De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate

Whether created free choice can resist God Almighty or struggle against the order of divine providence.

I. Since the infallibility of divine foreknowledge, providence, and predestination, and the efficacy of the helps of grace by which all who are delivered are most certainly delivered, rest upon God's omnipotence and the infinite power of his will, by which he has done whatever he willed in heaven and on earth,¹ it will not be foreign to our purpose to inquire more thoroughly and explain whether created free choice can struggle against God's will, resist it, and oppose it. This difficulty is closely related to another that St. Thomas treats in Summa theologiae I–II, question 6, article 4: namely, whether violence can be inflicted on the will by God. There the Thomists also discuss whether any creature can be moved immediately by God with a violent motion. Since a violent motion comes from an extrinsic principle, with the patient contributing no force—that is, resisting—the resolution of this question will bring considerable usefulness and clarity to what must be said about the resistance of free choice. Therefore, in this disputation certain matters concerning this latter difficulty must also be touched on briefly.

We argue first, then, that created free choice can resist God Almighty and his will. For Isaiah 3 says: Their tongue and their inventions are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his Majesty. And Psalm 16 says: Protect me from those who resist your right hand, as the pupil of the eye. And Acts 7 says: You have always resisted the Holy Spirit. These words signify that created will can not only resist the divine will, but often actually does so.

Second, it is argued. A created will can be coerced and suffer violence from God, at least by his absolute power. Therefore it can resist him. The consequence is proved: since a coerced or violent motion comes from an extrinsic principle while the patient contributes no force—that is, resists by its own inclination—if God can coerce the will to some act, the will can resist God. The antecedent is proved: the intellect can be coerced by God; therefore so can the will.

First, this is confirmed: for, as theologians commonly admit in the second book of the Sentences, distinction 25, the will can suffer violence in acts it commands. Therefore it can also suffer violence in acts it elicits. The consequence is proved: not only can acts of other powers be commanded by the will, but so can acts elicited by that same will; for the will can turn back upon itself and command itself to perform an act of love, as St. Thomas teaches in Summa theologiae I–II, question 16, article 4, reply to the third objection. This is also gathered from Psalm 118: My soul has desired to desire your justifications at all times.

Second, this is confirmed: for the will can have an act of love contrary to its own inclination and the impetus of its own command—for example, if Peter efficaciously wills to hate Paul and God infuses love of Paul into Peter, turning his heart. That God can do this, and indeed sometimes does it, is gathered from Proverbs 21: The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord, like divisions of waters; he will turn it wherever he wills. And Esther 15: God turned the king's spirit to gentleness. St. Augustine draws this from the same passages.² Therefore the will can be coerced by God into an act of love and consequently can resist God.

Third. Demons and the souls of the damned are detained violently by God in hell. Therefore they suffer violence with respect to God, and therefore resist his will.

This is confirmed: the inward sadness with which the damned are tortured in hell is inflicted on them by God contrary to their inclination; yet such sadness is an act elicited by the will. Therefore, in such acts, a created will can be coerced by God contrary to its own inclination and consequently can resist God, since a coerced motion cannot exist without resistance on the part of the thing moved.

Fourth. Other creatures can resist God as he moves them. Therefore so can created will, which is superior to them. The antecedent is proved: if God were to move a stone upward immediately by himself, not to fill a void but as some particular agent moves it, the stone would then be inclined downward by the heaviness it has. Therefore it would resist God as he moved it.

II. Fifth. Suppose that Peter efficaciously wills to remain for a quarter of an hour in the act of love of some object. If, after the act has begun, God withdraws his general concurrence from Peter, he would coerce Peter's will by preventing it from issuing into the act it wills to have. Therefore God could also coerce it to elicit an act it does not will to have; and so created will could resist God as he moves it. The antecedent is proved: someone who is prevented from eliciting an act to which he is inclined is truly coerced. A stone, for example, suffers violence and is coerced when held upward, because it is prevented from moving downward, as its heaviness inclines it to do.

