THE EXISTENTIAL COMPONENT OF AQUINAS’ CONCEPT OF FREEDOM

Writing a paper on Natural Moral Law, we could not but also tackle an
important philosopher/theologian in the Natural Moral Law tradition, St. Thomas
Aquinas. In the discussion of freedom, many of the critics of the traditional natural
moral law theory would argue that the latter ignores the issue of the authenticity of a
human person’s choice.
The intention of this paper then is to argue for the existential component of the
natural law tradition. The term “existential” should be taken to mean that natural law
theory is not only about concepts but it is also about the actual daily human existence. It
is not separated from life, as its critics would suppose, but it is rather relevant to
experience.

1. Man as Imago Dei

Who is man for St. Thomas Aquinas? Aquinas goes beyond the Aristotelian
hylemorphism. For Aquinas, that which characterizes the rest of creation, and that which
separates God from all creation is the distinction of essence and existence, for all
creatures are composites and only God is simple. In this respect, man is among the rest
of creation. But Aquinas believes that man has something which makes him unique from
the rest of creation. As a Christian, Aquinas can never doubt the special dignity of man.
He believes that man is an imago Dei, the being that bears the image and the likeness of
God. The Divine image is seen in man’s rational soul.
The human person’s rationality likens him/her to the Divine, and that
constitutes his/her special character. It can be noted that Aquinas, though taking his
clue from the hylemorphism of Aristotle, modifies it and says that there is one unique
rational soul in man, which also serves as the form of the human person. Hence, even if a
human person is a material being (bodily), it is also a spiritual being by virtue of its soul.
Furthermore, the soul is also immortal. Hence, even with the absence of the
material body, the soul continues to exist. After the separation of body and soul, the
composition of the soul would be form and existence. Hence, Gilson is forced to argue
that though, “the human soul is the lowest degree of intelligent creatures,”1 man still
“belongs to the series of immaterial beings through his soul.”2
Aquinas’ doctrine about man as the image of God would separate the human
person from the rest of God’s creation. It is quite explicit in Aquinas that because of
man’s rationality, man mirrors God in a more perfect way that the rest of creation. In
fact, the human person can be interiorly united with the Divine. Fr. Aureada says that
“since man is the visible creature closest to the Divine Governor, man as the imago Dei, is

1
Etienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), p. 376.
2
Ibid.

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the most gifted or favored of all visible creatures. It is to man’s alone that God wants to
be united in the most intimate and interior manner.”3

Fr. Aureada analyzes the Thomistic concept of Divine image and says that there are
many facets of the image of God in man: the vestigium Dei, imago naturalis Dei, imago
supernaturalis Dei, and the image by likeness of glory.4 Based on this analysis, it can be
seen that man’s oneness with the rest of creation is still maintained but only on the first
type of presence in creation that is, as vestigium Dei. This is based on the causal theory
whereby every effect necessarily must have a cause. Since the cause produces an effect
that somehow resembles to itself, then God, in producing an effect through the bestowal
of the thing’s esse in creation, has also produced effects that bear his image in them.
Aquinas himself says, “thus, every creature is an image of the exemplar type thereof in
the Divine mind.”5
But other than the vestigial image, man has the imago naturalis Dei. This kind of
image of God that is present in man makes man a spcial creature in the midst of
creation. The imago naturalis Dei is “accorded only to rational or intellectual nature.”6
This then supports our earlier claim that the rationality of man, as resultant faculty of his
rational soul, makes man as a special being in the realm of creation. Since man is
rational, man is capable od receiving the imago naturalis Dei, which, as St. Thomas would
argue, is not present among non-intellectual beings.
In addition to this imago naturalis Dei there is another kind of image in man, the
imago supernaturalis Dei. Fr. Aureada said that this is an “effect of sanctifying grace in
man.”7 But what is important with this is the fact that man is believed to be
“supernaturally capable of knowing and loving God imperfectly by the theological
virtues of faith and love, and perfectly once he comes face to face with him in the Beatific
Vision.”8 This then clearly separates man from the rest of creation.
Man’s intelligence gives him the sense of responsibility, which cannot be
expected of non-intelligent beings. A non-inntelligent being is not accountable for their
ends. But, a human person however can pursue his own end. In fact, Aquinas believes
that it is part of the definition of man’s nature to appropriate himself according to his
own mode of following the Divine.
Man is a capax Dei because as a rational creature, “he can know and love God
himself explicitly.”9 Fr. Aureada even says, “there is in man’s esse natura itself... an
obediential potency, a potency to image the divine according to its divinity.”10 He
further adds that, “this requires sanctifying grace but the openness to sanctifying grace

