Salesian Views on

::   Holiness  ::   Holy Communion  ::   Holy Eucharist  ::   Holy Indifference  ::   Hope  

::   Humanism  ::   Human Person  ::   Human Soul  ::   Human will  ::   Humility

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Human will

 

Influence of the will over the powers of the soul

Treatise on the Love of God, 1:1. He makes many organs into one body, under one head; from several individual, he forms a family; from many families, a town; from many towns, a shire; from many shires, a kingdom – the whole kingdom subject to a single king.  In this way God enthrones the will over the multiplicity and variety of actions, impulses, feelings, inclinations, habits, passions, faculties and powers to be found in each man.  

 

How the will controls the soul’s powers

Treatise on the Love of God, 1:2. The will undoubtedly has an utterly despotic control over our powers of external movement; and obedience is unfailing, unless some outside thing prevents it.  We open and shut our mouths, move our tongues, feet, eyes – any part of the body whose motion we can control – and we do so easily, freely, as we please.  

 

How the will controls the sense appetite

Treatise on the Love of God, 1:3. It is not force the will uses to control memory, intellect or imagination, but authority.  There can be no question here, then, of unfailing obedience, any more than servants of children always obey the head of the family.  It is the same too, with the sense appetite, which in our fallen state is called concupiscence.  The sense appetite is subject to both will and intellect. 

 

The emotions of the will

Treatise on the Love of God, 1:5. The intellectual or reasonable appetite, which we call the will, has just as many movements as the sensitive appetite; though we usually call them emotions, rather than passions.  The pagan philosophers had some sort of love for God, for their country, for virtue, for knowledge.

​

​

​

Back to Top

​