Commentaria in Summam contra Gentiles, Liber III

Because some attempt to give a perverse understanding to the authorities adduced in the preceding chapter, St. Thomas therefore wishes to exclude their interpretation and confirm his own position ¹. Concerning this, moreover, he does two things: first, he sets forth their interpretation; secondly, he refutes it ².

I. As to the first point, he says that some, not understanding how God can cause the movement of the will in us without prejudice to the freedom of the will, when the Apostle says that it is God who works in us both to will and to accomplish ³, expound this by saying that this must be understood insofar as he gives us the power of willing, but not because he makes us will this or that. And this is the exposition of Origen in Book III of Peri Archon. — From this also seems to have proceeded the opinion of those who say that providence is not over choices, but over external outcomes. For not always is he who chooses to attain something able to arrive at it: and thus the outcomes of actions are not subject to free choice, but are disposed by providence.

II. As to the second point, he argues against this interpretation, showing that we have from God not only the power of willing, but also the operation of the will.

First, because it is said in Isaiah 26: You have wrought all our works in us, O Lord.

Secondly, because when Solomon says, in the passage cited above ⁴, The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, and he will turn it whithersoever he will, he shows that divine causality extends not only to the potency of the will, but also to its act.

Thirdly, he argues by reason. Man cannot use the power of the will given to him except insofar as he acts in the power of God. Therefore God is the cause not only of the will, but also of willing. — The antecedent is proved. Because no thing can act by its own power unless it acts in the power of God, as was shown above. — The consequence, in turn, is proved. Because that in whose power an agent acts is the cause not only of the power, but also of the act. This is illustrated in the case of a craftsman with respect to an instrument.

Fourthly. In bodily things every motion is caused by the first motion. Therefore every movement of the will is also caused by the first will. — The consequence is proved. Because order is found more perfectly in spiritual things than in bodily things.

Fifthly. It was shown above that God is the cause of every action, and works in every agent. Therefore etc.

Sixthly, he argues by the reason of Aristotle in Book VIII of the Eudemian Ethics, that is, the Ethics written to Eudemus; for the books of the Ethics that are in common use are written to Nicomachus. That someone understands, deliberates, chooses, and wills, something must be the cause. And if this is another preceding deliberation and another preceding will, one must arrive at something first: since there is no infinite regress in these things. Therefore God is the first principle of our deliberations and acts of will.

The assumption is proved. Because everything new must have some cause. — The consequence, in turn, is proved. Because that first principle must be something better than reason. But nothing is better than intellect and reason except God.

III. For the clarity of this reason, it must be considered that in this progression, by which one advances from intellect to will and from will to intellect, one must, both on the part of the intellect and on the part of the will, arrive at something first, of which God is the proximate cause in the manner of a total and sufficient agent. For the efficient cause of a natural operation is he who gives the nature: just as the generator of a heavy body gives it motion primarily and per se as an agent that moves it ⁵. Whence, since there is a certain natural operation both of the intellect and of the will, and God is the immediate cause of intellectual nature, the natural operation both of the intellect and of the will is from God as from the agent that produces such an action; but from the intellect and the will as from the form by which it is produced, just as downward motion is from heaviness as from the form by which the generator moves heavy bodies.

On the part of the will, therefore, in the aforesaid progression, one must arrive at a certain first act that precedes all other acts of the will. This act is the volition of the end: in this life, indeed, under the common notion of the ultimate end, or under the common notion of the supreme and perfect good; but in the state of the homeland, also under the particular notion, namely of the divine essence clearly seen. Now this act is natural in the wayfaring state as regards the specification of the act: insofar as, if the supreme good is proposed to the will, and it elicits an act concerning that supreme good, such an act is necessarily an attainment and not an avoidance. In the homeland, however, it is necessary also as regards the exercise of the act: insofar as the will of one seeing the divine essence clearly necessarily elicits an act of love and fruition concerning it. Whence this act, as to that which it has of naturalness and necessity, has God as its principal cause, but not our will, except as has been said.

On the part of the intellect as well, one must arrive at a certain first natural act. For although deliberation and inquiry precede the volition of the means to the end, and the volition of the end and of the deliberation and inquiry precedes such deliberation insofar as we freely deliberate; nevertheless, because the will is not borne toward a good unless it has been known and apprehended by the intellect, it is therefore necessary that there be a certain act of the intellect that precedes every act of the will, and is consequently natural, as proceeding in no way from the will. Whence this act also must be referred to God as to its proximate principal cause, as was said concerning the act of the will.

2. But as to what this act is: — it seems one must say that it is those cognitions, whether complex or incomplex, which we elicit without choice, but by a natural inclination of the intellect, when some object is present in the intellect: either from the beginning, when we first begin to use reason and intellect; or when we first begin to consider something knowable and appetible. For it seems reasonable that from phantasms and the agent intellect acting upon the possible intellect, the intellect is naturally moved to the knowledge of something before every choice and before every volition: since there is no infinite regress in ordered cognitions of the intellect, and one must arrive at some cognition that is not commanded by the will, and is consequently purely natural.

