Disposition: An Approachable Ontology

Abstract

Reformed Scholastic John Owen's appropriation and adaptation of Thomas Aquinas’ development of the classical ‘disposition’ (Latin: habitus) concept offers practical insight into seventeenth century faculty psychology. This article argues that Owen not only borrows deliberately from Aquinas, he also attempts to simplify and even improve upon Aquinas’ more complicated theological, philosophical, and psychological insights in this important area. While he deals with dispositions of the mind, will, and affections in a way that is broadly similar to Aquinas’ ontological understanding, Owen's most significant contribution to seventeenth century faculty psychology and its theological use is a sustained and consistent emphasis on the necessity of virtuous affections in the pursuit of communion with God. Examining this concept also provides greater context for how the Reformed Scholastics were able to interact with their medieval counterparts. In this we see the Reformed Scholastics’ continuity with the Christian tradition and their depth of understanding regarding human nature.

Disposition: An Approachable Ontology

The concept of ‘disposition’ (habitus) is both a key example of how Reformed Scholastic theologians appropriated medieval theology and how John Owen in particular borrows from the tradition of Thomas Aquinas. Though Owen develops the idea of disposition in a way that is broadly similar to the scholastic tradition and its interpretation of both Aristotle and Aquinas, there are some unique elements to Owen's explanation as well. Owen offers a simplification of Thomist ontology that is surprisingly approachable yet also retains many of Aquinas’ key emphases. In this we see Owen's continuity with the Christian tradition and his depth of understanding regarding human nature.

Disposition Itself

What then is a disposition? Aquinas defines a disposition (or habit), as a particular quality that is necessary in relation to certain acts.¹ In other words, ‘disposition’ refers to an aspect of a person's character or personality that provides direction and impetus for a movement towards an action.² One could describe a disposition simply as a ‘learned capacity’ or that which is ‘halfway between a capacity and an action, between pure potentiality and full actuality’.³ It does not ingrain the pattern in action (a habit), but it does provide a personal bent toward that action.⁴

A disposition is what is necessary for a person to develop the ability to make a task or mindset habitual. Though a disposition does not accomplish the task for a person, without the disposition that task will be considerably more difficult. It is necessary as a starting point towards accomplishing the task. A disposition takes us from mere ability; it provides power so that action is possible.

One of the central concepts Owen uses to describe this disposition is ‘inclination’.⁵ There is in the human soul ‘an inclination and tendency to something extrinsic’, something Aquinas calls a ‘natural appetite’.⁶ Both animals and humans have innate inclinations towards preservation of existence which stand behind the pursuit of food, sexual urges, and the care for their young, things that the inclination perceives of as good.⁷ In animals we call this tendency instinct, but they act on it because it is their nature apart from any specific cognitive function. Human inclinations also operate on the basis of an unchangeable natural law by which we are driven towards ends that we perceive as good or offering happiness.⁸

Owen uses ‘inclination’ not only as a synonym for the concept of disposition but also to describe what dispositions do.⁹ Inclination-related language reminds the reader of the necessity of the concept of ends, for human inclinations point human dispositions in a specific purpose-related direction. In other words, Owen's discussion of inclinations is inherently teleological.¹⁰ It is important to note that both Owen and Aquinas point towards union and communion with God as that which is the ultimate end for humanity.¹¹ Human beings are created to find their ultimate happiness in God himself, and this inclination is built into human nature.¹²

Now due to sin, human inclinations are disordered in the powers of the soul.¹³ This disorder leads to an inability to fully pursue either this ultimate goal or any temporal goal of happiness as well.¹⁴ Natural teleology in a post-lapsarian world is inherently futile, and the internal disorder of the soul that follows is the source of human misery and suffering.

Owen and Aquinas point to God's grace as the source of new dispositions believers receive from God. These dispositions provide a ‘new spiritual bent and inclination of the soul’.¹⁵ Now the concept of inclinations necessitates an examination of the faculties of the soul to see how human powers are to be rightly ordered to their proper goal.¹⁶ In classical ontology, humans possess certain powers and these powers are able to produce acts. The middle step between power and act is disposition. The tendency of a disposition toward a certain act is called an inclination.

