SOURCE: Frank, William A. “Duns Scotus's Concept of Willing Freely: What Divine Freedom beyond Choice Teaches Us.” Franciscan Studies 42, no. 20 (1982): 68-89.

[In the following essay, Frank analyzes the conjunction of freedom and necessity in Scotus's understanding of divine will.]

The claim that God enjoys a volition that is simultaneously free and necessary challenges the standard meaning of willing freely that is anchored in the condition of a choice between alternatives.¹ It has been claimed before that Duns Scotus' assertion of the compatibility of freedom and necessity in volition proves critical to a proper understanding of his voluntarism. Alluding to this teaching is one way of fulfilling the obligation encumbent on a reader of Duns Scotus to counter an entrenched tendency in the received history of philosophy that sees in Scotus' doctrine of the free will the origins of a prevailing modern notion of liberty as a fundamental arbitrariness, a radical freedom of indifference.² What is accomplished in this analysis of certain Scotistic teachings is a demonstration of the core meaning of willing freely. This is an account of the univocal meaning at work in an understanding of any operation of the free will. The contrast in the compatibility of seemingly contradictory properties signals an analysis of free will that must be enlarged beyond the benchmark case of choice so familiar to ordinary human affairs.

Seven sections follow. First, Scotus' argument that certain of God's volitions are necessary is presented. Secondly, we examine the reason why necessity must pertain to these acts of will. Thirdly, the rationale for restricting necessary volitions to the divine will is developed. The first three sections, then, deal with the necessity of certain divine volitions, and in the process we encounter the critical role of divine infinity. The next two sections deal with the theme of freedom: In the fourth we develop the sense of freedom relevant to acts of the will. The fifth part is devoted to speculations on how the general sense of freedom is univocal with the special case of God's necessary volitions. With this the thesis of the paper is completed. The final two units are largely of the nature of appendices, though they do present important formulations of this study on Scotus' concept of freedom. The sixth presents a summary of what I call Scotus' firmitas doctrine, a teaching that is little noted among Scotist scholars and yet proves critical in the argument of part five of this essay. The seventh poses and answers objections to the Scotist teaching.

I

In line with standard medieval theory, Duns Scotus held that God loves himself and that the Trinitarian persons of the Father and the Son, in a common act of love, spirate the Holy Spirit. Equally uncontroversially, he maintained that both acts, self-love and spiration, are simply necessary. Simply necessary items exist, are eternal and uncaused. So understood, necessity is predicated as a mode of being.³ Further, and in this claim there was much controversy, Scotus insisted that both of the acts are primarily acts of will.

With these preliminary observations in mind we turn to Scotus' initial arguments.⁴

• First Necessity Argument
  • (1) God is necessarily happy.
  • (2) God's happiness consists in his loving the beatifying object, namely, his own self.
  • (3) Hence there is simple necessity in his act of self-love.
  • (4) But all acts of love are primarily acts of will.
  • (5) Therefore, there is simple necessity in an act of God's will.
• Second Necessity Argument
  • (1) The Holy Spirit is God.
  • (2) God is supremely necessary in his being.
  • (3) Hence the Holy Spirit is supremely necessary in its being.
  • (4) And since the Holy Spirit receives being by proceeding from the love of Father and Son,
  • (5) that act by which he proceeds is simply necessary.

The point I want to draw from these arguments concerns the basis for predicating necessity of volitions. In both cases, necessity is first predicated of some being (viz., God's happiness and the Holy Spirit), which then becomes the basis for affirming it of the act by which the being is constituted. Accordingly, we distinguish necessity as a mode of being of the divine happiness and the Third Person from the necessity of the constituting operation or production. Just as one distinguishes the constituted being from the constituting operation (or production), so one distinguishes the mode of the constituted being from the mode of the constituting operation. To know that the constituted being has simple necessity entitles one to the judgment: it is necessary that the operative power operate. The manner of the operative power's operation is a matter not at all touched on. Later Scotus will explain that the will is defined as an active power by its mode of operating, namely, its freedom.

II

The question now asked is: can any intrinsic reason be given for the truth of the two propositions: “it is necessary that God love himself” and “it is necessary that the Father and the Son spirate the Holy Spirit?” Put somewhat colloquially: why must the operation or production go on? The relevant account in the Quodlibet can be presented thus:⁵

• Reason-Why Argument
  • (1) The infinite will relates itself to the most perfect object in the most perfect way it can.
  • (2) The divine will is an infinite will.
  • (3) Therefore, it relates itself to the supremely lovable object in the most perfect way that a will can.
  • (4) But this most perfect way of relating itself to the supremely lovable object is accomplished only if (A) it loves with a necessary and adequate act, and (B) it spirates a love adequate to the object.
  • (5) For if either of these conditions, A or B, were not met, one could conceive without contradiction some will relating itself more perfectly to that object.
  • (6) For it is not a contradiction that the infinite will have an infinite act with regard to the infinite object.
  • (7) If there is an infinite act then the act is necessary, for if the will were not to have such an act relative to such an object, it would lack supreme perfection.

Before commenting on the argument, let me suggest something about the use of the term “infinite” and the notion of necessity as a perfection. For Scotus “infinite being” is the most simple, adequate concept naturally available by which we can conceive God in this life. To say that something is infinite is to say that it is possessed of the fulness of perfection. As this is hardly the time to launch a justification of Scotus' concept of infinity and as it has recently been done so well by another, these few notes will have to suffice.⁶

When Scotus says that necessity is a perfection,⁷ I think he means that it is conceivable of a non-necessary item that, although it possesses great perfection, it lacks at least some positive attribute or degree of perfection, call it P. Now were we to deny the lack of P, or what is the same, grant the presence of P, then the item does not gain over and above P (in addition to its other perfections) some further perfection, namely, necessity. To say that an item is necessary, then, is to say that it is not possible that it not possess the fulness of perfection. It would not be quite accurate to say: “an infinite being possesses the full extent and full degree of what it is better to have than not, including necessity.” It would be misleading were it to suggest that necessity is one of the attributes inventoried or a degree to which one of the attributes is possessed. Less misleadingly one should say: “the infinite being possesses the fulness of perfection, and in that it is a necessary being.”