Now I would say these things not because God could not move the intellect and will to some operation in another way than by giving it a nature from which such an operation follows of necessity, given those things that are required on the part of the intellect and will — namely, given the intelligible species in the intellect; and with the internal apprehensive powers well disposed; and given the appetible in understood being, by which the object of the will becomes in actu — but because this is the mode suited to an intelligible nature, according to which its operations must finally be reduced to certain first acts, which are to be referred to God as to their principal cause.

3. There is, however, also another mode by which God sometimes moves the intellect and will, not from a natural inclination of their own nature in itself, but solely from the motion by which he applies the intellect to understand and consider some object, and moves the will to will something. And this act, although it is not called natural as following upon the principles of nature, is nevertheless called natural insofar as it occurs by the power of a higher nature that gives both being and operation to all things: for every nature is disposed to obey the first cause of all things.

IV. From these things it is clear that the reasons of Henry, recounted by Capreolus, in II Sent., d. XXV ⁶, by which he argues that the first movement of the will is not from God, are vain. First, namely, because according to general administration God moves all things: yet the movements of other things are not said to be from God except as from a universal cause.

Secondly, because then the will would not be free and master of its own acts.

2. For to the first point it is clear that the case is not the same with the will and with other things. Because the movements of other things have certain particular causes to which they must be referred: just as the motion of heavy and light bodies is referred to the generator, from which they received the formal principle of motion. But the natural movement of the intellect and will, by which an intellectual creature is said naturally to understand and will, has no proximate principal cause except God: because he alone is the proximate and immediate cause of intellectual nature, upon which operations of this kind naturally follow, in the manner expounded, just as downward motion follows upon the form of heaviness. Therefore the natural movements of other things are not to be attributed to God in the same way as the movements of the intellect and will.

To the second point it is also clear that it is not unfitting for the will not to be free and master with respect to all its acts. For toward those acts to which it is naturally and necessarily inclined by God, it does not have freedom, insofar as they are natural and necessary: and according to them, as such, it does not merit or demerit. But it has other free acts: namely, those toward which God moves it not as willing necessarily, but freely; such as are acts concerning the means to the end without which the end can be had; as is also the act concerning the ultimate end in the wayfaring state as to its exercise.

3. The sense of the argument is therefore that one must arrive at some first cognition of the intellect which no deliberation and no volition precedes as its cause. And the cause of this cognition is God, who gave such a nature to the intellect that it tends necessarily into such cognition when an object is present in the intellect and the phantasms are well disposed. Similarly, one must arrive at some act of the will which no other act of the will, nor any deliberation, precedes as cause. And God is the cause of this, who gave to the will a natural inclination toward that act, either as to exercise or as to specification.

V. Concerning the conclusion itself, which posits that God is the cause of the acts of the will, a doubt is raised from Scotus, in II Sent., dist. xxxvii, in the second question ⁷. First. No potency has perfectly in its power an effect that cannot be caused by it immediately, nor by any cause whose causation is not ⁸ in the power of that potency: because that which has an effect perfectly in its power can produce it by itself alone, or the causation of every concurrent cause is in its power. But the causation of God is not in the power of the created will. Therefore, if God necessarily concurs immediately as a cause, namely an immediate cause, with respect to created volition, the created will does not have that volition fully in its power. This is false. Therefore etc.

It is confirmed. Because that which is determined to something by another does not have that thing perfectly in its power.

Secondly. That is not contingent on account of its relation to some cause for whose outcome a higher cause is determined, upon whose eternal determination the determination of all lower causes necessarily follows. But if the divine will is the immediate cause of my volition, there is already a certain determined cause with respect to it, namely the will of God. And the determination of my will with respect to the same thing necessarily accompanies his determination. Therefore that willing is not contingent. This is false. Therefore etc.

Thirdly. Since God is a prior cause to the will, it is asked whether in that prior instant God immediately causes perfect rectitude in the willing: or not? If the first, it follows that the will in the second instant does not sin: because it does not cause in the effect the opposite of what the first cause causes. If the second, the same follows: because it cannot produce a right willing; but in not having a right willing, if it cannot have it, it does not sin. It follows therefore that the will cannot sin.

Fourthly. Then God would be the total cause of the volition. Therefore the will would have no causality over the volition: because along with the total cause of something, nothing else can cause in the same genus of cause.

Fifthly. Something is the total cause of its effect. Therefore the will is too. Therefore God does not immediately cause volition.

