorable good and as such is beatitude itself [viz., God].-And this argument is based on what the Philosopher says in Bk. VIII of the Ethics and the commonly accepted distinction of good into what is useful, delightful, and honorable.
Third, there is this persuasive argument. Every appetite whose act presupposes some antecedent awareness first craves that delectable most in harmony with its associated cognitive power, or the delight that comes from having such, because this most satisfies its hunger.
This is clear in the parallel instances of taste, hearing, and touch, where the associated appetite triggered by these senses craves the most perfect object of which they are actually aware. A will unassociated with any sense appetite, then, first seeks what is most agreeable to the intellect or the delight that comes from such an object in harmony with the mind, for desire follows from such knowledge. Hence the will first wants such happiness as comes from knowing and delighting in the knowledge of such an object.
A fourth persuasive argument is this. If justice did not regulate it, what the will would want first is something it would want if such alone existed and in the absence of which nothing else would be wanted.
Now, delight is such a thing. For if one were sad, what one would want would be not some excellence or any other such thing, but happiness or something like it.
As for the angel's first sin of desire, then, he would apparently have first coveted happiness.
For just as the first sin of the visual appetite would be coveting a vision of what is most beautiful to the eye {which would most perfectly delight and satisfy it}, to a will joined to a sense appetite, but un~ checked by right reason or justice, the first appeal would appear to be something most inviting to the sense appetite with which the will was most in harmony at the time it acted. And so in men the dominance of sense appetites is in accord with their varied dispositions. For if each cognitive power has its corresponding appetite, and, according to the different ways they are disposed, various cognitive powers and appetites may predominate, still I say in each case, the will is most inclined towards that action dictated by the predominant sense ap~ petite. Thus anyone who follows his first inclination unchecked by any rule of justice will in one case be first inclined to lust; in another, to pride; in a third, to something else.
A will unassociated with any sense appetite, then, and consequently not attracted to anything by the inclination of such an appetite, if de~ serted by justice, follows that inclination the will has in itself as will.
Sin For what perfects the intellect most, perfects the appetite corresponding to this cognitive power. Hence, [the angel's first sin of covetousness] was an immoderate desire for happiness, for happiness is the object of the will.
Against this you may raise these objections:
First, happiness is wanted by everyone, according to Augustine in ch. 5 of Bk. XIII of The Trinity. But what is found uniformly in all would seem natural. Therefore, happiness is wanted naturally. But a natural appetite is always right, because it comes from God. Hence, a will conformed to this is always right, because it is conformed to what is right. Therefore, in seeking happiness no one sins.
Furthermore, no intellect errs in regard to first principles, according to Metaphysics, Bk. II. Therefore, neither does the will err as regards its ultimate end. The validity of the inference is proved from the Philosopher's analogy that as the principle functions in theory, so the end functions in practice (Ethics, Bk. VII, and Physics, Bk. II).
A third objection, also, is that the good would have an affection for the advantageous just as well as the evil. But according to Anselm in The Harmony between Foreknowledge arul Free Will, the will is unable not to will the beneficial; hence the good will the beneficial good just as the evil do. Therefore, all would have sinned equally, if they sinned because of the affection for the advantageous.
To the first:
In order to understand the solution to these objections, I first distinguish ways in which these affections for justice and the beneficial that Anselm speaks of in ch. 4 of The Fall of the Devil might be understood.
Justice can be understood to be either infused (which is called gratuitous or grace), or acquired (which is called moral), or innate (which is the will's liberty itself). For if one were to think, according to that fictitious situation Anselm postulates in The Fall of the Devil, that there was an angel with an affection for the beneficial, but without an affection for justice {Le., one that had a purely intellectual appetite as such and not one that was free}, such an angel would be unable not to will what is beneficial, and unable not to covet such above all. But this would not be imputed to it as sin, because this appetite would be related to intellect as the visual appetite is now related to sight, necessarily following what is shown to it by that cognitive power, and being inclined to seek the very best revealed by such a power, for it would have nothing to restrain it. Therefore, this affection for justice, which is the first checkrein on the affection for the beneficial, inasmuch as we need not actually seek that towards which the latter affection inclines us, nor must we seek it above all else {namely, to the extent to which we are inclined by this affection for the advantageous)-this
The Sin of Lucifer
affection for what is just, I say, is the liberty innate to the will, since it represents the first checkrein on this affection for the advantageous.
Anselm may often be speaking not just of the actual justice which is acquired, but of infused justice, because he says it is lost through mortal sin, something true only of infused justice. Nevertheless by distinguishing from the nature of the thing the two primary characteristics of this twofold affection (one inclining the will above all to the advantageous, the other moderating it, as it were, lest the will in eliciting an act should have to follow its inclination), he makes these aspects out to be nothing other than the will itself insofar as it is an intellective appetite and insofar as it is free. For, as has been said, qua pure intellective appetite, the will would be actually inclined to the optimum intelligible (as sight is to what is best visible), whereas qua free, it could restrain itself in eliciting its act from following this natural inclination, as to either the substance of the act or its intensity.
