a) On the Concupiscence of Blessedness

40. [Proof that the angel first coveted blessedness immoderately for himself] -And it seems that here one must say that the angel first coveted blessedness immoderately for himself. The proof is:

First as follows, for the first disordered ‘coveting’ did not proceed from affection for justice, just as neither did any sin so proceed;     therefore from affection for advantage, because “every elicited act of the will is elicited according to the affection either for justice or for advantage,” according to Anselm (Fall of the Devil 4). The greatest advantage is most greatly desired by a will not following the rule of justice, and so is desired first, because nothing else rules a will that is not right save a disordered and immoderate appetite for the greatest good of advantage; but the greatest advantage is perfect blessedness; therefore etc     . And this reason is got from Anselm ibid.

41. The second proof is this, that the first sin in ‘coveting’ was some willing; for one does not shun anything away from oneself - that is, so that something not reach one -save because one covets the opposite for oneself. The angel coveted it, then, either with love of the honorable, or with love of the useful, or with love of the delightful (because there is only this triple love for loving something with); not with love of the honorable, because then the angel would not have sinned; nor with love of the useful, because that love is not first (for because the useful is useful with respect to something, no one first desires the useful but that for which it is useful). He first sinned, then, by loving something excessively as the supremely delightful thing; but the supremely delightful thing is the honorable good and very blessedness, whereby the delightful thing is supreme;     therefore etc     . - And this argument can be taken from the Philosopher Ethics 8.2.1155b18-21, from the common distinction of the good into useful, delightful, and honorable.

42. Third it is proved thus, that every appetitive power, consequent in its act to some act of the apprehensive power, desires first the delightful thing most agreeable to its cognitive power - or first desires delight in the desirable thing, because in such desirable thing it is most at rest; this is plain of appetite consequent to the apprehension of taste or hearing or touch - because any such appetite desires the most perfect object of the apprehensive power whose act it follows in desiring. Therefore the will, when separated from all sensitive appetite, first of all desires that which is most agreeable to the intellect, whose agreeableness the desire follows - or it first desires delight in such object and consequently blessedness, inclusive of object and act and consequent delight.

43. Fourth it is proved thus: that thing is first desired by a will not ruled by justice which - if there were that thing alone - would alone by desired and nothing else without it. Such is delight; for no excellence or anything else - if it were sad - would be desired, but delight or something such would be desired.

44. As far as this second stage is concerned, then, namely as to the sin of the angel, it seems that he first coveted blessedness:

Because just as the first sin of the visual appetite would be in desiring the visible thing most beautiful to its cognitive power (and in which it would perfectly delight and be at rest), so, in the case of a will conjoined with sensitive appetite - when it is not following justice or the rule of reason - the first desirable is something supremely delightful to that sensitive appetite which the will is most in conformity with in acting. And so there is in men a domination of the sensitive appetites according to the diversity of their bodily composition; indeed, if any cognitive power whatever has its proper appetite and there is, according to diversity of composition, a diversity of dominion in diverse cognitive powers and in their appetitive powers, then in anyone at all - I say - the will, according to the predominance of sensitive appetite, is most inclined to the act of that appetite; and therefore some people, following their first inclination without the rule of justice, are first inclined to luxury, some first to pride, and some otherwise.

45. So a will separated from all sensitive appetite, and consequently not inclined to anything because of inclination of sensitive appetite, such a will - having deserted from justice - follows the absolute inclination of the will as will; and this inclination seems to be to the greatest thing agreeable to the will or to the appetitive power, which thing is also the greatest perfection of the intellect or of the cognitive power - for what the cognitive power is most perfected in, that is what the appetitive power corresponding to the cognitive power is most perfected in. The immoderate concupiscence, then, was for blessedness, because blessedness is the object of the will.

46. [Reasons to the contrary] - And if argument be given against this:

First, because according to Augustine, On the Trinity 13.5 n.8, “blessedness is desired by everyone;” but what is uniformly in everyone seems to be natural; therefore blessedness is desired naturally. But natural appetite is always right, because it is from God; therefore a will consonant with it is right, because what is consonant with the right is right; therefore no one sins in desiring blessedness.

47. Further, no intellect errs about the principles (Metaphysics 2.1.993b4-5) -therefore neither does the will about the end. The consequence is proved through the similitude of the Philosopher in Ethics 7.9.1151a16-17 and Physics 2.9.200a15-16: “as the principle is in matters of speculation, so the end is in matters of action.”

