De Deo uno

445. Therefore, the universal saving will of God is clearly taught in Sacred Scripture and by the Fathers. This will, however, is not absolute, for in fact not everyone is saved; rather, it depends on some condition. When this condition is fulfilled, the conditional will passes into an absolute one; when the condition is not fulfilled, the conditional saving will does not pass into an absolute one but ceases. The question, then, is what this condition is—or, which in fact amounts to the same thing, before what point the saving will of God is universal, and after what point it ceases to be universal.

According to the Bañezianos, this condition or point is neither the foreseen exercise of freedom nor anything that includes such an exercise, but some other circumstance: the beauty of the universe, the manifestation of divine justice.

ALVAREZ: The will is called antecedent, “not because it precedes a good or evil exercise of our free choice, but because it precedes the will by which God is borne toward the object considered together with some circumstance, which is its consequent consideration.” God wills the salvation of the reprobate if this salvation is considered absolutely and in itself; “but if it is considered as having attached to it the privation or absence of a greater good, namely, the universal good of divine providence, the beauty of the universe, the manifestation of justice in the reprobate, and the greater splendor of his mercy in the elect, then it is not willed by God” (De auxiliis, l. 5. disp. 34; cf. supra nr. 387).

BILLUART: “The antecedent will of God is conditional, not in the sense that God wills to save everyone if they will it by a volition that he awaits from their free will, as Tournelius holds with the Molinists—that is, the antecedent will to save all is not efficacious on God's part, so that it would be left to man alone, by consenting to grace, to make it wholly efficacious for actually attaining salvation. Rather, it is called conditional in this sense: he wills everyone to be saved if higher ends do not stand in the way, for example, the general good of the universe, the order of providence, the mutability of free choice, the splendor of mercy, and the beauty of justice” (De Deo, diss. 7 a. 6 § 2).

446. But neither Sacred Scripture nor the holy Fathers indicate anything about this circumstance.

In 1 Tim the point is not indicated; but in 2 Peter God's will—that he does not wish any to perish but all to return to repentance, that is, God's universal saving will—does not cease before final impenitence. Ez 18, 23; 33, 11 do not seem capable of being understood in such a way that God, in the sign in which he exhorts sinners to repentance, no longer has the will to save them. Therefore, there too the universal saving will does not cease before the foreseen abuse of created free choice.

As for the Fathers, whenever they speak of that condition, they always identify it as the exercise of free choice, sin: for example, s. IOANNES CHRYSOSTOMUS, nr. 440; s. AMBROSIUS, nr. 441; AMBROSIASTER, nr. 441; s. HIERONYMUS, nr. 441; s. PROSPER, nr. 387; s. IOANNES DAMASCENUS, nr. 441; cf. s. IOANNES CHRYSOSTOMUS, nr. 443; s. AUGUSTINUS, nr. 444.

The earlier theologians speak about this matter in the same way.

447. S. BONAVENTURA: “Damascene distinguishes in God an antecedent will and a consequent will. The antecedent will is the will concerning that for whose sake God made man, and it is invariably directed toward good things. The consequent will, however, is a will that does not follow merits, but wills certain things in accordance with knowledge of merits. The first, namely the antecedent will, is called by the Masters a conditional will, or the will by which God wills as far as he is concerned. The second, namely the consequent will, is called absolute. The difference between this will and that one is not a difference in affection or in a mode of willing that exists in God, but in the way of connoting and understanding. For insofar as God is said to will the salvation of all, as far as he is concerned and antecedently, an ordering toward salvation is connoted in everyone, both on the part of the nature given and on the part of the grace offered. For God gave them a nature by which they could know him, seek him once known, find him once sought, cleave to him once found, and thereby obtain salvation. He likewise offered grace when he sent and offered the Son, whose price is sufficient for the salvation of all. He also gave and disclosed laws and commandments of salvation. He himself, too, is at hand for all who seek him, and near to all who call upon him. To will antecedently to save a man, then, is to order him toward salvation and not fail one who is willing to attain it. Hence, to will to save antecedently does not connote salvation, but the possibility of being ordered toward salvation; whereas to will to save consequently or absolutely is to will to give salvation to one whom he foreknows will attain salvation through his help and grace, and it connotes the outcome of salvation” (In 1 d. 46 a. 1 q. 1). “There is an antecedent and a consequent will. The antecedent is that by which God wills as far as he is concerned; the consequent is that by which he wills with foreknowledge of our salvation. The first, indeed, is for all; the second is not. In this way there is a twofold love: one regards the antecedent will, and by it he loves all; the other regards the consequent will, and by it he loves all who are to be saved; this is election” (In 1 d. 40 a. 3 q. 1 ad 2). “The antecedent will is from him alone, whereas the consequent will depends on a cause of ours” (In 3 d. 31 dub. 3).

