FREEDOM. – In general, it is the independence that man claims for his actions, whether with respect to the forces of nature (rational freedom in the broad sense), with respect to society (social and political freedom), or with respect to God (theological or religious freedom). In this sense, the problem of freedom expresses the most original nucleus of human consciousness and the most intimate reason for its spiritual development and, as such, has been denied only by atomistic and Enlightenment materialism and by scientific positivism, which admit no ontological superiority of man over nature: by this, these doctrines, like Marxist dialectical materialism, must renounce philosophy itself, which is absorbed into the «science of nature» (Engels). Freedom is therefore at once revelatory and constitutive of the essence of philosophy and at the same time forms its most arduous task, inasmuch as freedom establishes and presupposes the threefold orientation of human consciousness toward the being of the world, of man in himself and with respect to God, and finally inasmuch as it presupposes a definitive perspective or decision of man’s being concerning his destiny.
The conviction of the existence of freedom is «attested» by the development of human institutions and civilizations in which man has variously shaped his life; by the existence of social laws, which presuppose «individual responsibility» together with the possibility of exercising it in the face of what is presented as «duty»; and by the very consciousness of personal freedom that each person has in reflecting upon his own acts. The freedom thus attested is «phenomenological freedom» and constitutes the starting point for theoretical foundation: in its procedure, this must take account both of the «subject» of freedom, which is man and more particularly the will, and of the «object» of that same will. This metaphysical situation of freedom can be indicated in Thomistic elaboration according to a «double dialectic»: first, in the subject-object tension in freedom itself in general, and then in the tension, on the part of the subject as secondary cause, with respect to the First Principle (human will-God); within the subject itself, between intellect and will; and in the tension within the sphere of the object itself (infinite Good-particular goods). It was only with Christianity, which clarified definitively the transcendence of God, the personality of the individual human being, and the necessity of individual salvation and redemption in order to correspond to divine Grace, that the problem of freedom could be outlined in all its moments. The Thomistic conception brings together the elements scattered throughout Greek thought and the attempts of the patristic age and early scholasticism. The metaphysical situation of freedom in the more mature doctrine of St Thomas can be reduced to the following points:
a) Relations between intellect and will. – The will (v.) is rational appetite or inclination and therefore presupposes the act of the intellect, which presents its object to it: hence it must be said that «quantum ad determinationem (seu specificationem) actus qui est ex parte obiecti, intellectus movet voluntatem, sicut praesentans ei obiectum suum» (Sum. Theol., 1a-2ae, q. 9, a. 1). Aristotle had specified this foundation of practical intellectualism by writing: ἐν τε λογιστικῷ γὰρ ἡ βούλησις γίνεται (De anima, III, 9, 432 b 5). But the will is the realizing faculty of the whole man, inasmuch as its object is the «end» (the good and happiness), which is the first principle of every action; hence, in turn, the will moves the intellect itself: «Voluntas movet intellectum quantum ad exercitium actus, quia et ipsum vetum quod est perfectio intellectus continetur sub universali bono ut quoddam bonum particulare» (Sum. Theol., 1a-2ae, q. 9, a. 1 ad 3). There is therefore a dynamic transcendence of the will over the intellect that breaks the circle of the intellectualist immanence of βούλησις: «Omnis actus voluntatis procedit ab aliquo actu intellectus: aliquis tamen actus voluntatis est prior quam aliquis actus intellectus; voluntas enim tendit in finalem actum intellectus qui est beatitudo» (ibid., q. 4, a. 4 ad 2a).
b) Relations between will and object. – As regards entering into action and moving the other powers (including the intellect), the will is always free, even when God or happiness itself is at issue: «Quantum ad exercitium actus voluntas a nullo obiecto de necessitate movetur» (ibid., q. 10, a. 2). But once the object has been presented and qualified, the will is free only with respect to particular goods, no longer with respect to the universal good, happiness (beatitudo), which is the ultimate end and the specifying end of the will itself (the will as «nature»). Man may not think directly of happiness, but if he does think of it, he must necessarily love it: «Finis ultimus ex necessitate movet voluntatem quia est bonum perfectum» (ibid., q. 10, a. 2). Every other good, on the other hand, not necessarily connected with happiness, since it presents itself as a partial and relative good, is not necessarily willed (ibid.). It is true that the will will always and infallibly (and necessarily, the Thomists say) follow the last practical judgment (practico-practicum) of the intellect; but that one judgment or another should be the last is the exclusive work of the will itself.
