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Traditional Catholic Faith => Crisis in the Church => Topic started by: OurFatherRN1 on November 08, 2018, 03:34:42 PM
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If the civil authorities forced you to go to Catholic Church only, would you be free to go to Catholic Church?
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Unless they literally put a brainchip in you that forces you to obey, then yes, you are capable of disobeying a law.
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If a civil power compels you to go to the Catholic Church, do you have the Religious Liberty to go, thereby, in any which way, whatsoever?
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No, I don't think so, not in the relevant sense. Jovial Inquisitor is right that you would be free in the ontological sense, just like you're "free" to commit murder or essentially do anything that physics doesn't disallow. But that's not what's meant by the Church's understanding of religious liberty.
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The Church only has jurisdiction over those who freely belong to her (i.e., the baptized, and in particular the baptized who are members of the Church). These she of course has the power and duty to compel to religious observance. I'm not sure that the state has the power to compel that observance, and in fact the inquisition was in large part the Church stepping in to stay the hand of the state which she regarded as having overstepped its bounds in enforcing her own laws. The state should of course promote the rights of the Church and enable her flourishing, as well as the flourishing of her members. But I'm not sure it can lawfully (i.e., lawfully in the eyes of God) compel mass attendance.
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Do you have Religious Liberty, to have Religious Liberty, in any way whatsoever, and doesn’t take make Religious Liberty true, in some way, no matter what?
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Do you have Religious Liberty, to have Religious Liberty, in any way whatsoever, and doesn’t take make Religious Liberty true, in some way, no matter what?
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The Catholic view of religious liberty is that people have a fundamental right to worship God correctly. Religious liberty means that the Catholic religion is not impeded by the state nor are Catholic citizens restrained or otherwise coerced by the state in religious observance.
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It doesn't mean that everyone has a right to believe or worship however they like. In fact, they man does not have a right to error, which is precisely what he is claiming a right to when he asserts that he has a right to his Lutheran Church, Mosque, or whatever other non-Catholic worship.
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Thomas Pink outlines what Mithrandylan is saying in this paper, for anyone that is curious: https://www.academia.edu/639061/What_is_the_Catholic_doctrine_of_religious_liberty
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Pope Leo XIII on True Liberty
http://www.catholictradition.org/Tradition/true-liberty.htm
He then explains that "freedom of choice is a property of the will, or rather it is identical with the will in so far as it has in its action the faculty of choice."
(. . .)
Freedom is exercised legitimately only when man conforms his will to that of God. He has no natural right to prefer his own counsel to that of his Creator, even though physically and psychologically he is able to do so. A crucial distinction must be made here in discussing the nature of free will. This is the distinction between being physically and psychologically able (free) to choose evil, and having a natural right to choose evil. In the language of liberalism, to say that a man is free to do something means that he has a right to do it, subject to the requirements of public order.
"Nothing more foolish can be uttered or conceived," teaches Pope Leo, "than the notion that because man is free by nature, he is therefore exempt from law."
(. . .)
A man who chooses what is objectively evil is making himself not free but the slave of sin (Jn. 8:34).
(. . .)
When a man exercises his liberty in accordance with the law of God he renders his Creator homage which is due to Him in strict justice and also follows the only path by which he can be saved. He does not abdicate his dignity, he asserts it. When he chooses evil he abuses and profanes his most sacred possession.
(. . .)
In order to promote freedom of conscience in its correct sense, Pope Leo teaches that the state should not ensure that "everyone may, as he chooses, worship God nor not" but that every man in the state may follow the will of God and, from a consciousness of duty and free from every obstacle, obey His commands. This indeed, is true liberty, a liberty worthy of the sons of God, which nobly maintains the dignity of man, and is stronger than all violence or wrong-----a liberty which the Church has always maintained and held most dear.
Freedom of conscience is not, then, a natural right if it is taken as meaning that man has a right to choose error. But although an individual has no natural right to choose error he does possess a right not to be coerced into choosing truth in the internal forum of his private life. Pope Leo XIII taught in his encyclical Immortale Dei: (http://www.catholictradition.org/Tradition-Old/immortale-dei.htm)
The Church is wont to take earnest heed that no one shall be forced to embrace the Catholic faith against his will, for, as St. Augustine wisely reminds us, "Man cannot believe otherwise than of his own free will."
A coerced act is not a free act, even though it be tending towards some 'good' for that person.
If someone is refusing to eat, and starving themself, and I force them in some manner to take food, that person is not engaging in liberty, so to speak.
Back to the article; to the point, true liberty is freedom from sin.
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Here, is a more purely, philosophical, speculation... Do you have Religious Liberty to have Religious Liberty, in any which way, whatsoever? In other words, according to philosophical speculation, in a sense, there is a way in which I understand that if I have the choice to make a Religious decision in any which way whatsoever, then, either way, no matter what that is, then I have had, a Religious Liberty, no matter what, either way. Does't that make sense?
So in my view, I believe that by the very words, of saying Religious Liberty, you have had thereby a liberty, in Religion, of some kind. And, in my view, that seems to make some kind of Religious Liberty, true, at least in some sense. Does anyone here understand that with me, at least, in some way, in some, sense, whatsoever?
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Thomas Pink outlines what Mithrandylan is saying in this paper, for anyone that is curious: https://www.academia.edu/639061/What_is_the_Catholic_doctrine_of_religious_liberty
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For the record, I agree with Pink's principles but I disagree with his evaluation of Dignitatis Humanae.
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For the record, I agree with Pink's principles but I disagree with his evaluation of Dignitatis Humanae.
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That is, I think he understands religious liberty correctly, but I don't think he's correct that DH was merely a "policy shift," and to the degree that it was a policy shift, I don't think it's the kind of shift the Church can make. DH premises its "policies" in man's alleged right to practice whatever religion he pleases, and this alone is a major error. Add to that, I think DH did more than just "rescind" the Church's request for aid from nation-states (which I do think she is free to do), but additionally requested and exhorted them to promote all religions equally. It strikes me as a violation of the Church's divine constitution to positively recommend for societies or individuals to worship however they please.
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To back up "my" reading of DH, I would point to the fact that DH has been enacted and applied by the Novus Ordo episcopate in exactly the way I just described and understood in the way I just described. Pink's defense of it is definitely the best defense there is, and he's certainly put a great deal of thought, effort, and research into the defense-- but it remains his defense, and his defense only; it certainly isn't the way that his religious superiors have understood the docuмent.
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Here, is a more purely, philosophical, speculation... Do you have Religious Liberty to have Religious Liberty, in any which way, whatsoever? In other words, according to philosophical speculation, in a sense, there is a way in which I understand that if I have the choice to make a Religious decision in any which way whatsoever, then, either way, no matter what that is, then I have had, a Religious Liberty, no matter what, either way. Does't that make sense?
So in my view, I believe that by the very words, of saying Religious Liberty, you have had thereby a liberty, in Religion, of some kind. And, in my view, that seems to make some kind of Religious Liberty, true, at least in some sense. Does anyone here understand that with me, at least, in some way, in some, sense, whatsoever?
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There's danger of equivocation here. If we just look at the expression "religous liberty" and through self-inflicted Cartesian doubt reason our way to its meaning, as though it existed in a vacuum, we'd probably conclude with some "absolute" form of religious liberty where there is a strict universal right, at least in some sense, for man to worship in whatever way he finds fit.
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But religious liberty has a very specific meaning if we're considering it as Catholic doctrine (which, as Catholics, is how we look at it). And that meaning is constrained by the Divine Law and the rights of God, which include and entail man's duty to worship Him "as He is", i.e., the Triune God who, through Jesus Christ, established and maintained One Christian Church, the Catholic Church, with a deposit of faith and corresponding praxis to express that faith. That is the religion which is the object of religious liberty. According to Catholic teaching, but also in the philosophical sense. The axiom "error has no rights" is not merely a religious brute fact, it belongs to natural philosophy and theology as well, at least in any natural philosophy or theology that commits to an objective view of the world and morality.