Owen emphasises that inclinations are how dispositions drive a person towards certain ends. Dispositions give inclinations, and these inclinations in turn lead from potentiality to actuality. Though Owen sometimes uses the terms inclination and disposition interchangeably, his emphasis on inclinations is that new dispositions give the soul the inward drive that is necessary to pursue union and communion with God with the whole of one's being.

Powers of the Soul

Dispositions produce inclinations, but which parts of humans have dispositions? Owen's development of the idea of disposition emphasises that the powers of mind, will, and affections are all impacted by a new and gracious disposition.¹⁷ These three faculties, which Owen describes as the ‘natural faculties of the soul’, form the primary way Owen divides the powers of the soul.¹⁸

What then is the soul? Aquinas describes the soul as the ‘first principle of life’.¹⁹ Owen uses the Genesis account of creation to describe how God creates Adam with a physical body but then imparts to him a ‘living soul’ which animates that physical body.²⁰ Both Aquinas and Owen refer to a union of body and soul.²¹ While the soul houses the faculties or powers of mind, will, and affections, these faculties have an impact upon how the body perceives and acts as well. Though thinking, choosing, and feeling flow from the soul, they also have embodied aspects. But what are these powers or faculties?

To explain this point, it is necessary to examine Aquinas’ layout of the human soul. There are five powers or faculties in Aristotelian faculty psychology: the vegetative power, the locomotive power, the sensitive power, the intellectual power, and the appetitive power.²² Of these, the vegetative and locomotive powers have no bearing on the subject of dispositions, at least as relates to Owen, since they are merely the faculties responsible for growth and movement and have no connection to the subject of virtue. The sensitive power is then further divided into exterior and interior sense.²³ Neither of these external or internal sensitive powers relates specifically to virtue, as they are powers that influence one's reason but are not themselves subject to reason. The remaining two powers do have significant bearing on this discussion.

Aquinas distinguishes between the ‘appetitive’ power and the ‘intellectual’ power; the intellectual power consists of mind or reason, and the appetitive power is further subdivided between the sensitive appetites and the intellectual appetite.²⁴ Owen uses mind, or the intellectual power, and will, or the intellectual appetite, in largely the same way as Aquinas, as we shall see. Both Aquinas and Owen agree that the intellect is a guiding faculty and the will is a ruling faculty.²⁵ Both theologians agree that there are dispositions of the mind and of the will.²⁶ It is in the way they refer to the sensitive appetites, desires, passions, and affections, that there is some distinction.

Mind

Owen describes the mind as the ‘guiding and leading’ or ‘leading, conducting faculty’.²⁷ This is the faculty that Aquinas describes as the intellect.²⁸ The mind is the power responsible for apprehension and consideration, the ‘faculty of the rational soul by which man understands and judges between intelligible things presented to him’.²⁹ It is the part of a human that we could say thinks, that determines and evaluates. Aristotle and Aquinas held that the intellect was the most noble power in humanity, and Owen follows this hierarchy.³⁰ The mind is the faculty or power responsible for reason and rationality.

Despite the fall of humanity resulting in a diminished capacity of the mind, Owen emphasises the continued functionality of the mind. There is an innate knowledge of God's law, even if only in a shadowy sense.³¹ This diminished capacity relates specifically to divine concepts rather than to natural concepts. In an unregenerate state human minds are capable of learning and understanding ‘things natural, civil, or political, or moral’, and also exploring the concepts of natural theology.³² The noetic effect of sin limits human rationality, but it does not erase it.³³ Though the impact of sin upon the mind does not mean that unregenerate humanity is wholly irrational, it does mean there is no natural understanding of that which is spiritual.³⁴

In those whom the Holy Spirit regenerates, the mind is renewed and enabled to rightly understand the truth of scripture. Through regeneration the mind is convinced ‘through an immediate influence and impression of [God's] power’ and is ‘effectually renewed’.³⁵

Through the Spirit's work the mind is given the ability to function according to its true capacity for spiritual knowledge.³⁶ Faith is essential in order for the mind to function correctly, but Owen still emphasises that humans must make use of their rational faculties in order to correctly understand scripture and theological concepts.³⁷ The Spirit's activity is critical to giving life to the mind and the understanding, which result in their proper functionality.³⁸ As a result of this divine work, the natural mind is renewed and illuminated so that it can understand, even if incompletely, God's self-revelation to his people.

