It has been noted by many prominent scholars of post-Reformation theology, such as Richard A. Muller and David S. Sytsma, that the Synod of Dort and Thomism were similar in their views on necessity and free choice, while the Jesuits, Socinians, and Remonstrants (the Dutch Arminians of the 17th century) were connected to each other and had similar sentiments concerning the same issue.
Part of the debate was how to define free choice and what properly was its subject. The basic two options were rational spontaneity (also called "rational willingness") or an absolute indifference. The former is the Reformed view, the latter is the Jesuit/Arminian view. In this article, I seek to outline what the question is, and explain why I embrace the Reformed view and reject the Jesuit view.
The Jesuits commonly define free will as "a free potency, by which someone can act or not act, act this or that, all things requisite for acting being posited." (Rodrigo de Arriaga and Francisco de Oviedo). These "requisites" would be things such as the divine decree and the practical judgment of the intellect. This position thus leads to the idea that the human will is independent of the divine will of God and also of the intellect.
It should be noted that we do not altogether reject the notion of indifference with respect to the will, only that it should be understood in a divided sense. In order to understand this, we should bear in mind the distinction between potency (the term "volition" might also be used here to express the same idea in terms of the will) and act. Prior to the practical judgment of the intellect, it is true that the will is indifferent, in that it has both freedom of contradiction and freedom of contrariety. The point at which we depart with the Arminians and Jesuits concerns the point in time when the will is actualized to choose a particular object. They thus view the will as indifferent not only in a divided sense (which we grant), but also in a compounded sense. However, this would mean that the will is completely independent of God's decree (which we vehemently reject) and that the will could act against the judgment of the intellect. As Richard Muller summarizes, "Once the will is operative, it cannot be indifferent." (Divine Will and Human Choice: Freedom, Contingency, and Necessity in Early Modern Reformed Thought [Baker Academic, Grand Rapids, MI: 2017], pg. 244).
“A human being has simultaneously a potency to opposites, not however a potency of simultaneity, with respect to opposite acts.” (Johannes Hoornbeeck, Socinianismus Confutatus, 2.3, cited in Muller, 244)
We reject the Jesuit definition for a number of reasons:
[1]. The Jesuits implicitly teach that the will is independent of God, which is expressly denied by Scripture, which says that God works in us "both to will and to work for His good pleasure." (Philippians 2:13)
[2]. Man is not the only being with free choice. God is freely good, and yet He is at the same time good by necessity. This shows that necessity and free will are not incompatible with each other. Who would attribute indifference to God?
[3]. The will must follow the practical judgment of the intellect, otherwise it would no longer be a rational appetite.
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