Sixth. Free choice can resist the efficacious help by which God wills to convert a person. Therefore it can resist God and his will. The antecedent is proved from the Council of Sens, decree on faith, 15, which says: The help of God who draws is not such that it cannot be resisted. And St. Augustine says in book 3 of On Free Choice, chapter 18: Whatever this cause of the will may be, if it cannot be resisted, yielding to it is without sin; but if it can be resisted, let it not be yielded to, and we shall not sin. The consequence is proved: for the efficacious help contains God's intention and the power of the divine will, as St. Thomas teaches in Summa theologiae I–II, question 112, article 3. Therefore, if free choice can resist efficacious help, it can also resist God himself and his will.

This is confirmed: as the Apostle says, Whoever resists authority resists God's ordinance, for there is no authority except from God.³ Therefore, one who can resist efficacious help can also resist God himself, since every efficacious help is from God, in keeping with Psalm 120, My help is from the Lord, and Hosea 13, Your destruction is from yourself, O Israel; only in me is your help.

III. To the contrary, it is said in Esther 13: Lord God, Almighty King, all things are placed under your dominion, and no one can resist your will if you have decreed to save Israel. And in Romans 9: Who resists his will? St. Thomas, Summa theologiae I, question 103, article 8, teaches that nothing can struggle against the order of divine government in general, that is, insofar as it proceeds from the governing cause of the whole.

To explain this difficulty, we must note that it is one thing for the will to be necessitated, and another for it to be coerced into some act. For it is enough for it to be necessitated that it be determined to one thing by way of nature, so that it is not within its power to do the opposite if it wills, or not to act. In this way it is necessitated in heaven to love God, as was said above.⁴ But for it to suffer violence or be coerced, the act to which it is coerced must be inflicted⁵ by an extrinsic principle while the will itself actually or virtually resists, as St. Thomas teaches in Summa theologiae I–II, question 9, article 4, in the body and reply to the second objection.

Second, note with St. Thomas, Summa theologiae I–II, question 6, article 4, in the body, that there are two kinds of act of the will: one is its immediate act, as it were elicited by the will itself, namely, willing; the other is an act of the will commanded by it and performed through another power, such as walking and speaking, which are commanded by the will through the motive power. As regards acts commanded by the will, the will can suffer violence insofar as the external limbs can be prevented by violence from carrying out the will's command. But as regards the will's own act, violence cannot be inflicted on it. The reason is that an act of the will is nothing other than an inclination proceeding from an interior cognitive principle, just as natural appetite is an inclination from an interior principle but without cognition. What is coerced or violent, however, comes from an exterior principle. Hence it is contrary to the very nature of an act of the will that it be coerced or violent, just as it is contrary to the nature of natural inclination or the motion of a stone that it be carried upward. A stone can⁶* indeed be carried upward by violence, but its natural inclination cannot make that motion violent; likewise a person can be dragged by violence, but that this should be from his will is contrary to the nature of violence.* This teaching of St. Thomas is common among theologians in the second book of the Sentences, distinction 25, and in the fourth, distinction 29; all Thomists follow it.

It must be noted thirdly that God's will is twofold: one is the will of sign, or antecedent will; the other is the will of good pleasure, or consequent will. This distinction and its parts will be explained fully in Disputation 34.

IIII. It must be noted fourthly that the ability to resist is understood in two ways.⁷ First, commonly, as the ability to dissent or to do the opposite of what God willed free choice to do. Our discussion does not concern this sense, for all Catholics admit that free choice can dissent if it wishes and do the opposite of what God absolutely willed to be done through that choice. This is not to oppose or resist God, but rather to fulfill his will, because God decreed and ordered, for example, that Peter consent to God calling him in such a way that he could dissent if he wished; for God decreed that Peter consent freely. Freedom necessarily requires that a free cause have the capacity for either of two alternatives, as will be clear in Disputations 115 and 116. In the second, strict sense, resistance means to strive against and oppose God or his absolute and efficacious will by a contrary inclination, or by one's own motion or impulse; it is in this sense that the term is used here. Finally, we must presuppose the distinction taught and explained in Disputation 25 between the divided and composite senses, which will also be discussed further in Disputations 93 and 94, where this same difficulty will be debated concerning efficacious aid inhering in the will.