The mind, then, requires a specific disposition to function appropriately.³⁹ Owen also refers extensively to the need for being ‘spiritually minded’ as an example of the right disposition of mind in action.⁴⁰ He refers to the disposition of the mind as that which directs the mind to appropriately learn and apply spiritual concepts. It is essential for the right interpretation of scripture, and it guards against either overemphasising or deemphasising the use of the mind. The influence of the mind is a core part of how Owen explores the topic of human ability to correctly understand and apply God's purposes for human living.

Will

The second component of Owen's triad of human faculties is the will. He defines the will as ‘the ruling, governing faculty of the soul’ or that which is responsible for choice.⁴¹ Owen points to the significance of the will in Aristotelian ontology, as ‘all moral [dispositions] are seated in the will’, and intellectual dispositions have a significant influence upon the will.⁴² If the mind is corrupt and unable to function properly because of sin, the central problem of the fallen will is that it needs life. It is from the will's ‘depravation by nature that we are said to be dead in sin’.⁴³

Though the will is naturally enslaved to sin, it is freed through ‘a reaction between grace and the will, their acts being contrary, and that grace is therein victorious, and yet no violence or compulsion is offered unto the will’.⁴⁴ Through this process God gives life to the will. The will's renewal is a divine work rather than a function of unregenerate humanity's ability.⁴⁵ Though Owen's exploration of the fallen human will is a largely negative portrayal, when dealing with the wills of believers he points to the necessity of the will to be ‘freed, enlarged, and enabled to answer the commands of God for obedience’ in the process of sanctification.⁴⁶

Owen denies that apart from or prior to a work of God's grace there can be anything properly referred to as a free will in humans.⁴⁷ Human nature, including the will, is born into slavery because of sin. It is only through a divine intervention that the will can be liberated. This is one aspect of Owen's development of disposition where he both heavily borrows from and seemingly departs from Aquinas, for Aquinas emphasises that justification comes as a result of an infusion of grace so that humans are enabled to move towards God of their own free will.⁴⁸ In Aquinas’ discussion of the category of free-will it is not entirely clear that his understanding of free-will is precisely the same as that which Owen attacks.⁴⁹ Owen however, in typically Reformed fashion, completely repudiates any notion of free-will, at least rhetorically. Owen's response to the concept of free-will is that it is a Pelagian notion that essentially means ‘God promiseth to convert us, on condition that we convert ourselves’.⁵⁰ The very nature of sin means it enslaves the will in the deadness of sin, and if the will is dead because of sin, then there cannot be any sort of freedom in the will of unregenerate humanity. But this creates a different problem for Owen, for he emphasises both that if the will is ‘compelled, it is destroyed’, and that God renews the wills of humans without ‘violence or compulsion unto the will’.⁵¹ How does this work, and are Owen's explanations and distinctions coherent?

Owen's answer is that freedom of the will can only come about as a direct work of God. ‘As it is a free principle, it is determined unto its acts in this case by the powerful operation of the Holy Ghost, without the least impeachment of its liberty or freedom; as hath been declared’.⁵² Prior to the Spirit's work, humans are only able to choose sin and are completely unable to choose true righteousness. But by giving the will life, God frees the will from its slavery to sin and turns the will toward God. How is this different than Aquinas’ infused grace resulting in the freedom of the will? Owen's response is that God not only gives life to the will, he also works with such an ‘internal efficiency of the Holy Spirit on the minds of men’, that his work on their wills ‘is infallible, victorious, irresistible, or always efficacious’.⁵³ God does not merely enable the turning of the will, he actually moves the human will himself. How then is there no compulsion?

