II. Replies to the preliminary arguments of question 1
ORDINATIO II, D. , QQ. –
act freely, since it is not in its power to act accordingly and to act otherwise. If it is not necessary that the will act in accordance with this weight—as is manifestly the Apostle's view, as we see in the Gloss on Romans, "Whatever is contrary to conscience," etc., from which it is evident that sin can be committed against conscience12—then it follows that even if conscience remains perfect, the will can will the opposite of what conscience dictates; and thus this habit would never be corrupted by an act of the will, which is evidently absurd given the claim that it is a habit of the will.
B. Scotus's answer
Answers to these questions:
If synderesis is supposed to be something that has an elicited act that always tends toward a just act and resists sin, then, since there is nothing in the will that fits this description, synderesis cannot be posited in the will; therefore, it is in the intellect.
And it cannot be identified as anything other than the habit of principles, which is always correct, because in virtue of the terms, by the power of the natural light of the intellect, the intellect assents to them straightaway; and then, as far as it is up to the intellect, free choice is apt to will in conformity with those principles, although insofar as the remaining partial cause falls short, it does not will freely,13 since there is no necessitating cause there.
In keeping with this, conscience can be identified as the proper habit of a practical conclusion such that correct choice in matters of action is apt to be conformed to the act of that habit. And thus it is said to incite one to what is good insofar as free choice as a whole has one partial cause rightly disposed, and correct and good volition follows unless the other partial cause that concurs [in free choice]—namely, the will14—falls short.
II. Replies to the preliminary arguments of question 1
To the first argument [n. 2] I say that synderesis recoils by way of showing, in that it shows that what is good is to be willed, and in this there is an occasion for recoiling from what is bad.
To the next argument [n. 3] I say that the will, which is a power that acts freely, does not necessarily will advantage, just as it also does not necessarily will what is just, in an elicited act. Yet if this one power were considered as it has the affection for 12 Romans 14:23: "But everything that is not from faith is sin"; Gloss: "What is done contrary to faith, that is, what is believed to be contrary to conscience, is bad."
13 This is awkwardly expressed: take "it does not will freely" not as "it wills, but does not will freely" but rather as "it does not will, and is free in not willing." This is (to put it mildly) not the most obvious reading of either the Latin or the English, but it is what the sense (along with Scotus's consistent teaching) requires.
14 Reading defectus alterius causae partialis concurrentis, scilicet voluntatis (Q) for the edition's defectus alterius causae partialis, concurrentis respectu voluntatis.