48. Further, third: the good had affection for advantage just as did the bad; but according to Anselm On Concord 3.13, the will “cannot not will advantage;”     therefore the good will advantage just as do the bad. Therefore all sinned equally if they sinned from affection for advantage; therefore etc     .

49. [Solution of these reasons] - To see the solution to these reasons, I distinguish what can be understood by the affections for justice and for advantage that Anselm speaks of in Fall of the Devil 4 [n.40].

Justice can be understood to be either infused (which is called gratuitous justice), or acquired (which is called moral justice), or innate (which is the liberty itself of the will). For if it were understood - according to the fiction of Anselm in Fall of the Devil -that there was an angel that had the affection for advantage and not the one for justice (that is, having an intellective appetite merely as such appetite and not as free), such an angel would not be able not to will advantage, or even not to will it supremely; nor would this be imputed to him for sin, because the appetite would be related to his cognitive power as the seeing appetite is to sight, by necessarily following what the cognitive power shows and the inclination to the best thing shown by that power, because it would not have means to hold itself back. The affection for justice, then, which is ‘the first moderator of the affection for advantage’, both as regards the will’s not having actually to desire what the affection for advantage inclines to, and as regards its not having to desire it supremely (namely what the affection of advantage inclines to) - this affection for justice, I say, is the liberty innate to the will, because it is the first moderator of the above sort of affection.

50. And although Anselm frequently speaks of an act not only of the justice that is acquired but also of the one that is infused (because he says it is lost by mortal sin, which is only true of infused justice), yet by distinguishing, from the nature of the thing, the first two ideas among these [sc. affection for advantage, affection for justice, intellective appetite, free appetite], insofar as the first inclines the will supremely to advantage, while the second moderates it so that in eliciting an act it does not have to follow its inclination - these two affections are nothing other than the same will insofar as it is intellective appetite and insofar as it is free; because, as was said [n.49], insofar as it is merely intellective appetite, it would be supremely inclined actually to the best intelligible (as in the case of the best visible and sight), but insofar as it is free, it can hold itself back in eliciting an act so that it does not follow the inclination - whether as to the substance of the act or as to the intensity of it - to which the power is naturally inclined.

51. But a power, if it were appetitive precisely [sc. and not also free], following its inclination in its act as the seeing appetite follows sight and the inclination of sight, although - I say - that power could only desire what was intelligible (just as the seeing appetite can only desire what is visible), yet it could not then sin, because there would not be in its power anything else or any desiring otherwise than as the cognitive power would show and would incline towards. However, when the same power has now been made free (because this is nothing other than that one thing includes virtually several ideas of perfection, which it would not include if it were without the idea of freedom), this power - I say - can, by its liberty, hold itself back in willing, both as to willing what the affection for advantage inclines to and even if it incline supremely to willing advantage; and because it can be moderated, it is bound to be moderated according to the rule of justice that is received from a superior will. So it is plain, according to this, that a free will is not bound in every way to will blessedness (the way a will, if it were only intellective appetite, without liberty, would will it), but it is bound - in eliciting an act -to moderate the appetite qua intellective appetite, which is to moderate the ‘affection for advantage’, so that namely it not will immoderately.

52. But the will - while being able to moderate itself - can in three ways immoderately will the blessedness that befits it: as to intensity, that is, by willing it with greater effort than befits it; or as to timing, namely by willing it more quickly for itself than befits it; or as to cause, namely by willing it otherwise for itself than befits it, as without merits; - or perhaps in other ways that there is no need to be concerned with here.

53. So it is probable that in one of these ways the angel’s will went to excess: namely either desiring blessedness for himself as it is a good for himself more than loving that good in itself, namely by desiring that good (as the beatific object) to be his own good as a good for himself more than desiring it to be present in another (as in his God) - and this is the supreme perversity of the will, which is ‘using what should be enjoyed and enjoying what should be used’ according to Augustine 86 Questions q.30; or, in the second way, the angel could have desired to have blessedness at once, when however God wanted him to have it after some little while on the way; or in the third way, by desiring it to be had from natural powers (not having it by grace), when however God wanted it to be had from merits.

