The Summa of Theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas volume 1
1. Is there a will in God?
2. Does God want anything other than himself?
3. Whatever God wants, does he necessarily want it?
4. Is the will of God the cause of things?
5. Can we attribute a cause to divine will?
6. Is divine will always accomplished?
7. Is God’s will subject to change?
8. Does God's will make the things he wants necessary?
9. Is there in God the will of evil things?
10. Does God have free will?
11. Should we distinguish in God a “sign will”?
12. Is it appropriate to propose five signs of the divine will?
Article 1 - Is there a will in God?
Objections:
1. It seems that in God there is no will. For the object of the will is the end, it is the good. But we cannot assign an end to God. So there is no will in him.
2 . Will is a faculty of desire. Now desire, relating to what we do not have, marks an imperfection which does not suit God.
3 . According to the Philosopher, the will is a moving engine; but God is the first immobile mover, as Aristotle himself proves. Therefore there is no will in God.
On the contrary , the Apostle writes (Rm 12:2): “Know how to recognize what the will of God is. ”
Answer:
There is a will in God as there is an intellect in him, because the will is consecutive to intelligence. Indeed, as a thing of nature is in act by its form, so intelligence, by the intelligible form, is in act by the known. Now, everything is in such a relation to its natural form that if it does not have this form, it tends towards it; and when she has it, she rests there. It is the same with all natural perfection, which is a good of nature; and this relation to good, in things deprived of knowledge, is called natural appetite. Thus intellectual nature has a similar relation to the good which it apprehends by means of intelligible form, so that if it has this good, it rests there, and if it does not have it, it seeks it. . Now, resting in good, like seeking it, is a matter of will. Also, in every creature endowed with intelligence there is a will, just as in every creature endowed with sensation there is an animal appetite. Thus, in God, there must be a will, since there is intelligence in him. And as his intellection is his very being, so is his will.
Solutions:
1. Although nothing external to God is an end to himself, he himself is the end to all things that are made by him. And this by essence, since it is good by its essence, as we showed previously. The end, in fact, is formally what is good.
2 . The will belongs in us to the appetitive part. This, although it takes its name from desire, does not have the sole act of desiring what it does not have, but also of loving what it has and enjoying it. And it is in this aspect that the will is attributed to God, because it always has the good which is its object since it does not differ from God according to essence, as we said in the previous solution.
3 . A will whose main object is a good external to the one who wills must be moved by some cause. But the object of the divine will is its very goodness, which is its essence. This is why, since the will of God, too, is its essence, it is not by someone other than itself, it is by itself that it is moved, in the sense in which we say that knowing intellectually and wanting are movements. It is in this sense that Plato said of the first Principle that it moves itself.
Article 2 - Does God want anything other than himself?
Objections:
1 . It seems not. Because his will is identical to his being. But God is nothing other than himself. So he doesn't want anything other than himself.
2. What is willed moves the will, as the desired object moves desire, according to Aristotle. Therefore, if God wants something other than himself, his will will be set in motion by something else, which is impossible.
3 . Any will for which a desired object is sufficient seeks nothing else. But his goodness is sufficient for God, and his will is satisfied. So God wants nothing other than himself.
4 . The act of will is multiplied according to the multiplicity of objects desired. Therefore, if God wills both himself and other things, it follows that his act of will is multiple, and consequently also his being, which is his will. But this is impossible. He therefore does not want anything other than himself.
On the contrary , the Apostle writes (1 Thess 4:3): “This is the will of God: your sanctification. "
Answer :
It must be said that God not only wants himself, but also other things. We see this by the comparison proposed previously. An object of nature not only has a natural inclination towards its own good, to acquire it when it is lacking or to rest there when it has it, but also to communicate it to others. others as much as possible. Also we see that every agent, insofar as it is in act and completed, produces its fellow 2. Therefore the formal reason of goodness includes this: that each communicates to others the good that he has, as much as it is possible. And this mainly suits the divine will, from which all perfection comes according to some resemblance. Therefore, if natural things, insofar as they are completed, communicate their goodness to others, much more does it belong to the divine will to communicate to others its good by way of resemblance, as much as it 'is possible. God therefore wills both himself and other things to be, himself being the end, the others being ordered to the end, inasmuch as it also belongs to divine goodness, by mode of convenience, to be participated by others.
Solutions:
1. Although God's will is his being in reality, it nevertheless differs conceptually, because of the different ways in which we know and signify one and the other, as we have seen. When I say that God is, this affirmation does not involve a relation to something, as when I say: God wills. Consequently, although God is not other than himself, yet he wills something other than himself.
2 . In the things which we will with a view to an end, it is in the end that the whole principle of movement is found, and it is this which moves the will. This is clearly seen in the case of things which are willed only because of the end. For example, one who wants to take a bitter potion, wants nothing other than health. It is different for one who takes a pleasant potion, which he may want, not only for health, but for its own sake. So since it is with a view to this end which is his own goodness that God wills things other than himself, as we have just said, it does not follow that something other than his goodness moves his will. And so, just as God knows other beings by knowing himself, he also wills everything else by willing his own goodness.