3
Rev. Fr. Jose Aureada, “The Concept of Grace in St. Thomas Aquinas: (II) The Nature
of Theological Participation,” Philippiniana Sacra, vol. 29, no. 87 (1997), p. 421.
4
Cf. Ibid., 429-436.
5
ST I, q. 93, a2, ad 4.
6
Aureada, p.430.
7
Aureada, p.433.
8
Aureada, p.432.
9
Aureada, p.432.
10
Aureada, p.432.

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is present in man’s very nature.”11 This obediential potency then does not just account
greater perfection in man, but it also defines his responsibility. For man to be true to his
nature, he must endeavor to incarnate and imitate God in his life.

2. Freedom and Aquinas’s Teaching on Voluntary choice

After seeing that Aquinas believes in man’s capacity to perfect himself because only
man is capax Dei, thereby allowing man to utilize his intellect and pursue such godly
ends, it remains to be a concern of this paper to prove that such notion of freedom
indeed exhibits an existential character.
First, Thomas Aquinas also believes that man is a moral being, and it is part of
the constitution of man to experience and manifest his own expressions of freedom.
Eleanore Stump realizes that contemporary pilosophical reflections on the freedom of
man follows a tradition that is non-Thomistic, whereby freedom is perceived to be a
property of only one component of man, and that is, his will. In contrast, Stump argues,
“for Aquinas, freedom with regard to willing is a property primarily of a human being,
not of some particular component of a human being.”12
In saying that freedom is a component of the entire human person, Aquinas has
clearly stated the mutual role of the intellect and the will in constituting a choice.Stump
again argues that Aquinas “takes the will to be not a neutral faculty but a bent
inclination.”13 For as St. Thomas says, “the will is a hunger, an appetite for goodness.” 14
But that which presents a thing to be good to the will is the intellect. This means then
that the intellect is also a factor that makes a person a moral and free being because the
intellect can also influence the choice of a person. “The intellect presents to the will as
good certain things or actions under certain descriptions in particular circumstances,
and the will wills them because it is an appetite for the good and they are presented to it
as good.”15

In addition to the intellect, there is another element that can influence the
freedom and the choice of the person, and these are the passions. “The passions –
sorrow, fury, fear, greed, etc. – can also influence the intellect, bcause in the grip of such
passion, something will seem good to a person which might not seem good to her
otherwise.”16 Hence, if there is a decision or choice that is about to be taken, that which is
involved in that choice is the entirety of the human person, and not just simply the
human will.
But the uniqueness of Aquinas’ argument does not stop with this. Aquinas has
even made further distinction between “freedom of action and freedom of willing.” 17

11
Aureada, p.432.
12
Eleanore Stump, “Aquinas’ Account of Freedom,” in Thomas Aquinas:
Contemporary Philosophical Perspective, Brian Davies, ed. (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2002), p.275.
13
Stump, p.276.
14
ST I, q.82, a.1.
15
Stump, p.276
16
ST I-II, q.9, a.2; cf. Stump, p.278.
17
Stump, p.281.