Returning now to the Reason-Why argument, Scotus initially presents the situation of an infinite will related to the perfectly lovable object, and he claims that the result can only be an act of love that is a perfect or infinite act. Next he explains that ingredient in the infinity of an act are the necessity and adequacy of the love.⁸ The meaning of the latter claim is grasped in a preliminary way if we imagine either ingredient not present in the contemplated act. The suggestion is that the absence of either necessity or adequacy would bespeak imperfection in the act, and hence a more perfect love is perfectly possible, and certainly befitting the response of the divine lover to his divine beloved.

To say an infinite power relates itself to an infinite object requires that the power be actualized and fully actualized. Above all, fulness of perfection (infinity) connotes completeness. From the perspective of the will, completeness is exhibited in that the will is operative and fully operative vis-a-vis its object. From the perspective of the beloved, the completeness requires that the objective goodness is assimilated and comprehensively assimilated in the act of love. An illustration may help clarify this notion of adequacy.

One could imagine an active power, let us say an intellect, possessed by some individual, let us say Adam. We shall further suppose that Adam in fact is not now thinking. Though he possesses the capacity for thought, when he is not thinking the capacity is to that degree unperfected. Even were Adam to become attentive and start thinking about something, he might be thinking languidly or only vaguely grasping the point. In the first case his act of thinking simply does not exist; in the second the act is not adequate to the object of thought. This example illustrates the opposite of a necessary and adequate act. In either event of Adam's mental imperfection, we might think him delinquent if we believed him capable of attention or greater comprehension. Relative to Adam's performance, one can always imagine a more complete achievement on the part of mind vis-a-vis its object.

In contrast to Adam, Scotus claims (in (4)-(6) above) that in the case of God, necessity and adequacy of the volition are entailed by the infinite modality of the two terms, viz., divine will and divine object. Let us draw out the contrast between Adam and God a bit. Whereas we can imagine Adam delinquent or we could imagine for him a more perfect achievement, in the case of God, we must acknowledge a most perfect achievement under pain of contradiction. In the case of Adam, failure is a perfectly coherent suggestion, however lamentable it would be for Adam to suffer it. In the case of God, failure is not lamentable; it is impossible. The only response of an infinite will that befits the infinite beloved is a love exhausting, as it were, the lover's capacity to love and the beloved's capacity to be loved.

To sum up: the intentional structure of volition provides the framework of the Reason-Why argument. When one factors in the infinite perfection of both will and object, then the logic of perfection demands there be an infinitely perfect act. Under further compulsion of infinity's logic, Scotus asserts the simple necessity of the act.

From the first two arguments we have: it is necessary that there be certain volitions. By the third argument we have an account of why there is necessity in these volitions. The crux of the latter is the infinite perfection of the volition. Now: might not there be necessity to volitions that are not of such supreme perfection?

III

To answer the preceding question we shall employ Adam as an illustration.⁹ This time however we shall be interested in Adam's will. Perhaps I had better mention now that we imagine Adam is a professional theologian married to a woman named Martha. We approach the question at hand by wondering how Adam might respond to the final end, the infinitely lovable object. Consider the situation defined by the following three conditions: (i) there necessarily exists some will (it could be Adam's or God's, for we are indifferent to whether it is finite or infinite), (ii) there necessarily exists an infinitely lovable object, and (iii) the infinite object is present to the given will. The question: does it follow that there is some act of the will necessarily elicited? That is, are the above three conditions sufficient grounds for affirming the existence of some volition?

Duns Scotus argues at some length that they are not. We must look to cases. Where the will is God's infinite will, volition is necessary, as already argued. Where the will is finite, as in the case of Adam, Scotus finds no reason for necessity. A finite will can exist as a will and not be perfect. Finite wills need never be fully actualized, nor need they exemplify the fulness of perfection. Denial of Adam's act of love, however unreasonable it would be for him not to love his God, does not amount to denial of existence of Adam's will. What is as stake for Adam is the achievement of a degree of perfection, which is not required for his existence. Whereas in the case of God, what is at stake is his divinity, for his existing and his being the fulness of perfection are not really separable. To say that there is nothing inconsistent with Adam's failure to love God under the conditions described is not, of course, to deny that Adam must be able to love God, nor is it to deny that Adam may have the obligation to love God. It is simply to say that every instance of Adam's volition is contingent.¹⁰

The conclusion of this section together with the preceding two illustrate Scotus' thesis that simple necessity in volition occurs only as the feature of an infinitely perfect, and hence, divine act.¹¹

IV

Earlier it was established that necessity in the mode of being of an entity provides grounds for saying that the operation constituting the item's entity is necessary. It was also pointed out that this finding leaves open the determination of the mode or manner of the power's operation. Duns Scotus teaches that freedom is the will's only mode of operation. We now ask: what is freedom and how can it be consistent with a necessary operation. Three Scotistic doctrines are essential to the reply. The first distinguishes natures and wills, the second distinguishes three senses of freedom, and the third introduces a fourth sense of freedom or what can be called Scotus' “firmitas” doctrine.

First, Scotus teaches that there are two distinct species of active powers. They are natures and wills.¹² The basis of the distinction lies in their manner of operation. Natures always act with what Scotus calls natural necessity. That is, the facts that the act proceeds and that the act has the character it has are both established by a prior determination within the natural power. For example, when Adam's mind is presented a demonstration of the Pythagorean theorem he cannot help thinking it. Acts of natural powers can be either necessary or contingent. They are contingent in the sense that they could have been impeded. Either the power might not have been, the power or its object may have been defective, or perhaps exterior conditions intervene to preclude the successful operation. But whether they be necessary or contingent, natural acts proceed from their originative power by natural necessity. Trivially put: natures act in the way of a nature.

