Credo Ut Intelligam

Correction

I wrongly accused Kevin of making an "unargued claim that Adam could not have acted as I say he did: without motive to disobey, per se, but simply on a motive to do something that, as he well knew, was per accidens sinful." In fact, Kevin did not make such an unargued claim because he did not make such a claim at all. My attention had lapsed after reading all of that stuff with the Xs and Ys. Kevin wasn't talking about motivations or dispositions at all, but about inclinations in what he calls the narrow sense. In this sense, an inclination is something like a personal act of inclining the will. If this is distinguished from the act of willing itself, as Kevin would have it, then I have no opinion on the issues discussed in those paragraphs, for I cannot make sense of such a distinction. The only thing I can understand as prior to the act of willing are motivations (along with things prior even to them). [Well, I guess you could also say the person himself is prior to his act of willing. And of course the divine decree is too.] As far as the act of willing itself goes. There is no question but that a man always wills as he wishes, or as he prefers, which is to say he wills as he wills. If that's all Kevin means, well, who could disagree with that? The interesting question is why he wills, wishes, or prefers this rather than that. And whether that question always has an answer.