Reason as the root of freedom and coexistence of opposites

Luiz Alberto Cerqueira

☛ Originalmente publicado por SCHULZ, M. & PICH, R. H. (eds.), in: Philosophy of religion in Latin America and Europe — Origins; Bonn: V&R unipress/Bonn University Press, 2021, p. 37-50. Internet: https://www.vr-elibrary.de/doi/10.14220/9783737012904.37

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“What has the freedom of a bird, with feathers and wings for flying, to do with the prison from which you cannot escape for months and years, or perhaps never?” (Father Antonio Vieira, Sermão XIV, 1633)*

Self-consciousness by conversion: Father Antonio Vieira, S.J.

1. Taking the conversion of black African slaves as a fact, the Jesuit Antonio Vieira developed a doctrine on the inequality between masters and slaves in the sugar plantations in Brazil that revolved around a fundamental question that can be summarized as follows: How can opposites whose essence lies in the same inequality coexist? We would like to show that, according to Vieira, self-consciousness as a power over the individual’s own actions makes that coexistence possible. Moreover, this possibility should result from the conversion if conversion is due to self-consciousness as a power — a divine gift — that those who have converted become bound by the received good, which is reciprocated in terms of duty (officium) as a measure and limit of the human condition:

Não é necessária Filosofia para saber que um indivíduo não pode ter duas essências (…) Quis-nos ensinar Cristo Senhor nosso, que pelas conveniências do bem comum se hão de transformar os homens, e que hão de deixar de ser o que são por natureza, para serem o que devem ser por obrigação (…) porque o ofício há-se de transformar em natureza, a obrigação há-se de converter em essência.[1]

* Our translation.

Nota 1: See Antonio Vieira, Sermão de Santo Antonio (1642), V, 16: Internet: http://textosdefilosofiabrasileira.blogspot.com.br/2016/01/sermao-de-santo-antonio.html. Our translation: Philosophy is not necessary to understand that an individual cannot have two essences. It was an instruction of Christ, our Lord, that men must transform themselves for the convenience of the welfare, and that they should cease to be what they are by nature to become what they should be by obligation (...) because duty must be turned into nature and obligation must be turned into essence.

2. Vieira’s doctrine not only tells us about the use of reason that individuals should make to learn to become indifferent to their own sensations and appetites, in accordance with the Rule of the Society of Jesus and with the teachings of its founder Ignatius of Loyola, but it also focuses on the concept of freedom rooted in the intellect which, as we will show in the following sections, was defended by the Jesuit Pedro da Fonseca in his Comments to Aristotle’s Metaphysics.

3. In a sermon to a black brotherhood in a sugar plantation that gathered to honour Our Lady of Rosary (in Bahia, 1633), Father Vieira highlighted the idea according to which freedom was the same as indifference. He taught that it was by means of their physical body that all men could be subjugated and forced to do what they did not want to do. Although this corresponded to the condition in which black Africans were brought to Brazil for work, once instructed in the faith and by leading a life based on Christ’s Calvary, black Africans could benefit from the internalization of prayers and from the knowledge that they were not just bodies but souls as well. It was through this self-knowledge that they could see themselves as souls freed from the prison into which their bodies had transformed. For this reason, conversion had saved them from the limits imposed by their own bodies — “What is conversion of a soul other than the act of a man entering inside himself and seeing himself?”[2]. For these men conversion meant a second rebirth in Brazil, a situation which imposed on them new duties owed to the new homeland:

Começando pois pelas obrigações que nascem do vosso novo e tão alto nascimento, a primeira e maior de todas é que deveis dar infinitas graças a Deus por vos ter dado conhecimento de si, e por vos ter tirado de terras, onde vossos pais e vós vivíeis como gentios; e vos ter trazido a esta, onde instruídos na Fé, vivais como Cristãos, e vos salveis.[3]

(…) quis Deus que nascessem à Fé debaixo do signo da sua Paixão, e que ela, assim como lhe havia de ser o exemplo para a paciência, lhe fosse também o alívio para o trabalho (…) Que tem que ver a liberdade de uma ave com penas e asas para voar, com a prisão do que se não pode bulir dali por meses e anos, e talvez por toda a vida?[4]

Nota 2: Antonio Vieira, Sermão da sexagésima, III, 10: “Que coisa é a conversão de uma alma, senão entrar um homem dentro em si, e ver-se a si mesmo?”; Internet: http://textosdefilosofiabrasileira.blogspot.com.br/2015/11/sermao-da-sexagesima.html.

