Aquinas and free will

¶ … Free Will: Comparing Aquinas & the Holy Scriptures

Thomas of Aquinas is recognized by the Orthodox as one of the foundational theologians, particularly in that he provided an important step in towards the Renaissance by helping to reacquaint Christianity with Aristotle, who he refers to throughout his as "the Philosopher." As one who draws inspiration from Aristotle, he is particularly interested in rational philosophy as applied to the realm of religion and theology. This makes his defense of free will particularly strong, though at points one feels he lacks the necessary sense of ambiguity to completely address the Biblical texts. What is important to glean from his work, however, is a message that is also prominent in the Scriptures: that man is "made to God's image, in so far as the image implies an intelligent being endowed with free-will and self-movement..."

Summa Theologica, II:1:1)

Some thinkers believe that humans do not have free will, but that our actions are determined either by our environment or by God himself; Thomas Aquinas recognizes and addresses these objections masterfully. One objection is that our actions do not display free will because they are determined by what modern functionalists would call outside stimuli, and result entirely from outside determing factors. He answers this by explaining that they free will is an intrinsic act, but it can have extrinsic influences. Free will is defined by the inclination of the knowledgeable mind towards a specific end -- and while the desirability or possibility of an end may be determined by circumstances, the inclination resides in the will. His response to the claim that free will cannot exist because God determines our future and holds all our movements in his mind is a little less satisfactory. He mainly suggests that God's influence is similar to any other extrinsic influence, but when he cannot entirely hold up this point in argument he draws his argument from definitions. This needs to be addressed in more detail to be completely understood. However, the primary threat to the doctrine of free will in our modern time does come from behaviorists and their ilk who suggest outside forces control the mind, and this Aquinas refutes neatly.

His argument for free will explains that while a rock which is thrown does not have free will in deciding to fall, this is because it has no knowledge or decision making power. Yet a human who jumps and falls has a knowledge of the reason behind their actions, and falls then according to the inclination of his desires. Drawing from Aristotle, Aquinas defines will as being primarily based in knowledge of intended ends and in the inclination that leads to actions towards those end. He says: "those things which have a knowledge of the end are said to move themselves because there is in them a principle by which they not only act but also act for an end...Therefore, since man especially knows the end of his work, and moves himself, in his acts especially is the voluntary to be found." (ST: II: 6:1)

Aquinas presents a very rational argument that, while Christian in nature, does not depend on Scripture for its entire justification. However, it is also possible to have arguments for and against free will from scripture alone. If one were to object to the idea of free will from a Biblical standpoint, one might bring up both the idea of God's omnipotence typified in verses such as John 15:5 which says "Without Me you can do nothing." Many theologians, especially of the amateur sort, might think that this suggests God makes all the decisions himself and that our own choices are just an illusion covering up the decisions he already decided we would make. God's stated pre-knowledge of all our choices makes this a more seductive idea.

Additionally, the fact that human choices are frequently attributed to God or Satan might make a case for this. For example, in Exodus Pharaoh chooses repeatedly to deny the Israelites their freedom, and each time God punishes him for his choices. Yet, at the same time, almost every time the text says some version of: "the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go..." (Exodus 10:20) So one might suggest that we only choose what God tells us to choose, and that real choice is an illusion.

However, the Bible seems to suggest that this is not what we are meant to believe. Throughout the Scriptures, humans are treated as if they had the ability to make real and meaningful decisions and choices, even ones that God didn't want them to make. There are at least four arguments from scripture regarding the existence of free will. First, that God is just and righteous, and that it would be unjust to punish people for making choices that God himself had actually made for them.

Secondly, that God repeatedly bases salvation in belief, saying for example that "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." (Mark 16:16) Belief is a choice, and if this is the basis of salvation it seems to imply that one has free will to make that choice. (This is, to some degree, the flip side of the punishment argument)

The third argument is an argument from example. There are multiple places in the Bible where individuals make choices directly contrary to the stated wishes of God, and often these are choices which make God angry. Unless one assumes that God is lying about his emotions and desires, this indicates a degree of free choice. For example, the people of Israel demanded a king even when God begged them not to ask for one, and even tried to warn them that it was a bad idea. They also repeatedly turned to idolatry, which angered God.

The final argument from the Bible is based in individual verses that suggest that choice exists. For example, in Deuteronomy 30:19, God says: "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live." This verse seems to be talking about free will and choice. Likewise, in Joshua 24:15 this prophet says, " And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve;" once more implying that there is a choice to be had and that free will exists. If one accepts that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, these arguments are relatively strong.

One can see the main issues and points of Aquinas' theory represented and discussed in the Bible, in addition to seeing that his most poorly justified points line up with apparent (though obviously illusory) contradictions and ambiguities in the Scriptures. This goes to indicate the degree to which Aquinas was drawing from a Christian background and was in touch with the Spirit of the Word.

One of the most important points which Aquinas makes regarding human actions is that humans always choose to act rationally according to what they see as the greatest good in the situation. This ties in with his Aristotelian sympathies and way of seeing humans as rational creatures. So to make a modern example, a person might choose to watch TV rather than exercise because they feel at that moment that the greatest good would be enjoyment, and rationally they know that watching TV is more fun than exercising. So most of sin and most poor choices are based on misguided assumptions, ignorance, and wrong applications of rationality. (For example, assuming that physical good is greater than spiritual good, or failing to take into account future results when calculating the most rational course of action)

The Bible shows this to be very true. For example, in the story of Adam and Eve, Eve does not choose to eat the forbidden fruit because she thinks to herself that she would like to be bad and to anger God. Rather, she eats because she becomes convinced that the greatest good in the situation will arise from eating this fruit and gaining knowledge. Likewise Joseph's brothers sin by selling him into slavery because they think more of the good of having their father's attentions to themselves than they think of the future ill effects of their actions.

