TENTH LECTURE
Molina defined Freedom: "the power of acting or not acting, when all the conditions are present which are pre-required for acting." This definition, more logical than ontological, raised up many discussions concerning what is called the sensus compositus and the sensus divisus.
Ideas are not a simple copy of things. Things, in so far as they exist in mind as objects of knowledge, receive in the mind another mode or state than the mode or state they possess in concrete existence. Thus, the state of ideality and the state of concrete existence are to be distinguished.
When I say: "If A -- the practical judgment of the intellect -- is given, B -- the election in the will -- follows necessarily," this assertion can be thought on the plane of the logical connections which A and B bear to one another in the state of ideality, -- as known by me, -- that is, on the plane of the logical connections between the proposition concerning A and the proposition concerning B in my mind. In this case we speak in the purely abstract and conceptual sense (sensus compositum). And the same assertion can be thought on the plane of the extramental existence, that is, on the plane of the real connections which A and B bear to one another in the state of concrete existence. In this case we speak in the real and concrete sense (sensus divisus).
In my mind, the proposition: "the will will choose to act," follows necessarily from the proposition: "if the practical judgment decides to act." But in the extramental reality, the choice of the will emanates from the will as determined by a judgment which the will itself makes decidedly efficacious; that is to say, the real mode according to which the act of election emanates from the will is intrinsically and essentially free.
Therefore, to the question: "Does the act of election follow this judgment in a necessary way?" must be answered: yes, in the purely abstract and conceptual sense (sensus compositus); no, in the real and concrete sense (sensus divisus).
Given the practical judgment, the act of election conformable to this judgment follows certainly, infallibly, but freely.