By contrast, wills act in the way of a will. Freedom, libertas, primarily names this way of acting. Similar to the case of natures, the acts of will may be necessary or contingent.¹³ But regardless of the entity's modality, freedom invariably marks the manner in which the act proceeds from the originative power.¹⁴

In an early teaching that Scotus seems never to have rejected or altered he outlines three kinds of freedom.¹⁵ The doctrine of the three freedoms constitutes the second of our critical teachings. At the outset I shall identify each, and then more elaborately consider the freedom Scotus considers the more basic.

First, there is the freedom for opposite acts. A given will can bring about by its own operation either of two mutually exclusive actions. For example, Adam can choose okra from the menu or he can reject it; he can love Gertrude as a wife or Martha, but not both. Each action has its own perfection. Secondly, the will is free for opposite effects. Adam can sculpt a Venus or a Madonna; he can perform a temperate or an intemperate deed. Different from the first case, one here has in mind an extramental state of affairs brought about at the instance of the will's agency. Required for the effect to be actualized is cooperative causality of material agents. Finally, Scotus says that the will is free for opposite intentional objects. Regardless of whether Adam actually loves Gertrude or Martha, does he see each as lovable? Put more precisely: though Adam now loves Martha (act A on behalf of intentional object X) at the time he committed himself to Martha, could he have loved Gertrude (i.e., could he have performed act B on behalf of object Y)? If so, Adam was free in the third sense of freedom. According to Scotus, the third is the basic freedom because the other two presuppose it and because unlike them it does not entail any imperfection on the part of the will.¹⁶

The import of Scotus' teaching on basic freedom in the context of personal perfection can be developed by comparing the volitional accomplishments of Adam and God in a situation where each will is free for opposite intentional objects X and Y. Particularly we will wonder what contribution action A on behalf of X will have on the actualization or perfection of the individual wills. Adam's will is finite, which means that it possesses a capability that is not altogether actualized. His attainment of happiness or perfection is in virtue of the operation or cultivation of his will. In acting on behalf of X, his A precludes his performance of B. The perfection of A and B are different. Thus in perfecting himself through A, Adam forsakes B.¹⁷ Now what is the case with God?

Consider the situation defined by the following four conditions: (i) God's will is fully actualized, i.e., there is no volition he lacks the absence of which makes him less than perfect or the presence of which would make him more perfect; (ii) God is related to all willable objects, i.e., whatever is good is an intentional object for him; (iii) let X and Y be willable objects that are opposite, i.e., act A on behalf of X precludes there being act B on behalf of Y; (iv) God actually performs A, i.e., he loves X. In this situation perhaps we want to say that if God is precluded from actually loving Y, then there is room for more. That is, God could have been greater in that he could have loved Y and did not. The Scotist reply is twofold. On the one hand, yes, he could have performed B in that no action is beyond his range, and yes, at the instant X was loved Y was equally lovable. Nevertheless, and this is the second part of the retort, failure to act on behalf of Y leaves no gap in God's actual perfection, just as the actual willing of X adds nothing to God's actual perfection.¹⁸

Our deeply felt expectation that things were otherwise is prompted by the more familiar personal experience we have of the pursuit and achievement of our happiness. In the familiar case, where X and Y are opposite objects and Adam's doing A precludes B, there are serious consequences for his final attainment. In a real sense Adam could always have been more perfect. Were he to have loved Gertrude as a wife instead of Martha, we can suspect he would have been happy, but in a different way, for his life would have been different. Similarly, Adam would have been happy, though in a different way, were he to have been a poet instead of a theologian. Perhaps forever these possible perfections are lost to Adam. Surely it is not obvious that the excellence of a theologian comes to the same as the excellence of a poet, nor that life with Gertrude would mold Adam as does life with Martha. So, as perfectly content as Adam may be as a husband and in his profession, he could have enjoyed a perfection that in fact he does not. Furthermore, just as the willing of X amounts to the very perfection that Adam has, so the exclusion of Y leaves a gap in his perfection. Adam may feel that the forsaken life with Gertrude and the Muses is nothing to pine over. For no matter how perfect a version of himself he imagines, there is always another competing version—unless he were to think of himself as God.

God differs, from Adam in that the divine acknowledgment of the “what if,” the path not taken, is not correlated with another version of his perfection. Were God to have taken the other path, it would not have altered his final achievement, for this is sufficiently accomplished in his self-love.¹⁹

We have it then that God is free for opposite intentional objects, but unlike Adam, acting out of such freedom makes no difference in God's perfection. How then is God free in his self-love (which makes all the difference)? We wonder: what is the sense of freedom at work in God's self-love and how does it relate to basic freedom?

For Scotus' answer we turn to the third of the critical Scotistic doctrines. Scotus employs the notion of steadfastness in love; he calls it firmitas. My thesis is that where the intentional object has no competing opposite steadfastness is the will's manifestation of freedom. As I will illustrate, firmitas and basic freedom come to the same, namely, the will's ability to adhere to that in which consists its perfection. The occasion for developing the notion of firmitas is an argument in Quodlibet, Q. 16 where Scotus proposes to explain how freedom is compatible with necessity.²⁰

• Firmitas Argument
  • (1) The action which is love of the ultimate end is the most perfect action.
  • (2) In love of the ultimate end, steadfastness contributes to the perfection.
  • (3) Hence, in the most perfect action, steadfastness contributes to its perfection.
  • (4) Therefore, necessity in the action asserts what is constitutive of the action's perfection, viz., freedom.