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Religious Liberty, like all the V2 errors, is rooted in subjectivism ... as Bishop Williamson famously likes to point out. If one pleases God and saves his soul by following even an erroneous conscience, then, since a person has a right (and duty) to please God and save his soul, then he has a right to follow even an erroneous conscience. That's why the EENS issue is so critical in all this ... and yet so many Traditional Catholics blow it off as unimportant.
If you grant that people save their souls by following error, so long as they do it in good faith, then Vatican II reduces to nothing more than a presumption in the external forum of good faith. So, for instance, if before Vatican II the Church PRESUMED in the external forum that non-Catholics were actually outside the Church (even though they technically could be in the Church), now after Vatican II, the presumption is that they are in good faith and actually in the Church. That is all. While one might disagree, there's no actual shift in principle from what many Traditional Catholics believe regarding the core ecclesiology and soteriology.
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What is liberty, what is freedom? In his encyclical called Libertas, Pope Leo XIII defines liberty and freedom, as the power to choose. That is all liberty is, a power. It is not intrinsically good or evil, nor is it a right, it is just a power. Every person has the power (the liberty) to worship a tree, the devil, or the Holy Trinity. Liberty, freedom or power, mean nothing, it is how it is used that determines if it is good or evil, right or wrong. Worshipping God through any way other than the Catholic faith and the Catholic Church, is false worship and repugnant to God.
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True religious liberty in our time properly understood means one thing only:
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Catholics have the right to worship God in public, in the open, officially, for all to see, using the Traditional Latin Mass and all associated rituals.
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Of course, there are Catholic rites besides the Roman Latin rite, and these others (Greek, Armenian, Aramaic, Russian, etc.) are likewise okay.
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At the same time, neither Catholics or non-Catholics have the right to pretend to PUBLICLY worship God (or anything else) in other ways.
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That means that Lutheran, Mormon, Seventh-Day Adventist, Buddhist, Hindu, Jєωιѕн, Mohammedan, Zoroastrian or any other sects have no such right.
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They would be worshiping God (or whatever) in ways that are not Catholic, and they are not at liberty to publicly do so, under true religious liberty.
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Only the one true faith has the liberty to be practiced in public, and since the Catholic Church is the one true faith, it must be public.
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But you won't find a word of that in Dignitatis Humanae, and as such it is an abominable desecration of the Church's authority in the world.
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Consequently we can logically take this one step further, to say that inasmuch as the Novus Ordo you-name-it complies and agrees with Vat.II --
everything Novus Ordo is tantamount to DH from the viewpoint of traditional Catholicism, and must be opposed with our heart, mind and will.
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This means that the Novus Ordo ceremonies you see published coming out of the Vatican on Christmas, etc., are all fake, non-Catholic and abominable.
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If you think this is too "harsh" what do you have to say about the laws for religious public practice in Moslem countries, such as Saudi Arabia?
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Go back now, and read trad123's post regarding the words of Pope Leo XIII (https://www.cathinfo.com/crisis-in-the-church/religious-liberty-50469/msg633752/#msg633752), keeping ^ this ^ in mind, and see what difference it makes.
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If the civil authorities forced you to go to Catholic Church only, would you be free to go to Catholic Church?
How can someone force me to do what I already do?
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Someone can force you to do what you usually do by many ways, command, threat, any kind of persuasion. Doesn't the Church force you to go Mass, under pain of eternal hellfire? Doesn't the Church force you?
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If the civil authorities forced you to go to Catholic Church only, would you be free to go to Catholic Church?
Wut? This makes no sense whatsoever.
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Catholicism should be the only official religion of the nation-state. All non-Catholics are free to practice their false religion in their own homes and privacy, but they can't publicly assemble and "worship", nor can proselytize other citizens into their false religions, lest they face civil reprimands. This is an example of a Catholic nation-state's teaching and social order being opposed to religious liberty. This is what the Church essentially taught and practiced in Catholic nations before ʝʊdɛօ-masonic revolutions usurped the Church and Catholic monarchies.
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ll non-Catholics are free to practice their false religion in their own homes and privacy, but they can't publicly assemble and "worship"
Wasn't that a privilege of the Christian states, and not a moral obligation?
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Catholicism should be the only official religion of the nation-state. All non-Catholics are free to practice their false religion in their own homes and privacy, but they can't publicly assemble and "worship", nor can proselytize other citizens into their false religions, lest they face civil reprimands. This is an example of a Catholic nation-state's teaching and social order being opposed to religious liberty. This is what the Church essentially taught and practiced in Catholic nations before ʝʊdɛօ-masonic revolutions usurped the Church and Catholic monarchies.
That is Catholic religious liberty.
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That is Catholic religious liberty.
Religious liberty is heresy and a sin. The Church opposes religious liberty by mandating Catholicism as the official religion of a Catholic nation-state, and the only religion that can be expressed in public worship of God. This honors Christ's Social Reign on earth, and it's the foundation of a civilization. However, the Church still recognizes free will. Free will is not to be confused and conflated with religious liberty. People are still allowed to privately "worship" their false gods, or remain as atheists, as long as they don't publicly express their paganism, heresies and faithlessness.
The Lord Jesus Christ doesn't force people to believe in and worship Him. It wouldn't be true Faith if they were forced to do it, or they were created like mechanical beings with no free will rendering "supplications" to Him. He gives everyone free will. The Church recognizes this ontological reality and advocates it in a Catholic nation-state, as long as Catholicism is the sole official religion and the only Faith allowed to be publicly expressed and practiced for the good of civilization and the flock.
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Religious liberty (as defined in Vatican II is a false religious liberty) is heresy and a sin. The Church opposes (VAT II's definition of ) religious liberty by mandating Catholicism as the official religion of a Catholic nation-state, and the only religion that can be expressed in public worship of God (that is the true religious liberty of the Catholic Church). This honors Christ's Social Reign on earth, and it's the foundation of a civilization. However, the Church still recognizes free will. Free will is not to be confused and conflated with (a right to worship in any other religion, which is what Vatican II defined, and is a false religious liberty) religious liberty. People (still have the power) and are still allowed to privately "worship" their false gods, or remain as atheists, as long as they don't publicly express their paganism, heresies and faithlessness.
The Lord Jesus Christ doesn't force people to believe in and worship Him. It wouldn't be true Faith if they were forced to do it, or they were created like mechanical beings with no free will rendering "supplications" to Him. He gives everyone free will. The Church recognizes this ontological reality and advocates it in a Catholic nation-state, as long as Catholicism is the sole official religion and the only Faith allowed to be publicly expressed and practiced for the good of civilization and the flock.
My corrections above in red will better clarify what I wrote above.
True religious liberty was practiced in Brazil, where Catholicism was the state religion, and all the other false religions were permitted to have their meeting places, but no signs could be placed outside of the building (a type of advertising) to indicate what it was and they were not allowed to proselytize or advertise.
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Basically, everyone, I am saying that everything that is done, is Religious Liberty, no matter what, no matter any which way whatsoever, everything is Religious Liberty. Without liberty, in Religion, always, there could be no chance to sin, and no chance to merit. Religious Liberty, as such, in and of itself, is a philosophical necessity. Does anyone here agree?
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You confuse religious liberty with free will.
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Basically, everyone, I am saying that everything that is done, is Religious Liberty, no matter what, no matter any which way whatsoever, everything is Religious Liberty. Without liberty, in Religion, always, there could be no chance to sin, and no chance to merit. Religious Liberty, as such, in and of itself, is a philosophical necessity. Does anyone here agree?
Liberty means the power to choose. We all have the power to choose. That is all liberty is.
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You confuse religious liberty with free will.
Does your free will, have Religious Liberty, in any way, whatsoever?
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Does your free will, have Religious Liberty, in any way, whatsoever?
Nadir clarified the matter very nicely, and you've managed to muddy it up again by confusing these concepts.