But if some power were exclusively appetitive, following its inclination in acting as the visual appetite follows the visual inclination of the eye (though I admit it could only want what is intelligible, as the visual appetite can only seek what is visible), that power still could not sin in seeking such, for it would be powerless to seek anything other than what the intellect would show it or in any way other than the cognition would incline it. But this same power, having been made free (because we have nothing more here than one thing which includes virtually several perfectional aspects, which it would not include if it lacked that of liberty)-this power, I say, through its liberty could moderate itself in willing. It could do so as regards that volition towards which it is inclined by the affection for the advantageous, even though it might be most inclined to will the advantageous. And from the fact that it could moderate this, it is bound to do so according to the rule of justice it has received from a higher will. It is clear, then, from this that a free will is not bound in every way to seek happiness
(in the way a will that was only an intellective appetite without liberty would seek it). Rather it is bound, in eliciting its act, to moderate the appetite qua intellective, which means to moderate the affection for the advantageous, namely, lest it will immoderately.
There are three ways, however, in which a will, able to moderate itself as regards the happiness befitting it, could fail to do so. As to intensity, it might love it more passionately than it deserves. Or through precipitance, it might want it sooner than is becoming. Or with disregard to the proper causal way to obtain it-for instance, it might want it without meriting it-or perhaps for other reasons, all of which one need not bother with here.
Probably in one of these ways, then, the will of the angel went to
Sin excess: Either by wanting happiness as a good for him rather than loving it as a good in itself-that is, wanting a good, like the beatific object, to belong exclusively to himself, rather than to be in another, such as in his God. And this would be the supreme perversity of the will, which-according to Augustine (Eighty-three Different Questions, q. 30)-is to use as means what is to be enjoyed as an end, and treat as an end what is to be used as a means. Or the angel could have failed in the second way, wanting at once what God wished him to have after a period of probation. Or it might have been in the third way, by wanting to possess happiness by natural means rather than by earning it by grace, since God wished him to merit it.
His free will, then, should have moderated his desire in such ways as right reason had revealed to him. For happiness should have been wanted less for his sake than for the sake of God, and he should have wanted it at the time God intended and on the basis of merit, as God planned. If in some such fashion, then, he yielded to this affection for the advantageous, not moderating it through justice, be it infused
(if the angel had such), or acquired, or innate (which is liberty itself), then he sinned.
With this in mind, then, consider the objections.
As for the first, the natural will is not of itself immoderate, since it inclines only after the manner of nature-and in this it is not immoderate, for it inclines as it was made to do, nor has it power to do otherwise. But to be so inclined or less inclined is in the power of the will as free, through an elicited act.
When the natural will is taken to be orientated towards happiness, I grant this. But this will is not actually immoderate through an elicited act. For the inclination of a natural appetite is not an elicited act, but resembles the first perfection [Le., something identical with the substance or being of the will]. And this is no more immoderate than is the nature to which it belongs. However, that nature is so inclined towards its object by this affection for the advantageous that if it had of itself an elicited act, it could not help eliciting it with no moderation in the most forceful way possible. But the natural will, as having only the affection for the beneficial, is not the cause of any elicited act; only the will as free can cause such, and therefore, qua eliciting an act, the will does have what is required to moderate passion.
As for the assumption, then, that a will conformed to a natural will [or appetite] is always right, because what is natural is always right, I reply by saying this. If in eliciting its act, the will behaves as it would if it were acting solely on its own, then it is not right, for it has another rule for acting than it would have if it were to act solely on its own.
For it is bound to follow a higher will [viz., that of its Creator]' from
The Sin of Lucifer 3D! whom it was given the power to moderate or not moderate this natural inclination, for it has the power not to act in the most passionate and forceful way that it could.
My reply to the second objection is the same. It is not in the intellect's power to temper its assent to the truth it apprehends. For when it is shown the truth of principles in the very meaning of their terms, or that of conclusions as contained in their principles or premises, it must assent, for it lacks the freedom to do otherwise. But the willboth in itself and in the powers under its control-can be moderated so that no act is elicited, or if one is, it is not completely dominated by this inclination [for the beneficial]. For the will can turn away the intellect, lest it think about such things as it is inclined to do, and the will is bound to do so, if such thoughts would represent in the intellect matter for sin, or lead to formal sin in the will. On the other hand, the will has an obligation to moderate its own inclination towards its ultimate end, lest it will this immoderately, or want to possess it in an unbecoming way, or want it only for self rather than as something good in itself.
Another answer to this objection would be that just as an act of the intellect considering a principle in itself cannot be false, so an act of the will loving the end in itself cannot be evil. But the act in this case is an act of friendship and not one of covetousness. But just as the act of an intellect could be false in ascribing the truth that some first cause exists to some created principle to which it does not belong, so an act of the will can be bad by wanting the goodness of the ultimate end to pertain to something other than the ultimate end, in a way unfitting to any other.
To the third, I say there was a natural inclination towards happiness in the good [angels] as well as in the bad-in fact, a greater inclination if their natural endowments were greater, for this inclination increases in proportion to the perfection of one's natural gifts. But in eliciting an act the good did not use the will as a mere intellective appetite, by wanting happiness in the way such an appetite would want it, but made use of the will's more perfect aspect (which is liberty)' by acting in a way befitting a free agent as acting freely. But this means they acted in a manner ordained by a higher will, and hence they acted justly.
As for the claim that it is impossible not to will the beneficial, I reply: The good neither were able, nor wished, to dislike having happiness, or to have no desire for it. But they did not want it more than they wanted God to have everything good; rather they wished for happiness less than they wished God well, for they could moderate this desire through their liberty.