Folia Theologica 18. (2007)
Zoltán Turgonyi: Compatibilism and Concursus Divinus - A (Hopefully) Possible Approach to the Problem of Freedom
354 Z. TURGONYI features, and he identifies himself with the former, while the latter is often felt by him as a kind of external force. Thus even if both the former and the latter are determined, it is in the case of being punished or blamed for the effects of the latter that we feel we suffer an iniquity. It is in that case that we are really frustrated. Thus the self identifies himself with his preference system. This latter contains in concrete situations of decision both durable preferences (which are relatively fixed and subjected only to slow changes) and transitory ones, caused by momentary factors (fear, rage etc.). These latter sometimes prevail, but this means only that at that moment I really prefer to obey those passions, my actual state of mind, my actual preference system is a bad one. This fact, too, is the consequence of my durable preference system, since I obey the passions because of the weakness of some durable preference-making factors, namely of my virtues. (I. e. if I obey disturbing passions, it is the fault of durable traits of my character.) It is according to this (momentary) preference system that I select one of the given possibilities of acting. Furthermore I will use the expression 'preference system' always in the sense of momentary preference system. The selection from among the given possibilities of acting doesn't mean necessarily that we choose this or that external act. The self moulds his own character, too, by controlling his preferences, by tending to eliminate their contradictions, by deciding about the interiorization of external effects modifying the whole system of preferences etc. So my preferences can be changed, but these processes of changing are always made on the basis of other preferences of mine which are more fundamental than the ones which I want to change. And, of course, there are unconscious changes too. The genesis of my very first preferences (in chronological sense) is an unconscious process, since before them I have no preference, on the basis of which I could either accept or reject them. Later I can develop some control over the unconscious effects and influences, if my preference system prefers self-control to the absence of it. Incompatibilists favouring free will can perhaps say that real freedom is absent from this description, because thus man is under the pressure of the traits of his character and motives, he is not the
