Monday, January 25, 2010

1a 2ae q13 a1: Whether choice is an act of will? Yes.

Electio substantialiter non est actus rationis, sed voluntatis, quia perficitur electio in motu quodam animae ad bonum quod eligitur; unde manifeste actus est appetitivae potentiae.

Choice is substantially not an act of the reason but of the will, because choice is accomplished in a certain movement of the soul towards the good which is chosen; consequently it is evidently an act of the appetitive power.

Ille actus quo voluntas tendit in aliquid quod proponitur ut bonum, ex eo quod per rationem est ordinatum ad finem, materialiter quidem est voluntatis, formaliter autem rationis. In huiusmodi autem substantia actus materialiter se habet ad ordinem qui imponitur a superiori potentia.

That act whereby the will tends to something proposed to it as being good, through being ordained to the end by the reason, is materially an act of the will, but formally an act of the reason. Now in such like matters the substance of the act is as the matter in comparison to the order imposed by the higher power.