Nota 3: Our translation: “Starting with the obligations that arise from your new and such high birth, the first and greatest of them is that you must give infinite thanks to God for self-consciousness, for taking you from the land where your parents lived as Gentiles, and for bringing you to this land where, once instructed in the Faith, you may live as Christians and get salvation for your souls.” Antonio Vieira, Sermão XIV, VI, 21. Internet: http://textosdefilosofiabrasileira.blogspot.com.br/2016/01/sobre-condicao-do-negro-escravizado-no.html.

Nota 4: Our translation: “It was by God's will that your birth by Faith occurred under the sign of His passion, which is both a relief for your suffering from labour [by force] and an example of patience (…). What has the freedom of a bird, with feathers and wings for flying, to do with the prison from which you cannot escape for months and years, or perhaps never?” Idem, VIII, 34, 36.

Vieira’s idea of freedom as indifference

4. Nowadays, we know that in Vieira’s epoch it was common among the missionaries of the Society of Jesus to use the term ‘freedom’ in the sense of ‘indifference’, which referred to the effect of the “spiritual exercises” proposed by Ignatius of Loyola by means of which it could be learned how to separate the mechanism of appetites and material interests from the habits learned in the religious asceticism[5].

Nota 5: See Marina Massimi, “The experience of ‘consolation’ in the Litterae Indipetae” (2010). Internet: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1413-73722010000200013.

5. However, in Vieira’s doctrine such separation is justified by the Aristotelianism promoted in the Arts course that was instituted by the Society of Jesus in Brazil. Vieira differentiates two modes of the being. The first one is the natural mode of being, by which our actions are explained in regard to immanent forces that correspond to the Aristotelian form in the living bodies, this meaning that matter is gradually shaped by the soul[6]. Not only does this aim at validating the doctrine of the Patron of Catholic schools and education, St. Thomas Aquinas, according to whom the soul of an individual, albeit created, is produced in the matter[7], but it also serves to highlight the idea that it is through the body that the soul dies from the necessity that, regardless of our wishes, exerts power, such as the necessity of death, which makes the soul inseparable from the body. The second mode is the moral being, in which our actions are explained by the power of being indifferent to the aforementioned necessity of the body as a material mechanism. Given that this creates a distinctive spiritual need of the human condition, Father Vieira asserts that “one should separate soul from body” in the human acting proper, because “once freed from the entanglements and dependencies of the body, the soul can work with other species, with another light, with another freedom”[8]. He concludes by arguing that, in its practical dimension, freedom not only involves the order of eminence in human actions, contrary to the order in which the body depends on the soul in the vegetative and sensitive realms, but it also justifies the merit by the degree of achieved perfection for which it stays whole and incorruptible and, hence, divine.

Nota 6: See the Comments on De Anima by Aristotle (Manuel de Gois, 1598): “it should be clear that the matter of a foetus is first shaped by the vegetative soul, then by the sensitive one and, finally, by an intellective soul” (GOIS, 2010, p. 228; our translation).

Nota 7: St. Thomas Aquinas, On being and essence (De ente et essentia), II: “But because matter is the principle of individuation, it would perhaps seem to follow that essence, which embraces in itself simultaneously both form and matter, is merely particular and not universal. From this it would follow that universals have no definitions, assuming that essence is what is signified by the definition. Thus, we must point out that matter understood in the way we have thus far understood it is not the principle of individuation; only signate matter is the principle of individuation. I call signate matter matter considered under determinate dimensions. Signate matter is not included in the definition of man as man, but signate matter would be included in the definition of Socrates if Socrates had a definition. In the definition of man, however, is included non-signate matter: in the definition of man we do not include this bone and this flesh but only bone and flesh absolutely, which are the non-signate matter of man”. Internet: http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/aquinas-esse.asp.

Nota 8: Our translation. Antonio Vieira, As cinco pedras da funda de Davi, Discurso I, IV, 17: “livre a alma dos embaraços e dependências do corpo, obra com outras espécies, com outra luz, com outra liberdade". Internet: http://textosdefilosofiabrasileira.blogspot.com.br/2008/07/antonio-vieira-1608-1697-o-que-conduz.html.

