Scotus Academicus, Tomus secundus: De Deo Intelligente et Volente

The divine Will follows in the order of nature the divine Intellect resplendent with the light of wisdom and of knowledge: the ocean of fecundity, the origin of liberty, the sanctuary of holiness, the august court of the virtues, and finally the fount of all good flowing abundantly upon all. That a clear and full account of it may be had, as far as is humanly possible, the present Disputation is to be distributed into three Articles; in the First of which the divine Will itself will be delineated in general; in the Second its liberty will be explained; in the Third, finally, all its endowments and excellences will be laid open.

It escapes none of the wise that by the name of Will is signified that innate power of the intellective substance which, with knowledge going before, pursues the good, shuns evil, intends the end, and chooses, orders, and embraces the means suitable for attaining it. In order, therefore, that a perfect knowledge of the divine Will may be had, three things especially are to be set forth and resolved together in this Article: first, indeed, whether the divine Will is, what it is, and how manifold it is. Second, what its object is, both primary and secondary. Third, finally, how many its acts are and which they are.

Note 1. It is established by supernatural faith that God is endowed with will; for Sacred Scripture itself celebrates the divine Will with many praises, and the adorable Savior Himself teaches His disciples to address the divine Father while praying with these words: Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; and especially the Apostle exhorts the faithful Romans in cap. 12. to prove what is the good, well-pleasing and perfect will of God. All those Councils likewise confirm this, which decreed against the Monothelites that there is in Christ the Lord a twofold will, namely divine and human. Whence it comes about that no one can deny will to God without the stain of heresy. Only this, therefore, remains to be resolved here: whether the divine will itself can become known and be demonstrated by natural reason.

Note 2. According to St. Bonaventure in 1. dist. 45. art. 1. quaest. 1., the divine Will is used in the Sacred Scriptures in a twofold way: namely properly and metaphorically. In the former way there is signified God's very complacency and power, by which He pursues good, turns away from evil, and intends an end. In the latter way there is designated some eternal sign of the divine good pleasure itself, whereby it happens that God's precepts, prohibitions and counsels, etc. are called the wills of God, namely in that way in which someone's testament is wont to be called his last will. Again, the will used in the former way can be distinguished in a twofold manner: namely the will which is the faculty and the willing potency, and the will which is the volition and operation of the volitive faculty. The former is called first act; the latter, however, is called the second act of volition. Whether, however, both these wills are to be admitted in God is no slight controversy among the authors, which, that it may be more easily solved

Note 3. The divine Will can be considered in a twofold way: first indeed essentially, and insofar as it says an order to the willed object within God Himself; second notionally, insofar as it says the order of the one producing to the product, namely to the Holy Spirit. In the former way it is common to the three adorable Persons; in the latter, however, it belongs only to the Father and the divine Son. In the former way it is said to be only operative; in the latter, however, it is called productive, because it is truly the principle by which the Father and the Son breathe forth and produce the Holy Spirit. No theologian denies that the divine will taken notionally has the true notion of a potency; whether, however, it is also to be called a true potency insofar as it is taken essentially and is distinguished, at least formally, from actual volition, as first act from second act, this is to be resolved here; but first let there be

First conclusion. — By natural reason it is established that God has a will.

It is proved first by the Subtle Doctor in 1. dist. 2. quaest. 2. n. 20.: The first agent must necessarily be intelligent: therefore it must be endowed with intellect and will. The minor is evident. The major is proved: The first agent must necessarily intend an end, and choose and order means to the attainment of it: but it cannot accomplish these unless it knows and wills the end; nor can it accomplish these unless it has intellect and will: therefore it must necessarily have both.

The major is evident: both because every nature tends to an end, not indeed per se, but by the direction of a Superior and of the first Agent, and consequently the first Agent must intend the end to which it directs and orders nature itself; and because the first Agent acts in an orderly manner, and consequently directs all its actions to an end. The minor is proved: the first agent tends to an end either from the impulse of nature, or through knowledge and love of it: but it does not tend to an end from the impulse of nature, for this smacks of imperfection: therefore through love and knowledge, and hence through intellect and will.

Secondly: Something is caused contingently: therefore the first cause causes contingently: therefore it causes as willing. The first consequence is proved: a second cause does not act except insofar as it is moved by the first: therefore while it acts contingently, it is necessary that it be moved contingently. The second consequence is proved: there is no principle of operating contingently except the will, or something accompanying the will; for what operates otherwise acts only from the necessity of nature, and therefore does not act contingently: therefore the cause which operates contingently must necessarily be willing, and hence have a will.

Thirdly: To the most perfect agent there must be attributed the most perfect mode of operating and causing: but the mode of causing through will is far more perfect than the mode of acting through nature; for a natural agent does not act with dominion over its acts, nor does it direct itself to an end, but is directed by another, as an arrow by an archer; a free and voluntary agent, however, directs itself to the end and has dominion over its acts: therefore this mode of acting through will is to be attributed to God.

You will say 1. According to St. Augustine lib. de libero arbitrio, The will is a rational movement presiding over sense and appetite. And in lib. de duabus Animabus: The will is a movement of the mind toward pursuing or fleeing something: but in God there is no movement, nor sense, nor appetite, nor pursuit, nor flight: therefore neither is there will.

I answer. St. Augustine is to be understood of the created will, not however of the uncreated, which is not subject to these imperfections.

You will say 2. There is no will where there is no object of the will: but in God there is no object of the will: therefore neither is there will. The minor is proved: The good is the object of the will; for just as the true is the object known, so the good is the object willed: but in God there is no good as an object willed; for good and end are the same, and nothing in God can have the notion of an end; both because God cannot have an end; and because an end is a real cause, and in God nothing has the notion of a real cause; and finally because, says the Doctor in 1. dist. 1. q. 5. n. 6., nothing is a final cause with respect to anything except that with respect to which it is an efficient cause, since the causality of the final cause is to move the efficient cause to act; of God, therefore, who cannot be effected, nothing is a final cause, because in Him nothing depends on another as on a cause: therefore in God there is no end, and hence neither a good as willed, nor consequently an object of the will, nor accordingly is there will in Him.

I deny the minor, and to its proof I say that a twofold end can be distinguished: namely the end willed, and the end of the things willed. The former is the one toward which the agent tends; the latter is the one toward which the agent orders the things it wills. The former indeed is not in God, because God does not tend to some end outside Himself, since He is Himself the end of all things, having no end, just as He is the principle of all things without a principle. The latter, however, is truly intended by God, because He directs and orders all creatures, which are willed objects, to Himself, as to the ultimate end of all things, or, as the cited Doctor speaks, God acts for the sake of the end of the effect, not for the sake of His own end, because He is not an agent of Himself, which suffices for it to be truly said that there is in God a true end as a willed object.

You will say 3. The will is toward opposites: but in God there cannot be a will toward opposites: therefore neither is there will. The major is evident from Philosophy. The minor is proved: a will toward opposites is contingent and variable: but in God there is no contingency, nor variability: therefore, etc.

The Seraphic Doctor, cited above, answers, denying the minor, and he distinguishes its proof: that in God there is no variability, nor contingency in actu, he concedes; in effectu, he denies. It is certain indeed that there is no contingency in the act of the divine will; for this act, since it is really identical with the will itself and with the substance of God, cannot be varied in any way, just as neither can the divine will and substance themselves, but from eternity the divine will is in one and the same uniform act of willing what it wills. But there is variability and contingency in effect, for God does many things which He could not do and not will, and hence He does and wills them contingently.

You will say 4. The will is the appetite of the intellective nature, by which it is borne toward the good agreeable to itself: but in God there is no appetite, because appetite is an inclination toward a good not possessed, and accordingly presupposes the lack of the good terminating the appetite; in God, however, there is no lack of good, since He is Himself the supreme good and the fount and origin of all good: therefore neither is there will in God.

I distinguish the major: The will is an appetite, that is, a desire and pursuit of an absent good, I deny; it is an appetite, that is, a weight and tendency toward a suitable object, I concede.

I similarly distinguish the minor: in God there cannot be an appetite insofar as it is a desire of an absent good, I concede; insofar as it is a weight, inclination and complacency in an object suitable to itself, I deny.

Therefore in God a twofold appetite can be affirmed: namely natural and elicited. Natural indeed, insofar as from its own natural propensity it is as it were inclined toward some suitable good; thus the divine Essence, insofar as it is the principle and root of the attributes, can be said to have a natural appetite and inclination toward them, because it is perfected and illumined by them. Likewise in the divine Father there is an appetite and inclination to communicate Himself to the Son, and in the Father and the Son there is an innate appetite to communicate themselves to the Holy Spirit: for every productive potency is naturally inclined to the production of its adequate term, especially when it exhausts its whole fecundity in it. There is also in God an elicited appetite, which presupposes knowledge of the term of such an appetite. For God, with respect to His own perfection, has not only an innate appetite, but also an elicited one, because He knows and loves it: but this divine inclination is more rightly called complacency in a possessed good than appetite, which is ordinarily borne toward an absent good.

Second conclusion. — The divine will is a potency formally distinct both from the divine Essence and from actual volition.

This is the Doctor's teaching, as is evident from what we have said by way of likeness concerning the divine Intellect, and it is moreover urged from the same Doctor in 1. dist. 13. question 1. n. 31. where he says:

God is simpliciter blessed in the operations of His intellect and will, but He is not simpliciter blessed in the essence as it is infinite, unless He comprehends it. And just as the intellect comprehends by seeing, so the will in its own way must comprehend by loving, in order that it be perfectly blessed, and consequently both potencies and both acts of each potency, with respect to the divine Essence insofar as it perfectly beatifies itself, will be infinite.

By these words the Doctor teaches three things: First, that intellect and will are distinguished formally from the essence. Second, that they have the notion of a faculty and operative potency in actu primo. Third, that each potency is formally distinguished from its act, namely the intellect from intellection and the will from actual volition.

The Conclusion is proved: Those things are formally distinguished to which contradictory predicates belong: but contradictory predicates are enunciated of the divine essence, will, and volition: therefore they formally differ from one another. The major remains sufficiently proved from what we have said concerning the formal distinction of the attributes both among themselves and from the divine Essence. The minor, however, is proved; for many things are enunciated of the will which cannot be enunciated of volition and of the divine Essence, for example that the divine will is the immediate principle of the procession of the Holy Spirit and also of divine love; that it is immediately operative; which things belong per se neither to the Essence nor to the divine volition.

For the divine Essence is not per se the immediate principle of the procession of the Holy Spirit, nor even of essential divine love; similarly divine volition, or divine love, is not formally the principle of love and volition, but is itself actual love and actual volition itself.

You will say. For something to have the notion of a potency and first act, it is necessary that it really be a productive principle of the second act and respective to it, if such a second act is immanent: but the divine Will is neither productive of divine volition, nor receptive of it, as was observed in the preliminary notes: therefore it is not a potency and first act with respect to divine volition either.

I distinguish the major: If such a potency is not only operative and a metaphysical principle, but also productive and a physical principle, that is, productive of the act, I concede; if it is only operative, but not productive, I deny.

To the minor I say that the divine will is not a productive potency, nor a principle physically influencing the divine volition itself, namely in the way in which physical causes produce their acts through a true and real action: but it is only an operative potency and a metaphysical principle, from which the divine volition emanates immediately, namely in the way in which the will itself and all the divine attributes emanate from the essence. Whence it should not be receptive of that same volition, inasmuch as it is distinguished from the will itself not really, but only formally.

The other things which could be objected against this Conclusion have already been solved in the First Conclusion of the Disputation on the divine Intellect, in which it was proved that the divine intellect itself is formally distinct both from the Essence and from actual intellection.

Third conclusion. — The division of the divine will is various and manifold.

For first it is divided into the Will of Good Pleasure and the will of Sign. The former is the will really existing in God, by which He pursues some good or turns away from evil. The latter, however, is not really in God, but is some created effect signifying and connoting the will of God, in the way in which a testament is called the last will of a man who makes the will. Both these divine wills are celebrated in Sacred Scripture. The former indeed is signified by these passages: Psalm 118, He has done all things whatsoever He willed. And Rom. 12: That you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing and perfect will of God, etc. The latter, however, is signified by these words of Psalm 110: Great are the works of the Lord, sought out according to all His wills.

St. Bonaventure, however, offers this reason for this division in 1. dist. 45. art. 3. quaest. 1.:

Just as the intellect is not absurdly called the intellective power, and its object is called the understood, so the will is called not only the potency of willing itself, but also the willed object itself: but the willed is a sign of the will: therefore besides the will of good pleasure there is also to be assigned a will of sign.

Next, the divine will is taken either properly for the volitive faculty, or improperly and metaphorically for the willed thing. In the former way the will of good pleasure is designated; in the latter, however, the will of sign. Finally, the divine will is either that by which God wills, or that which God wills. The will by which God wills is the will of good pleasure; the will, or willed thing, which He wills, is the will of sign. For since we do not know the divine will per se, but only through willed objects, these willed objects are rightly called signs manifesting the internal will, and hence are rightly called wills of sign, or rather signs manifestative of the divine will.

This division, however, is not made according to the thing, but according to the word, so that the name of the divine will is attributed both to the volitive potency and to the willed object: to the former indeed properly, to the latter only metaphorically and on account of the likeness which there is between the sign of our will and of the divine. For just as a command is a natural sign of our will, so too a divine command, v. g., is said to be a natural sign of the divine will.

Both these wills in turn admit various subdivisions. For the will of good pleasure is subdivided into Antecedent and Consequent. The Antecedent Will is commonly said to be that which God has from Himself alone and from His native inclination with respect to an object, insofar as it is not clothed with all the circumstances with which it is to be consigned to execution. The Consequent, however, is that which God does not have from Himself alone, but from certain presupposed circumstances, with which removed, He would not will the object. Thus, v. gr., by the antecedent will God wills all to be saved, not attending to their merits, but because He created and ordained all men to glory, as to their ultimate end. By the consequent will, however, He wills to save efficaciously only the just, but wills to damn the impious, for the reason that the former have made use of the suitable means for attaining beatitude, while the latter have not.

St. Thomas explains this twofold will in this way in 1. part. question 19. art. 6., where, after he had said that the division of the Will into antecedent and consequent 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, he adds:

It must be considered that each thing, insofar as it is good, is thus willed by God. But something can be good or evil in its first consideration (according as it is considered absolutely), which nevertheless, according as it is considered with some circumstance added (which is its consequent consideration), is disposed in the contrary way. Just as for a man to live is good, and for a man to be killed is evil, according to absolute consideration; but if it be added concerning some man that he is a murderer, or living in danger, then it is good that he be killed, and evil that he live. Hence it can be said that a just judge antecedently wills a man to live, but consequently wills the murderer to be hanged. Likewise God antecedently wills every man to be saved, but consequently wills certain men to be damned according to the requirement of His justice.

This division, however, into the Antecedent and Consequent will is not taken from the side of the divine will, in which in reality there is nothing prior nor posterior, but from the side of the thing willed, which can be considered either in itself and insofar as it prescinds from all circumstances, or according as it has circumstances joined to it. And since the consideration of a thing in itself is said to be prior to the consideration of the thing according to its circumstances, for that reason the divine Will, insofar as it terminates at things considered in themselves, is called antecedent; but insofar as it terminates at things insofar as they have their circumstances joined to them, it is called the Consequent will.

Again, the will of good pleasure is subdivided into Efficacious and Inefficacious. That will is called efficacious by which it always carries out its effect and obtains the intended end; but inefficacious, which neither has the willed effect nor attains the intended end. Thus the will of saving all men is efficacious on the part of the Predestined, and inefficacious on the part of the Reprobate.

Moreover, one will of good pleasure is Absolute, another Conditional. The former is concerned with the object without the supposition of that condition; thus God absolutely wills that those persevering in final grace be given eternal glory. The conditional will, however, is borne toward the existence, or non-existence, of the object from the supposition of some condition; thus God wills all men to be saved, on the hypothesis that they themselves will it and use the fitting means ordered to attaining salvation.

The will of sign is also said to be manifold, but chiefly fivefold according to the five different signs manifesting God's internal will, which are: precept, prohibition, counsel, permission and fulfilment, or operation, all of which are explained in this verse.

He commands and prohibits, permits, counsels, fulfils:

St. Bonaventure assigns the fitness of this division in the Compendio Theologico, lib. 2. cap. 32., in these words:

The divine will, properly speaking, is either of present or of future things. If with respect to present things, either it is good, and so it is Fulfilment, or evil, and so it is Permission. If with respect to future things, it is threefold: either evil, and so it is Prohibition; or necessary good, and so it is Precept; or good of supererogation, and so it is Counsel.

St. Thomas, however, in 1. part, qu. 19, art. 12., gathers the fitness of this division in this way:

The signs of the will are said to be those by which we are accustomed to show that we will something. Now someone can declare that he wills something either through himself, or through another. Through himself indeed insofar as he does something, either directly, or indirectly and per accidens. Directly indeed when he operates something per se, and in this respect it is said to be the sign Operation. Indirectly, however, insofar as he does not impede the operation, and in this respect it is said to be the sign Permission. Through another, however, he declares that he wills something insofar as he orders another to do something, either by a necessary induction, which is done by Commanding what one wills and Prohibiting the contrary; or by some persuasive induction, which pertains to Counsel.

Alexander of Hales, however, in quaest. 36. member 1., gathers these signs in this way:

The divine will either regards an act while it is being done, or while it is to be done. If while it is being done, either that act is good or evil. If good, its Operation is a sign of the divine will. But if while it is to be done, likewise that act to be done is either good or evil. If evil, then the Prohibition of it is a sign of the divine Will. If good, either it is necessary for salvation, and then the Precept of it is a sign of the divine Will, or it is not necessary but nonetheless conducive to salvation, and then the Counsel of it is a sign of the divine will.

Finally, the Subtle Doctor, in 1. d. 17. n. 2., in order to gather these five signs, judges that certain things must be presupposed. The first indeed, that in us there is a twofold act of the will and each is positive, namely volition and nolition, which, when they are concerned with the same object, are called contrary, and are signified by Loving and Hating. The second is that each of these two acts is either efficacious or inefficacious. An efficacious volition is said to be that by which we order the means and strive, as far as in us lies, that the thing willed come to be. But an inefficacious or remiss volition is that by which we would indeed will the willed object to come to be and exist, yet we do not will to apply the means necessary for its production and existence. Likewise, an efficacious nolition is said to be that by which we apply the means required for impeding the production and existence of a thing; or we would truly apply them if they were in our power. But an inefficacious nolition is that by which one would truly nill some thing to be, yet nevertheless does not apply the fitting means to impede its existence.

These things being presupposed, the Doctor answers: The sign of an efficacious volition, if it is made immediately by the will, is Fulfilment; if through another, it is a Precept. But the sign of a remiss volition is Counsel, or admonition and persuasion. Likewise, the sign of an efficacious nolition is Prohibition; but of an inefficacious and remiss one, Permission.

You will say 1. Sign and thing signified are correlatives: therefore where one is not manifold, neither can the other be manifold, as Aristotle says; but the will of God is not manifold but one: therefore it should have only one sign, and consequently there are not five signs of the divine will.

I distinguish the minor: The divine will is not manifold according to internal entity, I concede; according to external connotation, I deny; for it connotes many things in the creature, for through a precept it connotes the things necessary for salvation, through counsel it connotes the tendency toward the more suitable good, and so on for the rest.

You will say 2. Just as prohibition is opposed to precept, so dissuasion is opposed to counsel: therefore just as prohibition is a sign of the divine Will, so also is dissuasion, and consequently there are more signs than five.

I deny the consequence: For counsel comprehends suasion and dissuasion; for to dissuade from marriage, for example, is to counsel and urge Virginity, and so dissuasion is not a sign distinct from counsel.

You will say 3. The disposition by which God prepares Himself to do something, as though He willed to bring it to perfection, which nevertheless He does not will, is a sign of the divine Will: but this will of preparation is not comprehended under any of the assigned five signs of the divine Will. Not indeed under precept, prohibition, counsel and permission; for when one commands, prohibits, counsels, permits, he is not said to will to do it, but to will it to be done or not done by another, or to nill to impede that they be done by another; nor is it the will that is called work or fulfilment, because one who operates no longer prepares the work but does it: therefore there are more signs than five.

I deny the major: For that will of preparation, which Estius in 1. dist. 45. admits as a sixth sign, is nothing other than the antecedent will by which God wills something in its cause, when He so disposes and prepares it that from it an effect can follow. But the antecedent will is not the will of sign but the will of good pleasure, as we will prove below when treating of the will of God by which He wills all men to be saved, which same will of preparation Estius calls it.

You will ask 1. Whether the Will of Sign always corresponds to the will of good pleasure, that is, whether the aforesaid five signs always designate some positive act of the divine Will?

I affirm with the more subtle disciples of the Subtle Doctor, and this is plainly evident concerning operation, since God works all things according to the counsel of His will, as the Apostle speaks in Ephesians 1., and that counsel of the will is without doubt signified through operation, as the cause through its effect. Likewise precept and prohibition import an act, not only by which God wills to command and prohibit something, but also by which He wills efficaciously, as far as in Himself lies, that what He commands or prohibits be done or not done. The same is clear concerning counsel, for although God does not will to oblige man to execute what He counsels to be done, nevertheless He efficaciously, as far as in Himself lies, wills what He counsels to be done, for to fulfil it counsel supplies the necessary means.

But as for Permission, there truly seems to be a greater difficulty, in solving which the Doctor praised above in 1. dist. 47. remains wholly doubtful. For although he had said that permission is nothing other than an inefficacious nolition of God, nevertheless, because this nolition seems to bring some sadness to the one nilling, as happens in us when that occurs which we would nill to be done and to exist, or at least this nolition would attach something imperfect and superfluous; for that reason he explains divine permission in another way, saying that it consists in the negation of a volition of placing an obstacle and impediment to the thing which is said to be permitted, which God knows will be done and absolutely could impede if He willed, and yet does not will to impede.

