Liberum arbitrium est facultas voluntatis et rationis: Sulla definizione di libero arbitrio all’inizio del Duecento

The present article investigates the interpretation of Peter Lombard’s definition of ‘free will’ – “Liberum vero arbitrium est facultas rationis et voluntatis” – given by thirteenth-century theologians. These authors, in discussing the bipolarism which, according to Peter, characterizes free will as a tension between the faculties of reason and of will, assign the primacy now to will, now to reason. By so doing, the theologians of the first half of the thirteenth century initiate the ‘voluntarist’ and the ‘intellectualist’ doctrinal stances, which will consolidate only in the second half of the century. It further emerges from their works, with very few exceptions, that ratio and voluntas are a single rational faculty: in this chronological period, the conception of will as an autonomous faculty, independent from the intellect, is not yet widespread