Folia Theologica 18. (2007)

Zoltán Turgonyi: Compatibilism and Concursus Divinus - A (Hopefully) Possible Approach to the Problem of Freedom

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Z. TURGONYI

In the first case it is just as determined as the other preference system which favours A, and its final decision would be also a necessary outcome of the power relations of its own preferences etc. But then there is no reason to think that this additional factor is freer (in the sense favoured by incompatibilists) than my first preference system overwritten by it; it would be nothing but an ontologically superfluous reduplication of my 'first' system of preferences.

In the second case it would be a completely random factor, deciding blindly, without any information about the world; its decisions would be made with no regard to my values, norms, goals etc., and all the process of my moral education, the shaping of my character, the development of my virtues etc. would be completely useless, since the preference system in which they result couldn't prevail, because the final decisions would depend on a factor that is outside of it (like in the case of the exemple of smoking, mentioned above).

(A third case and a fourth one, here, in point 3, would be that this additional - either determined or random - factor has no system of preferences, instead it is itself a preference, being alone, without a network of other preferences. But this is really only a sub-case of either the first case or the second one, since such a preference can be said to be a minimal preference system, a set with one element only.)

Moreover, we could ask in both cases: 'Why am I identical rather with this additional factor than with my (»first«) preference system? After all, it is me who feels the preferences of this latter! These are minél Why must I think that this mysterious final preference, causally independent of my character, is a more authentic expression of my self than my whole preference system shaped by my own activity?'

Thus, I think, we have no reason to find our free will in this additional factor. Instead, it can be identified with the electing process itself, with the inner activity made by our own preference system. Then we can say that the will is rather 'process-like' than 'thing-like', but by this it will not be a less real factor: it really makes the pondering of preferences, the comparison of motives, the evaluation of external possibilities in the light of my points of view etc.