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I. To the Question
A. The Opinions of Others
9. Here there is posited a double cause for the continuation of malice in them.
First thus: the appetite is proportioned to its apprehensive power, by which it is moved as a movable thing is moved by a mover; but an angel apprehends immovably, non-discursively, because he does so through intellect - man apprehends movably, through reason discursively, wherein he has a discursive way of going to either opposite. The will of an angel, therefore, immovably adheres after the first complete apprehension, while the will of man - in line with a volition following reason - adheres movably. And therefore, although the will of an angel, before it had fixed itself by a complete volition, would have been movable to opposites (otherwise it could not have sinned or merited indifferently), yet after the first choice it immovably adhered to what it had chosen; and thus the good angel was made radically impeccable and the bad radically impenitent -from the immobility of the cognitive power.
10. Another way is posited as follows, that the more perfect the will the more perfectly it immerses itself in the willable thing. When separated from body, of which sort the angelic will is, it is altogether perfectly free - but our will, conjoined to a corruptible body, has a diminished liberty; and therefore, although our will has liberty, yet the angelic will, which is altogether separate from body, has it maximally. Our will too, “when existing in an incorruptible body,” immovably immerses itself in the object so that it cannot rebound from it.
11. Now the manner is assigned from Proverbs 18.5, “The sinner, when he comes into the depths, despises.” When therefore the will is perfectly free in a preceding perfect choice, it efficaciously runs to the thing willed, placing there its end; but when it comes to the obstacle of conscience, it does not stop at it but thrusts itself into it and is blunted back so that it neither wills nor can will to withdraw itself; just as iron, if driven into bone, is blunted back and cannot be withdrawn, either by the same force by which it was driven in or by a stronger one.
B. Rejection of the Opinions together
12. Against the conclusion, in which these two opinions come together, there seems to be the authority of Augustine [Fulgentius] On the Faith to Peter n.34 where he speaks thus, “If it were possible that human nature, after it turned from God and lost the goodness of the will, could have had it again from itself, much more would the angelic nature have this, which, the less it is burdened by the weight of an earthly body, the more it would be endued with this ability etc.” - The argument then goes as follows: if the human will could of itself return to justice, much more the angelic will; therefore the angelic will, neither because of the immovability of its cognitive power (of the sort that the cognitive power of our will is not), nor because of its own full liberty (from the fact it is separate from body), is incapable of returning to justice after it has sinned; on the contrary, according to Augustine [Fulgentius], it is more capable than our will is.
13. Further, I argue against this common opinion.
First as follows: not only is the will of a damned angel obstinate, but also the will of a damned human being (and one should assign a common cause for both, according to what Augustine [Fulgentius] seems to say op.cit. a little after the cited passage, where he maintains that there is one common cause why God will together judge human spirits and damned angels - and he seems to maintain the same in City of God 21.11, 23); but neither of these causes [nn.9-11] can be posited as the cause of the obstinacy of a damned human being; therefore not of an angel either.
14. Proof of the assumption [sc. the minor premise, n.13]: because the conjoined soul does not have a cognitive power that immovably apprehends, as an angel does, according to the first way [n.9] - nor even does it have such liberty that it immerses itself in the object immovably, according to the second way [n.10].a Therefore one has to assign a cause for this obstinacy in the soul when it is separate; so either the soul is then obstinate before any elicited act (and consequently neither of the aforesaid causes is the cause of its obstinacy because, before it wills anything according to an act of an immovably apprehending intellect or from the full liberty it has when separate, it was already obstinate) - or it was obstinate through some act that it elicited when separate (which, according to the first way, follows the immovable apprehension of a separate intellect, or, according to the second, full liberty); but this second option seems unacceptable, because a soul does not demerit when separated, but only through the acts that it had on the way does it receive what it merited or demerited; so it has no act preceding the obstinacy by which to be rendered obstinate.b
a. a[Interpolation] according to perfect liberty, according to the second way; therefore it cannot rebound back - which is false.
b. b[Interpolation] Or thus: the sinning soul is obstinate in the instant of separation, because it is in the term - yet not by an act that it then elicits, because in the same instant in which it is separated the whole composite is corrupted, and in that instant it does not understand; nor even is it obstinate through an act preceding that instant, because then it was a wayfarer; therefore etc. Or thus: if the will of a man, because it has an immovable apprehension, renders itself obstinate, whether this is while it is in the body or while it is outside the body; not while in the body because then it does not have an immovable apprehension (since it is a wayfarer) - nor in the second way because in the instant of separation the soul is obstinate and damned (but it does not then have apprehension, because that is the instant of corruption); therefore etc.
