Quod liberum arbitrium in anima locum medium teneat: nec tamen ad bonum et malum aeque sufficiat.
The Soul Between Two Desires
Free will occupies a middle place between fleshly desire and the spirit's love, yet it does not confer equal power toward good and evil, since all willing and accomplishing depend on God's mercy.
Between these two — between desire, that is, which the Apostle says is of the flesh (Gal.✦ 5) — not because every desire is an evil that comes from the flesh, since demons by no means lack it, and they are without flesh; but because it comes not from God but from man, whom there is no doubt Scripture calls flesh. Between this desire, then — which is most fittingly called cupidity — and that desire of the spirit, which we shall rightly call love, since it is assuredly the spirit's, not ours but God's: for God's love is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us (Rom.✦ 5): Between these two, I say, what is called free will in man holds a middle position, so that whichever of the two the soul turns toward, it does so by free choice, to be sure. Surely no one is so foolish as to dare attribute to man, on the basis of free will, an equal capacity for good and for evil — since we are not sufficient in ourselves to think anything as though it came from ourselves, when it is God who works in us both to will and to accomplish, according to his good purpose; and finally, as it depends neither on the one who wills nor on the one who runs, but on God who shows mercy.✦ What then? Is free will denied to exist in man by all these arguments? Far from it.
What Free Will Truly Is
Free will is the soul's innate faculty of consenting through reason and will together, and it persists unchanged whether the soul wills good or evil.
Free will is, to be sure, that power of the soul — or of nature, or whatever else one might more fittingly call it — which belongs to the human person, and by which the soul consents to any given thing not without the judgment of reason; it is not the consent itself to this or that thing, whether good or evil, but that faculty by which one consents. For just as sight is one thing and seeing is another — since sight is indeed one of the body's five senses, while seeing is the act of that very sense — so too we say that the act of consenting is one thing, and the faculty by which one consents is another. For consent is indeed a certain action of the soul; free will is a certain power and nature of the soul, by which it consents, having within itself an innate judgment by which it chooses the thing to which it gives consent. But because consent comes about through the will, and judgment through reason, these two — will and reason — together constitute free will. Reason proposes what is good or evil, just and unjust, or those things that are in between, as it were; the will consents — and to whatever thing the will gives its consent, it does so not except through the will itself. And where the will is, there also is a certain freedom. From these two, therefore, as we have said, free will seems to consist — namely, from the freedom of the will and the judgment of reason. You see, then, how free will by no means dictates — no matter where a good will arises in a person — since neither in a good will nor in an evil will does the will lose its willing, and through this neither its freedom, and for that reason neither its reason nor its judgment.
Grace Does Not Destroy Free Will
That God works in us to will and to act does not abolish our own willing, reasoning, or free will; grace enables rather than replaces human action.
What then? Because God is the one who works in us to will — is that why we have lost the power to will? Or is it because using reason well belongs to God — and for that very reason we don't use reason at all? Or is it because whatever good we accomplish comes from God — and therefore we accomplish no good at all? Or is it because we are not sufficient in ourselves to think anything at all, since our sufficiency comes from God — and therefore there is no such thing as sufficiency?✦1 All these things — although it is by God's grace that we act — nevertheless we do act, and we act not without will, and not without reason; and so it is not without free will that we act.
Read the original Latin
Inter haec duo, concupiscentiam scilicet quam carnis esse dicit Apostolus (Gal. v), non quod omnis concupiscentia mala ex carne sit, quippe cum ea nequaquam daemones careant, qui carne carent; sed quod non ex Deo, sed ex homine sit, quem carnem in Scripturis appellari non ambiguum est. Inter hanc ergo concupiscentiam quae cupiditas congruentissime appellatur, et illam spiritus quam charitatem non immerito dicemus, quae utique spiritus est, non nostri, sed Dei: charitas enim Dei diffusa est in cordibus nostris, per Spiritum sanctum, qui datus est nobis (Rom. v): Inter haec, inquam, duo, id quod in homine liberum dicitur arbitrium, medium quodammodo locum tenet, ut ad quodlibet eorum se verterit anima, libero nimirum fiat arbitrio. Nemo sane ita desipiat, ut aequalem homini et ad bonum et ad malum, ex libero arbitrio ascribere audeat facultatem, cum non simus sufficientes cogitare aliquid ex nobis, quasi ex nobis, cum Deus sit, qui operatur in nobis et velle et perficere, pro bona voluntate; cum denique neque volentis, neque currentis, sed miserentis sit Dei. Quid ergo? His omnibus liberum in homine negatur inesse arbitrium? Absit.
Est quippe liberum arbitrium ea animae vis, sive naturae, vel si quid aliud congruentius dici potest, id hominis, quo cuilibet rei non sine judicio rationis consentit; non hujus aut illius rei, boni malive consensus, sed id quo consentitur. Sicut enim aliud est visus, aliud visio, nam visus quidem sensus est corporis unus de quinque, visio autem ipsius sensus actus; ita aliud dicimus ipsum consensum, aliud id quo consentitur. Nam consensus quidem quaedam animae actio est; liberum arbitrium quaedam animae vis atque natura, qua consentit, habens judicium sibi insitum, quo eligit cui rei consentiat. Sed, quia consensus fit voluntate, judicium ratione, haec duo voluntas et ratio liberum constituunt arbitrium. Ratio bona vel mala, justa et injusta, sive ea quae media sunt, quasi proponit; voluntas consentit, cuicunque autem rei consentiat, non nisi voluntate. Ubi autem voluntas, ibi et libertas quaedam. Ex his ergo duobus, ut diximus, liberum videtur constare arbitrium, ex libertate scilicet voluntatis et arbitrio rationis. Vides igitur quam non libero praescribat arbitrio, undecunque homini bona oriatur voluntas, quandoquidem nec in bona nec in mala voluntate amittit voluntatem: ac per hoc nec libertatem, sed nec rationem, ideo nec judicium.
Quid enim? Quia Deus est qui operatur in nobis velle, ideo amisimus velle? Aut quia Dei est quia ratione bene utimur; ideo ratione non utimur? Vel quia ex Deo nobis est, quidquid boni perficimus, ideo bonum non perficimus? Aut quia non sumus sufficientes cogitare aliquid ex nobis, quoniam ex Deo est nostra sufficientia, ideo non est sufficientia? Haec omnia, licet ex Dei gratia est quod agimus, tamen agimus, nec sine voluntate, nec sine ratione agimus; ac per hoc non sine libero arbitrio agimus.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Gal.5.17 — For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you may not do the things you wish.
- ↩Rom.5.5 — And hope does not put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
- ↩Rom.9.16 — So then, it does not depend on the one who wills or the one who runs, but on God who shows mercy.
- ↩2Cor.3.5 — Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God.
Notes
- 1 ↩The phrase 'our sufficiency comes from God' echoes 2 Cor 3:5 (non sumus sufficientes cogitare aliquid ex nobis), but the Moses resolution stage will confirm the allusion.
Speculum caritatis (The Mirror of Charity) companion
Reorder one love at a time, daily
Use the study map with the free Chosen Portion app's daily readings to work through Aelred at a sustainable pace.
Aelred wrote the Mirror as a rule for daily interior discipline in community, and Chosen Portion carries that discipline forward as a short ordered reading each day.
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