I'm not sure what's difficult to understand here. Man has free will. He is free to choose good or evil. Religious Liberty is a false teaching, formally condemned by the Catholic Church, that posits that man has the right to choose whatever religion he wants. This is wrong. Error has no rights. Man has the duty to belong to the Catholic Church, and to profess the Catholic Faith. However, God does not compel us by means which violate our free will to enter His Church. Everyone is free to reject God's grace, though the price for that decision is eternal damnation, for we do not have the right to reject God's grace.
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Judging from the demographics and the social situation I don't see that happening anytime soon here in America.
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Does your free will, have Religious Liberty, in any way, whatsoever?
My free will embraces the Catholic Faith, and I pray that I my free will will continue on that path until the day I die. Of course, I am free to chose error, but I pray to be protected from that error which would indeed lead me into spiritual enslavement and eventually to eternal damnation. I hope that answers your question.
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He is free to choose good or evil. Religious Liberty (as taught at Vatican II) is a false teaching, formally condemned by the Catholic Church, that posits that man has the right to choose whatever religion he wants. This is wrong. Error has no rights. Man has the duty to belong to the Catholic Church, and to profess the Catholic Faith. However, God does not compel us by means which violate our free will to enter His Church. Everyone is free to reject God's grace, though the price for that decision is eternal damnation, for we do not have the right to reject God's grace.
MY addition in red. The term religious liberty is like the term "gαy", the meaning has been changed. One should always point to Vatican II when condemning it.
Liberty means the power to choose, that is all it is. It is not a right, it is just a power.
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LT,
I beg your pardon, but isn't even your reply, also, Religious Liberty? How about, in any which way whatsoever?
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LT,
I beg your pardon, but isn't even your reply, also, Religious Liberty? How about, in any which way whatsoever?
Are you gαy?
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Yes, I am happy and joyful. I believe the Pope, and go to my local Diocesan Parish, and I follow the laws of the Church, including the laws of belief, however, lets get back to Religious Liberty. Do you think that would be a good thing to do?
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Yes, I am happy and joyful. I believe the Pope, and go to my local Diocesan Parish, and I follow the laws of the Church, including the laws of belief, however, lets get back to Religious Liberty. Do you think that would be a good thing to do?
Why aren't you defining your terms?
What do you mean when you say "religious liberty?"
Do you accept that it is false and heretical to posit that man has a right to choose whatever religion he wishes?
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My terms are defined by Webster’s dictionary. You can see the two definitions from Webster’s on google, okay?
When I say Religious and Liberty, I mean websters dictionary again, or, if you like, any dictionary.
And no, I do not believe it is heretical to say that a man can choose his own religion, I would preferred if he could, and I would prefer if we could too, and I could say a lot more than that, but not yet. Thanks for trying to understand me with your questions.
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My terms are defined by Webster’s dictionary. You can see the two definitions from Webster’s on google, okay?
When I say Religious and Liberty, I mean websters dictionary again, or, if you like, any dictionary.
And no, I do not believe it is heretical to say that a man can choose his own religion, I would preferred if he could, and I would prefer if we could too, and I could say a lot more than that, but not yet. Thanks for trying to understand me with your questions.
Dictionaries give meanings of words as they are commonly used. In specific fields of knowledge words often have specialized meanings which are different from their common meanings. Within Catholic teaching, "religious liberty" refers to a specific concept, one that cannot be deduced from dictionary meanings of the individual words. Everyone else posting has been using the term in this sense and communication is not possible if you persist in making up a meaning of your own.
It is, in fact, heretical to say that a man has a right to choose his own religion. If you wish to understand the Catholic teaching on religious liberty, I suggest you reread the explanations already given in this thread and use terms as they have been defined by the Church. If you truly wish to follow what the Church says you should believe on this matter, you need to change your views on this.
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OurFatherRN1: Full of Pride, new order. You are either a Troll, or you want some education?
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My terms are defined by Webster’s dictionary. You can see the two definitions from Webster’s on google, okay?
When I say Religious and Liberty, I mean websters dictionary again, or, if you like, any dictionary.
And no, I do not believe it is heretical to say that a man can choose his own religion, I would preferred if he could, and I would prefer if we could too, and I could say a lot more than that, but not yet. Thanks for trying to understand me with your questions.
I didn't ask if you believe that a man can choose his own religion, I asked if you believe that a man has the right to choose his own religion.
Do you believe that man has the right to choose his own religion?
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Yes, I am happy and joyful. I believe the Pope, and go to my local Diocesan Parish, and I follow the laws of the Church, including the laws of belief, however, lets get back to Religious Liberty.
and you are a "Eucharistc Minister" and have an annulment.
The Vatican II church - Assisting Souls to Hell Since 1962.
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and you are a "Eucharistc Minister" and have an annulment.
The Vatican II church - Assisting Souls to Hell Since 1962.
Please pray for me.
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I didn't ask if you believe that a man can choose his own religion, I asked if you believe that a man has the right to choose his own religion.
Do you believe that man has the right to choose his own religion?
Yesssss. I do believe he has a right, to choose, his Religion, it is a god given right, of free will, to choose, Heaven, or Hell. He has a right to hell. And if he does, he will stay there forever. If he doesn't, then how will he stay there. That is is choice, and that is his right.
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Yesssss. I do believe he has a right, to choose, his Religion, it is a god given right, of free will, to choose, Heaven, or Hell. He has a right to hell. And if he does, he will stay there forever. If he doesn't, then how will he stay there. That is is choice, and that is his right.
Do you believe a woman has the right to kill her unborn child?
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Free will means we are free to commit evil. You've extrapolated from that that we have the right to commit evil. That's an abominable error, but one which I think you make out of genuine ignorance, more than from ill-willed malice.
From your own preferred dictionary, Merriam-Webster's:
right
noun
Definition of right
(Entry 2 of 4)
2 : something to which one has a just claim: such as
a : the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled; voting rights / his right to decide
3 : something that one may properly claim as due; knowing the truth is her right
just
adjective
Definition of just
(Entry 1 of 3)
2a(1) : acting or being in conformity with what is morally upright or good : righteous (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/righteous) a just war
By your own admission, you're not a Traditional Catholic. You attend a diocesan Novus Ordo church, and are being / have been "catechized" by intellectually darkened Modernists for whom mush-minded confusion, imprecise definitions, and ambiguous terminology are their veritable stock-in-trade. So it's understandable that you fail to make - or, it seems, to even grasp - certain absolutely crucial distinctions. But even a secular dictionary like Webster's, as per above, still demonstrates that the essential element of rights is justice. To choose to belong to an objectively false religion is no more just, no more "in conformity with what is morally upright or good," than is the choice to murder a baby, rob a bank, commit adultery, etc. Thus, there is no "right" to these things, despite our being able to do them because of free will.
I'll leave you with the articles on "Right" and "Free Will" from the original Catholic Encyclopedia (an obviously superior reference for subjects touching on morality than a secular dictionary). My advice to you: Read them. Find your nearest SSPX chapel, talk to a Traditional priest, pray for an increase in humility, and refrain from posting on internet forums for at least a year.
http://newadvent.com/cathen/13055c.htm (http://newadvent.com/cathen/13055c.htm)
Right
Right, as a substantive (my right, his right), designates the object of justice (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08571c.htm). When a person (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11726a.htm) declares he has a right to a thing, he means he has a kind of dominion over such thing, which others are obliged (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11189a.htm) to recognize. Right may therefore be defined as a moral or legal authority to possess, claim, and use a thing as one's own. It is thus essentially distinct from obligation (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11189a.htm); in virtue of an obligation (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11189a.htm) we should, in virtue of a right, we may do or omit something. Again, right is a moral or legal authority, and, as such, is distinct from merely physical superiority or pre-eminence; the thief who steals something without being detected enjoys the physical control of the object, but no right to it; on the contrary, his act is an injustice (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08010c.htm), a violation of right, and he is bound to return the stolen (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14564b.htm) object to its owner. Right is called a moral or legal authority, because it emanates from a law which assigns to one the dominion over the thing and imposes on others the obligation (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11189a.htm) to respect this dominion. To the right of one person (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11726a.htm) corresponds an obligation (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11189a.htm) on the part of others, so that right and obligation (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11189a.htm) condition each other. If I have the right to demand one hundred dollars from a person (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11726a.htm), he is under the obligation (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11189a.htm) to give them to me; without this obligation (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11189a.htm), right would be illusory. One may even say that the right of one person (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11726a.htm) consists in the fact that, on his account, others are bound to perform or omit something.
