Thirty Eighth Distinction

Single Question. Whether Intention is an Act of Will only

1. Concerning the thirty eighth distinction the question is raised about intention,awhether intention is an act of will only.

a. a[Interpolation] About this thirty eighth distinction, where the Master treats of the things that are concurrent to sin (of which sort are will and intention for an end), the question is raised:

2. That it is not:

All per se agents act for an end, from Physics 2.5.196b17-22; therefore they act from intention.

3. Further, there is no distinct vision without intention joined to it, according to Augustine On the Trinity 11.2 n.2; but there can be a distinct vision preceding an act of intellect, and consequently preceding any act of the will; therefore intention is not an act of will only.

4. Further, Luke 11.34-35, “If your eye is simple your whole body will be light;” and, “See to it therefore that the light in you is not darkness.” The Gloss expounds ‘eye’ and ‘light’ of intention; eye and light pertain to the intellect.

5. Further, intention involves the relating of one thing to another; relating, like comparing, belongs to the intellect.

6. On the contrary:

The Master in the text, “Now intention is taken sometimes for the will, sometimes for the end of the will... So the end of the will is said to be both that which we will and that for the sake of which we will; and intention regards that for the sake of which we will, and will regards that which we will.”

7. And further Augustine On the Trinity 14.3. n.5, “We find the first trinity in the body which is seen, and in the glance of the seer which, when he sees, is formed by it, and in the intention of the will which conjoins both. In the trinity of bodily vision, the form of the body that is seen and the conformity with it that comes about by the looking of the seer are conjoined by the intention of the will.”

I. To the Question

8. I reply:

First we must see what is meant by this term ‘intention’.

For ‘to intend’ states ‘to tend to another’. This can be taken generally, either that a thing has from another that it tends toward it, or that it has it from itself ‘moving itself toward it’. - A thing can also tend toward something as toward a present object or as toward a distant or absent limit.

9. In the first way intending belongs to any power with respect to its object.

10. In the second way intending is more properly taken for that, namely, which tends toward another and is not drawn to it but draws itself to it; and in this way intending cannot belong to any natural power but only to a free one, because - according to Damascene Orthodox Faith chs.36, 41 - “a non-free appetite is drawn and does not draw,” and so it is in the case of every natural power.

11. Taking ‘to intend’ more properly in this [second] way, then, namely as it states ‘to tend of oneself to another’, it will belong principally to a free power; but since to will freely belongs to the whole of free choice, which includes intellect and will (according to the third opinion in d.25 [not in the Ordinatio but the Lectura]), to intend will also belong to the whole of it (and this if to intend is taken most properly), and it will not belong to anything with respect to its object but with respect to its end. And since in the case of every volition - according to Anselm [On Truth ch.12, “Just as every will wills something, so it wills for the sake of something... So every will has a ‘what’ and a ‘why’.”] - it is possible to take a ‘what’ and a ‘why’, to intend does not regard the ‘what’ but the ‘why’, namely to the extent it states a tending toward something as distant through something as through a means.

12. Intention therefore will be an act of free choice by reason of will, and it will be an act of it with respect to what it wills. And if there is the same act of willing for what is willed and for that because of which it is willed, the same act will be use and intention; but if there is a different act, intention will state formally the act by which it tends to the end and materially the act of using by which it refers another thing toward that end.

II. To the Principal Arguments

13. As to the first argument [n.2], it is plain that it proceeds of intending as intending states the tending of something determined and limited by another.

14. As to the second [n.3] I say that the first vision is not caused by the conjoining intention of the will, but the whole of it [sc. vision and the thing seen] can be, if one concedes that it happens in the same instant of time and thus by confirmation of the vision; but once the first intellection has been posited, the will can turn toward or away from it in respect of other operations and so join them in diverse ways. The major, then, that ‘no distinct vision can be had without conjoining intention’ must be denied, unless the conjoining is understood not to be actually concomitant; and in this way must the proposition be denied that ‘a discrete vision precedes in time every intellection’, though it does precede in nature. Or if the vision - which is without concomitant intellection and intention - can be without the conjoining intention of the will, as that vision can be with which intellection and volition are concomitant, then the proposition must be absolutely deniedh that ‘a discrete vision cannot be without conjoining intention’. Nor is the denial of this proposition contrary to Augustine, for Augustine himself means that the will can turn the pupil to the object and tend toward the object, but he does not mean that no vision could come to be unless an intention tends in this way and turns it.

15. To the last argument [n.5; no response is given to the third argument, n.4] I say that to compare by way of judgment belongs to the intellect alone, just as does also the act of understanding - but to relate things by using or ordering one lovable thing to another belongs to the will; for just as the will is reflexive, because it is immaterial, so it is also collative or capable in its own way of relating things in its own way.