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This suggests that freedom is not only a decision but also a capacity. Hence, what are at
play in our expression of freedom are not only the human faculties that are involved in
the process of decision making, but also the capacity of the human person to carry out
the thing that has been decided upon. This is what Aquinas means when he says, “even
when the will itself is not compelled or coerced in any way, the members of the body
can be impeded by some external cause so that they don’t follow the command of the
will.”18 If this happens, then there is already an impediment of freedom.
Hence, Aquinas forwards the concept of voluntariness. Aquinas would claim
that freedom and knowledge are necessary conditions for the voluntariness of one man’s
action. For one to become really free, his acts should be voluntary. Aquinas himself says
that “whatever so acts or is moved by an intrinsic principle, that it has some knowledge
of the end, has within itself the principle of its acts.”19 Voluntariness then flows from an
inner principle which causes the agent to act. Aquinas adds further, “that they act for an
end, the movements of such things are said to be voluntary: for the word voluntary
implies that their movements and acts are from their own inclination.”20 Voluntariness
then suggests the interiority of one’s action. A voluntary act is an act that is fully mine.
Voluntariness further constitutes the accountability of the act. Hence, man’s
actions are judged by the degree of his voluntariness in doing them. But, voluntariness is
also considered to be a “special case of being moved by an intrinsic principle.”21 This is
intrinsic because it requires the act of the intellect and the will. Hence, we could say that
the more mature a person is, the more voluntary his actions become. If voluntariness is
an interior act, then Aquinas was convinved that “anything external to the agent who
acted coercively on the agent’s will would thereby destroy voluntariness.” 22 Aquinas
was emphatic on this and says, “So, while extrinsic principles may influence human
volition, as for example, we sometimes do when we persuade one another by
arguments, causes external to the agent cannot effect a voluntary act of will on that
agent’s part, either directly or indirectly.”23 This is the reason why Aquinas would even
say that physical violence could not penetrate the inner domain of the person. In
discussing the possible influence of violence over the free will of a person, Aquinas
himself says, “as regards the commanded acts of the will, then, the will can suffer
violence, in so far as violence can prevent the exterior members from executing the will’s
command but as to the will’s own proper act, violence cannot be done to the will.”24 The
person’s will can remain intact despite the exercise of violence on a person. Aquinas
further says, “it is contrary to the nature of the will’s own act that it should be subject to
compulsion and violence... a man may be dragged by force, but it is contrary to the very
notion of violence, that he be dragged by his own will.”25

18
ST I-II, q.6, a.4l cf. Stump, 281.
19
ST I-II, q.5, a.1., resp.
20
ST I-II, q.5, a.1., resp.
21
ST I-II, q.6, a.1; cf. Stump, 283.
22
Stump, p.283
23
Stump, p.284
24
ST I-II, q.6, a.4
25
ST I-II, q.6, a.4

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 3. Vocation as an expression of freedom
Man’s expression of shaping and creating his own life is best illustrated in Aquinas’
notion of vocation. Aquinas teaches that man exits from and will return to God. A.I.
Mennesier quotes from the 4th text of Aquinas’ Compendium of Theology which describes
man’s journey as a “return to God of the creature who has emanated from Him and who
must cover the whole distance from the created to the uncreated.” 26 Further, Mennesier
describes the Summa Theologiae of Aquinas in these words:

St. Thomas had to arrange altogether the factual datum of which the Bible
in its two Testaments bears witness: the history of man, his sin, his
freedom before the gratuitous initiatives of a God who establishes
personal relationships between His creature and Himself – and this
requirement of intelligibility which prompts the theologian of the
thirteenth century to inquire about the reasons of things, to endeavor to
discern under the contingency of history the permanent values which
creative Wisdom establishes. Emanation-Return: such will be the plan of
the Summa. Exitus-Reditus. Can the creature, issued from God, have a
destiny other than to rejoin its source?27

