Theological Theses · §1800 · Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu

Despite their differences the Reformed accept Bellarmine's definition of free choice, as Baron, Pareus and Ames show

However the teachers of the Reformed school differ in explaining the nature of freedom and the faculties it does or does not belong to, they readily accept Bellarmine's definition of free choice in On Grace and Free Choice (book 3, chapter 3): "Free choice is the free power, given or granted to an intelligent nature for the great glory of God, of choosing among things that lead to some end one rather than another, or of rejecting or accepting one and the same thing, as we judge fit."

Robert Baron shows this in his General Metaphysics (section 12, disputation On Freedom of Choice), where he not only approves the definition but explains it carefully part by part. Pareus does not reject it either. Commenting on that passage of Bellarmine, he makes some remarks on the definition and then admits that, on free choice considered absolutely, there is no dispute between us and Bellarmine.

The definition Pareus puts in its place as plainer and fuller is not far from Bellarmine's: free choice is "the power of willing, not willing, choosing or rejecting an object the intellect sets before it, without compulsion, by a spontaneous and deliberate movement, with the will able to will or not will the opposite." Likewise Ames grants that the definition can bear a sense that leaves no reason to quarrel over it (Bellarmine Disarmed, volume 4, book 4, chapter 1).

Latin

XLVIII. Caeterum utcunque inter se varient Scholae Reformatae Doctores, in explicando quae sit natura libertatis, & quibus facultatibus conveniat, aut non conveniat; nihilominus facile admittunt definitionem liberi Arbitrii quae traditur a Bellarmino, De Gratia & libero Arbitrio lib. 3. cap. 3. Nempe quod Liberum Arbitrium est libera potestas ex his quae ad finem aliquem conducunt unum prae alio eligendi, aut unum & idem respuendi, vel acceptandi, pro arbitrio nostro, intelligenti naturae, ad magnam Dei gloriam attributa, vel concessa. Id videre est apud Rob. Baronium in Metaphysica sua generali, sect. 12. Disp. de Libertate Arbitrii, ubi hanc definitionem non solum probat, sed etiam per partes accurate explicat. Eandem quoque definitionem non improbat Paraeus, quandoquidem quibusdam in eam animadversis, fatetur de libero Arbitrio absolute considerato, inter nos & Bellarminum nullam esse controversiam in locum jam dictum Bellarmini scribens. Neque multum discrepat a Bellarminiana definitio illa, quam tanquam planiorem, & pleniorem illi substituit; videlicet quod sit potentia volendi, nolendi, eligendi, repudiandi objectum ab intellectu monstratum, sine coactione, spontaneo ac deliberato motu, & aptitudine voluntatis ad volendum, aut nolendum opposita. Et similiter Amesius fatetur istam definitionem illum sensum habere posse, ut de ea non sit contendendi causa. in Bell. enerv. tom. 4. lib. 4. cap. 1.

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