Let the first conclusion, then, be this: created free choice can resist, and in fact does resist, God's antecedent will or will of sign, not only in the divided sense but also in the composite sense. Everyone agrees on this conclusion, and the scriptural passages cited in the first argument convincingly prove it. It is also clear from what was said in the preceding disputation, first conclusion.

V. Second conclusion: created free choice never resists, nor can it resist, God or his efficacious will, if we speak properly and strictly of resistance. This is understood not only in the composite sense but also in the divided sense. Thus there is, and can be, no power in created free choice by which it could resist God or oppose his efficacious will.⁸

This conclusion is proved first by the clearest testimonies of sacred Scripture. In addition to those already cited above, which are most powerful, the following establish our conclusion. Genesis 50 says: Joseph said to his brothers: “Can we resist God's will? You planned evil against me, but God turned it to good, so as to exalt me, as you see at present, and to save many peoples.” Job 9 says: God, whose anger no one can resist. And chapter 41: Who can resist my face? Wisdom 11 says: Who can resist the power of your arm? And Isaiah 47: I will take vengeance, and no man will resist me.

Second, the conclusion is proved by testimonies of the holy Fathers. First, Saint Augustine teaches it in On Rebuke and Grace, ch. 14, where he says: No human will resists him who wills to save; for willing or refusing is so within the power of the one who wills or refuses that it neither impedes the divine will nor overcomes its power. For, concerning those who do what he does not will, he himself does what he wills. Some reply that Augustine did not say free choice cannot resist God, but only that it does not resist—just as elsewhere he said that efficacious grace is rejected by no hardened heart, not that it cannot be rejected, since it can be rejected absolutely. Yet this explanation is not in keeping with Saint Augustine’s meaning; rather, it expressly contradicts his context. For a little later he adds: We must not doubt, then, that human wills cannot resist the will of God, who in heaven and on earth has done whatever he willed, and who also made what is yet to come, so as to prevent him from doing what he wills, since he does with human wills themselves what he wills, whenever he wills. Nor does the same explanation seem to fit the scriptural passages cited above, in which both points are stated explicitly: that created free choice does not resist God or his will, and that it cannot resist him. Saint Prosper agrees in his letter to Ruffinus on free choice, saying: Are we to say that human wills oppose the will of God, and that these people’s conduct is so savage and untamable that they do not hear the Gospel because their impious hearts are not open to its preaching? And who changed their hearts, if not the one who fashioned each of their hearts? Who softened the hardness of this rigidity into a disposition to obey, if not the one who can raise up children for Abraham from stones? Saint Jerome, explaining Predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will in his commentary on Ephesians 1, says: We human beings often intend to act by deliberation, but the result does not follow our will. No one, however, can resist him so as to prevent him from doing everything he wills.⁹ From this it does not follow that the will cannot resist efficacious grace inhering in free choice, as will be made clear in disputation 93.

Moreover, Boethius, in book 3, prose 12 of The Consolation of Philosophy, says: There is not, he says, anything that either wishes or is able to oppose this supreme good.¹⁰ Saint Thomas expressly teaches the same in Summa theologiae I, q. 103, art. 8; q. 19, art. 6, in the body and reply 3; and Summa contra Gentiles III, ch. 94, where he says: It is impossible for any agent to prevent the execution of divine providence by acting against it. A little later he adds that divine provision cannot be frustrated at all. He teaches the same in the other passages cited in the preceding disputation.

