James Chastek, Aspects of the free act

The three aspects of our experience of our own freedom: dominus, determinatus, derilictus.

1.) On the one hand, the experience is of determining oneself, of being responsible, of experiencing the choice in ones own power. The whole universe seems to fall silent in the face of such a decision. Man is fundamentally, as St. Thomas would put it, dominus sui actus. I am the Lord!

2.) All this positive power expresses itself across a lattice of various determinations. I find myself in a certain situation, thinking in a certain language, with various sets proclivities, iron habits, needs to be satisfied, interests, aversions and talents, and all this points to a  thousand more determinations than I’d ever be able to see. Twins separated at birth found that they shared a long list of common pursuits and interests that they probably never suspected were simply the silent proddings of their genetic code, and one doesn’t need to see himself in a twin to see that there is a fair amount that seems spontaneous to him that is in large part due to somatic factors.

3.) A third element is the lack or imperfect possession of the perfection or good that I choose and/ or am driven to. The path of dereliction left open to me. Failure, mistakes, loss and wickedness are always an option.
The second trait is usually distinguished from freedom, although it is also a principle of freedom.  If freedom is the action of some nature, it has some determination from another. All nature is some mode of being open to the divine activity.

The first and third are differing aspects of the free act for us; the first expresses its perfection and completion, the other expressing its imperfection and incompletion. It is no easy task to untangle the aspect of lordship in the free action from the freedom or indetermination of it, though they are contrary elements. Freedom as possessed by the one that is most perfectly Lord is not open to mistake, failure or wickedness as an object of choice, and yet is not determined for being so.

The two great dangers in understanding freedom are (a.) to confound the first and third, the dominus and derilictus, and (b.) to overstate the significance of the second factor as a conditioning factor; though this factor is not entirely contrary to freedom and is even necessary for its exercise. No philosophy that reduces its concepts to being as actuality will fall into the first one, since perfection is precisely what divides the dominus and derilictus, and which shows us the path of perfection on which we find the perfect Dominus who is in no way a derilictus.