Question One. Whether Synderesis is in the Will

1. Concerning the thirty ninth distinction the question about conscience and synderesisThe term ‘synderesis’ was first introduced to the West by Jerome, on Ezekiel 1.6-7, “And the philosophers set down a fourth power of the soul, which the Greeks call ‘sunteresis’, and this spark of conscience is not extinct in Cain even as a sinner after he was ejected from paradise.” ⁴⁹ is raised, and first whether synderesis is in the will.a

a. a[Interpolation] Concerning the thirty ninth question, where the Master asks why goodness and malice are more in the will than in other powers of the soul, two questions are raised: first whether synderesis is in the will, and second whether conscience is in the will. Argument about the first:

2. That it is:

For synderesis always murmurs against evil; to murmur against belongs to the will;     therefore etc     .

3. Further, the will necessarily wills advantageous things, according to Anselm On Concord 3.13, “No one is able not to will advantageous things;” therefore the will equally necessarily wills justice, because justice is a perfection as equally fitting to the soul as advantage is. But that whereby a man is necessarily inclined toward justice is posited as synderesis; therefore there is something in the will that can be posited as synderesis.

4. Again, natural will necessarily wills that toward which it tends, as is plain from On the Trinity 13.5 where Augustine maintains that “it is certain everyone wills blessedness because of a natural inclination toward it,” and this would not be certain unless the will itself necessarily willed it;     therefore the naturally willed is the ‘necessarily willed’. But justice is something naturally willed by the will, because it is a perfection as natural to the will as advantage is; so it is necessarily willed. Therefore what is posited as the necessary principle for inclining the will to justice should be posited as in the will; this necessary principle is synderesis; therefore etc     .

5. Again, lower nature - namely irrational nature - has a principle of necessarily tending toward what rightly befits it according to its nature; therefore the will too will have a principle of necessarily tending toward justice, which befits it from its nature.

6. The opposite is maintained by the Master in the text, when he adduces Jerome On Ezekiel to the effect that the higher part of reason is synderesis; therefore synderesis is in the higher part of reason; therefore it is in the intellect, which intends contemplation.