Free Will and the Rebel Angels in Medieval Philosophy by Tobias Hoffmann

Abstract

Reviewed by: Free Will and the Rebel Angels in Medieval Philosophy by Tobias Hoffmann Julie Fox-Horton Middle Ages, angels, free will, intellectualism, voluntarism, fallibility, agency, psychology, theology tobias hoffmann. Free Will and the Rebel Angels in Medieval Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. xiv + 292. In Free Will and the Rebel Angels in Medieval Philosophy, Tobias Hoffmann thoroughly examines the height of the free will debate and the influence of Aristotle's action theory on theologians central to the dispute in the Latin West between the 1220s and the 1320s. The reception of Aristotle at this time caused a shift in the debate from a theologically centered reflection on the relationship between free will and sin, to a philosophical query exploring "how free agency is rooted in the powers of the soul" (1). Organized into three sections, Free Will and the Rebel Angels in Medieval Philosophy serves as an encyclopedia of medieval theologians and philosophical thinkers in the Latin West entrenched in the debate of free will as the theoretical evolution unfolds. Hoffmann's methodology for evaluating each thinker's position on the topic consists in looking at three fundamental components: their presuppositions of free will and the question of controlling one's actions, the agency of choice, and the discourse of outright evil. In Part I, "Free Will," Hoffmann begins with a brief introduction to the essential theories of free will before Aristotelian action theory entered the debate. Discussing Augustine's struggle over the issue of free will and then moving on to Peter Lombard's treatment of the issue in his Sentences, or [End Page 438] Sententiae in IV libris distinctae, which had a profound influence on theology for some time as "a principal reference text in the formation of Catholic theologians from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries," Hoffmann moves quickly on to the ideological shift (20). Beginning in the 1220s, two influential texts circulated among theologians, John of Damascus's De fide orthodoxa and portions of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, at which point Aristotle became the "principal authority in philosophy," and influential in the free will debate (22). Once medieval theologians began to reflect on Aristotle's ideas on the mechanics of decision-making, traditional notions that once focused on "the relation between free decision, sin, and grace" shifted, in what Hoffmann refers to as a psychological turn, to a "psychological foundation of free decision in reason and will" (31). During the early phases of the psychological turn in the free will debate, scholars like Thomas Aquinas—particularly through his ideas of "the will as a rational appetite" and his discourse on the relation of the intellect and will—created a divide among thinkers, characterized as either intellectualism or voluntarism (42). For voluntarism, Hoffmann points to several medieval thinkers but focuses on Henry of Ghent and his voluntarist conceptions of free will that both align with and deviate from Aquinas. Hoffmann then turns to thinkers whose theories lean toward intellectualism, focusing on Godfrey of Fontaines and his use of principles of metaphysics to address the cause of free will. During the first two decades of the fourteenth century, the free will debate evolved even further with theologians like John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham, who either refined or radicalized free will theories (119). In Part II, "Whence Evil?", a theme central to medieval theologians and the debate of free will is evaluated—the origin of evil. As a premise on the origin of evil, Hoffmann turns to Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius. For Augustine, the question of the origin of evil developed from "a thorough reflection about the fall of angels" (163). In comparison, Augustine argued, according to Hoffman, "an evil will ultimately lacks an explanation," (169) while Pseudo-Dionysius argued, "evil cannot be a final cause" (173). The unifying principle for both thinkers is the belief that "evil does not have an efficient cause" (173). From Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius Hoffmann explores deeper the cause of evil according to other thinkers, such as Anselm of Canterbury, Peter Lombard, William of Auxerre, Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, and John Duns Scotus. After a lengthy analysis of the influence on and the contributions of these...