Rivet: freedom excludes natural necessity and requires prior deliberation
This is the teaching of Andrew Rivet, formerly professor at the Academy of Leiden, in his Summary of Controversies (treatise 4, question 3): "We acknowledge that the nature of freedom cannot coexist with compulsion in the proper sense, nor with natural necessity either, by which an agent is fixed by nature on one outcome. It is not enough for freedom that a man does something of his own accord, since natural causes do that too. Prior deliberation and a judgement of reason are required, and these have no place where nature's necessity settles the act."
Later he says: "We distinguish three points in freedom, by which we explain the nature of free choice in itself. 1. Freedom is in a subject, namely the will. Acting from its own inner principle without reasoning or deliberation, the will always acts of its own accord and without compulsion; acting with counsel and deliberation, it acts freely and without necessity.
"Without the first freedom, from compulsion, the nature of the will is destroyed, for necessity is laid on the will that it cannot be forced in what they call its elicited act. Without deliberation arising from the intellect's indifference, it cannot will freely, since it would then be fixed by nature on one outcome."
So with Thomas he calls free choice an elective power. And with Bellarmine he grants that it belongs to the essence of free choice that one has the option between different things and that the choice is made with a full and complete judgement of reason.
Latin
XIII. Haec est doctrina Andreae Riveti olim in Academia Leydensi Professoris Summae Controversiarum tract. 4. quaest. 3. Libertatis rationem agnoscimus, inquit, consistere non posse, non solum cum coactione proprie dicta, sed etiam cum necessitate naturali, qua agens ad unum natura determinatum est; nec sufficere ad libertatem si homo sponte aliquid faciat, quod etiam causis naturalibus competit, sed necessariam esse deliberationem praeviam, & rationis judicium, quae locum non habent ubi est determinatio ex naturae necessitate. Et postea, Nos, inquit, in libertate haec tria distinguimus, quibus liberi arbitrii naturam per se explicamus. 1. Ut sit libertas in subjecto, nempe in voluntate, quae ex principio suo interno, sine discursu & consilio, agit semper sponte citra coactionem; sed cum consilio & deliberatione libere citra necessitatem. Sine prima libertate a coactione destruitur natura voluntatis, cui necessitas imponitur ut cogi non possit in actu suo, ut vocant, elicito. Sine deliberatione autem ex indifferentia intellectus, libere velle non potest, nempe si natura ad unum determinata esset. Et propterea liberum arbitrium cum Thoma dicit esse vim electivam. Et cum Bellarmino agnoscit ad essentiam liberi arbitrii pertinere, ut quis habeat optionem diversarum rerum, & electio fiat cum pleno atque perfecto rationis judicio.