Then, objecting to himself that on this account God would be said to be willing to allow and permit what He permits, and accordingly this permission would seem always to import an act of the divine will; the Doctor answers by denying the consequence, because, he says,

that he who is said to be willing to allow this can be understood, not as having a right willing about what He permits, but a reflexive act. For when this man about to sin, or to sin, is offered to His will, first His will has no willing about him, for it cannot will that he have sin. Secondly, He can understand His will as not willing this, and then He can will that His will not will this, and so He is said to be willing to allow and to permit voluntarily. Just as on the other side, when Judas is presented to Him, first God has a non-willing of glory for him, and not a first nilling, according to that last position, dist. 41., and then secondly He can reflect upon that negation of act and will it, and so, willing or voluntarily, He does not choose Judas as one finally to sin, nor a nolition of glory, but a volition of glory.

I say, therefore, for the clearer explanation of the matter, that a twofold divine permission can be distinguished: physical, namely, and moral. The moral is that by which no moral impediment is placed to the act to be done, namely precept, counsel, prohibition and other similar things. But this moral permission does not seem to be a positive act of the divine Will, but for it only the non-position of a precept, or counsel, or sign suffices; for by this very fact, that God neither commands, nor counsels, nor prohibits something to be done, He morally seems to permit it.

But physical Permission is that by which God does not place a physical impediment to the act to be done; which permission is either with respect to a simple omission of an act, and for this permission the negation of concurrence to the act opposite to that omission suffices; or it is with respect to a positive act, and this necessarily requires a positive will of God, because no positive act can be without a positive concurrence of God; but this concurrence cannot be without a positive volition of God. Hence permission with respect to a positive act always connotes and presupposes a positive act of the will of God.

You will ask 2. Whether a created will is always morally right, whenever it is conformed to the divine will?

The Doctor answers in 1. dist. 48. sole quaest., since good arises from the whole cause, and evil from any defect, that for the goodness and rectitude of a created will it does not suffice that it be conformed to the divine Will as to the object which God wills, and as to the end which He intends; because some circumstance can be lacking which would take away rectitude. Hence although God willed that Christ, God, should die for the salvation of men, nevertheless the Jews sinned by killing Him; indeed they would even have sinned gravely had they crucified Him for that very end, that His death might profit men to be saved, because God did not will them to kill Christ.

Whence St. Augustine in the Enchiridio, cap. 101.:

Sometimes, he says, a man wills something with a good will which God does not will, willing something much more abundantly and much more certainly good; as if a wicked Son should will the Father to die, and God should also will this. It matters what it befits man to will, what it befits God to will, and to what end each one refers his own will, so that it may be approved or disapproved.

Whence St. Bonaventure, lib. 1. Comp. Theol. cap. 23., says:

that full conformity to God comprehends four things: First, that we will what God wills: Secondly, that we will what He wills us to will: Thirdly, that we will for the sake of what He wills: Fourthly, that we will in the manner in which He wills. He adds further that non-full conformity is threefold: First, if one is conformed to God in the willed object only, just as the Jews also were conformed to God in the death of Christ: Secondly, if one is conformed in the willed object and in the end, but not in the manner, as when something is not done out of charity: Thirdly, when one is conformed in the willed object and in the manner, but not in the end, as when the intention is turned back to another end, yet a good one.

Lest we retrace worn paths with repeated step, what we have said concerning the object — both primary and secondary, both material and formal — of the divine Intellect must be recalled; for these things can be affirmed of the divine Will by a similar line of reasoning; and moreover, for the clearer resolution of this Question

Note 1. It is certain that the divine essence considered precisely in itself is the first object of the divine Intellect and of the divine Will, by a primacy, indeed, of dignity and of a certain natural presupposition; for since this essence is thinkable before all its attributes and all its divine perfections, of which it is the source and origin, and is therefore first in the notion of divine being, it is also to be reckoned first in the notion of the intelligible true and in the notion of the appetible and lovable good.

But the difficulty is under what notion the divine Essence itself has the character of the object first moving and terminating the divine Will; for some Theologians affirm that the motive object of the divine Will is indeed the divine goodness itself — not essential, but attributal. Others, however, with the Disciples of the Subtle Doctor, assert that the adequate formal motive object of the divine Will, both for the love of itself and for the love of its attributes, is essential goodness itself; and so that God loves himself on account of his essential goodness.

Note 2. It is certain that God loves himself: first, because the will is borne toward the good; therefore a will infinitely perfect, such as the divine will is, is borne by its native weight and love toward the infinite good, such as God is; second, because any will naturally tends toward its adequate object; but God alone is the adequate object of his will, since he is infinitely lovable, and satiating and terminating of an infinitely loving faculty; finally, because every will is borne by love toward its beatifying object; but God is for himself objective beatitude, and he delights only in the possession and fruition of himself.

But the difficulty remains how God loves himself, namely whether necessarily or freely, whether comprehensively or finitely; whether he loves himself and his own primarily on account of his essential goodness. Since, however, the difficulty is greater concerning the free love of God toward himself, therefore

Note 3. With the Subtle Doctor, qu. 16. Quodlib., a threefold freedom is distinguished: The first is called the freedom of Contrariety or of Specification, by which the will can at its nod tend toward some object or toward another opposite one, and by which it can elicit an act of love or of hatred. The second is called the freedom of Contradiction, or as regards exercise, namely by which the will can elicit an act or not elicit it; tend toward an object or not tend toward it. The third, finally, is essential freedom, by which the will, since from its intrinsic notion it is indifferent and undetermined, is regarded as always eliciting its act freely from itself and tending toward the object, although it is moved and necessitated from within.

But this essential freedom is gathered by the Doctor from St. Augustine in Enchirid. c. 105., where he says:

It was fitting that man should first be so made by God that he could will what is good and what is evil; but afterwards, that is, in beatitude, he will be so that he cannot will what is evil: for he will not lack free choice; indeed, the choice will be all the freer, which will not be able to serve sin at all; for neither is that will to be blamed, nor is it not a will, by which we so will to be blessed that we not only do not will to be miserable, but can in no way will it at all.

By these words St. Augustine affirms that the necessity of not sinning in the Blessed stands together with their freedom: not indeed with the freedom of contrariety or of contradiction, by which the will can seek or not seek something against the will of God, and consequently by which it can sin; but with the essential freedom, that is, the radical and entitative freedom of the will itself, which is a faculty that always remains free from itself entitatively and intrinsically and radically, even if at times it is so necessitated and efficaciously drawn by another extrinsic being to his love that it can neither cease from loving him, nor elicit an act opposed to love, namely hatred, regarding that object.

First conclusion. — God loves himself primarily, and comprehensively, on account of his essential goodness.

This conclusion has three parts, of which the first is proved: He loves himself primarily who is for himself the adequate object of volition and of love; but God alone is for himself the adequate object of love and volition: therefore, etc. The major is certain, for every faculty per se first tends toward its adequate object. The minor is equally evident; for the adequate object of an infinite will must necessarily be infinite in every way, and so, since the divine will is infinite, it must have an adequate object infinite in every way; but nothing is infinite in every way except God: therefore, just as he is the adequate object of his intellect under the notion of the infinitely intelligible true, so likewise is he the adequate object of his will under the notion of the infinitely lovable good.

Next, that is the primary object of the divine Will for the sake of which and in which God loves other things; but God, as will be proved in the following Question, loves all creatures in himself and on account of himself: therefore he loves himself primarily.

Finally, God is Holy, Blessed and Infinite; but he would not be such unless he loved himself primarily: for Holiness is the immediate conjunction with God through appreciative love, by which all things are loved on account of God and God above all things; but Beatitude is the highest and absolute possession and fruition of the highest good through intimate and immediate knowledge and love: for if the love were not intimate, that possession would not be the fruition of the good, since no one enjoys an absent good. Likewise, if it were not immediate, the object would not be beatifying per se, but through another, and consequently God would not be blessed in himself and through himself.

Moreover, infinity requires every simple perfection intimately and immediately; but the immediate love of God is a simple perfection; for it is more excellent to love God immediately and in himself than mediately and in another: therefore God loves himself primarily.

The second part is evident per se, namely that the Love by which God loves himself is comprehensive: for that love is comprehensive which is as perfect in the notion of love as the object is perfect in the notion of the lovable, and which extends itself to all those things that are lovable in the object; but such is the love of God toward himself, for it is as perfect in the notion of love as the object is perfect in the notion of the lovable, since each is infinitely perfect; it likewise extends itself to all things that are lovable in God, namely to the essence, the attributes and the divine Persons: and consequently that love is truly comprehensive.

The third part is proved, namely that the essential goodness of God is the first motive notion of his love: First, because the divine Will is related to its lovable object in the same way as the intellect is to the cognoscible; but essential truth is the first motive object of the divine Intellect: therefore essential goodness is likewise the first motive object of the divine Will. Next, that first moves the divine will to love which is first apprehended per se by the divine Intellect as lovable, for the object of the will is the apprehended good; but essential goodness is first apprehended per se by the divine Intellect; for the divine essence and the essential predicates are conceived before the attributes and the other things which surround the divine Essence: therefore, etc.

Finally, if anything else could be assigned for the first motive object of the divine will, it would most of all be either something within God or something outside God; but neither can be said. Not indeed something outside God: first, because the divine Will would be debased if it could be first moved by something else outside itself, as has already been said by way of likeness concerning the divine Intellect; second, because it would follow that the divine Will depends on something extrinsic, which is wholly repugnant to divine independence; finally, because creatures do not have the character of the first motive object of the divine Will, as will be proved more fully in the following Question. Nor the second: for since the divine Essence is by nature prior to all those things which surround it by way of a perfective property or of a personal relation, it does not receive its essential perfection from them; rather, it is their root and origin: and consequently it cannot receive from them the power of terminating the divine Will; nor can those perfective or relative properties be the notions on account of which the divine Will pursues the divine Essence with love.

From which it is clear that Attributal Goodness cannot have the character of the first moving object: first, because it presupposes the essential goodness from which it emanates; second, because since it is a special attribute, it does not contain virtually and eminently all things that are in God, but only really and identically; that is, on account of its real identity with them.

But the divine Essence, by reason of its essential goodness and perfection, contains in its formal concept every perfection whatsoever — whether essential, or attributal, or relative — not only identically, but also virtually, eminently and radically. And so essential goodness alone can have the character of the adequate and first moving object of the divine Will toward the love of itself.

You will say 1. If God loved himself, that love would be either the love of friendship or the love of concupiscence; but neither can be said. Not indeed the first, because the love of friendship is toward another, and so God cannot have this love toward himself. Nor the second, because the love of concupiscence is concerned with the useful or pleasant good, not however with the honest good; but God cannot love something only on account of its utility and pleasantness, but only on account of its honesty, dignity and excellence: therefore God cannot love himself.

I deny the minor. For God truly loves himself with the love of friendship, at least an improper one, and insofar as it is the complacency of the will in the good proper to himself, of which he is truly worthy. Nor does it matter that this love does not have the return of love by which the beloved person loves the lover; because this return of love is the complement only of perfect friendship, which indeed God does not have toward himself, although the divine Persons have it toward one another, since they pursue one another with mutual, although indistinct, love.

You will say 2. If God loved himself comprehensively, he would also have to love his own love itself; but this cannot be done: therefore neither can he love himself comprehensively. The major is clear: for comprehensive love would have to be terminated at everything that is in God, and consequently it would also be terminated at itself. The minor is proved: if divine love were terminated at itself as at a lovable object, God would love his own love; and that either through the same love, or through another. If through the same, then the same love will be direct and reflex: direct indeed, insofar as it tends toward the divine essence; reflex, however, insofar as it is terminated at itself: and so this proposition would be true: God loves the love of his own love, which seems ridiculous. If through another, then infinite reflections of love will be admitted: for if he loves his love through another love, this second love will be loved through a third, and so on to infinity. Therefore God cannot love his own love, nor consequently is that love of his comprehensive.

I deny the minor. For truly God, loving Himself comprehensively, also loves His very love itself, identified with Himself; and that through the same love directed formally, insofar as it tends toward the divine essence and the divine perfections; but virtually reflected, insofar as indeed the same infinite act of love is equivalent to two acts of finite love, namely the direct and the reflected. Whence it comes about that in God there is that wondrous circle of divine love, by which, with a perpetual conversion from good in good toward good, God moves Himself, and divine love returns into itself.

St. Dionysius explains this wondrous circulation of divine love in this way in the book De Divinis Nominibus, cap. 4:

The divine love excellently shows itself to be without end and beginning, like an everlasting circle: going round for the sake of good, from good, in good and toward good, with an unswerving conversion; and in the same and according to the same, always proceeding, and remaining, and returning.

You will say 3. If essential divine goodness were the primary motivating notion of divine love, it would also have to be the notion for the divine will of willing the other things which are in God under the notion of their end: but essential goodness cannot be the motivating notion of the divine will under the notion of the end of the other things which are in God; for the divine properties and perfections are not ordered to the divine essence as to their end; because, says the Doctor in 1. dist. 1. q. 5, nothing has any final cause except with respect to that of which it is the efficient cause: since the causality of the final cause is to move the efficient cause to act: therefore, since the divine perfections have no efficient cause, neither can they have a final cause, and consequently they cannot be ordered to the divine essence as to an end.

I deny the major. For in order that something be ordered to another as to an end, it is necessary first that it be really distinct from the end, second that it have the notion of a means orderable to the end, third that it be intended by the will and referred to the end: but the divine properties and perfections, since they are not really distinguished from essential goodness but only formally, for that reason can neither have the notion of a means orderable to this goodness, nor can they be intended and ordered by God to this very essential goodness as to an end. Whence it is not necessary that essential goodness have the notion of an end with respect to the divine properties: but it suffices that they flow from it metaphysically and be referred to it as to the fontal notion of their emanation; for since essential goodness itself is their fount and origin, it is also rightly established as the primary motive why those divine perfections are loved by God.

Second conclusion. — God loves Himself necessarily and freely with essential liberty.

This is the teaching of the Doctor in several places¹, but especially in quaest. 16. of the Quodlib., art. 1. and 2.

The Doctor proves the first part in this way. God is necessarily blessed, therefore He necessarily sees and loves the beatific object: but He Himself is the beatific object: therefore He necessarily sees and loves Himself. The major is evident: for since God is the highest good and infinitely perfect, He must also be most blessed; for beatitude is a state made perfect by the union of all goods. — Then, if God did not love Himself necessarily, He would be mutable: but the consequent is false: therefore so is the antecedent.

Proof of the consequence of the major. If He does not love Himself necessarily, He can love Himself or not love Himself; for His love of self, if it is not necessary, is contingent, and so can be or not be. But one who can love himself or not love himself is intrinsically mutable; for either he will never actually love himself, but will always be in potentia and indifference to loving himself or not loving himself, which is absolutely repugnant to pure act, such as God is: or he will at some time love himself, although he could from eternity not love himself, and so he will be changed: for it cannot be understood how the same God, persevering in the same way, could both love Himself and not love Himself.

Nor should you say that the same God, remaining altogether the same, now loves creatures actually existing, which nevertheless He could from eternity not love, since He could have not decreed their existence: therefore He can similarly love Himself actually without any change, although from eternity He was indifferent with regard to the love of Himself.

I answer that there is no parity: and the reason for the disparity is that, in order that creatures pass from being unloved to being loved, some change intervenes in them, by which it comes about that God is said to love them; for through this divine love they pass from possible to future, and from future to existing: for if God did not love them, they would not now be otherwise than they were from eternity; whence this change of love is to be attributed not to God Himself but to the creatures themselves, as has already often been said. But if God loved Himself actually when He could from eternity have not loved Himself, this change would fall not upon something external but upon God Himself; for in order that God, from being one who does not love, be said to be one who loves, some change must intervene, either in the lover himself or in the thing loved. Since therefore in His love of Himself God would be at once lover and beloved, if any change should intervene in this love, the whole of it would have to be attributed to God Himself: therefore, since no intrinsic change falls upon God, it is necessary that He love Himself necessarily as regards exercise. — Finally, to love the infinite good is the highest perfection: therefore the love of the infinite good necessarily belongs to God. The antecedent is clear, for just as to know intuitively the highest intelligible is the highest perfection of the intellect, so to love the highest lovable is the highest perfection of the will. The consequence is also evident, for God, since He is most perfect, necessarily embraces in Himself every manner of perfection, and consequently necessarily involves infinite love about Himself.

It is confirmed. It is not a contradiction, says the Doctor, that the infinite will have an infinite act about an infinite object, and consequently an act that is necessary and also necessarily; because if it could fail to have such an act about such an object, it could lack the highest perfection.

The Doctor proves the second part in the same place, art. 2. The same faculty by which it freely operates about means also freely tends toward the end to which and for which it orders those means: but the divine will freely wills and loves the means which it orders to its essential goodness: therefore it also freely tends toward that essential goodness. The Doctor proves the major by the authority of the Philosopher in 2. De Anima, who says that the potency by which we know the difference of one object from another object ordered to the prior object is operative in the same way about each object; as is clear in the case of the common sense, which is concerned with the common sensible and with the particular sensible ordered to the common. He proves the minor, namely, that God freely wills the means ordered to His essential goodness: because, he says, He wills them contingently: but contingency in acting is reduced to the first cause acting not naturally but freely: therefore He wills His own goodness itself under the notion of a free potency. — Then, action about the ultimate end is the most perfect action, whose freedom in acting is the highest intrinsic perfection; therefore whatever necessity may accrue extrinsically will not take away that perfection. — Finally, an intrinsic condition of the potency, either belonging to it absolutely or in order to a perfect act, does not conflict with perfection in operating: but freedom is either an intrinsic condition of the will absolutely, or in order to the act of willing: therefore freedom itself can stand with the perfect condition possible in operating: but such a perfect condition possible in operating is necessity itself, namely when no contingency intervenes in the operation: therefore this necessity does not take away freedom; so that although God necessarily loves His goodness, nevertheless He is freely borne toward it with essential liberty.

Add. that that faculty is freely borne toward an object when motives are proposed to it so that it may determine itself about that object: but motives are proposed to the divine will by the divine intellect by which it is borne about divine goodness: therefore it is freely borne toward it. The major is evident, for in this a free agent differs from a natural agent, that motives are proposed to the former, by which it determines itself to operate in this way or that, about this or that object. But not so for the latter; rather, by its natural weight and innate activity, without any deliberation, it operates and tends toward its object.

You will say 1. The free and the necessary are opposed: therefore if God loves His goodness necessarily, He does not love it freely.

Some distinguish the antecedent. The necessary is opposed to the free as regards specification and exercise, they concede; it is opposed to the free essentially, they deny. But the Doctor absolutely denies the antecedent; for the free is opposed to the natural mode of acting, and the necessary is opposed to the contingent; and if you ask, says the Doctor praised above, how necessity can stand with freedom? He answers according to the Philosopher, 3. Metaph. cap. 20, The reason of those things of which there is no reason is not to be sought, for the demonstration of a principle is not a demonstration: so it must be said here that just as this proposition is immediate and necessary, the divine will wills its own goodness; nor is there any other reason except that this is such a will, and that is such a goodness: so the divine will contingently wills the ordering of another good to its own goodness; for no other reason except that it is such a will, and that is such a good.

He nonetheless adds this reason why divine freedom is at once with the necessary

love of divine goodness; because, he says, the infinite will necessarily has an act about an infinite object, because this is the highest perfection in the will itself; but it has an act that is not necessary but free about a finite object; it can sometimes act contingently, because indeed it can be impeded by some extrinsic cause; so by a like reason a free agent can act necessarily, because it can be necessarily determined to action by something extrinsic.

You will say 2. That essential freedom either consists in indetermination to acting, or in dominion over its act: but the necessity of the love by which God loves His goodness can stand with neither: therefore either He does not love it necessarily, or He does not love it freely.

Proof of the major. For either that necessity is prior to the action of the will, so that it falls upon the will, which it impels into act and determines necessarily, and fixes in actu: or it accompanies the will itself operating, and so that will is so necessarily determined in operating that it can neither not act, nor act otherwise: but in neither way can this necessity stand with freedom. Not indeed in the first way, because thus the will would be acted upon more than it would act, and would be determined, but would not determine itself. Nor in the second either, because there is no freedom where there is no difference as to acting or not acting; or as to doing this or doing something else: and consequently the necessity of divine love cannot consist with essential freedom.

The Doctor denies the minor in the same place. and says that that necessity accompanies the act, but does not precede it, so that the will, because of the firmness of its own freedom, imposes necessity upon itself in eliciting the act and in persevering, thus fixing itself in the act. Whence he concludes that the procession of the Holy Spirit is free, because the necessity of nature accompanies spiration in communicating the nature through love and will, which of itself is essentially a free faculty. For a clearer evidence of these things he distinguishes a fourfold order of necessity in God: The first, he says, by which God necessarily lives. The second, by which He necessarily understands. The third, by which He necessarily spirates. The fourth, by which He necessarily loves Himself. Then he asks in what the freedom of willing stands with these necessities? He answers: because the will elicits the act and remains in actu delightfully and electively.

It is certain that God loves existing creatures, inasmuch as they are good and lovable; for the sacred text says that He saw all the things which He had made, and they were very good: whence the Sage, addressing God in cap. 1., says: You love all things that are, and You hate none of the things which You have made: for You did not appoint or make anything: but how could anything endure, unless You had willed it? Or how could that which was not called by You be preserved? By which words the Sage, with no less subtlety than elegance, gathers the divine love toward creatures from their creation and conservation: for both are the surest indication of divine love. Hence there is no need to weave more at length in confirmation of this truth; since not only the whole world and whatever creatures are in it, but even the individual pages of the Scriptures exhibit a special token of divine love toward creatures.