In addition to this paragraph, he would add, “Movement of return of the

creature toward a God who, having made man to His image, intends to consummate in
him, by the gift of his own blessed light, the appetite for happiness which moves the
whole universe.”28 This movement of return, as part of the exitus-reditus scheme,
suggests that man is by nature aware of his own pilgrimage in the world. Man has to go
back to the Father after his short sojourn into this earth. If this is the nature of man’s
pilgrimage, then it is important that man has to take charge of his own existence into the
world. Man has to become accountable of the things that he does. It is in this sense of
accountability that man becomes fully aware and vigilant of his own existence in the
world.
As a Christian thinker, Aquinas believes that man is answerable to God for the
things that he does and does not do in the world. If the existentialism of contemporary
thinkers argue for the precedence of existence over essence, there is in Aquinas the
thought of man’s responsibility over himself, which though proceeding only after his
essence as a child and image of God, is nevertheless equally compelling as a basis for
man’s vigilance and watchfulness over his authentic, that is, godllike existence.
In addition to this, a godly existence is made possible by Aquinas’ concept of the
imago naturalis Dei. We are in natural capacity to receive God in our life. This imago
naturalis Dei is manifested in our will and intellect. Hence, because of this image, we are
enhanced in our capacities for self-direction. Aquinas is quite explicit in his remark

26
Thomas Aquinas, Compendium of Theology, Text IV. Cf. A.I. Mennesier, Pattern of a
Christian According to St. Thomas Aquinas.(New York: Alba House, 1992), p.16.
27
A.I. Mennesier, p.15.
28
A.I. Mennesier,p.15-16.

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about the special character of man as an image of God. This image is seen in man’s
capacity to decide for himself. Hence, God’s image in man actually enhances man’s
accountability.
As stated previously, this is man’s vocation. Aquinas argues that there are two
things that could possibly affect the interiority of man’s freedom: these are happiness,
and oneness with God. Aquinas says that “as far as the specification of its (the human
will) act is concerned, there is no object other than happiness in this life and God in the
next, which by its nature necessarily moves every human will to want that.”29
There are two implications that can be derived from the above-statement. This
first implication is that, human volition is essentially free and freedom means the
absence of external influences, hence ations are products of man’s interiority so that man
could fully own his actions, that is, man has become accountable for the actions he has
taken. The second implication is equally obvious, and that is the fact that everyone is
oriented towards that which could fully satisfy us, that is, happiness in this world, and
the vision of God, the Beatific Vision, in the next.
However, we appropriate our own happiness to our own sort of existence. We
look for happienss in our own context and time. In other words, even if we are all
ordained to the same thing (Aristotle even claims that we all aim for happiness), such
will not be the same for all. Aquinas himself says, “as to the aspect of the last end, all
agree in desiring the last end, since all desire fulfillment where their end consists. But to
the thing in which this aspect is realized, all men are not as free as to their last end: since
some desire riches as their consummate good.”30
This pronouncement suggests that despite the fact that we all want to be
satisfied, we differ in our choices of satisfaction. Those that are vigilant to answer their
vocation to journey back to God can discern for the noble ends.
God wants to place us somewhere. We have a role to play somehow, someway in
this world, and it is only in heeding God’s call that we can fully find satisfaction. Hence,
for us to be happy, we need to discern our vocation so that we can also respond to it. It is
only in living out our vocation that we become satisfied.
Responding to one’s vocation is always a product of internalizing, of owning our
life. One cannot find his vocation unless he becomes aware and attuned to his own
existence. It is only in one’s sense of mineness that one can fully search and live out his
vocation. It has to be emphasized that one’s vocation is unique, and so it is very
personal.

Conclusion.
Freedom is always an existential issue. Some critics of the natural law tradition
would simply dismiss the latter as blind of true freedom. Nietzsche would name
Christianity as a big lie, a massive way of controlling the people. But arguing for a
personal quality of freedom allows us to see that Christian faith is truly liberating. The
sense of our faith may not really be in propositions but are rather in our personal
encounters with God in our day to day living.

29
ST I, q.82, a.2.
30
ST I-II, q.1, a.7, resp.

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