c) Relations between will and God. – The will, in its own order, as the faculty whose object is the end and happiness and which moves all the other powers and the intellect itself, moves itself: «Quia voluntas domina est sui actus et in ipsa est velle et non velle; quod non esset si non haberet in potestate movere seipsam ad volendum» (ibid., q. 9, a. 3, sed contra). The will, as a finite principle that passes from potency to act, must first actualize itself in its tendency toward the end in order to be able to choose the means by itself; but it cannot actualize itself, since, in the first moment, as a creature, it is in potency to the end itself; therefore it must be said that in the first act the will is moved toward the end by God himself: «Unde necesse est ponere quod in primum motum voluntatis voluntas producat ex instinctu alicuius superioris moventis ut Aristoteles concludit» (ibid., q. 9, a. 9; cf. Aristotele, Eth. Eud., VII, 14, 124B a 24 sgg.; ἄλλον δὲ ὥσπερ ἐν τῷ ὕλῳ θεός, καὶ πᾶν ἐκείνῳ, κινεῖ γὰρ πῶς πάντα τὰ ἐν ἡμῖν θεῖον). In the subsequent exercise of its freedom, in which the will moves itself, the will as secondary cause is always moved by God, the first cause; both because the will belongs to the spiritual soul, which is created directly by God and therefore must also be moved directly by God, and because the object of the will is the universal good or perfect happiness, which is God himself (Sum. Theol., 1a-2ae, q. 9, a. 6).
It may therefore be concluded that the will is always free “quoad exercitium actus,” even with respect to the universal good and God himself, because on earth they are known (and therefore present to consciousness) in an abstract or mediated manner. The will is not free “quoad specificationem obiecti” with respect to its formal object, the universal good, which defines it and places it in a position to move; the same may be said of the means necessary to the end, once the end has been chosen (ibid., q. 9, a. 2 ad 3). Freedom is therefore not the supreme and fundamental activity of spiritual life: in God, divine life is necessary, and only creation ad extra is free; the blessed who behold the divine essence do not have the freedom not to behold it, since otherwise they would no longer possess beatitude; the will in general cannot fail to love the good that is proposed as such. Thus freedom has the task of actualizing the person in relation to his ultimate end. With regard to the metaphysical structure of freedom, determinism (v.) but also absolute indeterminism, insofar as, in general, God moves the will by applying it to the singular act (ibid., 1a, q. 105, a. 5), and the will, once it has chosen and the intellect has made its ultimate practical judgment, must follow this judgment and is no longer indifferent: only by modifying that judgment can it alter its choice. The other Catholic schools, Molinism (v.) and its derivations, do not accept this rigorous metaphysical position and prefer the psychological and general notion of human independence in the act of choosing. Modern psychology inspired by spiritualism has defended a “consciousness of freedom” (N. Ach, J. Lindworski, T. V. Moore, J. Geyser), but it is not easy to say whether it has grasped freedom in its genuine metaphysical meaning, and it therefore seems that the psychological argument cannot stand in isolation (cf. De malo, q. 6, a. unico ad 18: “Potentia voluntatis ad opposita se habens cognoscitur a nobis, non quidem per hoc quod actus oppositi sint simul; sed quia successive sibi invicem succedunt ab eodem principio”; it is therefore a complex experience that presupposes at least a process of comparing the various acts).
The problem of freedom becomes clear only gradually in Western thought, and assumes its definitive form only in Christian philosophy, as the responsibility of the individual before God for the choice of eternal life.
