Scholastica commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologicae

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE.

The Conclusion is: These five signs are fittingly numbered, namely, operation, and permission, precept and counsel, and prohibition. The ground of this distinction is manifest enough in the article, namely, because it is in so many ways that we are wont to declare what we will.

COMMENTARY.

CONCERNING those signs, certain things must necessarily be noted. The first is that it is not unfitting that several of those signs belong to the same thing, for different reasons. For sometimes the things which God commands He also counsels to be done, and also operates something which is wont to be a sign of will in us. Sometimes, too, the sin which He prohibits He permits, so that we can say that by the will of sign God does not will the sin to be done, insofar as He prohibited it, and again by the will of sign, which is permission, God wills the sin to be done, because He permits it, and so the Apostle said: Of whom he will, he has mercy, and whom he will, he hardens, to the Romans, 9; He has mercy by the will of good pleasure, but He hardens by the will of sign, which is permission. It is to be noted secondly that, for a divine operation to be universally called a will of sign, it is necessary that the operation itself not attain that thing of which the will of good pleasure is the will: for otherwise the operation itself would not be called metaphorically the divine will in that way in which we here speak, as prohibition or permission is called a will of sign; nay rather, then the operation itself would truly signify the will which is properly in God. It is true, however, that for another reason the operation itself could be called metaphorically the will of God, in the way effects are wont to be metaphorically named by the name of the cause. Let this be an example: let God work the justification of two infants through baptism; but the one immediately dies and is saved, the other lives on and is damned. Then by the will of sign which is called operation, God willed to save him who was damned; but the other operation, by which he was justified who obtained eternal salvation, is not called a will of sign, but is rather a certain effect of the will of good pleasure. It is to be noted thirdly that these five signs are not called metaphorically the wills of God in the sense that the divine will, with respect to those very signs to be exercised, would be metaphorically a will: indeed the will of God with respect to those signs is an absolute will and a will of good pleasure, which is always fulfilled. Which is clear inductively: for if God permits a sin to be done, He truly wills to permit it. And so St. Thomas said, art. 9, to the 3rd, God wills to permit sins, and this is good. For the permission of sins pertains to divine providence, as St. Thomas says, q. 22, art. 2, to the 2nd, and q. 43, art. 2, to the 3rd. But the signs themselves are called metaphorically the wills of God with respect to the matter about which they turn, and which they are wont to signify in us; and in this way precept is called a will of sign, although God does not simply will that all fulfill His precept. Likewise, the permission of sins is called metaphorically the will of God concerning sins. Whence God is said metaphorically in the Sacred Letters to will to harden, to will to blind, because He permits someone to be blinded and hardened. But because permission itself is wont to be in us a sign that we will indirectly or per accidens that which we permit, for that reason it is metaphorically transferred to God, and the permission itself is called the will of God, although He in no way, not even per accidens, wills the sin. It is to be noted, however, that locutions of this sort, devised by us to be explained from the Sacred Letters and the Holy Fathers, are not to be multiplied, because they sound badly. Finally, it is to be noted that the will of sign is not interchangeable with the antecedent will. For they differ in this, that the will of sign is called some effect of the divine will, which appears to be a sign that God wills something else, which He truly does not will; but the antecedent will imports a velleity which we posit in God at least eminently with respect to some object which, considered in itself and absolutely, is good. They also differ because the will of sign, which is the permission of sin, is not in God, neither eminently with respect to sin, nor can an antecedent will be said to be in God, as it is said with respect to the salvation of all men. But the will of good pleasure and the consequent will are related thus, that the consequent will is always of good pleasure, and not conversely. The reason is: because the consequent will states a relation to the antecedent will; but the will of good pleasure is with respect to some object which states no relation to the antecedent, for example, God willed to predestine Gabriel by the will of good pleasure, not by the consequent. So much for this question 19.