Presumably (1) would be true either relative to a given agent or taken absolutely. Adam's love of God is Adam's most perfect action; God's self-love is his most perfect action. Being the response of an infinite will, however, God's action is the most perfect in an absolute sense. (2) makes the critical assertion: when love's object is the ultimate end, steadfastness on the part of the will is an essential ingredient. What does this mean? An answer will be offered in the subsequent section, for now let us complete the argument. (3) is a simple inference from (1) and (2). Now (4) makes a significant point; it seems to identify the character of steadfastness as a manifestation of freedom. Scotus seems to suggest that to be free with regard to the ultimate end, at least in the supremely perfect act of love, means to be steadfast in the love.

The justification of a compatibility of freedom and necessity then turns upon the requirements for a volition being an instance of an infinitely perfect act. Two arguments are offered. Because such an act is constitutive of divine being it must be necessary, and because such an act is the work of will it must be free. Hence, the same act must be both free and necessary. Argued more on the basis of intrinsic reasons: to be possessed of the fulness of perfection is to be necessary, and to be possessed of the fulness of perfection a volition must have firmitas. Since God's self-love is possessed of the fulness of perfection, the same act is both free and necessary. If we can make some sense out of how steadfastness is a perfection proper to an infinitely perfect volition and why Scotus calls this freedom then the burden of this essay will have been discharged.

V

Basic freedom, recall, is the ability to have opposite intentional objects. In God's self-love, however, there is no competition; so how is it free? Guided by the experience of Adam, it has been reasonable to think that for any X that he loves he forsakes the loving of a Y. But it is not so clear that this is so in divine self-love. Accordingly, one might object: why think of such divine love as free? The perception here is that freedom is inextricably bound up with choice and hence requires the presence of opposite objects. If you respond that every volition is free because by definition the will acts freely, the objector could retort: then why think of the divine self-love as an act of will? The challenge is to make sense of freedom as a perfection in the supremely perfect love.

For the time being let us agree that to be constant in one's love is a good, at least so long as both the lover and beloved are unchanging and the individual is perfected in the love. Even so, there are cases where one drops old loves and takes on new ones. No doubt Adam at one time studied mathematics, let us say, but gave it up to concetrate on theology. Perhaps he dated both Gertrude and Martha before he gave up the charms of Gertrude for the sake of a fuller life with Martha. It may be that circumstances will dictate that he give up theology or that Martha must leave his life. The constancy with which Adam loves Martha and pursues theology are, I take it, in some significant sense a measure of the perfection of his love of them.²¹

The constancy alluded to here means more than a continuation of the same; it must have the sense of commitment and of being molded or formed by the love of one's beloved. Constancy of love must designate the very capability for perfection through union of will and object. I am proposing that will is the capability to have perfecting objects and to assimilate the good of the object (call it P) through its action. Hence from the perspective of a will bereft of P the capability shows first in its adhering to the P-informing object. And from the perspective of a will already related to the object, the capability shows in the ongoing activity of assimilating the good of its beloved in the perfecting act.

Yet the constancy in Adam's loves is not absolute, nor can we see why it should be; experience suggests quite the contrary. But what of the case where the object is the truly final end? Surely it always remains lovable under all possible circumstances. And just as surely, such love would perfect in a way no other could. (Indeed Scotus is well known for his claim that love of God is the only act that is morally good in all conceivable circumstances.)²² Could Adam fail in his love for this beloved object? Yes, as we have already explained. It was clear that failure to love God or, once loving him, failure to keep on loving him was a sure sign of the will's imperfection.

The imperfection of Adam's will not only makes it possible that he not love God, it also makes it necessary that the love when it occurs is an imperfect love. Because of Adam's infirmity, his love will always fail to assimilate the full measure of the object's goodness. The basic idea is that infirmity on the side of either will or object makes its way into the entity of the act. Generally this makes perfectly good sense given the general theory of intentionality employed by the scholastics.

Perhaps the difficulty faced in trying to specify the formal contribution of freedom to acts is now eased. Our clues were the Scotistic claims that steadfastness in acting pertains to perfection and that necessity in volition entails the action's perfection, namely, its freedom. The solution consists in jibing the notion of firmitas with that of basic freedom. In tracing the clues' leads we discover that Scotus employs two distinct formulations of the fundamental meaning of freedom. The first envisions love for finite objects—here freedom expresses an ability not to limit oneself to limitedly perfecting objects. The fact that one object informs the volition rather then another and the very contingency of the act—these traits are manifest in the act itself, and they bear witness to the will's special capability which Scotus calls freedom. The second formulation envisions love for the infinite object (God)—here freedom expresses the ability to continually adhere to the unlimitedly perfecting object. The absence of alternative objects and the necessity of the act also manifest the will's special capability which Scotus calls freedom. The point common to both formulations is that freedom expresses the ability on the part of the will to achieve perfection through the active union with its beloved.

A consequence of the analysis is that only an infinite will can fully express freedom. And remarkably, this is true under either formulation. Only divine volitions are necessary; this has been developed at length. But also, only God's contingent volitions are perfectly so, i.e., to the point where no necessities bear upon the will's execution. Perfect constancy of love, perfect expression of the will's capacity for a perfecting union, is manifest in God's self-love. No will except God's can achieve it; no object except God himself could inform it. Any will by its very nature could adhere to the unlimitedly perfecting object; in this is its perfection. The logic of infinite perfection, employed throughout Scotus' speculations, guarantees its achievement and simultaneously limits the guarantee to the case of divine self-love (and spiration). If angels and the blessed enjoy eternal perfection by the union with the beatific object, it must be won by dispensations from the limits of their intrinsic finitude. Whatever the case with them, however, it is clear that the Subtle Doctor firmly insists upon the compatibility of freedom and necessity in acts of will. Scotus is led to the doctrine by the logic of infinite perfection.

VI

The connection in Scotus' teaching between the will's freedom and its steadfastness bears a great deal of the weight of this paper's argument. Let us offer an 8-point summary of the connection between the will, its freedom, and its firmitas.