— But no light difficulty arises as to how God loves the creatures themselves. Hence three things especially are to be resolved in this Question; first indeed, whether God truly loves purely possible creatures. Second, whether He loves creatures both actual and future, as well as possible, necessarily or freely as regards exercise. Third, whether He loves them on account of their formal goodness, or only on account of His essential goodness. So that these may be resolved more evidently and easily

Note 1. That since creatures can be considered according to their threefold being, namely, either according to eminent being, which they have in the divine Essence, which since it is

an infinite sea of being, says St. John Damascene, is not only being by essence, nor only the fountain and origin of all beings by participation, nor finally only the supreme of beings by majesty and dominion: but is also every being by eminence and superexcellent dignity, because it comprehends all the perfections of all beings in a more sublime grade and state.

Or they can be considered according to virtual being, which they are said to have in the divine Omnipotence, which is productive of them: namely, in that manner in which any effect is virtually contained in its productive cause. Or finally according to the formal and entitative being which they have in themselves. So likewise a threefold goodness can be distinguished, namely, eminent, virtual and formal. The first and second belong not so much to them as to God, in whom they have eminent and virtual being. For it has already been said often that that eminent and virtual being is not proper to creatures, but to God alone; or rather, that it is the divine being itself: whence only the difficulty about formal goodness remains, namely, whether God loves creatures on account of their formal goodness, which they have in themselves.

Note 2. According to the Subtle Doctor in 3. dist. 32. num. 2., a twofold love can be distinguished in God, namely, efficacious love, or of benevolence, and inefficacious love, or of complacency. The former is an efficacious volition of God, by which He operates something with regard to creatures, either by leading them from the state of possibility to the state of futurition, and from futurition to actual existence; or by operating something in them when they exist; whether in the order of nature through their conservation and His cooperation in acting; or in the order of grace, through their sanctification, excitation and supernatural motion; or finally in the order of glory, by beatifying them through the manifestation of His Divinity. The latter, however, is a simple affection which He has toward creatures, yet operating nothing about them, but only taking complacency in them; or, as the Doctor says, God loves some things with an efficacious love, namely those which He sometimes produces into being: some things with a certain non-efficacious complacent volition, which however He never produces into being: they are nevertheless shown by His intellect, as possible things, to have so great goodness, just as those which He loves with efficacious love.

Note 3. That this is the difference between indifference, necessity and essential liberty: First, that indifference cannot subsist with necessity; for what is indifferent is contingent, and can be or not be: but the necessary and the contingent are mutually at odds; and so they cannot subsist together: necessity, however, stands with essential liberty, which involves no indifference but only the voluntary inclination of the divine will toward its object. Secondly, indifference is the companion, indeed the formal notion of liberty as regards specification and as regards exercise; for what is free as regards specification can tend to this or that object, and that through an act of love, or of hatred, of flight or of pursuit: likewise what is free as regards exercise can elicit the act, or not elicit it, or suspend it, even with all the circumstances required for acting being present; which indifference is in no way found in essential liberty; for this is neither indifferent to loving or hating its primary object, nor indifferent to eliciting its act or not eliciting it, but necessarily, yet voluntarily, inclines to both.

First conclusion. — God truly loves possible creatures with a love of simple complacency.

So the Doctor teaches in many places¹, most especially in 1. dist. 8. quaest. 5., and in 3. dist. 32. n. 2., as well as in quaest. 16. Quodlibetica, Litt. I.

Proof 1. God loves that which is good: but those possible creatures are good: therefore they are also loved by God. The major is evident. The minor is proved: those possible creatures are truly possible beings: therefore they have the properties of being, which are truth and goodness, and consequently just as by reason of their entitative truth they are knowable and known by God, so likewise by reason of their goodness they are lovable and loved by Him. — Next, the divine will is no less universal than the divine intellect: but the divine intellect is concerned with knowing possible creatures: therefore in like manner the divine will ought to be concerned with loving them. The major is certain; for just as the divine intellection would not be comprehensive unless it knew everything knowable; so by parity the divine love would not be comprehensive unless it reached everything lovable: but the love of God ought equally to be comprehensive, as is the divine intellection: therefore just as this is concerned with everything intelligible, whether actual, future and possible, so in like manner that ought to be concerned with everything lovable, whether actual, future and possible.

— Finally, if God did not love possible creatures with a love of complacency, it would be chiefly because they are only possible: but this reason does not hinder divine love; since when we intend some thing on account of an end and are moved to its pursuit, for the reason that we take complacency in it when it is proposed through the intellect, then such a thing is only proposed as possible: therefore with regard to a possible thing simple complacency and an inefficacious love can exist.

Add. that God takes complacency in His Omnipotence, by which He has a connection with possible things: therefore in like manner He takes complacency in those possible things.

You will say 1. A possible thing is pure nothing: therefore it is not a being, nor consequently is it good, nor therefore is it an object of the will.

I distinguish. It is pure nothing actually and according to actual existence, I concede; it is pure nothing as possible and according to essential truth, I deny; therefore although possible things formally considered and in act are pure nothing, or at least a being of reason; nevertheless they are something real and possible, and the divine intellect considers in them a possible goodness, and presents it to the divine will, which suffices for them to be loved by God. For God truly loves future creatures, because they will one day have real goodness, although in fact and in act they are nothing.

You will say 2. To love is to will some good to someone: but to possible creatures God wills no good; indeed He wills to them the greatest evil, namely the lack of existence and of actual reality: therefore He does not love them.

I distinguish the major. To love something with a love of friendship is to will good to it, I concede; to love something with a love of simple complacency is to will good to it, I deny: for this it suffices that the lover take complacency in the loved object, forming no volition about its good or evil; for besides benevolence there is simple complacency, just as besides malevolence there is simple displeasure. But God takes complacency in possible creatures, for the reason that they are certain participations of His own being: nor does He will non-existence to them: but He merely takes complacency in them and behaves merely negatively as regards the volition or nolition of existence. For neither is there need, for love, to confer something on the beloved; for God loves Himself, and yet confers nothing on Himself: similarly God rejoices and takes pleasure in the beatitude and gifts which He confers on the Blessed without any new interior conferral, lest one proceed to infinity: for the love of complacency does not require the conferral of good, but presupposes it.

You will say 3. If God loves possible things, He will also love possible sin: the consequence is absurd: therefore so is the antecedent. The consequence is proved: possible sin is truly possible: therefore it has the true notion of a possible being, and so has a possible goodness, and consequently a lovability.

I distinguish the antecedent. He will love possible sin as regards the physical entity of the act, which is producible by God and a certain participation of His own being, I concede: as regards the moral deordination and the lack of rightness, which is not producible, nor has any efficient cause, but only a deficient and exorbitant created will, I deny.

Second conclusion. — God freely loves creatures both actual and future; but possible ones He loves necessarily.

This Conclusion has two parts: of which the first is proved, namely that God freely loves actual and future creatures: God freely operates ad extra: therefore He freely wills and loves the creatures which He either decrees as future, or produces as existing. The antecedent is determined de fide in the Council of Constance, sess. 8. art. 7., against Wycliffe, and is established by several texts of Sacred Scripture, for Ps. 93. the God of revenge hath acted freely: And Rom. 9. He hath mercy on whom He will, and whom He will, He hardeneth. — Next, the will is not a necessary principle of producing any love of any object, says the Doctor in 1. dist. 10. n. 9., unless it be a necessary principle of loving that object: but the infinite will is not a necessary principle of loving a finite object, because then God would necessarily love any creature whatsoever, indeed everything lovable: therefore neither is it a necessary principle of producing His love by comparing it to any object whatsoever. — Finally, he who necessarily wills the end, ought not on that account necessarily to will the means ordered to the end, especially while such an end can be obtained without the means: therefore although creatures are means ordered to God, as to their end, since God possesses and loves Himself independently of creatures, even if He necessarily loves Himself, He nevertheless ought not necessarily to love creatures.

You will say 1. God necessarily knows existing and future creatures: therefore He necessarily wills and loves them. The consequence is proved: for there is no greater reason why divine knowledge should extend to all knowable things, than divine will to all lovable things.

I distinguish the antecedent. God necessarily knows existing and future creatures, presupposing their free futurition and existence, I concede; absolutely and simpliciter, I deny: whence the knowledge of vision, by which God knows future and existing creatures, is simpliciter free, because it supposes the free determination of God and His voluntary decree about the futurition and existence of those creatures; whence it is only necessary consequently, namely from His presupposed immutable decree; and this necessity the divine will also has.

You will say 2. That God communicates Himself to creatures through their futurition and existence is an effect of His goodness and liberality: but God necessarily loves His liberality and goodness: therefore He also necessarily loves His communication of Himself to creatures in decreeing their futurition and existence.

I distinguish the minor. God necessarily loves His goodness and liberality, as regards entity and inasmuch as it is a virtue and perfection of His Divinity, I concede; as regards the exercise of liberality and His actual communication, I deny; for since this is rather a perfection of the creature than of God, it is only freely loved and intended by God.

The second part of the Conclusion, namely that God necessarily loves possible creatures as regards exercise, is the express opinion of the Doctor, as appears from several of his texts, most especially from q. 16. Quodl. art. 1., near the end, where, having distinguished a twofold necessity, namely the necessity of Immutability, which excludes succession, and the necessity of Inevitability, or of determination, by which it excludes not only succession, but also the power of not doing something; he adds:

Of the second necessity it can be said, that although the divine will necessarily has an act of complacency with respect to anything intelligible, inasmuch as in it a certain participation of His own goodness is shown; nevertheless He does not necessarily will anything created with an efficacious volition, that is, one determinative of it to existing; indeed He thus contingently wills that a creature be, just as He contingently causes it, because if He willed it to be necessarily with this second necessity, He would also necessarily, with the necessity of inevitability, cause it.

by which words the Doctor distinguishes the love which God has toward future and existing creatures from that which He has toward possible ones, for the reason that He loves the former freely, but these necessarily.

It is further proved. if God freely loved possible creatures from eternity with freedom as regards exercise, He could love them or not love them, just as He can love and not love future or existing creatures; because He can decree or not decree their futurition and existence; but this cannot be said.

Proof. if God could love or not love possible creatures, it would follow that they could become loved from being unloved: but the consequence is false.

Proof. something cannot become loved from being unloved unless some change intervenes, either in the lover, or in the thing loved: but no change can fall, neither in God loving, because He is immutable; nor in possible things, because they are always necessarily possible in the same way: therefore they cannot become loved from being unloved, nor consequently can they be loved or not loved by God. And so either they must be necessarily always loved, or always not loved: but it cannot be said that they are necessarily not loved by God, since some goodness belongs to them by which they can please God: therefore the will of God necessarily loves, both as regards specification and as regards exercise, because they cannot displease God, and because they cannot not be loved by God.

It is confirmed. for this reason God is said to freely love future and existing creatures, because His divine will is judged to be terminated toward them otherwise than it was terminated toward their possibility; since from possible things they become future, and from future things they become existing. Therefore since that divine will is always terminated in the same way toward possible creatures, it cannot be said that He freely loves them.

Further, if God were free from eternity to take complacency or not to take complacency in possible things, it would follow that even now He could refrain from taking complacency in them: but the consequent is false: therefore so is the antecedent. The consequence is proved; because if God from eternity could, without any change in Himself, not take complacency in creatures in which He now takes complacency, He could even now, without any change in Himself, take complacency in those possible creatures in which He previously took complacency; but this is absurd, since there is no transition from one contradictory to the other without some change: but no change can be conceived, either in the possible creature loved, or in God loving: therefore there is none.

— Finally, the freedom or necessity in the act of the divine will is drawn from the free or necessary state of the object to which it terminates: but possible creatures are necessary: therefore God necessarily loves them. The major is evident, both because we must reason in the same way about the knowledge as about the love of God concerning external objects: but the knowledge of God which is concerned with necessary objects, such as possibles are, is said to be necessary; while that which is concerned with free objects, such as future and existing things are, is said to be free: therefore by parity the love of God concerning necessary objects, namely concerning possible things, must also be said to be necessary.

You will say 1. God loves nothing necessarily except that by which He is necessarily moved: but He cannot be necessarily moved by any finite object, such as possible creatures are: therefore He does not love them necessarily. The major is evident: for such is judged to be the love, as is judged to be the formal motive object. The minor is proved by the Doctor in q. 16. quodlib. litt. M., where he expressly affirms that the divine will is not moved necessarily by anything finite:

An infinite will, he says, necessarily has an act about an infinite object, because this belongs to perfection: and by parity of reason, it does not necessarily have an act about a finite object, because this would belong to imperfection: for it is an imperfection to be necessarily determined to the posterior, and it belongs to required perfection to be so determined to the prior.

I distinguish the major. God cannot necessarily love anything primarily and principally except that by which He is moved, I concede: secondarily and less principally, I deny: for the primary object must indeed be motive, and motive necessarily, if the love is necessary; but the secondary object need not be motive in this way: rather it suffices that it be terminative; whence since God is moved to the love of creatures only through His essential goodness, as will immediately be proved; hence it is that those creatures should not have the notion of a moving object, but only of a terminating one. As to the Doctor's saying, I say that it must be understood of the primary object of the divine will, which indeed cannot be anything finite, as has now often been said.

You will say 2. If God necessarily loved possible creatures, it would be especially either on account of their goodness, or on account of the necessary connection which He has with them: but neither can be said. Not the first indeed; because future and existing creatures have greater goodness, since they have a more perfect dignity, than possible ones, and nevertheless are freely loved by God. Not the second; for God has no necessary connection with possible things, for even if there were no possible creature, nevertheless God would truly exist most perfect.

I answer. that necessity of divine love does not indeed arise from the goodness of possible creatures, nor from the necessary connection of God with them; but only from the immutability of the divine will itself, by which it cannot be related to an object in a different way, nor be said to love or not to love it, unless some variety and change, physical or moral, intervenes in that object, or in God loving: whence since in a possible creature no variety intervenes from the love of God, it follows that if there were some variety and change in this love, as there truly would have to be if such love were free, that change would have to be traced back to God: and since this is repugnant, it is also repugnant that that love be free.

You will say 3. If the love by which God loves possible creatures were necessary, it would follow that God loves possible creatures in the same way as Himself: since indeed He necessarily loves Himself as to specification and exercise: but this is absurd: therefore so is that from which it follows.

I deny the consequence of the major. for the necessity of love is gathered from the necessity of the object: whence since possible creatures are not of so great necessity as is the necessity of the divine being, even their love cannot be said to be equally necessary as the love of the divine essence.

Add. that there are also several other reasons of disparity between the love of each object; for God loves Himself as the primary and adequate object of His will and on account of His own goodness; but possible creatures only as a secondary object, and not on account of their goodness, but solely on account of His own, as will be disclosed.

Third conclusion. — The formal motive object of divine love toward creatures is the essential goodness of God alone, not however the goodness of the creatures themselves.

Thus the Doctor in several places², but especially in 3. dist. 32. n. 5. Only the divine essence, he says, can be the first reason of acting both for the divine intellect and for the will; because if something else could be the first reason of acting, that power would be debased. St. Thomas agrees with him 1. p. q. 2. art. 2. ad. 2., where he says:

In those things which we will for the sake of an end, the whole reason of moving is the end, and it is this which moves the will... Whence since God wills nothing other than Himself except for the sake of the end which is His goodness, it does not follow that anything else moves His will except His goodness.

Proof 1. The motive object of the divine will is the end, for a means as means is willed only insofar as it leads to the end: but only the uncreated and essential goodness is the end of those things which the divine will wills, according to that saying of Proverbiorum 16: The Lord has wrought all things for Himself: therefore that alone is the motive object of the divine will. Again, the will is specified by its formal motive object: but the divine will cannot be specified by created goodness: therefore neither can it be moved by it. The major is certain. The minor is proved: to be specified by something is to depend on it in the notion of a formal cause: for the specifying thing has the notion of a formal cause, at least an extrinsic one, with respect to the thing specified: but the divine will cannot depend on created goodness: therefore neither can it be specified by it. Finally, the love of God toward creatures is not affective, but effective: therefore it is not attracted, nor moved, by created goodness. The consequence is evident; for effective love is not moved by the goodness of the object; because it does not suppose it in the object, but places it. The antecedent is taught frequently by the holy Fathers, especially by St. Bernard in cap. 4. of the De amore divino, where, explaining the difference between the love of God toward us and our love toward God, he says: You are not affected by us, or toward us, when You love us: we are affected by You and in You and toward You when we love You. It is also urged by reason; for affective love transforms the lover into the beloved and in a certain way subjects him to it: but effective love transforms the beloved into the lover and communicates to it its own goods: but it is repugnant that God be transformed into a creature: therefore it is also repugnant that He love it with affective love.

You will say 1. Sacred Scripture nowhere indicates that creatures are loved by God on account of some goodness of theirs, either moral or physical; thus Christ in Ioannis 10: Therefore does the Father love Me, because I lay down My soul. By which words Christ indicates that He is loved by the Father on account of His moral goodness, namely on account of His charity and obedience. — Then, St. Augustine in lib. 11. De Civitate, cap. 21., on those words: God said, let light be made, says: If we ask who made it, it is God: if by what He made it, He said let it be made and it was made: if why He made it, because it is good. By which words St. Augustine indicates that light was therefore created because its future goodness attracted and moved God to create.

I answer. by these or similar ways of speaking, both of Sacred Scripture and of the holy Fathers, it is only signified that one created object is the cause of another, so that it may have an order to the will of God, not however that the creature is the motive of the divine will itself. Or I say that by that manner of speaking it is designated that the goodness of creatures is indeed the secondary terminative object of divine love itself. Finally, with regard to St. Augustine and similar authorities it can be said that God made light because it is good, that is, because it is useful for the good of the universe and for the rational creature to which He orders all things, not that the goodness of the universe, or the rational creature, is the motive reason of divine love.

You will say 2. Creatures have in themselves a formal goodness: therefore they are in themselves formally lovable by God.

I deny the consequence. for from this it only follows that the formal goodness of creatures is terminative of divine love, not however that it is its motive.

You will say 3. Merits move the will of the rewarder, by attracting and inclining it to confer the promised reward: therefore our merits move the divine will, and incline it to reward; and consequently they have the notion of a motive object with respect to the divine will.

I distinguish the consequence. our merits move the will of God insofar as they are considered in themselves, I deny; insofar as they are virtually and eminently contained in the essential goodness of God and represented in the divine essence, I concede.

You will insist. Merits, insofar as they are contained in the goodness of God, cannot have the notion of merit, since divine goodness cannot be merit: therefore if they move the divine will only insofar as they are contained in its essential goodness, they do not move it insofar as they are merits.

I distinguish the antecedent. if they were contained formally, I concede; if eminently, I deny. And so merits are not formally contained in the goodness of God, because indeed divine goodness cannot have the notion of merit; but they preserve it insofar as they are eminently contained in the essential goodness of God.

You will say 4. In God are found Justice and Mercy: but if only uncreated goodness is the formal motive object of the divine will, those virtues cannot subsist in Him; for the formal motive object of those virtues is not something uncreated, but created; for the object of mercy is the misery of another as to be relieved; while the object of justice is the right of another as to be safeguarded; therefore, etc.

I deny the minor. and to its proof I say that although created justice and mercy are truly specified and moved by created goodness and honesty; it is otherwise, however, with divine mercy and justice, which are moved only by uncreated goodness; mercy indeed insofar as it is the reason of showing mercy, and justice insofar as it is the reason of rewarding; which the divine goodness itself provides, insofar as it eminently contains the objective honesties of created mercy and justice.

You will say 5. God wills and loves all things for Himself to that extent that He wills them for His glory: but that glory which God intends is something created, namely the knowledge, love and worship of Himself; therefore not on account of His essential goodness, but also on account of something created does God sometimes love creatures.

I answer. that the end is twofold, namely the end which is intended by the agent, and the end by which, or the means by which the end is intended and acquired; whence formally: I distinguish the minor: Glory is the end by which God orders creatures to His own goodness, I concede; it is the end which is intended by God Himself, I deny; for this end which is intended by God is none other than God Himself to be glorified. Whence while Sacred Scripture frequently admonishes that all our works are to be done for the glory of God, it is not to be understood of created glory, otherwise these works would be imperfect, since they would be done for the sake of a creature; but it is to be interpreted of divine glory objectively considered, that is, of God Himself to be glorified.

You will say 6. If God loved creatures only on account of His essential goodness, it would follow that that goodness has the notion of an end, and that creatures have the notion of a means ordered to that end: but the consequent is false as to both parts: therefore so is that from which it follows. The minor is proved: First, it is certain that God has no end, since He Himself is the ultimate end of all things; and so He cannot act for the sake of an end. Second, it is equally certain that creatures do not have the notion of a means with respect to essential goodness; for something has the notion of a means only insofar as it leads to the attainment of the end: but creatures do not lead to the attainment of the essential goodness of God, since that does not depend on creatures: therefore they do not have the notion of a means in order to it.

I deny the major as to both parts. and its first proof I distinguish with the Doctor in 1. dist. 1. q. 5. n. 6: God has no end of Himself, I concede; He has no end of His effects and creatures which He orders to Himself, I deny. Although therefore, says the Doctor, God is not the end of Himself, nevertheless with respect to His will He is that object to which the notion of end is naturally suited to belong; because He is the highest good. However, the notion of end cannot belong to Him with respect to Himself, just as He is not an end with respect to Himself; but with respect to all things capable of being ended, such as are goods orderable to something else. Then the Doctor objecting to himself, How therefore is God said to act for the sake of an end; and also that the end of a superior agent is a superior end? He answers to the first, that it must be understood that He acts for the end of the effect, not for the end of Himself; because He is not the agent of Himself; for, as he had premised, with respect to nothing is He a final cause, except with respect to that of which He is the efficient cause; because the causality of the final cause is to move the efficient cause to act. He answers to the second, that it must be understood of the end of the effect; because the superior agent orders, not Himself, but the effect to a more universal or superior end: and so that superior end belongs to the agent, not as its end, but as that to which He orders what He does.