Here Owen again depends upon Aquinas. ‘The will, in the first act of conversion (as even sundry of the schoolmen acknowledge), acts not but as it is acted, moves not but as it is moved; and therefore is passive therein, in the sense immediately to be explained’.⁵⁴ The first act of regeneration upon the wills of unbelievers is a creating of faith and a changing of the disposition of the will so that those whom the Spirit draws are effectively renewed. The Spirit gives life to the dead wills of the unregenerate and transforms those wills so that they are brought willingly to himself. Owen, aware of the tension in what he is explaining, describes this process further. As to the will considered ‘subjectively’, it is ‘merely passive’ and only acted upon, but considered ‘efficiently’, the ‘will, as being acted’, also ‘acts itself’.⁵⁵ This is the ‘reaction’ he wrote of. As the Spirit moves the will and creates life in it, so also the renewed creature desires this process of movement. The will is created with the capacity to be transformed by the Spirit of God, and through God's grace it is both disposed to be moved and also through that disposition consents to movement itself as well.⁵⁶

Affections

Whereas writers such as à Brakel and Turretin emphasise the mind and will as the higher faculties of human consciousness and the passions or affections as a lower faculty, Owen regularly refers to dispositions of the mind, will, and affections as parallel categories with analogous functions.⁵⁷ What then are these affections?

The affections, in Owen's development, are the capacities for ‘fear, love, delight’; this is what Owen refers to as the ‘disposition of heart and soul’.⁵⁸ In believers the affections are ‘the sensitive part of the soul’ which are ‘implanted’ with ‘a prevailing love’ which make the soul be filled with ‘delight and complacency to cleave to God and his ways’.⁵⁹ They are capable of sanctification, and they also are influenced by the inclination. Human affections are naturally disordered apart from the work of the Spirit, so in order to function correctly they require cleansing and training in holiness.⁶⁰ Through regeneration, the affections are enticed so that the Spirit's work ‘carries no more repugnancy unto our faculties than prevalent persuasion doth’.⁶¹ Likewise, the affections are changed through the ‘circumcision of the heart’.⁶² This change is accomplished through a work of the Spirit as he puts new affections into the believer's soul.⁶³

In Owen's writings, ‘affections’ figure as a rough equivalent for what Aquinas calls ‘the passions’.⁶⁴ Owen tends to refer to the affections neutrally or even positively and to the passions negatively, though when he modifies the term ‘affections’ he is usually using it negatively.⁶⁵ This usage is not universal throughout his writings, but it is certainly his normal practice.

One of Owen's most significant contributions to the idea of disposition is the way he emphasises the importance of the new disposition for fighting affections that oppose the work of the Spirit. Rather than merely moderation the affections, he emphasises that godly affections need to replace corrupt affections. Owen has a strong view of both the impact of sin on human affections and the importance of virtuous affections for the Christian life.

Following the work of the Holy Spirit in conversion, the believer is made ‘good and holy’, with the result of a ‘subsequent change of affections and amendment of life’.⁶⁶ Owen points out that this work affects the whole person, all of one's faculties, yet he distinctly emphasises the result on the affections as well. Rightly ordered affections replace disordered affections. The affections themselves are renewed and enabled to function properly through a change in their object.⁶⁷ Where previously the affections were drawn only through natural or even carnal desires, now they are set upon things which are good and bring glory to God, ‘even God himself’.⁶⁸ The Holy Spirit works directly on human affections, moulding them through enticement to what is beautiful, and using the faith of the believer as a sort of eye, shows believers the ‘truth, reality, subsistence, power, and efficacy of spiritual, mysterious things’ in a way that has a profound impact on their affections.⁶⁹

The affections, then, are not merely passive, though they do have a passive role as a response to external stimuli. Rather they point the will and the mind in the direction they are meant to go. The mind apprehends what is good, the will is directed towards what is good, and the affections sense or feel what is good. Natural affections are unreliable guides. Apart from the work of the Holy Spirit in the new disposition, natural affections are both unpredictable and volatile.