6. At stake here is the view that necessity as nature’s determinism does not hinder the freedom of discretion of the human acting: “There is no heavier tribute other than the tribute of death and, still, everyone has to pay it and nobody complains about it, because it is everyone’s tribute”[9]. This way, Vieira’s argument for the separation of body and soul is perfectly in line with the Comments written by Manuel de Gois (1598) when he explains that the intellectual character of the soul corresponds to a state that is higher than the vegetative and sensitive states. These three states are improvement levels: “the intellective soul (…) is the farthest from the impure matter and from the materiality of the human body”[10]. Concerning the causality in human actions, it is argued that, in the vegetative and sensitive levels of the soul, the order of dependency prevails, i.e. the following level depends on the previous one; in contrast, in the intellective level, the order of eminence prevails, i.e. what comes next — the conceived and aimed end — exceeds the previous one to the extent that what is mentioned first is that which is exceeded. Vieira’s argument for the separation of the soul is, therefore, theoretically justified:

(…) neste mundo racional do homem, o primeiro móbil de todas as nossas ações é o conhecimento de nós mesmos. As obras são filhas dos pensamentos; no pensamento se concebem, do pensamento nascem, com o pensamento se criam, se aumentam e se aperfeiçoam (…) Sendo pois o conhecimento de si mesmo, e o conceito que cada um faz de si uma força tão poderosa sobre as próprias ações (…) Qual será logo no homem o limpo conhecimento de si mesmo? Digo que é conhecer e persuadir-se cada um, que ele é a sua alma (…) Assim é no homem o conhecimento de si mesmo: se para no corpo, ignora-se; se reflete sobre a alma, conhece-se (…) Quando S. Paulo (e eu com ele) chama homem à alma, não fala da parte do homem, senão de todo o homem; mas não do homem físico e natural, senão do homem moral, a quem ele queria instruir e formar (…) o homem natural compõe-se de alma e corpo; o homem moral constitui-se ou consiste só na alma. De maneira que, para formar o homem natural, há-se de unir a alma ao corpo; e para formar ou reformar o homem moral, há-se de separar a alma do corpo (…) vivamos como almas separadas (…) livre a alma dos embaraços e dependências do corpo, obra com outras espécies, com outra luz, com outra liberdade.[11]

Nota 9: Our translation. Antonio Vieira, Sermão de Santo Antonio (1642), IV, 15: “Não há tributo mais pesado que o da morte, e contudo, todos o pagam, e ninguém se queixa, porque é tributo de todos”. Internet: http://textosdefilosofiabrasileira.blogspot.com.br/2016/01/sermao-de-santo-antonio.html.

Nota 10: Our translation. Manuel de Gois (1598/2010): “a alma intelectiva (…) dista o máximo da matéria impura, da materialidade do corpo humano”; ed. cit. p. 237.

Nota 11: Antonio Vieira, As cinco pedras da funda de Davi, I, 1; II, 5-8; III, 14; IV, 17: “in this rational world, the first driving force behind our actions is self-knowledge. Artworks are the offspring of thoughts; it is by means of our thoughts that they are conceived, given birth to, raised, enhanced and perfected (...) As self-knowledge and the concept that we have of ourselves are such a powerful force over our own actions (…) What does a clear self-knowledge mean for the human being? I believe this is about knowing ourselves and persuading ourselves that we are our own soul (…) This is what self-knowledge means for the human being: if it stops at the bodily level, then it is ignored; if it reflects over the soul, then it creates self-knowledge (…) When Saint Paul (and I do too) calls the human being “soul”, he is not referring to a part of the human beings but to all human beings; he does not refer to the physical and natural human being, but to the moral human being, whom he wanted to teach and guide (…) the natural human being has a soul and a body; the moral human being has just a soul. Therefore, in order to train the natural human being, one has to unite the soul with the body; and in order to train the moral human being, one has to separate the soul from the body (…) let us live with separate souls (…) free the soul from the entanglements and dependencies of the body, work with other species, with another light, with another freedom.” Our translation. Internet: http://textosdefilosofiabrasileira.blogspot.com.br/2008/07/antonio-vieira-1608-1697-o-que-conduz.html.

