How can people "freely choose" Hell if they are *mistaken* on what their highest Good is?

[Vico]

@Vico I’m unsure as to what any of those selections are supposed to be responding to.
… But sin always seems to fall back to the intellect for Aquinas, because the intellect must present something as good before the will concedes to it.

Hence the reason I say any sin is a kind of ignorance, if it is the intellect that in fact leads the will to sin.

You asked how malice was different than passion. Passion pertains to the concupiscible appetite and irascible appetite, which two in fact can oppose each other. Malice pertains to the will. The will directs the intelligence to present goods (plural) not just the best good, and then the will chooses. The action chosen is for the sake of a final good. Malice is intrinsic vs passion which has an extrinsic impeller.

Summa Theologiae I, II, Q78, A4

I answer that, A sin committed through malice is more grievous than a sin committed through passion, for three reasons. First, because, as sin consists chiefly in an act of the will, it follows that, other things being equal, a sin is all the more grievous, according as the movement of the sin belongs more to the will. Now when a sin is committed through malice, the movement of sin belongs more to the will, which is then moved to evil of its own accord, than when a sin is committed through passion, when the will is impelled to sin by something extrinsic, as it were.

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2078.htm

 

[RealisticCatholic]

I’m comprehending this in theory, but that’s if we grant the will ever acts without the intellect.

I don’t understand how “certain malice” is possible, because the will only acts because of the intellect.

The will directs the intelligence to present goods (plural) not just the best good, and then the will chooses. The action chosen is for the sake of a final good.

Yes in a certain place Aquinas says the will can be an efficient cause for the intellect, as when it directs the mind to stop thinking about something. But even here, either Aquinas or the Thomistic philosopher Eleonore Stump interpreting Aquinas (I can’t remember where I heard it from first) said that it is still the intellect first that directs the will, in the sense of presenting the act as good. Even when the will decides to cause the intellect to do something, it really is the intellect that precedes the will in this way.

Unless do you have reason to think Aquinas thinks will can act without the intellect first saying something is good?

 

[Latin]

St. Thomas: GOD EFFECTS EVERYTHING THE WILLING AND THE ACHIEVEMENT.

The Mystery of Predestination by John Salza. Page 84.

St. Thomas properly explains the chain of causality:

“It is to be observed that where there are several agents in order, the second always acts in virtue of the first: for the agent moves the second to act.

And thus all agents act in virtue of God Himself: and therefore He is the cause of action in every agent. ST, Pt I, Q 105, Art 5.

Because God is the cause of action in every agent, even man’s free will determination to do good comes from God.”

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St. Thomas teaches that all movements of will and choice must be traced to the divine will: and not to any other cause, because Gad alone is the cause of our willing and choosing. CG, 3.91.
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St. Thomas replies (C. G., II, xxviii) if God’s purpose were made dependent on the foreseen free act of any creature, God would thereby sacrifice His own freedom, and would submit Himself to His creatures, thus abdicating His essential supremacy–a thing which is, of course, utterly inconceivable.

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308 The truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator.
God is the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes: For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
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There is a supernatural intervention of God in the faculties of the soul, which precedes the free act of the will. (De fide.)

God effects everything, the willing and the achievement. … (Thomas Aquinas, S. Th.II/II 4, 4 ad 3).

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THE MYSTERY OF PREDESTINATION by John Salza

Sufficient grace remains an interior impulse, whereas an efficacious grace produces an exterior act.

With efficacious grace, man is able to resist the grace but does not, because the grace causes him to freely choose the good.

This means that when God wills a person to perform a salutary act (e.g., prayer, good works), He grants him the means (an efficacious grace) that infallibly produces the end (the act willed by God).

If God wills to permit a person to resist His grace, He grants him a sufficient, and not an efficacious, grace.

FOR EXAMPLE
John Salza, Page 113: “The Church teaches that God infused Adam with sufficient grace to resist temptation and to perform his duties with charity.
God, however, willed to permit Adam to reject His grace and to sin.”

