Page 139 - RIVISTA NOIQUI GIUGNO 2021

EDITORIAL

possibility to determine oneself to opposed actions,
while in Occam, a contemporary theologian, the ar-
bitrary nature of choice is accentuated; indifference
to any kind of motivation...

Hence there arose the identification of the arbitrary
with the arbitrary of indifference (lat. arbitrium in-
differentiae), precisely with the state of mind of
those who, facing the need for a voluntary decision,
do not lean towards one rather than the other alter-
native; extreme formula of the freedom of will, conceived as absolute indepen-
dence from any passionate and rational motive, and therefore as pure will...

From such identification of the will, with the arbitrium indifferentiae, derives
the impossibility of the same volition in the case of the complete equivalence
of the determining reasons.
The truth is that if one goes to a place of worship, cannot decide to belong -
listen half or only a part of what is being preached-exposed there. It would be
like reflecting on a mirror a truth deviated by one's need, to be clearer: one can-
not remain indifferent to the death of a blood relative, even if they had stained
themselves with grave sins towards us...

In the theological context, it is basically the expression there used that indicates
the freedom of the human will, which arises first on the terrain of theological
speculation in connection with the matters of grace, predestination and the
origin of evil.
In contraposition to the Thomistic intellectualism, a voluntaristic conception
develops instead, which tends to rediscover the freedom of the will itself in the
total independence of the will rather than in the reasons of acting...

The reasons for predestination and grace will subsequently constitute, still in
the field of Augustinian doctrines, the essential problematic core of Jansenism,
where is basically being asserted that after the original sin, the human being is
no longer able to operate with his own strength, nor has the possibility to di-
scern and apply the rule of free will.
In fact, whatever the way we put it, even atheism, a revolutionary word to what
has been written up to now, is subordinate to the rules of a supreme governer
of souls.

translated by Mihaela Melnic

Luciano Zampini

139

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