Commentaria in Summam contra Gentiles, Liber II

The first corollary depending on the preceding conclusion ¹ is: God produces His effects through His wisdom.

I. It is proved first. God acts through will. Therefore through intellectual apprehension. Therefore through his wisdom. — The first inference is evident, because the will is moved to act by some apprehension; but in God there is no apprehension other than intellectual. — The second is also evident, because he understands nothing except by understanding himself; and to understand himself, as being the highest existing cause, is to be wise.

II. Second. God acts through will. Therefore he acts according to the account of his intellect. Therefore, etc. The first consequence is proved: since every agent produces something like itself, it is necessary that each thing act insofar as it possesses a likeness of its effect. But in any voluntary agent, as such, there is a likeness of its effect according to the apprehension of the intellect. This is proved because if that likeness were present in it only by a disposition of nature, it would produce only one effect: for the natural account of one thing is only one.

It must be noted that the likeness of an effect can exist in one and the same thing according to the disposition of nature and according to the apprehension of the intellect: as when a painter or sculptor forms his own image. But if he acts from a likeness existing according to the disposition of nature, he will act in only one way, if no impediment is present: just as, when he begets a son, he produces him like himself as far as he can, and always of the same condition, unless diversity arises from elsewhere; because, as Saint Thomas says, the natural reason in an agent is only one and not several; for of one thing there is one reason and one nature. If, however, he acts from a likeness existing in apprehension, he is not determined to one thing: because he can form in himself several concepts, for instance a concept and image of his head alone, and a concept of his hands, and a concept of his feet; and thus he can produce something like himself according to his head, and something like himself according to his hands, and something according to his feet.

Thus, then, since the divine nature is one, and has one most simple esse, and all things in it are one without any distinction, and have one esse and one disposition; if it acted according to the disposition of its nature, it would act only upon a thing of one character, like itself according to the character of the divine nature—that is, it would act only to produce the divine nature, just as all things in it are the divine nature. But because it acts according to the apprehension of the intellect, by which it forms many ideas of itself, according to which things can imitate the divine nature, therefore it produces many things of different characters, and is not determined to one. Things, therefore, have likeness to God both according to the esse of the divine nature and according to the esse apprehended and ideal: but they are produced into being insofar as, through the apprehension of the divine intellect, such a likeness is separated and distinguished from the other things existing in the divine nature. On this account St. Thomas assumes that there is not in God a likeness of the effect only according to the disposition of the (namely, divine) nature. This is the foundation of this argument.

III. Third. Things produced by God have an order among themselves, and not a merely accidental one. And thus God produced them by ordering them. Therefore God produced them according to His wisdom. — The consequence is proved: because it belongs to the wise to order, according to the Philosopher. The reason for this is that things cannot be ordered except through a knowledge of the proportion and relation of the things ordered to one another and to something higher, which is their end. But to know such proportions and relations of things to one another belongs to the intelligent; and to judge of things by the highest cause belongs to wisdom.

It must be noted that when certain things have an order among themselves, and their order to one another exists on account of their order to something else as to an end, then the judgment of the proportion of those things among themselves is made by comparison with the end to which they are ordered. For they will be judged to have a fitting proportion among themselves when they are judged to be so ordered as to be fitting for the end. And because the end is the first of causes, therefore one who considers the end and posits in things an order that is fitting to the end is called wise: since it belongs to wisdom to consider the highest cause—simply the highest, if one is simply wise; but the highest in a genus, if one is wise in a genus. On account of this Saint Thomas rightly draws the conclusion that it belongs to the wise to order: because one who orders knows the proportion of the things ordered both to one another and to the end, and consequently takes a judgment concerning them from consideration of the end, which is the first of causes; and this belongs to the wise.

IV. Fourth. All things are compared to God as artifacts to an artisan. But an artisan, according to the order of his wisdom, produces artifacts in esse. Therefore etc. — The major is proved: because things produced by God through will are not of the genus of things done (agibilia), like the acts of the virtues, which remain in the agent; but of the genus of things made (factibilia), which pass over into external matter. Now the principle of things made is art, according to the Philosopher.

The conclusion is confirmed in the Psalm, You have made all things in wisdom; and in Proverbs 3, The Lord by wisdom etc.

The error of those who say that all things depend on the simple divine will, without any reason, is also excluded.