On Free Choice of the Will – Comprehensive Bullet Notes

Dramatis Personae

• Augustine (teacher, bishop, former seeker among the Manichees; defends divine justice)
• Evodius (student, sincere questioner; voices common doubts)

Initial Problem Statement

• Evodius asks: “Isn’t God the cause of evil?”
• Clarification of “evil”:
  • Evil done (“moral evil,” sin).
  • Evil suffered (punishment, misfortune).
• Augustine’s axioms about God:
  • God is supremely good ⟹ does no evil.
  • God is supremely just ⟹ rewards good, punishes wicked ⇒ cause of the second kind of evil only.
• Responsibility for evil deeds:
  • “Everyone who does evil is the cause of his own evildoing.”
  • Justice would be impossible if sins were involuntary.

Learning, Knowledge & Evil

• Evodius: “No one could sin unless he had learned how.”
• Augustine’s distinction:
  • “Learning” (discere/disciplina) is intrinsically good; refers to coming to know something.
  • We therefore do not learn evil as something to be done; we may learn of it only as something to avoid.
• Doing evil = “turning away from learning/knowledge.”
• Evodius tries a two-learning theory (learning good vs learning evil); Augustine dismantles it by showing:
  • All genuine understanding is good.
  • If you do not understand, you have not learned.
  • Seeking a “teacher of evil” is a category mistake (an evil teacher is no teacher; a teacher is not evil).

Augustine’s Autobiographical Aside

• As a youth the same question led him into Manichaeism (“heretics who posited two equal gods”).
• Escape owed to “love of finding the truth” and divine help.
• Motto invoked: “Unless\;you\;believe,\;you\;will\;not\;understand” (Isa 7:9 pre-Vulgate).

Attributes of God Re-affirmed (Against the Manichees)

• Omnipotent, immutable, creator of all good things ex nihilo.
• Created nothing out of Himself → except He generates the Son (Power & Wisdom of God, 1 Cor 1:24).
• No co-eternal evil principle.

Empirical Examples of Evil Deeds

• Catalog supplied by Evodius: adultery, murder, sacrilege (stand-ins for all sins).

Why is adultery evil?

1. Not merely because law forbids it; rather, law forbids because it is evil.
2. Golden-Rule Test: He would not allow it against his wife; fails for the case of mutually consenting swingers.
3. Social condemnation inadequate (apostles & martyrs were condemned yet good).
4. Augustine: true source = inordinate desire (libido / cupidity).
   • Example: the mere wish to commit adultery indicts the heart.

Extension to Other Sins

• Same analysis applied to murder & sacrilege: the driving force is inordinate desire.
• Distinction between cupidity (desiring) and fear (fleeing):
  • A killing out of fear still aims at some desired good (e.g., “life without fear”).
  • Desire for a genuinely good thing ≠ blameworthy unless sought dis-orderedly.

Edge-Case — Lawful Killings

• Soldier on orders, judge executing criminal, accidental homicide → not classed as “murderers.”
• Slave killing master out of fear fails lawful-authority test; but raises puzzle: he desired safety (a good) → why evil?
  • Augustine: good/wicked both desire fear-free life; difference is what they love.
  • Wicked kill obstacles to possess temporal goods securely.

Definition — Inordinate Desire (libido)

• “Love of those things that one can lose against one’s will.”
• Central engine of all sin.

Intermezzo — Just vs Unjust Laws

• Temporal law allows defensive killing (robber, rapist) “to avert greater evils.”
• Augustine’s maxim: “An unjust law is no law at all.”

Two Laws Analyzed

1. Temporal Law
   • Written, changeable, enforces peace among mutable peoples.
   • Punishes via removal of temporal goods (body, freedom, family, reputation, property).
   • Uses fear as coercive tool.
2. Eternal Law
   • “Highest reason” → always demands perfect order.
   • Foundation for all justice; temporal laws are just only insofar as derived from it.
   • Rewards good with happiness, punishes wicked with misery.

