De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate

Whether evils of punishment are willed and predetermined in particular by divine providence with an absolute and efficacious will, or only permitted.

I. There is an opinion of certain theologians who assert that one must by no means admit that all effects occurring in this world have been provided for by God, with causes prepared for them so that they might happen in that way. They also affirm that killings in which some people are unexpectedly slain by robbers, drownings of others in rivers, and similar effects were not intended by divine providence to happen in this way, and that God did not prepare the connection of causes from which they proceed; they admit only that such effects were foreseen and permitted by God. They prove their opinion.

First, because it is not consonant with divine goodness and clemency that he created or ordered the free choice of those who swim for the purpose that those crossing the sea should drown in the waters, or that travelers should be killed by robbers. Therefore such effects are not willed by God, but only permitted.

Second. The drowning of people in rivers and similar effects depend on the sin of our first parents, from which they followed; consequently, they would not exist in nature if that sin had not preceded. Therefore they are not willed by God; otherwise the sin of the first parent itself would have been willed, since whoever wills an effect also wills its cause.

This is confirmed. The vengeance God carries out by inflicting evils of punishment cannot be exercised by him unless the evil of guilt has first occurred. Therefore, if God willed to inflict evils of punishment by an efficacious will and prepared the connection of secondary causes so that such punishments would exist in nature, it follows that he efficaciously willed the evil of guilt committed by those who inflict those same punishments.

II. Nevertheless, it must be held with complete certainty that all effects, even fortuitous and chance occurrences that befall people contrary to their intention, are willed by God with an absolute and efficacious will, in respect of every aspect of being that they possess, and are not merely permitted; consequently, he prepared the connection of secondary causes so that they might arise from them.¹ This is the conclusion of St. Thomas, Summa theologiae I, question 19, article 8, in the body, whose words we cited in disputation 26, no. 8. He teaches the same in question 22, article 2, especially in the reply to the first objection, where he says that it is impossible for any effect to escape the order of the universal cause. St. Augustine teaches the same conclusion expressly in his commentary on Psalm 148, on the words, Fire, hail, snow, ice, stormy wind, which fulfill his word.² There he says that by God's will and providence it comes about that the smallest animals harmful to human beings, and likewise monsters, are born for the beauty of the universe; and that lightning falling from heaven strikes a mountain and not a robber, or this person and not that one. Augustine's words are: Many foolish people, unable to contemplate and discern creation acting in its own places and order under God's nod and command, have thought that God governs all things above but despises, rejects, and abandons things below, so that he neither cares for nor governs them, but they are ruled by chance. And a little later: Therefore do not suppose that those things are moved by chance which in all their motion serve God's word. Fire shines where God wills; the cloud is borne where he wills, whether it carries rain, snow, or hail. And why do lightning bolts sometimes strike a mountain and not a robber? And further on: All these things which seem to happen heedlessly by chance in the nature of things do only his word, for they happen only at his command. And a little later: Whatever happens here contrary to our will, know that it happens only by the will of God, by his providence, by his order; and if we do not understand why it happens, let us entrust it to his providence, because it does not happen without cause, and we shall not blaspheme. All the Thomists follow this same opinion.

This is proved from the clearest passages of Scripture. For Isaiah 45 says: I am the Lord, and there is no other, forming light and creating darkness, making peace and creating evil; I, the Lord, do all these things. By “evil” the holy Doctors understand the evil of punishment. Saint Augustine does so especially in book 1, chapter 27 of Against Adimantus, a Disciple of Manichaeus, where he refers the phrase “creating evil” to the servitude and punishments God inflicts.³ Irenaeus thinks the same in book 4, chapter 77; Chrysostom in homily 23 on Matthew, chapter 6, where he says: By evil the Prophet does not mean avarice, robbery, or anything of that sort, but the blows inflicted by divine agency. Saint Basil teaches the same in a certain homily entitled That God Is Not the Cause of Evils, as does Saint Gregory in book 3 of the Moralia, chapter 7. The Prophet joined those two phrases, namely, making peace and creating evil, to indicate that these evils of punishment are not opposed to the peace, beauty, and order of the universe, but rather contribute to its greater beauty and order. Likewise, Jeremiah 32 says in God's person: I brought upon this people all this great evil. And Amos 3 says: If there is evil in the city that the Lord has not done—as if to say, “There is none.” In the common interpretation of the Saints, he is speaking of the evil of punishment.

Moreover, another notable passage proves the same point. It is found in 3 Kings, the last chapter, where it says: A certain man drew his bow, aiming his arrow at random, and struck the king of Israel between the lung and the stomach. Yet from the context of that chapter and chapter 22 it is clear that this effect, though accidental with respect to the one who shot the arrow, was willed and ordered by God so that Ahab might be punished for the vineyard he had unjustly taken from Naboth, according to the word of the Lord that he had spoken, as is said there. Therefore the same must be said of other effects that are accidental with respect to secondary causes: they are all willed and ordered by God to some end.

III. Further, in Matthew 10 our Lord Christ said: Are not two sparrows sold for an as? And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father. That is, without the providence of your Father, as Saint Jerome and the interlinear gloss explain there. Therefore, all the more, when two people are sailing at sea or swimming in a river, if one falls and is drowned contrary to his intention while the other is not, this does not happen without God's will and providence.

