Dist. 25, Part 2, Art. 1, Q. 5
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-q5
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### Question V. *Whether free choice can be compelled by God.*

Fifthly, inquiry is made concerning free choice in relation to the first mover, namely to God himself, and the question is whether free choice can be compelled by God. And that it can, seems [the case].

1. Luke, the fourteenth chapter: *Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled*: if, therefore, one does not come to enter the house of God except by the use of free choice, and the Lord compels [men] to enter, it seems that free choice is compelled.

2. Likewise, John, the sixth chapter: *No one comes to me, unless the Father draw him*; but one does not come to Christ except by an act of free choice: if, therefore, free choice does not come to the Son unless it is drawn by the Father, and what is drawn is a violent motion, as the Philosopher says: free choice is violated and compelled by God.

3. Likewise, Proverbs, the twenty-first chapter: *As the divisions of waters, so the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord; whithersoever he will, he shall turn it*: therefore if free choice is inclined to one part of a contradiction, however much it is inclined to that part, God can perfectly bring it about that it will the opposite: therefore he can compel free choice to willing.

4. Likewise, every creature is in perfect obedience with respect to the Creator: therefore if free choice is something created by God, it must be in perfect obedience with respect to God: therefore if some power can be compelled by God, the power of free choice can be also. But God can act upon other creatures contrary to their proper nature: therefore he can also act upon free choice contrary to its proper liberty: therefore he can compel it.

5. Likewise, divine free choice can do more over the human than human free choice can over some brute; but a man can compel some brute to some operation by inflicting violence on it: therefore much more strongly can the uncreated power compel our will.

**On the contrary:** 1. Augustine on Genesis according to the letter: "God can no more act contrary to the nature which he established as good than he can act contrary to his own will": if, therefore, God voluntarily gave free choice to man, it is impossible for him to act upon free choice contrary to the liberty implanted in it. But if he were to compel it, he would act contrary to its liberty: therefore for free choice to be compelled by God is impossible.

2. Likewise, Augustine in the twenty-first [book] of *The City of God*: "That is natural to each thing which the will of the Omnipotent has disposed to make of it": therefore if nothing natural is violent, nothing that God does is violent: if, therefore, all coercion is by violence, whatever God may do concerning free choice, no violence can be inflicted upon it by God, and consequently no coercion.

3. Likewise, the will by this very fact wills freely, because, when it wills, it wills to will and moves itself; but it is impossible for the will to will something fully unless that willing is from the will moving itself, and unless the will wills to will: therefore it is impossible for free choice to be compelled, not only by something created, but even by God.

4. Likewise, to say that someone does something out of coercion is nothing other than that he does it unwillingly: therefore for free choice or the will to be compelled to its proper act is nothing other than that the will should will something unwillingly; but if it is unwilling with respect to something, it does not will it: therefore to compel the will is to do nothing other than to make the will will and not-will at one and the same time. If, therefore, two contradictories to exist at once is not only impossible to a creature, but even to the creating essence, it is evident, etc.

5. Likewise, then is a power compelled, when it is moved to the opposite of its inclination; but free choice, by the very fact that it is free, is of a nature to be inclined to one opposite just as to the other: therefore its liberty is preserved in its inclination to either opposite, whether it be inclined to this or to that. If, therefore, coercion excludes liberty, and liberty is not excluded, to whatever it be inclined, then by no inclination can the liberty of choice be compelled; but there is no other mode of compelling it except by inclining it to some object willed: therefore it is impossible for it to be compelled, neither by a created mover nor by the first agent.

> **Conclusion.** Free choice, with its liberty preserved, can be induced by a created agent, can be changed only by God, but can be compelled by none.