The same principle applies to us as well.

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Father William Most Collection; St. Thomas on Actual Grace.

“There are two kinds of actual graces, sufficient and efficacious.
If God sends a sufficient grace, it gives the full and complete power to do something good; but it is infallibly certain we will not do good, but will sin.

If He sends an efficacious grace, it is infallibly sure we will do good.
Our sufficiency is from God. Phil 2:13: "It is God who works [produces] in you both the will and the doing."
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God bless

 

[Vico]

…
it is still the intellect first that directs the will, in the sense of presenting the act as good. Even when the will decides to cause the intellect to do something, it really is the intellect that precedes the will in this way.

Unless do you have reason to think Aquinas thinks will can act without the intellect first saying something is good?

What I posted there is not contrary to the intellect first presenting something is good. The idea that you did not understand from the post is that the will may afterwards direct the intellect to present another good, or goods, until a choice is finally made by the will. In S.T. I, Q82, A2 St. Thomas writes:

The will does not desire of necessity whatsoever it desires. In order to make this evident we must observe that as the intellect naturally and of necessity adheres to the first principles, so the will adheres to the last end, as we have said already Article 1. …
Reply to Objection 1. The will can tend to nothing except under the aspect of good. But because good is of many kinds, for this reason the will is not of necessity determined to one.

 

[goout]

@Vico I’m unsure as to what any of those selections are supposed to be responding to.

For example when you list these:

The wounds are:

ignorance: “the reason is deprived of its order to the true”,
malice: “the will is deprived of its order of good”,
weakness: “the irascible [appetite] is deprived of its order to the arduous”,
concupiesence: “the concupiscible [appetite] is deprived of its order to the delectable, moderated by reason”.

Is there any circumstance you can conceive of, where a person knows the right action, and freely chooses against the right action to do something lesser, or against, the right course of action?

Your whole premise here is to find a minimal standard of responsibility in human acting, whereby defects in intellect or knowledge excuse the full freedom to choose and act well.

What do you believe the whole point of St Thomas’ thought is?
As he thinks and writes, what is his goal?
What gives his writing meaning and purpose?

 

[whatistrue]

I think the issue for me is precisely WHY would someone prefer a temporal good (“riches or pleasure”) in preference to the “Divine law” (or to God, man’s ultimate end)?

Because they can have (or at least think they can have) riches or pleasure NOW instead of “pie in the sky by and by”. And may think “oh, there’s plenty of time - I can just repent when I am old and about to die”. Until “about to die” becomes “too late - I’m dead”.

 

[RealisticCatholic]

The will can tend to nothing except under the aspect of good. But because good is of many kinds, for this reason the will is not of necessity determined to one.

Reply to Objection 1. The will can tend to nothing except under the aspect of good. But because good is of many kinds, for this reason the will is not of necessity determined to one.

So according to Aquinas, why would someone choose one good over another? Is it because that person regards that good as better?

 

[RealisticCatholic]

Your whole premise here is to find a minimal standard of responsibility in human acting, whereby defects in intellect or knowledge excuse the full freedom to choose and act well.

By premise if you’re suggesting my intent or goal, then no. My issue is understanding Aquinas.

Is there any circumstance you can conceive of, where a person knows the right action, and freely chooses against the right action to do something lesser, or against, the right course of action?

I need to find the quote somewhere above. I think it would help. It’s where Aquinas says that the “ignorance” due to malice is NOT ignorance that the act is evil. But rather, ignorance that the evil act should not be committed.

Edit. Found the quote:

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

So in Malice, one knows something is evil but is yet still ignorant that “a particular evil is not be suffered for the sake of possessing a particular good.”

 

[RealisticCatholic]

I think the key has to be understanding how an angel sins, or how a pre-fallen man (Adam) sins.

Because even Aquinas in his Summa says angels could not sin through ignorance or passion.

Reply to Objection 4. Mortal sin occurs in two ways in the act of free-will.

