Lecture 138

138. Free Choice, Divine Movement, and the Soul's Knowledge

Summary
This lecture concludes the discussion of free will and divine providence by addressing five major objections to human freedom, then transitions to an overview of Questions 84-89 on the soul’s operations and knowledge. Berquist systematically explains how Thomas resolves the apparent conflict between divine causality and human freedom, emphasizing that God moves the will according to its nature—freely. The lecture then provides a comprehensive framework for understanding how the soul knows bodily things, itself, and immaterial substances, both in this life and after death.

Listen to Lecture

Subscribe in Podcast App | Download Transcript

Lecture Notes

Free Will and Divine Providence: Five Objections Answered #

Objection 1: Romans 7:15 - “I do not do the good I wish” #

  • Problem: If we have free will, we should do what we want
  • Solution: The sensory appetite can rebel against reason. Freedom of choice does not mean complete control over emotions. We can resist passions through reason and will, though the flesh may be weak.

Objection 2: Romans 9:16 - “It is not of the one willing or running, but of God having mercy” #

  • Problem: God must move us, so our willing is not in our power
  • Solution: Free will alone is insufficient; it must be moved and aided by God. But God’s moving does not force the will—it moves it to freely choose.

Objection 3: Metaphysics I - “What is free is a cause of itself” #

  • Problem: If God moves us, we are not self-causes; therefore not free
  • Solution: The will must be a cause of its own acts, but not necessarily the first cause. God is more interior to us than we are to ourselves, so His movement is not external force but the perfection of human causality.

Objection 4: Jeremiah 10:23 - “The way of man is not in his power” #

  • Problem: We cannot direct our own steps
  • Solution: The carrying out of choices is not entirely in our power, but the choice itself is. We can choose means, though outcomes depend partly on providence.

Objection 5: Aristotle’s Ethics III - “Such as each one is, so does the end seem to him” #

  • Problem: Our nature determines what appears good; choice is determined, not free
  • Solution: Natural inclinations (temperament) incline but do not determine choice. They remain subject to reason’s judgment. Acquired habits also incline but are subject to reason and can be changed through repeated acts.

Core Principle on Divine Movement #

God moves all things according to their nature:

  • Natural things naturally
  • Voluntary things voluntarily
  • Free things freely

God’s power extends not only to what happens but to how it happens (necessarily, by chance, or freely).

Habits and Character: Disposition vs. Determination #

  • Natural dispositions (bodily temperament, inclinations): Incline toward certain emotions but do not determine choice
  • Acquired habits (virtues and vices): Formed through repeated acts, incline toward good or evil but remain subject to reason
  • The Tree Analogy: Like a tree that falls and remains there, the will at death becomes fixed. In this life, it can still move; in the next, it cannot.
  • Difficulty of Change: Once formed, habits are difficult to change but not impossible. This is why early formation and education are crucial.

Overview of Questions 84-89: The Soul’s Operations and Knowledge #

Structure of the Treatise on Man #

According to Dionysius in the Angelic Hierarchy, three things are found in spiritual substances:

  1. Essence (nature or what it is) → Questions 75-76
  2. Virtues (powers or abilities) → Questions 77-83
  3. Operations (acts) → Questions 84-89

Division of Knowledge Questions #

Questions 84-88: Knowledge in This Life

Thomas divides knowledge of corporeal things into three questions:

  • Question 84: By what (or through what) does the soul know bodies?
  • Question 85: In what way and in what order does it know them?
  • Question 86: What does it know in them? (universals vs. singulars, contingent vs. necessary, etc.)

Question 87: How the soul knows itself and things within itself

  • Whether it knows itself through its own nature
  • How it knows habits and acts existing in it
  • How it knows its own acts and the acts of the will

Question 88: How the soul knows immaterial substances above itself (angels)

  • Whether the soul can understand them directly
  • Whether it can arrive at knowledge through material things
  • Whether God is first known by us

Question 89: Knowledge of the separated soul (after death)

  • Whether the separated soul can understand at all
  • How it knows separated substances and natural things
  • Whether it knows singular things without senses
  • Whether acquired habits of science remain and can be used
  • Whether local distance affects knowledge
  • Whether it knows things done in the material world

Theological vs. Philosophical Order #

In theology, this order (soul → body → soul → angels → separated knowledge) differs from philosophy, where one would study the soul before angels. The theological order reflects the composition of man at the center of creation.