— To the second proof of the same minor, I say that in means a twofold respect to the end can be distinguished, namely of dependence on the end in the order of intention, insofar as means are loved for the sake of the end; and of fitness to the end in the order of execution. Whence formally: creatures do not have the notion of a means in the order of dependence with respect to essential goodness, I deny: for they are loved only insofar as they are referred to that divine goodness, and participate something of it. They do not have the notion of a means in the order of fitness to the end, because divine goodness is altogether independent of creatures, nor can they have any causality, nor any influx with respect to it, I concede: and I deny the consequence.

You will say finally. If God loved creatures only on account of His essential goodness, it would follow that He does not have the love of friendship toward rational creatures, namely Angels and Men: but the consequent is false: therefore so is the antecedent. The consequence of the major is evident; for with the love of friendship the object is loved for its own sake and on account of its formal goodness: for if someone loves another, not for the good of the beloved, but for the good of the lover, that love will not be of friendship, but of concupiscence.

I deny the consequence of the major. for for true friendship it suffices that love terminate at the beloved object, and that the friend will good to the friend for his own sake, in the way in which he is capable of that good and according to the rules of honesty; but it is not necessary that the beloved object be the motive of that love. And such is the case of the rational creatures which are loved by God with the love of friendship. For although they do not have the notion of a motive object with respect to divine love, they have at least the notion of its terminative object: and although God loves them for Himself, as for the ultimate end; nevertheless that love is true friendship; because since our greatest good and our highest perfection is to be ordered to God as to the ultimate end, while He loves us for His own sake, He also loves us for our good: just as when someone loves another out of charity, he pursues him with the perfect love of friendship, although he loves him for the sake of God.

It is certain that the entitative act of the divine will is one and indivisible, really undistinguished from the will itself, whose principal properties are the following: First, that that act of volition and love is not an accident, but a substance; since it is identified with the divine essence and is God Himself; and therefore it is likewise eternal, necessary and immutable, since it is the very entity of the real Divinity. Second, it is infinite and terminates at all lovable and willable objects, and is virtually equivalent to all the acts of the created will, so that the same one divine entity of act is at once volition and nolition, love and hatred of the same object, according to the diversity of time, and also of diverse objects according to their various affections. Third and finally, that act of the divine will is one and most simple both really and formally; for just as that act is infinite, so likewise it is necessarily one; for there cannot be several infinite things of the same notion. Hence the whole multiplicity of acts of the divine will, if there be any, is not intrinsic but extrinsic, and must be regarded not in terms of entity but in terms of tendency and termination toward diverse objects. Since, therefore, the acts and effects of the created will are diverse, in this Question too it is asked whether that diversity of acts and effects, at least according to tendency and termination, can be formally admitted in God; in order that this may be done more easily

Note 1. The acts and effects of the created will can be distinguished into three kinds: for some regard the end and the means ordered to it; and these are simple volition, intention, election, consent, command, execution, fruition. Others regard either good or evil, and these are especially called affections: and they are of two sorts; for some proceed from the concupiscible appetite; others arise from the irascible. The former are love, hatred, desire, flight, delight, sadness. The latter, however, are hope, despair, fear, daring and wrath. Hence in the present Question it must be resolved whether all these acts and affections of the human will can likewise be formally attributed to the divine will.

Note 2. It is certain that neither Hope nor Despair in any way befits God. Both because hope is about an arduous good, while despair is about an arduous evil; and for omnipotent God nothing can be arduous; and because hope is not about what is evidently known to be future, for, as St. Paul says in Rom. 8., Hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man sees, why does he hope for it? But if we hope for what we see not, we hope with patience: God, however, evidently knows every future thing, and therefore cannot hope. Finally, because hope regards him from whom something is hoped for, as a superior and more powerful one, who can grant what is hoped for; for no one is properly said to hope for something from himself: but God can regard no one of this sort, and therefore cannot have the affection of hope or despair.

Note 3. Likewise in God there is no Sadness, nor Fear, because sadness is about one's own present evil: fear, however, regards an absent but imminent evil. Although fear and sadness can be about the evil of one's neighbor, from the affection of love and charity toward him, nevertheless even so they cannot be in God: because although fear and sadness are about the future or present evil of a friend, they are nevertheless about it as apprehended as if it were one's own evil; whence it happens that even in us it excites and moves a passion of the appetite. But although our future or present evil displeases God, He nevertheless never apprehends it as if it were His own, which however seems necessary for the notion of fear and sadness about the good of a friend. Hence there remains only the difficulty about the other acts and affections of the will to be examined; and so that it may be solved more evidently, we shall discuss all these affections and acts individually in the following paragraphs.

§ I. — On divine Love. It is certain and stands by faith that God loves creatures; since Sapientiae 11: You love all things that are, and hate nothing of what you have made; Ieremiae 31: I have loved you with an everlasting charity; Ioann. 4: God so loved the world, etc. But because love is an affection midway between desire and joy or delight, insofar as joy is about a present and possessed good; desire, however, about an absent good which can be possessed; love, however, about good considered in itself and prescinding from presence and absence; since divine goodness does not abstract from presence and absence, but is intimately present to God and possessed by Him; therefore it seems to some Theologians that God does not have love formally considered with respect to His divine goodness, although perhaps He has it with respect to goods ad extra. Moreover, since in love there is a twofold respect, one toward the thing to which we will good, the other toward the good itself which we will; by reason of the former it is called love of friendship, while by reason of the latter it is named love of concupiscence: not that there is really a twofold act of love, but only because in the same act there is a twofold respect of love. Hence two things are to be resolved here: First, whether God really has love distinct from desire and joy. Second, whether He has the love of friendship toward creatures.

I say 1. That in God there is true Love formally distinct from joy and desire: both because Sacred Scripture and the holy Fathers constantly attribute to God love toward Himself; and they affirm that the Holy Spirit proceeds through love; which certainly must not be explained of improper love, but of formal and most perfect love; especially since this formal love in no way misbecomes God, as will be clear in the solution of the objections. Then because whoever has will formally also has love formally; for, from Aristotle 2. Rethoricorum, cap. 1, to love is to will good to someone and to have complacency in him; and therefore to love befits Him no less properly than to will: but in God there is will formally: therefore also love. Finally, because if anything stood in the way of love taken most strictly, and as distinguished from joy, being attributed to God, it would be chiefly because this love would have to terminate at an absent good, not at a present and possessed good: but the consequent is false.

Proof. Love terminates no less at that which is suitable, whether it be meanwhile existing or prescinding from existence, than at a good object as it is formally good: but it really terminates at good insofar as it is good: therefore it can really also terminate at a suitable object insofar as it is suitable, whether it be meanwhile considered as actually existing, or insofar as it prescinds from existence.

It is confirmed 1. If the presence of the object were repugnant to love, it would follow that joy and love could nowhere subsist together, and no one could rejoice in a possessed good because he loves it, but because he loved it when he did not yet possess it: but this consequent is shown to be false, from the fact that the good about which we rejoice begins to displease when it begins not to be loved, and the joy about it is diminished together with the love of it. Then, so far is it from being the case that the presence of the object is repugnant to love and extinguishes it, that rather it increases and perfects it; which is especially evident in spiritual goods, whose possession does not diminish love but increases it: in which they differ greatly from temporal goods, which before their possession kindle desire, but once possessed generate disgust on account of their smallness. Finally, beatific love truly tends toward God as possessed, not however insofar as He abstracts from possession or non-possession: therefore such precision is not of the concept and essence of love. The antecedent is clear: for beatific love is regulated by intuitive cognition regarding God as He is in Himself; and consequently not attaining God insofar as He prescinds from possession or non-possession: therefore such precision is not necessary for love.

You will say 1. Acts are distinguished by their objects: but the object of love is good as such, abstracting from presence and absence, from possession or non-possession of it: therefore since the act of the divine Will terminates at the divine will, as present and possessed, it will not have the notion of love or hatred.

I distinguish the minor. The object of love is good abstracting from possession and non-possession, so that the notion of possessed and attained holds only materially and as the notion which is attained, I concede: so that it holds formally and reduplicatively insofar as it is the notion under which, or motive, I deny. In the first way indeed it terminates the act of love: in the second, however, it terminates and specifies the act of fruition and joy. But in order that love be distinguished from joy, a positive precision of goodness from possession is not necessary, but a negative one suffices: that is, it suffices that the object be indeed possessed, yet not be loved precisely and formally insofar as it is possessed.

You will say 2. In God there is no knowledge of simple intelligence about Himself: therefore neither is there strict love about His own goodness. The consequence is proved: God does not have knowledge of simple intelligence about Himself for this reason, because the object of this knowledge prescinds from existence; but God cannot know Himself except as existing: but the object of love also prescinds from existence, insofar as it differs from the object of joy: therefore, etc.

I answer 1. by denying the consequence: for God truly knows Himself by knowledge of simple intelligence, nor is it required for that knowledge that its object prescind from existence, as has already been said in treating of divine cognition. Second, there is a disparity between love and simple knowledge, insofar as the latter is concerned with creatures, namely that simple knowledge knows creatures only as possible and insofar as they positively prescind from existence; while knowledge of vision attains them as existing, or as about to exist: love, however, insofar as it is distinguished from joy, need not terminate at a possessed good insofar as it positively prescinds from actual possession, but it suffices that it prescind from it negatively, that is, that it not be attained through love precisely and formally insofar as it is possessed, but only insofar as it is suitable.

I say 2. In God there is true love of friendship. So the Doctor in 3. dist. 27. n. 20. And it is proved first from several texts of Sacred Scripture by which men are proclaimed friends of God; thus Ps. 138: Your friends, O God, are made exceedingly honorable. Sap. 7: Wisdom passes into holy souls and makes friends of God. Ioann. 15¹: I will no longer call you servants, but friends: and you are my friends. Then Scripture admits all the conditions of friendship between God and us, namely mutual love known on both sides: Ioann. 10: I know my sheep, and mine know me: finally communication, Proverb. 8. My delights are to be with the children of men. Ioann. 14: We will come to him and make our abode with him. Apocalyp. 3²: I will come in to him and will sup with him, and he with me.

It is proved secondly by reason. The love of friendship consists chiefly in this, that someone wills good to another insofar as it is suitable to him, and that this benevolence is mutual: but God can, without any imperfection, will the good of a rational creature not for His own sake, but for the creature's sake, since God receives absolutely no utility from the good communicated to the creature: He can therefore have the love of benevolence toward it. Likewise, a rational creature can love God in return, and will good to Him, namely glory and honor; and therefore this benevolence can be mutual.

You will say from Aristotle, 8. Ethic. cap. 7. friendship is only among equals: therefore no friendship can exist between God and rational creatures.

The cited Doctor answers. that Aristotle there speaks of perfect and strictly taken friendship, such as indeed is not between God and rational creatures; but he did not deny friendship between God and men, nor between a Prince and a subject. Rather, between them there is a certain friendship of excellence, for that excellence of the object, says the Doctor,

does not remove what is of perfection in the object, but what is of imperfection. For honesty in the lovable and being loved in return in the beloved are conditions per se in the lovable, not indeed of imperfection; indeed it would not be perfection if it did not love in return: but equality in these is a concomitant condition. God, however, has honesty and being loved in return, as well as loving, and the friendship toward Him can be more excellent, thus it is called Superfriendship. — And if it be argued that equality is the notion of friendship; that is true given the honesty which is the first notion of the lovable, but equality is the notion of friendship strictly taken; but excellence is the notion of a habit more similar, or more perfect, than friendship; such a one in the present case I call charity.

As for irrational creatures, however, it is certain that they are loved by God, not indeed with the love of friendship, but with the love of concupiscence, insofar as He wills them for the advantage and utility of rational creatures. Since, therefore, God loves all inanimate and irrational things for our utility and advantage, it follows that they are not the object of the love of friendship and benevolence, unless perhaps imperfectly. Or as the Doctor speaks in 3. dist. 32. ad secundum,

Although inanimate things are not properly lovable out of charity, which is friendship, and toward them friendship is not properly to be had, nevertheless some willing out of charity can be had toward them, namely such as is to be had toward them; for I can out of charity will that a tree exist, and that the tree serve me for such an act, insofar as such an act helps me further to love God in Himself.

And in this way it can be conceded that God loves all things out of charity, not with a volition of friendship, but with such as is to be had with respect to them.

From these things it is clear that joy is formally in God; for it is the affection about a possessed good insofar as it is possessed: but God truly possesses Himself, the greatest of all goods, and enjoys Himself, and therefore has joy formally.

§ II. — Whether hatred formally befits God. A twofold hatred is distinguished, one indeed of Abomination, the other of Enmity. The hatred of abomination is displeasure at an evil which we or others suffer. In which two acts are involved: the first indeed of love toward the person; the second, however, of displeasure toward the evil that befalls him; for this is why we grieve that evil befalls someone, because we love him. The hatred of enmity is to will evil to someone under that notion by which it is evil to him. In which hatred likewise there are two acts, namely displeasure at the person and complacency about the evil that befalls him; thus, v. g., in hating the person of Peter, his enemy takes pleasure in the loss of his reputation or goods. But it is asked whether each of these hatreds is formally in God.

I say 1. That in Him there is formally the hatred of abomination; for, as St. Thomas speaks in 1. 2. quaest. 29. n. 1, hatred is a dissonance of the appetite from that which appears harmful and repugnant: but the impious man and impiety are repugnant to divine honor: therefore they also dissonate with the divine appetite, and therefore in Him there is hatred. — Then, sin displeases God no less properly, and He would not will it to be done by man, than He desires the just and upright life of man: but sin displeases God for a twofold reason, namely insofar as it is contrary to Himself, and insofar as it is harmful to man: therefore God hates sin out of complacency in Himself and in man, and therefore has the hatred of abomination toward sin together with love toward Himself and toward men. — Finally, God is deemed formally to hate that which is in every way repugnant to His will: but sin is in every way repugnant to the divine Will, since God forbids that it be committed, and severely punishes it once committed, and consequently has the hatred of abomination toward it.

You will say. Hatred is referred to subsisting things, as also love which terminates at a subsisting thing, not indeed at an accident: but sin is not subsisting, for it is a privation and a lack of rectitude: therefore God cannot hate it.

I deny the major. For the hatred of abomination is not concerned with the person, but with that which is repugnant and unsuitable to him, whether it be a substance or an accident. Whence with this hatred we hate death, sickness, sins, etc., which are accidents, and that formally and properly; otherwise we would not properly be said to hold sin in hatred, about which we grieve and repent.

I say 2. That the hatred of enmity is also formally in God, as is clear from that passage of Exodi 23: I will be an enemy to your enemies. And Sapientiae 14: The impious man and his impiety are hateful to God. And Psalm. 5: You hate all who work iniquity. These texts expressly affirm that God hates not only sin, but also the sinner. Second, God not only wills punishment to the sinful man, but also wills it to him out of displeasure at the person himself and insofar as it is his evil: therefore He holds the sinner himself in the hatred of enmity. The antecedent is clear: for although the person himself, insofar as he is a creature of God, does not displease Him, yet he truly displeases Him insofar as he is defiled with sins, which suffices for the notion of hatred and enmity; for it is enough that a person displease for some reason, on account of which the affection is moved to will evil to him insofar as it is his evil. But God, in inflicting punishment on account of the offense, wills evil to the sinner, as it is his evil; for punishment, as punishment, is the evil of him who suffers it: therefore God wills evil to the sinner, as it is his evil, out of displeasure at him.

You will say 1. To will evil to someone, insofar as it is the evil of the sinner himself who justly deserves that evil, is an act of the love of justice: therefore it is not formally hatred.

I deny the consequence. For that volition is formally an act of hatred, because its proper object is evil under the notion of evil, although that hatred sometimes proceeds from the love of justice.

You will say 2. The will of God cannot be borne toward evil as evil: therefore God cannot hate in this way; and so when God inflicts punishment on some sinner, He always intends some notion of good, namely the manifestation of His justice toward sinners.

I distinguish the minor. The will cannot be borne toward evil insofar as it is evil, unless it have some notion of good joined to it, I concede; if it has it, I deny. But while He wills evil to the sinner, He indeed always intends some good arising therefrom, namely the manifestation of His justice, which nevertheless does not stand in the way of the hatred of enmity which He has toward the sinner, because He truly inflicts punishment on him as it is his evil, insofar as sin displeases Him; otherwise we could hate no one with the hatred of enmity, for we will evil to no one, except because some true or apparent good accrues to us therefrom.

You will say 3. The hatred of enmity is directly against charity; but in God there cannot be any act opposed to charity: therefore neither can there be the hatred of enmity.

I answer. The hatred arising from displeasure at the person of the sinner to whom punishment is inflicted is not opposed to charity; otherwise a Judge, in punishing the guilty man, would sin against charity, which is false. Only, therefore, is hatred opposed to charity when the utility which follows from that volition of evil is only to appease the wrath of the one who hates. But God does not will punishment to the sinner in this way, but for the manifestation of His vindicative justice; indeed, out of charity someone can will the evil of punishment to a friend who sins, so that, chastised, he may be amended thereby. Whence in this hatred there are three things. 1. The object, namely the evil of punishment. 2. The subject, the person of the sinner. 3. The motive, namely sin.

§ III. — On the other Affections. Desire is not formally in God, nor Flight, with respect to Himself, because desire is the inclination of the one willing toward an absent good, while flight is the avoidance of an imminent evil. But God, since He is every good, and can hope for no future and absent good, and no evil can approach Him, hence He can neither desire nor flee His own good or evil. Since, however, desire and flight can be referred to the good and evil of others — for we desire good and flee future evil not only for ourselves, but also for others — for this reason God can be said to desire and flee something, since He desires eternal salvation for us, as St. Chrysostom expressly indicates, Hom. 1. in Epist. ad Ephesios, To will this to be done vehemently, he says, this was His desire, etc. Nor does it matter that nothing is absent to God, for it suffices for the notion of desire and flight that the good and the evil be absent to him for whom we desire such good and flee such evil.

— Wrath is formally in God; for wrath, according to the Doctor in 3. dist. 31. n. 16, is the appetite of vengeance according to apparent reason, on account of apparent contempt. Or, as Lactantius says, lib. De Ira Dei cap. 17, Wrath is the movement of the mind rising up to coerce sins: but such an affection is formally in God, as is clear from several texts of Scripture: therefore, etc. Nor does it matter that the holy Fathers, especially Basil on that Psal. 37. Nor in your wrath chasten me, Cyrillus lib. 5. contra Iulianum, Cyprianus ad Demetrianum, etc., remove wrath from God, and affirm that it is attributed to Him by Scripture only through metaphor. For they speak of wrath insofar as it carries with it a commotion and perturbation of mind, in which manner Sacred Scripture also sometimes takes divine wrath. Thus Psal. 37: Lord, do not rebuke me in your fury, nor in your wrath, etc. Likewise Psalm. 29: For wrath is in his indignation. And Psal. 105: The Lord was angry with fury. These and similar texts are to be interpreted metaphorically and tropically, that is, according to our manner of speaking. The holy Fathers do not, however, speak of wrath insofar as it is the affection of vengeance in one who can avenge himself.

Nor should you say. that wrath always has sadness joined with it, for this is true only, says the cited Doctor, when the angry man desires to avenge but does not avenge; when, however, he actually avenges, then his act is perfect, assimilated to fruition on the part of the concupiscible, and then for the irascible to be angry is without sadness; indeed it is with a great delight proper to it, according to Arist. 2. Rethoric. The wrath of a man is like honey.

— As for the acts of the divine will, however, which regard the end or the means, they will be discussed in a more fitting order and method in the Disputation on the Providence of God, where we will set forth how God intends the end, to which He destines and orders all things through chosen, more fitting means.

In this Article we undertake to explain the greatest of all theological difficulties, one that so torments, or rather absorbs, the minds of theologians, that it may deservedly be called a sanctuary impervious to all mortals and a riddle wholly inexplicable to human reasoning. Hence, what Augustine once said of original sin, that nothing is better known for preaching, nothing more hidden for understanding, may rightly and with fuller truth be affirmed of the Liberty of God: for nothing is more evident to natural reason, and nothing is more firmly held by divine faith, than that God possesses liberty; yet nothing is likewise more difficult to explain than what is the genuine nature and notion of divine liberty itself. However, so that, in proportion to our small ability, we may resolve something amid so many windings of difficulties, we propose three points for discussion in the present Article: first, whether liberty is to be admitted in God, and how many kinds of it there are. Second, what is the formal notion of divine liberty. Third, whether there is an order among all the free acts of the divine will, and of what sort it is.

Note 1. In general a twofold freedom can be distinguished, namely in actu primo and in actu secundo. The former is the will itself considered in itself and insofar as it precedes its act, with a priority at least of nature, and it is of itself indifferent to acting or not acting. The latter is the act of the will itself, insofar as it is terminated at this or that object. This again is distinguished as twofold, namely one with respect to exercise, the other with respect to specification. The former freedom is wholly for acting or not acting, that is, for the positing or suspension of the act. The latter is for acting in one or another opposite and diverse way; and therefore the former is called freedom of contradiction; the latter, however, is called freedom of contrariety; not that it always requires contrary acts, for disparate acts also belong to it, v. g. willing this or that, such as occurs in the choice of one means over another, between which there is not always contrariety, indeed not even always specific diversity. Whether, however, all these notions of freedom are found in God is what must be resolved here.

