Una volontà senza libertà? Sulla natura della "potestas divina" e della "potestas humana" in Francisco Suárez

This paper focuses on the nature and origin of “potestas”, both human and divine, in the context of Francisco Suárez’s De legibus. On the basis of a presentation of Suárez’s juridical system – which takes into account the three levels of eternal and posi- tive divine law, natural law, and positive human law – the link between lex and potestas is investigated within the framework of ius naturale, ius gentium, ius civile and ius canoni- cum. At all levels of law, the legislator’s will (understood as command and obligation) has a constitutive function. In the purely natural (or moral) juridical order, as well as in the customs of the people and, a fortiori, in the political community, it emerges a concept of the will which is paradoxically detached from freedom, in the perspective of both God as leg- islator and the commanding principle of a body politic directed at the common good. The foundation of legal obligation in the potestas divina leads Suárez to identify the freedom of the individuals within the corpus mysticum politicum with the principle of obligation belonging to the natural reason of the political community. As a result, it is precisely in the relationship between divine and human power advocated by Suárez that we can observe the reduction of ontological participation to a pure natural function of obligation.