(1) First, when something evil is chosen; as man sins by choosing adultery, which is evil of itself. Such sin always comes of ignorance or error; otherwise what is evil would never be chosen as good. The adulterer errs in the particular, choosing this delight of an inordinate act as something good to be performed now, from the inclination of passion or of habit; even though he does not err in his universal judgment, but retains a right opinion in this respect. In this way there can be no sin in the angel; because there are no passions in the angels to fetter reason or intellect, as is manifest from what has been said above (I:59:4); nor, again, could any habit inclining to sin precede their first sin.

(2) In another way sin comes of free-will by choosing something good in itself, but not according to proper measure or rule; so that the defect which induces sin is only on the part of the choice which is not properly regulated, but not on the part of the thing chosen; as if one were to pray, without heeding the order established by the Church. Such a sin does not presuppose ignorance, but merely absence of consideration of the things which ought to be considered. In this way the angel sinned, by seeking his own good, from his own free-will, insubordinately to the rule of the Divine will.

@Vico here Aquinas says the two major ways Mortal Sin occurs. Under the first option, even Aquinas admits it is always through ignorance (even via passion, which makes one ignorant in the “particular” situation.) This seems an odd concession for Aquinas, for I do not see how anyone could sin mortally in this example, if indeed it is through ignorance. Only a fallen man could sin in this way, for example. Adam could not have fallen like this. This suggests something is wrong with man’s reasoning, no?

As for (2) this could be more promising. But I’m having a little difficulty understanding it. I want to ask Aquinas: But why would someone (like an angel) desire a good thing out of “improper measure”?

 

[RealisticCatholic]

Likewise with regards to Adam’s sin:

It remains therefore that the first inordinateness of the human appetite resulted from his coveting inordinately some spiritual good. Now he would not have coveted it inordinately, by desiring it according to his measure as established by the Divine rule. Hence it follows that man’s first sin consisted in his coveting some spiritual good above his measure: and this pertains to pride. Therefore it is evident that man’s first sin was pride.

And on Pride being different in cause:

But on the part of the aversion, pride has extreme gravity, because in other sins man turns away from God, either through ignorance or through weakness, or through desire for any other good whatever; whereas pride denotes aversion from God simply through being unwilling to be subject to God and His rule.

 

[Vico]

…
As for (2) this could be more promising. But I’m having a little difficulty understanding it. I want to ask Aquinas: But why would someone (like an angel) desire a good thing out of “improper measure”?

We can mortally sin through pride and passion and vincible ignorance. If ignorance is not invincible, it does not entirely excuse from sin, then the ignorance itself is a sin. There is a lack of divine love in neglecting to learn those things through which one can be preserved in divine love. (ST I-II 88:6 ad 2; ST III 80:4 ad 5; De Malo q. 7, a. 1, obj 18 .) And of course as posted before from passion – Summa Theologiae I, II, Q77, A8 Whether a sin committed through passion can be mortal?

“… since it can drive the passion away, or at least prevent it from having its effect, as stated above: wherefore if it does not come to the rescue, there is a mortal sin; and it is thus, as we see, that many murders and adulteries are committed through passion.”

But for the angels, you ask “But why would someone (like an angel) desire a good thing out of “improper measure”?”
St. Thomas answered S.T. Q63

“Without doubt the angel sinned by seeking to be as God. … by likeness. … he sought to have final beatitude of his own power, whereas this is proper to God alone.”

 

[Vico]

Vico:

The will can tend to nothing except under the aspect of good. But because good is of many kinds, for this reason the will is not of necessity determined to one.

Reply to Objection 1. The will can tend to nothing except under the aspect of good. But because good is of many kinds, for this reason the will is not of necessity determined to one.

So according to Aquinas, why would someone choose one good over another? Is it because that person regards that good as better?

St. Thomas answers S.T. I,II, Q78, A3 :“evil is never without some good of nature”.

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2078.htm