Chapter II
On Freedom of Choice
T. Which will seems the more free to you: the will whose ability not to sin is such that it can in no way be turned away from the uprightness of not sinning, or the will which can in some way be turned to sinning?
It still seems to me that the second will, which is able either to sin or not sin, is the more free.
T. But don't you see that someone who possesses what is fitting and advantageous in such a way that he can't lose it is more free than someone else who possesses the same thing in such a way that he can lose it and be drawn towards what is unfitting and disadvantageous?
I think no one doubts this.
T. And is it any less doubtful that sinning is always unfitting and harmful?
S. No one of sound mind thinks otherwise.
T. Then, the will which is not able to be turned away from the uprightness of not sinning is more free than the will which can desert its uprightness.
S. This seems the most reasonable thing that can be maintained.
T. Now, do you think that something which, when added, decreases freedom and which, when subtracted, increases it is either freedom or a part of freedom?
I don't see how it can be.
T. Then the ability to sin, which, when added to the will decreases the will's freedom, and when taken away from the will increases its freedom, is itself neither freedom nor a part of freedom.
Nothing follows more logically.
Chapter II That, nevertheless, Satan and Adam sinned through this ability to sin and through free choice; and although they were able to serve sin, sin could not master them.
T. Therefore, whatever is extraneous to freedom does not belong to freedom of choice.
I can't at all object to your reasoning; but it rather disturbs
Truth, Freedom, and Evil me that an ability to sin originally belonged to the nature of men and angels, for without this ability men and angels would not have sinned. Yet if they sinned through this ability to sin which does not belong to free choice, how shall we say that they sinned by free choice? And if they did not sin by free choice, then it seems that they sinned out of necessity; for certainly they sinned either of their own accord or out of necessity.
If they sinned of their own accord, how could it not have been by free choice?
And if they did not sin by free choice, then it seems that they certainly sinned out of necessity.
There is something else which bothers me about this ability to sin. Whoever is able to sin is able to be a servant of sin, since "He who does sin is the servant of sin" (John 8:34); but whoever can be the servant of sin is able to be mastered by sin. How, then, was that nature of men and angels created free, or what kind of free choice did men and angels have, if sin could be its master?
It was through an ability to sin, and of their owti accord, and by free choice, and out of no necessity, that human and angelic nature could serve sin and first sinned. Nevertheless, sin could not master this nature to such an extent that either it or its choice could be called unfree.
S. You had better reveal what you mean because it is concealed from me.
T. Because the apostate angel [Satan] and the first man [Adam] sinned by their own choice, which was so free that it could not be compelled by any other thing to sin, they sinned by free choice. Therefore, they are justly blamed, because although they had this freedom of choice, with no external factor or necessity constraining them to sin, they sinned, and sinned of their own accord. They sinned through their own choice, which was free, and not through that by which it was free, namely, the ability not to sin and not to serve sin. Rather, they sinned by the ability they had for sinning, which neither helped them towards the freedom of not sinning nor compelled them into the service of sin.2
2 This distinction between the power of freely choosing and the sake for which this power was given, namely, in order not to sin and not to serve sin, parallels Anselm's earlier distinction between the two truths of a proposition. Cf. DV, Ch. 2. See Introduction pp. 27f.