7. Since the political thought of Antonio Vieira on matters of the law, such as the dignity of man, is based on this view of freedom, it is line with the tradition of the School of Salamanca (Francisco de Vitoria, Domingo de Soto), particularly with the doctrine of the Jesuit Francisco Suarez, who taught for almost twenty years at Coimbra (1597-1616). According to Francisco Suarez, “in two ways […] one can say that something belongs to the rights of populations. In the first one, because it is the law that all populations and all sorts of people should follow; in the second one, because it is the law that the cities and kingdoms follow within their limits and it is the law which, by similitude and convenience, is called the rights of the peoples”[12]. From this point of view, Vieira acknowledges the right of freedom to the Brazilian Indians as a cause or way of life that is entirely separate from the life of the Portuguese colonizers; but he also acknowledges the right of the colonizers to use the labour force of the slaves.

Nota 12: Our translation. Francisco Suárez, Tractatus de legibus ac Deo legislatore, II, 19, p. 155. Internet: https://books.google.com.br/books?id=1N9cAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=pt-BR&source=gbs_book_other_versions_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false.

The Conimbricenses Aristotelianism

8. For three centuries starting from 1572, the first time in Brazil that an Arts course was offered by the Jesuits in Bahia, the Brazilian teaching of philosophy remained in the public politics of teaching[13] as an Aristotelianism on the moulds of the Colégio das Artes at the University of Coimbra, which had been founded in 1548 by the king D. João III and entrusted to the Society of Jesus from 1555[14]. This Aristotelianism developed in the Conimbricenses[15] — Comments to Aristotle’s works for the use in the Arts course — was brought to Brazil with the pedagogical method of the Jesuits, the Ratio Studiorum, which we need to examine so as to understand what the study of philosophy in the Arts course was like and how it was conducted at the time of Father Antonio Vieira, in Brazil.

Nota 13: The concept of philosophical study as preparatory for higher studies, introduced by the Arts course in the early medieval university, was only put aside from the 1930s in Brazil when the university as an institution was formally created.

Nota 14: In response to an old intention of reforming the public teaching method, the royal college of Arts was originally formed by humanists hired from the Collège de Guyenne. Among these humanists were Nicolas de Grouchy, who inspired the Jesuit scholars to study Aristotle based on his source texts. Grouchy translated the Posterior Analytics written by Aristotle (Aristotelis De demonstratione sive de secunda parte αναλυτικών libri duo, 1549). Internet: https://almamater.sib.uc.pt/pt-pt/fundo_antigo/aristotelis_de_demonstratione_sive_de_secunda_parte_analutikum_libri_duo.

Nota 15: See Conimbricenses Encyclopedia. Internet: http://www.conimbricenses.org/contents/.

9. It was called ‘Arts’ with regard to the study of the liberal arts (liberalium artium studia). The term referred to the contemplative nature of knowledge whose value did not depend on the objects to which it could be applied. This corresponds to the Aristotelian explanation on the contemplative use of reason in philosophy as a discipline:

(…) just as we call a man independent who exists for himself and not for another, so we call this the only independent science, since it alone exists for itself.[16]

Nota 16: Aristotle, Metaphysics 1.982b. Internet: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0052%3Abook%3D1%3Asection%3D982b.

10. When he defines good as something that is conceived and wanted at the strict level of the soul, Aristotle places contemplative reason at the theoretical level of knowledge. However, Aristotle also relates the same use of contemplative reason to the level of action, because evidence does not depend on the empirical factor and the activity derived from it keeps a certain independence based on the use of the intellect. This is what he called prudence (φρόνησις)[17], a term translated by Cicero as prudentia to illustrate the stoic concept of an absolute power over the divine providence[18].

Nota 17: Aristot., Nic. Eth., 1098b/2. Internet: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abekker+page%3D1098b.

Nota 18: As it is known, it was Cicero who established the equivalence between φρόνησις and prudentia. Given that it derives from ‘prouidentia’, the term ‘prudentia’ refers to the Aristotelian concept of virtue that is specially related to the intelligence, such as the power to see beforehand, which is so important for the political wisdom; but it also refers to the stoic reception of the Aristotelian concept of divine providence.

