Scotus Academicus, Tomus secundus: De Deo Intelligente et Volente

Some derive the sacred name of divine Providence from the preposition Pro, which sometimes signifies the same as Ante. On this account Providere sounds the same as Ante videre. Whence Cicero, lib. De Iuventute: Providence is, he says, that by which something future is seen before it is made. Some, however, wish it to be derived from the preposition Procul, so that Providere is the same as Procul videre, namely those things which are distant in place or time. Hence Boethius, lib. 5. De Consolatione, Prose 6, when he had said that divine knowledge, by which God discerns all things, is not foreknowledge, as it were, of the future, but the knowledge of a never-failing instant, subjoins: Whence it is called not prevision, but providence, because, being set far off, that is, far away, from the lowest things, it looks out upon all things, as from the lofty summit of things.

Those, however, judge more correctly who refer the word providence to the antecedent priority of time. For divine providence cannot signify distance of place, since God is substantially present everywhere: but it imports only a distance of reason, because from eternity God sees all things which are to come in time. When, moreover, we know beforehand those things which are to come, and, employing suitable means, strive that they turn out prosperously, for this reason Theologians have taken up the name of providence to designate that paternal and supreme care which God bestows on individual things, in order to direct and lead them to their due ends.

According to this use of the word providence, five things especially come to be discussed and resolved in this Article. First indeed, whether there truly is in God care and providence over all created things. Second, what and of what kind that divine Providence is, namely whether it is an act and offspring of the divine intellect or of the divine will. Third, whether God provides immediately for individual things. Fourth, whether evils, both of nature and of fault, are subject to divine Providence and are ordered by it. Fifth and lastly, what and of what kind is the efficacy and excellence of divine Providence; all of which, with their appendages, will be resolved in the following Questions.

Note 1. From Lactantius, 1. De ira Dei, cap. 9. Although the opinions of the Philosophers of an earlier age about Providence had agreed, and there was no doubt that the world had been furnished by God with reason and was governed by reason: first of all Protagoras arose in the times of Socrates, who would say that it was not clear to him whether there was any Divinity or not. This Disputation of his was judged so impious and contrary to truth and religion, that the Athenians both expelled him from their borders and burned his books, in which these things were contained, in an assembly. With a few things interposed: But afterwards in those times in which Philosophy had already withered, there arose at Athens a certain Diagoras, who said that there was no God at all, and for that opinion he was named ἄθεος: likewise Theodorus of Cyrene; both, because they could discover nothing new, all things having already been said and invented, preferred to deny against the truth that in which all their predecessors had consented without ambiguity. These are they who for so many ages, with so many talents, calumniated the providence that had been asserted and defended. To these impugners of divine Providence assented, as Nemesius relates, lib. De Facultatibus animae, cap. 44., Democritus, Heraclitus, Epicurus: who will that neither universals nor particulars are provided for by God: for Epicurus said that what is blessed and immortal neither has business itself, nor provides any to another: whence it is held neither by wrath nor by favor, or as Lactantius relates from the same Epicurus in c. 8. of the cited book:

For every divine nature must of itself Enjoy an immortal age with highest peace, Removed from our affairs, and set far apart. For free from every pain, free from perils; Itself strong in its own resources, needing naught of ours, Nor is it won by merits; nor touched by wrath.

Note 2. Moreover, there have been various, and indeed erroneous, opinions about divine Providence, not only of the pagan Philosophers, but also of certain Christians: for first of all, Aristotle wills that individual things be administered by nature alone, as he signifies not obscurely in 6. of the Ethics to Nicomachus, says the above-cited Nemesius; and although in the 8th chapter of the Ethics the same Aristotle seems to affirm some care of divine Providence for created things, nonetheless he confines it to sublunary things; as not only St. Ambrose affirms, lib. 1. Officiorum, cap. 13., but also Clemens Alexandrinus, lib. 5. Stromatum, relating in what manner certain Philosophers drew various errors from the sacred letters badly understood: The notion of chance came over Epicurus, he says, when he had not understood this saying, Vanity of vanities and all is vanity: it came into the mind of Aristotle to bring Providence down as far as the moon from this Psalm 35., Lord, in heaven is thy mercy and thy truth even to the clouds. Into the same error fell the celebrated interpreters of Aristotle, Averroes, Avicenna, and Algazel, denying to God a distinct and particular knowledge and care of creatures in the singular: Rabbi Moses himself also fell, who withdrew every corruptible individual from divine Providence, excepting only men, whom on account of the splendor of the intellect he judged worthy to be God's companions and of his Providence. Origen, Jerome, and some of the holy Fathers to be related and explained below appear likewise to have gone into this insipid opinion.