3 . From the fact that the goodness of God is sufficient for his will it does not follow that he wants nothing else, but rather that he wants nothing except because of his goodness. Just as the divine intelligence, although it has all its perfection in the very fact that it knows the divine essence, nevertheless knows other things in this essence.
4. Just as the divine intellection is one, because it sees a multitude of things only in one, so the divine will is one and simple because it only wants a multitude of things understood in one, its goodness.
Article 3 - Whatever God wants, does he necessarily want it?
Objections:
1 . It seems that God necessarily wants whatever he wants. For whatever is eternal is necessary, and whatever God wills, he wills eternally, otherwise his will would be changeable.
2. God wills things other than himself inasmuch as he wills his own goodness. But God necessarily wants his goodness. So he wants everything else necessarily.
3 . Everything that is natural to God is necessary; for it is in itself the necessary being and the principle of all necessity, as has been shown. Now it is natural for him to want whatever he wants, because in him nothing can be outside of his nature, says Aristotle. So whatever he wants, he wants out of necessity.
4 . Not being necessary and being able not to be are equivalent propositions. Therefore, if it is not necessary for God to want one of the things he wants, it is possible that he does not want that thing and it is still possible that he wants it, since he wants it. Therefore the will of God is contingent with regard to the wanting and not wanting of this thing. Thus it is imperfect because everything that is contingent is imperfect.
5 . From a cause which can indifferently do this or its opposite, no action comes, unless it is pushed to one of the two by the action of another. Therefore, if the will of God is indifferent with regard to certain wills, it follows that it is determined to produce such an effect by some foreign agent, and thus that it has a cause prior to it.
6 . Whatever God knows, he necessarily knows. But just as God's knowledge is his very essence, so is his will. So whatever God wants, he necessarily wants.
On the contrary , the Apostle says of God (Eph 1:11): “He works all things according to the counsel of his will. ” Now, what we do according to voluntary deliberation, we do not necessarily want. So God doesn't necessarily want everything he wants.
Answer :
Something is said to be necessary in two senses: absolutely, and conditionally. Something is judged absolutely necessary according to the relation of the terms of the proposition which expresses it: that the predicate belongs to the definition of the subject, as it is necessary for man to be an animal; or the subject enters into the notion of the predicate, as it is necessary for a number to be even or odd. But it is not necessary in this way that Socrates should be seated; so it is not absolutely necessary; but this can be said to be conditionally necessary; for supposing he is seated, it is necessary that he be seated when he is seated.
On the subject of divine wills, we must therefore consider that it is absolutely necessary that there be a good which is willed for itself by God, but this is not true of everything that he wills. Indeed, the divine will has a necessary relationship with the divine goodness which is its proper object. God therefore necessarily wants his goodness to be, as our will necessarily wants beatitude, just as every other faculty of the soul has a necessary relationship to its proper and principal object, for example sight to color; because it is of its very nature that it tends towards it. But God wills things other than himself insofar as they are ordered to his goodness as to their end. Now things which are ordered to an end, we do not necessarily want them by wanting the end, unless they are such that without them the end cannot be: thus, wanting to preserve life, we want to nourish ourselves and wanting to make a crossing, we want a ship. But we do not also necessarily want those things without which the end can be achieved, like a horse for traveling; because without a horse you can make your way, and it is the same with everything else. Also, since the goodness of God is perfect and can be without other things, since his perfection is not increased in any way by others, it follows that wanting other things than himself is not for God absolutely necessary. This is, however, necessary conditionally; for supposing that he wills, God cannot not will, because his will cannot change.
Solutions:
1 . From the fact that God wills something eternally, it does not follow that he wills it necessarily, except conditionally.
2 . Although God necessarily wills his goodness, he does not necessarily will the things he wills in view of his goodness; for his goodness can be without other things.
3 . It is not naturally that God wills any of these other things which he does not necessarily will; nor is this against his nature, it is voluntary.
4. It happens that a cause necessary in itself has a non-necessary relation to one of its effects, and this by the defect of the effect, not by the failure of the cause. Thus the virtue of the sun has a non-necessary relation to such a contingent effect here below, not through the failure of the solar virtue, but through that of the effect, which proceeds from this cause not necessarily. Likewise, that God does not necessarily want some of the things he wants does not come from a failure of the divine will, but from a defect which affects by nature the thing desired: namely, that it is such that , without it, the perfect goodness of God can be. But every created good has this defect.
5 . A cause contingent in itself needs to be determined to its effect by something external. But the divine will, which is of itself necessary, determines of itself to will a good to which it has a non-necessary relation.