11. According to Cicero, prudence consists in the virtue of seeing beforehand, by means of intelligence, both good and bad things simultaneously. Such virtue is attributed to the divine nature[19]. This way, Cicero used the Latin term indifferens[20] to refer to the divine mode of an absolute power, which cannot be reduced to nor confounded with one of the two opposite possibilities of acting — good and bad —, named διάφορον by Stoics. This led him to define human liberty as an attribute of the indifferent will of the sage: 

For what is liberty? The power of living as you please. Who, then, is he who lives as he pleases, but the man surely who follows righteousness, who rejoices in fulfilling his duty, and whose path of life has been well considered and preconcerted (…) To the wise man alone it happens, that he does nothing against his will, nothing with pain, nothing by coercion.[21]

Nota 19: Cicero, The nature of the gods (De natura deorum), III, XV. Internet, p. 117: https://books.google.com.br/books?id=AdAIAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA1&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Nota 20: Cicero, De finibus bonorum et malorum, III, 53 (transl. by H. Rackham): “But since we declare that everything that is good occupies the first rank, it follows that this which we entitle preferred or superior is neither good nor evil; and accordingly we define it as being indifferent but possessed of a moderate value — since it has occurred to me that I may use the word ‘indifferent’ to represent their term adiaphoron”. Internet, p. 273: https://ryanfb.github.io/loebolus-data/L040.pdf.

Nota 21: Our translation. M. Tullius Cicero, Paradoxa Stoicorum.34: “Quid est enim libertas? Potestas vivendi, ut velis. Quis igitur vivit, ut volt, nisi qui recte vivit, qui gaudet officio, cui vivendi via considerata atque provisa est? (...) Soli igitur hoc contingit sapienti, ut nihil faciat invitus, nihil dolens, nihil coactus". Internet: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:phi,0474,047:34.

12. The concept of indifferent will shows in the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas which was developed from the Aristotelian ethics. For him, prudence consists in the use attributed by Aristotle to the intellect and the contemplative agent that is the subject of faith, i.e. the correct reason that the human being follows to govern himself by the righteousness of the will:

For since prudence is the right reason of things to be done, it is a condition thereof that man be rightly disposed in regard to the principles of this reason of things to be done, that is in regard to their ends, to which man is rightly disposed by the rectitude of the will, just as to the principles of speculative truth he is rightly disposed by the natural light of the active intellect.[22]

Nota 22: St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II, q. LVI, a. 3: “Cum enim prudentia sit recta ratio agibilium, requiritur ad prudentiam quod homo se bene habeat ad principia huius rationis agendorum, quae sunt fines; ad quos bene se habet homo per rectitudinem voluntatis, sicut ad principia speculabilium per naturale lumen intellectus agentis”. Internet: http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/sth2055.html.

13. The scholars of the royal Colégio das Artes had assimilated, in the context of the Humanism from the 1500s, the Aristotelianism bequeathed by St. Thomas Aquinas that dates back to Cicero and, also, to the question raised by Seneca in his Moral letters to Lucilius : “granted that all things are either good or bad or indifferent – in what class does being wise belong?”[23]. That is what we see in the opening of the Arts course at the University of Coimbra, for example, when Arnold Fabrice, an expert in Cicero, stated during his Speech on liberal arts (De liberalivm artivm stvdiis oratio) that:

[Among the arts] Prudence, which the ancients fairly called ‘the art of life’, takes the first place (…) From this came the arts that were called pure and liberal because they are worthy of the pure and free spirits. Corresponding to the habit gained from being virtuous are [the liberal arts]: Grammar, Dialectics, Rhetoric; Arithmetic, Music, Geometry and Astronomy. This way, Prudence improves reason more and more [which], then, becomes wisdom (…) And once this is the foundation for a happy life, we consider Philosophy, which is the study of wisdom and it is so called for its Greek name, the worthiest art.[24]

Nota 23: Seneca, Epistulae morales ad Lucilium, CXVII, 9: “cum omnia aut mala sint aut bona aut indifferentia, sapere in quo numero sit?”; transl. by R. M. Gummere. Internet: https://archive.org/stream/adluciliumepistu03seneuoft#page/342/mode/2up.