**I respond:** For the understanding of what has been said, it must be noted that when it is asked whether free choice can be compelled by God, this can be understood in two ways: either so that it is understood that he can take away [its] liberty and, by taking away [its] liberty, superinduce coercion; and in this mode there must be no doubt to anyone that God can do this, as far as concerns the immensity of his power. — In another way, so that it is understood that God should compel free choice with the property of liberty and its nature preserved: and in this mode it is not only impossible, but even unintelligible, for the reason that it implicates in itself two contradictorily opposite [things]. For from the fact that free choice is free, if it wills something, it wills freely; and from the fact that it is voluntary, if it wills something, it wills voluntarily, and wills by moving itself. But from the fact that it is compelled, if it wills something, it wills servilely; and if it wills anything, it wills unwillingly; and if it wills anything, it wills from another, because "that is violent whose principle is from without, the one suffering [it] contributing nothing of force": therefore for free choice to be compelled is nothing other than for the act of free choice at one and the same time to be free and servile, to be voluntary and not voluntary, to be from itself and not from itself. If, therefore, the impossible, which encloses within itself both parts of a contradiction, is not only impossible to a creature, but even to the creating essence — because that capacity is not a capacity, as was shown in the first book — it is plain that for free choice, according to this mode of understanding, to be compelled by God is impossible. — Hence the arguments adduced for this are to be conceded.

But for the understanding of the arguments adduced for the opposite, it must be noted that to say the will is induced, and the will is changed, and the will is compelled differ. For it is said to be induced then, when some persuasion is made by which it is disposed to be inclined toward some appetible [thing]; and if this be very intense, it takes on the name of coercion, although it is not a true coercion, as was shown above. — But the will is changed then, when, while it itself wills one thing, by a powerful force an affection is infused into it toward the contrary, and from willing it becomes unwilling, in such a way that one affection is expelled and the contrary is induced; as is evident when God makes a lover of temporal things into a despiser of temporal things; and this is said to be a kind of compulsion and drawing, while the will is separated from that thing to which it was strongly joined by the glue of love. — But the will is said to be compelled then, when it is understood that it itself unwillingly wills something, and, the act of the deliberative will resisting, while another force moves [it] and the resistance remains, it is inclined to willing something; and this implicates two opposites, as was shown. — The will, therefore, can be induced by a created agent; but it cannot be changed by another except by the uncreated agent; and it cannot be compelled by anyone. And for this reason Bernard says that the liberty of the will is so full in its own mode in a creature as in the Creator, and that it is found equally in all. For this, as was explained above, is understood as to the privation of coercion; and through this the response to the authorities and arguments is manifest.

1. 2. 3. For as to what is said in Scripture, that God compels the will of man, and draws the will of man, and inclines the will of man to whatever he wills, as those first three authorities show; this is understood not because he compels the will, but because he not only induces the created will, as a created agent [does], but even changes it, by infusing various affections, in which infusing there is no coercion, for the reason that I will so voluntarily what God infuses as that which I will from myself; and if I will something, I will it willingly, not unwillingly, and thus in willing I am compelled to nothing.

4. To that which is objected concerning the perfect obedience of the creature, it must be said that from this argument the opposite can rather be concluded than the [original] proposition. For since there is there the perfection of obedience, and free choice with respect to God has to be moved to everything that God wills, just as a ball [is moved] to every part; therefore whatever he does of it or about it, he does not compel nor violate, nor even does he induce violence on any creature as regards that power of obedience; but as regards the power of [its] special nature he sometimes indeed inflicts violence in the working of miracles. But such violence is inflicted on the natural power, not on the will, because the natural power is so determined to one [term] that if it is drawn to the opposite, this is by violence. But the will is convertible to either opposite, just as a wheel and a ball have convertibility to motion.

5. To that which is objected, that divine free choice can do more over man than human [free choice can], etc.; it must be said that this is true in those things in which the capacity is [a capacity] of power; but to be able to compel a brute, this is [a capacity] of power, while to be able to compel free choice while it remains free, this is [a mark] of disorder and impotence, as was shown before. For coercion is not so repugnant to the brute nature as it is repugnant to the liberty of choice; and on this account that objection does not conclude.

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