Abstract

"Freedom as a Metaphysical Endowment" views the idea of freedom from the point of view of its place in the universe of Thomas Aquinas, its metaphysical setting and structure and the values which it bears. It answers the question: what must Thomas Aquinas talk about as prerequisite to his talking about freedom? ;G-d is free because he is necessarily good. The idea of necessity associated with Aquinas' idea of freedom is not the material or natural necessity of modern thought, but the necessity which pertains to the activity of immaterial beings which are intimately associated with the functioning of primary causality. Aquinas works his way through the impasse of Aristotle's cosmology according to which the active outward diffusion of divine goodness would be problematic if not impossible. He does not consider the multiple movers a hindrance to his solution, but rather an enhancement of it. ;Man as a creature is an expression of the resources of the divine essence, and as a rational creature is a participation in the divine freedom. Intellectual operation makes him responsible not only for himself, but a provider for other creatures who do not consciously direct their activities toward the good. Man is the epitome of the striving of nature in which every being is formally inclined to some characteristic activity, the characteristics activity of man being rational, that is, knowing and choosing. The freedom of man manifests, analogously, the same relationship to necessity as does the freedom of G-d. ;The angel, who resembles more than man the stability of G-d's freedom, must choose in one choice his final end together with the many details which partake of it. The pluralism and variety of creaturely causality are part and parcel of creation's pursuit of goals which are approximations of the freedom of G-d