Estius on Bonaventure: free choice as free and as deliberating; Bonaventure differs only in wording
Among those who teach that freedom is opposed not only to compulsion but also to necessity, the Roman theologian William Estius grants the same point. Replying to passages of Bonaventure brought against his own view, he says:
'In question 2 Bonaventure teaches that free choice can be considered in two ways, as free or as deliberating. As free, he says, it can bear on what is necessary, as is plain in God and the blessed, for although in them it has a necessity of unchangeableness, it has none of compulsion. As deliberating, he says, it concerns only the contingent, since no one deliberates about what is necessary or impossible.
This distinction shows well enough in what sense he said that free choice, as free, also looks to necessary things and can have a necessary act. For "as free" means nothing other than "as voluntary and not compelled". It is as if he said that the will, insofar as it is free from compulsion, deals even with necessary actions.
"As deliberating", on the other hand, meaning, as he explains, as weighing whether to choose this or that, refers to the freedom that belongs to free choice as such. Bonaventure therefore does not disagree with the others in substance; he merely spoke less aptly and against common usage.'
Latin
XIV. Inter eos vero qui docent libertatem oppositam esse non solum coactioni, sed etiam necessitati, idem agnoscit Guilielmus Estius Scholae Romanae Theologus. Etenim ad loca quaedam Bonaventurae contra sententiam ipsius objecta sic Respondet. Bonaventura quaest. 2. docet liberum arbitrium dupliciter posse considerari: vel ut liberum, vel ut deliberans: Et quidem quatenus liberum est, dicit esse posse respectu necessarii, sicut patet in Deo, & beatis; quia licet in illis habeat necessitatem immutabilitatis, non tamen coactionis. Quatenus autem deliberans, non est, inquit, nisi de contingenti, quia nemo deliberat de necessario & impossibili. Ex qua distinctione satis apparet, quo sensu dixerit liberum arbitrium quatenus liberum est, respicere etiam necessaria, & habere posse actum necessarium. Nam illud quatenus liberum, non aliud est quam quatenus voluntarium & non coactum. Itaque perinde est atque si dicatur, voluntatem quatenus libera est a coactione, versari circa actiones etiam necessarias. Illud vero, quatenus deliberans, id est, ut ipse exponit, quatenus consilians utrum eligat hoc, an illud; intelligitur de libertate quae propria est libero arbitrio ut tali. Igitur Bonaventura non in re discrepat ab aliis, sed minus commode, & praeter communem consuetudinem locutus est.