Commentaria in Summam contra Gentiles, Liber IV

After St. Thomas showed that the souls of the good have after death a will immutable in good, he consequently shows that the souls of the wicked have a will immutable in evil¹.

And he argues first as follows. Perpetual punishment of souls is due to mortal sin². Therefore the will of a damned soul cannot be changed into good. — The consequence is proved. Because then it would not be a perpetual punishment: for it would be unjust, once they had a good will, that they should be punished perpetually.

Secondly. The very inordinateness of the will is a certain punishment, and especially afflictive. Therefore it will never be taken away from the damned. — The antecedent is proved. Because insofar as anyone has an inordinate will, those things that are done rightly displease him, namely those contrary to his inordinateness. And to the damned themselves it will be displeasing that the will of God is fulfilled in all things, which they resisted by sinning.

Notice that St. Thomas leaves the consequence manifest from what was said in the preceding argument, namely that the punishment of the damned is perpetual.

Thirdly. The souls of the damned are totally excluded from grace. Therefore etc. — The antecedent is proved from a comparison to the souls of the Blessed, who are admitted to a perfect participation in the divine goodness. — But the consequence is proved, because the will cannot be changed from sin into good except through the grace of God.

Fourthly. The separated souls of the good will adhere immovably to the end that they set before themselves in this life, namely God. Therefore the souls of the wicked also will adhere immovably to the undue end that they chose for themselves. Therefore, just as the will of the good cannot become evil, so neither can the will of the wicked become good. — The first consequence is proved. Because just as the good living in the flesh constitute their end in God, so also do the wicked in some undue end turning them away from God.

It should be noted, from the doctrine of St. Thomas in the Fourth Book, d. L, q. II, a. 1, quᵃ 1, that, since a twofold will can be considered in the damned, namely natural and deliberative; the natural will in them can be good in some way, namely according to the species of the act itself; but the deliberative will in them cannot be good. Hence when we say that the will of the damned is immutable in evil, we understand this of the deliberative will, but not of the natural will, which is always good.

On account of which the arguments of Scotus in II Sent., d. VII³, by which he proves that in the demons, and also in the damned, there can be a good act of willing, from the fact that from purely natural powers they can will the good, do not weaken the proposition, — although it can also be added that, even if they can have some good act of willing elicited by the natural will, that act is nonetheless not perfectly good with the goodness of circumstances, at least the circumstance of the end: because they order it to an evil end, either actually or virtually; for the damned will to be and to live under sin. Hence in the place cited above, in the reply to the first argument, St. Thomas says that the natural inclination is corrupted through their malice, insofar as the good which they naturally desire, they seek under certain evil circumstances. And in the First Part, q. LXIV, 2, ad 5, that they abuse a good act for evil. From which it is clear that they will nothing even by the natural will that is perfectly good.