THE  HUMAN WILL OF OUR SAVIOR

Taken from Our Savior and His Love for Us
by
Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O. P.
 

"As the Father hath given Me commandment, so do I."-----John 14:31

NOW that we have spoken of the human intelligence and of the contemplation of Jesus, we must consider His human will and the eminent perfection of His liberty.

The Church has defined that Jesus has two wills, as He has two intelligences: a Divine and uncreated will, the property of His Divine nature, and a human will, the property of His human nature. [Cf. Third Council of Constantinople, against the Monothelites, definition of the two wills of Christ. (Denzinger, no. 289.)]

If our Savior did not indeed have a human will beneath His Divine will, He would not be truly a man, and He would not have been able to obey or to merit. For obedience and merit presuppose the submission of a will inferior to another that is more elevated.

The Mystery

The human will of Jesus possesses a very high perfection and a great mystery: His will was even here on earth impeccable, and yet it was perfectly free in obeying and in meriting.

Not only did Jesus never disobey His Father in actual fact, but He could not disobey Him. He was impeccable by reason of His Divine personality, by reason of the inamissible plentitude of grace and of the Beatific Vision which were His. For these three reasons He was absolutely impeccable. Yet He obeyed freely, with perfect liberty, which is not merely spontaneity but the absence of necessity in making a choice [libertas non solum a coactione, sed a necessitate].

 [Animals act spontaneously when they go toward food that they like, but they do not act freely. Their action is necessitated by instinct. In another, infinitely superior, order of things, God loves Himself spontaneously but necessarily, not freely. The blessed who see God love Him spontaneously, but necessarily, with a love superior to liberty, for they are infallibly ravished by Divine goodness immediately known as it is in itself. Cf. St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q.4, a.4 : "The will of him who sees the essence of God, of necessity loves whatever he loves, in subordination to God."

Merit, which no longer exists in Heaven, presupposes not only spontaneity but true liberty, the absence of necessity in making choices and in loving. That is why the Church has condemned the following Jansenist proposition: "Ad merendum et demerendum in statu naturae lapsae non requiritur in homine libertas a necessitate, sufficit libertas a coactione" (Denzinger, no. 1094). Psychological free will is not moral liberation from disorder either, for the former can exist without the latter and vice versa, as in the love that the blessed have for God whom they see face to face.]

How can obedience be free and meritorious when disobedience is not possible? This mystery is so great in the eyes of some theologians who have been unable to avoid contradiction, that they have claimed that Jesus had not received from His Father the commandment, the obligation to die for us. His Father, according to their reasoning, merely suggested or counseled this sacrifice, without requiring it of Him, and Jesus accepted it freely.

This manner of thinking, which is foreign to the doctrine of the great masters, has no foundation whatever in Scripture. On the contrary, Jesus in the Gospel speaks several times of the commandment He received from His Father, the commandment to die for us: "I lay down My life, that I may take it again. No man taketh it away from Me: but I lay it down of Myself, and 1 have power to lay it down: and I have power to take it up again. This commandment have I received of My Father."

[John 10:17 ff. In this text of St. John are affirmed both the commandment to die for us and, immediately preceding, the liberty with which Jesus accomplished this commandment. St. Augustine even says that by these words Jesus demonstrated that He gave His life because He willed to, when He willed to, and in the manner He willed. (De Trin., Bk. IV, chap. 13, no. 16.)]

Likewise, after the Last Supper and just before the Passion Jesus said again: "I will not now speak many things with you. For the prince of this world cometh, and in Me he hath not anything. But that the world may know, that I love the Father: and as the Father hath given Me commandment, so do I. Arise, let us go hence" [John 14:30 ff.]. When St. Paul told the Philippians [2:8] that "Christ Jesus . . . humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the Cross," he was speaking of this commandment and not of a mere counsel.

Besides, Jesus spoke of other Divine commands that constituted an obligation for His human liberty: "If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love; as I also have kept My Father's commandments, and do abide in His love." [John 15:10.]

How, then, are we to reconcile this free and meritorious obedience of Jesus with His absolute impeccability? This will always remain a mystery for us here on earth, but it appears impossible only to those who conceive of liberty after the manner of the world and not after the manner of Saints. Liberty, in the eyes of the world, is freedom to disobey as well as to obey, freedom to do evil as well as to do good. True liberty, according to the saints, is not freedom to disobey but only to obey, it is not freedom to do evil, but only freedom to do good. Now this liberty of goodness is supreme in Jesus.

Liberty in the eyes of the world is the power to choose between good and evil, between duty and selfish whims, between obedience and revolt. It is the power to say with Satan: "I will not obey." One might as well claim that reason is the faculty for knowing what is false as well as what is true.

