The Immaculate Conception

imbibed at Momma's knee & nourished by Scotist intuitions

I like to imagine all of creation as transcendentally oriented toward God and that our telos just is God graciously present in nature, including the universal divine omnipresence in every shadow, vestige, image & likeness of God as well as the particular divine indwelling in every rational creature (image & likeness).

And the distinction between omnipresence & indwelling is precisely that the latter refers to a relational mutuality, i.e. deliberative synergy.

Those divine presences can gift us both operative & gnoseological knowledges of God, which can further be distinguished in terms of whether or not those presences & knowledges are mediated (Eucharistic foretastes) or immediate (Beatific Vision).

All of these above distinctions could also be operative in accordance with our God-given ‘natural’ mode of choice from our beginning, i.e. deliberative synergy. This natural volitional capacity would operate by our wills with their efficient acts & intellects via formal causes.

This capacity could conceivably operate in the same manner when gifted with any divine presence, whether mediated or immediate.

It does seem to me that – Only the establishment (& not any subsequent operation) of natural inclinations, dispositions & wills is ever monergic, as per creatio ex nihilo & continua, i.e. thereby both moving a person to be, existentially, & what to be, essentially.

Regarding what we are in our relationship to God, among other things, we are most definitely synergic deliberators, inviolably so, including not-bypass-ably so.

We manifest the divine image whenever what we are (Christ-images) gets divinely established by a (monergic) reduction of essential human potencies by some person’s (divinely determined) existential act. We thus signify the humanity of Christ.

We also manifest the divine image whenever how we are (Christ-likenesses) gets co-self-determinedly instantiated by a (synergic) reduction of final human potencies by each person’s formal acts. We thereby exemplify the humanity of Christ.

Mary was the first to exemplify Christ’s humanity through her theotic realizations, which were a gift for us all, who share the fruits of – not only her Magnificat, but – her Fiat, which was history’s singular paragon of synergy.

Mary’s impeccability would not refer to “essential” perfections of human “nature,” where our will is located. It would refer to a virtuous disposition of Mary’s secondary nature, which she synergically formed, when she freely & willingly cooperated with the graces that were gifted her in the communications of an immediate divine presence.

Her volitional faculties thus operated in accordance with our God-given ‘natural’ mode of choice from our beginning, i.e. deliberative synergy. As Mary operated her natural volitional capacity, as per all human volition, her Fiat comprised an efficient act of her will, which was integrated with the formal dynamics of her intellect. This is the same manner our volition operates when gifted with any divine presence, whether mediated or immediate.

The Immaculate Conception’s exceptionality refers to differences – not in her human nature, in general, much less to the operation of her will, in particular, but – in how God variously manifests the Divine Presence, mediately or immediately. It is thus akin in exceptionality to infused contemplation, apparitions, healings, miracles, elections to sainthood, mercies of conversion, special vocational calls, and other signs in the heavens above & wonders on the earth below.

There’s a speculative theology of putative (& dogmatic) historical, immediate divine manifestations, which explores how those theandric experiences would be distinct from the same beatific realities as eschatologically considered.

To me, it’s as interesting as the historical – eschatological betwixt & between of the intermediate state as informed, for example, by speculative angelology.

While some effects (operative knowledge of God) gifted by immediate divine presences to human persons may be experienced habitually, historically as well as eschatologically, other effects experienced historically could also be variously latent, transitory or intermittent in their operation, e.g. as needed for consolation.

These dynamics would operate in a manner analogous to the infused graces of different mediated presences, e.g. consolations without preceding causes.

In addition to Mariology, other Old & New Testament events have been suggested as possible examples of other historical divine beatific manifestations or immediate presences, e.g. Moses & St. Paul.

Notes regarding different forms of human volition:

indetermined w/o ratio or with freedom from necessity, including one’s choosing whether to will at all, moderately voluntarist

in/determined w/ratio (desires or needs) or freedom to – assent, refuse or permit (absence of refusal), moderately libertarian

self-determined or self-limited or freedom for, as in kenosis, authentically sacrificial

These are imagoes Dei of the Divine Volition which is nondeterminate (both w/ & w/o ratio) & self-determinate via ad intra ur-kenosis & ad extra kenosis.