15. A confirmation can be taken from Lazarus, whose intellect, when he was dead, had the apprehension of a separated soul and whose will had full liberty (because it was separated); and yet because of neither of these did he will immovably, because then he would have been impeccable if he was good (and then God would have done a prejudice to him when he resurrected him, because then he would have made him peccable from being impeccable), or obstinate if bad - but both of these are false (because he was still a wayfarer!), unless one imagines that God miraculously suspended him from an operation of the sort that follows a separated soul (in as much as he predestined to resurrect him), but this does not seem probable, because he is said to have narrated many things that he had seen.9
16. Further, second: a total cause does not cause differently unless it is itself, according as it is cause, differently disposed, and this when no diversity is posited on the part of the undergoing subject or on the part of any extrinsic impediments; but the will as naturally prior to its act, not as actually existing in act, is cause of its act (which is manifest from the fact it is a free cause of its act, which freedom does not belong to it save as it is prior to its act - because as it is in act it has the act as natural form; it is also plain that a thing, as it is under an effect as under a form, is posterior, as the composite is posterior to its form, Metaphysics 7.3.1029a5-7); therefore the will is not differently disposed in eliciting an act unless it is differently disposed as it is prior to act. But from the fact that it is posited as having an act inherent in it [nn.9-11], it would not be differently disposed as it is naturally prior to act, because although it would be as it is in act differently disposed, namely as to a certain accident, yet not as to its nature, according to which it is the sort of first act that the will is; therefore, as the will is understood to be in any act whatever, it will not be differently disposed in eliciting any act whatever; therefore through no act (or habit) that is posited in it as it is separated, and that cannot be posited in it as conjoined, will it be eliciting in a way opposite (a good act or a bad act) to the way it was eliciting before, and so, if before it acted contingently, by nothing of the sort - posited in it - will it elicit necessarily.a
a. a[Interpolation] Or thus: the will is not cause of its volition save as naturally prior to it, so if it is not differently disposed as it is naturally prior to it, it is not differently disposed as it is cause of it; but as it is naturally prior it is not differently disposed by the fact that it is under an act of willing, because it is thus disposed in first act; therefore it is not by that act differently disposed in causing - therefore it does not through the act that it is placed under become ‘impeccable’ or ‘impenitent’ [n.9]. Confirmation: a cause that in itself is uniformly disposed to several effects, by the fact that it causes one, it is not differently disposed as regard another, as is plain of heat with respect to several heatings; but the will is cause with respect to several volitions; therefore by the fact that it elicits one it is not differently disposed as to eliciting another. Therefore if it elicited the first freely, such that with respect thereto it was not impeccable, neither will it be impeccable with respect to another. - Second confirmation: the will of an angel, with respect to the act that is posited as the cause of its obstinacy [nn.9=11], is disposed contingently (and only necessarily disposed by necessity in a certain respect), because it is cause of the act as it is naturally prior to it - and as such it elicits contingently; but such an act does not more necessitate the will with respect to another act than with respect to itself; therefore etc. Third...
17. The reasoning is confirmed, because no second cause can be the cause for a principal cause of acting in a way opposite to the way belonging to the principal cause from its own causality; for thus the principal cause would not be principal cause, because it would be determined by the second cause to a mode of acting opposite to its own proper mode of acting; therefore since the will is principal cause of its act (because whatever is posited in the will with respect to its act will either not be the cause of thus eliciting the act, or, if it is the cause, it is a second cause in respect of the will, and not principal cause), it follows that the will is by nothing else determined to acting.
18. Further, as was said d.4-5 nn.45-46 and d.6 n.77, both the good angel and the bad had time such that they were not wayfarers for an instant only; but the bad angel had several sins in order - namely from the act of loving himself he elicited an act of loving the supreme advantage, and from that an act of excellence (whereby he willed to have that advantage not under the rule of the superior will but against it), and finally an act of hating God (who resisted him in that appetite [d.6 nn.37-40, 51-54, 63, 78]), and he did not have all those acts distinctly at the same time; therefore, when he was demeriting in the second sin, he was still on the way, and yet he had already sinned with the first sin from the first choice. Therefore not any sort of immovable apprehension or any sort of first sin, or full immersion in the object, made him impenitent; for whenever he sinned in one of those sins on the way, it was not the same as the preceding sin.
C. Rejection of the First Opinion in Particular
19. Further, against the first way [n.9] there is argument specifically.
First, because it supposes something false, namely that the intellect is a sufficient mover - as will be made clear in 2 d.25 [lacking in Ordinatio, but found in Lectura 2 d.25 n.69].
