VOLUNTARISM. -- In contrast to intellectualism (*v.*), it generally denotes the superiority attributed to the will over the intellect in spiritual life, whether in philosophy or theology. From a predominantly philosophical standpoint, in contrast to ancient thought bound to the conception of matter intertwined with spirit and which admitted at most a necessary emanation of beings from the One, Christianity takes the side of **voluntarism** inasmuch as it admits creation as the effect of the intervention of God’s freedom, which, through Providence (*v.*), preserves and guides every creature to its proper end according to their respective essences.
From the standpoint of dogmatic orthodoxy regarding the structure of the act of faith, Protestantism (especially Lutheranism) affirms the most rigid **voluntarism**, inasmuch as, by abolishing the *regula fidei* of the supreme authority of the visible Church, it subordinates the content or object of faith to the individual attitude of the single subject (the reduction from *fides quae* to *fides qua*). Within the realm of Christian thought, **voluntarism** signifies the affirmation of the absolute contingency of the existential order, both for factual reality and for the moral laws or precepts concerning material and spiritual creatures: thus SCOTUS, OCKHAM, and nominalism, which more or less directly stimulate the Lutheran conception. In modern thought, insofar as it is influenced in its various directions by the often convergent impact of nominalism and Protestantism, **voluntarism** encompasses those systems that give precedence to action over contemplation, understood as conscious or unconscious instinct, as energy and Dionysian impulse over the contemplation proper to the Apollonian moment: in this rather vague sense, advocates of **voluntarism** include DESCARTES and even SPINOZA (theory of *conatus*), LEIBNIZ, KANT, FICHTE, SCHELLING, FRIES, SCHLEIERMACHER, MARX, SCHOPENHAUER, ED. V. HARTMANN, pragmatism, modernism, GENTILE, BERGSON, M. SCHELER with the philosophy of values; by contrast, MALEBRANCHE, the English empiricists, HEGEL, positivism, neo-Kantianism, CROCE, phenomenology, which by virtue of the antithesis must be classified as advocates of intellectualism.
Even more uncertain is the qualification of **voluntarism** in existentialism (*v.*), due to the diversity of themes and principles dividing the respective schools: indeed, in polemical contrast with idealism and positivism, existentialism claims the originality of the individual and the autonomy of individual “choice,” thereby taking the side of **voluntarism**. The freedom of existence, moreover, in the various existential schools is oriented in multiple and even opposing directions, which demand a revision of the very qualification of **voluntarism**, which thus loses any claim to explicit determination. Indeed, even in forms of theological existentialism, whether Protestant (KIERKEGAARD, GOGARTEN, BULTMANN, BRUNNER, BARTH, TILLICH) or Catholic (F. EBNER, P. WUST, G. MARCEL, TH. STEINBÜCHEL, L. GABRIEL, M. REDING) and Jewish (M. BUBER), the nature of **voluntarism** assumes decisive nuances depending on the orientation and the “situation” that are attributed to existence, qualified as “being before God.” More difficult is the designation with regard to philosophical existentialism: indeed, while there is no disputing the preeminence of the Dionysian element and the rupture of any “logos” that claims to give the definitive form of truth (NIETZSCHE), it must be admitted that the theory of the cipher and of failure culminating in the “philosophical faith” of the later JASPERS, the insistence of HEIDEGGER in resolving the truth of the entity into “Being itself” in the sense of “unlimited openness” as expressed by the etymological meaning of truth (ἀλήθεια), render the qualification of **voluntarism** problematic.
lettico, thus the main instance for an actual opposition or tension to V. and intellectualism is thereby lacking. The contrast becomes instead more explicit in the medieval schools. The doctrinal synthesis of St. Thomas is usually presented as decisively opposed to v., but his method involves certain distinctions of systematic value that must be carefully considered. By posing the problem in its various forms: *Utrum cognitio sit altior amore* (In III Sent., dist. 27, q. I, a. 4); *Utrum felicitas consistat in actu voluntatis* (C. Gent., III, 26; Sum. Theol., 1a-2ae, q. 3, a. 4), or more explicitly: *Utrum voluntas sit altior potentia quam intellectus* (De Ver., q. 22, a. 11; Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 82, a. 3), the Angelic Doctor distinguishes the following aspects:
a) Considering their respective objects as such, the object of the intellect, which is the truth of things (and therefore also the reason of the good) in their presence to the subject, is «more simple and higher» than the good itself—which is the object of the will—which concerns things in their external, physical reality outside the subject.
