Folia Theologica 18. (2007)
Zoltán Turgonyi: Compatibilism and Concursus Divinus - A (Hopefully) Possible Approach to the Problem of Freedom
352 Z. TURGONYI cation), which are not deserved by him. So, according to them, these morally relevant properties are in the last analysis external to him in the same sense as his birth in a rich and cultivated or poor and illiterate family, his stature, his genetically determined mental capacities and so on; thus if we regard him as subject of merits and sins because of his moral properties and we praise or reprove, reward or punish him, it is the same kind of injustice as if we accuse him of having a weak stature, of lacking in money, of being the child of an illiterate family who in his childhood had no occasion to get an erudition etc. Thus, they think, it is arbitrary if we say that somebody cannot be held responsible for his social or cultural background or even for his genetically given intellectual capacities, but at the same time we attribute him merits and demerits on the basis of his moral character. I think that this distinction between two sets of factors from the point of view of deserving is not arbitrary. Perhaps we can regard each of our traits in the last analysis equally as product of external factors, if we put into brackets our own endeavours and values; but during our real activity we also accept this distinction. When somebody decides upon a crime, e. g. upon a bank robbery, he can have a negative attitude to some of the given conditions influencing the realization of his plan: he can be dissatisfied with his insufficient physical strength, with his absent-mindedness, like with defectiveness of his artificial instruments, e. g. his revolver. He can even hate these properties and he can say: he wishes they did not exist. But he thinks this way just because these properties are impediments in realization of his will. He identifies himself with this latter; this will is him at that moment. It is the resultant of the power relations of his stable preferences and momentary passions. If he rejected this at the same time, e. g. by saying this absurdity: 'Oh, how I want not to want to commit this bank robbery!', then this rejection would be his actual will, so this would be him, this would be the momentary resultant of the factors constituting his self (if this sentence were true), but in this case he really would not want to commit bank robbery, so the whole problem would disappear. Thus the purpose is determined by his system of preferences and the momentary factors influencing it (passions, self-control etc.); these preferences and other factors constitute, strictly speaking, our self, from which
