thelema

The separation of the two subjects continues in later Platonists, although they develop one of the subjects. They pick up Plato’s term for freedom (adespoton), and integrate it much more fully with the ideas of responsibility and will, and Christians follow. The Middle Platonist Didaskalikos   says that if virtue has no master (adespoton), it must be voluntary (hekousion), and that since the soul chooses (helesthai) its next life and has no master, it is up to it (ep’ autei) whether it acts or not. Plotinus   connects the term adespoton not only with choice (helesthai) and with what is up to us (eph’ heroin) and voluntary (hekousion), but also with boulesis, one of the words conventionally translated as ‘will’. Virtue is up to us and without a master, if we will and choose. Plotinus has an extended discussion in the treatise which Porphyry   calls On the Voluntary and the Will [thelema] of the One. We find extra terms not only for the will (thelema) and willing (thelein) but also for freedom (to eleutheron), control (kurios), and purpose (proairesis). The Christian Gregory of Nyssa   repeats that virtue and the soul have no master (adespoton), adds that virtue is voluntary (hekousion), and connects this with the self-determination (autexousion) of the human will (proairesis) or soul, and with the soul being steered by its own willing (thelemata).

I have mentioned Plotinus already as developing Plato’s treatment of the choice of one’s next incarnation, and as using thelema as a word for the will. But much more important were his views on pride and will as the beginning of evil. For souls that turn away, break loose, and become ignorant of the Father the beginning of the evil is pride (tolma) and willing (boulethenai) to belong to themselves alone. They are pleased with their own self-determination (autexousion) and create the greatest possible distance (apostasis) from the Father. The same happens at the level of intellect, when it becomes multiple by willing (thelein) to possess everything. There is a restless nature originally at rest in eternity, which, however, wills (boulesthai) to govern itself and belong to itself, and chooses (helesthai) to seek more than the (timeless) present. This results in the creation of time out of timeless eternity.

Maximus was defending the view that Christ had two wills, one human, one divine. But he wanted to explain why Christ’s human will could not sin. So he distinguished Christ’s human will as a natural will (thelema phusikon) different from our gnomic will, since the latter can turn in either direction, towards good or had, according to our opinion. This, to scholastics, came to seem the right view, and Maximus has been praised for defining the natural will as a faculty directed of its essence to the good, rather than as something one calls ‘will’ when it happens to be so directed. Another point considered important is that the will aims at this good quite independently of reason, although reason recognizes the same good. The last point, however, is not a universally agreed feature of the will, since after 1270 it became a matter of debate whether and in what sense the will was independent of reason. As for the first point, the idea of a naturally directed desire for the good does not seem particularly new. Even before the Stoics, Aristotle   already holds that everybody naturally desires a happy life.

They say that natural thelisis or thelema is a capacity desirous (orektike) of what is in accordance with nature, a capacity which holds together in being (sunektike) all the distinctive attributes (idiomata) which belong essentially to a being’s nature. The substance, being naturally held together by this, desires (oregetai) being and living and moving in accordance with perception and intellect, striving for (ephiesthai) its own natural and complete existence (ontotes). A thing’s nature has a will (theletike) for itself, and for all that is set to create its constitution (sustasis), and it is suspended in a desiderative way over the rational structure of its being, the structure in accordance with which it exists and has come into being. That is why others, in defining this natural thelema, say that it is a rational and vital desire (orexis), whereas proairesis is a desire, based on deliberation, for things that are up to us. So thelesis is not proairesis, if thelesis is a simple rational and vital desire, whereas proairesis is a coming together of desire, deliberation, and judgement. For it is after first desiring that we deliberate, and after having deliberated that we judge, and after having judged that we deliberately choose (proaireisthai) what has been shown by judgement better in preference to the worse. And thelesis depends only on what is natural, proairesis on what is up to us and capable of being brought about through us.