The clause, "to possess, claim, and use, anything as one's own", defines more closely the object of right. Justice assigns to each person (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11726a.htm) his own (suum cuique). When anyone asserts that a thing is his own, is his private property (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12462a.htm), or belongs to him, he means that this object stands in a special relation to him, that it is in the first place destined for his use, and that he can dispose of it according to his will, regardless of others. By a thing is here meant not merely a material object, but everything that can be useful to man, including actions, omissions, etc. The connexion of a certain thing with a certain person (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11726a.htm), in virtue of which the person (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11726a.htm) may declare the thing his own, can originate only on the basis of concrete facts. It is an evident demand of human (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09580c.htm) reason (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12673b.htm) in general that one may give or leave one's own to anyone; but what constitutes one's own is determined by facts. Many things are physically connected with the human per-son by conception or birth--his limbs, bodily and mental (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10321a.htm) qualities, health, etc. From the order imposed by the Creator of Nature, we recognize that, from the first moment of his being, his faculties and members are granted a person (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11726a.htm) primarily for his own use, and so that they may enable him to support himself and develop and fulfil the tasks appointed by the Creator for this life. These things (i.e., his qualities, etc.) are his own from the first moment of his existence, and whoever injures them or deprives him of them violates his right. However, many other things are connected with the human person (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11726a.htm), not physically, but only morally. In other words, in virtue of a certain fact, everyone recognizes that certain things are specially destined for the use of one person (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11726a.htm), and must be recognized as such by all. Persons who build a house for themselves, make an implement, catch game in the unreserved forest, or fish in the open sea, become the owners of these things in virtue of occupation of their labour; they can claim these things as their own, and no one can forcibly appropriate or injure these things without a violation of their rights. Whoever has lawfully purchased a thing, or been presented with it by another, may regard such thing as his own, since by the purchase or presentation he succeeds to the place of the other person (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11726a.htm) and possesses his rights. As a right gives rise to a certain connection between person (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11726a.htm) and person (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11726a.htm) with respect to a thing, we may distinguish in right four elements: the holder, the object, the title, and the terminus of the right. The holder of the right is the person (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11726a.htm) who possesses the right, the terminus is the person (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11726a.htm) who has the obligation (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11189a.htm) corresponding to the right, the object is the thing to which the right refers, and the title is the fact on the ground of which a person (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11726a.htm) may regard and claim the thing as his own. Strictly speaking, this fact alone is not the title of the right, which originates, indeed, in the fact, but taken in connection with the principle that one must assign to each his own property (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12462a.htm); however, since this principle may be presupposed as self-evident, it is customary to regard the simple fact as the title of the right.
The right of which we have hitherto been speaking is individual right, to which the obligation (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11189a.htm) of commutative justice (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08571c.htm) corresponds. Commutative justice (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08571c.htm) regulates the relations of the members of human society (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14074a.htm) to one another, and aims at securing that each member renders to his fellow-members what is equally theirs. In addition to this commutative justice (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08571c.htm), there is also a legal and distributive justice (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08571c.htm); these virtues regulate the relations between the complete societies (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14074a.htm) (State and Church) and their members. From the propensities and needs of human (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09580c.htm) nature (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10715a.htm) we recognize the State as resting on a Divine ordinance; only in the State can man support himself and develop according to his nature. But, if the Divine Creator of Nature has willed the existence of the State, He must also will the means necessary (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10733a.htm) for its maintenance and the attainment of its objects. This will can be found only in the right of the State to demand from its members what is necessary (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10733a.htm) for the general good. It must be authorized to make laws (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09053a.htm) to punish violations of such, and in general to arrange everything for the public welfare, while, on their side, the members must be under the obligation (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11189a.htm) corresponding to this right. The virtue which makes all members of society (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14074a.htm) contribute what is necessary (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10733a.htm) for its maintenance is called legal justice (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08571c.htm), because the law (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09053a.htm) has to determine in individual cases what burdens are to be borne by the members. According to Catholic teaching (http://newadvent.com/cathen/05075b.htm), the Church (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03744a.htm) is, like the State, a complete and independent society (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14074a.htm), wherefore it also must be justified in demanding from its members whatever is necessary (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10733a.htm) for its welfare and the attainment of its object. But the members of the State have not only obligations (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11189a.htm) towards the general body; they have likewise rights. The State is bound to distribute public burdens (e.g. taxation) according to the powers and capability of the members, and is also under the obligation (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11189a.htm) of distributing public goods (offices and honours) according to the degree of worthiness and services. To these duties (http://newadvent.com/cathen/05215a.htm) of the general body or its leaders corresponds a right of the members; they can demand that the leaders observe the claims of distributive justice (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08571c.htm), and failure to do this on the part of the authorities is a violation of the right of the members.
On the basis of the above notions of right, its object can be more exactly determined. Three species of right and justice (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08571c.htm) have been distinguished. The object of the right, corresponding to even-handed justice (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08571c.htm), has as its object the securing for the members of human society (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14074a.htm) in their intercourse with one another freedom and independence in the use of their own possessions. For the object of right can only be the good for the attainment of which we recognize right as necessary (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10733a.htm), and which it effects of its very nature, and this good is the freedom and independence of every member of society (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14074a.htm) in the use of his own. If man is to fulfil freely the tasks imposed upon him by God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm), he must possess the means necessary (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10733a.htm) for this purpose, and be at liberty to utilize such independently of others. He must have a sphere of free activity, in which he is secure from the interference of others; this object is attained by the right which protects each in the free use of his own from the encroachments of others. Hence the proverbs: "A willing person (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11726a.htm) suffers no injustice (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08010c.htm)" and "No one is compelled to make use of his rights". For the object of the right which corresponds to commutative justice (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08571c.htm) is the liberty of the possessor of the right in the use of his own, and this right is not attained if each is bound always to make use of and insist upon his rights. The object of the right which corresponds to legal justice (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08571c.htm) is the good of the community; of this right we may not say that "no one is bound to make use of his right", since the community---or, more correctly, its leaders--must make use of public rights, whenever and wherever the good of the community requires it. Finally, the right corresponding to the object of distributive justice (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08571c.htm) is the defence of the members against the community or its leaders; they must not be laden with public burdens beyond their powers, and must receive as much of the public goods as becomes the condition of their meritoriousness and services. Although, in accordance with the above, each of the three kinds of rights has its own immediate object, all three tend in common towards one remote object, which, according to St. Thomas (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14663b.htm) (Cont. Gent., III, xxxiv), is nothing else than to secure that peace be maintained among men by procuring for each the peaceful possession of his own.
Right (or more precisely speaking, the obligation (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11189a.htm) corresponding to right) is enforceable at least in general--that is, whoever has a right with respect to some other person (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11726a.htm) is authorized to employ physical force to secure the fulfilment of this obligation (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11189a.htm), if the other person (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11726a.htm) will not voluntarily (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15506a.htm) fulfil it. This enforceable character of the obligation (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11189a.htm) arises necessarily from the object of right. As already said, this object is to secure for every member of society (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14074a.htm) a sphere of free activity and for society (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14074a.htm) the means necessary (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10733a.htm) for its development, and the attainment of this object is evidently indispensable for social life; but it would not be sufficiently attained if it were left to each one's discretion whether he should fulfil his obligations (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11189a.htm) or not. In a large community there are always many who would allow themselves to be guided, not by right or justice (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08571c.htm), but by their own selfish inclinations, and would disregard the rights of their fellowmen, if they were not forcibly confined to their proper sphere of right; consequently, the obligation (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11189a.htm) corresponding to a right must be enforceable in favour of the possessor of the right. But in a regulated community the power of compulsion must be vested in the public authority (http://newadvent.com/cathen/02137c.htm), since, if each might employ force against his fellowmen whenever his right was infringed, there would soon arise a general conflict of all against all, and order and safety would be entirely subverted. Only in cases of necessity, where an unjust (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08010c.htm) attack on one's life or property (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12462a.htm) has to be warded off and recourse to the authorities is impossible, has the individual the right of meeting violence (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15446a.htm) with violence (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15446a.htm).
