Autor: Stebbins, J. Michael

Buch: The Divine Initiative

Titel: The Divine Initiative

Stichwort: Thomas: Freiheit - Gnade; Beziehung: Wille - Verstand (Korrektur Aristoteles'); quoad specificationem (exercitium) actus

Kurzinhalt: he ceased subscribing to the Aristotelian understanding of the causal relation between will and intellect; Lonergan: four different presuppositions of a free human act:

Textausschnitt: eg: lieberum arbitrium kein drittes Vermögen neben Verstand und Wille (Albertus); Freiheit nicht in Bezug auf den Willen allein, sondern auf den Gesamkakt.
Schema:
Verstand: specificatio des Willens, aber nicht exercituus
Exercituus: zwei Ursachen - letztes Ziel (Wille als passive Potenz); Wahl der Mittel (Wille)
Beratschlagung: two lines of causation [...] converge in effecting the act of choice in the will: (siehe unten)


53/3 The most important correction in Aquinas's theory of the will came when he ceased subscribing to the Aristotelian understanding of the causal relation between will and intellect (6F:94-95; GO:238-4O). Aristotle held that the will is a wholly passive potency that spontaneously desires whatever object the intellect proposes to it as good; in other words, the act of willing is determined by the intellect rather than by the will itself. According to Lonergan, the problem is not that Aquinas ever held strictly to this view but rather that for the greater part of his career he simply did not venture to explain how the will, given its dependence on the intellect for its object, could cause or determine its own acts. Hence, however he viewed the relation between intellect and will prior to writing the Prima secundae, he did not deem it incompatible with human self-determination: (84f; Fs)
The fundamental thesis from the Sentences to the Pars Prima inclusively is that the free agent is the cause of its own determination. The determination in question is not the determination of the will but the determination of action generally. Such determination comes from the intellect, and intellectual beings are free, not because they move from an intrinsic [principle] (as the gravia [heavy] and levia [light]), not because they move themselves (as do plants and animals), not because they judge (for the lamb judges the wolf dangerous), but because they are the masters and makers of their judgement, they construct the form of their own activity.
54/3 This helps to explain why Aquinas, even after rejecting the notion of liberum arbitrium as a distinct potency, continued for some time to treat the will and free choice in separate questions, attributing freedom to the human being as a whole but not specifically to the human will.' (85; Fs)

56/3 Aquinas met these conditions by proposing the following scheme. The intellect does not cause the will to act but only apprehends and proposes to the will the goods that serve as the will's objects. That is, the intellect is said to cause the specification of acts of willing. But the exercise or actual occurrence of acts of willing has two causes, neither of which is the intellect, and these correspond to the two types of operation or second act that occur in the will. There are acts of willing an end, that is, acts in which the will wills an object precisely as desirable in itself. And there are acts of willing means, that is, acts in which the will wills an object not as desirable in itself but as leading to the attainment of some object that is desirable in itself. According to Aquinas, acts of willing a means are caused by the will itself; but the will cannot will a means unless it first wills an end; and the act of willing an end is caused ultimately by God. Hence Lonergan remarks that
two lines of causation [...] converge in effecting the act of choice in the will: there is the line of causation quoad specificationem actus [with respect to the specification of the act]; there is another line quoad exercitium actus [with respect to the exercise of the act]. Thus we have two first causes: the object that is apprehended by the intellect as the end, and the agent that moves the will to this end. The consequent process is that the will moves the intellect to take counsel on means to the end, and then the object apprehended as means, together with the will of the end, moves the will to a choice of the means. Thus the rejection of the Aristotelian passivity of the will eliminates the old position that the intellect is first mover; now there are two first movers, the intellect quoad specificationem actus, and God quoad exercitium actus. Both are required for the emergence of an act of choice; on the other hand, the lack of either will explain the absence of the subsequent process of taking counsel and choosing. (notabene)
57/3 The will is a passive potency, in the sense that it cannot cause its own act of willing an end; but it is active insofar as by willing an end it becomes proportionate to willing the means to the end. This is in keeping with the principle that an efficient cause must be in second act in order to produce an effect. Figure 2 summarizes Aquinas's scheme. Why the will cannot cause its own acts of willing an end, and why only God can cause those acts, are questions that must be set aside for a later chapter. The important point at present is simply to note how, within this theory, Aquinas defines the freedom of the human will, and how he accounts for its reality even under the action of grace. (86; Fs)
58/3 Lonergan explains that Aquinas, in his various treatments of the subject, mentions four different presuppositions of a free human act: (86; Fs)
(A) a field of action in which more than one course of action is objectively possible; (B) an intellect that is able to work out more than one course of action; (C) a will that is not automatically determined by the first course of action that occurs to the intellect; and, since this condition is only a condition, securing indeterminacy without telling what in fact does determine, (D) a will that moves itself. (GF:95; cf. GO:177)

58/3 Lonergan explains that Aquinas, in his various treatments of the subject, mentions four different presuppositions of a free human act: (86; Fs)
(A) a field of action in which more than one course of action is objectively possible; (B) an intellect that is able to work out more than one course of action; (C) a will that is not automatically determined by the first course of action that occurs to the intellect; and, since this condition is only a condition, securing indeterminacy without telling what in fact does determine, (D) a will that moves itself. (GF:95; cf. GO:177)