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The questions in the "Summa theologica" from
seventy-seven to eighty-three, treating of the
distinction and subordination of the faculties of the
soul, are governed by the principle that "the faculties,
acts, and habits are specified by the formal object to
which they are essentially ordered, that is, by the
formal object which they touch on immediately and by the
formal motive under which they attain their object."
More briefly: the relative is specified by the absolute
to which it is essentially ordered. In his work, De
tribus principiis doctrinae S. Thomae, A. Reginaldus
enunciates this principle as the third. The other two
principles are: being is transcendental and analogical,
and God is pure act. Indeed this third principle
illumines all psychology and ethics, as well as all moral
theology and the theological treatises on the angels and
man.
From this principle it follows first that the faculties
are really distinguished from the soul, because as the
soul is ordered to its own being the faculties are ordered
to operation, and operation presupposes being and is
distinct from it. Moreover, no creature is immediately
operative; to operate it requires an operative faculty.
Hence the human soul, like the angel, cannot understand
except through the intellective faculty, nor can it will
except through the will. When we speak in this way it is
not because of the usages of language but because the very
nature of things requires it. As the essence of the soul
is the real capacity for existence, so the intellect is
the real capacity for knowing truth, and the will is the
capacity for willing what is proposed as good. Hence by
reason of this principle the faculties of the soul are
really distinct from each other according to their formal
objects.
Only in God are essence, existence, intellect,
intellection, will, and love identified without any real
distinction. Even in the angel there is a real
distinction between essence and being, between the essence
and the faculties, between the faculties themselves,
between the intellect and successive intellections, and
between the will and successive volitions. Such is also
the case with the human soul.
Instead of a real distinction Scotus introduced his
formal-actual distinction derived from the nature of the
thing as a middle between the real distinction and the
distinction of reason. To this the Thomists reply that
either this new distinction is antecedent to the
consideration of our minds, and then it is real, or it is
not antecedent to the consideration of the mind, and then
it is a distinction of reason based on the nature of the
thing, that is, a virtual distinction.
Suarez, an eclectic in these questions as in others,
sought a middle way between St. Thomas and Scotus by
saying that the distinction between the soul and its
faculties is not certain but only probable. Here again it
is evident that Suarez did not understand the distinction
between potency and act as St. Thomas did.[1308]
From this same principle, that the faculties are
specified by their formal object, we learn of the
distinction and the immeasurable distance between the
intellect and the sensitive faculties. These latter, no
matter how perfect they may be, never attain to anything
but sensible being, that is, sensible and imaginable
phenomena; they do not penetrate to intelligible being,
to the reasons for the being of things, or to the
universal and necessary principles of contradiction,
causality, finality. Nor do they attain to the first
principle of ethics: Good is to be done and evil is to be
avoided. This immeasurable distance between the intellect
and the sensitive faculties is the foundation for the proof
of the spirituality of the soul.[1309]
For the same reason the will, the rational appetite, is
distinguished from the sensible appetite, both irascible
and concupiscible.[1310] For the will, directed by
the intellect, is specified by the universal good, which
is known only by the intellect, whereas the sensitive
appetite, which is immediately directed by the cognitive
sensitive faculties, is specified not by the universal
good but by the sensible, delectable, and useful good.
Therefore the sensitive appetite, as such, cannot will
the rational or moral good which is the object of virtue.
However, under the direction of prudence, the virtues of
temperance and fortitude, which are in the sensitive
appetite disciplined and regulated by reason, are
specified by the moral good as demanding preservation in
circumstances of enjoyment or attack.
This profound distinction between the will and sensibility
is not acknowledged by many modern psychologists,
particularly after J. J. Rousseau.
From what we have said it follows that the sensitive
faculties are in the human composite as in their immediate
subject as well as in the particular animated organ,
whereas the intellect and the will, which are
intrinsically independent of the organism, are not in the
human composite but in the soul alone as in their immediate
subject.[1311]
The definition of liberty. From this doctrine on the
intellect and the will is derived what St. Thomas
teaches about liberty.[1312] We have explained and
defended this teaching on another occasion.[1313]
Here we wish to point out the difference between the
Thomistic definition of liberty and the definition
proposed by Molina. According to Molina "that agent is
said to be free which, when all the requirements are
present for acting, is able to act or not
act."[1314] What is the meaning of the words,
"when all the requirements for acting are present"?
