On further contemplation, I think it would be beneficial to approach this from a scholastic perspective. Let’s hit F5 and refresh.
The human will pre-supposes the intellect. That is, you cannot will what you cannot know. Whereas the movement of the will is movement by the subjective towards an objective, there can be no movement towards the objective in a truly objective sense when the objective is unknown. By this notion, the will isn’t free in every respect.
We must also consider that there are some things that we naturally desire, and not by free choice (“choice”, in that the objective is presupposed by the nature). This makes one of St. Augustine’s quotes in the first chapter of “Confessions” entirely relevant to the human condition: “My heart is restless, O God, until it rests in you.” We could also consider this a nobility of the dynamics produced (ironically) by the static relationship between the intellect and the will. It is for this reason that every man with sufficient intellectual capabilities moves towards a universal Good (capital G). In general, mankind desires fulfillment; fulfillment is absolute, not partial. To be “partially fulfilled” is not to be fulfilled, because you have still not reached the end or objective of fulfillment. If you are fulfilled now in a certain particular good, will you not naturally be unsatisfied later? So particular fulfillments are not the end or objective of human nature.True human fulfillment lies in the universal “Good”, and for this, man naturally seeks after this “Good”. We could say, it is objectively natural for man to move towards the universal “Good”.
Now, it goes without saying that man does not effectively know what this “Good” is. The words of John 8:31-32 ring with abundant clarity:
"So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “ If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
This idea continues in John 14:6:
“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’”
We can attest that the knowledge of the Gospel is a grace, because it is a Revelation of God’s plan to all of mankind. It is the Revelation of the supernatural objective of a natural being. While St. Paul put’s it in a sanctifying sense in 1 Cor 6:19, it is certainly true in a Christian anthropological sense that even above the human individual, the entire human nature belongs to God. In other words, we are all “temples
for the Holy Spirit” but not all are “temples
of the Holy Spirit”.
We should also see that simply because one desires after something (such as the universal “Good”, being a temple
for the Holy Spirit) does not mean he naturally deserves it or even that he can attain it by his own faculties. In this respect also, the will is not entirely “free”. This is part of the Catholic understanding of predestination.
We can also use potter and clay analogy here as shown in Is 64:8. We are all clay formed by God, not into bowls or houses for natural things, but into temples for the Holy Spirit. We will see how this, even by virtue of being a temple, does not make us deserving of God. Mary, who was predestined to carry Jesus, who is fully God, in her womb did not make her worthy of doing so (Luke 1:37-38).
The ancient philosophers, who did not know the truth and thus could not come to know Christ, for this reason believed that knowledge was the highest “Good”. While this is true in a natural sense, Christian anthropology stretches the border of man’s objective end to a supernatural one. By this, grace (as a supernatural elevation of man to his objective end by the supernatural being itself–God) is a theological necessity. To opposing position is Pelagianism (which we both vehemently oppose). And we know that man is directed to a supernatural end, as opposed to merely a natural one.
The greater question of “what is a natural end for a rational animal with a spirit” can only be speculated. What we do know, however, is that merely having a spirit (desiring the universal “Good”, being a temple
for the Holy Spirit) does not make one “supernatural” in the sense of naturally deserving Heaven. Thus, being “spiritually alive” or “spiritually dead” presupposes that man is already graced with this call to Heaven. To be “spiritually alive” is to move towards Heaven in a sanctifying and justifying sense. To be “spiritually dead” is to move away from the sanctification and justification, and to destroy ourselves who were formed into this temple. Consider 1 Cor 3:17:
If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.
In this, Faith, Hope, and Love are supernatural virtues. When one possesses at least Hope by the Gospel (or in Adam and Eve’s case, a special knowledge), then he can at least have Faith in attaining the universal “Good”, which is God. This is not to presuppose Charity, which is Love. Adam and Eve were temples
for and
of the Holy Spirit. They had Faith, Hope, and Love in the Spirit. But when they sinned, they destroyed these spiritual temples that were their spirits. They became “spiritually dead”, as it were. In sin, not only did they destroy the temple of the Spirit, they tried to make themselves temples for themselves e.g. gods (Gen 2:4-5). But are they, Adam and Eve, still temples
for the Spirit after the Fall? Of course! Consider Jn 2:13-22:
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; and to those who were selling the doves He said, “Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a place of business.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “ Zeal for Your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to Him, “ What sign do You show us as your authority for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “ Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” But He was speaking of the temple of His body. So when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.
Now, in this sense, through Jesus Christ (rather than Adam, who failed) all are called to eternal life by having a spirit (turning from temples
for the Spirit into temples
of the Spirit). Whether that end is met is firstly reliant on God’s grace; God is the first mover in all things. Man, who by nature has free will, can still fill his temple with ungodly things.
Consider this: we are not reeds swayed by the wind, such that we are neutral swayed to and fro by opposing forces (e.g. concupiscence and grace). We are created with a dignity far above puppets. Salvation is not dependent on the prospect of God overriding our will; or else it would be pointless for him to have made us with one. Salvation is dependent on the harmony between the two. Whether the efficacy of Salvation is dependent on the intrinsic efficacy of the will, or dependent on the intrinsic efficacy of the grace is a controversy even inside the Church. But because of Christology,
Monotheletism, in all it’s forms, is entirely rejected:
The Catholic doctrine is simple, at all events in its main lines. The faculty of willing is an integral part of human nature: therefore, our Lord had a human will, since He took a perfect human nature. His Divine will on the other hand is numerically one with that of the Father and the Holy Ghost. It is therefore necessary to acknowledge two wills in Christ.
But if the word will is taken to mean not the faculty but the decision taken by the will (the will willed, not the will willing), then it is true that the two wills always acted in harmony: there were two wills willing and two acts, but one object, one will willed; in the phrase of St. Maximus, there were duo thelemata though mia gnome. The word will is also used to mean not a decision of the will, but a mere velleity or wish, voluntas ut natura (thelesis) as opposed to voluntas ut ratio (boulesis). These are but two movements of the same faculty; both exist in Christ without any imperfection, and the natural movement of His human will is perfectly subject to its rational or free movement. Lastly, the sensitive appetite is also sometimes entitled will. It is an integral part of human nature, and therefore exists in the perfect human nature of Jesus Christ, but without any of the imperfection induced by original or actual sin: He can have no passions (in that sense of the word which implies a revolt against the reason), no concupiscence, no “will of the flesh”. Therefore this “lower will” is to be denied in Christ, in so far as it is called a will, because it resists the rational will (it was in this sense that Honorius was said by John IV to have denied that Christ had a lower will); but it is to be asserted in Him so far as it is called will, because it obeys the rational will, and so is voluntas per participationem: in fact in this latter sense the sensual appetite is less improperly called will in Christ than in us, for quo perfectior est volens, eo magis sensualitas in eo de voluntate habet. But the strict Sense of the word will (votuntas, thelema) is always the rational will, the free will.
