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Mad Philosopher
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Okay, sorry if this is long and/or boring.
Scotus's theory of the will suggests that the will has two 'affections', the affection for justice and the affection for advantage, and it is the interplay between these two inclinations that allow a will to be free. The affection for justice is the inclination for the good in itself and the affection for advantage is the inclination for what is good for a given entity. So this is what he writes regarding the fall of the devil:
Quote:
the first inordinate act can never be one of dislike, since it is only in virtue of something liked or loved that an act of dislike is possible. And if the love is orderly as to its object and all the circustances, then the dislike that is a consequence of such a love would also be in order. For if that for shich I desire some good is loved ordinately, then the will whereby I desire something for the one I wish well will also be in order.
It follows, then, that [Lucifer's] very first inordinate act of will was the first benevolent love he had towards one to whom he wished well. But this object was not God, for God could not have been loved inordinately. [...] God is so lovable solely by reason of the object he is, that he renders the most intensive act of love completely good. Neither is it likely that something other than oneself could have been loved too much by an act of friendship-love, first because a natural inclination tends more towards self than towards any other creature [...].
The first source from which the city of the devil stems, then, i sinordinate friendship-love, which root germinates until it yields contempt of God, in which malice reaches its peak. It is clear, then, that the initial disoder in an unqualified sense consists in that inordinate love that was simply first. What remains to be seen is what the initial disorder was in regard to the love called desire. And here it seems we have to say that [Lucifer] first coveted happiness immoderately. The proofs are these:
First, the initial inordinate desire did not proceed from an affection for justice, as no sin proceeds from such. Hence, it must have come from an affection for the advantageous, because every act elicited by te will stems from an affection either for justice or for the advantageous, according to Anselm. And a will that fails to follow the rule of justice will seek most of all what is most advantagoues, and thus it will seek such first. [...]
Probably in one of these ways, then, the will of the angel went to excess: Either by wanting happiness as a good for him rather than loving it as a good in itself -- that is, wanting a good, like the beatific object, to belong exclusively to himself, rather than to be in another, such as in his God. [...] Or the angel could have failed in the second way, wanting at once what God wished him to have after a period of probation. Or it might have been in the third way, by wanting to possess happiness by natural means, rather than by earning it by grace, since God wished him to merit it.
His free will, then, should have moderated his desire in such ways as right reason had revealed to him. For happiness should have been wanted less for his sake than for the sake of God [etc.] [...]
As for the claim that it is impossible not to will the beneficial, I reply: The good neither were able, nor wished, to dislike having happiness, or to have no desire for it. But they did not want it more than they wanted God to have everything good; rather they wished for happiness less than they wished God well, for they could moderate this desire through their liberty. [...]
From Allan B. Wolter, Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality, 295-302.
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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."
"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
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