Nota 24: Our translation:“In iis Prudentia, quae recte a ueteribus ars uitae nuncupata est, primum locum obtinet (…) Ex quo fonte deductae sunt artes, quae idcirco ingenuae et liberales dictae sunt, quod ingeniis liberalius sint dignae. Hae uero sunt quidam habitus animi ad uirtutem (…) ut Grammatica, Dialectica, Rhetorica, itemque numerorum, sonorum, mensurae, siderum rationes (…) Talium itque (…) prudentia (…) stipata rationem (…) magis ac magis perfecit. Quae ratio cum ad sumum perducta (…) efficitur illa Sapientia (…) Quae cum beatae uita sit effectrix, Philosophiam, quae est studium sapientiae, de eius nomine Graeco uerbo sic dicta, maxime dignam arbitramur” (PINHO, 2010, p. 34).

14. According to the Ratio Studiorum, the Arts course lasted three years and included not only mathematics (arithmetic, Euclidian geometry) and astronomy (Tractatus de Sphæra by Sacrobosco), literary studies (which were related to the concept of studia humanitatis raised by Cicero[25]) but also Aristotelian subjects on logic[26], nature in general (libros Physicorum, De caelo, Parva naturalia), human nature (De anima), ethic (Ethica Nichomaquea) and metaphysics (libros Metaphysicorum). These two subjects were based on the Comments about the aforementioned works by Aristotle.

Nota 25: In his De oratore, for the teaching of the public spirit, Cicero argues that subjects on the act of knowing are insufficient; subjects on the art of convincing, such as rhetoric, poetic and eloquence are also necessary. He argues that Socrates separated philosophy from oratory and wisdom from eloquence when he combated the sophists, because “What Socrates used to say, that all men are sufficiently eloquent in that which they understand, is very plausible, but not true. It would have been nearer truth to say, that no man can be eloquent on a subject that he doers not understand; and that, if he understands a subject ever so well, but is ignorant how to form and polish his speech, he cannot express himself eloquently even about what he does understand” (CICERO, De oratore, I, [63]). In Pro Archia, Cicero refers to the literary art as an expression of the dignity of man (CICERO, Pro Archia, II, 10). Similarly, Pedro da Fonseca clearly teaches that “the orator that uses mathematical reasons or pure philosophy and eliminates all ornaments will be accused thereof” (FONSECA, 1964b, pág. 515).

Nota 26: The compendia on logic recommended in the Ratio Studiorum were produced by Francisco Toledo (Introductio in dialecticam Aristotelis, 1561) and by Pedro da Fonseca (Institutionum dialecticarum libri octo, which took the place of the famous Summulae logicales (Tractatus) by Pedro Hispano and had at least 53 re-editions in the period from 1564 to 1625).

Reason as the root of freedom: Pedro da Fonseca

15. Despite the scholastic profile of the Ratio Studiorum that recommended the study of Aristotle as it had been interpreted by Thomas Aquinas[27], it should be noted that the Aristotelianism followed by the Jesuits cannot be reduced to a “Second Scholastic” because it was developed in the context of the Humanism and because modern philosophy originates in it. In fact, the Aristotelianism followed by the Jesuits was based on the demand for rigor in the use of Aristotle because they believed that Aristotle’s thought had been adulterated by the interpolations in the various receptions, transmissions and adaptations of the Corpus aristotelicum since Boethius. Such demand for rigor gave rise to a pedagogical enterprise without precedent given the excellence of the didactic material produced at that time: the compendia on logic, which were considered fundamental for the Aristotelian doctrine, by Francisco Toledo (Introductio in dialecticam Aristotelis, 1561) and by Pedro da Fonseca (Institutionum dialecticarum libri octo, which replaced the famous Summulae logicales (Tractatus) by Pedro Hispano and had at least 53 re-editions in the period from 1564 to 1625; Isagoge philosophica, Lisboa, 1591). Besides Fonseca’s contributions[28], the famous Conimbricenses include five books with eight volumes published between 1592 and 1606 under the direction of the collegium of the Society of Jesus at the University of Coimbra.

