Friday, March 13, 2009

Q82 A2: Whether the will desires of necessity, whatever it desires?

No. The will does not desire of necessity whatever it desires because 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.

Voluntas non ex necessitate vult quaecumque vult quia voluntas in nihil potest tendere nisi sub ratione boni. Sed quia bonum est multiplex, propter hoc non ex necessitate determinatur ad unum.

The sensitive power does not compare different things with each other, as reason does, but it simply apprehends some one thing. Therefore, according to that one thing, it moves the sensitive appetite in a determinate way. But the reason is a power that compares several things together; therefore from several things the intellectual appetite--that is, the will--may be moved, but not of necessity from one thing.

Vis sensitiva non est vis collativa diversorum, sicut ratio, sed simpliciter aliquid unum apprehendit. Et ideo secundum illud unum determinate movet appetitum sensitivum. Sed ratio est collativa plurium, et ideo ex pluribus moveri potest appetitus intellectivus, scilicet voluntas, et non ex uno ex necessitate.

The mover, then, of necessity causes movement in the thing movable, when the power of the mover exceeds the thing movable, so that its entire capacity is subject to the mover. But as the capacity of the will regards the universal and perfect good, its capacity is not subjected to any individual good. And therefore it is not of necessity moved by it.

Movens tunc ex necessitate causat motum in mobili, quando potestas moventis excedit mobile, ita quod tota eius possibilitas moventi subdatur. Cum autem possibilitas voluntatis sit respectu boni universalis et perfecti, non subiicitur eius possibilitas tota alicui particulari bono. Et ideo non ex necessitate movetur ab illo.

There are certain individual goods which have not a necessary connection with happiness, because without them a man can be happy: and to such the will does not adhere of necessity. But there are some things which have a necessary connection with happiness, by means of which things man adheres to God, in Whom alone true happiness consists. Nevertheless, until through the certitude of the Divine Vision the necessity of such connection be shown, the will does not adhere to God of necessity, nor to those things which are of God. But the will of the man who sees God in His essence of necessity adheres to God, just as now we desire of necessity to be happy.

Sunt enim quaedam particularia bona, quae non habent necessariam connexionem ad beatitudinem, quia sine his potest aliquis esse beatus, et huiusmodi voluntas non de necessitate inhaeret. Sunt autem quaedam habentia necessariam connexionem ad beatitudinem, quibus scilicet homo Deo inhaeret, in quo solo vera beatitudo consistit. Sed tamen antequam per certitudinem divinae visionis necessitas huiusmodi connexionis demonstretur, voluntas non ex necessitate Deo inhaeret, nec his quae Dei sunt. Sed voluntas videntis Deum per essentiam, de necessitate inhaeret Deo, sicut nunc ex necessitate volumus esse beati.

Augustine says (Retract. i, 9) that "it is the will by which we sin and live well," and so the will extends to opposite things. Therefore it does not desire of necessity all things whatsoever it desires.

Augustinus dicit, quod "voluntas est qua peccatur et recte vivitur", et sic se habet ad opposita. Non ergo ex necessitate vult quaecumque vult.