IV. Reply to the preliminary argument
QUODLIBETAL QUESTIONS Q.
IV. Reply to the preliminary argument
Reply to the preliminary argument:
'Voluntary' can be said of what is in the will as subject, or of what is accepted by the will, or of what is commanded or caused by the will. That something is in the will as subject does not make it voluntary in the full sense, since a habit can be in the will and yet the will does not have that habit voluntarily.10 What is accepted by the will is called voluntary by participation, since the accepting of that as object is voluntary; the object itself is more properly said to be willed (volitum) than to be voluntary
(voluntarium). What is properly called voluntary is what is in the will's power in the third way, and in this way the exterior act is unqualifiedly voluntary, just as the interior act is—though they are not equally directly voluntary, since the exterior act is voluntary only as presupposing the interior act.11
As for the proof of the minor premise, I say that an exterior act separated from an interior act—that is, brought about apart from an interior act—is not voluntary, since a more remote effect is not called voluntary unless it is brought about through the interior act, which is the more proximate effect. Nonetheless, when an exterior act is conjoined with an interior act and proceeds from it, then that exterior act as a distinct act has the character of something voluntary, and indeed a distinctive character as voluntary, since it is mediately voluntary, whereas the interior act is not voluntary mediately, but rather immediately.
Those who do not differ in the power of their wills do not differ with respect to sinning.
But one who sins and one who equally wills to sin but is prevented from sinning by his own incapacity are equal with respect to what is in the power of their wills; they differ only with respect to what is not in the power of the will of the one who is incapable. Therefore, etc.
I reply: The major premise is not true unless one adds that the same things, or equal things, are in the power of the wills of both.
10 Alluntis adds, "for sadness is in the will as a subject," which appears in the Wadding edition but not in Frank or the MSS.
11 At this point there is an additional text found (with some variation) in Clm 23572 and 26309, as well as Worcester 60 (according to Alluntis and Wolter, 417), and included in a footnote by Frank:
So what is from the will causally, both as elicited and as commanded, should be called voluntary, though what is elicited by the will is called voluntary in a prior sense compared to what is commanded. Therefore, the major premise should be conceded if one understands
"voluntary" in the broad sense; but then the minor premise is false.