54. The free will therefore should have moderated its affection as to these circumstances, which right reason had to show it; because blessedness should have been desired less for itself than for God, and should have been desired for the time for which God willed it, and from the merits for which God willed it should be desired. Therefore if in one of these ways the will followed the affection of advantage, not moderating it through justice (that is through infused justice, if it had it, or through acquired, or through innate or natural justice, which is freedom itself), then it sinned.

55. Hereby therefore to the arguments:

To the first [n.46]. Natural will is not of itself immoderate but inclined only by way of nature - and in this it is not immoderate, because it is inclined the way it has received to be inclined, nor is there anything else in its power; but in the power of the will, as it is free in elicited act, there is only its being inclined, or less inclined.

56. So when the argument assumes the proposition that ‘the will is natural in respect of blessedness’ I concede it - but it is not actually immoderate in elicited act; for the ‘inclination of natural appetite’ is not any elicited act but is a sort of first perfection -and this is not immoderate, just as neither is the nature immoderate whose it is. Yet it is inclined by affection for advantage to its object such that - if it had of itself an elicited act - it could not moderate it from being elicited supremely as much as it could be elicited; but the will as having only natural affection for advantage is not cause of any elicited act but is so only as free, and so ‘as eliciting an act’ it has the means for moderating passion.

57. When therefore the proposition is assumed that ‘the will, consonant with natural will, is always right (because natural will too is always right)’ [n.46] I respond and say that it is consonant with itself in eliciting an act as it would elicit it if it were acting of itself alone; but it is not right, because it has another rule in acting than that it would have if it were to act from itself alone; for it is bound to follow a superior will, from which - in moderating that natural inclination - the moderating or not moderating is in its power, because it is in its power not to act supremely on what it has power for.

58. To the second [n.47] I say, through the same point, that it is not in the power of the intellect to moderate its assent to truths which it apprehends, for to the extent there is shown to it the truth of the principles from the terms, or the truth of conclusions from the principles, to that extent it must assent, because of its lack of liberty. But the will has power - over itself and the inferior powers - to moderate the inclination from being altogether dominant in eliciting the act, or at least to moderate it so that the act is not elicited; for it can turn the intellect away so that it does not speculate about the sort of objects of speculation about which it would be inclined, and the will is bound to turn it away if speculation of them is a sin materially for the intellect or formally for the will; thus - on the other side - the will, with respect to the ultimate end, is bound to moderate its inclination for that end so that it not will it immoderately, namely in a way other than it should will it, and so that it not will it for itself in a way other than that end is in itself.

59. In another way it can be said that, just as an act of the intellect ‘when considering a principle in itself’ cannot be false, so neither can an act of will ‘when loving the end in itself’ be bad - and this act is an act of friendship, not an act of concupiscence; yet, just as an act of intellect could be false in attributing the truth of the first cause to some created principle which that truth does not fit - so an act of the will can be bad in coveting the goodness of the ultimate end for something other than the ultimate end in a way that does not fit that something other.

60. To the third [n.48] I reply that in the good there was as much a natural inclination to blessedness as in the bad - even a greater one if they had better natural powers, because the inclination accords with the perfection of the natural powers; yet the good, in eliciting their act, did not use the will according to its imperfect idea, namely to the extent it is an intellective appetite only, namely by acting in the sort of way they would desire to act by the intellective appetite - but they used the will according to its perfect idea (which is liberty), by acting according to the will in the way in which it is fitting to act freely as a free thing acts, but this was in accord with the rule of the determining superior will, and that justly.

61. And when it is said ‘the angel cannot not will advantage’ [n.48], I reply: the good neither could nor wanted to refuse blessedness for themselves, even by coveting it for themselves - but they did not will it for themselves more than they willed well being in itself for God, rather they willed it less so, because they were able to moderate their willing through their liberty.

62. And if you object ‘therefore in no way did they desire blessedness well for themselves, but they only moderated well their desiring it’ - I reply that to have a perfect act of desiring good for oneself, so that thereby the object in itself is more loved, I say that this is from the affection of justice, because what I love something in itself for is what I will it in itself for. And thus the good could desire blessedness so that - in having it - they would more perfectly love the supreme good; and this act of coveting blessedness would be meritorious, because it does not use but enjoys what should be enjoyed; for the good that I covet for myself I covet for this reason, that I may love that good in itself more.