While right or the obligation (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11189a.htm) corresponding to it is enforceable, we must beware of referring the essence of right to this enforcibility or even to the authority to enforce it, as is done by many jurists since the time of Kant (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08603a.htm). For enforcibility is only a secondary characteristic of right and does not pertain to all rights; although, for example, under a real monarchy the subjects possess some rights with respect to the ruler, they can usually exercise no compulsion towards him, since he is irresponsible, and is subject to no higher authority which can employ forcible measures against him. Rights are divided, according to the title on which they rest, into natural and positive rights, and the latter are subdivided into Divine and human rights. By natural rights are meant all those which we acquire by our very birth, e.g. the right to live, to integrity of limbs, to freedom, to acquire property (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12462a.htm), etc.; all other rights are called acquired rights, although many of them are acquired, independently of any positive law, in virtue of free acts, e.g. the right of the husband and wife in virtue of the marriage contract, the right to ownerless goods through occupation, the right to a house through purchase or hire, etc. On the other hand, other rights may be given by positive law; according as the law (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09053a.htm) is Divine or human, and the latter civil or ecclesiastical (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03744a.htm), we distinguish between Divine or human, civil or ecclesiastical (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03744a.htm) rights. To civil rights belong citizenship in a state, active or passive franchise, etc.
http://newadvent.com/cathen/06259a.htm (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06259a.htm)
Free Will
- RELATION OF THE QUESTION TO DIFFERENT BRANCHES OF PHILOSOPHY (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06259a.htm#rel)
- HISTORY (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06259a.htm#his)
- Free Will in Ancient Philosophy (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06259a.htm#anc)
- Free Will and the Christian Religion (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06259a.htm#chr)
- Catholic Doctrine (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06259a.htm#cat)
- Thomist and Molinist Theories (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06259a.htm#tho)
- Free will and the Protestant Reformers (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06259a.htm#pro)
- Free Will in Modern Philosophy (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06259a.htm#mod)
- THE ARGUMENT (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06259a.htm#arg)
- Proof (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06259a.htm#prf)
- Objections (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06259a.htm#obj)
- NATURE AND RANGE OF MORAL LIBERTY (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06259a.htm#nat)
- CONSEQUENCES (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06259a.htm#con)
The question of free will, moral liberty, or the liberum arbitrium of the Schoolmen (http://newadvent.com/cathen/13548a.htm), ranks amongst the three or four most important philosophical (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12025c.htm) problems of all time. It ramifies into ethics, theology (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14580x.htm), metaphysics (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10226a.htm), and psychology (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12545b.htm). The view adopted in response to it will determine a man's position in regard to the most momentous issues that present themselves to the human (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09580c.htm) mind (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10321a.htm). On the one hand, does man possess genuine moral freedom, power of real choice, true (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15073a.htm) ability to determine the course of his thoughts and volitions, to decide which motives shall prevail within his mind, to modify and mould his own character? Or, on the other, are man's thoughts and volitions, his character and external actions, all merely the inevitable outcome of his circuмstances? Are they all inexorably predetermined in every detail along rigid lines by events of the past, over which he himself has had no sort of control? This is the real import of the free-will problem.
Relation of the question to different branches of philosophy
(1) Ethically, the issue vitally affects the meaning of most of our fundamental moral terms and ideas (http://newadvent.com/cathen/07630a.htm). Responsibility, merit, duty (http://newadvent.com/cathen/05215a.htm), remorse, justice (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08571c.htm), and the like, will have a totally different significance for one who believes that all man's acts are in the last resort completely determined by agencies beyond his power, from that which these terms bear for the man who believes that each human being possessed of reason can by his own free will determine his deliberate volitions and so exercise a real command over his thoughts, his deeds, and the formation of his character.
(2) Theology studies the questions of the existence (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608b.htm), nature and attributes of God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06612a.htm), and His relations with man. The reconciliation of God's (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) fore-knowledge and universal providential government of the world with the contingency of human action, as well as the harmonizing of the efficacy of supernatural (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14336b.htm) grace with the free natural power of the creature, has been amongst the most arduous labours of the theological (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14580x.htm) student from the days of St. Augustine (http://newadvent.com/cathen/02084a.htm) down to the present time.
(3) Causality, change, movement, the beginning of existence, are notions which lie at the very heart of metaphysics (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10226a.htm). The conception of the human will as a free cause involves them all.
(4) Again, the analysis of voluntary (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15506a.htm) action and the investigation of its peculiar features are the special functions of Psychology (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12545b.htm). Indeed, the nature of the process of volition and of all forms of appetitive or conative activity is a topic that has absorbed a constantly increasing space in psychological (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12545b.htm) literature during the past fifty years.
(5) Finally, the rapid growth of sundry branches of modern science (http://newadvent.com/cathen/13598b.htm), such as physics, biology, sociology, and the systematization of moral statistics, has made the doctrine (http://newadvent.com/cathen/05075b.htm) of free will a topic of the most keen interest (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08075a.htm) in many departments of more positive knowledge (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08673a.htm).
History
Free will in ancient philosophy
The question of free will does not seem to have presented itself very clearly to the early Greek philosophers (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12025c.htm). Some historians have held that the Pythagoreans must have allotted a certain degree of moral freedom to man, from their recognition of man's responsibility for sin (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14004b.htm) with consequent retribution experienced in the course of the transmigration of souls (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14153a.htm). The Eleatics (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15756b.htm) adhered to a pantheistic (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11447b.htm) monism, in which they emphasized the immutability of one eternal unchangeable principle so as to leave no room for freedom. Democritus also taught that all events occur by necessity, and the Greek atomists (http://newadvent.com/cathen/02053a.htm) generally, like their modern representatives, advocated a mechanical theory of the universe (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15183a.htm), which excluded all contingency. With Socrates (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14119a.htm), the moral aspect of all philosophical (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12025c.htm) problems became prominent, yet his identification of all virtue with knowledge (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08673a.htm) and his intense personal conviction that it is impossible deliberately to do what one clearly perceives to be wrong, led him to hold that the good, being identical with the true (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15073a.htm), imposes itself irresistibly on the will as on the intellect (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08066a.htm), when distinctly apprehended. Every man necessarily wills his greatest good, and his actions are merely means to this end. He who commits evil (http://newadvent.com/cathen/05649a.htm) does so out of ignorance (http://newadvent.com/cathen/07648a.htm) as to the right means to the true (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15073a.htm) good. Plato (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12159a.htm) held in the main the same view. Virtue is the determination of the will by the knowledge (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08673a.htm) of the good; it is true (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15073a.htm) freedom. The wicked man is ignorant (http://newadvent.com/cathen/07648a.htm) and a slave. Sometimes, however, Plato (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12159a.htm) seems to suppose that the soul (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14153a.htm) possessed genuine free choice in a previous life, which there decided its future destiny. Aristotle (http://newadvent.com/cathen/01713a.htm) disagrees with both Plato (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12159a.htm) and Socrates (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14119a.htm), at least in part. He appeals to experience. Men can act against the knowledge (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08673a.htm) of the true (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15073a.htm) good; vice is voluntary (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15506a.htm). Man is responsible for his actions as the parent of them. Moreover his particular actions, as means to his end, are contingent, a matter of deliberation and subject to choice. The future is not all predictable. Some events depend on chance. Aristotle (http://newadvent.com/cathen/01713a.htm) was not troubled by the difficulty of prevision on the part of his God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm). Still his physical theory of the universe (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15183a.htm), the action he allots to the noûs poietkós, and the irresistible influence exerted by the Prime Mover make the conception of genuine moral freedom in his system very obscure and difficult. The Stoics (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14299a.htm) adopted a form of materialistic Pantheism (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11447b.htm). God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) and the world are one. All the world's movements are governed by rigid law. Unvaried causality (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03459a.htm) unity of design, fatalistic government, prophecy and foreknowledge--all these factors exclude chance and the possibility of free will. Epicurus (http://newadvent.com/cathen/05500b.htm), oddly in contrast here with his modern hedonistic followers, advocates free will and modifies the strict determinism (http://newadvent.com/cathen/04756c.htm) of the atomists (http://newadvent.com/cathen/02053a.htm), whose physics he accepts, by ascribing to the atoms a clinamen, a faculty of random deviation in their movements. His openly professed object, however, in this point as in the rest of his philosophy, is to release men from the fears caused by belief (http://newadvent.com/cathen/02408b.htm) in irresistible fate.
