QUAESTIONES DISPUTATAE: De libertate religiosa

Having begun a discussion of H. H. Pope Benedict XVI's recent statements on Vatican II's teaching on religious liberty ( cf. Part I : Part II : Part III : Part IV ), after the rambling manner of Duns Scotus, let us now reconsider the matter more profoundly in the more succint manner of the Seraphic and Angelic Doctors, in the form of a Quaestio Disputata (a disputed question), that is in scholastic form.


DE LIBERTATE RELIGIOSA

Tractatio Quaestionum

"Religious Liberty" is a species of liberty; and liberty is a quality of the will of a rational being in respect of its disposition or relation to objects ad extra. Hence it is, that for an understanding of "religious liberty" there must be a twofold consideration of it in se and according to its subject. In the first part, wherein "religious liberty" is considered in itself, it must be noted that every disposition is constituted by nature and object. Hence, there are two parts: in the first, the disposition of the will in regard to form and matter is had; in the second in regard to that unto which the disposition is had, and/or that for which or for the sake of which it is had. In the second part, there must be a consideration of "religious liberty" according to its subject, that is, according to the three kinds of rational being, the human, the angelic, and the divine.

Hence it is that there are 2 Articles:

I: On Religious Liberty considered in itself
II: On the Subject of Religious Liberty

And these two articles each have several questions. In the first:

Q. 1: On the Form of Religious Liberty
Q. 2: On the Matter of Religious Liberty
Q. 3: On the Object of Religious liberty

And in the second:

Q. 1: On the religious liberty of God and its threefold division
Q. 2: On the religious liberty of Angels
Q. 3: On the religious liberty of men and human societies

The final question of the second article, has two parts, according to the twofold distinction of nature and supernature:

Part I: On the religious liberty of man and human society, according to nature
Part II: On the religious liberty of the Christian man and Christian society, i.e the Church and Christendom