EleutherIA — Defined term

Voluntas (Will)

voluntas

Cross-period Latin

Voluntas is a Latin term whose meanings range across wish, intention, consent, and willing. In Tusculan Disputations IV.12 Cicero proposes voluntas as the Latin rendering of the Stoic boulēsis in that specific taxonomy: a rational aspiration attributed to the sage. Seneca gives voluntas important moral uses, but whether these amount to a distinct faculty should remain a scholarly interpretation. Augustine makes voluntas and liberum arbitrium central to responsibility, sin, and grace; whether this is an invention of “the will” or a transformation of Greek and Stoic materials is the disputed question addressed differently by Dihle and Frede.

Open this record in Scholar mode

Source snapshot seo-source-sha256-51705b13ef303079a5960029d6bf45a566ca04087e345b86aaa3ec979e44d8d6 · 2026-08-24