Third, it is proved by reason. Created free choice cannot move itself or bring anything about unless it is moved by God. But God cannot move created free choice to resist his efficacious will; otherwise God would fight against himself, contrary to Saint Dionysius, and would not work all things for his own sake, contrary to sacred Scripture, which says: The Lord has made all things for himself.¹¹ Therefore created free choice cannot resist God or his efficacious will.

Fourth, it is proved as follows. Taken absolutely, it entails a contradiction that a creature be moved immediately by God and that this motion be simply violent for it, as Saint Thomas teaches in De potentia, q. 1, art. 3, reply 1, along with many other Doctors; reason also supports this. For God cannot move any creature immediately except by ordering that motion to his goodness, as Saint Thomas teaches in Summa theologiae I, q. 44, art. 4, and as follows from the scriptural passages cited above.¹² But every creature is more inclined toward divine goodness than a stone is toward the center. Therefore it is impossible for a creature’s motion to proceed immediately from God and for that motion to be violent for it. Consequently, no creature can resist God when he moves it immediately; likewise, a created will cannot resist God or his efficacious will. This is confirmed: otherwise the miracles God works beyond the order of nature would cause violence in creatures, contrary to the common opinion of the Doctors and to Saint Thomas, De potentia, q. 6, art. 1, reply 17, where he says: In every natural thing there is a natural order and relation to all higher causes. Hence things that take place in lower bodies through the influence of the heavenly bodies are not violent, although they seem contrary to the natural motions of lower bodies, as is evident in the ebb and flow of the sea, which follows the motion of the moon. Much less, then, is what God does in these lower things violent. He teaches the same in De potentia, q. 3, art. 3, reply 1. The words of Wisdom 16 also accord with this: This, however, namely fire, again forgot its own power so that the righteous might be nourished. For the creature serving you, its maker, blazes into torment against the unjust and grows gentler to do good for those who trust in you. It is as though it said: fire cools the righteous no less and is inclined to refresh them when it is moved and applied to this by God than if it lacked the power to burn and torment. The words of Job 9 also accord with this: He is wise in heart and mighty in strength; who has resisted him and remained at peace? As if it stated the point more plainly: a creature is at peace when it does not resist God but is subject to him. Saint Thomas explains these words: A person obtains peace from a more powerful opponent in one way, and from a less powerful or equally powerful one in another. It is clear that the more powerful obtains peace from the less powerful by fighting against him, as when a powerful king wages war against a rebel in his kingdom and, after winning, restores peace to the kingdom. Likewise, a person obtains peace from an equal by fighting: although he cannot overcome him, he wears him down through constant conflict until peace is restored. But no one ever obtains peace from a more powerful opponent by resisting or fighting; he does so only by submitting humbly. This is therefore clear evidence that God’s strength surpasses all human strength, since no one can have peace with him by resisting, but only by obeying him humbly. Hence it is said in Isaiah 26, “You will preserve peace, because we have hoped in you.” Therefore, and so on.

Fifth, it is proved as follows. For one thing to resist another, it must have power equal to or greater than the other; for an action does not arise from a proportion of lesser inequality, and consequently neither does efficacious resistance, which cannot occur without action. But no created free choice has power equal to or greater than God, since divine power and efficacy are infinite, whereas every created power and efficacy is finite and limited. Therefore created free choice cannot resist God or his efficacious will.

VIII. In reply to the first argument, we say that it proves only the first conclusion. Insofar as it seems to militate against the second, we reply with Saint Thomas: Some are said to think, speak, or act against God, or even to resist him, not because they resist the order of divine governance in its entirety—for even sinners intend some good—but because they oppose some particular good that is fitting for them according to their nature or state.¹³

In reply to the second, we say that a created will can indeed be necessitated by God to elicit some act, as in heaven it is necessitated to love God clearly seen; but it cannot be coerced into willing something. Otherwise the will itself would simultaneously will and not will the same object, which is impossible, as Saint Thomas shows in Summa theologiae I–II, q. 9, art. 4, reply 2.

