The Will

34. The will and the understanding are required for judging.

The understanding is necessary for judging. We cannot judge of something that we do not apprehend.

The will also is required for us to assent to anything that we have perceived.

It is not necessary, however, at least to form any judgment whatever, that we have an entire and perfect apprehension of a thing.

We may assent to many things of which we have only a very obscure and confused knowledge.

35. The will is of greater extension than the understanding, and is thus the source of our errors.

The perception of the intellect extends only to the few things that are presented to it. It is always very limited.

The will, on the other hand, may be infinite because we observe nothing that can be the object of the will of any other, even of the unlimited will of God, to which ours cannot also extend, so that we easily carry it beyond the objects we clearly perceive. When we do this, it is not wonderful that we happen to be deceived.

36. Our errors cannot be imputed to God.

God has not given us an omniscient understanding. But he is not on this account to be considered in any wise the author of our errors, for it is of the nature of created intellect to be finite, and of finite intellect not to embrace all things.

37. The chief perfection of man is his being able to act freely or by will

This which renders him worthy of praise or blame.

The will should be the more extensive is in harmony with its nature. It is a high perfection in man to be able to act by means of it, that is, freely; and thus in a peculiar way to be the master of his own actions, and merit praise or blame.

Self-acting machines are not commended because they perform with exactness all the movements they were made for, seeing that their motions are carried on necessarily.

Their maker is praised because of the exactness with which they were framed, because he did not act of necessity, but freely.

On the same principle, we must attribute to ourselves something more on this account, that when we embrace truth, we do so not of necessity, but freely.

38. Error is a defect in our mode of acting, not in our nature.

The faults of their subjects may be frequently attributed to other masters, but never to God.

Errors are caused by some defect in our mode of action or in the use of our liberty. But it is not an error in our nature, because this is always the same, whether our judgments be true or false.

God could have given to us such perspicacity of intellect that we should never have erred. But we have no right to demand this of him.

for, although with us he who was able to prevent evil and did not is held guilty of it,

God has the power to prevent our errors. But this does not mean that he is responsible for our errors. This is because God’s dominion over the universe is perfectly absolute and free.

This is why we should thank him for the goods he has given us, and not complain that he has not blessed us with what we want.

39. Free will is obvious.

Our free will can give or withhold its assent. This truth is among the first and most common notions which are born with us.

This has already very clearly appeared, for

When I wrote to doubt of all things, I even thought that our creator used his limitless power to deceive us in every way.

Nevertheless, we were conscious of:

• being free to not believe the uncertain.
• being unable to doubt whatever is self-evident and clear

40. God has fore-ordained all things.

God’s power is so immense that we would sin in thinking ourselves capable of ever doing anything which he had not ordained beforehand.

We would be embarrassed in great difficulties if we tried to:

• harmonise the pre-ordination of God with the freedom of our will, and
• comprehend both truths at once.

41. How can our free will be reconciled with the Divine pre-ordination?

We will be free from these embarrassments if we remember that our mind is limited, while the power of God is infinite.

Thus, we have intelligence to know clearly and distinctly that this power is in God.

But we do not have enough intelligence to comprehend how he leaves the free actions of men indeterminate.

We know of the liberty and indifference which exists in ourselves [so that the omnipotence of God should not keep us from believing it].

It would be absurd to doubt things which we are fully conscious of, and which we experience as existing in ourselves just because we do not comprehend another matter which is incomprehensible from its very nature.

42. We never will to err, yet we err by our will.

All our errors are caused by our will. No one wishes to deceive himself. So why are there errors in our judgments at all?

There is a great difference between willing to be deceived, and willing to yield assent to wrong opinions.

No one wants to fall into error. Yet everyone is ready to assent to wrong things.

Frequently, the desire itself of following after truth leads the ignorant to make wrong judgements on things that they do not fully know.

53. We shall never err if we give our assent only to what we clearly and distinctly perceive.

We will never admit falsity for truth, so long as we judge only of that which we clearly and distinctly perceive. This is because God is no deceiver.

This is why the following cannot be fallacious:

• the faculty of knowledge which he has given us
• the faculty of will, when we do not extend it beyond the objects we clearly know.

This truth could not be established by reasoning.

Yet all minds have been so impressed by nature as spontaneously to assent to whatever is clearly perceived, and to experience an impossibility to doubt of its truth.

54. We uniformly judge improperly when we assent to what we do not clearly perceive, although our judgment may chance to be true

Our memory frequently deceives us by leading us to believe that certain things were formerly sufficiently understood by us.

When we approve of any reason which we do not apprehend, we are either deceived, or, if we stumble on the truth, it is only by chance, and thus we can never possess the assurance that we are not in error.

It seldom happens that we judge of a thing when we have observed we do not apprehend it, because it is a dictate of the natural light never to judge of what we do not know.

But we most frequently err in this, that we presume upon a past knowledge of much to which we give our assent, as to something treasured up in the memory, and perfectly known to us; whereas, in truth, we have no such knowledge.