Notes regarding Divine-Human Interaction & Grace per Libertarian Free Will

My account, below, will not exhaust every manner of divine-human interaction & of grace, but will address one aspect that I find deeply consoling — that God infuses grace universally, superabundantly & even without our assent, ever respecting our libertarian free will.

In reconciling divine-human interactions via grace & libertarian freedom of the will, might we draw on diverse conceptions from Scotism, Neoplatonism & Thomism (analytical not necessarily Báñezian)?

We could conceive of both Scotus & Maximus as libertarians for whom the intellect’s necessarily operative but not wholly determinative in volition, where self-determinative volitional acts remain limited in potency to the logoi of being, well-being & eternal being.

The divine & human wills are thus not connected by one’s choosing between “this or that” but in “why the will wills at all,” as it does remain free not to act (via a type of quiescence). Such a volition would entail a moderately libertarian & moderately voluntarist free will.

Scotus locates the will in efficient causation. For many, this represents a conceptual relocation from the formal. Interestingly, this can be squared with Eleonore Stump’s relocation of the operation of grace from efficient to formal causality over against Báñezian premotion.

Stump distinguishes between an “assent to,” a “refusal of” & an “absence of refusal of” grace, as – per Aquinas -one can cease to refuse grace without assenting to it.

Thereby He infuses the good will of our justifying faith.

God thus infuses grace in us all, even when we don’t assent, as long as we’re not refusing it, i.e. as long as our wills are “quiescent.”

Thereby we can abandon ourselves to Divine Providence through quiescence.

Thus, let us pray –
w/Ignatius: “Take, Lord, receive all my liberty.”
w/the Psalmist: “Be still & know that I am God.”
with Merton: “I know you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.”

Now, insofar as we are imagoes Dei of the freely-loving-willing One, wherein absolute freedom & love are inseparable aspects of the pure act of willing, would not our own freedom be similarly constitued, as it grows in that likeness?

Our freedom would thus not be constituted of that license to do merely what we want (Lord Acton) via a libertarian capitulation to the passive inclinations of our natural will (Scotus) with its necessary affections to our own advantage (albeit epistemically & axiologically distanced).

Our freedom would be constituted of that authentic liberty to do what we clearly must (Acton), as a volition that, while so free it can abstain from willing, when it does choose to will, cannot not will the highest good per its free appetite, which is actively inclined by affections toward justice, as always driven, in friendship & love, by desire of something for the sake of another (Scotus).

This Scotistic conception of free will (radically) relocates it from a telic (per Thomistic naturalism) to an efficient cause.

Scotus views moral goodness aesthetically, as a beauty of the soul, in line with sources in Platonic & Neoplatonic traditions, further evident in later Middle Ages thanks to Augustine, Dionysius, etc
Not arbitrary, but beyond the rational, divinely legislated moral laws harmonize with aesthetic patterns pleasing to God.
See: Bychkov, Oleg. (2014). “In Harmony with Reason”: John Duns Scotus’s Theo-aesth/ethics. Open Theology. 1. 10.2478/opth-2014-0005.

Human moral & theotic realizations embody aesthetic patterns pleasing to a God, Who “is truly, `really’, personally related to the world by relations of knowledge & mutual love.”

And, because of this, through such embodiments of those aesthetic patterns, God’s “affected in consciousness, but not in abiding intrinsic perfection of nature,” that is in aesthetic scope, but not intensity.
[passibility phraseology borrowed from Norris Clarke ]

Definitions

The coherence of any conceptions of divine freedom, human liberty and evil (ontological privation) are at stake.

Regarding human liberty, terms like voluntarist, intellectualist, compatibilist, determinist & 
libertarian have become so fraught as to be unhelpful.

