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that it neither wills nor can will to withdraw itself; just as iron, if driven into bone, is blunted back and cannot be withdrawn, either by the same force by which it was driven in or by a stronger one.