VI. To all these arguments a reply is easily evident from those things that were determined above in the first book concerning knowledge and will ⁹. Nevertheless, so that their inefficacy may be even more apparent: having presupposed a sound understanding of the conclusion, namely that God immediately causes the act of the will by immediacy of power, but not by immediacy of supposit, just as was shown above ¹⁰ concerning the acts of other powers; but the will causes the volition itself immediately by immediacy of supposit, though not by immediacy of power: — it is said to the first, that to have an effect perfectly in one's power can be understood in two ways. In one way, because one can produce it and not produce it, and has dependence on no other cause in the production of that effect. And in this way neither the will, nor any other created cause, has an effect perfectly in its power: because every created cause necessarily depends on the first cause, as in being, so also in causing. — In another way, because it can produce the effect and not produce it, presupposing the first cause on which it depends; and it is necessitated to produce or not to produce by no cause. And in this way it is conceded that the will has its volition perfectly in its power. And in this sense, the major premise is denied. For it stands together that a second cause, in itself and absolutely, can produce and not produce an effect; and yet the causation of another higher cause is not in its power. Because, as was shown in the preceding sections ¹¹, the freedom of a second cause stands with the necessity of immutability, or with the necessity of supposition of the first cause.

To the proof, the assumption is denied. For it is not required that what has its effect in its power can effect it entirely by itself alone: but it suffices that it can effect it by itself alone as the proximate agent. Nor is it even required that the causation of every concurrent cause be in its power: but it suffices that the causation of a concurrent cause of its own order, namely one that is a proximate cause, be in its power.

To the confirmation, it is evident through the same point. Because something can be determined by another to an effect, and nevertheless have it in its power, in the second way stated above: for the reason that the first cause moves each second cause to its effect according to the condition of that second cause; for a cause not able to fail it determines so to its effect that it produces it necessarily and absolutely; but a cause that can fail it determines in such a way that it can nevertheless absolutely fail in producing.

VII. To the second point ¹², it is said first that an effect is certainly not called contingent in relation to our will as to the first root of contingency and freedom: but in relation to the divine wisdom and will, as was shown above ¹³; insofar, namely, as God determined that some things should happen necessarily, and to these he gave necessary causes; but that other things should happen contingently, and to these he gave contingent causes.

2. It is said secondly that the major premise is false concerning a higher cause that is determined not necessarily and absolutely, but voluntarily; and is the cause of the effect of other causes both according to being and according to the mode of necessity or contingency. For in this way God is a cause determined to the production of creatures: because, namely, he freely determined himself to their production, although he could absolutely determine the opposite, in the manner shown in the preceding sections ¹⁴, even though that determination is necessary with the necessity of immutability. Likewise he determined that such an effect should happen necessarily, but such an effect contingently, and the determination of all causes follows his determination: because, namely, the effects that he determined to happen necessarily through these causes, the causes themselves produce necessarily; but those that he determined to happen contingently and freely through those causes, the causes themselves effect contingently. Yet with this absolute contingency of the effect in relation to its proximate cause, it was shown above ¹⁵ that the necessity of supposition stands, by which a contingent effect is said to happen necessarily and infallibly, presupposing that God wills it to happen by a consequent will and a complete will.

VIII. To the third point ¹⁶, it is said that there is not given ex natura rei any prior instant in which God, before the will itself, produces our volition. But if the discussion is about priority according to our mode of understanding: — it is said that in that prior instant in which we understand the volition that is a sin to terminate the divine action before it is produced by the will, God gives to the volition the perfect goodness that is naturally suited to belong to it according to its absolute entity, and in relation to God; but not that which is naturally suited to belong to it insofar as it proceeds from the human will. — When it is inferred from either member that the will then does not sin in the second instant, the consequence is denied.

To the proof of the first consequence, it is said that the deformity that belongs to the act of volition as it depends on the human will is not opposed to the goodness and rectitude that God causes in that act, but to the rectitude that the human will causes. For the goodness of nature and in relation to God, and moral badness, which is taken from relation to the created will, are not opposed: rather, the one is founded upon the other. But the goodness from the human will and the badness proceeding from the same are indeed opposed concerning the same act.

To the proof of the second consequence, it is denied that, according to this consideration of the intellect, the will cannot tend toward something that the prior cause in the first instant did not produce. Rather, it can tend toward the rectitude that is naturally suited to belong to it as it is produced by the human will: for such goodness is a relation to divine rules and rules of reason, according to which the human will ought to be regulated. Moreover, it is not unfitting for an act to have some relation according as it proceeds from the human will, which it does not have according as it proceeds from God: because he does not produce the act of our volition as formally willing through it, as does the human will.

IX. To the fourth point ¹⁷, it is said that a total cause can be taken in two ways. In one way, for a cause that operates by itself alone, and excludes every other cause. And then the antecedent is denied. For although God produces the act of the will immediately, he is not in this way the total cause: rather, he takes to himself the will itself for the causation of that act. But in this way he is the total cause of those things that he produces through creation: because in creation he takes to himself no created cause. — In another way, for a cause sufficient in its own order. And then the consequence is denied. For with a sufficient cause in one order there stands a sufficient cause of another order. And thus with the causality of the first cause there stands the causality of another cause as a proximate cause.

2. Through this distinction the solution to the fifth point ¹⁸ is evident. For if a total cause is taken in the first way, thus the antecedent is false: for no created cause can act without the concurrence of the first cause; and thus nothing is a total cause in this way. But if it is taken in the second way, the final consequence is denied. For although the will is the sufficient cause of its volition as a proximate cause, this does not exclude God from concurring with it as a proximate cause.