II. Reply to the preliminary argument
IS THE POWER FOR SINNING FROM GOD?
6 But if we are speaking of the foundation of that order (2), I say that something positive is the foundation of that order, taken in either way. For just as in passive powers the same thing is the proximate subject of both possession and privation, so too a free active power that is capable of falling short is the immediate subject of opposites in acting [rightly] and in falling short: for in acting [rightly] it is the subject of rectitude and in falling short it is the subject of sin. And this absolute item is the proper power with respect to both, in such a way that the power regards both, one as efficient cause and the other as deficient cause. It is in this way that the power for sinning is from God: that is, the nature that has this has the power to sin. It has the power to sin not as efficient cause but as deficient cause; but this positive feature is the proximate cause of its falling short.
7 Someone might object that the will always falls short insofar as it is created from nothing, not through anything positive in the will. I reply that being capable of falling short—that is, being capable of turning into nothing—is for every creature a consequence of the fact that it is created from nothing. But to be capable of falling short in this particular way, by sinning, is distinctive of this nature; it is a consequence, for this particular creature, of the fact that this specific nature can be a principle of opposites, by acting [rightly] and by falling short.
II. Reply to the preliminary argument 8 To the argument from Anselm [n. 2] I say that freedom, taken absolutely, is an unqualified perfection. Hence it is formally attributed to God, according to him.3
Freedom in us is limited. It can, however, be considered in terms of its formal notion, without that limitation; so considered it is not a limited perfection but an unqualified perfection. (Example: wisdom is an unqualified perfection, and its notion, taken absolutely, is also in us, and not only taken absolutely, but with limitation. Thus, our wisdom includes two things, one of which is an unqualified perfection and the other of which is not, but includes that unqualified perfection.) Thus I say that this will of this species, which is in us, includes freedom, which is an unqualified perfection; but it does not include that alone, but with a limitation, and that limitation is not an unqualified perfection. It is not freedom as an unqualified perfection, but rather freedom as including limitation, that both accounts for the fact that the power to sin characterizes such a will and also is the proximate foundation of the will's ordering toward actually falling short.
9 So the authoritative passage from Anselm should be interpreted as saying that the power to sin is not a part of freedom as freedom is an unqualified perfection, and that is all that his argument from the claim that the power to sin is not in God establishes.
3 Anselm, Monologion 15.
ORDINATIO II, D. , Q. UN.
By contrast, if "created freedom" is understood in terms of its order, then the power to sin is not a part of it; but as referring to the proximate foundation of this order, the power to sin is a part of it. Now in any way in which this power is a positive being, it is from God, "for from him and in him and through him are all things: to him be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen."4
4 Romans 11:36.