Second, this false thing is repugnant in two ways to the statements of those who hold this position. First, because since the intellect of the angels was right in apprehending (for punishment does not precede guilt), it was moving the will to desire something rightly; nor could it move the will otherwise, because the intellect moves by way of nature and consequently it can only move according to the mode of cognition that it has; therefore it moves the will to willing rightly. Therefore the will could in no way sin. - Second, the false thing contradicts their position because, if from the idea of mover and movable there is a proportion of the sort between them, the will not only will be immovable after the first choice of the will, but will be in itself first so even before the first choice - because the angels’ intellect, just as it immovably shows something after the first choice of the will, so does it also do so before it; and if the intellect itself, when immovably apprehending, moves the appetite immovably, then it will move immovably in the first act, and consequently not after the first act only!
21. Further, from this way it seems to follow that since, according to them, the angel was created in grace [d.4-5 n.24] and thus had some act in grace (because it is not likely that in the first instant he was idle, for he was not impeded - and if he was then idle he would perhaps have sinned by the sin of omission), and he did not sin with grace (as is plain) - then at some point he had according to grace a good and full choice, because a choice following perfect apprehension of the intellect, for, according to them, there is only such apprehension in the angels, and this apprehension immovable and not discursive [n.9]. Therefore any angel in that first good choice confirmed himself and was made impeccable.
22. Further, the difference between the wills of man and angel [n.9] is not valid, because although the angel understands non-discursively what - according to them - man understands discursively, yet the intellect of man does not movably adhere to that which he reaches discursively; for he holds the conclusion he reaches discursively with as much certitude (that is, without doubting) as an angel holds it by seeing it non-discursively in the principle; therefore this immovability of the human intellect (that is, this certitude) would have an equally immovable will just as does the other immovability posited in the angel. Also, the fact that all discursive reasoning is denied to the angels does not seem probable - as is proved above [Ord. Prol. nn.208-209, 2 d.1 nn.312-314].
D. Rejection of the Second Opinion in Particular
23. Against the second way [nn.10-11] there is argument specifically:
Because, just as a natural agent does not dominate its act, so neither does it dominate its mode of acting - and, by the opposite, as a free agent dominates its action so too does it dominate its mode of acting, and consequently it is in its power to act intensely or weakly; therefore there is no need, from the fact the will is perfectly free, that it should immerse itself with supreme effort in the object; rather it dominates itself more, since it tends to the object with any amount of effort at all and is thus carried freely to any object at all, and it can also by its absolute liberty not be thus carried to the object. There is a confirmation for this as well, that not all the bad angels seem to have sinned with their utmost effort, just as neither do all the good angels seem to have merited with their utmost effort - or at least it was possible for them not to elicit an act with the whole faculty of their nature.
24. Further, a thing tends (or moves) to the term by the same principle by which it rests in it; therefore if the will - perfectly free - tends of its perfect liberty to an object, then by the same liberty it rests in it; therefore from the full liberty of tending to an object, the sort of liberty that the bad angels sinned with, the resting of the will in it does not necessarily follow, but only a voluntary and contingent resting, just as the will contingently tends to it.
25. Further, as was touched on in the first common way against both ways [n.14], it cannot be said that the will of a separated soul renders itself obstinate by any act that it is then eliciting, because it is obstinate naturally prior to its eliciting some act as it is separated, for it is in the term; therefore it renders itself obstinate by some act that it elicits in the body, by thrusting itself then into the conscience; but this is false, both because it was then a wayfarer - and because someone can, by the sin because of which he is damned if penance does not follow, sin with lesser effort than the effort someone else (or himself) sins with by the same sin, and that sin is destroyed through penance.
26. Further, against the example about the sharp iron, by thrusting it into bone [n.11]. Although this example and the whole position seem similar to the saying of Hesiod, Metaphysics 3.4.1000a9-19, that “those were made immortals who tasted nectar and manna [ambrosia]” (which saying the Philosopher there mocks, because people like the Hesiodans “have despised our understanding”, for - according to the Philosopher there - what is meant by such hyperbolic or metaphorical words cannot be understood, nor is it the manner of a philosopher or a scientist to speak in such way) - yet, by taking the example for what it is worth as to the intended conclusion, the opposite deduction can be made. For why is sharp iron, when fixed in a hard body, not able to be extracted by the cause or power that fixed it in? - the reason is that the parts of the body in which it was thrust cling more together, and so the thing fixed in it is more compressed than at the beginning when it was being fixed in; but if the motive power is increased, then by the amount of increase that the motive power adds - if the thing fixed in remains equally straight in its nature - it can now by extracted. Therefore since the will, when thrusting into anything, remains straight in its natural powers (even though it may have some curvature, that is, a certain deformity, a sort of inherent privation), and since that in which it immerses itself does not have, when it immerses itself, a greater power of enclosing it (because there is in the object no such clinging together), the result is that the active will can withdraw itself.