Note 2. From the Doctor, in 1. dist. 39. n. 21, the divine will is not free and indifferent to diverse acts of willing and nilling. For this argues an imperfection in the created will, which does not tend to objects by willing and nilling with one simple act, but with diverse acts, namely on account of the limitation of each act. The divine will, however, since it is infinite, tends to opposite objects by one simple infinite act. So that, says the Doctor, just as our will can tend to diverse willables by diverse volitions, so that divine will can tend to any willables whatsoever by one simple volition, so that if that will, or that volition, were only of one willable, and could not be of its opposite, which nevertheless is of itself willable, this would be an imperfection in the divine will, just as it is in our will.

Note 3. From the same passage, the created will can be considered in three ways in relation to its act, namely: 1. Insofar as it is productive of its act. 2. As receptive of the same. 3. As operative by means of that act. For it is itself, says the Doctor, productive of acts, and it is that by which the one having it operates formally by willing, and it is receptive of its own volition. He infers, however, that it is most free insofar as it is operative, namely insofar as the one having it formally can by it tend to an object. This is to be understood of formal freedom, for although our will is free only formally insofar as it is operative, nevertheless it is also free effectively and insofar as it is productive of its acts, because it can produce this or that act, indeed even suspend the production of the act. The divine will, however, is neither productive of its act — otherwise it would be mutable — nor receptive of the same — otherwise it would be in potentia to it, which is repugnant to the most actual being. The divine Will, therefore, is said to be free only insofar as it is operative.

First conclusion. — God is truly free. This is of faith and

Proof 1. from Sacred Scripture; Psal. 93: The God of vengeance hath acted freely. And Psal. 134: Whatsoever the Lord willed, he hath done in heaven and in earth, in the sea and in all the deeps. For what is difficult to him for whom to have willed is to have done? says St. Ambrose, lib. 2. Hexameron, cap. 2. Matth. 20¹: Is it not lawful for me to do what I will? And in 1. Cor. 12 it is said of the Holy Spirit: All these things one and the same Spirit worketh, dividing to every one according as he will. All those texts of Scripture confirm the same truth in which God is said to act as Judge and to be the Rewarder of all works, and to treat each one according to his merits, and to hear our prayers, to show mercy, etc. For if he acted from the necessity of nature, he could not from eternity will goods or evils, and decree punishments according to each one's merits, nor could he have mercy, nor be moved by prayers, because he would be determined to one thing.

Many holy Fathers proclaim the same truth, especially St. Ambrose, lib. 2. de Fide, cap. 3, where, pressing the Arians, who denied that the Holy Spirit was of his own right and will, lest they should confess him to be of equal majesty with God;

if it is possible, he says, let us meanwhile teach that the Lord was of free will. So far have you advanced in impiety, that you deny that the Son of God is of free will. And certainly you are accustomed even to detract from the Holy Spirit, and you cannot deny that it is written, the Spirit breatheth where he will: therefore if the Spirit breatheth where he will, does not the Son do what he will?

Soon after he praises the Apostle writing thus in 1. Cor. 12: All these things one and the same Spirit worketh, dividing to every one according as he will. According as he will, he says, that is, by the free choice of the will, not in the service of necessity. He urges the same concerning the Father and the Son, from these words of Christ, Ioann. 5: The Father quickeneth whom he will, and the Son quickeneth whom he will. St. Epiphanius agrees with him, heresy 23: God the Father, he says, created man and all other things according to his own will. And Macarius, homil. 15, says that man is made to the image of God by this very fact, that he is free and of his own right, since like God he is of free choice and does what he wills.

St. Jerome agrees with this, in the epistle to Philemon, c. 1., explaining those words: but without thy counsel I would do nothing, that thy good might not be as it were of necessity, but voluntary, he says:

This question, which is raised by many and very often treated — that God, in making man, did not establish him good and upright — can be solved from the present passage. For if God is good voluntarily and not from necessity, he ought, in making man, to make him to his own image and likeness, that is, so that he himself would be good voluntarily and not from necessity. But those who assert that he ought to have been so made that he could not receive evil say this, that he ought to have been made such as to be good from necessity and not from will; but if he had been such as to perform good not from will but from necessity, he would not be like God, who is good for this reason, because he wills, not because he is compelled. That is, he produces the goods that exist spontaneously and freely, so that he chooses this good rather than that one from freedom, even though he can choose nothing but good.

This same truth is strengthened by a threefold reason. First, God is most perfect, and formally comprehends all the excellences that import no imperfection, which are called simpliciter simple: but freedom is a perfection of this kind: therefore it formally belongs to God. The major is clear from what we have said about divine infinity. The minor is also evident, for freedom is the most excellent perfection of the intellectual nature, which can at will embrace this or that object, elicit or suspend an act, in which it most excels the beasts and other natures lacking reason, which are so determined by objects and so necessitated to acting, that with everything desirable for operating being given, they can in no way remove themselves from action. Hence St. Bernard aptly said in the Cantica: the freedom of choice is plainly something divine, shining through in the soul, like a gem in gold. — Second, freedom is the dominion which the intellectual nature has over its acts, which it can elicit or not elicit at its nod, and over the objects which it can pursue or spurn at its own choice: but to God, the supreme of beings, supreme dominion ought to belong, not indeed over his acts, which are really identical with the essence, but at least over the objects which are made, preserved and ordered at his pleasure: therefore freedom belongs to him. — Third, the very fabrication of the world sufficiently convinces us that God acted freely in establishing it. For he either produced the world freely, or naturally and necessarily. But he did not produce it from the impulse of nature, because he is an agent endowed with reason and will: therefore he produced it freely, and consequently excels from himself in freedom.

The Doctor proves the minor in 1. dist. 8. q. 5. n. 17, where against the Philosophers he demonstrates by four reasons that God does not act necessarily: First, because it would follow that the most necessary being depends on a less necessary being, nor can the former subsist without the latter: for a necessary agent has a relation to the caused thing necessarily, which relation cannot stand unless both extremes stand, and therefore with one extreme posited the other is necessarily posited, and with one perishing the other perishes, and so God could not subsist without a creature likewise existing, indeed he would depend on its existence. Second, if God acted necessarily, nothing would be contingent in things, because if the first cause necessarily moves the second, the second also moves the third, and so all subordinating and superior causes will necessarily move the inferior and subordinate causes, and so none will operate contingently, and thus there will be no contingent effect: but that this is openly false is established by experience itself. Third, if God acted necessarily, there would be no sin and no blameworthy evil, because God would do it necessarily. Fourth, it would follow that the second cause would cause nothing at all, because it would be forestalled by the first in producing the effect. For if the first cause acted naturally and necessarily, it would also act according to all its activity and to the limit of its power, which since it is infinite, and so extends itself to absolutely every effect, it is evident that if God acted naturally and necessarily, he would leave nothing to be produced by second causes: but this is openly false: therefore it is certain that God does not act naturally and necessarily, but contingently and freely, and therefore is endowed with freedom.

You will say 1. Freedom is a potency indifferent to eliciting an act or not eliciting it: but in God there is no such indifference, for God, since he is pure act and most simple, excludes a plurality of acts and indifference to acts.

I distinguish the major: created freedom, I concede; uncreated, I deny. For since the act of the divine will is of itself infinite, simple and necessary according to entity, and is indifferent only with respect to the termination to various objects, therefore the divine will is not judged to be free and indifferent with respect to the act, but only with respect to the object. It is otherwise, however, with the created will, which claims indifference for itself not only with respect to the objects to be pursued or spurned, but also with respect to various acts.

You will say 2. If God were free toward creatures, he could communicate himself or not communicate himself to the creature: but it is not so. Proof: God has a natural inclination to communicate himself; for every good is diffusive of itself: therefore the supreme good, such as God is, is most diffusive of itself and most communicative, and so if he did not communicate himself, he would act against the inclination of his goodness: but he cannot so act: therefore neither can he not communicate himself to creatures. Again, God loves himself more perfectly when he communicates himself not only to himself but also to others. Finally, to will efficaciously to communicate himself is a right and honest action, which God would lack if he efficaciously willed nothing outside himself, and consequently without prejudice to his perfection and goodness he cannot not will to communicate himself to creatures.

I deny the major, and to its first proof I say that that inclination which God has to communicate himself is nothing other than a natural aptitude for communicating himself, and does not import or designate any exigency or tendency which has an attendant restlessness or imperfection until such communication is made: whence such an inclination of the divine goodness to communicate itself is subordinated to his freedom, namely insofar as the divine goodness is communicative of itself, on the hypothesis that the divine will commands and decrees it.

To the second proof I say that no perfection accrues to God from his willing to communicate himself ad extra, for he suffices to himself, and his love and supreme beatitude in no way depend on the existence of creatures, and therefore he does not love himself more perfectly when his love tends also to creatures, than if he loved only himself.

To the third proof I indeed acknowledge that such communication is an honest and right action, yet not such that if God were unwilling to make that communication, some indecency would arise in him. For just as he could have willed to communicate himself more abundantly and more perfectly than he in fact communicated himself, namely by producing creatures more perfect than those which he in fact produced, and that would not seem to disgrace his supreme goodness and liberality: so there is in him no indecency in not willing to communicate himself more or more perfectly. Since, therefore, the whole rectitude and honesty of the act arises from the free determination and will of God, which is the source and exemplar of all rectitude, for that reason the divine communication is judged to be right and perfect to the extent that it is freely decreed by God.

You will say 3. St. Dionysius seems to stand in the way of divine freedom in lib. De Divinis Nominibus, for he speaks thus in cap. 4:

Just as that sun of ours, using neither intelligence nor choice, but by the very fact that it is, illuminates all things which can participate in its light according to their proper measure; so also that supreme good, an archetype more excellent than the sun itself, as its obscure image, pours out upon all things that exist, proportionally, the rays of universal goodness.

St. Thomas answers 1. part. qu. 19. art. 4. ad primum, that St. Dionysius by those words does not intend to exclude choice from God simpliciter, but secundum quid, namely insofar as he communicates his goodness not to some only, but to all, inasmuch as choice imports a certain discrimination.

But St. Maximus the martyr answers more correctly in the Scholia on the same passage, that the similitude of the sun holds to this extent, that just as the sun has no adventitious light, but an innate and natural one, so God possesses not an accidental and adventitious goodness, but an inherent and native one. Indeed he is goodness itself, just as the sun is in a certain way light itself.

Second conclusion. — Freedom can be affirmed in God, both of contrariety and of contradiction, with respect to objects. This conclusion has two parts, of which the first becomes evident from what has been said; for freedom of contrariety is that by which the will is said to have opposite acts and to tend to objects that are, as it were, contrary to one another: but from what has been said it is clear that the divine will has the act of love and hatred formally, and can also tend to opposite objects through diverse acts, not indeed according to entity, but according to termination, namely to Peter the just man through an act of love, and to the same man afterwards as a sinner through an act of hatred: therefore this freedom of contrariety can be affirmed to be in God formally.

The second part is proved. Freedom of contradiction is that by which the will can act or not act, elicit or suspend an act: but this is in God: therefore, etc.

The minor is first proved. if God could not suspend the termination of his volition to creatures and the exercise of his freedom, it would follow that almost infinite conditional decrees would have to be admitted in him concerning almost infinite possible combinations and suppositions: but it is absurd, indeed even nugatory, that there be in God a positive and actual decree by which he positively wills and determines that if a dog barks, v. g., the vine will not sprout, if Peter sits at Rome, John will be converted at Paris, and the same is to be said of other similar ravings of the human mind: therefore it is more fitting to assert that the divine will remains, as it were, suspended with respect to conditionals of this kind, disparate as they are, and has only a negative decree about them, that is, a free negation of decree.

Then, if God could not suspend the exercise of his freedom toward creatures, this would be chiefly because this suspension would take something away from the divine perfection and actuality: but from such a suspension there follows no lack of perfection and actuality in God: therefore, etc.

The minor is proved. the free exercise of the divine volition neither connotes nor imports any intrinsic perfection in God, but only the notion of termination and tendency toward something extrinsic: therefore the suspension of that exercise takes nothing away from the divine perfection or actuality. The antecedent will be established from the following Question. The consequence, however, is proved: the divine Mercy, Justice and Omnipotence can remain suspended from all exercise without any imperfection for this reason, because they are terminated to creatures only freely, and if God had not produced them, he would have had no exercise of Justice, Mercy and Omnipotence toward them: therefore by a like reason the divine will can also suspend its act concerning the decree of the futurition of those creatures without any imperfection.

Finally, just as the divine concurrence is related to the existence of things, so is his free decree related to their futurition: but for the negation of the existence of some thing it is not necessary that God have a positive influx of his omnipotence, but only the suspension and negation of his influx suffices: therefore in like manner, for the negation of futurition it is not necessary that God form some positive decree by which he positively decrees that he wills not to decree the futurition of this or that possible creature; but the free negation of that positive decree concerning the futurition of things suffices, that is, the free suspension of the divine Will: therefore the divine Will can suspend its act with respect to the termination and tendency toward creatures, and so freedom of contradiction can be affirmed in it.

You will say 1. It is necessary that some thing be future or not be future: therefore it is equally necessary that God will it to be future, or nill it to be future. The consequence seems obvious, for the first is necessary for this reason, because it consists of terms opposed contradictorily; but the second is also such: therefore by the same reason it must be necessary.

I deny the consequence. for in truth the first proposition is truly contradictory, because between a thing being future and not being future no middle is given, just as neither is there between a thing being and not being. But it is otherwise with the second proposition, because since between willing a thing to be future and willing it not to be future there is not a contradictory but a contrary opposition, a middle is assigned between the two, namely not willing, through a mere suspension of volition.

You will say 2. The divine Will, as free, is no less in its ultimate actuality and pure act than the divine Essence is: therefore just as the divine Essence is determined in every way to existence, and is necessarily pure act, so also the divine Will must be determined in every way to operation, and therefore cannot remain suspended.

I distinguish the consequent: the divine Will must be in its ultimate actuality and determination as to the entity of the act, I concede; as to the exercise and its termination to an extrinsic object, I deny; otherwise if this argument proved anything, it would also conclude that the divine

Will must actually have all the positive terminations to the creatures which it can produce.

You will say 3. This suspension of decree injures the certainty and infallibility of divine knowledge with respect to future contingents: therefore it is not to be admitted. The antecedent is proved from those things which we have said, that God knows future contingents in a conditional decree: therefore if there is a suspension of decree concerning certain future creatures, he will not be able to know with certainty their futurition or non-futurition.

I deny the antecedent. and to its proof I say that God indeed knows future things, whether absolute or conditional, in a positive conditional or absolute decree. As to those things, however, which he has known not to be future, the certainty of that knowledge is founded either on the positive decree by which God absolutely or conditionally nilled their futurition, or on the suspension, that is, the free negation of decree, by which he nilled to determine himself to their futurition or non-futurition. Whence a twofold medium can be affirmed in which divine knowledge can know with certainty that something is not future: the first indeed is the positive decree by which he positively established that the thing is not to be future. The second is the negative decree, that is, the suspension and free omission of every positive decree concerning the futurition or non-futurition of the same thing.

Note 1. The resolution of the present Question seems so entangled in so many and such great difficulties that most Theologians have not hesitated to assert that this truth is inaccessible to mortals and is to be openly manifested only to blessed minds in the clear vision of God. Nor indeed without reason; for it abounds in so many sandbanks and rocks that it foretells certain shipwreck to any inquirer, and it embraces such enormous difficulties that the wiser Theologians scarcely have anything to reply. For that divine liberty is asserted to be either something intrinsic or something extrinsic. If the first, since every free act by its formal concept requires to be done or not done, and so can be or not be, if the liberty of the act itself is something intrinsic to God, it follows that God can lack something intrinsic to Himself; which is repugnant to His own divine immutability. But if something extrinsic is affirmed, no lesser difficulty arises, for it is of the nature of a free act that it be immanent and vital, and therefore it cannot be constituted by an extrinsic and non-vital form. Nevertheless, that according to our small measure we may disclose what, among so many varied opinions of Theologians, ought to be held more certainly and more truly regarding this Question.

Note 2. Although the opinions of Theologians regarding the resolution of the present Question are various, nevertheless there are two principal and extreme opinions altogether opposed to each other, from which the rest have flowed, as it were, like rivulets from their sources. The first, in order to establish God's immutability in every respect, seems to destroy His liberty; for it affirms that the free act in God is not something intrinsic, but altogether extrinsic, and is nothing other than the effect produced externally. So that, although the freely productive principle of the act itself is within God and truly vital, nevertheless it is denominated free by an extrinsic denomination taken from the action by which He produces creatures ad extra, which action according to this opinion is formally transient and received in the creatures themselves. So judges Aureolus in 1. dist. 47. art. 1, whom many Moderns follow.

The second opinion, extremely opposed to the first, in order to preserve God's liberty intact, seems to destroy His immutability; for it teaches that the free decree of God is a certain free perfection intrinsic to God, distinct by reason from the necessary perfection, which, because it is free, can be absent from the divine will without any imperfection. So teaches Cajetan qu. 19. art. 2, with whom Fonseca and Salas, and many other Moderns, seem to agree, among whom our Poncius especially shines in his commentary on distinction 39 of the Doctor, n. 18 and following, where he resolves the principal difficulties which can be objected against Cajetan's opinion.

Among these opposed opinions, however, there are many intermediate ones, and especially three, which strive to soften and temper the rigor of each extreme opinion. The first indeed asserts that the free decree of God does not consist adequately in an intrinsic formality, nor in something extrinsic, but in both at once, so that to divine liberty there contribute together both the act of the divine Will and the productive action of the creature, or the creature itself produced by God. So think Basil of Leon disp. 6. c. 5, Grenado in his Tract. De Voluntate Dei, disp. 5, Arrubal disp. 16. art. 61., and the rest.

The second affirms that the free act of God is constituted formally, or at least inadequately, by a relation of reason to creatures existing or future. So Capreolus in 1. dist. 45. quaest. 1., and the Ferrarese in the First Book against the Gentiles cap. 82., with whom Vasquez seems to agree, Disp. 22. cap. 2., where he says: The free will of God is the divine Essence itself after the manner of an elicited act; it includes, however, a certain relation of reason to future things.

The third finally affirms that the liberty of God is nothing other than the entitative act of the divine Will itself, which, inasmuch as it is infinite, freely tends toward created objects, and is terminated by them and, as it were, objectively completed through the extrinsic object and effect. So that the divine free willing is the very act of God, necessary as to entity, and free only as to tendency and termination: which opinion, since it seems more certain than the others, is also to be preferred to the others: but so that it may appear more evidently.

Note 3. The act of the divine Will relates in a certain way to free objects, just as our will relates to free acts, especially in this: that just as our will, remaining in itself the same intrinsically, without any change of itself or real addition, exercises an act or does not exercise it, and elicits this act or the opposite of it — otherwise there would be a regress to infinity, if between the will itself and the act to be produced some real medium were required, by which the will would determine itself to act and to produce the act — so the divine act, the same as to real entity, can will or not will an object, or nill and will this or the opposite of it, so much so that that actual and most perfect entity which is called divine volition is not to be compared with our free acts, but rather with our liberty. For in this way that act relates in a certain manner to free objects, as our will relates to its free acts. Nor should it seem a wonder that God does many things through a single act, and exercises in a most excellent manner what we are able to accomplish only through many acts, and that with the greatest imperfection because of the finitude and limitation of our acts.

First conclusion. — Divine liberty is constituted formally neither adequately nor inadequately through something extrinsic to God, but is a perfection intrinsic to God. This is against Aureolus and his followers.

Proof first. Divine liberty is not constituted formally by that which is by nature posterior to it: but extrinsic operation and every external effect is by nature posterior to the free volition of God: therefore this liberty is constituted by neither. The major is evident: for what presupposes another thing as essentially constituted cannot be its essential constituent: but what is by nature posterior to divine liberty presupposes it as essentially and formally constituted; therefore it cannot be its constituent.

Proof of the minor. That which is caused by the free volition of God is by nature posterior to divine liberty: but every external effect is truly caused by the omnipotent free volition of God: therefore it is posterior to it. The major is evident, for every cause is by nature prior to its effect.

The minor is proved. First indeed from Sacred Scripture, which in many places asserts that God freely produces creatures. Thus Psalm 134: Whatsoever the Lord pleased, He hath done in Heaven and in Earth. Ephesians 1: He worketh all things according to the counsel, that is, the decree, of his will, etc. And Apocalypse 4: Thou hast created all things, and for thy will they were and have been created: therefore the free volition of God is the cause of the futurition of things, and not, on the contrary, is the futurition of things the constitutive notion of the free volition itself.

Next, the free volition, as free, is said to be the cause of things just as omnipotence is: but omnipotence formally considered is truly productive of things and prior to the effects produced by it, nor is it constituted through them in the notion of omnipotence: therefore neither is the free divine volition constituted formally, adequately or inadequately, through the effects produced by it.

Finally, if the produced effect were the formal constitutive notion of divine liberty, it would follow that the divine Will is more imperfect than the created will; for the created will is intrinsically and adequately free antecedently to extrinsic operation: therefore the divine will, since it is by far more excellent, is perfectly and adequately free antecedently to every produced effect.

Proof second. If divine liberty were constituted through something extrinsic, it would follow that God from eternity had no actual free decree: but the consequence is false: therefore so is the antecedent. The minor is evident from several texts of Sacred Scripture, by which the divine decree is declared eternal: thus Matt. 25: Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. And Ephesians 1: He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, etc.

