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It follows from what has been said that God alone,
seen face to face, can draw our will irresistibly. In
the presence of every finite object the will is free.
St. Thomas writes: "If we have as our object of sight
a thing actually colored, luminous from every
viewpoint, the eye cannot but see this object. But if
we propose to it an object which is colored or
luminous only on one side, whereas it is obscure on
the other (as during the night when we use a
lantern), the sight will not see this object if it is
presented to it on the side where it is not colored
or luminous. Now just as the colored object is
presented to the eye, so good is the object presented
through the will. If therefore we propose to the will
an object which is good, good from every point of
view, the will must necessarily desire that object
and cannot wish for its opposite. On the contrary, if
the object presented is not altogether good from
every point of view, the will can refuse to will it.
Now, as the absence of any good can be called
non-good, only the sovereign good, which lacks
nothing, is such that the will must necessarily will
it. This good is beatitude." [10] We cannot but wish
happiness, we cannot but wish to be beatified, but we
often forget that the true and perfect happiness
cannot be found in any object except God loved for
Himself alone. And here below we love freely; because
we do not see Him immediately as He is, we can turn
away from Him when we consider that what He commands
is displeasing to our pride or to our sensuality.
But if God Himself, who is the infinite good, were
immediately and clearly presented to us face to face,
we could not but love Him. He would fill perfectly
our affective capacity, which would be drawn
irresistibly toward Him. It would not keep any energy
to withdraw itself from this attraction. It could not
find any motive to turn away from Him, or even to
suspend its act of love. This is the reason why one
who sees God face to face cannot sin. As St. Thomas
says: "The will of him who sees the essence of God
without medium, necessarily also loves that essence
and cannot love anything else except in its relation
to God, just as here below we wish everything in
virtue of our desire for happiness." [11] God alone
seen face to face can make our will invincibly
captive. [12]
By opposition, our will remains free to love or not
to love any object which is good under one aspect and
not good or insufficiently good under another. The
very definition of liberty is that of the dominating
indifference of the will in regard to any object
which is good from one viewpoint and not good from
another. This definition of liberty is to be found,
not only in human liberty, but also in angelic
liberty, and, analogically, in divine liberty. Hence
we see that God was free to create or not to create,
to elevate us to the life of grace or not to elevate
us.Our will, then, has an infinite profundity, in
the sense that God alone, seen face to face, can fill
it and irresistibly draw it. Created goods cannot,
for this reason, exercise on the will an invincible
attraction. They attract it only superficially; the
will remains free to love or not to love. Hence, here
below, our will itself must go to meet this
attraction,
which in itself is incapable altogether of overcoming
the will. Here lies the reason why the will must
determine the judgment before it determines itself.
[13] For the same reason the will keeps the
intelligence suspended in consideration as long as it
pleases, suspends the intellectual search, or ceases
to pursue it. This is the reason why it depends in
last analysis on the will, whether such and such a
practical
judgment shall or shall not be the last. Hence the
free act is a gratuitous response, proceeding from
the depth of the will, to the weak solicitation of a
finite good.
Only God, seen face to face, draws our will
infallibly and makes it captive even to the very
source of its energy. Even an angel seen immediately
as he is, however beautiful he may be, cannot draw
our will irresistibly. The angel is only a finite
good, and two finite goods, however unequal, are
equally distant from the infinite. In this sense the
angel and the grain of sand, in comparison with God's
supreme good, are equally low.
The depth of our will, considered from the viewpoint
of the object which can fill it, is without limit.