1. Constancy in love is a perfection. He who loves more firmly loves more perfectly.²³
2. The entity of the act of love is conceived as the product of the cooperative active causality of the will and object. Their degree of perfection enters into the love by virtue of the assimilation achieved in the willing action.
3. As a self-determining power, the will can be the reason for greater or lesser achievement in the goodness of the product-love.
4. Given the union of power and object, the measure of the product-love's achievement, insofar as we consider the contribution from the work of the will, is due to the will's steadfastness (firmitas).
5. Firmitas is an expression of the will's freedom. Freedom names the will's ability to have self-determinately willable objects through its actions, and to so have any such object insofar as the willing of it results in an act with a degree of perfection, and for the act to so have its perfection that it derives from an unlimitedly sufficient perfection in the will.²⁴
6. So long as the degree of perfection is not infinitely perfect, freedom will show in the agent's awareness that he could have done otherwise. That is, there is no consideration in the entity of the act which shows that the act needs must be. Nor is there any consideration in the will and object which shows that the will needs must love the object or that the object needs must elicit the will's love. (There is, however, one relevant restraint: the will must act as a will; minimally it need have one volition by which it self-determinately possesses a willable object through its action and such that the resultant act possesses a degree of perfection.)
7. Willing freely amounts to activating a (relatively or absolutely) unlimited fund of resources in the establishment of an entity that (1) is distinct from the will itself, (2) is dependent for what perfection it has upon the perfection of the will (insofar as the will is its partial active cause), and (3) is always fresh, in that the existence and nature of the act is neither pre-figured in the will nor passively received by the will from the object.
8. Given this firmitas-construal of freedom, Scotus' case for the compatibility of freedom and necessity gains in plausibility.²⁵ Critical in the argument from the side of freedom is to see that the exercise of free will is not limited to the exercise of choice. Rather, choice is reflective of a deeper structure at work in a specific situation. The notion of firmitas is the key to an understanding of this deeper structure. It seems perfectly possible that God's self-love and spiration have their origins in an exercise of a power as described in # 7 above. If there are reasons for holding that the action is necessary, this is no reason for withdrawing the act's status as free. And if the reason for the act's necessity is the same as the rationale in the will's action (namely, its infinite perfection), so much better the case of compatibility.

VII

In response to the development of the Scotistic doctrine on the compatibility of freedom and necessity, four objections are posed and answered.

Objection 1. Isn't freedom an equivocal notion in Scotus? The freedom of God's self-love seems different from the freedom in any of Adam's loves.

Reply to Obj. 1: If a power is defined by its operative character, I think Scotus would concede that the reality of free will in the case of Adam is equivocal to the reality of divine will. But note we compare reality (finite will) with reality (infinite will). What we want to know is whether there is a common core, i.e., a notion of free will univocally said of each. Here the subject is not a “full blown” reality, but free will taken indifferent to its existence as either finite or infinite.²⁶

In this latter case, I think Scotus does employ a univocal notion. The definitive notes are active power, indeterminate over-sufficiency, and firmitas. We will concentrate on the firmitas feature. It is understood as the ability to adhere to its object in a self-actualizing action, the love-product of which is in no way prefigured in the will nor coerced by the object.

Where there are no reasons for maintaining the necessity of the love-product (reason which would only be under pain of contradiction given the axiom of infinite perfection), one finds freedom showing in choice. Here the thrust of will toward self-actualization out of its indeterminate over-sufficiency and its consequent ability to adhere to its object—this describes the possibility of choice, viz., freedom.

The freedom of choice designates the will's capacity in the context of finitude—taken from the side of either will or object. The goals are (1) full actualization of a power, (2) full assimilation of an object's value, and (3) production of a fully perfect act. Where finitude infects either will or object, the goals are true goals only so far as the will has choice. But for all that, choice is simply basic freedom in inferior conditions.

Objection 2. How can you say: because the volition is necessary, the will acts necessarily? The latter claim seems to vitiate the meaning of volition you employ in the former claim.

Reply to Obj. 2: The solution is to find a suitable meaning for “necessarily” in the second half of the claim. I do not mean to invoke the manner of a nature's acting, that is, natural necessity. My suggestion was that the notion of firmitas does the job.

When Scotus says that the will acts necessarily, remember: all he means is that it is established that an act of volition exists, is eternal and uncaused. If so, the will's willing must be an ongoing activity.

There are here two levels of consideration: one, the modality of the will-product and two, the modality of the will-producing. The activity (the achievement or dynamic reality) of the will-producing has a stability or fixity to it. But the fixity is one that characterizes what is not proceeding in a fixed way. That is, we do not imply that the action is out of a prior fixity in the power and only now comes to light.

Necessity of the product names a mode of being. Necessity in the producing names no reality in the production. It simply points to the relation of the will to its product. What names the reality of the relation of the will to its product is the will's freedom, in this case, its firmitas.

In short: to say the volition is necessary is not to deny it is voluntary. This is best said in the marginal note to fol. 78vb in Clm 8717: “The will does not will necessarily, unless by its own effort it bears itself to the willed object and refrains from its opposite—so that, to the extent that the act is more necessary, to that extent the will, in willing, more freely wills the object, most freely and most willingly holding itself to that [object]. Whence it is that neither necessity nor contingency are essentially repugnant to an act of the will. Nor is ‘voluntary’ [repugnant to them], if one understands necessity as the steadfastness and immobility of the adherence of a potency to its object; not however if one understands it as the coercion or impetuosity whereby the will is compelled to its act, for it would thus be acting through nature” [emphasis added].²⁷

Objection 3. It seems that God could create free agents that only do what is right; so, the restriction of the compatibility of necessity and freedom to divine volition is wrong.

Reply to Obj. 3: The reply depends upon how we understand the antecedent.

