Did Aquinas Change his Mind about the Will?

DID AQUINAS CHANGE HIS MIND ABOUT THE WILL? DANIEL WESTBERG University of Virginia Charlottesville, Virginia 0 NE OF THE MOST fundamental and challenging problems in the interpretation of St. Thomas is the proper relationship of intellect and will, on which so much of moral theology (and thus of the Summa Theologiae) hinges. As Alasdair Macintyre indicates in both After Virtue and Whose Justice? Which Rationality? the problem involves our understanding of how to appreciate the genius of Aquinas in the monumental task of harmonizing Aristotelian practical reason and the biblical and Augustinian categories of will, sin and the law of God. When this framework is brought to the reading of St. Thomas, it is very difficult to understand certain texts which can seem to be obscure or inconsistent. In some cases he seems to be following Aristotle's explanations of practical reason and choice, and elsewhere he emphasizes the freedom of the will. One method of dealing with this is to argue for a change in Thomas's thinking: that he shifted from an early emphasis on the intellect (his Aristotelian phase) to an appreciation for the dynamic freedom of the will (which he inherited and developed from the Augustinian tradition). This has the virtue of seeming to deal neatly with inconvenient texts by consigning them to a position which he abandoned; but as we shall see the treatments by Aquinas do not fit the chronology required by this schema of development. There is very little evidence, actually, to recommend this thesis ~even though it has been advocated by prominent scholars41 42 DANIEL WESTBERG and there are strong reasons why we should reject this theory of change. That this explanation has nevertheless been widely held says more about the tradition of voluntarism in our thinking (and our tendency to see Aquinas in that light) than about the merits of the case brought forward to argue for Thomas's shift from reason to will. Proponents of the Theory of Change Dom Odon Lattin questioned the dating of De Malo 6 to 126368 by Mandonnet (and ca. 1268 by Grabmann) on the basis that the work shows advances in the treatment of liberum arbitrium. He argued that whereas Thomas had placed the primary motive factor on reason in his earlier works 1 the emphasis was shifted to the will in De Malo 6 and ST I-II, q.9, a. 4. Therefore we could conclude that De Malo is posterior to ST I and anterior to ST I-II.2 Lottin was right about the dating, but not about the reasons given for it. He alleged that the structure of the argument in De Malo 6 is entirely different from previous treatments because the distinction between voluntas and liberum arbitrium has disappeared and been replaced by " liberty of specification " and "liberty of exercise." Lattin admitted, however, that the former belongs to reason and the latter to will implying (without realizing it, perhaps) that we might well interpret this as a change of terminology rather than a change of doctrine. Lottin softened his claims the following year in an article where he wrote: " ll ne faudrait pas urger la difference ... qui eziste entre cet expose du De Malo et celui du De Veritate," admitting that the distinction between specification and exercise is also to be found in De Veritate. Therefore we should not speak "d'opposition ni meme de diversite de doctrine." 3 1 E.g. De Veritate 22.12; Summa contra Gentiles III, 89; ST I, q.82, a.4. 2 " La date de la Question Disputee De Malo de Saint Thomas d'Aquin," Revue d'histoire ecclesiastique 24 (1928) : 373-388. 3 0. Lottin, "Le libre arbitre chez saint Thomas d'Aquin," Revue thomiste 12 (1929): 424, n. 1; reprinted in vol. 1 of Psychologie et morale a=- Xlle et Xllle siecles (Gembloux, 1948). DID AQUINAS CHANGE HIS MIND 43 There is still a difference, however, in emphasis, Lottin argued, for two reasons: ( 1) In the De Malo a text from the Eudemian Ethics of Aristotle is quoted to indicate that God is the first mover of the will; this apparently undercuts the priority of the intellect over the will; Lottin...