Dist. 25, Part 1, Art. 1, Q. 4
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-q4
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### Question IV. *Whether free choice is the name of a habit or of a power.*

Fourthly it is asked whether free choice embraces reason and will after the manner of a power, or after the manner of a habit. And that it does so after the manner of a power is shown:

I. First, through Anselm in the book *On Free Choice*, where he says thus: "Free choice is the power of preserving rectitude"; but power belongs to the genus of potency: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, Bernard *On Free Choice*: "Take away free choice; there will then be nothing that is saved"; but only a substance, or a power by reason of a substance, is said to be saved; therefore free choice is either the name of a substance or of a power; but it is not [the name] of a substance: therefore it is [the name] of a power.

3. Likewise, in us there is to be posited some power that always inclines toward the good simply, namely synderesis, and another that always inclines toward the good as-of-now, so far as it depends on itself, namely sensuality: therefore there is to be posited a power standing in a middle way; but this we call free choice: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, everything that is receptive of a habit is a power; but free choice is receptive of a habit, namely of grace: therefore it is a power. The middle [premise] is clear through Augustine, who says that "grace stands to free choice as a rider to a horse."

**On the contrary:** 1. Augustine in the *Enchiridion*: "By using free choice badly, man destroyed both himself and it"; but no power is destroyed by sinning: therefore free choice is not a power.

2. Likewise, free choice is thus defined by Augustine, whose definition was set down in the preceding distinction: "Free choice is the faculty of will and reason"; but a faculty is that by which a power is made facile: therefore since everything that renders a power facile for the work renders it apt, and such a thing is a habit; it seems etc.

3. Likewise, Bernard *On Free Choice*: "Free choice is a habit of the mind free over itself"; but if this definition has been rightly assigned, it seems that free choice is essentially a habit; but [it is a habit] only of reason and will: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, free choice is nothing else, as the Master says in the text, and the philosophers define, than free judgment; but judgment is not a power, but an act or a habit: therefore etc.

5. Likewise, of a power there is no power, nor is a power said to be in a power; but free choice is the faculty of reason and will, and is in reason and will: therefore it does not seem that it is any power; and it is either a power or a habit: therefore etc.

6. Likewise, everything that can be diminished and increased has rather the character of a habit than of a power; but free choice is of this kind, as the Master says in the text, that there is greater freedom in the Blessed than in those confirmed [in grace]: therefore etc.

### Conclusion.

> Free choice principally signifies a habit and embraces reason and will, not as one power constituted out of them, but as one habit.

**I respond:** It must be said that when it is asked whether free choice is the name of a habit or of a power, this can be asked in two ways: either so that it is asked whether it names precisely a habit, or precisely a power; and such a question has little difficulty, since nearly all the names of the powers of the soul are sometimes taken for powers, sometimes for habits, sometimes for acts. For as the Philosopher holds, the intellect is called sometimes the intellective power, sometimes the habit of understanding, sometimes the act. And Anselm says that "the will is sometimes called an instrument, sometimes an affection, sometimes a use." And therefore this is not intended in the proposed question.

In another way the aforesaid question can be understood, so that this is intimated: namely, to what the name of free choice is first and principally imposed, according as the holy doctors speak of it. And to this question there is a threefold manner of responding according to different [authors].

For some held that free choice is the name of a power that stands as a universal to reason and will, and comprehends them, as a universal whole comprehends its parts. Hence, as the rational power is said to be common to reason and to will, so also is the freedom of choice, according to this manner of speaking. — But this was disproved above. For if it named a universal power [extending] to reason and will, then, since reason and will are two rational powers, there would now be in them two freedoms, and there would be two free choices in any one man.

And therefore there is another position: that free choice names a power constituted out of will and reason for doing something to which neither of them by itself was able. And because one joined to the other does not only render the power potent, but also facile; hence it is that free choice does not only name a power, but also names a facile power and an aptitude. And on that account that name, although it is a name imposed on a power, nevertheless seems to be the name of a habit.

But since it is difficult to understand how out of two powers one is constituted, or how free choice, speaking formally and properly, is two powers — especially since it is not said to be reason and will, but the faculty of reason and will — therefore there is a third manner of speaking: that free choice is a name principally imposed on a habit. — And the very imposition of the name plainly manifests this. For "arbitrium" (choice) does not signify a power, but a habit. The very notification also manifests it. For free choice is not said to be a facile power, but the faculty of the powers. Now just as, when I say a facile power, I say a power made apt, so, when I say the faculty of a power, I say the habit of the same. Since therefore free choice is rightly said, according to its proper assignation, to be the faculty of reason and will; hence it is that free choice principally signifies a habit and embraces reason and will, not as one power constituted out of them, but as one

habit, which indeed is rightly called a faculty and a dominion; which arises from the conjunction of both and is powerful over the acts of both powers, considered in themselves and by themselves, just as arbitral authority has rule, in two persons, over the acts of each considered in itself.

The reasonings that show that free choice names a habit are therefore to be conceded; for they conclude truly, since [the name] is principally imposed on the habit. Hence, speaking essentially, this is true: free choice is a habit of the soul, or the faculty of will and reason.

**But to the things urged on the contrary,** the reply is easy. For I concede that free choice sometimes supposes a power and is taken for a power; but this is not of its principal signification, but just as the name of a power is drawn over to the name of a habit, so the name of a habit is frequently [drawn over] to the name of a power. And thus the objections on both sides are clear.