Theological Theses · §1882 · Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu

What the Molinists grant: not equipoise; habits; the composite sense; not a power of good and evil

They do agree with the others that the indifference in question here does not mean a condition of the will in which it leans no more one way than the other and hangs between two opposites as if balanced on scales. They grant that freedom suffers nothing from habits that strongly incline the will to do this rather than that and make it hard for it to go another way.

Nor do they deny that, in a certain composite sense, it is false that the will can act and not act, or do this and that, namely if someone takes this to mean that an act and its absence, or two contrary acts, can be present and combined in the will at once.

They also accept that the indifference in which the essence of freedom consists is not the power to act well or badly. They acknowledge that freedom of choice remains even in one who cannot act well, as in the damned spirits, and is present still more in one who cannot act badly, as in the saints who see God's face and reign with him in heaven.

Latin

XXXIII. Fatentur quidem cum aliis per indifferentiam de qua hic quaestio est, non significari eam voluntatis constitutionem per quam non magis huc propendeat quam illuc, sed inter duo opposita haereat, quasi suspensa in aequilibrio: cum agnoscant libertati nihil praejudicari per habitus quibus voluntas ad hoc potius quam illud agendum fortiter inclinatur, & difficulter alio ferri potest. Et praeterea non negant in sensu quodam composito falsum esse quod voluntas possit agere & non agere, hoc & illud agere; nempe, si quis per hoc significari putet actum & ejus carentiam, aut duos actus contrarios in voluntate simul stare & componi posse. Admittunt quoque per indifferentiam in qua libertatis essentia consistit, non intelligi potestatem bene vel male agendi. Agnoscunt enim libertatem arbitrii manere etiam in eo qui non potest bene agere, ut in spiritibus damnatis: & multo magis adhuc illam in eo reperiri qui male agere non potest, ut in sanctis qui faciem Dei vident, & cum eo in coelo regnant.

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