nt of His conception. For a thing is,
before it acts or operates. Now the use of free-will is an operation.
Since, therefore, Christ's soul began to exist in the first instant
of His conception, as was made clear above (Q. 33, A. 2), it seems
impossible that He should have the use of free-will in the first
instant of His conception.

Obj. 2: Further, the use of free-will consists in choice. But choice
presupposes the deliberation of counsel: for the Philosopher says
(Ethic. iii) that choice is "the desire of what has been previously
the object of deliberation." Therefore it seems impossible that
Christ should have had the use of free-will in the first instant of
His conception.

Obj. 3: Further, the free-will is "a faculty of the will and reason,"
as stated in the First Part (Q. 83, A. 2, Obj. 2): consequently the
use of free-will is an act of the will and the reason or intellect.
But the act of the intellect presupposes an act of the senses; and
this cannot exist without proper disposition of the organs--a
condition which would seem impossible in the first instant of
Christ's conception. Therefore it seems that Christ could not have
the use of free-will at the first instant of His conception.

_On the contrary,_ Augustine says in his book on the Trinity
(Gregory: Regist. ix, Ep. 61): "As soon as the Word entered the womb,
while retaining the reality of His Nature, He was made flesh, and a
perfect man." But a perfect man has the use of free-will. Therefore
Christ had the use of free-will in the first instant of His
conception.

_I answer that,_ As stated above (A. 1), spiritual perfection was
becoming to the human nature which Christ took, which perfection He
attained not by making progress, but by receiving it from the very
first. Now ultimate perfection does not consist in power or habit,
but in operation; wherefore it is said (De Anima ii, text. 5) that
operation is a "second act." We must, therefore, say that in the
first instant of His conception Christ had that operation of the soul
which can be had in an instant. And such is the operation of the will
and intellect, in which the use of free-will consists. For the
operation of the intellect and will is sudden and instantaneous, much
more, indeed, than corporeal vision; inasmuch as to understand, to
will, and to feel, are not movements that may be described as "acts
of an imperfect being," which attains perfection successively, but
are "the acts of an already