6 . Just as divine being, divine will and divine knowledge are in themselves necessary; but while divine knowledge has a necessary relation to the things it knows, it is not the same with will with regard to the things willed. The reason is that we have the knowledge of things according to whether things are in the subject who knows; on the contrary, the will relates to things as they are in themselves. Therefore, because all things other than God have a necessary being according as they are in God, but not according as they are in themselves, by reason of this all things which God knows, he knows necessarily; but all the things he wants, he does not necessarily want.
Article 4 - Is the will of God the cause of things?
Objections:
1 . It seems not, because Dionysius writes: “Just as our sun illuminates by its very being, not by reasoning and by choice, all things which want to participate in its light: so the divine good, by its very essence, projects onto all that exist the rays of his goodness. ” Now, to act by will is to act by reasoning and by choice. Therefore God does not act by will, and thus his will is not the cause of things.
2 . In any order of things, that which is such by essence is always first; thus, among igneous things, there is one which is first, that which is fire in essence. But God is the primary agent. So he acts by his essence, which is his nature. He therefore acts by nature and not by will. The divine will is therefore not the cause of things.
3.Everything which is the cause of an effect by that which makes it such, is a cause by nature and not by will: for fire, for example, is the cause of heating because it is hot; on the contrary, the craftsman is the cause of the house because he wants to make it. But Augustine writes: “Because God is good, we are. ”So God is the cause of things by nature and not by will.
4 . The same thing can only have one cause. Now it has been established above that the knowledge of God is the cause of created things. Therefore we must not say that the will of God is the cause .
On the contrary , it is written in the book of Wisdom (11, 25): “How could a thing exist if you had not willed it? ”
Answer:
It is necessary to say that the will of God is the cause of things, and that God acts by will, not by necessity of nature as some have thought. This can be shown in three ways.
1 . From the order of agent causes. As “intelligence and nature” both act with a view to an end, as Aristotle proves, it is necessary for him who acts by nature to be determined in advance by an intelligence higher the end and the means necessary to this end. Thus, the arrow is fixed in advance, by the archer, and its target and its path. It is also necessary that in the order of agents, the one who is intellectual and voluntary is first in relation to the one who acts by nature. And as the first in the order of agents is God, it is necessary that he acts by intelligence and will.
2 . From the formal reason of a natural agent, to which it belongs to produce a single effect; for nature, unless hindered, always operates in the same way. The reason is that the natural agent acts according to what it is, so that, as long as it remains such, it only produces such an effect. Now, every being that acts by nature has a limited being. Therefore, since the being of God is not limited, but contains within itself all the perfection of being, it is impossible for him to act from the necessity of nature unless he causes something unlimited and of infinity in being, which is impossible, as emerges from the above. God therefore does not act out of natural necessity; but limited effects proceed from his infinite perfection, according to the determination imposed on them by his will and his intelligence.
3. From the relationship of the effect to its cause. For the effects proceed from their agent cause according as they pre-exist in it, because every agent produces its like. Now the effects pre-exist in their cause according to the way this cause exists. Also, since God's being is his very intellection, his effects intelligibly pre-exist in him. And therefore they proceed from him according to understanding. And so therefore, according to the will, because the impulse to do what has been conceived by the intelligence comes from the will. The will of God is therefore the cause of things.
Solutions:
1 . Dionysius does not intend to refuse God the choice in an absolute way, but in a relative way: in that his goodness is communicated not only to a few, but to all. It is therefore a question of the choice depending on whether it involves discrimination.
2 . Because the essence of God is identical to his intellection and his will, from the fact that he acts by his essence, it follows that he acts by mode of intelligence and will.
3. Good is the object of the will. Therefore, when we say: “Because God is good, we are,” this means that his goodness is in him the reason for wanting all other things, as has been said.
4 . Even in us, a single effect has as its cause science, which conceives the form of the work as directive, and the will as motive power. For the form, according as it is in the intelligence alone, is determined only by the will to be or not to be in the effect. Also the speculative intellect says nothing about doing. As for power, it is cause as executor; because this word designates the immediate principle of the operation. But all these attributes are one in God.
Article 5 — Can we attribute a cause to divine will?
Objections:
1. It seems that a cause can be attributed to the divine will. For St. Augustine asks: “Who would dare to say that God created everything without reason? ” Now, when it comes to a voluntary agent, what is the reason for acting is also the cause of wanting. Therefore God's will has a cause.
2 . To everything that a voluntary agent does who has no cause of his will, we can attribute no other cause than the will of the one who wills. Now the will of God is the cause of all things, as has been shown. Therefore, if there is no cause of his will, there will be no other cause to seek for all beings of nature, except the divine will alone. And thus all sciences would be superfluous, those which strive to find the causes of effects. This does not seem admissible.
3. What is produced by a voluntary agent without any cause depends on his will alone. Therefore, if the will of God has no cause, it follows that everything that happens depends on his simple will and has no other cause, which cannot be admitted either.