If liberty is thus understood, clearly it is impossible to see how Jesus was free, He who never rebelled against Divine authority or the commandments of His Father, and who could not rebel against them.

But as reason is the faculty for knowing the true and not the false [although it can be put to bad use by incorrect thinking], so true liberty, according to God and the Saints, is the power to choose not between good and evil but between several goods whose attraction does not necessitate the will.

[Cf. St. Thomas,  Ia, q. 62, a. 8 ad 3: "Free will in its choice of means to an end is disposed just as the intellect is to conclusions. Now it is evident that it belongs to the power of the intellect to be able to proceed to different conclusions, according to given principles; but for it to proceed to some conclusion by passing out of the order of the principles, comes of its own defect. Hence, it belongs to the perfection of its liberty for the free will to be able to choose between opposite things, keeping the order of the  end in view; but it comes of the defect of liberty for it to choose anything by turning away from the order of the end; and this is to sin."]

 It is this free will that exists in God, in the sacred soul of our Savior, and among the blessed in Heaven. In order  to understand it, let us rise for a moment to the contemplation of God's impeccable liberty. We will then realize that the human liberty of Jesus is the purest image in the created order of God's own liberty.

God's Impeccable Liberty

It is clear that God is both sovereignly free and absolutely impeccable. He is in no sense free to sin, that is, to turn away from Himself, from His Divine goodness that He necessarily loves. Yet He enjoys sovereign liberty in the order of goodness, inasmuch as His Divine goodness leads Him to love the creatures which He can create or fail to create as He wills. It is with perfect liberty that He created us to manifest His goodness. This is the dogma of Divine liberty. [Cf. Lateran Council IV, ibid., no. 428.]

There is indeed a mystery in all this, but there is no contradiction: whereas it was truly fitting that God should create, yet He did so with perfect liberty, so that there would have been no disadvantage to Him had He not created. The theologians say with great exactness: "Creatio ita conveniens est ut non creatio non sit inconveniens." Contrary to Leibnitz' view, [Leibnitz erred on this point when he said that God would be neither good nor wise if He had not created.] God would not have been less good and less wise if He had not created, for as Boussuet says, "God is no greater for having created the universe."

Before creation, God was already infinite, so that after creation there is not any more being but only several beings, there is not more life but only many living beings. As St. Thomas says, "since the goodness of God is perfect, and can exist without other things inasmuch as no perfection can accrue to Him from them, it follows that His willing things apart from Himself is not absolutely necessary." [Cf. St. Thomas, Ia, q. 19, a. 3, c. and ad 5; Contra Gentes, Bk. 11 chaps. 76 and 83.]

Likewise God has freely raised Angels and men to the life of grace, and He could without any disadvantage to Himself not have so raised them. Furthermore, God has freely willed the Incarnation, and He might well not have willed it and have remitted sin in some other way.

So, too, God sows the Divine seed in men's souls in greater or less abundance, according to His good pleasure. "The Spirit breathes where He will." It is with perfect liberty, of course, that God has chosen one race of people rather than another which by its patriarchs and prophets would prepare the way for the mystery of Redemption. It is with perfect liberty that He chose within this people Mary rather than some other virgin to become the Mother of the Savior, and Joseph rather than any other just man to be the foster father of Jesus. It is with complete liberty also that God chose one century rather than another for the coming of the Messiah, just as He freely chose a given hour for the creation or beginning of the universe and another hour for the end of the world when the number of the elect will be complete.

This is the sovereign liberty which is admirably reconciled with absolute impeccability. God cannot turn away from Himself. He is absolutely impeccable, but He is perfectly free with regard to all created things. He does not have the liberty of evil, which is a form of our defectiveness, but He has the liberty of goodness in its absolute fullness.

Christ's Impeccable Liberty, the Perfect Image of God's Liberty

The sacred soul of our Savior enjoys now and enjoyed while on earth through grace a human liberty superior to that of the Angels. No created liberty ever was or ever will be more conformable to Divine liberty. Our Savior's human liberty was from the first moment the living image of God's liberty.

As we have just said, God is free, not to love His own Divine goodness, but to desire to manifest His goodness by creating us who had no right whatever to existence. And as God is infinitely good and wise from all eternity He did not become any better by freely creating the universe. Thus God enjoys both absolute impeccability and the sovereign liberty which can be exercised only in the order of goodness.

Now, Christ's human will is the pure image of the uncreated will, since it is the human will of the Word of God made flesh, superior to the Angels and to all the blessed in Heaven.

We must conclude, therefore, that Christ's human will is like God's, of which it is the image, at once absolutely impeccable and perfectly free, possessing a liberty which can be exercised only in the order of goodness.