A. The antecedent can be accepted if the doing of what is right is a matter of contingency. For example, there's no determinate reason outside of Satan's own will why he sinned (and similarly for Adam). The sufficient reason for his going wrong is wholly in his free will, in such a way that his going wrong is a contingent state of affairs. Accepting the antecedent so construed, however, does not entail the compatibility of a free act with a necessary act.

B. If the proposal means that regardless of whether the will freely acted the act would still have occurred, then the claim is wrong. This would be to say that it is just a matter of fact that the action was a willed one. The will here becomes an instrument of God's determinate causality. But such a suggestion about the nature of the will vitiates Scotistic will.

C. If the antecedent means that God creates these agents and so constructs their wills that they are determined (but not by outside factors, and only from factors wholly within the internal structure of the will) to good actions—then one here is dealing with a nature and not a will. Although such a world may well have been possible, it is bereft of free agents.

D. The antecedent is to be denied if the creative situation is so understood that “going right” is as mysterious as “going wrong.” The truth of the matter is that evil is the surd; will and freedom must be construed accordingly. Hence if you granted that God's creation in fact contains free agents who only do the good, this world must seem more reasonable than one like the actual world where free agents go wrong. I seem to see in your proposal the presumption that each is equally reasonable. But then free will is primarily an exercise of choice, simply determining the indeterminate, and not the ability to adhere to its object in a perfection-informing union.

Objection 4. At times Scotus' arguments for the compatibility of freedom suggest that freedom is a perfection and that a free act is somehow better than a non-free one. But this seems nonsense.

Reply to Obj. 4: A. If you grant than an item (call it X) is a volition, you grant that it's free. And if you grant that it's better that X be than that non-X obtain, then you grant the perfection of freedom.

B. Per impossibile assume the same state of affairs can be established by either will or nature, the free act will be better in that it will bear the trace of an origin whose capability exceeded this item's perfection (and this is true no matter how perfect an instance the item may be of its kind). Mightn't we claim to acknowledge contingency as a perfection, as in these following cases: (i) the happy quality of an item's being a gift, its givenness becomes a quality of the item; (ii) the uniqueness of an item's having been selected (imagine: it is good, but there were others with comparable virtues, yet it was the one); (iii) the honor of being that to which another has committed itself (as in the case of lovers); (iv) a given piece of an artist's work is seen in light of his portfolio: the unactualized over-sufficiency of the artist's talent must show itself in each instance of his work.

C. Given that a deed is performed compulsively, would it be better or worse if performed freely? Sometimes, yes: compare man-slaughter/murder; your insurance company routinely sends you a birthday card/a small child draws you a birthday picture.

D. Given that an act of love possesses the fulness of perfection, it only does so because of the will's ‘exhaustive’ assimilation of the object's unlimited perfection. Here, to say the act is possessed of the fulness of perfection is to say it is free, supremely free.

Notes

1. Much of the work on this paper was done through the support of a NEH Summer Seminar at Purdue University, 1982. A version of it was read at the 7th International Conference on Patristic, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Villanova University, 1982.

2. Others have discharged this burden differently. See for instance Bernardine M. Bonansea, “Duns Scotus' Voluntarism,” in John Duns Scotus, 1265-1965, ed. John K. Ryan and Bernardine M. Bonansea, Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1965), pp. 83-121; Walter Hoeres, Der Wille als reine Vollkommenheit nach Duns Scotus (Munich: Pustet, 1962); and Allan B. Wolter, “Native Freedom of the Will as a Key to the Ethics of Scotus,” in Deus et Homo ad mentem I. Duns Scoti (Romae: Societas Internationalis Scotistica, 1972), pp. 359-70.

3. Ordinatio I, d. 38, pars 2 et d. 39, qq. 1-5 (Ioannis Duns Scoti Doctoris Subtilis et Mariani Opera Omnia, Vol. VI (Vatican edition), p. 438): … necessitas autem simpliciter privat absolute possibilitatem huius oppositi … See Hoeres, Der Wille als reine Vollkommenheit, pp. 75-76; Allan B. Wolter, The Transcendentals and Their Function in the Metaphysics of Duns Scotus (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute, 1946), pp. 150-52; “Is Existence for Scotus a Perfection, Predicate or What?” in De doctrina Ioannis Duns Scoti, Vol. 2 (Rome: n.p., 1968), pp. 175-76.

4. Quaestiones quodlibetales, Q. 16, n. 5, (for a text I have used an edition generated from Munich Bayerische Staatsbibliothek mss. Clm 8717 and Clm 26309 and Worcester Cathedral Library ms. F 60, printed as an appendix to my Ph.D. dissertation, John Duns Scotus' Quodlibetal Teaching on the Will [The Catholic University of America, 1982; pp. 205-54], p. 209): De primo, dico quod in actu voluntatis Dei est necessitas simpliciter, et hoc tam in actu diligendi se quam in actu spirandi amorem procedentem, scilicet Spiritum Sanctum. Quod ita sit patet quia Deus necessario est beatus et per consequens videt et diligit obiectum beatificum. Similiter, Spiritus Sanctus est Deus et per consequens summe necessarius in essendo; igitur cum accipiat esse procedendo, actus ille quo procedit est simpliciter necessarius.

   In the absence of the critical edition, standard editions of the Quodlibet are vol. 12 of the Wadding Ioannis Duns Scoti Doctoris Subtilis Ordinis Minorum Opera Omnia (1639) (vols. 25-26 of Vivès reprint, 1891-95) and the improved text of Felix Alluntis' Spanish/Latin edition, Obras del Doctor Sutil, Juan Duns Escoto: Cuestiones Cuodlibetales (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1963); also important is the English translation by Felix Alluntis and Allan B. Wolter, John Duns Scotus. God and Creatures: The Quodlibetal Questions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975).

