The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1917-04-21
POPULAR APoLoGETICS.
Adapted from the German of Rev.
Peter Mikes, S. j., by Rev. James
Watcher.
LXXN. Freedom of the VIII.


Objection: Man is not free in his
decisions of the will; they depend not
on him, but are a necessary result
of the motives and circumstances
acting on him.
Answer: II Then you are a bad
patriot, if today you will take the
military oath, tomorrow YOU may be
a deserter and the day after a
traitor All this, according to your
assertion, depends not on you but on
motives and circumstances which are
beyond your control. Ephialtes was
the wretch who betrayed the Greeks,
his Countrymen, to the Persians at
the battle of Thermopylae (4S0 B. c.
And YOU have no right to deny that
such an Ephialtes is in you. A nice
patriotism! l can from my stand
point affirm that | am going TO re-
main true to my duty, for that de
ponds on me, on my free will.
y Why erect monuments to great
men, like Bismarck, Moltke, George
Washington and others? Why eulog-
1ze them? According to your view
these men were not free to act other
wise; they simply had to act SO just
like a machine. | suggest that we
erect a monument to locomotive No
426 when it celebrates its jubilee
81 Every one has a clear and in
cOntestible consciousness that he can
act differently than he does or can
omit the action all together, just be-
cause he is the lord and master of
his will. He can act against the
strongest motives just because he
wills. In the most difficult circum-
stances one can do his own will, even
if it demands the greatest sacrifices,
even life itself
That there can remain no doubt at
all, we are conscious of involuntary
acts of the will. We often hear PEG
pie say, In this decision | was not
free. Had | been free, | should have
acted differently" II l am riding on
the train | know positively that the
motion Of the train does not depend
on me, but | know too that | can
leave the train at any station or
place. OF this difference between
free and non-frec will, we could not
become conscious, if all acts OF
the will were not free but deter
mined.
a 1t we have no free will why
do you consider and think over in
your mind whether, for example, you
should transact this or that business,
or make this or that contract? Is
it not because you know quite we'll
that this depends on your own free
will and choice? Why do you blame
yourself or are sorry if YOU have done
something foolish or bad? Accord
ing to your theory you could not act
differently. To be sorry because you
Squandered your property, cheated
some one, or committed a crime, is
the sheerest nonsense; you could not
act differently and you can not make
up your mind to do better under the
same circumstances. If you did
something foolish or wicked why ac-
Cuse yourself? Simply say that you
were not free; you could not help it.
- Without freedom of the will the
words: Responsibility, Conscience,
Guilt, Punishment, Duty, Law, lose
their true meaning. CCf P. Bathrein,
S. J., Die Grundbegriffe des STRAIT
rechts-The Fundamental Idea of
Penal Law, 1900.
g. Why the everlasting cry after
liberty? Liberty, Equality, Frater-
nifty! Ye nations emancipate your
selves! A people that kisses its
chains does not deserve liberty. God
does not want slaves!"
The liberty you mean is only stub
born inward coercion; the outward
chains, the outward slavery is moth
ing compared to the inward chains
and bands that gag the will. And
still the consciousness of the human
race can say with the poet Schiller
(f1805): Man is created free, free,
if he were born in chains"
The liberty of determinists does not
exist Perhaps the heroes of the
French Revolution had a foreboding
of coming events when they put
classical point between the words of
the circular inscription of their coins.
Satirists thought of the French ad-
verb point mot at alp and read:
Libert6, Egalit6, Fraternit6; which
may be Englished: Liberty, not
trace, Equality, not a trace, Fraterni-
ty, not trace.