Autor: Stebbins, J. Michael

Buch: The Divine Initiative

Titel: The Divine Initiative

Stichwort: Thomas: Gnade - Freiheit: Beschränktheit des menschl. Willens; Möglichkeit d. Wirken Gottes

Kurzinhalt: Human freedom is not absolute: will cannot select its ends, it cannot escape the restrictions of psychological continuity ...;

Textausschnitt: eg: Beschränktheit des menschl. Willens:
1) Wahl des letzten Zieles
2) bezüglich psychischer Determinanten
3) Durchhaltevermögen
Möglichkeit des Wirken Gottes:
[T]he free act emerges from, and is conditioned by, created antecedents over which freedom has no direct control. It follows that it is possible for God to manipulate these antecedents (s. unten)


65/3 This analysis of the will allowed Aquinas to demonstrate the compatibility of grace and freedom. The early scholastics had not been able to explain coherently how fallen human nature can be free and yet incapable of avoiding sin without the assistance of grace. On the basis of his understanding of the will and its need for grace (GO:215-56; GF:41-61, 93-97) and of the manner in which all created beings function as instrumental causes under the control of God, the universal and transcendent cause, Aquinas offers the following solution to this speculative problem. Human freedom is not absolute. The will's sphere of efficacy is limited by the very nature of the will itself: it cannot select its ends, it cannot escape the restrictions of psychological continuity, it cannot ever choose the good once and for all. Hence, when grace operates to cause the will's willing of ends, to change its spontaneous inclinations, to ensure its perseverance, it does not intrude in freedom's proper domain: (89; Fs)

[T]he free act emerges from, and is conditioned by, created antecedents over which freedom has no direct control. It follows that it is possible for God to manipulate these antecedents and through such manipulation to exercise a control over free acts themselves [...] Indeed, both above and below, both right and left, the free choice has determinants over which it exercises no control. God directly controls the orientation of the will to ends; indirectly He controls the situations which intellect apprehends and in which will has to choose; indirectly He also controls both the higher determinants of intellectual attitude or mental pattern and the lower determinants of mood and temperament; finally, each free choice is free only hic et nunc [here and now], for no man can decide today what he is to will tomorrow. There is no end of room for God to work on the free choice without violating it, to govern above its self-governance, to set the stage and guide the reactions and give each character its personal role in the drama of life.
Elsewhere Lonergan summarizes the point by saying that
grace is compatible with liberty because of itself liberty is limited and grace enables it to transcend that limitation. [Aquinas] does not presuppose an unlimited liberty which grace confines to the good; he presupposes the limited liberty of psychological continuity, and makes grace an escape from the servitude of sin. (GO:23O)