In reply to the first confirmation, we say that when theologians teach that the will can be coerced with respect to commanded acts and suffer coercion in them, they mean the will’s commanded acts when those acts are elicited by other powers, not when they are elicited by the will itself, as are acts on which that same will reflects. For Saint Thomas’s reasoning, by which he proves that the will cannot suffer coercion in acts elicited by itself, also applies to those acts caused immediately by the will and not through another power.¹⁴ Nor is the meaning that an operation actually commanded by the will can be coercive for it; that would plainly involve a contradiction. Since the will, even when it commands, is the inclination of the whole person, it is impossible for an act actually commanded by the will to be coercive: it would follow that the act is both against a person’s inclination and in accord with that inclination. The meaning is that acts of other powers, which are usually commanded by the will, can be coercive—for example, if someone is forced to walk, or to perform a similar action, against the will’s command. This is treated expressly in Summa theologiae I–II, q. 6, art. 4.

IX. In reply to the second confirmation, we say with Saint Thomas: God can change the will, but he cannot coerce it. However much the will is changed toward something, it is not said to be coerced toward it. The reason is that to will something is to be inclined toward it, whereas coercion or violence is contrary to the inclination of the thing coerced. When God changes the will, therefore, he makes another inclination succeed the preceding one: the first is removed, and the second remains. Hence what the will is led to is contrary not to its present inclination, but to the inclination it had before; so there is neither violence nor coercion. A stone, for example, has by its heaviness an inclination toward a lower place. If it is thrown upward while this inclination remains, that will be coercion. But if God removes the stone’s inclination of heaviness and gives it an inclination of lightness, then its being carried upward will not be coercive. In this way a change of motion can occur without violence. This is how we should understand that God changes the will without coercing it.¹⁵¹⁶ Thus, in the case proposed in the argument, God changes Peter’s will so that love of Paul succeeds the prior inclination of hatred by which Peter’s will pursued Paul—just as, in fact, he turned Ahasuerus’s heart, previously possessed by the contrary affection, toward gentleness, as was said above. Therefore that love is not coerced but voluntary, since it proceeds from an intrinsic principle according to the will’s inclination. Hence Saint Thomas says in Sentences II, dist. 25, q. 1, art. 2, reply 1: God works in the will and in free choice according to what befits them. Hence, even if he changes a person’s will toward something else, he nevertheless by his omnipotence brings it about that the person willingly wills what the will is changed toward. Thus the character of coercion is removed. Otherwise, it would involve a contradiction to say that a person does not will what the will is changed toward and is coerced into it, since the necessity of coercion is contrary to the will, as the Philosopher says in book 5 of the Metaphysics. Saint Thomas says the same in the other passages cited in disputations 22 and 23.

X. In reply to the third, we say that demons and the souls of the damned are held by God in hell by means of the fire to which they are bound, and through which they are tormented in many wondrous but real ways, as Augustine says. Hence the coercion they suffer is with respect to the fire, which holds the damned against their will, and not with respect to God.¹⁷ An argument is raised against this: even if God held the damned immediately in hell, they would still be held there coercively; therefore a creature can suffer coercion immediately from God. We reply that if such binding were done immediately by God, it would not be coercive in itself and without qualification, since this binding takes place through the intellect, which is subject to divine omnipotence. It would, however, be coercive in a qualified respect and in the moral order, in relation to the depraved will of the damned, which is not itself necessary for their detention. This is evident from the fact that souls are now detained in purgatory willingly and not coercively, as Master Soto and several other weighty authors teach.¹⁸

In reply to the confirmation, we say that in the act of inward sorrow the damned suffer violence and force from the objects apprehended: against their will and inclination, the intellect is compelled to apprehend things that cause sorrow. Hence, with respect to God, the violence in the will of the damned is only qualified and belongs to the moral order, as was said above.¹⁹ Although God necessitates the will of the damned, through the apprehension of a harmful and saddening object, to elicit an act of sorrow, so that in anguish of spirit they groan and perform fruitless penance, he does not, as is clear from what was said above, coerce them into the aforesaid acts of the will.

