Book II, Chapter 1

CHAPTER I. That there is free choice, and what it is.

Since I have carried the treatment of the matters set out so far through without a break, and have gone on at greater length than I had thought, I fear that if it is prolonged further in an unbroken series it may bring weariness to the tired and breed distaste in the fastidious. So, as suitability demands a certain pause, I make one here, intending to treat what follows more briefly. Making, then, a fresh beginning, I must from here on discuss free choice. For some of what has been set out already seems to remove free choice altogether; some seems to take away its power; some seems to destroy its freedom. All of this, relying on the rules of my elders and following in the footsteps of the holy Fathers, with the Lord's help, I hope to reconcile faithfully, as befits the choice of its own freedom.1

First, then, it seems to me that free choice itself must be established. That free choice must be posited, all theologians, all logicians, all moral philosophers, and almost all natural philosophers unanimously attest. Nevertheless, because of some who might perhaps tremble with fear where there is nothing to fear, it seems to me that this should be briefly shown. It is established from the second, third, and fourth chapters of the first book that God preserves, makes, and moves all things outside himself, and that he does so not from the necessity of nature, like purely natural powers that lack cognition; nor from sensitive cognition alone and natural irrational appetite, like the other natural irrational powers; but from rational judgment, or the choice of the intellect, as the sixth chapter of the first book teaches; and not from that alone, but with free will, as the eighth and ninth chapters of the first book prove. It is therefore established that God has a free choice of the will: choice, I say, on account of the judgment of reason or intellect; and free, on account of the spontaneous power of the will. For on account of these two operations of these two powers in one mind,

free choice ‖E1 has taken these two names for itself as one name,2 as the very reason for the name makes plain; and because the choice of reason ought to precede the will, it would be better called "choice that is free" than "free choice." Hence Augustine, in the Hypognosticon 31,3 says that we must discuss a little why it is called free choice: "Choice," he says, E2 "I think has taken its name from judging by rational consideration, or from discerning what one is to choose and what to refuse; and the same is called free because it is placed in its own power, having the possibility of doing what it wills." Bernard also plainly agrees with this, in On Grace and Free Choice 4:4 free choice belongs not only to God but also to the rational creature. For necessity and contingency, or freedom, in the case of a creature, are naturally opposed as contraries; and one of them, namely necessity, is natural; therefore the other is too. Contraries correspond to each other so closely that not only, if one is natural, the other is natural, but also, if one is bounded, the other is bounded, and to the same degree.5 A1 For the Philosopher says in On the Heavens 1, 44:6 "If one of a pair of contraries is determinate, the other will be determinate." On this Averroes says in the commentary: "This is manifest from the description of contraries, which are at the extreme of remoteness. For in Metaphysics 10, 14 contraries are described as 'those things that are placed in the same genus and differ most'"; A2 and Averroes adds in the place cited above: "And since each of them is at the greatest distance, they must be equally in contrariety: that is, neither is stronger than the other; and it is manifest per se that they are in the same degree of contrariety." This he proves at once, saying: "And if not, they will not stand apart at the extreme. For it would be possible to add beyond the lesser, so that it would be more contrary, and then the same thing would have several contraries; and that which had been posited at the maximum distance is not thus the contrary of the position."7 From this it is clear that there is in a creature not only contingency and freedom, but as much of them as there is necessity in it. A3 The Apostolic rule teaches the same: namely, that if one of a pair of contraries is, the other must be. "If there is," he says, "an animal body, there is also a spiritual one," 1 Corinthians 15.8 If, therefore, there is necessity, there is also freedom; and if in any creature there is contingency and freedom, then among all creatures the rational creature seems the one to be honored with this unequal privilege.9 Likewise, it is doubtful to no one that it is absolutely possible for some creature to be of free choice, since this includes no contradiction. Hence it is also possible for omnipotent God to create such a creature; for otherwise he would not be omnipotent. And such a creature, once created, would not seem to be of a different kind from the present rational creature; hence the rational creature now present was also created with free choice. Likewise, every subtlety that strives to show that no creature now actually has free choice proceeds in the same way concerning a creature that could have free choice, if it were actually posited; and it would in no way conclude against that creature. Hence it does not conclude against an actually existing rational creature either. From all this it evidently appears that free choice, or rather choice that is free, can be defined or described in this way: B1 that it is the power of a rational being for judging rationally and carrying out voluntarily. With these statements Hugh agrees, Sentences 3, 20, and On the Sacraments 1, part 5, chapters 20 and 21, and Peter [Lombard], Sentences 2, distinctions 24 and 25.10 Many others also agree, in many other places.