The free will, generically speaking, inheres in human nature, formally, and is expressed as an efficient cause via active potency. As such, it’s a phylogenetically emergent reality. It represents a teleologic, sapient intentionality that’s distinct from and transcends our teleo-qualic sentience, teleo-nomic biological processes & teleo-matic physico-chemical constitution, all which contribute to what we refer to as our natural will.

The free (teleologic) will grows the strength of its inherent autonomous nature through habitual virtuous exercise. This growth in volitional virtue is enhanced as intellectual, affective, moral & social conversions transform our natural will, taming its teleo-matic, -nomic & -qualic passive potencies, formatively & developmentally, harnessing, then redirecting, their energies, in the service of ongoing religious conversion, as expressed in the love of God, others, cosmos, even self. With Bulgakov, there’s no reason this dynamic must necessarily cease post mortem.

In some sense, then, the ontogenetic development of the free will, analogously, recapitulates its phylogenetic emergence. It’s constitutive of, not added on to, human nature via the gratuity of creation and can be superabundantly elevated via the gratuity of grace, in both cases animated by the presence of the Spirit.

The free will also resembles God’s will, growing from image to likeness.

If we conceive God’s choices in terms of those that, on one hand, are logically necessary
1) as strict natural laws via
2) per se nota propositions
3) exercised in perfect goodness & 4) chosen with superabundant efficiency, on the other hand, represent choices on a multiversal Pareto frontier, allowing for diverse, harmonious aesthetic patterns to be realized, then no arbitrariness obtains.

So, too, then for the human will, which can be either logically constrained, volitionally, or aesthetically equipoised, although any superabundant sufficiency is manifestly inferior in finite beings. Intelligent creatures remain always volitionally positioned with not choosing as an option.

To avoid a collapse into determinism & problems of evil, a proper tehomic panentheism can be invoked, which I have introduced elsewhere previously, a creatio ex profundis, where an ex nihilo conception still obtains via the invitation to novel teloi. Also, a neglected divine omnipathy of how creatures will have felt, given the illumination of final beatitude in the balance with lifetime sufferings, plays a role.

To imagine an exercise of the free will as independent of existential telic orientations is nonsense.

Volition involves the intellect & will. Any “libertarian” aspect of the will must not refer to why this or that is chosen but only to why the will wills at all, because it does remain free not to act. 

The will refers to the sole rational potency, never acting without the intellect. So any “voluntarist” aspect of the will must refer to such a primacy of the will that presupposes the  intellect. Scotus meets these criteria, so could only be characterized, at most, as moderately libertarian and moderately voluntarist and most definitely not determinist.

Excerpts From:
Medieval Philosophy and Theology 10 (2001), 173–216. Letting Scotus Speak for Himself, MARY BETH INGHAM
The intellect always functions in tandem with the will as partial co-cause for volition.
We have to look not at why the will wills this or that, but rather why the will wills at all. In Scotist terminology, this means looking at the act of velle/non velle, not the act of velle/nolle, where Scotus holds that the non velle is indeed an act: it is an act of self-restraint within the will.

This act reveals the will’s relationship to itself and, ultimately, why, when all conditions are present, the will is free not to act. One cannot, then, make the libertarian connection between the divine and human wills on the basis of the choice between “this or that” (in other words, the velle/nolle distinction). Any libertarian claim to be made from this sort of analysis would have to be moderate.

For Scotus, the divine nature is simple and the will is the sole rational potency. Therefore, any interpretation that either denies the will’s access to reason or attempts to defend a notion of freedom that does not entail rationality cannot be faithful to Scotus. For him, the will (whether human or divine) enjoys a freedom that is undetermined by external factors precisely because it is rational.

In the Lectura, Scotus presents this solution of partial cocausality as moderate, rejecting both the extreme voluntarism of Henry of Ghent and the extreme intellectualism of Godfrey of Fontaines.

In this way, he attempts to save free will from the blindness of Henry’s position and the intellectual determinism of Godfrey. It is important to note that Scotus’s understanding of the will as sole rational potency is key to the sort of voluntarist he is.