Why Only Intellectual and Appetitive Powers? #

Thomas focuses on the intellectual and appetitive powers because:

  1. Theological focus: Only these powers can have God as an object
  2. Virtue focus: Only these powers are the subject of human virtues and vices, which pertain to moral theology
  3. Moral science: Acts of appetitive powers will be considered in Part II of the Summa (moral theology), not here

Key Article Outlines #

Question 84 (Eight Articles) #

  1. Whether the soul knows bodies through understanding
  2. Whether it understands through its own nature or through species/forms
  3. Whether intelligible species are innate (Platonic view)
  4. Whether species flow from separated immaterial forms (Platonic or Avicennan views)
  5. Whether the soul sees all things in eternal reasons (Augustinian illumination)
  6. Whether it acquires knowledge from sensation
  7. Whether the intellect can understand without converting to phantasms
  8. Whether impediments in sensitive powers impede intellectual judgment

Question 85 (Multiple Articles on Order of Knowledge) #

  1. Whether understanding abstracts forms from phantasms
  2. Whether abstracted forms are what is understood or that by which we understand
  3. Whether understanding naturally knows the more universal first
  4. Whether understanding can know many things at once
  5. Whether understanding knows by composition, division, and reasoning
  6. Whether one person understands better than another
  7. Whether understanding knows the indivisible before the divisible (point before line, etc.)

Question 86 (On What is Known in Material Things) #

  1. Whether the intellect knows singular things
  2. Whether it knows infinite things
  3. Whether it knows contingent things
  4. Whether it knows future things

Important Definitions #

  • Liberum arbitrium: Often translated as “free choice” or “free judgment.” Not merely the will itself, but the power to judge freely among alternatives. It involves both reason (which deliberates) and will (which chooses). Like reason is discursive (bringing together principles), liberum arbitrium brings together means toward the end.

  • Colatio: A bringing together; comparison of one thing with another. Mentioned in John Damascene’s distinction of λήψις (taking) and βούλησις (counsel/willing).

  • Voluntas (will): Simple willing of the good or the end. Corresponds to understanding (intelligere) on the appetitive side.

  • Electio (choice): The act of willing one thing for the sake of another. Corresponds to reason (discursive knowing) on the appetitive side. Choice is about means toward the end, not the end itself.

  • Nous/Intellectus: Natural understanding; the virtue that knows principles and axioms directly (e.g., “the whole is greater than a part”)

  • Ratio (reason): Discursive knowing; arriving from knowledge of one thing to knowledge of another. Properly concerns conclusions made known from principles.

The Analogy of Principles to Conclusions (End to Means) #

Thomas uses Aristotle’s proportion:

  • Principles : Conclusions :: End : Means
  • Just as reason assents to conclusions because of principles, the will desires means because of the end
  • Both are acts of the same power: reason knows both principles and conclusions; the will wills both end and means
  • Therefore, liberum arbitrium is not a different power from the will, but the same power exercising a different act

Grasping vs. Judging #

Berquist emphasizes that understanding (intellectus) involves grasping—the thing known is contained in the knower, just as what is grasped by the hand is contained in the hand. Judging presupposes grasping. The perfection of knowledge lies in grasping (apprehending) what is said, which must precede judgment about whether it is true or false.

Structure of This Part of the Lecture #

Berquist concludes by explaining the pedagogical value of understanding Thomas’s order:

  • Students should bear in mind the order of exposition
  • This makes the material more intelligible and interesting
  • It allows one to see the whole context and how particular questions fit into the structure
  • Questions 84-89 form a coherent treatment of the soul’s knowledge, progressing from bodily things to self to immaterial things, and from this life to the next

Practical Notes for Reading Questions 84-89 #

  • Question 84 is fairly short (only a few articles on “by what means”)
  • The first three questions (84-86) concern knowledge of bodily things
  • The divison follows the principle: knowing proceeds from the universal (understood) to the particular (sensed)
  • Even in geometry, the indivisible (point) is known by negation of divisibility
  • Our knowledge depends on sensation because we are creatures joined to bodies in this life