Proof of the consequence of the major. A free decree is not then held to be actual when that which is formally constituted through that free decree is not in act: but the extrinsic effect through which divine liberty would be said to be constituted is not in act from eternity: therefore neither is that decree actual from eternity. Nor may you say that it suffices for this that the external effect be future: for the decree is in the same condition as its constituent: but the constituent of the divine decree, namely the creation of the world, is not in act from eternity: therefore in like manner, if that creation of the world, v. gr., were the constituent of the free decree of God, it follows that that decree would not be in act from eternity, but would only be future.

Third. God has many free acts by which He produces nothing physical outside Himself: therefore that free act is not constituted physically and formally through an effect produced extrinsically.

The antecedent is proved by various examples, especially in the dispensation of a vow and in the remission of venial sin, as well as of the debt of punishment through indulgences and suffrages, by which nothing at all is produced outside God, through which that dispensation and remission, made by pure condonation, would be constituted free.

Next, God has various conditional decrees, and also the knowledge of future conditionals, which cannot be made free through an extrinsic effect, since through those decrees nothing is produced in reality; v. g., God sees and decrees conditionally that if He called Peter at such a time and in such a way, he would be converted, whom nevertheless He does not call.

Finally, those positive acts by which God does not will to do something, v. g., not to produce a more perfect world, cannot be constituted through something extrinsic, since nothing extrinsic is produced: but those acts are truly free: therefore the liberty of the divine act is not derived from what is extrinsic.

Moreover: the act of complacency by which God takes complacency in the goods already produced by Himself, according to that saying of Genesis 1: God saw all the things that He had made, and they were very good, that act, I say, effects no change in the creature, otherwise there would be a process to infinity; for regarding that thing caused by God through this complacency God would have another act of complacency, and so on: nevertheless that act is free; for it is about an existing created object: in like manner the act by which God decreed to give glory to all, if they died in grace, places no change in the very many who do not attain glory because of the failure of that condition: yet that act is free: therefore divine liberty is not constituted formally through something extrinsic.

Fourth and last. If the free decree of God consisted formally in the extrinsic denomination taken from the transient action by which God produces creatures ad extra, many absurdities would follow. First indeed it would follow that God is not formally, but only metaphorically free: for the external production of creatures can be called God's volition only metaphorically; and it can be only the will of sign, not of good pleasure. Second, it would follow that God could, without any inconvenience, newly will something that He did not will from eternity, for it is no inconvenience that that transient action productive of creatures be newly posited. Finally, it would follow from that opinion that these propositions from Sacred Scripture would have a nugatory sense; for this one: whatsoever He willed, He did would mean: all things which He made, since He was able not to make them, He nevertheless made. Likewise so God loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son would have to be expounded thus: He gave His Son to the world in order to give His Son, which is ridiculous.

From these things gather that God is not constituted formally free, even partially and inadequately, through something extrinsic, namely through the effects which He produces outside Himself, or through the transient action through which He produced them. Both because it implies a contradiction that a cause, even inadequately, be constituted through an effect by nature posterior to it: but the produced creatures and the productive action of them are effects of the free decree of the divine will: therefore this decree cannot be constituted free, neither through the produced effects, nor through the productive action: then because nothing can freely follow upon the will, unless either the volition itself, or something else through the mediation of the free volition itself; otherwise volition would not be required for the actual exercise of liberty, which is false both in God and in us: but the transient action itself, or the effect produced or to be produced, is not formally the divine volition, as is evident: therefore that transient action, or the effect produced or to be produced through it, presupposes the free volition of God from which it follows, and consequently does not constitute it: then finally because the free volition of creating, v. gr., the world, belongs to God from eternity, and consequently from eternity God has the adequate constituent of that free decree: but neither the effect to be produced, or produced, nor the productive action of it (on the hypothesis that it is transient) are in God formally from eternity, as is clear: therefore that free volition is not constituted, even inadequately, through the produced effect, nor through the transient productive action of it.

Second conclusion. — Divine liberty is not constituted through some intrinsic form distinct from the necessary perfections and contingently found in God. This is against Cajetan 1. p. quaest. 19. art. 2.¹

Proof first. If divine liberty were an intrinsic form which God could lack, it would follow that He is intrinsically mutable: but the consequence is false: therefore so is the antecedent. The minor is evident from what has been said on divine Immutability.

The consequence of the major, however, is proved. He is said to be intrinsically mutable who can have or not have some intrinsic perfection: but if the free volition, or the free decree of God, consisted in some contingent intrinsic form, God could have or not have some intrinsic perfection: and so He would be intrinsically mutable. The major is certain.

The minor, however, is proved. Liberty is an intrinsic perfection: therefore the formal constituent of divine liberty must also be an intrinsic perfection. The consequence is clear: the antecedent is proved: every vital act is a perfection of the living being, for it is life in actu secundo; but life is the most excellent perfection, by which living beings exceed the perfection of those lacking life: but every free act of God is a vital act; for it is the intrinsic exercise of God freely determining Himself to those things which He wills: therefore it is also an intrinsic perfection.

Add that every act of virtue is a perfection, not only physical, but also moral and worthy of praise and of special love: but the free acts of God are acts of the virtues of Charity, Justice, Mercy, Liberality, etc. Therefore truly the acts, insofar as they are free, are perfect; and so divine liberty is a perfection: and consequently the constitutive form of liberty is formally also a perfection, which, since it is free and contingent, can be or not be. For God could have willed not to create the world, not that the Word be incarnated, not that men and Angels be predestined to eternal life, and other things of this kind which He efficaciously willed outside Himself: therefore if liberty is constituted through some intrinsic form, extensive and superadded to the necessary perfections, it follows that God is intrinsically mutable.

Secondly. That form intrinsic to God is either really identified with the divine entity, or it is not: if the first, it cannot entitatively fail, nor be absent from God, and so it will be contingent and free only terminatively and extrinsically, not intrinsically. If the second, it follows that the divine Essence is in potentia to that form, which is repugnant to pure act and to infinite perfection.

Furthermore, every perfection that can entitatively fail imports imperfection; since to be able to be and not to be is the greatest imperfection, and so if that form through which God is constituted free could entitatively fail, God would have something intrinsic that would be imperfect.

Thirdly. That form through which God would will freely, and which would not be necessarily identified with him, would be either God or a creature, for it would be a real being, and so either created or uncreated: if God: therefore two Gods really distinct would be given; and besides there would be given something having the notion of Deity that would not be necessarily existing, since this form could exist or not exist. If a creature, since God would have to be determined intrinsically by that form to act, it would follow that he depends on a creature, and cannot act independently of it: but all these consequences are most absurd, and repugnant to the unity and independence of God: and consequently not undeservedly is the opinion of Cajetan sharply attacked by theologians of better note, and rejected as suspect and less safe in faith.

From these things gather that the free act of God is not also constituted through some real mode distinct from God, which could fail God as to its modal reality, as Fonseca and Salas will. Then because every entity, whether real or modal, mixed with imperfection, is to be removed from God, the most perfect of beings: but that modal entity, since it can fail, has imperfection mixed in, for something's being able not to be is the greatest imperfection, since it can pass into nothing, which is the lowest grade of imperfection: therefore it is to be removed from God.

Add that all the same arguments which fight against the form intrinsically constitutive of divine liberty militate against the real mode itself.

Third conclusion. — Divine liberty is not also formally constituted through some relation of reason to creatures.

Proof first. That relation of reason, if there were one, would be fashioned either by the created intellect or by the uncreated: but neither can be said. Not the first, otherwise it would not exist before the created intellect existed, and so it would not be from eternity, nor consequently would God be free from eternity. Not the second either: both because the divine intellect does not make fictitious beings of reason, as all commonly confess: and because that relation would be fashioned either necessarily or freely: if necessarily: therefore God would necessarily have free volition, because he would necessarily have that fictitious relation of reason through which the free volition would be constituted. If freely: therefore the divine intellect would be a free potency from itself, because from itself it could fashion or not fashion that relation, and so the divine will would not be the root of divine liberty, which no theologian would admit.

If you say that that relation is not fashioned, but results from the position of the necessary volition of God.

On the contrary first: what follows and results directly from the existence and position of a real cause formally not knowing nor fashioning is wholly real: but the necessary volition to which that relation of reason would follow would be a real cause not knowing nor fashioning; and so that relation too would be real.

Furthermore, that relation which would result from the position of the necessary volition of God would result necessarily or freely. If necessarily: therefore God would necessarily will freely to produce the world, v. g. for thus he would will in the manner in which he would have this relation; but he would have it necessarily. If freely: therefore just as that relation could freely result or not result from the position of that necessary volition; so also the production itself of the world could follow per se immediately from the position of the volition itself without that relation; for the difficulty of the one is not greater than that of the other, and so that relation is asserted gratis and without any foundation.

Add to these that God is formally and intrinsically free: but such cannot be constituted through any relation of reason, as is evident, for no fictitious form intrinsically affects and denominates a real entity: therefore much less will it affect and denominate God, the most real of all beings.

You will say from the Doctor in 4. dist. 13. qu. 1. n. 18. the divine production ad intra is a real relation, but ad extra it is a relation of reason. Likewise no. 20. the divine production by which God produces something ad extra is not something absolute in him, according to all, because according to nothing absolute in himself does he regard a creature: therefore all must say that that production by which God is said to be producing is a relation not indeed real, but of reason, as he himself explains no. 23. Therefore by parity the free volition about creatures is also a relation of reason.

I deny the consequence. For this is the difference between creation and the free decree of God, or free volition, that, as the praised Doctor says num. 23. To create signifies a relation of passion and connotes the essential divine act intrinsic, not only absolutely, but as it passes over an external object: but for God to will a creature to be principally, says the divine act, although it connotes its passage over the object, etc. Whence in the form of arguing there is a figure of speech, because ad aliquid is changed: that is, a relation into ad se, that is, into an absolute, just as if one argued thus; to be similar is to relate: but to be white is to be similar: therefore to be white is to relate.

Add that free volition is from eternity, but creation, or the relation of reason of the creating God to the creature, is only in time: whence although God would be constituted and called formally creating through a relation of reason, he would not on that account be called formally freely willing through the same relation.

You will press. the free decree from the Doctor is said to connote a passage over the created object; but this connotation is a relation of reason; therefore in reality the decree is constituted in the notion of free through a relation of reason.

I answer to the major that the Doctor for that reason asserts that the free will of God connotes a passage over the object, so as to signify the difference between the created and uncreated object, inasmuch as it is attained by the same volition: so that that volition is called necessary inasmuch as it regards and terminates at that which is divine: but it is called free when it passes over a creature, which is contingent and can be or not be. But the Doctor does not will that such a passage or tendency constitute the free act formally; for any volition, whether free or necessary, says a tendency, or passage over the object; therefore since the volition is not constituted, nor called necessary, because of the tendency, neither on account of the same will it be called free.

Fourth conclusion. — Divine liberty is the entitative and infinite act itself of the divine will, inasmuch as it tends to objects contingently future or existing, and connotes them in obliquo. This is the express opinion of the Doctor, as is gathered from his various texts, especially from 1. dist. 39, num. 21. where he says,

the divine will is not indifferent to the diverse acts of nilling and willing, because this in my will was not without imperfection of the will, for our will was free to opposite acts, in order that it might be free to opposite objects, and this because of the limitation of each act with respect to its object: therefore, given the illimitation of the same will to diverse objects, it is not necessary on account of freedom to opposite objects to posit freedom to opposite acts. The divine will itself also is free to opposite effects: but this is not the first freedom in God, just as neither in us.

From which he concludes three things. First indeed that divine liberty does not consist in indifference to acts, because that argues imperfection, namely the finitude and limitation of the created will, which by one finite act cannot tend to diverse objects; there remains therefore, he says, in God that liberty which is per se of perfection and without imperfection, namely to opposite objects; so that just as our will can by diverse volitions tend to diverse willables; so that divine will can by one simple and illimited volition tend to whatsoever willables; so that if that will, or that volition, were only of one willable and could not be of the opposite, which nevertheless is of itself willable, this would be of imperfection in the divine will, as was earlier deduced about our will.

The second thing he infers is that just as the created will is called formally free, not inasmuch as it is productive of an effect, nor inasmuch as it is receptive of an act of volition, but precisely inasmuch as it is operative; so, he says, liberty is placed in the divine will per se and first, inasmuch as it is an operative potency, although it itself is not productive, nor receptive, of its volition.

The third, finally, is his inference, that although the divine will can also be said free inasmuch as it is productive of a created effect, nevertheless that liberty which connotes an effect does not precisely connote it according to its being willed, because the being of existence is only in time, but the being willed is from eternity; or, as he himself speaks, the production in esse existentiae does not necessarily accompany the operation of that divine will, because the operation is in eternity and the production of the being of existence is in time: nevertheless the production in esse volito necessarily accompanies its operation; and then that potency of the divine will cannot first indeed be free as productive, but secundum quid and in esse volito, and that production accompanies it as operative. And a little after, the divine will inasmuch as it itself is under volition, is prior to such a tendency, namely free; and so it tends to that object contingently, which in the same instant it could tend to the opposite object.

By which it openly appears that the Doctor attacks the three principal opinions attacked in the prior conclusions: First indeed the opinion which Aureolus afterwards taught, namely that divine liberty arises from the production of a contingent effect according to the being of existence, which he shows to be false from the fact that the free volition is from eternity; but the production according to the being of existence is only in time.

Secondly he teaches against Cajetan that the divine will is not called free through something intrinsic that could fail from it, because that argues imperfection in us, namely that our will is intrinsically mutable from act to act, and also to the suspension and privation of act: but it is otherwise with the divine will, which is altogether intrinsically immutable.

Thirdly, finally, he teaches against the third opinion, that the free volition is constituted through a relation of reason to the willed; because the will is first in itself formally free inasmuch as it is operative, before it is free effectively, inasmuch as it is productive of the effect in esse volito, from which results, or is feigned to result, such a relation of reason of the willing to the willed and of the willed to the willing. These things I have set forth a little more at length, so that the genuine opinion of the Subtle Doctor might appear more clearly, and how wrongly some affirm that he thought otherwise.

The foregoing Conclusion is therefore proved. Through that by which God is formally constituted free, through that he is truly said to will or nill an object contingently future or existing, and that in this or that way; but he does this through the entitative and infinite act itself of his will: therefore in it the divine liberty formally consists. The major is evident; for liberty formally taken is nothing else than the potency itself of the will inasmuch as it is indifferent to willing or nilling this or that, and that in such or such a way.

The minor indeed is proved. God does all that through one unique and indivisible infinite act of his will, which the created will by reason of its finitude and limitation executes by a multiple act and a repeated volition or nolition: but the created will by various and distinct acts can will or nill diverse objects, and that in this or that way: therefore God through one unique infinite act of his will can nill or will any object whatsoever. The minor is evident by experience itself. The major also is certain, both from the first inference of the Doctor placed above; and because the act of the divine Will, inasmuch as it is infinite, on account of its eminence and supreme perfection is entitatively every act of volition and nolition, and is equivalent to all acts of the created will; otherwise it would not be the purest act, nor simple, nor infinitely perfect. Not indeed the purest act, if it said order and potentiality to another act, or to something intrinsic or extrinsic through which it would be constituted formally free; nor simple, if it received a plurality of acts, or the adjunction of some intrinsic or extrinsic form; nor finally infinite, if in itself formally or virtually and eminently it did not comprehend every perfection of any act of the created will: therefore it is necessary that the entitative act itself be per se and immediately free.

Furthermore; if that divine act of the will were not free from itself and without any added thing, it would be made such either through something real or of reason: but it cannot be made such through any relation of reason, as the third conclusion proves; nor through something real, because that added real thing would be either extrinsic, which the first conclusion rejects; or intrinsic, which was wholly attacked in the second. It remains therefore that that divine act of the will is free from itself and without any added thing; and so divine liberty is to be constituted formally in it.

Finally, that perfection cannot be denied to the divine volition which is freely granted to the created will: but the created will has this perfection, that from itself and with nothing added to it it can determine itself to willing something, or to nilling it, or to not willing it: therefore much more will the divine volition, which is altogether infinite and pure act, be able by itself to tend toward some object, or not to tend, and that formally through volition or nolition.

You will say 1. A necessary and a contingent act are formally opposed and really distinct: therefore one and the same act of the divine Will cannot be at once formally necessary and contingent, and consequently not free.

I distinguish the antecedent. Finite necessary and contingent acts are formally opposed and really distinct through the diverse intrinsic forms that constitute and distinguish them, I concede: an infinite necessary act, such as the divine volition is, must be distinguished from itself insofar as it is contingent and free, I deny: for just as the same real divine entity is at once communicable insofar as it is essence, and incommunicable insofar as it is a personal relation, because this entity, since it is infinite, can be one and the same principle of diverse predicates, which in creatures suppose and connote diverse entities; so with all the more right can one and the same infinite divine volition be at once necessary and contingent; necessary indeed, insofar as it is a divine act altogether indefectible from itself and tending to, and terminated at, those things which are divine; contingent, however, by reason of its tendency toward objects which are contingent from themselves.

You will insist. One and the same thing altogether unvaried cannot have diverse opposed denominations: therefore one and the same unvaried act of the divine Will cannot at once be, nor be called, necessary and contingent.

I distinguish the antecedent. Altogether unvaried, both intrinsically and extrinsically; both as regards entity and as regards termination and tendency toward another, I concede: unvaried only intrinsically and as regards entity, but varied as regards tendency and termination toward extrinsic objects, I deny: and I similarly distinguish the consequent: one and the same act of the divine Will cannot at once be, nor be called, necessary and contingent, if it were unvaried both according to entity and according to tendency and termination, I concede: if it is indeed unvaried according to entity, but diverse according to a diverse tendency toward necessary and contingent objects, from which tendency it has those diverse denominations of necessary and contingent, I deny: for if the same altogether finite heat of the Sun, unvaried in itself, can melt wax and harden clay, namely by reason of the diverse and opposed disposition which is in those subjects and from which it borrows the opposed denomination of hardening and melting; how much more can one and the same act of the divine Will, infinite from itself and entitatively unvaried, be denominated necessary and contingent by reason of a diverse tendency toward necessary and contingent objects?

You will press. That tendency and termination toward contingent objects, from which that divine act of the will is denominated contingent and free, is either something extrinsic to the act itself, or intrinsic; but neither can be said: not the first, because if that tendency is altogether extrinsic, it follows that God is not formally free but only denominatively and effectively: just as the Sun is hot only denominatively and virtually, and effectively, because it produces heat in subjects, but is not such formally: but this has been impugned above against Aureolus.

Nor the second, because since the contingent has from its formal notion that it can fail, if that tendency is something intrinsic to the act of the divine will, it follows that something intrinsic to God can fail; and so that God is intrinsically mutable, just as was demonstrated against Cajetan in the second Conclusion.

I answer that that tendency of the divine volition toward contingent objects can be considered either on the part of the act itself that tends and is terminated, or on the part of the object terminating that tendency. In the former way it is the entitative act itself, which by reason of its infinity is borne toward any willable object, in the manner in which it is willable; and that with nothing added to itself, but from its infinite power and perfection, by which it comes about that it is borne from itself necessarily toward necessary things, and freely toward contingent things. In the latter way, however, they are the contingent or necessary objects themselves, which terminate that divine act as they are; and so necessary things terminate it necessarily, and contingent things contingently. Whence in form, I distinguish the major: that tendency is purely intrinsic, or extrinsic, I deny; it is partly intrinsic and partly extrinsic, I concede: for it is the intrinsic and entitative act itself of the divine Will, which with nothing added, but from itself immediately, is borne toward willable objects as they are willable, and connotes them as they are, so that it is said to be borne necessarily toward necessary things, and contingently and freely toward free things, and so that tendency is intrinsic on the part of the act, extrinsic, however, on the part of the connoted object.

You will subsume. Therefore divine freedom formally considered is to be called partly intrinsic and partly extrinsic; but this consequent is absurd: therefore also the antecedent. The consequence of the major is proved: the act of the divine will is called free insofar as it itself tends toward contingent objects, and consequently divine freedom is such as is the tendency toward contingent objects: but from what has been conceded this is partly intrinsic and partly extrinsic: therefore divine freedom too will be partly intrinsic to God and partly extrinsic. The minor remains sufficiently proved from what has been said, by which we asserted that divine freedom is altogether and formally intrinsic to God.

I deny the consequence of the major. and I distinguish the major of that proof: divine freedom of the divine volition is such as is its tendency on the part of the act tending toward and connoting the object, I concede; such as it is on the part of the object terminating and connoted, I deny. And so the freedom of the act is intrinsic, since it is the intrinsic entitative and infinite act itself, which tends toward anything willable in the manner in which it is willable; and so it tends freely toward the free and contingently toward the contingent.

You will insist again. That connotation of the object either contributes something to the formal notion of freedom, or nothing. If the first: therefore since this connotation is extrinsic, divine freedom too will be at least partly extrinsic. If the second: therefore it is uselessly employed to distinguish that divine free act from itself insofar as it is necessary.

I answer that this connotation indeed contributes something, not to constituting formally and intrinsically divine freedom itself, but to specifying and explaining it. For although the entitative act itself, which is formally necessary, is also formally free from itself and in itself, because it is infinite; nevertheless, since we cannot conceive that intrinsic notion by which one and the same act is formally free and necessary, therefore we are compelled to explain the diversity through that diverse tendency toward necessary or free objects and their distinct connotation.

You will say 2. What is adequately intrinsic to God and adequately identified with him is also simpliciter necessary: but a free act cannot be simpliciter necessary, for from its formal notion it must be contingent and can fail: therefore a free act is not adequately intrinsic to God nor altogether identified with him; and consequently divine freedom does not consist formally in the intrinsic entitative act of God alone.

I distinguish the major: it is simpliciter necessary according to entity, so that in respect of it it is altogether indefectible and immutable, I concede: according to tendency and termination toward extrinsic objects, I deny: for this tendency and termination is altogether free and contingent.