In the opposite sense , S. Augustine writes: “Every efficient cause is superior to what it does; but nothing is superior to the divine will; there is therefore no need to seek the cause. ”
Answer:
We cannot in any way attribute a cause to divine will. To be convinced of this, we must observe that, the will proceeding from the intelligence, being the cause that a will wills and that an intelligence knows, this is done in the same way. Now what happens in the intellect is that, if it conceives on one side the principle, and on the other hand the conclusion, the intelligence of the principle causes the science of the conclusion. But if the intellect saw the conclusion directly in the principle, grasping both with a single glance, the science of the conclusion would not be caused in it by the intelligence of the principles, because the same does not is not the cause of itself. However, the intellect would understand that the principles are the cause of the conclusion. It is the same for the will, for which the end is with regard to the means what the principles are with regard to the conclusions for the intellect. Therefore, if someone, by one act, wills the end, and by another act the means, the will of the end will be for him the cause of the will of the means. But if by a single act he wills the end and the means relative to this end, this cannot be, because the same is not the cause of itself. However, it will be true to say that this being wants to order the means to the end.
Now, just as God, by a single act, sees all things in his essence, so by a single act he wills everything in his goodness. Also, just as in God knowing the cause does not cause the knowledge of the effects, but he knows the effects in their causes, so willing the end is not the cause in God of wanting the means; but he wants the means to be ordered to the end. So he wants this for that reason, but it is not because of that that he wants this.
Solutions:
1 . God's will is reasonable; not in the sense that there is in God a cause of his will, but in the sense that he wants one thing to be because of another.
2.Since God wants the effects to be in such a way that they come from specific causes, so that the order of things is respected, it is not superfluous to look for other causes besides the will of God. What would be superfluous would be to look for other first causes which would not depend on the divine will, and this is what S. Augustine says: “The vanity of philosophers wanted to attribute other causes to contingent effects, in their powerlessness to perceive the cause superior to all causes: the will of God. ”
3. Since God wants effects to be through causes, all effects which presuppose another effect depend not only on God's will, but on something else. But the first effects depend solely on the will of God. As if we were saying: God wanted man to have hands to serve his intelligence by accomplishing all kinds of works; he wanted him to have intelligence to be a man; he wanted him to be a man in order to be able to enjoy his Creator, or even for the completion of the universe. But these latter purposes do not relate to any other created purpose. Such things therefore depend on the simple will of God; but all the others also depend on the chain of other causes.
Article 6 — Is the divine will always accomplished?
Objections:
1. It seems not. Indeed, the Apostle writes (1 Tim 2:4): “God wants all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. ” But it doesn’t happen that way. So God's will is not always accomplished.
2. What science is to truth, will is to good. But God knows all the truth; therefore he wants everything that is good. Yet not everything that is good comes true; many good things can be done which are not being done. God's will is therefore not always accomplished.
3 . The will of God, the first cause, does not exclude, it has been said, intermediate causes. Now the effect of the First Cause can be prevented by the failure of the second cause, as happens when the effect of the motor virtue of our body is prevented by the weakness of the leg. Therefore, the effect of God's will can be prevented by the failure of secondary causes. God's will is therefore not always accomplished.
On the contrary, Psalm (115:3) says: “Whatever God wants, he does. "
Answer :
It is necessary that God's will always be accomplished. To discover this it is necessary to observe that the effect conforming to the agent according to its form, the relationship is the same in the series of agent causes and in that of formal causes. Now the order of formal causes is such that if a subject may well, through its failure, lack a particular form, nevertheless, with regard to the universal form, nothing can be missing. Something, in fact, can be which is not a man nor a living thing, but nothing can be which is not a being. It must therefore be the same in agent causes. Something, in fact, may well occur which escapes the order of some particular agent cause; but not to the order of a universal cause, under the action of which all particular causes are understood. Because, if some particular cause fails to have its effect, this comes from the hindrance provided by another particular cause, which falls within the order of the universal cause. The effect cannot therefore in any way escape the ordination posed by the universal cause. This is even seen in bodily realities. Thus, the effect of a star can be prevented; but whatever the effect produced by an impediment of this kind, in corporeal realities, this effect is necessarily reduced, by such or such intermediate causes, to the universal activity of the first heaven.
Therefore, since the will of God is the universal cause with regard to all things, it is impossible that the will of God should not obtain its effect. This is why what seems to deviate from the divine will in a certain order falls back in another. The sinner, for example, as far as he is in himself, distances himself from the divine will by doing evil; but he returns to the order of this will through the punishment inflicted on him by justice.
Solutions:
1 . These words of the Apostle: “God wants all men to be saved,” etc. can be understood in three ways.