Free will and the Christian religion
The problem of free will assumed quite a new character with the advent of the Christian religion (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03712a.htm). The doctrine (http://newadvent.com/cathen/05075b.htm) that God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) has created (http://newadvent.com/cathen/04470a.htm) man, has commanded him to obey (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11181c.htm) the moral law, and has promised to reward or punish him for observance or violation of this law (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09053a.htm), made the reality of moral liberty an issue of transcendent importance. Unless man is really free, he cannot be justly (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08571c.htm) held responsible for his actions, any more than for the date of his birth or the colour of his eyes. All alike are inexorably predetermined for him. Again, the difficulty of the question was augmented still further by the Christian (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03712a.htm) dogma (http://newadvent.com/cathen/05089a.htm) of the fall of man and his redemption (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12677d.htm) by grace. St. Paul (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11567b.htm), especially in his Epistle to the Romans (http://newadvent.com/cathen/13156a.htm), is the great source of the Catholic (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03449a.htm) theology (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14580a.htm) of grace.
Catholic doctrine
Among the early Fathers of the Church (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06001a.htm), St. Augustine (http://newadvent.com/cathen/02084a.htm) stands pre-eminent in his handling of this subject. He clearly teaches the freedom of the will against the Manichæeans (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09591a.htm), but insists against the Semipelagians (http://newadvent.com/cathen/13703a.htm) on the necessity of grace, as a foundation of merit. He also emphasizes very strongly the absolute rule of God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) over men's wills by His omnipotence (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11251c.htm) and omniscience--through the infinite (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08004a.htm) store, as it were, of motives which He has had at His disposal from all eternity (http://newadvent.com/cathen/05551b.htm), and by the foreknowledge of those to which the will of each human being would freely consent. St. Augustine's teaching formed the basis of much of the later theology (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14580a.htm) of the Church (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03744a.htm) on these questions, though other writers have sought to soften the more rigorous portions of his doctrine (http://newadvent.com/cathen/05075b.htm). This they did especially in opposition to heretical (http://newadvent.com/cathen/07256b.htm) authors, who exaggerated these features in the works of the great African Doctor (http://newadvent.com/cathen/02084a.htm) and attempted to deduce from his principles a form of rigid predeterminism (http://newadvent.com/cathen/04756c.htm) little differing from fatalism. The teaching of St. Augustine (http://newadvent.com/cathen/02084a.htm) is developed by St. Thomas Aquinas (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14663b.htm) both in theology (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14580a.htm) and philosophy (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12025c.htm). Will is rational appetite (http://newadvent.com/cathen/01656a.htm). Man necessarily desires beatitude, but he can freely choose between different forms of it. Free will is simply this elective power. Infinite Good is not visible to the intellect (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08066a.htm) in this life. There are always some drawbacks and deficiencies in every good presented to us. None of them exhausts our intellectual (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08066a.htm) capacity of conceiving the good. Consequently, in deliberate volition, not one of them completely satiates or irresistibly entices the will. In this capability of the intellect (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08066a.htm) for conceiving the universal lies the root of our freedom. But God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) possesses an infallible (http://newadvent.com/cathen/07790a.htm) knowledge (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08673a.htm) of man's future actions. How is this prevision possible, if man's future acts are not necessary (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10733a.htm)? God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) does not exist in time. The future and the past are alike ever present to the eternal mind as a man gazing down from a lofty mountain takes in at one momentary glance all the objects which can be apprehended only through a lengthy series of successive experiences by travellers along the winding road beneath, in somewhat similar fashion the intuitive (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08082b.htm) vision of God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/02364a.htm) apprehends simultaneously what is future to us with all it contains. Further, God's omnipotent providence (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12510a.htm) exercises a complete and perfect control over all events that happen, or will happen, in the universe (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15183a.htm). How is this secured without infringement of man's freedom? Here is the problem which two distinguished schools (http://newadvent.com/cathen/13554b.htm) in the Church (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03744a.htm)--both claiming to represent the teaching, or at any rate the logical (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09324a.htm) development of the teaching of St. Thomas (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14663b.htm)--attempt to solve in different ways. The heresies (http://newadvent.com/cathen/07256b.htm) of Luther (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09438b.htm) and Calvin (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03195b.htm) brought the issue to a finer point than it had reached in the time of Aquinas (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14663b.htm), consequently he had not formally dealt with it in its ultimate shape, and each of the two schools (http://newadvent.com/cathen/13554b.htm) can cite texts from the works of the Angelic Doctor (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14663b.htm) in which he appears to incline towards their particular view.
