Folia Theologica 18. (2007)
Zoltán Turgonyi: Compatibilism and Concursus Divinus - A (Hopefully) Possible Approach to the Problem of Freedom
348 Z. TURGONYI cision which, then, can be named 'freedom of will'. The real question is the following: can we find such freedom, on the base of which we can speak in a reasonable way about morals, responsibility, merit, sin etc.? In these examples we can hardly find it! How could we hold somebody responsible for something resulting not from him, not desired by him?3 If we take the expression liberum arbitrium literally, we see that here we are looking for free decision, free deliberation, or even - when we consider also the other meanings of 'arbitrium' - for free domination, free power. The freedom in question must be something in the possession of which I am master of my acts, I am capable to decide, to deliberate, and then I can turn my decision - born in me and expressing my self - into an act. If it were not so, I could not take the responsibility of my acts, I could not promise etc., because I could never preclude the possibility of some unexpected and inexplicable mental event in me upseting my plans. Thus, even if such a freedom of will based on undeterminedness were named freedom because of the impossibility of deducing its direction from antecedents without hiatus, it would be in reality an enemy of morals, and it would make our acts unforseeable and capricious even for ourselves. We stand to lose nothing if once we have to acknowledge that it is impossible to find that kind of freedom (and this impossibility is even a gain for morals). Anyway, probably there is no freedom taken in this sense, existing practically as the caprice of fate. Thus, is there nothing else left but the adoption of compatibilism? But - according to general belief - do we not face here even greater difficulties? If my decision results completely from the complex formed partly of my virtues, passions, partly of external circumstances, and all these factors are also causally determined, where can my role be found? Can we speak of merit in any sense? Am I free, if in reality the antecedents have already decided what I should do? Since we are speaking about freedom from necessity (libertas a necessitate), we have to examine what is meant by necessity, by determinedness. Its interpretation can make some form of freedom 3 Cf. D. HUME, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book II., Part III., Sections 1. and 2.