You will insist. That termination and tendency is either something intrinsic or something extrinsic formally; if something intrinsic: therefore it is simpliciter necessary, nor is it indifferent whether it be or not be; and so it is neither contingent nor free. If something extrinsic; therefore divine freedom in its formal concept includes something extrinsic, at least obliquely.

I answer that this termination is at once intrinsic and extrinsic; intrinsic indeed formally on the part of the act terminated and connoted; extrinsic, however, specifically and explicatively, on the part of the object terminating and connoting; yet from this it does not follow that divine freedom is at once intrinsic and extrinsic in its formal concept, for this is formally wholly intrinsic, since it is the entitative act itself of God insofar as it is infinite and is equivalent to all the acts whatsoever of the created will, and is borne toward any willable object in the manner in which it is willable, as has already been said above.

You will press. The entitative act is from eternity, but the termination and connotation of an extrinsic object is only in time; therefore either divine freedom does not consist in actu entitativo, or it does not import this connotation and termination.

I distinguish the antecedent; the termination and connotation of the object in esse existentiae is only in time, I concede; in esse voliti, I deny. For future things have a willed being from eternity through the act of the divine will freely tending to decree their production; whence the termination and tendency of the divine will toward future objects can be conceived by us after the manner of an eternal production of things in esse volito, and insofar as it is a certain emanation of that willed being from the divine will itself, until by the force of such volition and according to the time prefixed by it the things at length emerge to the being of existence.

You will say 3. If divine freedom consisted formally and adequately in actu divinae voluntatis intrinseco et infinito: it would follow that the whole form could be adequately in a subject, to which it would nevertheless not communicate its formal effect: but this is absurd; for the formal effect is nothing other than the form itself united to the subject, v. gr. the wall's being white is nothing other than whiteness's being united to the wall: therefore also that from which it follows. The consequence of the major is proved: God can freely will to create another world: but if his divine freedom consists formally and adequately in actu intrinseco entitativo, since this act is eternal and immutable, it follows that he has now that by which he is said to will to create another world, and yet he is not really said to be now willing to create another world: therefore the divine volition about creating another world can be in God without his being denominated by it as actually willing to create another world: and so the form could be in a subject capable of denomination without denominating it; which is contradictory.

I distinguish the minor. It is absurd for a form to be in a subject capable of denomination and not to denominate it, if the form is finite and natural, I concede: if it is infinite and virtually free, that is, equivalent to a free form as regards bestowing a free denomination, I deny; but the divine volition is infinite and not only formally free in itself, but also virtually, as regards bestowing the denomination of one freely willing, because insofar as it is infinite it is equivalent to all created volitions. And therefore it can bestow this denomination at will, or not bestow it.

You will insist. God, from not willing to create another world, cannot become and be denominated willing the creation of another world, unless something happens to him by which from not willing he is said to be willing: therefore besides the entitative act something else is wanting in him, by which he is said freely to will the creation of another world, which he previously did not will. The antecedent is proved: both because a new denomination is sought from a new form: and because a passage from one contradictory to the other cannot take place without a real or formal mutation of the subject: and finally because Arist. 2. De Generat. text 56: The same remaining the same is always wont to do the same.

I deny the antecedent and to its proofs I say that they are indeed true of the created will, which, since it is said to be willing or nilling through various and diverse acts, therefore from not willing cannot be said to will freely, except through a new volition coming to it. But it is otherwise with the uncreated and infinite volition, which, since it is equivalent to all the acts of the created will, can also bestow on itself the notion of willing, or of nilling, without any intrinsic addition, but only through a new connotation of the extrinsic object willed, or nilled; which the Doctor excellently explains and illustrates with the example of the Sun:

If the Sun, he says in 2. d. 1. q. 2. n. 7., is supposed always to be equally luminous in itself, and some transparent medium is created and brought near, it will newly illuminate it; so that there will be nothing new in the Sun for there to be a new illumination from it; and if it could from itself place a transparent medium under the light, just as it causes light in it; so it would place in esse this whole, namely the illuminated medium, without any newness in itself.

Therefore much more can the divine will, since it is infinite, be said to will, or to nill, objects without any real or formal mutation of itself, but only through a new connotation of the extrinsic object.

You will press. God can really be said now to will to create another world, if nothing is wanting to him by which he is said to be willing the creation of another world: but really nothing would now be wanting to him for this volition, if his divine free volition consists formally in the entitative act alone: therefore he really ought now to be said to be willing to create another world. The minor is proved: if God now has wholly for creating another world that which I have while I will to write, nothing is now wanting to him for willing the creation of another world: but so it is. It is proved; for just as to me willing to write only the actual writing can be wanting, so that I am really said to write; so if anything were wanting to God willing to create a world, it would be most of all another world: but it is absurd to assert that, in order that I be said to be willing to write, the actual writing is wanting to me: therefore it would be equally absurd to affirm that, in order that God be said to be willing to create another world, only another world is wanting to him; and so nothing would now be wanting to God for willing the creation of another world, if his divine freedom consists formally in his entitative and intrinsic act.

I deny the minor: for God really does not have an actual decree about creating another world for this reason, because his divine will, from the dominion which it has over external objects, does not tend toward the creation of another world, although it could nevertheless through the same entitative volition by which it created this world also will the creation of another.

To the proof I say that not only is another world wanting for this divine volition about the creation of another world, but also the tendency itself of the infinite will toward the creation of another world is wanting; which tendency, although it is necessary on the part of the act, is nevertheless contingent and in every way free on the part of the object, namely of another world, which from itself can be or not be.

It is certain that there is no real distinction, and no real order, among the divine decrees; for since the act in God is one and most simple, there can be no distinction in Him, nor consequently any ordering of that act itself; for nothing is truly said to be ordered to itself. Therefore the whole distinction and the whole order, if any exists, within the divine act itself can be considered only in accordance with our manner of understanding and according to the varied tendency and termination of that divine act toward external objects; so that a distinction is then judged to exist when that divine act is understood to tend toward decreeing some object, without its tendency toward another being understood; and order is conceived in it when it is understood to terminate at one decreed object before it terminates at another, yet in such a way that the tendency toward the one is, as it were, the reason why it tends toward the other. On this difficulty there are chiefly two opposed opinions among theologians; for Ockham, in 1. dist. 9. q. 3., seems to deny that there is any order among the divine decrees and pronounces that no priority and posteriority is to be admitted in them, and not a few theologians, both old and modern, subscribe to him. But the other Princes of Theology contend for establishing this order, and St. Thomas upholds it 1. p. q. 19. art. 5. and q. 28. art. 1. and 2. And the Subtle Doctor in 3. dist. 7. q. 3. n. 3. and 4., with his more faithful disciples. What sort of order this is, however, and by what source it is to be established and from what it arises, so that you may perceive it more clearly.

Note 1. Chiefly a twofold order can be assigned in the divine realities, namely that of Origin and that of Nature. The former is the presupposition of one to another, by whom it is produced and from whom it originates; thus the Son presupposes the Father, and the Holy Spirit the Father and the Son. The latter, however, is the natural pre-requirement of one for another; thus the divine will presupposes the divine intellect by order of nature; and the divine attributes and all the divine excellences can be said to presuppose the divine Essence, because they flow from it as rays from the Sun. But this order of nature is not to be understood in the divine realities as it is in created ones; for in created things the order of nature imports a true causality, according to which the cause is said to be prior by nature to the effect; causality, however, involves the dependence of the effect on the cause. Hence, since in the divine realities there is no dependence, neither can there be any priority of nature according to causality, but only according to presupposition: whence it is rather called a priority of a sign of reason than of the thing, that is, a priority according to concept, not according to reality.

Note 2. The order among the divine decrees can be derived from the objects in two ways, namely either permissively or positively. Permissively indeed, insofar as it is not repugnant to the nature of the objects themselves to have such an order among themselves; rather a certain capacity and proportion is in them, whether natural or obediential, by which they can be said to be congruously ordered among themselves in this way. Positively, however, when the objects themselves seem from their own nature to demand such an order, so that they cannot be ordered otherwise except with a certain violence and incongruity. Moreover, for means to be ordered to an end by a permissive ordering, it is not necessary that God impress something on them by which they are ordered to a preternatural end; rather it suffices that God wills such means to be employed and ordered to attaining the appointed end. For example, for the works of Christ to be meritorious and satisfactory for the whole human race, it suffices that the divine Father accept those works for that purpose and decree that, given those meritorious works, He will grant grace, the remission of sins and eternal glory to men.

Note 3. The authors who defend the order among the divine decrees chiefly go in three opposed directions. The first is that of Cajetan, 3. part. q. 1. art. 3., who affirms that the order of the divine decrees is to be borrowed from the order which the terms observe among themselves; so that, just as nature seems to be presupposed to grace and grace to the hypostatic union, so he assigns three orders to divine foreknowledge and providence: in the first of which are comprehended all those things which pertain to the uprightness or disorder of nature and reason; in the second are comprehended all the helps of grace and all the supernatural gifts with which Angels and men are adorned; in the third, however, are involved all those things which pertain to the order of the hypostatic union. And thus Cajetan concludes that God first ordered those things which pertain to the order of nature rather than those which pertain to the order of grace, and first those which pertain to the order of grace rather than those which pertain to the order of the hypostatic union; and hence that the union of the Word with human nature was ordered after the foreseen sin of Adam.

Some affirm that the order among the divine decrees is to be derived from the perfection of the divine objects, so that God first decreed those things which are more perfect, and afterwards those which are less perfect. Others, however, judge that this order is to be derived from the objects themselves, as they are subject to the divine will, insofar as He orders them as He wills, although from their own nature they do not demand to be ordered in such a way.

First conclusion. — Among the divine decrees there is truly, actually and intrinsically, an order of priority and posteriority, insofar as, namely, the one and most simple entitative act of the divine will, by reason of its infinity, intrinsically and per se is equivalent to the really distinct acts of creatures, one of which presupposes another. This is the teaching of the Doctor in many places, but especially in 3. dist. 7. q. 3. n. 3. and 4., where he teaches that the divine Word was to be incarnated even if Adam had not sinned, because the predestination of the soul of Christ to glory presupposes no foreseen sin; indeed it precedes the foreknowledge, at least the absolute foreknowledge, of all sins, and also of good works, because one who wills in an ordered way first wills the end rather than the means, that is, first glory rather than good works. Whence he concludes: It can therefore be said that, before anything was foreseen concerning the sinner, whether concerning sin or concerning punishment, God pre-elected to that court all those whom He willed to have as Angels and men in certain and determinate grades. Here it is to be observed that the Doctor, by order of nature, does not understand an order of causality, nor of duration, as the Nominalists and some Thomists falsely interpret; but he calls order of nature only that pre-requirement, or supposition, of one divine notion for another; in which manner even St. Thomas himself, 1. part. quaest. 42. art. 3., admits an order of Nature in the divine realities.

Hence the Conclusion is proved. For there to be a true intrinsic order among the divine acts, two things are required and suffice: first, that there be among them a certain at least virtual distinction, insofar as, namely, the one and same entitative and infinite act of the divine will virtually is equivalent to several acts of the created will; second, that among those acts, distinct through this equivalence, there be a virtual presupposition of one for another, that is, that there be, as it were, a dependence of one upon another; so that if those acts were really distinct, one would truly presuppose the other and in some measure depend upon it, as happens in the acts of the created will. But among the divine acts there is such a virtual distinction and presupposition: therefore among them there is an order of priority and posteriority. The major is evident from what was noted above: for by the order of priority and posteriority in the divine acts nothing else is understood than the distinction and presupposition which is conceived by the human intellect in that same infinite entitative act through its equivalence to the acts of the created will, one of which is ordered to another.

The minor is proved. If anything were to hinder that in that same entitative act there is no distinction and presupposition, it would chiefly be because distinction is repugnant to the divine Simplicity, and the priority and posteriority of order must be excluded by God's supreme actuality; but both of these are false.

Proof 1. from the comparison of the act of the intellect with the act of the will: since truly between the acts of the divine intellect and will there is a true distinction and priority of order; for each act is formally distinguished from the other, as has already been proved several times. Likewise the act of the will presupposes the act of the divine intellect; for the act of the will by which God freely wills some object presupposes the knowledge of it, and the act by which He wills efficaciously to do something presupposes that it can be done; for the divine will cannot be borne toward the unknown any more than the created will, nor is it attracted and moved to love by a good unless it is first known. Hence knowledge is a necessary and pre-required condition for the divine will to be borne toward its object under that notion under which it is foreknown; and the following contexts of Sacred Scripture signify this, Exod. 2. God saw the affliction of his people and took pity; that is, the knowledge of the affliction moved and stirred Him to have mercy: likewise Psal. 102. The Lord has had mercy on those who fear him, since he himself has known our formation. That is, the foreknowledge of human frailty was the incentive of divine mercy, etc.

Proof 2. by comparing the acts of the will with one another: among the acts of the divine will, on account of their equivalence to many acts of the created will, there is some at least virtual distinction, that is, it is equivalent to several distinct acts. Likewise, among some of them there is a virtual presupposition, insofar as one is conceived as being virtually the cause of another, and the willing of one object moves to the willing of another; thus, v. g., He willed Christ to be passible because He willed to redeem men. Therefore the will which He had concerning the salvation of men was, as it were, the cause and reason why He willed Christ to be passible; and hence among the acts of the divine will there is some presupposition and ordering.

Further, without such an order among the acts of the divine will, those things cannot be understood which Sacred Scripture and the holy Fathers teach about the mystery of the Incarnation and Predestination; for everywhere they affirm that God willed the Incarnation for the salvation of men, and the whole Church professes this in the Nicene Creed, where it is read that the divine Word, for us men and for our salvation, came down from the Heavens. Likewise Scripture and the holy Fathers for the most part affirm that God willed glory for the Elect partly by an antecedent will and from Himself, out of His good pleasure and pure mercy; partly by a consequent and efficacious will, from the prevision of works and by way of reward; but that He in no way willed damnation from Himself, but only on the occasion given by the reprobate on account of their sins. But these things cannot be understood and reconciled without an order among the acts of the divine will, so that the prevision of good works was the reason why He efficaciously predestined us rather than them to glory, while the prevision of sins was the reason why from eternity He reprobated others: therefore this order must be asserted. The major is evident from the following texts of Scripture and the Fathers: Your perdition is Israel (supply: from you) only in me is your help: likewise 2. ad Timoth. 3. He wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, namely by the antecedent will by which He wills no one to perish, but all to be converted to repentance, as St. Peter explains, Epist. 2. cap. 3. Since, however, not all are saved, nor are all efficaciously elected to glory, but some are reprobated and destined to eternal punishment; Christ the Lord teaches that this is to be traced back to the prevision of good or evil works: whence Matth. 25. He says: Come, blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave me to eat, etc.: that is, as St. Chrysostom expounds, Hom. 80. in Matth.: Because I knew that you would be such before you were born; these things have been prepared for you by me: as if He said, the prescience of good works was the cause why God prepared glory for some, or decreed to give it to them rather than to others. St. Ambrose expresses the same thing elegantly, lib. De Fide, cap. 3.: Those whom he foreknew, he says, he also predestined, because he did not predestine before he foreknew; but those whose merits he foreknew, for them he predestined rewards.

Finally, the order of priority and posteriority which Scripture and the Fathers affirm to be among the acts of the divine will is not derived only from an extrinsic denomination to be sought from the objects, or from our manner of understanding and willing, insofar as we conceive one thing as prior and another as posterior: therefore that order is truly intrinsic. The consequence is evident; for if such an order were extrinsic, it would nonetheless have to be affirmed as intrinsic.

The antecedent is proved. The order of priority and posteriority belonging to the divine acts is often contrary to the order of the objects, and with the same order of the objects standing, such an order can be diverse: therefore it does not belong to the divine acts only through an extrinsic denomination. The consequence is evident: for if it belonged to it only by reason of the order of the objects, it would follow that whenever the order among the objects was the same, the order among the acts of the divine will would also be such. But the antecedent is proved as to the first part: the order of the objects is either an order of time, insofar as one is prior to another in duration; or of causality, insofar as one is the cause of another; or of dignity, insofar as one is more perfect than another; or one of the other modes which Aristotle reports and the Philosophers gather from him in the Categories. But God for the most part wills first that which is posterior by any of those modes; for He first willed the Word to be incarnated, v. g., before He willed to permit the fall of Adam from the state of grace conferred through Christ, and yet that fall of Adam was prior in time to the incarnation of the Word. Likewise He willed the blessed Virgin and her ancestors for the sake of Christ; nevertheless the blessed Virgin and her ancestors were prior to Christ not only in time but also in causality. Finally, God willed Christ, at least as passible, for the salvation of men; nevertheless Christ is far nobler than the salvation of men: therefore the order of the divine decrees is not derived from the order of the objects.

The same antecedent is proved as to the second part. Namely, that with the same order of the objects existing, the order in the divine acts could have been diverse: for whether God decreed the incarnation of the Word antecedently to the foreseen fall of Adam, as the Scotists contend, or only consequently, as the Thomists will, the order of the objects is the same: for Adam was created first, and grace was conferred on him, and he fell from the state of grace, before Christ came to repair the fall: and yet in both hypotheses the order of the divine acts concerning the Incarnation is entirely diverse. For in the first hypothesis the willing of the incarnation precedes the will of creating Adam; in the latter, however, it presupposes it: therefore a diverse order can exist in diverse acts, with the same order standing in the objects; and hence that order of the divine acts is not drawn out of the objects themselves.

You will say 1. Although our intellect forms various enunciations and various discourses about God and His will and other perfections, it does not follow from this that there is found in God an enunciative or discursive knowledge, even to be attributed to Him extrinsically: therefore, by parity of reasoning, although we conceive the acts of the divine intellect and of the divine will as prior or posterior in a certain order, it does not follow on that account that there is truly some order in those divine acts.

I deny the consequence: and the reason of the disparity is that enunciative or discursive knowledge involves several imperfections altogether unbecoming to God; for since discourse is the inference of the less known from the more known, it supposes in the one who discourses some ignorance, which is altogether repugnant to God, the treasury and abyss of the sciences. But the order of priority and posteriority in the divine acts argues no imperfection, indeed the highest perfection; because it supposes the one and same entitative act of the divine will, which by reason of its infinity is equivalent to all created acts; and this equivalence includes no imperfection, indeed it signifies the infinity of that act. For just as it is of the highest and infinite perfection that one most simple divine real entity be equivalent to all created beings and infinitely transcend them; so likewise it is a highest and infinite perfection in that simple real act of the divine will that of itself it be equivalent to all the acts of the created will and comprehend in itself whatever the created will can do by its diverse acts.

You will say 2. Where there is a unique and simple entity altogether indistinct, no ordering can be found: but the act of the divine will is unique and altogether simple: therefore it recognizes no intrinsic order; but if there is any order in it, it must be only extrinsic and to be sought from the diversity of our intellections, or from the order of the objects with which it is concerned.

I distinguish the antecedent: where there is a unique and simple entity that is finite and limited, I concede: one that is infinite and indeed unique, and simple formally, but virtually manifold, I deny. It is certain, however, that although that act of the divine will is altogether simple according to entity, nevertheless by reason of its infinity it is virtually and equivalently manifold, as has already been said above: and hence although indeed there is in it no actual real or formal distinction, nevertheless there is to be admitted in it a virtual distinction, equivalent to the distinction which could be found in the acts of the created will; and consequently an order can also be affirmed in it intrinsically, equivalently and virtually.

Second conclusion. — The order among the divine decrees is not to be borrowed from the order which their objects observe among themselves: nor from the dignity of the objects themselves: nor from their natural disposition: but only insofar as the objects themselves are subject to the divine will.

This Conclusion has four parts, of which the first is proved against Cajetan. A diverse order can stand in the divine acts with the same order standing in their objects: therefore the order of the divine acts is not to be traced back to their objects. The consequence is evident. But the antecedent has been proved in the preceding Conclusion.

The antecedent is proved. First, for there are many objects in the order of nature which have no order and no connection with the order of grace; for example, that Peter is to be predestined blind or seeing, white or black. Second, the death of the predestined is of the order of nature, and yet it is posterior to the election to glory which pertains to the order of grace; for that death is an effect of predestination according to that text of Wisdom 4. He was taken away lest wickedness change his understanding. Third, from the foreseen merits of Christ God decreed to confer grace on all, especially that grace which was granted to men after the fall of Adam: therefore the decree of the Incarnation precedes the decree of conferring grace; and hence Cajetan falsely wove his order, and consequently the order of the divine acts is not to be borrowed from him.

The second part also remains proved from those things which we said in the preceding Conclusion, namely that that order in the divine acts does not arise from the dignity and excellence of the objects: for Christ the Lord, although far nobler than the salvation of men, is nevertheless ordered by God to the salvation of men themselves, so that God first willed the salvation of men rather than the Incarnation of the Word, because He first intends the end rather than the means.

Nor does it matter that the Subtle Doctor in 3. d. 7. quaest. 3. n. 3. asserts that one who wills in an ordered way universally seems first to will that which is nearer to the end, and so, just as he first wills glory for someone rather than grace, so also among the predestined to whom he wills glory, he seems in an ordered way first to will glory for him whom he wills to be nearest to the end, etc. For the Doctor, by that which is nearer to the end, did not understand that which is nearer in dignity precisely and absolutely, but that which is indeed nearer in dignity insofar as this dignity more conduces to the attainment of the end. In which manner, since the incarnation and glorification of the Word more conduces to the divine honor than the glorification of the rest of the predestined, therefore the Doctor rightly concludes in that place that God wills glory for the Soul of Christ before He wills glory for anyone else, and first wills grace and glory for everyone else before He foresees the opposites of those habits, namely of grace and glory, that is, sin and damnation: therefore He first wills glory for the soul of Christ before He foresees that Adam will fall.