5. Quodlibet 16.6 (Quodlibetal Teaching, pp. 209-10): Utraque autem conclusio probatur “propter quid” sic: Voluntas infinita ad obiectum perfectissimum se habet modo perfectissimo se habendi; voluntas divina est huiusmodi; igitur ad summum diligibile se habet perfectissimo modo quo possibile est voluntatem aliquam se habere ad ipsum; sed hoc non esset nisi ipsum necessario et actu adaequato diligeret, et eius amorem adaequatum spiraret, quia si aliquod istorum deficeret, posset sine contradictione intelligi aliam voluntatem perfectiori modo se habere ad obiectum, quia iste modus posset intelligi perfectior et iste non concludit contradictionem, quia non est contradictio quod voluntas infinita habeat actum infinitum circa infinitum obiectum, et per consequens actum necessarium et naturaliter, quia si posset non habere talem actum circa tale obiectum, posset carere summa perfectione. Also see Ord. I, d. 10, nn. 42-48 (IV, 357-59) for parallel text.

6. Allan B. Wolter, “A Scotistic Approach to the Ultimate Why-Question,” in Philosophies of Existence Ancient and Modern, ed. Parviz Morewedge (N.Y.: Fordham University Press, 1982), esp. 123-26, and “An Oxford Dialogue on Language and Metaphysics,” Review of Metaphysics, 32 (1978), esp. 329-47.

7. Ord. I, d. 2, n. 239 (II, 271-72).

8. On the notion of adequacy see also Ord. I, d. 2, n. 255 (II, 263); d. 10, n. 9 (IV, 342).

9. What follows in Part III is a summary of Scotus' argument in Quodlibet 16.8-24 where he entertains three arguments for the position that finite wills necessarily love the final end.

10. Quodlibet 16.19 (Quodlibet Teaching, p. 212): quidquid sit de voluntate creata beata et perfectione eius supernaturali qua tendit in illud obiectum, tamen diceretur quod voluntas creata viatoris simpliciter contingenter tendit in illud et etiam quando est in universali apprehensum, quia illa apprehensio non est ratio determinandi voluntatem ad necessario volendum illud; nec ipsa voluntas necessario se determinat illo positio; sicut nec necessario continuat illud positum …

11. In light of Scotus' qualification regarding the confirmed love of God enjoyed by the blessed, perhaps the restriction of necessity to God's volition ought to be provisionally qualified. In discussing this issue Scotus begs off the question concerning the blessed and is concerned chiefly with comparing God and the viator. See Quodlibet 16.19, 25.

12. This distinction is axiomatic to Scotus' thought and is found throughout his works. His most sustained treatment of it occurs in Quaestiones subtilissimae super libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis, lib. IX, q. 15 (Vivès ed. Opera omnia, vol. 7). For the text I have used Duns Scotus, Questions on the Metaphysics, Book Nine: Potency and Act, trans. from a corrected text by Allan B. Wolter (Stillwater, Okla: Translation Clearing House, Oklahoma State University, n.d.). p. 80: “There is only a twofold generic way an operation proper to a potency can be elicited. For either [1] the potency is of itself determined to acting, so that so far as it is concerned, it cannot fail to act when not impeded from without, or [2] it is not of itself determined in this way but can perform either this act or its opposite, or can either act or not act at all. A potency of the first sort is commonly called ‘natural’ whereas one of the second sort is called ‘will.’ Hence the primary division of active potencies is into nature and will …” See Allan B. Wolter's commentary on this question: “Duns Scotus on the Will as a Rational Potency,” Paidea. The Cultural and Intellectual Life in the Middle Ages, ed. G. C. Simmons and J, R. Catan (Brockport, N. Y.: SUNY, forthcoming).

13. Quodlibet 16.34 (Quodlibetal Teaching, p. 216): non est eadem divisio in principium naturale et liberum, et in principium necessario activum et contingenter; aliquod enim naturale potest contingenter agere, quia potest impediri; igitur pari ratione possibile est aliquod liberum, stante libertate, necessario agere.

14. Quodlibet 16.41 (Quodlibetal Teaching, p. 219): … voluntas autem semper habet suum modum causandi proprium, scilicet libere … Ibid., 16.42: … voluntas per se loquendo numquam est principium naturaliter activum, quia esse naturaliter activum et esse libere activum sunt primae differentiae principii activi. Et voluntas, unde voluntas, est libere activa. Non magis igitur potest voluntas [naturaliter] esse activa quam natura, ut est distinctum principium contra voluntatem, potest esse libere activa.

15. In Ord. I, dd. 38-39 (VI, 401-44), which is Scotus' major treatment of divine foreknowledge and future contingents: Quantum ad primum dico quod voluntas, in quantum est actus primus, libera est ad oppositos actus; libera etiam est, mediantibus illis actibus oppositis, ad opposita in quae tendit, et ulterius, ad oppositos effectus quos producit (ibid., p. 417). Note that in my commentary the third one mentioned, what I call basic freedom, is the second listed in Scotus' text. See Walter Hoeres, Der Wille als reine Vollkommenheit, pp. 102-03.

16. Ord. I, dd. 38-39 (VI, 417): Prima libertas habet necessario aliquam imperfectionem annexam, quia potentialitatem passivam voluntatis et mutabilitatem. Tertia libertas [which is 2nd in my listing] non est secunda, quia etsi per impossibile nihil efficeret extra adhuc—in quantum voluntas—potest libere tendere in obiecta. Media autem ratio libertatis [what I call basic], ipsa est sine imperfectione (immo necessaria ad perfectionem) quia omnis potentia perfecta potest tendere in omne illud quod est natum esse obiectum talis potentiae; ergo voluntas perfecta potest tendere in omne illud quod natum est esse volibile. Libertas ergo sine imperfectione—in quantum libertas, est ad opposita obiecta in quae tendit, cui ut sic, accidit ut oppositos effectus producat. Ibid., p. 426: … si voluntas vel illa volitio esset tantum unius volibilis et non posset esse oppositi (quod tamen est de se volibile), hoc esset imperfectionis in voluntate.