Nor is the solution of some valid, who assert that a sparrow is said not to fall to the ground without the heavenly Father because it does not happen without his foreknowledge.⁴ For this solution does not seem to fit our Lord Christ's words. He wished to show, by an argument from the lesser to the greater, that God has providence of all human beings in particular, by means of the providence he has concerning sparrows and other small animals, indeed even the flowers of the field. For he says: Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they do not labor or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of them. Therefore Christ understood that not one sparrow falls to the ground without God's will and decree, and not merely without his foreknowledge.

Further, Ecclesiasticus 11 says: Good and evil, life and death, poverty and prosperity are from God. And in Job 1, after the messengers reported that raiders had attacked and taken his oxen and donkeys, had struck his servants with the sword, and that fire had fallen and consumed his sheep and servants, along with other such events, Job added: The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so it has happened. There he refers the aforementioned events to the divine will and providence as their first cause. He does not say, “As the Lord permitted” or “foresaw,” but as it pleased the Lord This agrees with 1 Kings 2: The Lord puts to death and gives life; he leads down to the underworld and brings back. The Lord makes poor and makes rich, he humbles and exalts. Therefore the evils of punishment are willed by God.

Nor is it an obstacle that Wisdom 1 says: God did not make death. The meaning of this passage is that God does not intend anyone's death per se and primarily, but on account of another greater good joined to it. Secondly, the passage is explained of death with respect to its cause, namely sin, of which Romans 5 says: And through sin, death. Both explanations accord with the context, for it continues: Nor does he delight in the destruction of the living, for he created all things to be. And a little later: But the ungodly have called it to themselves by their hands and words—namely, death.

IIII. It is proved secondly by reason. God wills by his positive will to do all that his causality extends to. For, as was said above, God wills to cause whatever he causes, since he acts through intellect and will. But God is truly a positive cause, inflicting every evil of punishment, even if it is accidental with respect to its proximate cause. Therefore, by that same will he decreed and willed that all evils of punishment exist. Saint Thomas touches on this argument in the first part, question 22, article 2, reply 1, and question 103, articles 5 and 7; those passages should be consulted.

It is proved thirdly. God prepared efficacious means and a connection of causes so that a predestined person would infallibly die in grace and be saved. But often an accidental death or an unexpected drowning in a river is a means necessary according to the order of divine providence for a predestined person to die in grace, in accord with Wisdom 4: He was taken away lest wickedness should change his understanding. Therefore, by his efficacious will God prepared a connection of secondary causes so that a predestined person would be drowned in a river at such a time or be taken away by an untimely death.

Finally, it is proved by another argument of Saint Thomas in the cited reply to the first objection. Although an effect can depart from the order of a particular cause, it is nevertheless impossible for it to escape the order of the most universal cause, as will also be clear in Disputation 31. Therefore, it is impossible for any effect to occur in the natural order that is not willed and ordered to some end by divine providence.

V. To the first argument we reply that, as Saint Thomas teaches in the first part, question 19, article 9, the evil of punishment, formally speaking, is not willed by God, because under the aspect of evil it is not desirable. Rather, insofar as it is joined to a good that God directly wills, by willing in this way the good of his justice and mercy, he wills to inflict the evil of punishment on the sinner. Nor is this incompatible with divine mercy and clemency. God did not therefore create a human being principally for the purpose of drowning in a river. Rather, he created the predestined person principally so as to show his mercy in that person and so that the person might efficaciously attain eternal life. To bring him to it, God decreed that he be drowned in a river while in grace. If, however, the person was reprobate and in mortal sin, God likewise prepared a connection of secondary causes for him to be drowned in the waters, and does this according to the right order of his providence: first, lest the person live on to commit greater crimes, in which God's mercy also shines; second, to show his justice in punishing him; third, to provide greater warning to the just, so that they may learn to fear God; fourth, so that his mercy may shine more brightly in the elect.⁵

To the second argument we reply that, in our manner of understanding, God wills something to happen in two ways. First, he wills it without presupposing anything else. In this way he willed by his will of good pleasure to create the world, since the creation of the world does not depend, on the side of what is willed, on anything else. In the second way, he wills something to exist while presupposing something else of which he is the cause only by permission. Thus he willed by his will of good pleasure that the divine Word assume human flesh, on the supposition of the first parent's sin, as a remedy for which he came; for God was not a positive cause of that sin but only permitted it. I say, then, that evils of punishment are willed by God as joined to the good of divine justice and mercy, on the supposition of the evil of fault, which God permits. It is like a judge willing to hang a criminal on the supposition of that person's crime, of which the judge is not the cause.

To the confirmation we reply that from God's willing evils of punishment in the way explained, it does not follow that he also wills the evil of fault that is presupposed; it follows only that he wills to permit it. Otherwise the same argument would prove that God willed Adam's sin: for by an efficacious will he willed that the Word assume human flesh as its remedy, so that if sin had not existed, the divine Word would not have been incarnate, as Saint Thomas shows in the third part, question 1, article 3. Yet it must by no means be said that God willed Adam's sin.