Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy 5.5

“I have listened to you,” I said, “and agree that it is as you say. But in this close sequence of causes, is there any freedom for our judgment or does this chain of fate bind the very feelings of our minds too?”

“There is free will,” she answered. “Nor could there be any reasoning nature without freedom of judgment. For any being that can use its reason by nature, has a power of judgment by which it can without further aid decide each point, and so distinguish between objects to be desired and objects to be shunned.

“Each therefore seeks what it deems desirable, and flies from what it considers should be shunned. Wherefore all who have reason have also freedom of desiring and refusing in themselves.”

—from Book 5, Prose 2

Being confronted with the vast cosmic scale of things, I may easily feel intimidated. If everything is truly subject to a grand design, with all the bits and pieces meant to be precisely where they are, I will begin to wonder if I can actually matter, if my own choices really make any difference. Perhaps I don’t even have any choices to begin with; perhaps I am just a puppet on a string?

If nothing is ever random, can anything ever move of its own accord? Under the firm hand of Providence, what becomes of my own freedom?

At first, I wish to laugh a little bit, remembering that Boethius originally thought the Universe ran far too loosely, and yet now he worries that it is wound far too tightly. Then, however, I begin to take his dilemma more seriously, when I remember how often I have swung from one extreme to another in my own life.

Here, once again, I may be tempted to think that there are hidden forces at work, such that the decisions I think of as my own are not my own at all. Yes, I seem to be doing the picking and choosing, but could that all be an illusion? Might there be unseen causes, quite beyond my power, lurking behind the causes I think I can see?

There are indeed many things I don’t know, and as I get older, I realize that I know ever less and less. But let me not be overwhelmed by what is beyond me, or swept away by a panic about my own significance. Let me begin with what I do know, with what is most immediate and self-evident within my own experience.

I observe many different things, acting in many different ways, and moving along many different paths. Behind all of it, I am conscious of their presence, and I reflect upon their identity. Who am I, then, in contrast to all of this? I have unwittingly answered my own question, just by asking it: I am a creature of understanding, driven by reason.

It is my own judgment, the power to distinguish between what I consider true or false, right or wrong, that determines how I will perceive my world, and in turn determines how I will act.

Yes, things will act upon me, and produce a vast variety of impressions within me, and they may push me this way or pull me that way, bit I will ultimately be the one who decides what is worthy or unworthy, desirable or undesirable, and so I will have the final say in how I act in the face of them. Their meaning is uncovered by my own awareness, and their value is revealed through my own estimation.

I will pursue what I judge as being good, and I will avoid what I judge as being bad. The world will be what it will be, but how I respond to it will be up to me.

“But how do I really know the choice is from me, and not from something else?”

A moment of calm is called for here. Am I saying that it will be my judgment that I have no judgments? However contradictory that is, it has still determined how I will act. My internal disposition remains my own.

“But maybe I can decide all I want, and it just doesn’t make any difference with how other things behave, or with what happens to me?”

That may well be the case, and my decision may not determine what those things do, but my decision still determines my own attitude. That may not seem like much at first, but it is the fullness of who I am. The rest is about externals.

To the degree that a creature possesses reason, it also possesses the freedom to shape its own thoughts. Where there is consciousness, there is also choice, not as something added to it, but as inherent in its very identity.

In the simplest of terms, my own judgment is the very measure by which I choose.

Before considering how that might possibly fit in with an all-knowing and all-powerful Providence, I need to start with just that. One step at a time!

Written in 1/2016