Thomist and Molinist theories
The Dominican (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12354c.htm) or Thomist (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14698b.htm) solution, as it is called, teaches in brief that God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) premoves each man in all his acts to the line of conduct which he subsequently adopts. It holds that this premotive decree (http://newadvent.com/cathen/04670a.htm) inclines man's will with absolute certainty (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03539b.htm) to the side decreed, but that God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) adapts this premotion to the nature of the being thus premoved. It argues that as God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) possesses infinite (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08004a.htm) power He can infallibly (http://newadvent.com/cathen/07790a.htm) premove man--who is by nature a free cause--to choose a particular course freely, whilst He premoves the lower animals in harmony with their natures to adopt particular courses by necessity. Further, this premotive decree (http://newadvent.com/cathen/04670a.htm) being inevitable though adapted to suit the free nature of man, provides a medium in which God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) foresees with certainty (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03539b.htm) the future free choice of the human being. The premotive decree (http://newadvent.com/cathen/04670a.htm) is thus prior in order of thought to the Divine cognition of man's future actions. Theologians (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14580a.htm) and philosophers (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12025c.htm) of the Jesuit (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14081a.htm) School, frequently styled Molinists (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10437a.htm), though they do not accept the whole of Molina's teaching and generally prefer Francisco Suárez's exposition of the theory, deem the above solution unsatisfactory. It would, they readily admit, provide sufficiently for the infallibility (http://newadvent.com/cathen/07790a.htm) of the Divine foreknowledge and also for God's (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) providential control of the world's history; but, in their view, it fails to give at the same time an adequately intelligible account of the freedom of the human will. According to them, the relation of the Divine action to man's will should be conceived rather as of a concurrent than of a premotive character; and they maintain that God's (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) knowledge (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08673a.htm) of what a free being would choose, if the necessary (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10733a.htm) conditions were supplied, must be deemed logically (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09324a.htm) prior to any decree (http://newadvent.com/cathen/04670a.htm) of concurrence or premotion in respect to that act of choice. Briefly, they make a threefold distinction in God's (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) knowledge (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08673a.htm) of the universe (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15183a.htm) based on the nature of the objects known--the Divine knowledge (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08673a.htm) being in itself of course absolutely simple. Objects or events viewed merely as possible, God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) is said to apprehend by simple intelligence (simplex intelligentia). Events which will happen He knows by vision (scientia visionis). Intermediate between these are conditionally future events--things which would occur were certain conditions fulfilled. God's (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) knowledge (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08673a.htm) of this class of contingencies they term scientia media. For instance Christ affirmed that, if certain miracles (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10338a.htm) had been wrought in Tyre (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15109a.htm) and Sidon, the inhabitants would have been converted. The condition was not realized, yet the statement of Christ must have been true (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15073a.htm). About all such conditional contingencies propositions may be framed which are either true (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15073a.htm) or false (http://newadvent.com/cathen/05781a.htm)--and Infinite Intelligence must know (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08673a.htm) all truth (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15073a.htm). The conditions in many cases will not be realized, so God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) must know (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08673a.htm) them apart from any decrees determining their realization. He knows them therefore, this school (http://newadvent.com/cathen/13554b.htm) holds, in seipsis, in themselves as conditionally future events. This knowledge (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08673a.htm) is the scientia media, "middle knowledge", intermediate between vision of the actual future and simple understanding of the merely possible. Acting now in the light of this scientia media with respect to human volitions, God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) freely decides according to His own wisdom whether He shall supply the requisite conditions, including His co-operation in the action, or abstain from so doing, and thus render possible or prevent the realization of the event. In other words, the infinite (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08004a.htm) intelligence of God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) sees clearly what would happen in any conceivable circuмstances. He thus knows what the free will of any creature would choose, if supplied with the power of volition or choice and placed in any given circuмstances. He now decrees to supply the needed conditions, including His corcursus, or to abstain from so doing. He thus holds complete dominion and control over our future free actions, as well as over those of a necessary (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10733a.htm) character. The Molinist (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10437a.htm) then claims to safeguard better man's freedom by substituting for the decree (http://newadvent.com/cathen/04670a.htm) of an inflexible premotion one of concurrence dependent on God's (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) prior knowledge (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08673a.htm) of what the free being would choose. If given the power to exert the choice. He argues that he exempts God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) more clearly from all responsibility for man's sins (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14004b.htm). The claim seems to the present writer well founded; at the same time it is only fair to record on the other side that the Thomist (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14698b.htm) urges with considerable force that God's (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) prescience is not so understandable in this, as in his theory. He maintains, too, that God's (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) exercise of His absolute dominion over all man's acts and man's entire dependence on God's (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) goodwill are more impressively and more worthily exhibited in the premotion hypothesis. The reader will find an exhaustive treatment of the question in any of the Scholastic (http://newadvent.com/cathen/13548a.htm) textbooks on the subject.
Free will and the Protestant Reformers
A leading feature in the teaching of the Reformers (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12700b.htm) of the sixteenth century, especially in the case of Luther (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09438b.htm) and Calvin (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03195b.htm), was the denial of free will. Picking out from the Scriptures, and particularly from St. Paul (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11567b.htm), the texts which emphasized the importance and efficacy of grace, the all-ruling providence of God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12510a.htm), His decrees of election or predestination (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12378a.htm), and the feebleness of man, they drew the conclusion that the human will, instead of being master of its own acts, is rigidly predetermined in all its choices throughout life. As a consequence, man is predestined (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12378a.htm) before his birth to eternal punishment or reward in such fashion that he never can have had any real free-power over his own fate. In his controversy with Erasmus (http://newadvent.com/cathen/05510b.htm), who defended free will, Luther (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09438b.htm) frankly stated that free will is a fiction, a name which covers no reality, for it is not in man's (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09580c.htm) power to think well or ill, since all events occur by necessity. In reply to Erasmus's (http://newadvent.com/cathen/05510b.htm) "De Libero Arbitrio", he published his own work, "De Servo Arbitrio", glorying in emphasizing man's helplessness and slavery. The predestination (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12378a.htm) of all future human acts (http://newadvent.com/cathen/01115a.htm) by God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) is so interpreted as to shut out any possibility of freedom. An inflexible internal necessity turns man's will whithersoever God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) preordains. With Calvin (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03195b.htm), God's (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) preordination is, if possible, even more fatal to free will. Man can perform no sort of good act unless necessitated to it by God's grace (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06710a.htm) which it is impossible for him to resist. It is absurd to speak of the human will "co-operating" with God's grace (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06710a.htm), for this would imply that man could resist the grace of God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06710a.htm). The will of God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06612a.htm#IID2) is the very necessity of things. It is objected that in this case God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) sometimes imposes impossible commands. Both Calvin (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03195b.htm) and Luther (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09438b.htm) reply that the commands of God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/04153a.htm) show us not what we can do but what we ought to do. In condemnation of these views, the Council of Trent (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15030c.htm) declared that the free will of man, moved and excited by God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm), can by its consent co-operate with God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm), Who excites and invites its action; and that it can thereby dispose and prepare itself to obtain the grace of justification. The will can resist grace if it chooses. It is not like a lifeless thing, which remains purely passive. Weakened and diminished by Adam's fall, free will is yet not destroyed in the race (Sess. VI, cap. i and v).
Free will in modern philosophy
Although from Descartes (http://newadvent.com/cathen/04744b.htm) onward, philosophy became more and more separated from theology (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14580a.htm), still the theological (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14580x.htm) significance of this particular question has always been felt to be of the highest moment. Descartes (http://newadvent.com/cathen/04744b.htm) himself at times clearly maintains the freedom of the will (Meditations, III and IV). At times, however, he attenuates this view and leans towards a species of providential determinism, which is, indeed, the logical (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09324a.htm) consequence of the doctrines of occasionalism (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11195b.htm) and the inefficacy of secondary causes latent in his system.
Malebranche (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09568a.htm) developed this feature of Descartes's (http://newadvent.com/cathen/04744b.htm) teaching. Soul and body cannot really act on each other. The changes in the one are directly caused by God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) on the occasion of the corresponding change in the other. So-called secondary causes are not really efficacious. Only the First Cause truly acts. If this view be consistently thought out, the soul (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14153a.htm), since it possesses no genuine causality (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03459a.htm), cannot be justly said to be free in its volitions. Still, as a Catholic (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03449a.htm) theologian (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14580x.htm), Malebranche (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09568a.htm) could not accept this fatalistic determinism. Accordingly he defended freedom as essential to religion and morality. Human liberty being denied, God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) should be deemed cruel and unjust (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08010c.htm), whilst duty (http://newadvent.com/cathen/05215a.htm) and responsibility for man cease to exist. We must therefore be free. Spinoza (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14217a.htm) was more logical (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09324a.htm). Starting from certain principles of Descartes (http://newadvent.com/cathen/04744b.htm), he deduced (http://newadvent.com/cathen/04674a.htm) in mathematical fashion an iron-bound pantheistic (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11447b.htm) fatalism which left no room for contingency in the universe (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15183a.htm) and still less for free will. In Leibniz (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09134b.htm), the prominence given to the principle of sufficient reason, the doctrine (http://newadvent.com/cathen/05075b.htm) that man must choose that which the intellect (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08066a.htm) judges as the better, and the optimistic theory that God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) Himself has inevitably chosen the present as being the best of all possible worlds, these views, when logically (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09324a.htm) reasoned out, leave very little reality to free will, though Leibniz set himself in marked opposition to the monistic (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10483a.htm) geometrical necessarianism of Spinoza (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14217a.htm).