b) But if we consider the relationship of the faculties to their own object, then as long as it concerns sensible things, the intellect is still superior to the will; but when it concerns substances that are higher and nobler than the human soul, such as the Angels and especially God, then it is better to love than to know because things are loved as they are in themselves, while they are known according to their adaptation to our limited capacity for knowledge: «Hence, love of God is better than knowledge of bodily things.» Yet it remains firmly established that «simply speaking, the intellect is nobler than the will» (Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 82, a. 3). In the supernatural order, the first adherence to God, through faith, is indeed an act of the intellect but inasmuch as it is moved by the will, and the summit of union with God is through charity, which is proclaimed the «form of all virtues» (ibid., 2a-2ae, q. 23, a. 8).
c) There is more. Although, in deference to Aristotelian intellectualism, St. Thomas affirms that beatitude consists essentially in the «contemplation» of the divine essence (ibid., 1a-2ae, q. 3, a. 4), he reserves for the will the *delectatio*, the enjoyment, and the joy. Therefore, to the usual formula that beatitude consists *simpliciter* in the acts of the intellect and *secundum quid* in those of the will (cf. loc. cit., esp. De ver., q. 22, a. 11; Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 82, a. 3), one may prefer as a final formula the more comprehensive one from the *Lectura in Matthaeum*, also inspired by Aristotle, which attributes beatitude *substantialiter* to the apprehension of the highest intelligible which is God, and *formaliter* to the acts of love and *delectatio* on the part of the will (cf. *Expos. super ev. Matth.*, 5, 1; ed. R. Cai, Torino 1951, n. 409, p. 66 a). But this particularly felicitous formula seems to have left no trace in the Thomist school.
V. in the proper sense asserts itself as characteristic of the Franciscan school: in an uncertain form in Alexander of Hales and St. Bonaventure, and in a systematic form in Scotus, for whom the thesis of the superiority of the will over the intellect seems to derive from the direct polemic of Henry of Ghent against the position of St. Thomas and from the exclusive consideration of the third moment of the Thomist position when he affirms that both «in via» and «in patria» the will is superior to the intellect «inasmuch as the will, by its act, moves itself to willing and loving higher intelligibles and is more terminated in them than the intellect» (Rep. Paris, I. IV, d. 49, q. II, n. 18. At n. 20 the conclusion: «I therefore say... that beatitude is essentially and formally in the act of the will, by which it simply and solely attains the highest good by which it may be perfected»—a terminology that does not seem irreconcilable with the last Thomist formula indicated above). With the critical edition of Scotus now available, the close dependence of the Subtle Doctor on the leader of Parisian anti-Thomism, Henry of Ghent, has been demonstrated (cf. 1a q. *Ut Theologia sit scientia practica vel speculativa*, in *Ordinatio*, Prologus, pars 5; Scotus, *Opera Omnia*, ed. Vaticana 1950, p. 152 ff.).
The polemic against the Thomist position in the Franciscan school is already announced in the *Correctorium fratris Thomae* of G. de la Mare (cf. *Le Correctorium corruptorii Quare*, ed. P. Glorieux, Kain 1927, arts. 49, 50, and 51, p. 208 ff.) and in the general of the Friars Minor, Gonzalo Hispano, a contemporary of Scotus (cf. his *Quaestiones disputatae et de Quodlibet*, ed. L. Amorós, Firenze-Quaracchi 1935, p. 371 ff.). V. assumes a precise doctrinal meaning in the primacy of the will that is intended to be introduced even into divine life and its relations to creatures. Thus, for Scotus, the precepts of the first table are immutable, but not those of the second table concerning one’s neighbor, which are in themselves contingent, just as the creature to which they refer is contingent and which God could also modify (Op. Oxoniense, I. III, d. 37, q. I, n. 8. For the entire question, cf. E. Gilson, *J. Duns Scot*, *Introduction à ses positions fondamentales*, Paris 1952, p. 60 ff. and the *Appendix Alphabatum Scoti*, theses 64–77, p. 679 ff.). V. reaches its extreme formulation in nominalism, especially that of Ockham and his followers, with the suppression of any distinction between the divine attributes, e.g., between intellect and will in God; the scholastic distinction between the precepts of the first and second tables also disappears, so that «God can be the object of a right act *in via* and commanded by God» (this is article 5 of the condemnation of Ockham; cf. E. Amann, *Occam*, in *DThC*, XI, col. 894).
It is in this identification, first, of the «voluntas ut natura» and the «voluntas ut facultas» by the early Franciscan school and Scotus, and then in the complete identification of intellect and will (in God) by Ockham and nominalism, that the modern conception of the spirit as autonomous subjectivity is prepared—subjectivity that draws from itself both the content and the norm of its own actualization.