Nota 27: Our translation. See the Rules of the Prefect of Studies, 30: “He shall not give permission to students of theology and philosophy to have books of any and every nature. They should be allowed only those which have been recommended by their instructors and approved by the rector. The theologians should have the Summa of St. Thomas, the philosophers Aristotle” (internet: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000053307736&view=1up&seq=451); also the Rules of the Professor of Philosophy, 3-6: “He shall be very careful in what he reads or quotes in class from commentators on Aristotle who are objectionable from the standpoint of faith, and he must be cautious lest his pupils come under their influence (…) On the other hand, he should always speak favorably of St. Thomas, following him readily when he should, differing from him with respect and a certain reluctance when he finds him less acceptable” (internet: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000053307736&view=1up&seq=471).

Nota 28: In the preface of the second edition of the Institutionum dialecticarum (1574), Fonseca admits that, owing to this several occupations, he did not have enough time to write the comments on the books by Aristotle that were studied in the Arts course at that time and for which he had been responsible since the beginning of the 1560s; however, he admits that, owing to a philosophical belief, he preferred to dedicate his time to the “books of the first Philosophy (called Metaphysics), [because] I thought that, if I explained those themes on the principles and Foundation of all Philosophy, it would be the easiest method for me to write and the easiest for the students of Philosophy to understand,” (FONSECA, 1964b, p. 13-14). The effort that he put into commenting Aristotle’s Metaphysics took a lot longer than he first thought and only came to an end after four editions, the last two of which are posthumous: Commentariorum Petri Fonsecae Lusitani, Doctoris Theologi Societatis Iesu, in libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis Stagiritae (T. I, Roma, 1577; T. II, Roma, 1589; T. III, Évora, 1604; T. IV, Lion, 1612); Petri Fonsecae Commentariorum in Metaphysicorum Aristotelis Stagiritae Libros, first re-edition (4 vols.), Cologne: Lazari Zetzneri Bibliopolae, 1615; reimp. edit. 1615, Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1964. Internet: http://www.conimbricenses.org/encyclopedia/fonseca-pedro-da/.

16. Therefore, it is important to note that the collegium of Jesuits assumed as a prerequisite for the elaboration of the Comments the use of the Greek source text and its Latin translation, a decision that contributed historically to consolidate the textual exegesis as a principle of objective validity in philosophy teaching[29].

Nota 29: Our translation. Rules of the Professor of Philosophy, 12-13: “He should make it his chief aim to interpret well the text of Aristotle and be as painstaking in this interpretation as in discussing the subject matter it- self (…) Whenever he comes upon celebrated texts that are often argued in disputations, he must examine them carefully by comparing the more noted interpretations so as to judge which is to be preferred” (internet: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000053307736&view=1up&seq=473).

17. For the purpose of this paper, what really matters us here concerning the meaning of indifference introduced by Father Antonio Vieira as a condition of the coexistence of opposites is the definition of freedom provided by Pedro da Fonseca as something that is rooted in the intellect, especially if taken in the view of the human spirit or consciousness that transcends the limits of the experience of opposites.

18. In his Comments on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, in particular in quaestiones I-VIII referring to chapter II of Book IX, Fonseca takes the task of answering to both old and new questions, such as the following ones: “Which role do the will and the intellect play in the definition of ‘free will’ as well as in the exercise of free actions?”, “How is it possible that the human being imposes upon himself the imperative mode of acting on his own volition?”; or “How can the merit of the individual in the moral action be justified without freedom?”. In the latter question, one presupposes the intervention of the Jesuits in the polemics triggered by Luther when he denied free will[30] by defending the doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas, according to which the essence of the Christian faith is defined as a friendship relation, i.e. as a mutual relationship and, especially, as a free relationship between the Creator and the creature that participates in Him by means of the intellect[31].

Nota 30: See Martin Luther, Concerning Christian Liberty (Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen, 1520). See also On the Enslaved Will (De servo arbitrio, 1525).

Nota 31: See St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, C. 112 (26647-26648). Internet: http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/scg3111.html.