XI. In reply to the fourth, we say that, as was said, no creature can suffer violence immediately from God; it would be an imperfection in God if a creature resisted him. Moreover, violence cannot be inflicted on anything except by a cause acting from outside, as is clear from its definition: what is violent is said to proceed from an external principle, with the patient contributing no force. But God works intimately in all things, with full and perfect dominion over them. Hence, just as motion cannot be violent when something moves itself, so too a thing cannot be moved violently when moved immediately by God: every motion of anything depends more on God than on any intrinsic principle, whether active or passive, of the thing moved. Therefore, just as motion proceeding from an intrinsic active or passive principle of the thing moved cannot be violent, neither will it be violent if it proceeds immediately from God.

An argument may be raised: whatever God can do with a secondary cause, he can also do by himself immediately; but God can cause violent motion in things through secondary causes; therefore he can cause it by himself immediately. We reply that when an effect involves a relation to such a cause not only in the order of efficient causation but also in the order of formal causation, God cannot do by himself what he can bring about through a secondary cause, as is clear in vital actions. The same holds when the effect or motion itself intrinsically includes some imperfection which cannot be traced back to the first cause but only to a secondary cause, since every imperfection is incompatible with the first cause. Such an effect can therefore be produced by God through a secondary cause, but not by himself immediately.²⁰ Hence God cannot produce immediately any monster, defective motion, or vicious habit, although he can produce one through a secondary cause. Likewise, he cannot produce immediately by himself any effect that is formally contingent. For, as was shown in disputations 26 and 27, a contingent effect, insofar as it is formally contingent, expresses an intrinsic ordering to a cause liable to fail, or liable to be impeded by the concurrence of another cause. God is not, nor can he be, a cause liable to fail or be impeded, since that intrinsically involves imperfection. Yet it is most certain that God produces many contingent effects through secondary causes. By proportion, we should say in the present case that God produces many violent motions through secondary causes, though he cannot cause them immediately by himself—not from any inability in God, but rather because of his supreme and infinite perfection and omnipotence, to which no imperfection or defect can consequently be attributed.

XII. The fifth argument touches on a difficulty customarily discussed at length in the cited Summa theologiae I–II, question 6, article 4: namely, whether, when the will or another power ceases from acting because God withdraws his general concurrence, it is truly said to be coerced or to suffer violence. Almain, Treatise on Moral Questions, treatise 1, chapter 2, defends the affirmative position, to which Master Medina partly adheres in the cited article 4, conclusion 4. He says that the power is then coerced in some way. Durandus says the same when speaking of the will.²¹ Nevertheless, it must be answered that, strictly speaking, in the case proposed the will would not be coerced or suffer violence; the same must be said of any other power. Conrad teaches this in the cited article 4, as do Master Victoria, Master Soto, and Cajetan, Summa theologiae I, question 82, article 1. The reason is that, when God's general concurrence ceases, the will has no actual inclination toward the act, since every inclination of every secondary cause intrinsically depends on God as a prior per se efficient cause, as was shown in disputations 18, 22, and 23, and will be shown more fully in disputations 96 and 97. Therefore the will would not then cease from the act contrary to its own inclination; therefore it would not be coerced.²² This is confirmed: once God's general concurrence is removed, there would be no resistance in the will; therefore it would not suffer violence or coercion. The consequence is proved: what comes from an extrinsic cause while the patient contributes no force—that is, resists—is said to be violent. Therefore where there is no resistance, there is no violence. Furthermore, if the will wished to cease from an act of love of some object but could not, because God necessitated it to that act with respect to its exercise, just as it is necessitated in heaven to love God, it would not be said to be coerced or to suffer violence, but only to be necessitated. Therefore it would likewise not be coerced if it ceased from the act because God withdrew his general concurrence.

