Some sixteenth-century Roman theologians kept the view: Alfonso de Castro and Joseph Angles
Even in the last century some theologians of the Roman School still held this view. Alfonso de Castro, a Franciscan, writes in his book on heresies under the heading Liberty: 'There is yet another freedom, opposed to necessity, or more accurately to compulsion.' He adds that when we call man's choice free, it is this freedom that is meant.
Joseph Angles, another Franciscan and bishop-designate of Bosa, later took over Alfonso's words as his own in his commentary on the second book of the Sentences. Having spoken of the freedom of grace and the freedom of glory, he says: 'Third, there is the freedom opposed to necessity, or more accurately to compulsion. This is the freedom of nature, which is our present subject.'
Later, after distinguishing freedom from compulsion, from sin, and from misery, he concludes: 'As regards freedom in the first sense, free choice exists equally in men and in angels. The reason is that the will of neither bad nor good angels, nor of bad men, can be forced.'
Further on he asks whether the act of free choice concerns only contingent things or necessary things as well. Following Bonaventure, he notes that free choice may be viewed either as free or as deliberating, and he draws two conclusions.
First: 'The act of free choice can concern and does concern necessary things. For there is free choice in God, in the angels, and in the blessed, and it issues in its act unchangeably and necessarily, since God is unchangeable by nature and angels and the blessed by glory.'
Second: 'If free choice is taken in the second sense, its act concerns contingent things. For we do not deliberate or take counsel about what is necessary or impossible, but about contingent things that it is in our power to do or leave undone.' (On distinctions 24 and 25, the single question on free choice, arts. 1-3.)
Latin
XXI. Imo sententiam istam superiori saeculo in Schola Rom. retinuerunt adhuc Theologi nonnulli. Ut Alfonsus de Castro ordinis Minorum lib. de haeresibus in verbo Libertas. Est, inquit, adhuc Alia libertas quae opponitur necessitati, vel ut verius dicam coactioni. Et subjungit, quando dicimus hominis arbitrium esse liberum, istud intelligi de hac libertate. Alfonsi vero verba postea adoptavit & sua fecit Joseph Angles, designatus Episcopus Bosanensis, ex ordine quoque Minorum, in secundum librum sententiarum scribens. Nam postquam loquutus est de libertate gratiae & libertate gloriae, Tertio, inquit, est libertas, quae opponitur necessitati, vel, ut verius dicam, coactioni. Et haec est libertas naturae, de qua loquimur in praesentia. Et postea, ubi distinxit triplicem libertatem, Unam a coactione, Alteram a peccato, Tertiam a miseria, haec est illius Conclusio, Quoad libertatem primo modo, aeque in homine & in Angelo est liberum Arbitrium: Et ratio est, quia neque mali Angeli, neque boni, neque mali hominis voluntas cogi potest. In sequentibus vero postquam proposuit quaestionem illam, Utrum Actus liberi Arbitrii sit contingentium tantum, vel etiam necessariorum, Observat ex Bonaventura, liberum arbitrium posse dupliciter considerari, vel quatenus liberum est, vel quatenus deliberans est. Deinde subjungit duas conclusiones. 1. Actus liberi arbitrii potest esse, & est necessariorum. Ratio est, quia in Deo, angelis & in hominibus beatis, est liberum arbitrium, quod quidem immutabiliter, & necessario in suum actum exit; quia Deus per naturam, & Angelus & homo beatus per gloriam, immutabilis est. II. Si liberum Arbitrium secundo modo accipiatur, actus illius contingentium est. Ratio est, quia non consiliamur, neque consultamus de necessariis, & impossibilibus, sed de contingentibus, quae facere vel non facere in nostra potestate situm est. Ad distinctionem 24. & 25. quaest. unica de Libero Arbitrio art. 1. 2. & 3.