The Predominance of the Intellect

The following is a reflection upon the Thomistic understanding of the predominance of the intellect in its relation to the will of man as it is described in Eleonore Stump’s article "Aquinas's account of freedom: Intellect and will." The final section which applies this principle to the deception of Eve is my own reflection which may change the more I dive into the question.

What is the precise relationship between the intellect and the will of man? Unlike the Voluntaristic notion that the will is completely autonomous as it relates to the intellect, the Thomistic perspective gives the place of predominance to the role of the intellect. As we will see every act of the will is preceded by an act of the intellect, but not every act of the intellect is preceded by the will, but only in those cases where will follows the intellect in its apprehending of that act as the greater good.

The will is considered a rational appetite, and this rationality can be understood, for example, as relating a means to an end. When the intellect is presented with multiple options, it will apprehend one means as the most desirous method for achieving a particular end and so will follows the determination of the intellect. Therefore, the will has an inclination towards the good but it requires the intellect to perceive or apprehend the good. We will what we will because we perceive or apprehend that choice to be the best option to achieve the desired end over all other options in that moment. Because the will makes no determinations of its own the intellect can then be said to move the will as the final cause. It can not be said to do so efficiently since one could will for the intellect to re-evaluate its determination of goodness, but then that act of the will would also be apprehended by the intellect to be the greater good over settling for the previous determination.

Why then do we to choose to sin in one instance but yet restrain ourselves in another if we apprehended the resistance of temptation as the greater good in those instances where we restrained ourselves? We certainly do not forget everything we learned about our previous battles against concupiscence but our intellect either did not take them into consideration through forgetfulness or some other factor that hindered those goods to be presented to our intellect. For instance. the will can also decide what it presents to the intellect for consideration such as the case where one attends to one thing to the neglect of others. Though likewise, one wills to do this precisely because the intellect perceives it is as a greater good than to not. The case of double-mindedness is owed to the fact that the intellect is perceiving one to be a greater good over the other in that particular instance given what is presented to it. If we are finding ourselves tempted, and therefore drawn to a particular perceived good, we have to understand that in that moment our intellect is not being presented counter-offers, or at least any offers that are being perceived or apprehended as a greater good. What we are perceiving or apprehending as good is in that particular circumstance, with a certain set of factors, and under certain descriptions.

One of the reasons why we might bring to mind the promises of God in Scripture is to keep presenting our intellect with the good of virtue as opposed to the lesser goods we are attempting to obtain in that moment. Temptation can be defined as that moment when the intellect is presented the lesser goods to the exclusion of the greater goods. Take the scene with Eve and the serpent into consideration: “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate…” (Gen 3:6a) It was on this basis that she chose, for she perceived it a greater good in that moment to obtain these lesser goods without serious regard for the consequences. To perceive or apprehend a good greater than it actually is, or to apprehend a lesser good as if it were greater is why sin occurs, it is why one turns from the Creator who is all good and deserving of all our love and turns towards the created which is good in and of itself.

I find this scene with Eve and the serpent to be very interesting. We have already established that Eve choose to sin because of what she perceived and apprehended in that moment as the greater good. And since her will did not choose to re-evaluation this determination then we can conclude that she did not apprehend such a re-evaluation to be the greater good, if the possibility was even considered at all. Likewise, she had apprehended it as a greater good to neglect other things that she could present to the intellect. So the question is raised whether she could have done otherwise. Can we conclude from this perspective that the presentation from the serpent was so impressionable, that it so impacted the intellect, so overwhelmed the senses, that no other alternative could be perceived as a greater good in that moment? It was said that the serpent deceived Eve and perhaps no doubt involved passions that also impacted the intellect, such as fear, anger, etc.

First, we know that she was free in her act because both her will and intellect were fully engaged and so can be said to be moved by an intrinsic principle. Second, God could have given Eve a stronger impression. As I have mentioned elsewhere: “It is God who determines these first perceptions of men, either by the prepared providential action of exterior causes, or interiorly by a Divine illumination given to the soul.” In this scene God allows the exterior factor to present itself to Eve’s intellect, and does not appear to give an interior divine illumination.

In other words, the will follows what the intellect determines as the greater good; the intellect, whether moved by will or not, makes determinations based upon what is presented to it in that moment; and those things which are presented to the intellect, whether moved by will or not, regards external factors that are not under our direct control. The conclusion that we could draw from this is that God could have given that grace in the midst of her deception from the serpent but yet withheld this grace knowing that it would not proceed in any other manner without His assistance.