Greek thought always admitted a nucleus of individual responsibility and therefore of freedom, from the Homeric poems onward, and then in the lyric poetry of Pindar and especially in Sophocles, who is called the “poet of character” (cf. especially Antigone): Greek tragedy, even in Aeschylus, is not completely fatalistic, for otherwise every ethical value would have been impossible and Aristotle could not have elaborated his doctrine of προαίρεσις, which develops the ἐγώσιον (the simple voluntary act) as a property of the human being (Eth. Nic., III, 4-5, 1111 b 6 ff.). The Stoics themselves, accused of fatalism, did not entirely exclude προαίρεσις, which appears alongside the necessitating principles of the cosmos (ἐνάγιον, εὐαφάγιον, αὐτάματον, τύχη; cf. Plutarch, Epit., I, 29; H. Diels, Dox. Gr., 2nd ed., Berlin 1929, p. 326 a 7. On the defense of freedom among the Stoics, see: M. Pohlenz, Die Ston, I, Gottling 1948, p. 104 ff.). The fact nevertheless remains that the treatise Περὶ Εὐαφάγιον, by Alexander of Aphrodisias (cf. ed. I. Bruns, in Suppl. Arist., II, II, Berlin 1892), is entirely a polemic against Stoic fatalism. On the other hand, it is true that the Stoics preserved and developed the doctrine of “virtue, both intellectual and moral,” in the words of Philo (Leg. All., I, 17; ed. L. Cohen-P. Wendland, I, Berlin 1896, p. 75, 13 ff.). A demand for freedom appears even in Epicurus, who, by introducing the atomic swerve, sought to escape the rigid determinism of Democritus and affirmed that “it is better to believe in the gods than to be slaves to the destiny of the natural philosophers” (Ep. ad Mense., 134; ed. C. Diano, Epicuri Ethica, Florence 1946, p. 10). These contradictions constitute the deepest unease of the Greek soul in its effort to clarify the essence of man. Patristic and medieval philosophy proceeded gradually toward the theoretical foundation of freedom, making use of the scattered elements of classical philosophy; it was in this context that the explicit term liberum arbitrium appeared. Nemesius and St. John Damascene, for example, followed Aristotle preferentially, grounding freedom in rationality, as St. Thomas would later do (cf. B. Switalski, Die Psychologie des Nemesius, Münster in W. 1900, p. 138 ff.; for St. John Damascene: De fide orth., II, 27; PG 94, 962). In the Augustinian current, beginning with St. Anselm, the definition inspired by St. Augustine gained currency: “Libertas arbitri est posse peccare vel non peccare” (Dialogus de libero arbitrio: PL 158, 489, which depends on St. Augustine, De corr. et gr., 1: PL 44, 917). The third definition that found acceptance in the Middle Ages was that of Boethius, again derived from Aristotle: “Liberum arbitrium est liberum de voluntate iudicium” (cf. In lib. Arist. de interpr., III, circa initium: PL 64, 492). The gravest philosophical error concerning freedom Averroism (v.), which inclined toward the determinism of the intellect over the will and of the influence of the stars over individual passions; with regard, however, to the position of Siger of Brabant, the most recent studies tend to bring him close to the Thomistic position (Lottin, Van Steenberghen). In the Renaissance, the problem of freedom stood at the center of the new conception of man, and the difficulties in which the Alexandrists and Averroists were embroiled can be discerned in it, both with respect to the interpretation of the Aristotelian text and in relation to faith. The most notable document is the work of P. Pomponazzi, De fato, libero arbitrio et praedestinatione (ed. Basel 1567, p. 320 ff. The work was completed on 5 November 1520). In modern philosophy, freedom expresses the activity of consciousness itself in its opposition to the necessity of physical causality; for Kant, the realm of phenomena is governed by the rigid necessity of the principle of causality, opposed by “transcendental freedom,” which forms the foundation of the noumenon of the sphere of spirit