II. To the Principal Arguments of the First Question

21. To the first argument [n.2] I say that synderesis murmurs ostensively, because it shows that the good is to be willed, and there is occasion in this for murmuring against evil.

22. To the other [n.3] I say that the will, which is a freely acting power, does not necessarily will advantage by an elicited act, just as neither does it thus necessarily will what is just; however if this single power is considered as it has an affection for advantage and does not have an affection for the just, that is, insofar as it is a non-free appetite, then not to will advantageous things would not thus be in its power, because it would thus be precisely only the natural appetite of an intellectual nature, just as the appetite of a brute is the natural appetite of a sensitive nature.

23. I say therefore that Anselm’s proposition, “No one is able not to will advantageous things” [n.3], must be understood of the power when not speaking of the whole of it, which whole power can freely not-will not only advantageous things but also just ones, because it can freely not-will both the latter and the former; instead it must be understood of the power insofar as it is affected precisely by the affection for advantage, that is, as it is considered under the idea of such appetite yet without including freedom in such appetite; but synderesis does not elicit any act in us in this way; for this reason I said in the solution [n.19] ‘if synderesis is posited as something having an elicited act’.

24. The answer to the third argument [n.4] comes from the same point, that natural will, the way it necessarily tends to the thing willed, does not have an elicited act about that thing but is only in such a nature a certain inclination toward the perfection most suited to it; and this inclination exists necessarily in the nature, although the act in conformity with this inclination and nature is not necessarily elicited; for the act (whether it is in conformity with the inclination and then it is called natural, or not in conformity with it and then it is called against nature) is only elicited by free will, and however much free will may want the opposite of what the inclination is toward, the inclination toward what the inclination was toward is no less necessary, because it remains as long as the nature remains.

25. To the final argument [n.5] I say that this nature alone is free, and it has a mode of acting superior to every other created nature.