The affections are a significant focus on the Holy Spirit's work of renovation through the new disposition. Not only does Owen repeatedly list the affections with the mind, the will, the understanding, and the conscience, he also takes special attention to emphasize specifically how the affections are changed and that they are indeed a subject of the Spirit's work of renewal. This means, for Owen, that any full discussion of disposition needs to include comment on its impact on the affections.

Owen's Simplification of Ontology

Each of these faculties of the triad is the subject of a disposition or inclination and has a distinct role in the way humans function. People are disposed to think, to act, and to feel in certain ways. In examining how these faculties function, Owen's analysis here is every bit as psychological as it is theological. His examination of this triad of faculties is the basic building block of his faculty psychology and is deeply connected to the rest of his theological development.

Though Owen clearly has a scholastic ontology behind his understanding of how humans operate, he presents a simplification of that ontology in his theological works. Aquinas’ structure is visible in the background of Owen's writing, but what Owen emphasises is a much less complicated framework. Despite this simplified terminology in Owen's account of the soul, he is surprisingly able to keep many of Aquinas’ key emphases on faculty psychology in his works. There are two main ways that Owen's treatment of faculties of the soul builds on Aquinas’ development.

First, Owen collapses the more complicated Aristotelian faculty psychology into the triad of mind, will, and affections. Owen draws his triad of faculties from a summarised Thomist ontology, but he omits the parts of this psychology that do not apply to his topic. Rather than taking the whole of Aquinas’ understanding of the powers of the soul as a cohesive unit, Owen instead picks out the pieces that are the most relevant to his theological project and places them in a less cumbersome setting.

What Owen describes as the impact of the disposition on the triad fits with what we commonly experience. His regular use of the terms mind, will, and affection, or some similar combination emphasises the thinking, willing, and feeling faculties of human nature. We think, we choose, and we feel. This ontology helpfully explains daily practice. We may not always be aware of which faculty is driving our response to a given situation in the moment, but we can often after the fact, and fairly easily, distinguish between these three faculties. Owen describes complex faculty psychology in an accessible fashion, and that helps make his development of the concept of disposition more approachable.

This simplification of Aquinas’ ontology to Owen's triad is readily grasped as referring to the whole human soul. Though there is a voluntarist flavour to Owen's ontology which borrows, at least in part, from William Ames, he does not allow it to come at the expense of a similar emphasis on the mind and the affections.⁷⁰ Owen repeatedly insists that the Holy Spirit's work of sanctifying his people consists in a complete work, one in which the whole human nature is changed.⁷¹ He is clear that the affections are every bit as responsible for human sin as are the faculties of mind and will.⁷² This is also true of Owen's understanding of spiritual growth as well. One does not grow spiritually only in the will or the mind without also growing in the affections. Both in vice and in virtue, the whole person is involved. The ‘whole soul’ is changed through the work of the Holy Spirit.⁷³

The idea of disposition is one that encompasses all these different aspects of human consciousness. We do not have to parse exactly how a disposition impacts the different faculties in a specific instance or at which point which faculty is being impacted. In fact, to do so is not really possible; we are far more complex and intertwined in our thinking and feeling than that, and we are rarely that aware of ourselves. Yet this disposition does have an impact on everything about how a person feels, wills, thinks, desires, and acts. It stands behind all these faculties. Owen's use of the triad in place of Aquinas’ psychological terminology aids him in this explanation.