and thus constitutes the transcendental possibility of practical reason, a position which Fichte adopted and developed. Hegel declared himself opposed to “purely formal” freedom as well as to “freedom of arbitrary choice” (Willkühr), insofar as the former keeps the subjective and objective aspects separate, while the latter is the freedom to “do whatever one wishes” (Rechtsphilosophie, 15; Italian trans., Bari 1913, p. 35 ff.). Kantian formal freedom was taken up again by the “philosophy of values”; existentialism, meanwhile, intends to reclaim freedom in its sole genuine sense as the activity of the individual person. In atheistic existentialism, however, freedom returns to subjective arbitrariness, which resolves itself into a “useless passion” (J.-P. Sartre, L'être et le néant, Paris 1943, p. 708). In the most recent physics of the “quanta,” the possibility of an authentic freedom of human action is left open, understood not “as an imperfection of our cognitive faculties nor as a breach in causal determinism,” but as resting on the fact that the will precedes the intellect “without allowing itself to be totally influenced by it” (M. Planck, Vom Wesen der Willensfreiheit, in Vorträge und Erinnerungen, Stuttgart 1949, p. 309 ff.; cf. also: id., Kausalgesetz und Willensfreiheit, ibid. 1923, p. 139 ff.). The originality of human freedom lies in its being a new principle in the world, the author of history, capable of modifying, within certain limits, the very course of nature; above all, however, it constitutes the true possibility of man’s transcendence toward the Absolute and his openness to faith and grace, which must save him.
DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH. — Christian ethics is founded on the responsibility that each person bears for his own actions and therefore presupposes individual f.: in a pantheistic or Averroist conception of a single f. that ultimately coincides with the necessity of nature, «hic homo non erit dominus sui actus, nec aliquis eius actus erit laudabilis vel vituperabilis; quod est divellere principia moralis philosophiae» (s. Tommaso, De unitate intellectus, § 81; ed. Keeler, Rome 1936, p. 51). The ecclesiastical magisterium had to affirm the existence of f., especially in settling controversies concerning the problem of Grace. The following is found in the Council of Quiersy (a. 853) against Gottschalk and the predestinarians: can. 1. Deus omnipotens [honinem] sine peccato rectum cum libero arbitrio condidit... (Denz-U, n. 316). And among the errors of Baio are found the following propositions: 39. Quod voluntarie fit, etiamsi necessario fiat, libere tamen fit. — 40. In omnibus suis actibus peccator servit dominanti cupiditati... (ibid., nn. 1039-40). Against A. Bonethy it was declared that f. can be demonstrated by reason with complete certainty (ibid., n. 1650).
Thomas und Scotus, Freiburg in Br. 1937. For the exposition of Kant and Fichte, V. Cohen, Kanti Begründung der Ethik, Berlin 1877, chap. 5, p. 93 ff.; id., Ethik des reinen Willens, 3rd ed., ibid. 1921, especially chap. 6, p. 287 ff.; W. Windelband, Über Willensfreiheit, Tübingen 1904; A. Messer, Das Problem der Willensfreiheit, Göttings 1911. For the psychological problem: J. Lindowski, Der Wille, 3rd ed., Leipzig 1923; id., Willensschule, Paderborn 1927; id., Das Seelenleben des Menschen, Bonn 1934, p. 30 ff.; A. Willwell, Seele und Geist, Freiburg in Br. 1938, p. 149 ff.; A. Gemelli - G. Zunini, Introduzione alla psicologia, Milan 1947, p. 242 ff. General exposition: F. Paulsen, System der Ethik, I. Stuttgart-Berlin 1906, p. 455 ff.; L. Brunsvig, Nature et liberté, Paris 1921; A. Striel, Das Problem der Willensfreiheit, Vienna 1927; G. Geyser, Das Gesetz der Ursache, Munich 1932, p. 81 ff. Excellent for discussion and modern bibl.: P. Martinetti, La I., Milan 1928; A. Wenzl, Philosophie der Freiheit, Munich-Pasing 1947; N. Hartmann, Ethik, 3rd ed., Berlin 1949, especially part 3, p. 621 ff. Council F. abro