And if someone argues that when the locomotive power is hindered by some external obstacle from pursuing its motion, it is truly coerced, just as a stone is coerced when held upward and prevented from descending; therefore the will would likewise be coerced if God, by withdrawing his general concurrence, prevented it from continuing an act it had begun and made it desist from that act: the consequence is denied. In the case of the antecedent there is actual resistance on the part of the patient, but not in the case of the consequent. Some object, however, that Aristotle in Ethics II calls it violent when an external agent moves or stops something contrary to its inner impulse. The answer is that Aristotle is speaking of violence taken improperly and broadly. For something to be properly violent, it is not enough for a thing or its power to be held or prevented from an operation to which it has a radical or habitual inclination in first act; rather, it must be impeded contrary to its actual or virtual inclination. Or, if Aristotle is speaking properly of violence, he must be understood to mean the case in which a mobile thing resists through an actual impulse, as a stone resists when held upward or when prevented from moving downward at the speed proportionate to its heaviness. For, as St. Thomas teaches in Summa theologiae II–II, question 175, article 1, in the body, a motion is called violent in two ways: in one way with respect to the end of the inclination, or according to the substance of the motion, which is considered on the side of its terminus—for example, if a stone, because it is naturally inclined to be carried downward, is thrown upward. In another way, with respect to the manner of tending, for example, if a stone is thrown downward faster than its natural motion. For then the motion is violent with respect to its manner, because it is moved faster than accords with its nature; and for the same reason, if some extrinsic agent prevents it from moving downward at the speed at which it would descend by its nature, that motion would be violent with respect to its manner.

XIII. In reply to the sixth argument, we say that if the efficacious help inhering in a created will is considered according to its physical entity, setting aside or abstracting from God’s decree by which he wills absolutely to convert a person to himself through that help, free choice can resist that help, because resistance is then considered in relation to a particular cause.²³ But if it is considered as an instrument of the divine will, which intends to convert a person to himself, and insofar as it intentionally contains within itself the power of that same divine will, then, under this aspect, free choice cannot resist that help, just as it cannot resist God’s efficacious will, whose instrument it is.

In reply to the confirmation drawn from the Apostle’s words in Romans 13, we say that when he says that those who resist authority resist God’s ordinance, he is speaking of resistance to the divine ordinance considered according to some particular cause, or of the divine ordinance according to the will of sign and God’s antecedent will. People often resist this ordinance and will of God, as was said in the first conclusion and is clear from the scriptural passages cited in the first argument of this disputation. But if we speak of the ordinance considered according to the universal cause—that is, according to God’s consequent will, which is the will of good pleasure and is efficacious—no one ever resists or can resist the divine ordinance. The Apostle is not speaking of this ordinance, but of the ordinance explained above, as we gather from Saint Thomas, who says: If the authority of rulers, insofar as it is such, is from God, and nothing is from God without order, it follows that the order by which those subject to authority are subordinated to higher authorities is also from God. Therefore, whoever resists authority against this order resists God’s ordinance. 1. Reg. 8. “They have not rejected you, but me, so that I should not reign over them”; and “Whoever rejects you rejects me” (Luke 10). To resist the divine ordinance is contrary to the moral rectitude of virtue. Hence whoever resists authority in what pertains to the ordering of that authority acts against virtue.²⁴ In these words he teaches clearly enough that the Apostle is speaking only of resistance to God’s antecedent will, or will of sign, which, as he says in Summa theologiae I, q. 19, art. 6, is not always fulfilled. Whether free choice can resist efficacious help as an instrument of the divine will, properly speaking of resistance, will be explained in disputations 93 and 94.

End of Book Four.