First, in such a way that the distributive affirmation is interpreted as follows: “God wants all men who are saved to be saved. ” As St. Augustine says: “Not that there are not men whose salvation he does not want, but no man is saved whose salvation he does not want. ”
Second, this distribution can be understood by applying it to categories of individuals, but not to individuals in these categories, in the following sense: “God wants men to be saved in all categories: men and women, Jews and pagans, great and small, without wanting to save all those who belong to these categories. ”
Third, according to the Damascene, this text is understood from the antecedent will, not from the consequent will. This distinction is not taken from the side of the divine will itself, in which there is neither before nor after, but from the side of the things willed. To understand this, we must consider that everything, according as it is good, and to this extent, is willed by God. Now, something can be, at first glance, considered in itself good or bad, while in its connection with something else, which is a consequent consideration, we see things the opposite. So it is good for a man to live, but evil to kill a man, if we consider the thing in itself. But if added to this, for a determined man, that this man is a murderer, or that he is a danger to the community, from this point of view it is good that this man be put to death, and it is bad that he lives. Also we can say of a judge loving justice: of antecedent will he wants every man to live; but with consistent will he wants the murderer to be hanged. Similarly, it is God's will that all men be saved; but of consistent will he wants some to be damned, as his justice requires.
However, even what we previously want we do not want purely and simply, but in a certain aspect. For the will relates to things as they are in themselves: and in themselves they are particularized. This is why we want something purely and simply when we want it, taking into account all the particular circumstances, which is wanting with consistent will. Therefore we can say that the justice-loving judge purely and simply wants the murderer to be hanged; but in a certain aspect he would like him to live, as he is a man; what we can call a desire rather than an absolute will. This makes it clear that everything that God wants absolutely comes true, although what he wants from antecedent will does not come true.
2 . By the act of the cognitive faculty the known is in the knower, while by the act of the appetitive faculty, the operant is oriented to things according to what they are in themselves. Now, everything that can be justified and true is virtually entirely in God; but all this is not found in created things. And this is why God knows everything that is true, while he does not will everything that is good, except as he wills himself, in whom, virtually, all good exists.
3.The first cause can be prevented from producing its effect by a failure of the second cause, when it is not universally first, including and subordinate to all other causes. If it were, the effect could in no way escape its ordination. And so it is, as we have just said, with the will of God.
Article 7 — Whether the will of God is subject to change?
Objections:
1 . It seems good, since the Lord says in Genesis (6, 7 Vg): “I repent of having created man. ” But he who repents of what he has done has a changing will.
2. Jeremiah (18, 78) makes the Lord say: “Sometimes I speak about a nation and a kingdom, to uproot, to bring down and to destroy; but if this nation against which I have spoken turns from its wickedness, then I repent of the evil which I intended to do it. ”
3. Whatever God does, he does voluntarily; but God does not always do the same thing because at one time he prescribed observing the Jewish law, and at another time he prohibited it. Therefore his will is changeable
4 . We have established that God does not necessarily want what he wants; he can therefore want or not want the same thing. Now, everything that can do this or its opposite is changeable. For example, what can be and not be is changeable as to its substance; what can be here and not be there is changing depending on the place, etc. Therefore God is changeable as to will.
On the contrary , it is written (Num 23:19): “God is not a man, that he should lie; he is not a son of man, to repent. "
Answer :
God's will is absolutely immutable. But in this regard we must remember that something else is changing one's will, something else is wanting certain things to change. Someone can, his will always remaining the same, want this to happen now, and the opposite to happen later. The will would change if one began to want what he first did not want, or to stop wanting what he first wanted. This can only happen through a change either in the knowledge or in the existential conditions of the one who wants. Indeed, the will, having as its object the good, a subject can begin to want another thing in two ways. First, if this thing begins to be good for him, and this is not without change on his part, as, when the cold comes, it becomes good to sit by the fire, which before was not. Either the subject comes to recognize that this is good for him, whereas he was previously unaware of it; because if we deliberate, it is to know what is good for us. Now, we have shown above that the substance of God and his knowledge are both absolutely immutable. His will must therefore also be absolutely immutable.
Solutions:
1. This word must be understood as a metaphor, in comparison with us. When we repent, we undo what we have done. However, this can happen without there being any change in the will; for a man, without his will changing, can wish to do a thing now and, at the same time, propose to destroy it afterwards. So we say that God repented by assimilation to our repentance, since after having made man, he destroyed him by the flood on the face of the earth.
2. The will of God, first and universal Cause, does not exclude intermediate causes, which have within them the virtue of producing certain effects. But because the intermediate causes all together do not equal in virtue the first cause, there are in the power, science and divine will, many things which are not contained in the order of the lower causes. Like the resurrection of Lazarus. With regard to lower causes, someone could say: “Lazarus will not rise”; the same, considering the First Cause, God, could say: “Lazarus will rise again. ” Now, God wants these two things: that such an event is to come because of its lower cause, and that however, it is not to come because of its higher cause, or vice versa. We must therefore say that God, sometimes, predicts an event according to whether this event is contained in the order of secondary causes, such as the dispositions of nature or the merit of men; and yet this event does not occur, because it is otherwise by virtue of divine causality. This is how God predicted to Hezekiah (Is 38:1): “Put your house in order, for you are going to die, you will not recover. ”And yet this did not happen, because from eternity it was decided otherwise in the knowledge and the will of God, which are immutable. This is what S. Gregory means when he writes that God changes his sentence, but not his advice, namely the advice of his will. So when God says, “I will repent,” it is a metaphor, based on the fact that men, when they do not realize their threats, seem to repent of them.
