Natural Necessitation of the Human Will: (Conclusion)

NATURAL NECESSITATION OF THE HUMAN WILL (Conclusion) III. THE NATURE OF THE NATURAL APPETITE OF THE HUMAN WILL OUR examination of the natural willing of life, knowledge , virtue, etc. has revealed that cognition, indeed actual consideration of their necessary connection with happiness, is pre-requisite for the necessitation of the human will by these objects. Knowledge must also obviously precede the natural willing of God, clearly seen in the Beatific Vision. Does the same thing hold true for all natural necessitation? Is it a general° principle that all natural appetite on the part of the human will presupposes cognition on the part of the human intellect? I~ THE OPINIONS OF THE COMMENTATORS The commentators whom we have been following~Cajetan, Sylvester, arid John of St. Thomas--clearly teach that natural appetite in the will presupposes cognition in the intellect, as far as actual willing is concerned. Along with this, however, they teach the existence of a natural appetite which does not presuppose cognition on the part of the hunian intellect (although it does on the part of God) and which precedes actual willing. This kind of natural appetite, in the case of the will, is not really distinct from the will itself, but is the will considered as it is ordered or transcendentally related to its proper object by its Maker. This division into a twofold natural appetite is apparent in the following passages from Cajetan: 490 NATURAL NECESSITATION OF THE HUMAN WILL 491 Natural appetite is wont to be taken in two ways: In the first way, for an inclination implanted by nature. And in this way it is not any elicited act, but is as first act, having a natural relationship to such a thing. And such appetite is found in all powers, both active and passive, as is said in the text. In the second way, it is taken for a second act, whereby one tends towards something foreknown in such a way that one cannot tend towards its opposite. And this is an operation of animal appetite, whether intellectual or sensitive.1 Since natural appetite taken in the second way is an act of animal appetite, i. e. of the will or of the concupiscible or of the irascible appetite, Cajetan sometimes prefers to refer to it as animal appetite and reserve the name natural appetite for the first or potential natural appetite, if we may so term it. Since potential natural appetite is common to all. powers, and not proper to the will, he can thus distinguish it 2 from the elicited or actual natural appetite of the will. Again taking natural appetite to mean potential or innate natural appetite as opposed to the elicited or actual variety, he distinguishes it from animal appetite as the latter ·includes not only elicited natural appetite, but also free, elicited acts of appetite: For the evidence of these things, there must first of all be noted the difference between natural appetite and animal appetite, as the latter is divided into rational and sensitive, etc. For they differ first of all, because animalappetite is a special genus of powers of the soul ... but natural appetite is common to all powers. Secondly, because natural appetite follows the formal notion of a 1 Cajetan, Comment., I, q. 78, a. I, n. 5. Cf. ibid., 1-Il, q. 18, a. 2, n. 2: "Any power is found to be determined to its object in two ways; first, according to itself; secondly, according to its exercised act. And the ,determination of the power as to itself, indeed, is noted according to the relation of the power to its adequate formal object; for every power is thus determined to some object. But the determination as to the exercised act is noted according to the relation of the act, as placed in reality, to its object." •Cf. ibid., I, q. 80, a. I, n. 5: ".•. natural appetite, which is nothing other than the natural potency itself of anything towards its perfection; and animal appetite, which is not brought to bear except upon a known act. And therefore we desire to see, to hear, and even to desire, in two ways: naturally, according to a part...