19. In order to present in a simple manner the argument through which Fonseca proposes to reconcile human freedom and divine providence, we need to take into account that, at the time of the Conimbricenses, the theological tradition of Saint Thomas had consecrated a knowledge theory according to which two basic views are distinguished as premises. In the first one, the supreme power of knowledge does not correspond to the use of reason for conceiving, knowing and explaining the things within the limits of experience, e.g. when we say that something called “effect” depends on something else called “cause” [32]. On the contrary, by surpassing that model of causal explanation, the supreme power of knowledge consists in learning about oneself not by dependency but by analogy with what is conceived as being better and the most perfect on its own, i.e. God, the Creator. The second premise says that, in God, i.e. in an imaginary time and space, something is not known after another as if these things had different causes, but everything has the same cause and is known at the same time as one sort of things that cannot be differentiated from another[33]. For this reason, the possibilities of actions and opposite events are known in an indifferent and simultaneous manner on the basis of the contingency of what can or cannot be[34]. 

Nota 32: See St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, I, C. 57 (2421-2422). Internet: http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/scg1044.html.

Nota 33: Idem, Book II, C. 15 (24526-24527). Internet: http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/scg2006.html.

Nota 34: Idem, Book I, C. 55 (23995). Internet: http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/scg1044.html.

20. Finally, to conclude his argument which is in strict agreement with Thomas Aquinas, Pedro da Fonseca argues that the Creator wants himself as an end in itself and wants everything He creates as they follow the end. In relation to Himself, His will is defined absolutely in terms of the necessity of “what cannot not being”, whereas in relation to the events at the level of the actions, which can be indifferent or not, His will involves free will[35].

Nota 35: Idem, Book I, C. 88 (24304). Internet: http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/scg1072.html; idem, Book II, C. 15 (24527). Internet: http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/scg2006.html.

21. To determine and enact one of the opposite possibilities, the condition for the individual to act for the highest good consists in that free power in which he participates as the indifferent self-consciousness lasts because, given the fact that he is indifferent, his actions do not depend on external causes that are sustained by his faith only. His actions are, therefore, free. For this reason, an atemporal prescience that explains Providence and Predestination as an absolute future in the world  does not go against the view according to which a “middle knowledge” (scientia media) explains the meaning of the need of moral actions, when we say that it is necessary that such thing be or be done in such and such a manner on the basis of principles, rules and laws without prejudice to free will[36]. From this point of view, Fonseca states that:

Therefore, for a better understanding of this matter, and of what they [the commentators] mean, when they say that the will is formally free, I assert that the intellect is in fact the root of freedom, or radically free (as it is said), and this assertion is manifest (…) Because freedom formally consists in this potency; ‘formally’ means that once all conditions are fulfilled and if there are no hindrances, then, this is about the power of acting and not acting by being indifferent. In fact, the intellect is the root and source of freedom as well as the light through which the will prefers something to another, thereby being capable, by choice, of curbing itself and revoking.[37]

Nota 36: “Thirty years ago (we wrote in the year of the Lord of 1596) we began to explain the subject of the divine Providence as well as that of Predestination, but there were several and serious difficulties. Back then we believed that there was no easier way or reason to solve all difficulties than to establish [...] the double state of these contingents which are truly future, i.e. absolute and conditioned. We also affirmed in God the certainty of knowing both of these states” (FONSECA, 1964, p. 119; our translation).

Nota 37: See Pedro da Fonseca, Comment. T. III, Lib. IX, Cap. II, Quaest. II: “intellectum autem esse libertatis radicem, seu (ut loquuntur) esse radicaliter liberum, haec enim assertio ex dictis manifesta est. Namque in ea potentia est libertas formaliter, in qua formaliter, sive complete est potestas ad agendum, et non agendum indifferens, positis nimirum omnibus ad agendum, praerequisitis, et sublatis quibuscunque impedimentis. Ea vero potentia est libertatis radix, et origo, que lucem, et quasi facem uoluntati praefert, ut ex pluribus unum eligat aut ab eligendo se cohibeat, aut revocet” (FONSECA, 1964a, p. 565-566).

Conclusion

22. In order to conclude, we would like to stress the view raised in this paper of a relation between the idea of indifference in Vieira and the concept of freedom developed by Fonseca, who argues that, by being indifferent through the intellect, the will becomes “capable, by choice, of curbing itself and revoking”. In Vieira, this power of curbing oneself and revoking implies that self-knowledge does not relate to the conceptual evidence by which we know things and facts based on a cause and effect relation. On the contrary, it is based on the evidence of what we conceive and choose as the best and the most perfect that mankind can improve itself in the moral sense.

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