[3] But it is acknowledged in the church that man cannot of himself do good which is in itself good or of himself think truth which is in itself truth. This acknowledgment is at one with divine providence; these are interdependent beliefs. Lest therefore one be affirmed and the other denied and both fail, what divine providence is must by all means be revealed. It cannot be revealed unless the laws by which the Lord oversees and governs the volitions and thoughts of the human being are disclosed. The laws enable one to know the nature of providence, and only one who knows its nature can acknowledge providence, for then he beholds it. The laws of divine providence, hitherto hidden with angels in their wisdom, are therefore to be revealed now.
V. IT IS A LAW OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE THAT MAN SHALL ACT FROM FREEDOM ACCORDING TO REASON
71. As is known, man is free to think and will as he wishes, but not to speak whatever he thinks or to do whatever he wills. The freedom meant here, therefore, is spiritual freedom and natural freedom only as they make one; for thinking and willing are spiritual, and speaking and acting are natural. The two are readily distinguishable in man, for he can think what he does not utter and will what he does not do; plainly, spiritual and natural are discriminated in him. He can pass from the former to the latter therefore only on a decision to do so—a decision which can be likened to a door that must first be unfastened and opened. This door, it is true, stands open, as it were, in those who think and will from reason in accord with the civil laws of the land and the moral laws of society, for they speak what they think and do what they will to do. But in those who think and will contrary to those laws, the door stands shut, as it were. One who watches his volitions and subsequent deeds knows that such a decision intervenes, sometimes more than once in a single utterance or action. This we have premised for it to be understood that by acting from freedom according to reason is meant to think and will freely and thence to speak and do freely what is according to reason.
72. Since few know, however, that the law above can be a law of divine providence, principally because a man is also free then to think evil and falsity (still divine providence is continually leading him to think and will what is good and true), for clearer perception we must proceed step by step and shall do so in this order:
i. The human being has reason and freedom or rationality and liberty, and has these two faculties from the Lord. ii. Whatever a man does in freedom, whether with reason or not, provided it is according to his reason, seems to him to be his. iii. Whatever a man does in freedom according to his thought, is appropriated to him as his and remains. iv. A man is reformed and regenerated by the Lord by means of the two faculties and cannot be reformed and regenerated without them. v. A man can be reformed and regenerated by means of the two faculties so far as he can be led by them to acknowledge that all truth and good which he thinks and does are from the Lord and not from himself. vi. The conjunction of the Lord with man, and man's reciprocal conjunction with the Lord, is effected by means of these two faculties. vii. In all the procedure of His divine providence the Lord safeguards the two faculties in man unimpaired and as sacred. viii. It is therefore of the divine providence that man shall act in freedom according to reason.
73. (i) The human being has reason and freedom or rationality and liberty, and has these two faculties from the Lord. Man has a faculty of understanding, which is rationality, and a faculty of thinking, willing, speaking and doing what he understands, which is liberty; and he has these two faculties from the Lord (see the work Divine Love and Wisdom, nn. 264-270, 425, and above, nn. 43, 44). But many doubts may arise about either of the two faculties when thought is given to them; therefore I want to say something at this point just about man's freedom to act according to reason.
[2] First, it should be known that all freedom is of love, so much so that love and freedom are one. As love is man's life, freedom is of his life, too. For man's every enjoyment is from some love of his and has no other source, and to act from the enjoyment of one's love is to act in freedom. Enjoyment leads a man as the current bears an object along on a stream. But loves are many, some harmonious, others not; therefore freedoms are many. In general there are three: natural, rational, and spiritual freedom.
[3] Natural freedom is man's by heredity. In it he loves only himself and the world: his first life is nothing else. From these two loves, moreover, all evils arise and thus attach to love. Hence to think and will evil is man's natural freedom, and when he has also confirmed evils in himself by reasonings, he does them in freedom according to his reason. Doing them is from his faculty called liberty, and confirming them from his faculty called rationality.
[4] For example, it is from the love into which he is born that he desires to commit adultery, to defraud, to blaspheme, to take revenge. Confirming these evils in himself and by this making them allowable, he then, from his love's enjoyment in them, thinks and wills them freely and as if according to reason, and so far as civil laws do not hinder, speaks and does them. It is of the Lord's divine providence that man is allowed to do so, for freedom or liberty is his. This natural freedom is man's by nature because by heredity, and those are in this freedom who have confirmed it in themselves by reasonings from enjoyment in self-love and love of the world.
[5] Rational freedom is from the love of good repute for the sake of standing or gain. The delight of this love is to seem outwardly a moral person. Loving this reputation, the man does not defraud, commit adultery, take revenge, or blaspheme; and making this his reasoned course, he also does in freedom according to reason what is sincere, just, chaste, and friendly; indeed from reason can advocate such conduct. But if his rational is only natural and not spiritual, his freedom is only external and not internal. He does not love these goods inwardly at all, but only outwardly for reputation's sake, as we said. The good deeds he does are therefore not in themselves good. He can also say that they should be done for the sake of the general welfare, but he speaks out of no love for that welfare, but from love of his own standing or gain. His freedom therefore derives nothing from love of the public good, nor does his reason, which complies with his love. This rational freedom, therefore, is inwardly natural freedom. The Lord's divine providence leaves everyone this freedom too.