In England (http://newadvent.com/cathen/05445a.htm) the mechanical materialism of Hobbes was incompatible with moral liberty, and he accepted with cynical frankness all the logical (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09324a.htm) consequences of his theory. Our actions either follow the first appetite (http://newadvent.com/cathen/01656a.htm) that arises in the mind, or there is a series of alternate appetites (http://newadvent.com/cathen/01656a.htm) and fears, which we call deliberation. The last appetite (http://newadvent.com/cathen/01656a.htm) or fear, that which triumphs, we call will. The only intelligible freedom is the power to do what one desires. Here Hobbes is practically at one with Locke. God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) is the author of all causes and effects, but is not the author of sin (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14004b.htm), because an action ceases to be sin (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14004b.htm) if God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) wills it to happen. Still God (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06608a.htm) is the cause of sin (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14004b.htm). Praise and blame, rewards and punishments cannot be called useless, because they strengthen motives, which are the causes of action. This, however, does not meet the objection to the justice (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08571c.htm) of such blame or praise, if the person (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11726a.htm) has not the power to abstain from or perform the actions thus punished or rewarded. Hume reinforced the determinist attack on free will by his suggested psychological (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12545b.htm) analysis of the notion or feeling of "necessity". The controversy, according to him, has been due to misconception of the meaning of words and the error (http://newadvent.com/cathen/05525a.htm) that the alternative to free will is necessity. This necessity, he says, is erroneously (http://newadvent.com/cathen/05525a.htm) ascribed to some kind of internal nexus supposed to bind all causes to their effects, whereas there is really nothing more in causality (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03459a.htm) than constant succession. The imagined necessity is merely a product of custom or association of ideas (http://newadvent.com/cathen/02004a.htm). Not feeling in our acts of choice this necessity, which we attribute to the causation (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03459a.htm) of material agents, we mistakenly imagine that our volitions have no causes and so are free, whereas they are as strictly determined by the feelings or motives which have gone before, as any material effects are determined by their material antecedents. In all our reasonings respecting other persons (http://newadvent.com/cathen/11726a.htm), we infer their future conduct from their wonted action under particular motives with the same sort of certainty (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03539b.htm) as in the case of physical causation (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03459a.htm).
The same line of argument was adopted by the Associationist School down to Bain and J. S. Mill. For the necessity of Hobbes or Spinoza (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14217a.htm) is substituted by their descendants what Professor James calls a "soft determinism", affirming solely the invariable succession of volition upon motive. J. S. Mill merely developed with greater clearness and fuller detail the principles of Hume. In particular, he attacked the notion of "constraint" suggested in the words necessity and necessarianism, whereas only sequence is affirmed. Given a perfect knowledge (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08673a.htm) of character and motives, we could infallibly (http://newadvent.com/cathen/07790a.htm) predict action. The alleged consciousness of freedom is disputed. We merely feel that we choose, not that we could choose the opposite. Moreover the notion of free will is unintelligible. The truth (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15073a.htm) is that for the Sensationalist School, who believe the mind to be merely a series of mental (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10321a.htm) states, free will is an absurdity. On the other side, Reid, and Stewart, and Hamilton, of the Scotch School, with Mansel, Martineau, W.J. Ward, and other Spiritualist thinkers of Great Britain, energetically defended free will against the disciples of Hume. They maintained that a more careful analysis of volition justified the argument from consciousness, that the universal conviction of mankind (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09580c.htm) on such a fact may not be set aside as an illusion, that morality cannot be founded on an act of self-deception; that all languages contain terms involving the notion of free will and all laws (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09053a.htm) assume its existence, and that the attempt to render necessarianism less objectionable by calling it determinism does not diminish the fatalism involved in it.
The truth (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15073a.htm) that phenomenalism logically (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09324a.htm) involves determinism (http://newadvent.com/cathen/04756c.htm) is strikingly illustrated in Kant's (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08603a.htm) treatment of the question. His well-known division of all reality into phenomena and noumena is his key to this problem also. The world as it appears to us, the world of phenomena, including our own actions and mental (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10321a.htm) states, can only be conceived under the form of time and subject to the category of causality (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03459a.htm), and therefore everything in the world of experience happens altogether according to the laws (http://newadvent.com/cathen/09053a.htm) of nature; that is, all our actions are rigidly determined. But, on the other hand, freedom is a necessary (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10733a.htm) postulate of morality: "Thou canst, because thou oughtest." The solution of the antinomy is that the determinism concerns only the empirical or phenomenal world. There is no ground for denying liberty to the Ding an sich. We may believe (http://newadvent.com/cathen/02408b.htm) in transcendental (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15017a.htm) freedom, that we are noumenally free. Since, moreover, the belief (http://newadvent.com/cathen/02408b.htm) that I am free and that I am a free cause, is the foundation stone of religion and morality, I must believe (http://newadvent.com/cathen/02408b.htm) in this postulate. Kant (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08603a.htm) thus gets over the antinomy by confining freedom to the world of noumena, which lie outside the form of time and the category of causality (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03459a.htm), whilst he affirms necessity of the sensible world, bound by the chain of causality (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03459a.htm). Apart from the general objection to Kant's system (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08603a.htm), a grave difficulty here lies in the fact that all man's conduct--his whole moral life as it is revealed in actual experience either to others or himself--pertains in this view to the phenomenal world and so is rigidly determined.
Though much acute philosophical (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12025c.htm) and psychological (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12545b.htm) analysis has been brought to bear on the problem during the last century, it cannot be said that any great additional light has been shed over it. In Germany (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06484b.htm), Schopenhauer made will the noumenal basis of the world and adopted a pessimistic theory of the universe (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15183a.htm), denying free will to be justified by either ethics or psychology (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12545b.htm). On the other hand, Lotze, in many respects perhaps the acutest thinker in Germany (http://newadvent.com/cathen/06484b.htm) since Kant (http://newadvent.com/cathen/08603a.htm), was an energetic defender of moral liberty. Among recent psychologists (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12545b.htm) in America Professors James and Ladd are both advocates of freedom, though laying more stress for positive proof (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12454c.htm) on the ethical (http://newadvent.com/cathen/05556a.htm) than on the psychological (http://newadvent.com/cathen/12545b.htm) evidence.
The argument
As the main features of the doctrine (http://newadvent.com/cathen/05075b.htm) of free will have been sketched in the history of the problem, a very brief account of the argument for moral freedom will now suffice. Will viewed as a free power is defined by defenders of free will as the capacity of self-determination. By self is here understood not a single present mental (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10321a.htm) state (James), nor a series of mental (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10321a.htm) states (Hume and Mill), but an abiding rational being which is the subject and cause of these states. We should distinguish between:
- spontaneous acts, those proceeding from an internal principle (e.g. the growth of plants and impulsive movements of animals);
- voluntary acts in a wide sense, those proceeding from an internal principle with apprehension of an end (e.g. all conscious desires); and, finally
- those voluntary (http://newadvent.com/cathen/15506a.htm) in the strict sense, that is, deliberate or free acts.
In such, there is a self-conscious advertence to our own causality (http://newadvent.com/cathen/03459a.htm) or an awareness that we are choosing the act, or acquiescing in the desire of it. Spontaneous acts and desires are opposed to coaction or external compulsion, but they are not thereby morally free acts. They may still be the necessary (http://newadvent.com/cathen/10733a.htm) outcome of the nature of the agent as, e.g. the actions of lower animals, of the insane, of young children, and many impulsive acts of mature life. The essential feature in free volition is the element of choice--the vis electiva, as St. Thomas (http://newadvent.com/cathen/14663b.htm) calls it. There is a concomitant interrogative awareness in the form of the query "shall I acquiesce or shall I resist? Shall I do it or something else?", and the consequent acceptance or refusal, ratification or rejection, though either may be of varying degrees of completeness. It is this act of consent or approval, which converts a mere involuntary impulse or desire into
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I read the whole thing. Thank you. I'm just wondering still if it were your Religious Liberty, in any which way whatsoever, to post that article online?
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You have posted the same question on two other trad forums besides this one (fisheaters, suscipe domine) and you are not listening to what anyone is telling you. Why ask so many people when you have already made up your mind?
You are not making sense and you are not having real discussions. Stop wasting everybody's time.
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I read the whole thing. Thank you. I'm just wondering still if it were your Religious Liberty, in any which way whatsoever, to post that article online?
You're obviously too stupid to engage in any meaningful discussions on this forum.
Go talk to a Traditional priest.