SECOND ARTICLE: WHETHER THE NOTIONAL ACTS ARE VOLUNTARY

State of the question. The sense of the question is whether the Father voluntarily generates the Son and whether the Father and the Son voluntarily spirate the Holy Ghost.

As is clear from the texts cited from the Fathers at the beginning of this treatise, the difficulty arises because on the one hand we cannot say that the Father freely generates the Son, for then the Son would be a creature, as the Arians taught; and on the other hand we cannot say that the Father involuntarily generates the Son as if forced to do so. From the words quoted in the argument sed contra we see that St. Augustine was aware of this difficulty: "The Father generates the Son neither by His will nor by necessity (by force)."

Reply. St. Thomas solves the difficulty by a distinction between the concomitant will and the antecedent will, which latter is subdivided into necessary and free. It should be noted that the antecedent will is in opposition to the concomitant will and to the consequent will but not in the same way.[560] With respect to the consequent will, the antecedent will is inefficacious;[561] with respect to the concomitant will it may be efficacious. St. Thomas' division may be reduced to the following.

THE WILL

Antecedent, as an effective principle

as nature: that is, as a natural and necessary principle. Thus man naturally wills happiness in general

as free: as a principle acting indifferently as to judgment. Thus God freely wills creatures.

Concomitant, not as an effective principle

In this way I will to be a man and I am pleased to be a man, but the fact that I am a human being does not depend on my will

Having made this division, we draw three conclusions.

1. The notional acts, to generate and to spirate, are voluntary by a concomitant will. Thus the Father voluntarily generates the Son, just as He wills Himself to be God; the Father does not generate the Son involuntarily nor do the Father and the Son spirate the Holy Ghost unwillingly.

As we read in the reply to the first objection, St. Hilary wrote: "The Father does not generate the Son induced by a natural necessity. He is not forced to generate the Son."[562] Such was also the declaration of the Council of Sardinia, and St. Augustine rightly says, "The Father generates the Son not by the necessity of force."[563]

2. The notional acts are not voluntary by an antecedent will as free, because what proceeds in this way from the free will is able not to be, and the notional acts are not able not to be. Otherwise it would be possible for the Son and the Holy Ghost not to be. St. Thomas might have been content with this explanation, but in the body of the article he recalls the roots of liberty explained earlier[564] in the question, "Whether God freely wills things other than Himself." He explains that, whereas the form by which a natural agent acts is one (the natural form), it follows that in the same circumstances such an agent always produces the same effect (by the principle of induction), since it is determined to one effect. On the other hand, the form by which the will as free acts is not one only but consists of many reasons in the intellect and many possible judgments, and therefore in the deliberation there is an indifferent mistress of judgments and also of choice. Therefore what is freely willed can be either one or another. But this cannot be in God or in the processions, otherwise it would be possible for the Son and the Holy Ghost not to be and then they would be creatures, as the Arians thought.

3. Active spiration is by an antecedent will as nature; generation, however, which, as enunciation, proceeds not from the will but from the intellect, proceeds prior to the will. God therefore understands the generation before He wills it. Spiration proceeds from the antecedent will because the Holy Ghost proceeds as love; consequently He proceeds by the will, namely, as the terminus of that volition by which the Father and the Son naturally and necessarily love each other. In this same way man naturally loves happiness in general, at least by a necessity of specification; in this way also the blessed love God by an act of the will which is entirely spontaneous but also necessary, an act of the will that is not inferior to liberty but above it, because the will of the blessed is invincibly drawn to God's goodness when they see Him clearly.[565] In this beatific love there is no liberty of specification or freedom of exercise and yet this love is most spontaneous; it is therefore an excellent example of the non-free and spontaneous active spiration. Thus the Holy Ghost proceeds not after the manner of nature, because He is not begotten, but from the will as nature.

Scotus, who in this question seems to follow St. Bonaventure and Richard of St. Victor, held that the procession of the Holy Ghost is an act that is free by an essential freedom. To this the Thomists reply that this essential liberty cannot be a liberty by necessity or a liberty of indifference for then it would be possible for the Holy Ghost not to be and then He would be a creature. The term, "essential liberty," then, can be understood only as liberty by compulsion, which is simply the spontaneity of natural and necessary volition. The difference is really only nominal, because the Thomists readily admit such spontaneity, as in the beatific love, which is not in any way free yet is most spontaneous. Scotus found himself obliged to say that active spiration, although free by an essential freedom, was necessary inasmuch as the Holy Ghost is necessarily spirated and necessarily exists, but he did not wish to call the spirating will natural.[566]