Like God, the sacred soul of Christ while here on earth was free, not to love Divine goodness in itself, which He clearly saw in the light of the Beatific Vision, but to love the manifestation of Divine goodness in creatures. [St. Thomas says (Ia, q.19, a. 3) : "God wills His own goodness necessarily .  . . Hence, since the goodness of God is perfect, and can exist without other things inasmuch as no perfection can accrue to Him from them, it follows that His willing things apart from Himself is not absolutely necessary. Yet it can be necessary by supposition, for supposing," that He wills a thing, then He is unable not to will it, as His will cannot change."] Christ's sacred soul while here on earth loved God seen face to face with a love superior to liberty, just as God loves Himself necessarily; but Christ loved creatures freely, as finite manifestations of God's infinite goodness.

So it was that Jesus was free to call to the Apostolate His first twelve disciples rather than other Galilean fishermen. He was free to choose Peter rather than another of His Apostles to become His vicar, the head of His Church. He was free to call John to a friendship of predilection. He was free to convert Saul on the road to Damascus on a given day and at a given hour, and to make him or not to make him the Apostle of the Gentiles. He was free to choose among several goods within the order of goodness itself, but He was not free to will evil. His impeccable liberty could not deviate, just as His human intelligence, always enlightened by Divine light, could not err.

Can a Command Requiring a Free Act Destroy the Liberty of That Act?

A precept or commandment in the true sense certainly takes away the moral liberty to act otherwise, since it constitutes a moral obligation. For the contrary act is illicit and forbidden. But no commandment takes away the psychological liberty to act in conformity with its demands. On the contrary, a free act of obedience is required, and if the precept destroyed the psychological liberty of this act, it would destroy itself as a precept. For example, the commandment to love our neighbor makes the contrary act of hatred illicit or forbidden, but far from destroying the liberty of our act of love for our neighbor, it demands a free and meritorious act. [Thus man is not free to choose the religion that pleases him. He must choose the true religion, but he chooses it freely.]

Our Savior had during His life and still has an impeccable psychological liberty, the pure image of God, with regard to all goodness whose attraction did not necessitate His will. We must conclude, therefore, that this impeccable psychological liberty was not destroyed by the Divine command to die for us. Otherwise this precept which demanded a free act of love and obedience would have destroyed itself. [Jesus necessarily loved only God as seen face to face. This fact is necessarily and intrinsically connected with supreme beatitude. Thus the soul necessarily wishes to exist, to live, and to know, otherwise it would not see God. But Jesus freely chose the means that had only an accidental connection (by virtue of an extrinsic precept) with the final end, for example, Death on the Cross. This form of death, terrible in one of its aspects and salutary for us in another of its aspects, did not necessarily attract our Lord. The precept which demanded this death, did not change its horrible nature, and did not destroy the liberty of the free act that it required.Cf. St. Thomas, IlIa, q. 18, a. 4 ad 3: "The will of Christ, though determined to good, is not determined to this or that good. Hence it pertains to Christ, even as to the blessed, to choose with a free will confirmed in good." Cf. also IIIa, q. 15, a.l. See also among St. Thomas' Commentators, John of St. Thomas, the Carmelites of Salamanca, Gonet, Billuart, and others.]

Faced with the command to die for us, Jesus was free in the accomplishment of this inevitable duty. His freedom with respect to this duty was the freedom of goodness and not the freedom of evil. He could not disobey, but as St. Paul tells us, He freely obeyed "unto death, even to the Death of the Cross." He had given expression to this liberty Himself when He said: "I lay down My life . . . No man taketh it away from Me: but I lay it down of Myself . . . This commandment have I received of My Father." [John 10:18.]

Precisely wherein lies the liberty of this heroic obedience? In order to truly grasp it, we must consider two things. First, this Death on the Cross, under one aspect is terrible. Secondly, under another aspect it is eminently salutary for us, for the deliverance of souls. This death does not invincibly attract the human will of our Savior, as the goodness of His Father whom He sees face to face attracts Him. On the one hand, this horrible death is repugnant to Christ's sensibility and to every fiber of His human nature. On the other hand, it attracts our Savior as being the consummation of His mission. The commandment that is also related to it does not change the nature of this death, at once dreadful and salutary. Nor can this commandment destroy the liberty of the free act which it demands.

Under these conditions, what will be the deciding factor causing one or the other of these contrary aspects of a death at once horrible and attractive to prevail? The will of Jesus intervenes here freely, giving the preference to the good, to heroic sacrifice; but as this will is fundamentally righteous, it always intervenes in the correct manner. It intervenes freely because Death on the Cross is not in itself a good that invincibly attracts. Quite the contrary .Still, the human will of Jesus intervenes infallibly and impeccably because it is the will of the Word made flesh, because it is enlightened by the Beatific Vision, because it is full of grace and continually receives a very powerful and very gentle actual grace which, far from doing violence to liberty, actualizes it or puts it into action as is fitting.