17. Ibid., pp. 425-26: Nostra etiam erat libera ad oppositos actus, ad hoc ut esset ad obiecta, propter limitationem utriusque actus respectu sui obiecti … Scotus' idea here is that the will only enjoys its actuality by being related to an object. But a finite will only relates to a given object by excluding its opposite. Thus by willing or nilling this or that it achieves its measure of perfection. Though inevitably it also closes off its openness to other objects and hence another measure of perfection. In effect no finite will can fully express its basic freedom.

18. Ibid., p. 426: … posita illimitatione volitionis eiusdem ad diversa obiecta, non oportet propter libertatem ad opposita obiecta ponere libertatem ad oppositos actus. Ibid.: Remanet ergo libertas illa quae est per se perfectionis et sine imperfectione, scilicet ad opposita obiecta, ita quod sicut voluntas nostra potest diversis volitionibus tendere in diversa volita, ita illa [divina] voluntas potest unica volitione simplici illimitata tendere in quaecumque volita …

19. Ibid., p. 427: … dico quod voluntas divina nihil aliud necessario respicit pro obiecto ab essentia sua; ad quodlibet ergo aliud contingenter se habet, ita quod posset esse oppositi, et hoc considerando ipsam ut est prior naturaliter ipsa tendentia in illud oppositum. Nec solum ipsa prior est naturaliter suo actu (ut volitione), sed etiam in quantum volens, quia sicut voluntas nostra ut prior naturaliter suo actu ita elicit actum illum quod posset in eodem instante elicere oppositum,—ita voluntas divina, in quantum ‘ipsa’ sola volitione est prior naturaliter, tendentia tali ita tendit in illud obiectum contingenter quod in eodem instanti posset tendere in oppositum obiectum: et hoc tam potentia logica, quae est non-repugnantia terminorum (sicut dictum est de voluntate nostra), quam potentia reali, quae prior est naturaliter suo actu.

20. Quodlibet 16.32 (Quodlibetal Teaching, p. 215): Actio circa finem ultimum est actio perfectissima; in tali actione firmitas in agendo est perfectionis; igitur necessitas in ea non tollit sed magis ponit illud quod est perfectionis, [id] est, libertas [emphasis mine]. It should be noted that firmitas is the reading of Clm 8717, 26309 and Worcester F. 60, whereas the received texts in the Vivès and Alluntis editions print libertas.

    As these mss. are the earliest known of the Quodlibet and are judged by the Scotus Commission as necessary and sufficient for generating a safe edition, the firmitas reading is to be preferred. In addition the argument makes better sense, and as will be indicated in Part VI (A Summary of the Firmitas Doctrine), there is other textual evidence for this doctrine.

    Hoeres' comment on the meaning of necessity as a mode of being is illuminating: Gerade der Begriff der Notwendigkeit zeigt die innere Einheit von “Sosein” und “Dasein,” denn er bezeichnet nichts anderes als die Festigkeit, mit der sich ein Seiendes vor der Vernichtung bewahren kann (Der Wille als reine Vollkommenkeit, p. 76). Cp. n. 25 below.

21. Ord. III, q. 28, n. 17 (Vivès, 15, 371): … solum hoc magis diligitur quod firmius diligitur …

22. Reportata Parisiensa IV, d. 28, n. 6 (Vivès 27, 377-78): Nullus tamen actus est bonus in genere ex solo obiecto, nisi amare Deum, qui amor est obiecti per se volibilis et boni infiniti, qui non potest esse moraliter malus, quia nullus potest nimis amare amore amicitiae, et propter se … omnis alius actus est indifferens, qui est respectum alterius obiecti, et potest esse circumstantionabilis bene aut male.

23. Cf. n. 21 above.

24. In Questions on the Metaphysics IX, q. 15 Scotus illuminates the basis of the will's freedom by reference to the indetermination it enjoys vis-a-vis its acts: “There is another indeterminacy [in contrast to a negative one that bespeaks imperfection in an active power], that of ‘superabundant sufficiency’ based on unlimited actuality … something indeterminate in [this] second sense can determine itself”, p. 81).

25. In a note at the bottom margin to 78 vb of Clm 8717 we find the following comment: Nam voluntatem necessario velle non est nisi eam suo conatu in volitum ferre et eius oppositum cohibere, ita quod quanto actus est magis necessarius tanto voluntas volens liberius vult obiectum liberissime et volentissime se tenens cum eo. Unde actui voluntatis nec necessitas nec contingentia repugnat per se. Nec voluntarius est, accipiendo necessitatem pro firmitate et immobilitate adhaesionis potentiae cum obiecto; non autem pro coactione et impetuositate, ita quod impellatur ad actum quia sic esset agens per naturam [my emphasis] (Quodlibetal Teaching, p. 214).

    Perhaps more significant is an additio, found in all 3 mss., Clm 8717, 26309, and F. 60, which in answer to the question, In what precisely does the essence of freedom consist?, in part reads: … potest intelligi “necessitas” concomitans [ad voluntatem], ita quod ipsa intelligatur cadere suo necessitate, sic quod voluntas propter firmitatem libertatis suae sibi ipsi necessitatem imponit in eliciendo actum, et perseverando, sine figendo se in actu. … In quo igitur est ista libertas volendi? Respondeo: quia delectabiliter et quasi eligibiliter elicit actum, et permanet in actu [emphasis mine] (Quodlibetal Teaching, p. 216).

26. This response is the same, mutatis mutandis, as Scotus' account of the univocal nature of the concept of being in our knowledge of God and creature: God and creature sunt … primo diversa in realitate, quia in nulla realitate conveniunt (Ord. I, d. 8, n. 82; (IV, 190)); quaecumque sunt communia Deo et creaturae, sunt talia quae conveniunt enti ut est indifferens ad finitum et infinitum … (Ibid., n. 13 (205-06)).

27. See n. 25 above.