They include not only those things that are prerequisite
in time but also by the simple priority of nature and
causality, such as actual grace received in the same
instant in which the salutary act is elicited and the
ultimate practical judgment is placed. Moreover,
Molina's definition means not only that under the
influence of efficacious grace liberty retains the ability
to resist although it actually never resists, but that
grace is not efficacious in itself but only that our
consent is foreseen by scientia media prior to the divine
decree.
According to the Thomists, Molina's definition is not
sound because it does not take into consideration the
object by which the free act is specified and in this way
neglects the principle that acts are specified by their
formal objects.
But if we take this specifying object into consideration,
we must say with St. Thomas: "If an object is
proposed to the will that is not good from every
viewpoint, the will is not necessarily drawn to
it."[1315] In other words, the Thomists say:
"Liberty is that dominating indifference of the will with
regard to an object proposed by reason as not good in every
way."
The essence of liberty consists in the dominating
indifference of the will with regard to every object
proposed by the reason as good here and now under one
aspect and not good under some other aspect. We are
concerned first with the indifference of the exercise of
the will with regard to willing or not willing this
object. This indifference is potential in the free
faculty and actual in the free act. For while the will
actually wills this object and while it is determined to
willing the object, it still wills it freely with a
dominating indifference that is now not potential but
actual. In God, however, who is most free there is no
potential or passive indifference but only an active and
actual indifference. Liberty therefore arises from the
disproportion that exists between the will specified by the
universal good and the will specified by some particular
good, some good under one aspect and not good or
insufficient under another aspect.
The Thomists add that even by His absolute power God
cannot force the will to will a particular object proposed
with indifference of the judgment. Why? Because it
implies a contradiction for the will necessarily to will an
object proposed by the intellect as indifferent, that is,
good under one aspect and not under another, or an object
that is absolutely out of proportion to the unlimited
capability of our will specified by the universal
good.[1316]
The relation of choice to the final practical judgment.
From the foregoing is derived the twenty-first of the
twenty-four propositions approved by the Sacred
Congregation of Studies: "The will does not precede
but follows the intellect, and the will necessarily
desires that which is presented to it as good in every way
and thus satisfying the (rational) appetite. But the
will freely chooses among several goods that are proposed
as desirable to the changeable judgment. The choice
therefore allows the final practical judgment, and the
will effects that which is final." The choice follows
freely upon the final practical judgment by which it is
directed, and the will does that which is final by
accepting the direction of the judgment. But the will is
able to apply the intellect to another consideration which
would lead to the opposite practical judgment. Here we
see the influence that the intellect and the will have on
each other; it is, as it were, the marriage of the
intellect and will. Thus the consent of the will does
whatever accepted practical judgment remains as final.
This intellectual direction is necessary because the will
itself is blind, and nothing is willed unless first known
as acceptable. This is an application of the principle
that causes are causes with regard to each other but in
different genera of causes. The intellect directs with
respect to the specification of the act, and the will
applies the intellect with respect to the exercise of its
act, and it applies the intellect to a certain
consideration as it is inclined to it.
Scotus and Suarez however held that it was not necessary
that the choice be directed immediately by the final
practical judgment. According to Suarez,[1317]
the will is able to choose one of two equal or unequal
goods even though the intellect does not propose it to us
as better here and now. To this the Thomists reply that
nothing is willed here and now unless it is first known as
more acceptable to us here and now; each one judges
according to his actual inclination, which however does
not force us and can be removed.[1318]
The intellect and the will are not coordinated; the will
is subordinated to the direction of the intellect in such a
way however that the final practical judgment about an
object that is not good under every aspect is free and not
compelling. This is the indifference of the judgment
which is followed by the dominating indifference of the
will.[1319]
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