Thus Jesus obeyed freely, although He could not have disobeyed. One catches a glimpse of this mystery when, for example, an act of painful obedience is required of a good religious. He obeys freely, without even thinking that he could, if he chose, disobey. He might be forbidden, for instance, to go to the bedside of a loved one who is dying, since the trip would be too long and another priest could just as well perform the last rites. This may be a most painful act of obedience required of him, but he accomplishes it freely. The idea does not even occur to him that he might disobey. As the virtue of obedience develops, it leads a soul further and further from the contrary act. It takes away the liberty of evil, but certainly not the liberty of goodness. In Jesus' soul this virtue, like the virtue of charity, is absolutely eminent and inamissible. [In this sense the Thomists say: That the good religious freely obeys a very hard command without even thinking for a moment that he might disobey this command. He feels that the order is hard in itself, but the idea does not even occur to him to go against the order he has received.]

In Heaven Jesus retains this liberty of goodness, even though He can no longer merit, since the hour for merit has passed. He has reached the end of His journey, He is no longer a wayfarer. Yet He retains the liberty of goodness, if not in the act of loving God seen face to face, at least in His love for creatures. The same is true of the Saints. St. Dominic in his Heavenly abode loves God Whom he clearly knows with a love superior to liberty, but it is freely that he prays for one or another of his sons to obtain certain graces for them. If this is true of each of the blessed in Heaven, it is much more true of our Savior. [The Thomists have wondered whether Christ while on earth freely accomplished the commandment to love God. They have divided into two main schools of thought on this point. Capreolus, Ferrariensis, Medina, and Soto declare that Christ's love of God, ruled by the Beatific Vision, was necessary, above liberty, but that in Him the act of love of God ruled by infused knowledge, comparable to the natural knowledge of the Angels, was free. These theologians hold that these were two distinct acts, as are the acts of knowledge from which they derived. Therefore, according to this view, it is probable that Jesus merited not only in loving creatures for God but in loving God Himself Whom He knew through infused knowledge, as distinct from the Beatific Vision. This solution does not exclude the following one, which appears to be more probable.

Alvarez, John of St. Thomas, the Salmanticenses, and Gonet think that Jesus' love of God, ruled by the Beatific Vision, is necessary, above liberty inasmuch as it related to Divine goodness in itself, and that this love was free inasmuch as it related to Divine goodness as a reason for loving creatures. They hold with St. Thomas: "Although God necessarily wills His own goodness, He does not necessarily will things willed on account of His goodness; for it can exist without other things" (Ia, q. 19, a. 3) .God necessarily loves His Divine goodness considered in itself; He freely wills the manifestation of His goodness. It is probable that the same thing applied to the sacred soul of Christ while He was still on earth. And the blessed in Heaven, although they necessarily love God whom they see face to face, yet freely pray for certain sinners still on earth in order to obtain graces for them.]

In addition, our Lord's sensibility while He was on earth was perfectly obedient to His infallible intelligence and to His impeccable will. His emotions or passions, such as melancholy, fear, sensible joy, never went beyond the bounds of moderation. These emotions never took precedence over reasoned judgment and the consent of the will, as happens with us, but always followed them. When Jesus became angry with the merchants in the Temple, it was because it was His considered judgment that He must manifest to them His holy anger, the zeal for the glory of God. And if He was "sorrowful even unto death" at Gethsemane, it was because He willed to know this overwhelming misery so that the holocaust might be complete. [Cf. St. Thomas, IIIa, q. 15, a. 4, 6, 9.]

What a great lesson there is for us in this doctrine of the impeccable liberty of Christ! It teaches us that true liberty consists in being able to choose the good, not evil, just as reason is the faculty of knowing the true, not the false, though it may at times go astray. When the Church has condemned some error such as Jansenism or Modernism, there have been persons who have said: "We must either submit or depart." On the contrary, there is absolutely one thing only to do: obey and not disobey.

This doctrine also teaches us that the more we love God, as our Lord and the Saints do, the freer we shall be with respect to all created goods to dominate the attraction of worldly goods and not to fear the threats of the impious. The Martyrs have demonstrated the power of Christian liberty, which endures all kinds of torture rather than be unfaithful to God, and which is more concerned with union to God than with union to the body.

E-MAIL


HOME----------CHRIST THE KING-----------GALLERIES

www.catholictradition.org/Easter/easter13b.htm