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.