Why does it come that a particular truth (not a
good), for example, the existence of Marseilles or
Messina, necessitates our intellect, whereas only
God, the universal good, seen face to face, can
necessitate our will? St. Thomas replies: "Our
intelligence is necessitated by an object which is
true from every
point of view, but it is not necessitated by an
object which can be true or false, which is only
probable, as, for example, the existence of a distant
town which may have meanwhile been destroyed by
anearthquake. Our will, similarly, is not
necessitated except by an object which is good from
all viewpoints. Such an object is our own happiness,
the source of all our acts. Such an object is, above
all, God seen face to face. Here below we can cease
to think on His goodness,
whereas those who see God face to face cannot cease
to see Him, and can never find the least pretense for
suspending their action of love." [14]
This doctrine explains several problems which are
very difficult, in particular that of the liberty of
Christ. For three reasons Christ here on earth was
impeccable: His divine personality, the beatific
vision, His
plenitude of grace. Consequently He could not
disobey. But, if so, how could He obey freely? Free
obedience is a condition of merit. In particular, how
could He freely obey the precept of dying for us on
the cross, the precept which He Himself [15] spoke of
when He said, "I lay (My life) down of Myself....
This commandment have I received of My Father."
The reply of St. Thomas runs thus: Christ, although
He was incapable of disobedience, since He was
absolutely impeccable, could still feel that
attractiveness of non-obedience. To illustrate: a
good religious who receives an order that is very
severe does not even have the thought of disobeying.
But he does have the consciousness that he is
accomplishing freely this act, difficult as it may
be, and that even while he does the act he has the
power of not doing it. Disobedience is a privation,
non-obedience is a negation.
How then did freedom remain in the presence of death
on the cross? This death was an object, good under
one aspect, namely, for our salvation, and frightful
under the other. Hence this object could not attract
the human will of Christ irresistibly, as would the
view of the divine essence seen immediately. On the
other hand the precept, since it demands free and
meritorious obedience, could not destroy the liberty
of the will, since it would thus destroy itself.
Certainly we are here in the presence of a great
mystery, a chiaroscuro of the most amazing kind. The
solution lies in the universal amplitude of the will,
created in such fashion that God alone seen face to
face can fill its capacity, and consequently free in
the presence of any good mingled with non-good.
What we have now said of the free will shows that
each soul is a universe, unum versus alia omnia
because each soul is opened by reason of its
intelligence to universal truth, and by its will to
universal good. Each soul therefore is a spiritual
universe which gravitates toward God, the sovereign
good.
But each of these spiritual universes, since each has
free will, can deviate from its orb, can leave the
straight road, can take the road to perdition.
Further, each of our deliberate acts must be
performed for an end, hence each must be directed,
either toward moral good or toward evil. In
illustration, take a watershed, where each drop falls
either to the right or to the left. In Switzerland,
for example, on St. Gotthard, one drop goes to the
Rhine and on to the foggy seas of the
north, the other goes to the Rhone and on to the
shining shores of the Mediterranean.
Similarly, in the spiritual order, each of our
deliberate acts should be done for a good end and
thus be directed virtually to God. If not, it is
wicked and takes the opposite direction. Even the act
of walking. in itself an indifferent thing, if it is
done for a good end, say for proper recreation, is a
good act, whereas, by a bad intention, it becomes a
bad act. [16]
This is a serious consideration, but it is also very
consoling, because in the just man each deliberate
act is good and meritorious. It goes toward God and
brings us near Him.
We see from this point of view that it is never by
chance that two immortal souls meet, be it that they
are each in the state of grace or that one only has
the divine life and can by its prayers, its attitude,
its
example, bring back the other to the right road which
leads to eternity. It was not by chance that Joseph
was sold by his brethren to the Ismaelite merchants.
God had determined from all eternity that these
merchants would pass at such and such an hour, not
earlier, not
later. It was not by chance that Jesus met Magdalen
or Zacheus, or that the centurion found himself on
Calvary.
This depth of the human will illumines, as we shall
see, the teaching of divine revelation on the subject
of heaven, purgatory, and hell. The just man, were he
to live on the earth fifty thousand years, could
still,
before dying, say to God: "Father, Thy kingdom come.
Let Thy will be found ever more profoundly in the
depth of my will. Let Thy infused charity be rooted
in my will ever more deeply." May it please God to
grant us experience of the profound depths of our
soul which He alone can fill. |