3 . We cannot conclude from this argument that God has a changing will, but that he wills changes.
4 . Although, if God wills something, this will is not absolutely necessary, it is nevertheless conditional, because of the immutability of divine wills, as was said previously.
Article 8 - Does the will of God necessarily make necessary the things it wants?
Objections:
1 . It really seems like yes. Indeed, S. Augustine affirms: “No one is saved except he whom God wants to be saved. We must therefore pray to him that he wills it, because if he wills it, it is necessary that it happens. ”
2 . Every cause which cannot be prevented necessarily produces its effect; for nature itself always produces the same effect, unless some obstacle hinders it, says Aristotle. Now, the will of God cannot be prevented; for the Apostle says (Rm 9:19): “Who resists his will? ”The will of God therefore imposes its necessity on the things it wants.
3. That which derives its necessity from something which is prior to it is absolutely necessary; thus it is necessary for the animal to die, because it is composed of elements which oppose each other. Now, for things created by God, the divine will is like something which is prior to them and from which they derive their necessity, because this conditional proposition is true: If God wills something, it is. Now, every true conditional proposition is necessary. It follows, then, that whatever God wills is absolutely necessary.
On the contrary , all good things that are done, God wants them to be done. Therefore, if his will makes the things he wills necessary, it follows that all things necessarily come to pass. In this way free will, deliberation and all that follows perish.
Answer:
The divine will makes certain things necessary, but not all. And some thinkers wanted to explain this fact by an appeal to intermediate causes, saying: the things that God produces by necessary causes are necessary; those which it produces by contingent causes are contingent. But that doesn't say enough, it seems, for two reasons. First of all, the effect of a first cause is made contingent by the second cause for the reason that its effect is prevented from occurring by the failure of the latter, just as the effectiveness of the sun is hindered by the failure of the latter. of the plant. Now no failure of the second cause can prevent the will of God from producing its effect. Then, if the distinction between contingent things and necessary things is referred to secondary causes only, it follows that it escapes divine intention and will, which is unacceptable.
It is therefore better to say that if there are things to which the divine will confers necessity, and others to which it does not confer it; this comes from the effectiveness of this will. Indeed, when a cause is effective, the effect proceeds from the cause, not only as to what is produced, but also as to the manner in which it is produced, or in which it is; it is in fact the insufficient vigor of the seed which causes the son to be born unlike his father in terms of the individuating characteristics, which make up his way of being a man. Therefore, as the divine will is perfectly effective, it follows that not only are the things he wills done, but they are done in the manner he wills. Now God wants certain things to happen necessarily, and others, contingently, so that there is order in things, for the perfection of the universe. This is why he has prepared necessary causes for certain effects, which cannot fail, and from which the effects necessarily come; and for other effects he has prepared defective causes, the effects of which are produced in a contingent manner. Therefore, it is not because their immediate causes are contingent that effects willed by God happen contingently, but it is because God wanted them to happen contingently that he has prepared causes for them. contingent.
Solutions:
1. The necessity of which S. Augustine speaks, in the things willed by God must be understood, not as absolute, but as conditional. Indeed, it is necessary that this conditional proposition be true: if God wills this, it is necessary that this be.
2 . From the fact that nothing resists the will of God, it follows not only that what God wants comes true, but also that it happens contingently or necessarily, depending on whether he wanted it that way.
3 . Being necessary because of something prior is understood according to the mode of necessity conferred by the prior thing. From this it follows that things which are produced by the will of God have the sort of necessity which God desires for them: that is to say either an absolute necessity, or a conditional necessity only. So, not all things are absolutely necessary.
Article 9 - Is there in God the will of evil things?
Objections:
1. It seems that God wants evil things. For whatever good thing is done, God wills it. But it is good that these evil things be done, for St. Augustine said: “Though evil things are not good, yet there are not only good things but also evil things, this is good. ”
2. Dionysius writes: “Evil contributes to the perfection of the universe. ” And, says S. Augustine: “The admirable beauty of the universe results from its entirety; in him, even that which we call evil, brought back to order and put in its place, brings out the good things more, because these are more pleasing and are more worthy of praise when compared to the bad. ” But God wants everything that belongs to the perfection and beauty of the universe; because this is what God wants above all in creatures. So God wants evil.
3 . To say that bad things are done and that they are not done are two contradictory propositions. But God does not want bad things not to happen, because there are some that do, and therefore God's will would not always come true. So God wants evil things to be done.
On the contrary , S. Augustine writes: “It is never by the action of a wise man that a man is degraded; but God prevails over the wisest of men. Much less therefore is God the cause of someone being degraded. But to say that God is cause is to say that he wills. ”It is therefore not by the will of God that a man becomes vile. So God does not want evil.
