Chapter I: Distinction of Kinds of Freedom.
CHAPTER I: ON THE DISTINCTION OF FREEDOM
Freedom is attributed to [the faculty of] choice in various respects.
§ 4. How freedom of choice should be evaluated, and in what respect it is considered, ought to be accurately examined because this shall free us from many difficulties which would otherwise surround this doctrine. Augustine says (De gratia Dei contra Pelagian., bk. 1, ch. 47; and Contra Julianum, bk. 4, ch. 8, where he argues about the choice of the will and the grace of God): “The question is difficult to determine: when free choice is defended, it appears that the grace of God is denied; but when the grace of God is asserted, free choice is thought to be taken away.”
Freedom is assigned to choice, first, with respect to the manner of action, because it is of such a kind that the will, to the extent that it is such, acts freely; that is, it is not compelled nor dragged about violently by some external impulse, nor does it act only out of natural instinct, but either accepts or rejects something by its own accord or by an internal origin of movement. In this sense, “free” and “willful” are synonyms, and to say that the will is not free is the same as if someone should wish to say that something is hot without heat.
Freedom from compulsion and necessity; interior freedom and freedom in the subject.
§ 5. The state of affairs by which it happens that the will cannot be compelled to do anything against its own inclination is called “freedom from compulsion.” The same is true for “freedom from necessity,” according as necessity is understood as compulsion and violence (but not as immutability). Others call it “interior freedom,” that by which the will of man is moved voluntarily, willingly, freely, without compulsion, by an innate power and choice, and possesses an inner origin of its own movement. By others it is called “freedom in the subject.”
The freedom that was not lost through the fall.
§ 6. Since this freedom is a natural and essential property implanted by God in the will, it was not lost through the fall. The substance of man has not perished. Therefore neither the rational soul nor the will nor the essential freedom of the will [are lost]. The will is an essential power of the soul, and the soul is nothing else but those essential powers or faculties. Thus while the soul continues to exist, its essential powers—the intellect and will—continue to exist. In turn, the power to will freely and without compulsion is essential to the will; therefore as long as the will remains, that power also remains.
§ 7. Accordingly, Augustine (Enchirid., ch. 30): “Free choice is always free” (that is, from compulsion), “but it is not always good.” De gratia et libero arbitrio (bk. 2, ch. 15): “The will in us is always free, but it is not always good. For it is free from righteousness when it serves sin, and then it is evil; or it is free from sin when it serves righteousness, and then it is good.”
Ambrose—or, rather, Prosper (De vocat. gent., bk. 1, ch. 3): “Man has been robbed by the devil not of his will, but rather he has been deprived of the soundness of his will. The judgment of his will is depraved, not removed.”
§ 8. In this sense and respect we firmly believe and confess loudly that free choice has continued to exist in man even after the fall, so that we say with Augustine (Hypogn., 3): “He who denies free choice is not catholic.” Away, then, with the horrible accusations aimed against our churches by Bellarmine (in the preface to his books of De lib. arbitr.), as if we were removing the freedom of choice, as if we violated nature itself and were confessing that we ourselves are not just like beasts, but completely like beasts, lacking reason.
[Bellarmine] (De not. eccles., ch. 9, para. Manichaeorum) writes thus: “The eighth heresy of the Manichaeans, who would (as Jerome says) condemn nature and take away free choice, nor did they (Augustine says) attribute the origin of sins to free choice. Luther says the same thing; he wrote the book De servo arbitrio [On Enslaved Choice],” etc.
But indeed, if the will itself is understood by the term “free choice,” and if the question concerns free choice in the first man and freedom in evil actions, we by no means deny free choice. Thus let Bellarmine perceive with what impudence he charges us with the heresy of the Manichaeans, the accusation of which we could direct far more justly to him. In fact, he (De gratia primi hominis, ch. 7) claims that there would be a rebellion of the flesh against the spirit in man as a result of his natural condition, had man remained in his purely natural condition.
It is not excluded through divine providence.
§ 9. Divine providence neither removes nor excludes the freedom of the human will, for it manages things in such a way that it permits the will to perform its own movements (Augustine, De civ. Dei, bk. 7, ch. 30; Gerson, De consol. theol., bk. 2, prosa 4). As divine providence preserves the power to act naturally in things acting naturally, so it preserves the power to act freely in things which act voluntarily.
§ 10. Because this freedom from coercion correlates with the will, it follows that it exists in God no less than in man, yet with this distinction: that God has it from Himself. Thus He has “free choice” and “free will” of Himself [est αὐθεκoύσιoς et αὐτεξoύσιoς]. But men have it from God, and thus we properly attribute what is “voluntary” [ἑκoύσιoν] to them by the example of Scripture (Philem. 14; Heb. 10:26; 1 Pet. 5:2). Thus it seems that “having free will of oneself” [αὐτεξoύσιoν] (which the Greek theologians use) is more glorious than befits man. For it means being one’s own master [αὐτoδέσπoτoν], subject to the command of none, and that which cannot be prohibited or impeded, inasmuch as it is abundantly equipped with the faculty for choosing and the power to accomplish. This befits God very properly, whose will and power none can resist.
Freedom from obligation and freedom from duty.
§ 11. This consideration supplies us with another aspect of freedom, which we call “freedom from obligation.” In this aspect, choice is not obligated to a certain and unchangeable norm, according to which it would judge and choose. It is called “freedom from duty” by others. This freedom is nothing else but unrestrained license, free of every law, which wanders about in the manner of the beasts without a governing knowledge and obliging order. This is unworthy of the respectable name of “freedom,” for true freedom is to serve righteousness.
It is denied to man.
§ 12. We completely deny that the will of man has this freedom. For at the first creation God impressed natural knowledge upon the human mind, wrote His Law into man’s heart, and repeated it with a solemn promulgation. To this the will was bound and obligated. As this Law is the eternal norm, so also is it the eternal obligation.
§ 13. The will of God certainly is not bound to any external norm, and for this reason it is again clear that the expression “having free will of Himself” [αὐτεξoύσιoς] befits Him most properly. Yet His very nature is of such a character that He cannot help but act well and rightly. God is αὐταγαθός—God is essentially and supremely good. God is love. He does and can do nothing against this norm, and this is proof not of impotence but of the greatest power.
§ 14. Therefore, if you consider freedom from compulsion, man always has free choice, even after the fall. If you consider freedom from obligation, man never had free choice, not even before the fall, nor indeed do the angels themselves. But there is still another aspect of freedom, and the question in this locus is properly and especially about this.
Freedom toward the object; exterior freedom.
§ 15. Freedom of choice can be evaluated with regard to the object with which the action of the will is occupied, and by some this is called “freedom toward the object” and also “exterior freedom.” Here the discussion no longer concerns the freedom of movement, the free power of willing, but rather it considers the object of the will, good or evil, and the question is how the powers of the will are related to it.