448. S. THOMAS, In 1 d. 46 q. unica a. 1 quaerit: Whether God wills all men to be saved. “I answer that, according to Damascene, the will is twofold, namely antecedent and consequent. This occurs not because of any diversity in the divine will, but because of the different conditions of the thing willed. For in each man one can consider his nature and his other circumstances, such as whether he is willing and preparing himself for his salvation, or whether he resists and acts in opposition. If, then, only man's nature is considered, it is equally good that every man be saved, since all share human nature. And since every good is willed by God, God wills this too; and this is called the antecedent will, by which, according to Damascene, he wills all men to be saved. The effect of this will is the very ordering of nature toward the end of salvation, and the means that lead to that end, commonly proposed to all, both natural and gratuitous, such as natural powers, the precepts of the law, and the like. But when all the circumstances of a person are considered, it is not found to be good that all be saved. For it is good that one who prepares himself and consents be saved through the generosity of divine grace; but it is not good that one who is unwilling and resists be saved, because that would be unjust. And since something stands in relation to being willed by God as it stands in relation to being good, God therefore does not will this man, considered under these conditions, to be saved, but only that man who is willing and consenting. This is called the consequent will, because it presupposes foreknowledge of works, not as the cause of the will, but as the reason for what is willed, as was said above.” “To the fifth it must be said that these conditions, by which man is rendered disordered with respect to attaining the end, under which conditions God does not will him to exist in a state of salvation, come from man himself; and therefore all that follows is imputed to him as guilt.” Cf. In 3 d. 31 q. 2 a. 3 Sol. 1; In Psalm. 13, 2; In 1 Tim. c. 2 lect. 1.

449. De veritate q. 23 a. 2: Whether the divine will is divided into antecedent and consequent. “I answer that the divine will is appropriately distinguished into antecedent and consequent. The meaning of this distinction is to be taken from the words of Damascene, who introduced it: for he says in book III ... that the antecedent will is God's acceptance arising from himself, but the consequent will is a concession arising from our cause ...

“What God has ordered the creature toward, insofar as it depends on him, is said to be willed by him as it were by his first intention or antecedent will. But when the creature is prevented from this end by its own defect, God nonetheless brings about in it that measure of goodness of which it is capable; this is as it were his second intention, and is called the consequent will. Since, then, God made all men for beatitude, he is said to will the salvation of all by his antecedent will. But because some oppose their own salvation, whom the order of his wisdom does not allow to attain salvation on account of their defect, he brings about in them in another way what pertains to his goodness, namely, condemning them by justice, so that, as they fall short of the first order of his will, they fall into the second; and while they do not do God's will, God's will is fulfilled in them. The defect of sin itself, by which someone is made deserving of punishment in the present or in the future, is not willed by God either by antecedent or by consequent will; it is only permitted by him. Yet from what has been said one must not understand that God's intention can be frustrated: for from eternity he foreknew that this man, who is not saved, would not be saved; nor does he order him to salvation according to the order of predestination, which is the order of the absolute will. Nevertheless, insofar as it depends on him, he gave him a nature ordered toward beatitude.” “To the second it must be said that the order of the divine will is not considered according to different things willed, but with respect to one and the same thing willed on account of different features found in it: thus God wills a man to be saved by antecedent will, by reason of the human nature that he made for salvation; but he wills him to be damned by consequent will, on account of the sins found in him.”

450. S. Theol., 1 q. 19 a. 6 ad 1, says that the Apostle's words in 1 Tim 2 can be understood in three ways. “Third, according to Damascene, they are understood of the antecedent will, not the consequent will. This distinction is not taken from the side of the divine will itself, in which there is nothing prior or posterior, but from the side of the things willed. To understand this, one must consider that each thing is willed by God insofar as it is good. Something may, in its first consideration, insofar as it is considered absolutely, be good or evil, but when considered together with some circumstance, which is its consequent consideration, the opposite may be the case. Thus, for a man to live is good, and for a man to be killed is evil, under an absolute consideration; but if it is added concerning some man that he is a murderer or that he lives at the peril of the multitude, then it is good that he be killed and evil that he live. Hence it may be said that a just judge antecedently wills every man to live, but consequently wills the murderer to be hanged. Similarly, God antecedently wills every man to be saved, but consequently wills some to be damned in accordance with the demands of his justice”¹.

But that circumstance discussed by the Bañezianos, namely, the greater beauty of the universe arising from the existence of the damned, is not indicated by those theologians, nor does it have any basis in the sources of revelation.

451. Therefore, one may rightly say with FRANZELIN²: “If the antecedent saving will is understood universally, prior to its term of comparison, it is considered as standing antecedently to the foreknowledge of sin itself, original sin, and still more to all our free acts. But if the saving will, as is almost always the case in Scripture and mostly among the Holy Fathers, is regarded on the supposition of original sin, as pertaining to the fallen and redeemed human race, the term before which the will of eternal salvation is called antecedent or consequent is the foreknowledge of the final state, whether it will be in grace or in sin.”