Scotus Academicus, Tomus secundus: De Deo Intelligente et Volente

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.