Illustration: Two Constitutions

• Law A: virtuous people elect magistrates.
• Law B: corrupt people lose this power; authority vested in few/one.
• Both just at different times → shows temporal laws may change while remaining just by reference to eternal law.

Anthropology — Order Within the Human Being

• Hierarchy of life-powers:
  • Plants: nutrition, growth, reproduction.
  • Animals: sensation, movement.
  • Humans share both, plus reason.
• Reason/Mind/Spirit should rule lower faculties; this internal order = wisdom.
• Taming-animals thought-experiment:
  • Humans subdue stronger beasts ⇒ superiority lies not in body but mind.
  • Whatever “knows it is alive” possesses reason.
  • Distinction: being alive vs knowing one is alive.

Wise vs Foolish

• Wise: mind rules passions → peace.
• Fools: possess mind but let passions rule.
• Proof that fools still have mind: even foolish herdsmen can tame animals (requires reason).

Virtue vs Vice Power Analysis

• All virtues stronger than vices; the just mind cannot be overthrown by:
  • Anything inferior (too weak).
  • Anything equal/superior (would be just, and justice wouldn’t enslave justice).
• Therefore only the mind’s own free choice can subject it to inordinate desire.
• Consequence: mind justly suffers the punishment of being ruled by cupidity.

The Interior Punishment — Portrait of the Dissolute Soul

• Cupidity’s “reign of terror” enumerated:
  • \text{fear} \ \leftrightarrow \ \text{desire}, anxiety, false joy.
  • Pain of loss vs greed of acquisition.
  • Anger, vengeance, avarice, extravagance, ambition, pride, envy, apathy …
• Not a “small punishment” but the very misery of the wicked.

Introduction of Good Will (bona voluntas)

• Defined: will that desires to live uprightly, honorably, and wisely.
• Priceless:
  • Worth more than wealth + honors + all bodily pleasures.
  • Fully within personal power; cannot be taken away.
• Having or lacking good will entirely up to the will itself.

Four Cardinal Virtues Flow from Good Will

1. Prudence – knows what to pursue/avoid → clings to good will.
2. Fortitude – fears no temporal loss; stands firm.
3. Temperance – restrains inordinate desires threatening good will.
4. Justice – harms no one; gives each his due.

• Possession of these ⟹ praiseworthy life ⟹ happiness (enjoyment of true, unshakable goods).

Paradox of Universal Desire for Happiness

• All humans will to be happy, yet not all are.
• Resolution:
  • Need right willing, i.e., also will to live rightly.
  • Eternal law ties merit to state of will: good will→happiness, bad will→unhappiness, even if neither wills misery.

Classification of Human Love

• Lovers of eternal goods → governed by eternal law; temporal law unnecessary.
• Lovers of temporal goods → governed outwardly by temporal law, yet always under eternal law.

Proper & Improper Use of Temporal Goods

• Temporal goods (body, freedom, kin, city, honors, property) are good in themselves.
• Misuse = clinging to them as ultimate, serving them.
• Right use = wielding them as tools, ready to lose without inner mutilation.
• Analogy: fire can cauterize (heal) or burn; bread can nourish or poison.

Synthesis — Definition & Source of Sin

• Sin/Evildoing = “Turning away from eternal things the mind can enjoy securely, and pursuing temporal, uncertain things with disordered love.”
• Immediate cause = free choice of the will.

Outstanding Question Raised for Book Two

• If free choice occasions sin, why did God give it?
  • Danger: blaming God.
  • Augustine postpones, promising deeper inquiry.

Transition into Book Two (Preview)

• Evodius re-asks the free-will-gift dilemma.
• Augustine probes whether Evodius knows or merely believes God gave it.
• Evodius argues:
  • All good comes from God.
  • Free will is necessary for just punishment/reward.
  • Therefore free will from God.
• Dialogue sets stage for next exploration.