Answer:
As we said above, the formal reason for “good” is to be attractive, and bad is the opposite of good. It is therefore impossible for an evil thing, as such, to be attractive, “palatable”, whether it is the natural appetite, the animal appetite or the intellectual appetite, which is the will . But an evil can become attractive by accident, insofar as it results from a good thing. And this is visible, whatever kind of appetite we consider. For a natural agent never tends towards the deprivation of form or total destruction, but towards a form to which the deprivation of another form is connected; he wants the generation of a reality, a generation which cannot be achieved without the corruption of the previous one. The lion, which kills a deer, searches for its food, which results in the killing of an animal. Likewise, the fornicator seeks enjoyment, to which the deformity of the sin is linked.
Now, the evil which is linked to one good is the deprivation of another good. Evil would therefore never attract the appetite, even accidentally, if the good to which evil is linked did not attract more than the good of which evil is the deprivation. Now, God wants no good more than his own goodness; yet he wants this good more than that other good. “Consequently the evil of fault which deprives the creature of its ordination to good, God does not want in any way. ” But the evil which is a deficiency of nature, or the evil of pain, God wills by wanting some good to which such evil is linked. For example, by wanting justice, he wants the guilty party to be punished, and by wanting the order of nature to be preserved, he wants certain beings to be destroyed by an effect of nature.
Solutions:
1. Some have said: God does not want evil things, but he wants evil things to be or to be done. They said this because things which in themselves are evil are ordained to some good, and they believed that this ordination to good was included in the assertion that evil things are or are done. But this is not correct. For if evil is ordered to good, it is not by itself, it is by accident. Indeed, it is not the intention of the sinner that good come from his sin, the tyrants did not intend to make the patience of the martyrs shine. We cannot therefore say that this ordination to good is included in the formula by which we declare good that evil is or occurs; for nothing is judged by what suits it by accident, but by what suits it by itself.
2. Evil contributes to the perfection and beauty of the universe only by accident, as we have just said. Also, when Dionysius says that evil contributes to the perfection of the universe he gives this as the unacceptable conclusion to which the position he criticizes would lead.
3. That evil things should be done, and that they should not be done, are two contradictory propositions; but wanting bad things to be done and wanting them not to be done are not opposed because they are two affirmative propositions. God, in fact, does not want evil things to be done or not to be done, but he wants to allow them to be done.
Article 10 – Does God have free will?
Objections:
1 . It seems not, because St. Jerome tells us: “God is the only one in whom sin is not and cannot be found; others, having free will, can move towards good or evil. ”
2. Free will is a faculty of reason and will, by which we choose good and evil. Now God does not want evil, as we have just said; he therefore does not have free will.
In the opposite sense , S. Ambrose writes: “The Holy Spirit distributes his gifts to each person as he wishes, that is to say according to the free will of his will, not by submission to necessity. ”
Answer:
We have free will with regard to things that we neither necessarily want nor by an instinct of nature. Because it does not belong to free will, but to natural instinct, that we want to be happy. Also we do not say of other animals, which are moved towards any object whatsoever by natural instinct, that they act by free will. Therefore, as God necessarily wills his own goodness, but not other things, as has been shown, he possesses free will with regard to all that he does not necessarily will.
Solutions:
1 . It seems that S. Jerome dismisses free will from God, not purely and simply, but only with regard to falling into sin.
2 . Since the evil of fault consists in the rejection of the divine will, by reason of which God wills whatever he wills, as has been shown, it is manifestly impossible that God wills the evil of fault. And yet he is free with regard to opposites, insofar as he can will this to be or not to be. This is how we ourselves, without sinning, can want to sit down, and not want to.
Article 11 — Should we distinguish in God a will as a sign?
Objections:
1. It seems not; for the knowledge of God, as well as the will of God, is the cause of things. But we do not speak of signs on the side of divine science. So we must not admit it for his will.
2 . Any sign that does not agree with the thing signified is false. Therefore, if the signs of the divine will do not agree with the divine will, they are false; if they match they are useless.
In the opposite sense , the will of God is unique, being identical to his essence. However, it is sometimes meant in the plural, as when we say with the Psalm (111, 2 Vg): “The works of God are great, conforming to all his wills. ” It is therefore sometimes necessary to take a sign of his will as the will of God itself.
