Dist. 25, Part 2, Art. 1, Q. 2
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-p2-a1-q2
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### Question II. *Whether free choice concerns acts that are contingent and necessary, or only contingent ones.*

Secondly there is inquiry concerning free choice in comparison to its act, and it is asked whether it concerns acts that are contingent and necessary, or only contingent ones.

And that it concerns only contingent ones, it seems:

1. Through the Master in the second chapter of this distinction, where he speaks thus: "But this must be known, that free choice is not referred to the present, nor to the past, but to future contingent things."

2. Likewise, free choice concerns those acts which are from us, and those about which we deliberate. If therefore we do not deliberate about necessary and impossible things, but about contingent ones, and the things which are in our power we can do and not do; it seems that only contingent acts can pertain to free choice.

3. Likewise, free choice is a rational power; but a rational power is indifferent to doing and not doing; and nothing which proceeds from a power indifferently disposed toward this and toward its opposite is necessary, but contingent: therefore, etc.

4. Likewise, the necessary and the voluntary are divided by opposition: therefore if the act of free choice were necessary, it would not be voluntary: if then every act of free choice is voluntary, it seems that none is necessary.

**On the contrary:** 1. Augustine in the *Enchiridion*: "Man will be such that he cannot will evil, nor on that account will he be deprived of free choice." And a little later: "Nor is it the case that there is no will, or that it should not be called free, by which we will to be blessed in such a way that we not only do not will to be wretched, but cannot will it at all." From this it is expressly gathered that free choice concerns a necessary and immutable act.

2. Likewise, free choice is in God and the Angels and the blessed; but God is immutable by nature, while the Angel and the blessed man are immutable by glory: therefore in them free choice goes out into its act necessarily and immutably: therefore it concerns not only a contingent act, but also a necessary one.

3. Likewise, there is no merit without an act of free choice; but he who has done good wills himself to have done it, and by this very fact merits: if therefore this man's having done good, the one who did it having been pointed out, is necessary, free choice concerns a necessary act, even according to the state of merit.

4. Likewise, free choice is a power that is not bound, by the very fact that it is free: if therefore the intellective power, by the very fact that it is not bound, can know necessary and contingent things: therefore since the will, or the liberty of choice, is constrained to nothing, it seems that it will concern necessary and contingent acts together.

### Conclusion

> The act of free choice, as free, can not only be about something necessary, but even be necessary in itself; its act, as deliberating, is always contingent, although it can be about something necessary.

**I respond:** It must be said that free choice can be considered in two ways: either as it is free, or as it is deliberating. — If we speak of it as it is free, then I concede that it can concern not only the contingent, but also the necessary, as is clear in God and in Christ and in the Angels and in the blessed. For since necessity is twofold, namely of coercion and of immutability, the necessity of coercion is repugnant to the liberty of choice, but the necessity of immutability is not, for the reason that choice is called free, not because it so wills this that it could will its opposite, but because everything that it wills, it desires under its own command, since it so wills something that it wills to will it; and therefore in the act of willing it moves itself and is master of itself, and to that extent it is called *free*, although it is immutably ordered to that thing.

But if we speak of free choice as it is deliberating, whether this be done or not be done; then its act, about which it deliberates, is *contingent*; for no one deliberates about the necessary and the impossible; yet that act can be about something necessary, or about something contingent. For in free choice there is the act of willing and the thing willed itself to consider. And insofar as free choice is *deliberating*, it is necessary that the contingency be about *each* of these, or about *one*: about *each*, as when one deliberates whether he wills to enter religious life, or to love an enemy; about *one*, as when one deliberates whether he ought to take pleasure in, or be displeased by, an evil which he has done; or whether he ought to consent to, or dissent from, an appetite naturally implanted, such as the appetite for beatitude. Thus therefore the act of free choice as *deliberating*, although it can be *about something necessary*, is always *contingent*; but the act of free choice, as it is *free*, can not only be *about something necessary*, but even *necessary in itself*.

**To the arguments:** And by this the answer to the question proposed is clear, and the answer to the objections is also clear. For the reasons which show that free choice can concern a *necessary* act conclude about free choice as it is *free*, as is manifestly apparent to one who examines them. But the authorities and reasons to the contrary are understood of free choice as it is *deliberating* and taking counsel; otherwise they do not compel.

*To 1 and 2.* For as to what is objected first, concerning the word of the Master, it is plain that he understands it of free choice according to the state of the wayfarer, as the Master himself expounds himself in the text. — Similarly, as to what is objected secondly, that free choice concerns the things about which we deliberate; this indeed is true of free choice insofar as it holds the character of *deliberating*.

*To 3.* As to what is objected, that a rational power is for opposites; it must be said that this is not true of every rational power, as will become clearer in the following problem; but it is true of a rational power according to the state of mutability and changeableness, according to which state the word of the Philosopher is understood.

*To 4.* As to what is objected, that the necessary and the voluntary are divided by opposition; it must be said that this is true according as the necessary is said from the necessity of coercion; but according as the necessary is said from the necessity of immutability, it is not divided against the voluntary, unless the voluntary be said from a will *deliberating* and taking counsel. And in this way I readily concede that the voluntary is contingent, and this is not opposed but rather consonant with what was said before.

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