Dist. 25, Part 1, Art. 1, Q. 3
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/2/d/25/q/bon-sent-II-d25-p1-a1-q3
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### Distinction XXV. Part I. Sole Article. Question III.
### *Whether free choice embraces reason and will together.*

Third, it is asked whether free choice embraces reason and will together. And that it does, is shown.

1. Augustine, *On the Five Responses*: « When we speak of free choice, we do not speak of a part of the soul, but of the whole »: therefore it does not comprehend only the cognitive [power], but indeed also the affective.

2. Likewise, Damascene: « By free choice the soul desires, freely judges, freely makes its impulse, freely disposes, freely wills, freely chooses »; but here the acts of reason and of will are concerned: therefore etc. If you should say that this is said by reason of the object; this is nothing, because the same author himself says that « in it the cognitive and the vital powers are conjoined »: therefore free choice embraces both the motive power and the cognitive power.

3. Likewise, this same thing is seen from the *definition of free choice* which Bernard sets down in his book *On Free Choice*, who in defining it says that « free choice is consent on account of the will's inamissible liberty and reason's undeviating judgment »: therefore it embraces reason and will together.

4. Likewise, from another *definition* of Augustine, which the Master set down in the preceding distinction, which is this: « Free choice is a faculty of will and of reason »; but the faculty of will arises from the will itself, the faculty of reason from reason itself: therefore the faculty of will and of reason comprehends both powers. But free choice is such a faculty: therefore etc.

5. Likewise, this same thing is seen by *reason*, because sin and fault is in free choice alone; but some sin is in the reason, as the sin of unbelief, some in the will: therefore free choice comprehends in itself reason and will.

6. Likewise, grace and virtue is in free choice alone; but the three theological virtues are said to be in the rational, the concupiscible, and the irascible: therefore free choice has the power to embrace all those faculties.

**On the contrary:** 1. Free choice cannot be compelled, but reason can be compelled: therefore free choice does not comprehend reason itself. That reason is sometimes compelled is plain; that free choice cannot be compelled, the very name indicates this; for if it could be compelled, it would not be free.

2. Likewise, reason is of those things which are in our power, and of those which are not in our power; but free choice is only with respect to those things which are in our power: therefore reason is more extensive than free choice; therefore free choice does not comprehend reason in itself.

3. Likewise, that it does not comprehend will is seen. — Our will with respect to certain things is unchangeable; but whatever our free choice desires, it desires changeably: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, will is of the possible and the impossible; but free choice is of the possible only: therefore will extends to more things than free choice: therefore free choice does not comprehend in itself reason and will.

5. Likewise, reason and will are diverse powers; but free choice is one power, since it has one act, namely *to choose* or *to consent*: therefore it is impossible that free choice comprehend in itself *reason and will*.

6. Likewise, if free choice comprehends in itself *reason and will*: then either as *subjective* parts, or as *integral* parts. If as *subjective* parts: then the whole account of free choice is preserved in *reason*, and the whole account in *will*. Since therefore reason is one power, and will another; and when the inferior is numbered, the superior is numbered: it seems therefore that in any man there are two free choices; which is manifestly false. But if as *integral* parts; then on the contrary: from two powers there is never made a third power, especially when those powers remain distinct, and their acts are ordered to one another, so that one is before the other. If therefore reason and will are distinct powers, and their acts are ordered to one another according to prior and posterior; it seems that free choice cannot be made integral out of these as out of constitutive principles; and so it seems that free choice cannot comprehend will and reason.

### Conclusion

> Free choice embraces reason and will together.

**I respond:** For the understanding of the foregoing it must be noted that free choice comprehends together both *reason* and *will*; and this the very *naming* makes manifest, the very *notification* also, and the *inquiry into its property* also makes it manifest. — The *naming* makes it manifest. For it is called *free*, and it is called *choice*; and choice belongs to reason, but liberty to will, at whose beck and command the other things that are in us are moved. And this is what Augustine says *On the Five Responses*: « Free choice is so called from *judging* [arbitrando], because from the rational part it has received its name, [namely] what it should choose and what it should refuse ».

This is also plain from its *notification*. For it is said to be a faculty of will and of reason, or a consent of reason and will.

