Faculty of the Will

one

What is the Will?

As rational creatures, we have two powers in our souls that distinguish us from beasts. The first is our intellect, which is designed to know the truth. The second power, the second faculty, which sets us apart as human beings, is our will. This is the power designed to pursue the good. But what does it mean for something to be good? And if our will is designed to pursue the good, how do we end up willing so many evil things?

two

The Ontological Good – Good as Being

“Good” is one of those words with a lot of meanings. We’ll start with what we can call ontological goodness.

In this sense, anything real is good insofar as it is in some way fulfilling and attractive. This means that everything in the real world, precisely because it is real, has something fulfilling and attractive about it. Whenever we will anything, whenever we choose something or pursue something, we’re choosing it because we think it’s real, fulfilling in some way, and therefore attractive.

But because that’s what we mean by good, again, we’re talking about the basic goodness of being here, we can say that every time we will something, it’s because we are drawn to its goodness. God made us to choose reality that is fulfilling and attractive. God made us to chase after goodness. And that’s exactly what we do.

three

Goodness and Delight

Now every time we attain some good, every time we succeed in getting something real, fulfilling and attractive, there’s a payoff. We call that payoff delight. Delight is our experience of having attained some good. It’s our response to a real, fulfilling and attractive thing that is present in our lives.

This is where the will connects to our emotional life. We choose to pursue the good with our will. When we attain that good, we experience the passion of delight.

That’s how we work, and that’s how we’re supposed to work. We’re supposed to pursue goodness with the will and delight with the passions. The only question is what kind of good, and what kind of delight we should focus on.

four

The Supreme Good and the Supreme Delight

If our will was made for the good and our passions for delight, then we can basically divide goods and delights into two categories: There are limited goods, which provide partial delights. This is every created good we pursue. Every good in our experience is a limited good. It’s not infinite, or perfect, or everlasting. Whatever it is: a relationship, an achievement, a book or a movie or an aesthetic experience. It’s good, but it’s limited. The delight we get when we attain that good only goes so deep and lasts so long.

Then there is the Infinite Good, which provides Boundless Delight. The supreme good is the only good which satisfies. The Infinite Good, God Himself, is the only good that doesn’t run out, pass away, or lose its luster. When we attain that Supreme Good, we will have Supreme Delight. This is called beatitude: the perfect and unending delight which results from attaining God Himself

So there are many goods and many forms of delight. But if you settle for less than the Infinite Good, and the Eternal Beatitude which comes from attaining Him, well, you know nothing else is going to satisfy you, so why settle for an eternity of dissatisfaction?

five

The Moral Good

We said that the ontological good is anything real, fulfilling, and attractive, but also that only God is supremely real, fulfilling and attractive.

So now we know what we mean by the moral good, namely, any decision that can lead you closer to God.

Unfortunately, although we necessarily choose ontological goods – again, we’re by nature incapable of not pursuing things which we perceive as being real, fulfilling, and attractive – although we necessarily choose ontological goods, we often do not choose the moral good.

We often ignore the Supreme Good, or even make decisions which lead us further from Him rather than closer to Him. This is how we pervert our will, by choosing what gives less than happiness instead of what gives total happiness. Immorality isn’t just breaking extrinsic rules – it’s acting against the way our will is designed; it’s frustrating the natural tendency of our will to go after perfect goodness and perfect happiness.

Our wills and our passions, our entire self was made for nothing less than God.

The task of this life is to make sure that when we will partial goods, we do it in such a way that we’re always trying to get closer to the Supreme Good in whom alone our wills can find rest.