One of the defining features of Aquinas' theories of free will is his idea that free will is impossible to violate. This can be a slightly confusing point, because he attempts to be balanced and to also be brief in his analysis. He says that will cannot be compelled because "The act of the will is nothing else than an inclination proceeding from the interior principle of knowledge... Now what is compelled or violent is from an exterior principle....in like manner a man may be dragged by force: but it is contrary to the very notion of violence, that he be dragged of his own will. (ST: II: 6:3) This of course fairly explains how, for example, rape is different than consensual sex because in a rape the woman is physically incapable of preventing the actions her body is forced to make.

In fact, the Bible recognizes this. In Deuteronomy 22:26-27, the text speaks of rape outside the city walls thus: "unto the damsel thou shalt do nothing; there is in the damsel no sin worthy of death: for as when a man riseth against his neighbor, and slayeth him, even so is this matter: For he found her in the field, and the betrothed damsel cried, and there was none to save her." So Aquinas explains that even if the physical body is forced to do something or physically prevented from doing something, that does not violate the fact that the will was free when it attempted that action.

However, at the same time, Aquinas explains that while violence cannot effect the will but it can effect the outcome of the will, the threat of violence or fear does effect the will to a degree. "In things endowed with knowledge, it effects something against the will.... violence causes involuntariness" (ST II: 6:4) However, in reality one must understand that while it causes a degree of involuntariness in that it encourages the self to go against their natural inclinations (and voluntaryness was defined as following the inclination), at the same time it does not truly compel the will. Rather, it presents alternative know ledges that change the appearance of the greater good in the situation, which encourages the will to react in a specific manner. For example, if someone is told "Deny Christ or you will be killed immediately" they are not actually being forced to deny Christ, they are only being provided with a very negative alternative to refusing. No one can truly force another's will, according to Aquinas. "what is done through fear, becomes voluntary, because the will is moved towards it, albeit not for its own sake, but on account of something else, that is, in order to avoid an evil which is feared." (ST II 6:6)

Applying this idea to the Bible, one sees that it is entirely upheld in a number of example. Going back to the early example of rape, one sees that in the same chapter that a woman was held guiltless if she is raped in the field because she "cried, and there was none to save her" (Deut 22:27) a woman who is raped in the city is to be put to death, "because she cried not." (Deut. 22:24) It may seem cruel to kill a woman because she was raped, however if one thinks about Aquinas argument it makes sense. A woman raped in the city is going to be kept quite not through violence but through the threat of violence, with the rapist threatening to kill her if she screams or struggles. Yet a threat does not actually force her to be quiet, and she still has a choice to make in defending her virginity by screaming and risking death or in submitted to violation because she is afraid of death. This is similar to the idea today that certain forms of rape can only be proved if one can find injuries to show that they occurred, because this shows that the woman was actually physically forced. So one can see that in the Bible there is a difference made clear between being physically forced to make an action even when one fights it, and doing something out of fear.

So in short, both Aquinas and the Bible imply that while external actions can be thwarted or forced, internal free will cannot be violated by any human -- it is intrinsically incapable of being forced to act or to refrain from action. "fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." (Matthew 10:28) This verse, however, brings up a point on which one might start to pick apart Aquinas' theory of Free Will as insufficient to approach the true complexity of Scripture. What of those in the Bible whose actions are attributed to supernatural intervention? What of Pharaoh whose heart God hardened? In Exodus it says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart (ten times over), but in First Samuel the people are exhorted to be righteous with the words "Wherefore then do ye harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts?" (1 Sam 6:6) This implies that Pharaoh both made a free choice to harden his heart (as does the fact that he was punished for it severely) and that God himself caused it to happen and had to continuously work at keeping his heart hardened (as he had to do it on ten separate occasions). In short, this implies that when God chooses to do so, he can usurp our free will in such a fashion that his will is synonymous with ours.

Aquinas answers this by saying: "it is not incompatible with nature that the natural movement be from God as the First Mover, inasmuch as nature is an instrument of God moving it: so it is not contrary to the essence of a voluntary act, that it proceed from God, inasmuch as the will is moved by God." (ST: II: 6:1) He seems to be suggesting that God can serve as an extrinsic, as if invisible, stimuli in the same fashion as hunger or a threat of violence might. So just as one might say "I mailed a package" when one actually gave it to the post office to mail and they actively mailed it, God could say "I hardened his heart" when he merely presented the internal motivation that caused it to happen. Nonetheless, there is a degree to which this seems to be begging the question. When he further explains this by saying: "God Who is more powerful than the human will, can move the will of man... But if this were by compulsion, it would no longer be by an act of the will, nor would the will itself be moved, but something else against the will." (ST: II: 6:3) it seems certainly apparent that he is falling into the error of saying that God cannot be violating free will because compulsion and will are opposite, and so there must by definition be something else other than will which controls actions, choices, emotions, and all those other things traditionally controlled by the will.