Lastly that is more fully made manifest through the *inquiry into its property*. For free choice, whether it name a power or a habit, names that power as mistress, or the dominion of that power; and this is plain from the very name of *liberty*. — But it must be attended to that the dominion of any power can be of two kinds; either with respect to the *object*, or with respect to the *act*. The dominion of a power with respect to the object is regarded in this, that it can [extend] to that object and to more, as a horse which can carry ten measures has dominion over three measures to carry, because it prevails and carries them with ease. But the dominion of a power with respect to the act is regarded in this, that the power can be in act and cease from act according to its own command and according to its own motion. Now, for any power to have this dominion, it is necessary that it be able to *move itself*, and that it be able to *reflect upon* its own act. For unless it could reflect upon its own act, it could never restrain it; unless it could move itself, it could not go forth into [the act] when it willed. But to reflect upon oneself, this belongs to the *cognitive* power, sublimated above matter, which indeed is reason. *To move oneself*, this belongs to the *appetitive* power, which follows upon reason.

To the end, therefore, that this dominion be in the soul, it is necessary that it have both reason and will. For if it had reason only and not will, by which it might move; it could reflect upon its own act, but could not move or command. But if it had appetite alone and not reason, it could indeed move and go forth into act; but because it could not reflect upon its own act, it could not indeed restrain, and so would not have dominion. — As therefore from the concurrence of the strength of two men there results a certain capacity for carrying a stone which neither of them could carry; and as from the concurrence of the father of the family and the mother of the family for arranging the governance of the house there results one authority, such that the one alone would not suffice; and as from the concurrence of the strength of the hand and of the eye there results the power of writing, for which neither of them alone would suffice: so from the concurrence of *reason and will* there results a certain liberty or a certain dominion for doing and disposing something.

And so it is plain that free choice embraces reason and will. It is also plain that, since free choice is a certain authority or a certain dominion resulting from the conjunction of these two powers, namely reason and will, it is best named by this, that it is called *free choice*, not by one name, but by a composite one, so that one name corresponds to reason, and the other to will. — It is also best *defined* when it is said to be a faculty of reason and of will. For *faculty* names not only the power, but rather the facility of the power, from which it is not only *able*, but is even *pre-eminently able* to go forth into act; and therefore *faculty* expresses an authority or dominion, which indeed is said to be of reason and of will together, because it is not of the one without the other accompanying. — The arguments proving that free choice comprehends reason and will are therefore to be granted.

**To the arguments to the opposite:**

*To 1, 2, 3, 4.* It is easy to respond to the arguments to the opposite. For as to what is objected, that it does not comprehend the whole of reason, nor the whole of will; it must be said that this is true; but it comprehends only the cognitive power itself, insofar as it is joined to the *affective*, and the *affective*, insofar as it is joined to the *cognitive*; whence it expresses a deliberative affect, or a voluntary deliberation. And on that account, because reason names the cognitive power itself as ordered to the affective, and will [names] the affective itself as regulated and reasoned by the cognitive; hence it is that free choice is rather called a faculty of will and of reason than of intellect and of affect. For it does not comprehend the whole of the cognitive [power], as the two first arguments show, nor the whole of the affective, as the two following ones show, but something of this and something of that, as the arguments adduced for the first part show.

*To 5.* As to what is objected, that free choice is one power since it has one act; it must be said that, although the act of free choice, namely *to choose* and *to consent*, is seen to be one; nevertheless it implies in itself diverse acts. For consent expresses the concord of two certain things, and so the concurrence of the acts of reason and will into one. To choose also includes in itself the judgment of reason and the appetite of will; and so, just as *to consent* and *to choose*, although they are seen to be one act, nevertheless include in themselves diverse acts: so free choice, although it is seen to be one power, nevertheless embraces in itself diverse powers, so that from the concurrence of those helping one another there results in us the governance of a perfect authority.

*To 6.* As to what is objected lastly, whether it embraces them as integral or as subjective parts; it must be said that it does not embrace them altogether as an *integral whole*, nor altogether as a *universal whole*, but as a *potential whole*, which partly has the nature of *an integral whole*, partly the nature of *a universal whole*: the nature of *an integral whole* in this, that in one of the powers it cannot be preserved without the other; but it has the nature of *a universal whole* because from their concurrence with one another it denominates each of them. Whence, as two men have the capacity of carrying a stone which neither has of himself, and by that capacity the power of each of them is said to be facile, yet it is not one without the other; so it must be understood in the case at hand. And again, as a likeness is in two like things, so that it is not in the one without the other, and yet each of them is denominated like, nor are they said to be two likenesses, but one; so liberty is said to be in reason and will, so that each of those powers is free by the conjunction of itself with the other; nor yet are there in them two liberties, but one. And so the objections are clear.

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