Answer :
As we have seen above, what we say about God is sometimes taken in a literal sense, sometimes by metaphor. When, by metaphor, we attribute human passions to God, it is because of the resemblance of the effects. From this it comes that what would be in us the sign of such a passion is metaphorically attributed to God under the name of this passion. Thus, angry people have the habit of punishing, so that the act of punishing is a sign of anger; it is for this reason that the act of punishing, when attributed to God, is signified by the word “wrath”. Likewise, what is in us the sign of a will is sometimes called metaphorically, in God, a will. For example, if a man orders something, it is a sign that he wants that thing done; for this reason the divine precept is sometimes called, metaphorically, a will of God, thus: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” ” But there is this difference between the will and anger, that anger is never attributed to God in the literal sense, because in its main meaning it includes passion; on the contrary, the will is attributed in the proper sense to God. This is why, in God, we distinguish a will in the literal sense and a will in the metaphorical sense. The will strictly speaking is called the will of good pleasure, and the metaphorical will is called the will of a sign, because the sign of a will is taken in this case for the will itself.
Solutions:
1. The knowledge of God is the cause of things which are done only through the will; for the things which we have in the mind through knowledge, we do only if we want them. This is why we do not attribute a sign to science as to will.
2 . If the signs of willing are called “wills of God”, it is not because they are the sign of what God wants; but the things which are in us the sign that we want are called in God (metaphorically) “wills of God.” So, punishment is not a sign that there is wrath in God; but the act of punishing, because it is a sign of anger in us, is called “wrath” with God.
Article 12 — Is it appropriate to propose five signs of the divine will?
Objections:
1 . It does not seem appropriate to propose, concerning the divine will, the five signs which are: prohibition, precept, advice, operation and permission. For the very things which God prescribes or advises us, he sometimes works in us, and what he prohibits, he sometimes permits: we should therefore not oppose these terms in a division.
2. God does nothing without wanting to according to the book of Wisdom (Il, 25); but the will to sign is distinct from the will to good pleasure. Therefore the operation must not fall under the will of the sign.
3 . The operation and permission concern all creatures, because with regard to everything, God acts and allows certain things; on the contrary, the precept, the advice and the prohibition are only addressed to the reasonable creature; all these terms, which do not belong to the same order of things, should therefore not appear together in the same division.
4 . Evil occurs in more diverse ways than good; because good is realized in a single way, while evil is multiform, as Aristotle and Dionysius observe; It is therefore not appropriate to devote only one sign to evil: prohibition, while two concern good: advice and precept.
Answer:
The signs in question are those by which we are accustomed to manifesting our wishes. Indeed, someone can declare that they want something, either by themselves or by another. By oneself, by doing something either directly, indirectly and by accident. Directly, if it operates something by itself, and in this respect the operation is called a sign.
Indirectly if it does not prevent another from acting; for he who removes an obstacle is said to move indirectly and by accident, as Aristotle explains. In this regard, permission is said to be signed. By another someone declares that he wants something: either by a formal intimation which obliges him, which is done by prescribing what one wants, and by prohibiting the opposite; or by persuasion, which is advice.
Therefore, since these are the five ways in which someone declares that they want something, they are sometimes given the name “divine wills,” as they are signs of that will. Indeed, that the precept, the advice and the prohibition are called the wills of God, this is what we see in S. Matthew (6, 10): “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. ” Whether permission or action is called the will of God, we see it from these words of S. Augustine: “Nothing is done except what the Almighty wants it to be done, either by letting do, or by doing himself. ”
It is true that we can also say: Permission and operation refer to the present, permission if it is a question of evil, operation if it is a question of good; in the future, on the contrary, if it concerns evil, prohibition applies; if it concerns the necessary good, the precept; if it concerns supererogatory property, advice.
Solutions:
1. Nothing prevents one from declaring one's will in different ways regarding the same thing; in the language too, there are many synonyms. Nothing therefore prevents the same thing from being the object of precept, operation, prohibition or permission.
2 . Just as, by metaphor, we can mean that God wants something that he does not, strictly speaking, want, so we can, by metaphor, mean that he wants something that he really wants. Nothing prevents therefore that with regard to the same object there is both a will of good pleasure and a will of sign. But the operation is always identical to the will of good pleasure, and not the precept nor the advice; the reason is first of all that the operation is in the present, while the precept and the advice look to the future; then the operation is in itself an effect of the will; the precept and the advice are the effect only through intermediary, as we have just said.
3 . The rational creature is mistress of its actions, and this is why we note particular signs of the divine will about it, according to whether God intends this creature to act voluntarily and by itself. Other creatures, on the contrary, only act moved by the divine operation, and this is why, affecting these other creatures, we only point out the operation and the permission.
4. The evil of fault, although it occurs in many ways, always has this in common that it is contrary to the will of God, and this is why only one sign relates to it: the prohibition. On the contrary, goods have various relationships with divine goodness; because there are some without which we cannot access the sharing of divine goodness, and with regard to them there is the precept. There are others by which we access it in a more perfect way and they are the object of the advice. We can also say that advice does not only look at the best goods to obtain, but also the least evils to avoid.
We must now study what relates to the will of God considered absolutely. Now, in the appetitive part of our soul, there are both passions, such as joy, love and the like, and the habitus which are the moral virtues such as justice, strength and the like. We will therefore consider: 1° Love in God (Q. 20); 2° his justice and his mercy (Q. 21).