Error is Caused by our Lack of Will or Desire

Proposition 15: Error is not anything positive.

Proof: If error were something positive, it would have as its cause only God who continuously creates it (Prop. 12). But this is absurd (Prop. 1 3).

Therefore error is not anything positive. Q.E.D.

Scholium: Error is not anything positive in man. Therefore, it can be nothing else than the privation of the right use of freedom (Schol. Prop. 14).

Therefore, God is not the cause of error. It would be as to say that:

• the absence of the sun is the cause of darkness, or
• the cause of blindness is God denying sight while making a child

He is not the cause of error that gave us a limited intellect.

Error depends solely on the misuse of the will.

We possess 2 modes of thinking:

1. Modes of Perceiving (sensing, imagining, and pure understanding)
2. Modes of willing (desiring, misliking, affirming, denying, and doubting)

Note 1. The cannot be deceived in the things that it understands clearly and distinctly, and therefore assents to (Prop. 1 4).

I might perceive a winged horse.

• This perception is true as long as I assent that there is a winged horse.
• It is false if I do not assent to it.

To assent is nothing but to determine the will. It follows that error depends only on the use of the will.

Note 2. We have the power to assent to anything.

Our will has no limits.

If God had wished to make infinite our faculty of understanding, then he would not have given us the faculty of willing. The will that we already possess is enough for assenting to an infinite number of things.*

Experience tells us that we assent to many things that we have not deduced from sure first principles.

We would never fall into error (Prop. 1 4):

1. if the intellect extended as widely as the faculty of willing, or
2. if the faculty of willing could not extend more widely than the intellect
3. if we could restrict the fuculty of willing within the limits of the intellect

Possibilities 1 and 2 lie beyond our power.

They would involve that the will should not be infinite and the intellect created finite.

But can we restrict our faculty of willing within the limits of the intellect?

The will is free to determine itself. It follows that we have the power to restrict the faculty of assenting within the limits of the intellect.

Therefore, bringing intellect about that we do not fall into error.

Hence, our security against deception depends entirely on the use of the freedom of the will.

Our will is free is demonstrated in:

• Part 1 Art. 39 of the Principia
• The “Fourth Meditation”
• The last chapter of my Appendix.

Our necessary assent to a thing that we can perceive clearly and distinctly depends on the freedom and perfection of the will.

We all want the truth.

The will is never more perfect and more free than when it completely determines itself.

Because this can occur when the mind understands something clearly and distinctly, it will necessarily give itself this perfection at once (Ax. 3).

Therefore, we by no means understand ourselves to be less free because we are not at all indifferent in embraCing truth.

On the contrary, we take it as certain that the more indifferent we are, the less free we are.

How is error nothing but privation with respect to man, whereas with respect to God, it is mere negation.

Having perceptions makes us more perfect than if we had no perceptions.

Assenting to things, however confused, insofar as it is also a kind of action, is a perfection.

This is because it is contrary to man’s nature to perceive things clearly and distinctly.

This is why it is far better to assent to things, however confused, and to exercise his freedom, than to remain always indifferent, at the lowest grade of freedom.

This freedom is necessary to the needs and convenience of human life.

All the modes of thinking that we possess are perfect insofar as they are regarded in themselves alone.

Therefore, the form of error cannot be in them.

The modes of willing differ from each another.

• Some are more perfect than others.
• Some render the will less indifferent (i.e., more free) than others.

As long as we assent to confused things, we make our minds less apt to distinguish true from false. This deprives us of the highest freedom.

Therefore to assent to confused things, insofar as this is something positive, does not contain any imperfection or the form of error;

It does so only insofar as we thus deprive our own selves of the highest freedom that is within reach of our nature and is within our power.

So the imperfection of error will consist entirely merely in the privation of the highest freedom, a privation that is called error.

It is privation because we are deprived of a perfection that is compatible with our nature.

It is called error because it is our own fault that we lack this perfection, in that we fail to restrict the will within the limits of the intellect, as we are able to do.

With respect to man, error is the privation of the perfect or correct use of freedom. It follows that it does not lie in any faculty that he has from God.

God has not deprived us of the greater intellect that would have protected us from error.

For no thing’s nature can demand anything from God

nothing belongs to a thing except what the will of God has willed to bestow on it.

For nothing existed, or can even be conceived, prior to God’s will (as is fully explained in our Appendix Part 2 Chapters 7 and 8).

Therefore, God has not deprived us of a greater intellect any more than he has deprived a circle of the properties of a sphere.

None of our faculties can point to any imperfection in God.

It follows that the imperfection in which the form of error consists is privation only with respect to man.

When related to God as its cause, it can be called only a negation.