Second, Owen frequently simplifies the terminology he uses when he describes these faculties. Owen does use the standard scholastic nomenclature for these specific faculties, their dispositions, and their acts, but neither as frequently nor as consistently as one might have expected.⁷⁴ Considering his reliance on both Aristotle and Aquinas for these concepts, he makes very little of the distinction between powers and appetites. Having been trained in Thomist ontology, Owen was clearly aware of Aquinas’ distinctions in this matter, and he demonstrates throughout his writings that this framework was behind his understanding of human nature even when his usage stands in noticeable contradiction to Thomist ontology. Nowhere is this more evident than in his concept of the affections. Owen describes dispositions or inclinations of the affections. Now if the affections are equated with the sensitive appetites, then they are the subjects of dispositions as are the mind and the will. If, however, the affections are equated with the passions, then, properly speaking, they are not the subjects of dispositions, for passions do not have dispositions. Owen's use of affections is frequently inconsistent with this distinction, as he uses affections both in place of the passions and in place of the sensitive appetites, sometimes even switching between these distinctions without signalling that he is doing so.⁷⁵

This inconsistency between Aquinas’ and Owen's terminology may be carelessness on Owen's part, as at times Owen is neither consistent nor precise in his writing. Owen's combining of the sensitive appetite with the passions is technically imprecise; they are not the same thing, and it makes Owen's treatment of the affections incoherent if one does not understand what he's doing.

In spite of these limitations, Owen's simplification has significant benefits that commend his approach. In fact, Owen's imprecision may actually turn out as a net gain for him, because his usage fits better than Aquinas’ with ordinary human experience.⁷⁶ Owen's usage could be a sensitivity to the fact that most people do not distinguish between their emotions and the source of their emotions.⁷⁷ For example, when we feel love for something, we don't usually distinguish which faculty or power of the soul is responsible for that feeling of love. We simply know that, as we say today even if it were not how Aquinas or Owen would have said it, we feel a sort of love for something; we may not even know why. Owen's simplification of the vocabulary of ontology fits with this common experience.

Aquinas’ ontology, while technically precise and often psychologically valid, is hardly intuitive. That is not to argue that is it not useful; a technical vocabulary is often necessary for many concepts whether or not we use that vocabulary daily. But sometime a more technical approach can obscure the concept for the average reader. Owen's purpose wasn't to provide an in-depth examination of the powers of the soul. Few would argue that Owen's writings on any subject are intuitive, as his writings have long had a reputation for being cumbersome, but this simplification of Aquinas’ ontology may be one area where Owen is attempting to meet his readers halfway.

Now Owen writes of the affections as if they are a parallel faculty to the mind and the will.⁷⁸ Aquinas and Aristotle held that the passions (affections in Owen) were a subordinate faculty to the mind and the will, and Owen technically maintains this categorisation. Yet his regular pattern of usage suggests he wants his readers to understand a certain correspondence between all three faculties of the triad. Aristotle, Aquinas, and Owen all agree that the passions can lead the mind and the will astray. Owen and Aquinas, however, see the problem of the human condition as deeper than merely having disordered passions. The affections are prone to desire created things rather than the Creator. The depravation of this faculty is such that it makes serious opposition to efforts at reformation. Thus, the solution for both Aquinas and for Owen is much more radical than merely reordering the affections: the affections themselves need to be transformed, and both new objects for and sorts of affections need to be instilled.

Owen's use of dispositions of the affections is a key point of Aquinas’ development of disposition. Robert Miner points out that Aquinas ‘displays no tendency to exalt reason by denigrating the passions, or to exalt the passions by condemning the rule of reason’.⁷⁹ Both intellect and affections are critical components of human functionality in Aquinas’ development, and Owen retains this crucial emphasis. A flourishing human is one in whom the passions or affections and reason rightly function in relation to each other. Despite Aquinas’ explanation of the passions seeming to remove moral agency from humans on account of their passions, he still puts a moral responsibility on human beings for the various attendant circumstances and dispositions that result in their passions.⁸⁰ Owen's simplification of Aquinas’ terminology on the passions allows him to emphasise both the importance of the affections themselves and their responsiveness to command.⁸¹

Conclusion

Disposition in Owen's development is a whole-person inclination. Every aspect of the soul is impacted by this disposition. These three pieces of human consciousness, mind, will, and affections, form a triad of faculties that Owen regularly uses together. While Owen's ontology is expressed in a rather simplified form when considered next to Aquinas, there is much overlap between their ontologies. The importance of this triad in understanding how and why we function the way we do is a key similarity between Owen and Aquinas.