But so that these things may be perceived more easily, it is to be observed that among the divine decrees there are two opposite orders, namely of intention and of execution, according to the diverse consideration of the end and of the means. The order of intention is that which first regards the end as to be attained through means; but the order of execution first regards the means themselves by which the intended end is in fact acquired. And since in intention the end is the cause of the means, which are not sought nor taken up by the one operating except for the sake of attaining the end, therefore in the order of intention the end is prior to the means: but since in the actual attainment of the end the means are taken up as efficient causes, so that the one operating obtains the intended end, therefore in the order of execution the means are prior to the end. Hence by the order of intention God first decrees the end rather than the means, and among the means first chooses that which is nearer to the end, and which contributes last to the attainment of the end.

Then He orders the less remote means, and so on with the rest up to the last: which the praised Subtle Doctor understood, saying that one who wills in an ordered way first wills the end, and afterwards those things which are the means to attaining the end, and among the means that which is nearer to the end according to causality and efficacy, whether it be the more worthy in the meantime, or have this efficacy from its own nature, or from divine ordering. But the order of execution is altogether opposite to it: for God first wills and decrees the last means, and each of the rest in its order; and last He intends and decrees the end to be attained, which St. Paul clearly discloses, ad Rom. 8., saying: Those whom he foreknew he also predestined... and those whom he predestined, these he also called; and those whom he called, these he also justified; and those whom he justified, them he also glorified. By which Words he signifies that divine foreknowledge is the first means of the predestination of the just, that final justification is the last means, and that glory is the end which is attained last.

The last part is proved, namely that the order of the divine decrees is not to be traced back to the natural order which the objects themselves observe among themselves; both because the act of the divine will is the cause of the order which creatures observe among themselves and toward God Himself: therefore the order of creatures cannot be the cause of the order which is to be found in the divine acts: and because there are many objects which from their own nature have no order among themselves, or toward God, but receive it from the divine will: therefore such an order in the divine acts is not to be traced back to the natural order which the objects observe among themselves. The antecedent is proved by various examples; for God instituted the Sacraments, as sensible signs, as means to the justification of the sinner and to the increase of grace, to which end from their own nature they have no order. Likewise He permits the Elect to fall at times into grave sins so that they may thereby be humbled and become more cautious and more fervent; between that good and the permission of sin there is no order ex natura rei, but rather the permission of sin by its own nature regards only the evil of fault. Likewise He willed the Incarnation of the divine Word for the redemption of the human race, to which that Incarnation is not ordered by its own nature.

Finally, to pass over other countless things, He willed to be served both in the old and in the new law by various ceremonies for Himself, which are not determined by nature to the worship of God: for ex natura rei it is all the same whether such an animal, for example, or another is offered in sacrifice, or whether bare bread and bare wine, or the accidents of bread and wine insofar as they contain the body and blood of Christ, are the holocaust of the new law.

It remains, therefore, that the order of the acts of the divine will is to be borrowed entirely from the order which the objects observe among themselves, as they are subject to the divine will itself and insofar as the divine will itself disposes and orders them; so that the intrinsic ordering of God is rightly gathered from the extrinsic ordering of the objects.

Although the divine Will is celebrated by Sacred Scripture and the holy Fathers with almost countless titles of glory, nevertheless, above all the rest, like the sun among the stars, there shines in it infinite Holiness, together with those eminent virtues which are the appendages, offspring, and crown of holiness. Therefore, having passed over and consigned to silence the other perfections of the divine Will, which will be unfolded hereafter by a more suitable method according to the diversity and opportuneness of the matter, in this Article alone we undertake to explain the divine Holiness and the divine Virtues which they call moral.

Note 1. That although the divine perfections are infinite, and consequently of equal grade and merit; nevertheless, if we defer to the divine Scriptures, which express divine things in human fashion, we will surely acknowledge that divine Holiness holds the first place among the other excellences: for, as the royal psalmist sings, addressing God, Ps. 137. Thou hast magnified thy holy name above every name — as though God glories more in the name of holiness than in the other divine titles.

To which that passage of Exodus 28 not incongruously squares, where Moses, at God's command, describing the priestly ornaments, ordered a golden plate to be made, in which, by the engraver's work, was inscribed: Holy to the Lord; which plate the high Priest bore on his forehead, showing it to all the peoples, to make known to them that the name of holiness is not only a character of the true Divinity, but also a special and more radiant perfection.

Hence it came about that although God, out of His infinite patience, so long endured the idolaters who adulterated His Divinity, and suffered that any of His perfections whatsoever should be consecrated to false deities — attributing, namely, strength to Mars, fecundity to Venus, knowledge to Pallas, empire to Jupiter, etc. — yet He never suffered this injury to be inflicted upon His holiness.

For there was never any deity among the Gentile idolaters to whom Holiness was attributed as a special character.

Whence, whenever the true Divinity is designated in the Scriptures, it is signified by the name of holiness.

Hence also the Seraphim, burning with fire for God, who are wholly given to celebrating the divine perfections, do not extol God with praises and encomiums on account of His Strength, Wisdom, Majesty, etc., but with unceasing voice proclaim: Holy, Holy, Holy.

Nor undeservedly, says St. Ambrose, lib. 3. De Spiritu Sancto cap. 18. For we find nothing more precious by which we can name God, unless we call Him Holy; anything else is inferior to God, inferior to the Lord.

With whom St. Bernard agrees, homil. 4. on the Missus est, saying that the Archangel Gabriel rightly said to the Virgin Mary: The Holy One that shall be born of thee, because, he says, he had no other name by which he could better express the Divinity of Christ.

The same thing St. Dionysius seems to have taught earlier, lib. De Divinis Nominibus cap. 12, saying: Since He is the Author of all things, and most full of all things, from the one supereminence which surpasses all, He is called the Holy of Holies.

Indeed, God Himself sufficiently indicates that His holiness is to be esteemed above His other divine excellences, when He proposes it alone to be imitated by men, Leviticus 19.¹ Be ye holy, because I am holy.

It is established, therefore, that God is not only holy, but that divine Holiness also stands out among His other perfections.

Note 2. From our Harphius, lib. 1. Theologiae mysticae part 2. cap. 103, the name of holiness is used in four ways, according to its fourfold etymology. For, he says, Holy first means the same as without stain, that is, without sin; because just as a dye takes away the natural color of cloth, penetrating the whole cloth, so sin takes away from the soul the innocence of baptism and penetrates the whole man; concerning which sanctification the Apostle says: Let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and of the spirit, perfecting sanctification in the fear of God. Secondly, Holy means the same as without earth; for ἅγιος in Greek is sanctum in Latin, or ἅγιος means the same as without earth; and so we ought to sanctify ourselves by despising all things, saying with the Apostle: I have counted all things as dung that I may gain Christ, so that thus we may be raised up to God in pure love vitally. Thirdly, Holy means the same as stained with blood. For of old the victims were stained with blood and purified, and almost all things were cleansed in blood. So also we ought to sanctify ourselves by sprinkling both posts, namely of the concupiscible and of the irascible, and the lintel of the rational. Whence blessed Agnes, he says, His blood adorned my cheeks.

Fourthly, Holy means the same as firm and holy: and therefore laws are called holy because they are firm; so also we ought to sanctify ourselves through patience, as the Apostle says: Follow peace with all men: the Gloss, even with persecutors; and sanctimony, that is, perfection, perseverance in good works, without which no man shall see God. This firmness and holiness the Apostle attained when he said: I am certain that neither death nor life, etc.

Note 3. From Hugh of St. Victor, lib. 1. Eruditionis Theologicae title 30: Holiness is attributed to God, to men, and to places, with this distinction, that God is holy, not sanctified, but sanctifying; man is holy, sanctified and sanctifying; a place, however, is holy and sanctified, but not sanctifying: for God is holy of Himself, not of us, as the Prophet says, Ps. 15. Thou hast no need of my goods: man, however, is holy not of himself, but of God; for of His fullness we have all received, as is said in John, chapter 1. A place, indeed, is sanctified either without man or through man; it does not sanctify, because just as a place not holy does not defile the holy, as Lot in Sodom; so a holy place does not sanctify what is not holy, as the heavenly Paradise did not sanctify the Devil, and the earthly the first man; man, however, for the most part sanctifies a place in two ways, by merit and by office. For sanctification is threefold: there is the Sanctification of the Sacrament, the Sanctification of justice or merit, and the Sanctification of glory or reward. For churches are sanctified when they are dedicated, men are sanctified when they are justified, the elect are sanctified when they are rewarded with the gifts of eternal glory. Having set aside the two latter modes of holiness, we here inquire only two things concerning the former: first, in what divine Holiness consists; second, in how many ways it differs from the holiness of men.

First conclusion. — The holiness of God is the complete conformity of His divine will with the eternal and invariable law, whereby, separate and free from every stain and contagion of sin, He adheres immutably to Himself with perpetual affection, and operates all things solely for the sake of Himself.

This conclusion contains four parts, by which divine holiness is explained and made known. For first it is a complete conformity with the eternal law, which is nothing other than right divine reason, inasmuch as it dictates all things that are fitting to a rational nature: that rectitude, therefore, and the conformity of the divine will with it, is rightly called His Holiness. For just as the natural perfection of created things consists chiefly in this, that each of them is commensurate with the rule and idea according to which it was made; so their moral perfection is situated in commensuration with the eternal law, according to which it is necessary to operate: because just as the concept and idea of the divine mind is the measure and rule of the natural perfection of things; so the eternal law is the measure of the moral perfection of the rational nature itself: and so, since Holiness is the apex and crown of all moral perfection, it is rightly established in conformity with the eternal law of God. Hence Christ the Lord, who is surnamed the Holy of Holies, was wholly intent on fulfilling the divine law and executing the command and prescription of His eternal Father, and that in the most perfect manner. 1. For He fulfilled all the divine commands, He Himself for the most part testifying, John 6. I came not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me, the Father. 2. He executed them in the manner in which they had been ordained, John 14. As the Father hath given me commandment, so do I. 3. He observed all things most exactly: One jot or one tittle shall not pass from the law till all things be fulfilled. 4. He wrought all things for the paternal glory, and for a divine end He executed all things solely: I seek not my own glory, but the glory of him who sent me, the Father. By which things He taught by His example that complete holiness is to be established in conformity with the divine and eternal law.

Secondly, since the eternal law, says Lessius, Book 8. Opuscul. num. 3., arises from the divine Essence itself (which, just as it is the origin and primordial source of every entitative and natural perfection, so likewise is the root of every moral perfection, and the rule of all rectitude of affection and love): hence it comes about that the divine Holiness itself also consists in that supreme conjunction of God with Himself, not only by nature, but also by affection and love; whence it comes about that God is therefore called holy: 1. Because He loves Himself more than other things; 2. Because He loves other things in Himself; 3. Because He loves them for the sake of Himself; 4. Because He loves them through Himself.

Thirdly, because right reason dictates that a rational nature should undertake all things with a view to some certain end, lest, aiming at an uncertain mark, it be convicted of imprudence and blindness; whence it comes about that for right operation a fitting end is always required; hence no will can be called right, nor consequently holy, unless it directs all its affections and motions to God Himself, the end of all things per se, sincerely and solely. Whence St. Paul rightly admonished the Corinthians, 1. 10: Whether you eat, or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all to the glory of God. He gives the reason for this in Romans 14: For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself; for whether we live, we live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we are the Lord's.

And so divine holiness shines forth chiefly in this, that God operates all things solely for the sake of Himself: For my own sake, He says, Isaiah 48, for my own sake I will do it, and I will not give my glory to another: I myself, I am the first and the last. And Apoc. 1. I am α and ω, the beginning and the end, saith the Lord God. Hence it is rightly said in Proverbs 16: The Lord hath wrought all things for himself.

Fourthly and finally, divine Holiness shines forth in every way from God's separation from every stain and contagion of sin: for God is therefore proclaimed holy, because He is altogether impeccable; for holiness, as St. Dionysius says, cap. 12. De Divinis Nominibus, is purity free from every crime and altogether perfect, and in every part immaculate. But such purity most befits God, who is good by His nature, indeed is the very highest Goodness; wherefore, just as, if infinite heat were given, it would admit no particle of coldness; so infinite goodness excludes all malice, both as regards effect and as regards affection.

Hence St. Gregory of Nyssa, in Catechetico cap. 1, removing from the divine Word every affection of sin, says:

Since, however, the free will of the Word can do all things, it has no propensity toward evil; for propensity toward malice is foreign to the divine Nature, but everything that is good, that also it must will, and what it wills it is altogether able to do as well. Moreover, since it can, it does not remain idle, but brings every choice of the good to effect.

St. Basil removes from God the efficient causality of evil, Homil. 2. in Hexameron: And neither is it pious to say, he says, that evil was produced by God, because none of the contraries is generated from its contrary; for life cannot generate death, nor can darkness be the principle of light, nor can disease be the efficient cause of health: but in the changes of affections one passes from contraries to contraries. How, however, God is not the author of all the sins which arise from a created will turning aside, although He concurs in its operation, will be resolved below.

From these gather that God is holy in every conceivable way, but especially in a fivefold manner. First, indeed, Radically: because His divine essence itself is the first root and primordial source of all holiness and purity; for from it the eternal law, and every love and the divine love, and divine purity in the intellect and will arise. Second, Objectively: for He is the object of absolutely all holiness; for holiness is commensuration with the eternal law, like the love of it: whence to adhere to God through love is to be pure and holy, just as to adhere by affection to lower things is to be impure. Third, He is holy Exemplarily: because He Himself is the right reason and eternal law written with the rays of the Deity itself in the mind of God, to which absolutely all holiness must be conformed. Fourth, He is holy Formally: because He is formally the love of Himself, and so formally He is His own holiness: whence, since He loves Himself infinitely, He is therefore also infinitely holy, both intensively and extensively, because, namely, He loves Himself and His own rectitude and the eternal law infinitely, as much, that is, as He is lovable. Likewise that divine holiness is infinite extensively, because God loves absolutely nothing except for the sake of Himself; therefore He is holy also in the love of all creatures: whence the Psalmist, 144, says: The Lord is just in all his ways and holy in all his works.

Hence it comes about that He pursues sin with infinite hatred; for since He necessarily loves the rectitude of the eternal law, He necessarily hates whatever is opposed to this rectitude: but every sin is opposed to it, because the notion of sin is located in this, that it is against the eternal law of God. Fifthly and finally, He is holy eminently and causally, as the fount and principle of all holiness and purity; for He sanctifies all creatures, either by the presence of His Divinity, as the whole world, which He consecrates as a temple: or by love and knowledge of Himself, as rational creatures: or by substantial and personal union, as Christ Himself, in whom all the fullness of divinity and holiness dwells corporally, and from whose fullness we all receive.

Second conclusion. — Divine holiness differs from created holiness in many things, but especially in a fivefold circumstance.

First, divine holiness is essential, because it penetrates the divine Essence and flows from it as a rivulet from a fountain and a ray from the Sun; but no creature can be holy essentially, but only through an adventitious quality and accessory acts and affections, and all its holiness emanates from supernatural gifts superadded to its nature.

Second, the holiness of God is substantial, like wisdom and love and all the other divine excellences; but created holiness is accidental, because, as the praised Lessius says, it comprises various acts and habits, both of the intellect and of the will; for the intellect must be illumined by faith or by the light of glory: but the will must be ordered by charity, religion, and the other supernatural virtues subservient to charity.

Third, divine holiness is altogether infinite, both intensively and extensively, because, as we have said, God loves Himself as much as He is lovable, and there is as much purity in His love as there is in the perfection of His essence; it also extends to infinite things, namely to all those things which He beholds either in His essence or outside His essence, for in them He takes supreme complacency for His own sake and for His glory: but the holiness of creatures is limited and finite in both ways, for we do not love God as much as He is lovable: whence St. Bernard, The measure of loving God is to love without measure.

Fourth, divine holiness cannot increase, because it is the universality and fullness of holiness altogether infinite, nor can it be diminished, because it is altogether immutable and indefectible. But it is otherwise with created holiness, which can increase and be diminished: whence St. Gregory the Pope, in Pastorali parte 3. cap. 35.: In this world the human soul, as a ship against the onslaught of a descending river, is by no means permitted to stand still in one place, because it slips back to the depths unless it strives for the heights. With which Alcimus elegantly concurs in a poem to his sister Fuscina:

But if one is loath to exercise holy labors, And slothful idleness dissolves the accustomed cares, The glory of a ruinous life slips headlong, If virtue gains no strength by advancing, Returning, it gradually loses its former powers, extinguished.

Fifthly and finally, divine holiness is altogether indefectible and immutable; but created holiness is subject to many defects: whence St. Cyril, lib. 5. in Ioannem:

In created things, he says, inasmuch as they can be changed for the worse and yield by conversions from better to baser things, the fruit of a religious mind inclined to virtue will be a good; but in the divine substance, which exceeds all things, it is not so; for with all change and conversion removed, and no place left for it, the fruit will henceforth be the good of an immutable substance, just as heat is in fire and cold in snow.

With this St. Jerome concurs, Dialogo 1. contra Pelagianos:

In the holy Scriptures, he says, there are two perfections, two justices, and two fears: the first, a perfection and incomparable truth, and a perfect justice of God to be fitted to His virtues: the second, however, is that which suits our frailty, according to what is said in the Psalms, no living man shall be justified in thy sight; to that justice which is said to be perfect not by comparison, but as the justice of God. Job also, and Zacharias and Elisabeth, are called just according to that justice which can at some time be changed into injustice, and not according to that which can never be changed.

Hence God is called not only the Holy of holies, but is also proclaimed by the Church in the Angelic Hymn: You alone are holy, You alone are the Lord, because evidently His divine holiness alone is free of all blemishes, and is altogether indefectible and immutable.

Since, however, divine holiness, like created holiness, must be illustrated with the crown of all the virtues, inasmuch as it is the supreme rectitude of the will, which is fulfilled and strengthened only through the virtues; therefore, in order that the splendor of that divine holiness may shine forth more brilliantly, certain things concerning the divine virtues must be woven in.

That this may be examined more plainly and in a more fitting order, first of all it must be noted that all those virtues which in their formal concept connote and import some defect are to be far removed from God, the center and source of all conceivable perfection. From which it is permissible to infer that all those virtues which tend toward another, whether superior or equal, such as religion, obedience, piety, observance, etc., have no seat in God, the supreme of all beings. Likewise all those virtues are absent from Him which consist wholly in taming and regulating the movements of the passions and of the sensitive appetite; for since God is altogether incorporeal and subject to no passions, therefore neither are virtues to be asserted in Him which have commerce with the body and with passions.

Hence almost all theologians agree that neither fortitude, nor patience, nor meekness, nor temperance is found in God formally, but only metaphorically, because fortitude must moderate fear and daring, patience sadness and despair, meekness wrath and cruelty, temperance bodily delights and pleasures.

Nevertheless the Doctor, in 3. dist. 33., proves that those virtues have their place and seat more in the will than in the sensitive appetite: first, because the will, since it is free and has command over the sensitive appetite, and also over the external senses, as it were the ministers of that appetite, can therefore more efficaciously restrain the movements of the passions than the appetite can, which is neither free, but is determined to act by its object, nor has despotic command over the external senses. Second, because the will can more refer a commanded or elicited act to an end consonant with right reason than the sensitive appetite can, because the will is properly the rational appetite, and so should properly direct the act to that end which right reason demonstrates, which does not befit the sensitive appetite. Third and finally, because those virtues would have existed in the state of innocence, since they contribute greatly to the splendor of the soul, in which, nevertheless, there would have been no inordinate movement of the passions.

Finally the Doctor concludes that those virtues, the moderators of the sensitive passions, can be affirmed to be truly in the Angels, and even in God, insofar as they are concerned with the passions of the sensitive appetite, not as existing in God Himself or in the Angels; but only as concerned with such passions, inasmuch as in general and universally those passions are shown by the intellect to be moderated, v. g., in ourselves. For this divine or angelic volition is honest and virtuous, as is evident.

Nor can it be of another virtue than fortitude and temperance, because, as the Doctor proves ibidem, num. 16., if that volition proceeded from another virtue, it would especially proceed from charity; but it is not so, because the motive of charity is the divine good willed for God's own sake: but when God or an Angel wills that I live bravely or temperately, that volition tends to the good itself for the sake of its formal honesty, and consequently it must arise from the virtue of temperance and fortitude, not from charity.

Nor should you say that the virtue of temperance and fortitude does not incline in any way to moderating the passions concerning the pleasurable and the terrible, but even to regulating and moderating them in the proper subject in which they inhere; for this is false;

Because, says the Doctor, the formal notion of the habit is not varied by 'for me' and 'for you': for this is material, because from the fact that the honest good inheres in me or in you, the formal and essential notion of honesty is not varied; for the good of temperance in me and in you is of the same species: therefore from the fact that a virtue inclines to willing the honest good in its own subject or in another, the formal notion of the virtue is not varied; whence the Doctor concludes:

In this way, consequently, one could posit in God the notion of the moral virtues, just as Charity is conceded in Him without its accidentality: and so from that notion concerning the Angel.... For the will of the Angel can will for me the good of temperance, inasmuch as it is such a good, the willing of which is the proper act of temperance: therefore from the habit of temperance it can will that.

Nevertheless, since those virtues cannot have in God all their formal notions entirely, namely the moderation of their own passions; therefore the Doctor judges more probably that they do not belong to God formally and properly; but only metaphorically and according to a certain proportion of the infinite act of the divine will with the acts of the created will, which is illustrated and informed by these virtues.

Only this, therefore, remains to be examined: whether Justice and Mercy with their attendant virtues are in God formally, or only virtually and eminently, which will be weighed in the two following Questions.