Note 3. From Aristotle, 6. of the Ethics, cap. 8., a threefold Providence can be distinguished, namely monastic, by which one duly and wisely disposes the things that can be made which suit oneself; another economic, by which one prudently administers domestic things and those fitting the family. Thirdly finally political, by which the commonwealth is provided for. It is certain however that in God there is no monastic Providence, for this is only about contingent things; but the things which are God's are necessary and altogether immutable, and so can in no way be subject to Providence. Only the present difficulty is therefore moved about economic and political Providence, which God bestows upon created things, both in common and in particular. Two things therefore are chiefly to be resolved in this Question. First, whether God has some Providence toward created things. Second, whether he bestows this his divine Providence upon singular, even baser things.

First conclusion. — Providence toward created things is truly to be admitted in God.

This is of faith and is proved by almost innumerable texts of Sacred Scripture, by which divine Providence is celebrated, thus especially Wisdom 14. But thou, Father, governest all things by thy providence from the beginning. And in cap. 17. he says of the Egyptians, the fugitives lay perpetually under providence. And Ecclesiastes 5. Give not thy mouth to make thy flesh sin, neither say before the Angel: there is no providence, lest God, angry at thy words, destroy all the works of thy hands. Christ the Lord affirms the same truth by several oracles, Matth. 6. and 10. Behold, he says, the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you of much more value than they? And after a few things, consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they labor not, neither do they spin. But I say to you, that not even Salomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these. But if the grass of the field, which is today and tomorrow is cast into the oven, God so clothes: how much more you of little faith? And Matth. 10. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing, and one of them will not fall upon the ground without your Father?

This same truth is strengthened by the holy Fathers with several reasons and weightier arguments. First indeed, divine Providence is persuaded by exactly the same arguments by which the existence of God is demonstrated. For what is so worthy, so proper to God, as providence? (says Lactantius, lib. De Ira Dei, cap. 4.) But if he cares for nothing, provides for nothing, he has lost all divinity. Whoever therefore takes away from God all power, all substance, what else does he say but that God is altogether not? Whence the same author rightly laughs at Epicurus in c. 9., because he said that God exists, yet denied his providence:

What more contradictory than this (he says) could be said or done? For if God exists, certainly God is provident, nor can divinity be attributed to him otherwise, unless he both holds the past and knows the present and foresees the future. When therefore he took away providence, he also denied that God exists; but when he professed that God exists, he also conceded at the same time that Providence exists, for the one without the other can neither exist at all nor be understood.

Whence the holy Damascene subtly notes, lib. De Fide, cap. 11., that the name Θεός is derived from the verb Θεάομαι, which sounds the same as I consider, or I provide for. To this those ancient Philosophers consent, who called God nothing other than Providence: the holy Dionysius himself likewise agrees, lib. De Divinis Nominibus, cap. 12., where he defines the Divinity through Providence, the Divinity, he says, is a Providence contemplating all things, and that with perfect goodness.

Secondly. divine Providence itself is evinced from the natural inclination of all; for in sudden disturbances, says the above-cited Nemesius, without election and deliberation we invoke the name of God, as nature leading to God's help not without teaching; but this invocation and the cry for divine aid would be futile, if there were in God no care and providence of human affairs. Tertullian elegantly weighs and ponders this reason in the Apology of the Christian Religion against the Gentiles, cap. 17.

Do you wish, he says, that we prove it from the testimony of the soul itself? Which, although pressed by the prison of the body, although hemmed in by corrupt institutions, although enervated by lusts and concupiscences, although enslaved to false Gods, when nevertheless it comes to its senses, as from a surfeit, as from sleep, as from some sickness, and recovers its health, it names God, for this alone because this one God is properly the true, the Good and the Great. And that God has given, is the voice of all. It even calls God to witness: God sees that, and I commend to God, and God will repay me. O testimony of the soul naturally Christian!

Thirdly, Lactantius proves the same truth, cap. 8. of the cited book, from the religion and cult of the Gods implanted by nature in all the Gentiles, even the Barbarians;

For if God, he says, never conferred any good, if he returns no favor to the service of the worshipper, what is so vain, so foolish, as to build temples, to make sacrifices, to confer gifts, to diminish one's family fortune, so that we obtain nothing? But you will say, an excellent nature ought to be honored. But what honor can be owed to one who cares for nothing and is ungrateful? Or can we in any way be bound to him who has nothing in common with us?

Cicero urges the same argument, libr. 1. De Natura Deorum: but if the Gods, he says, can neither help us, nor will, nor care at all, nor notice what we do, nor is there anything that could pass from them to human life, why should we offer any cults, honors, prayers to the immortal Gods? Whence Lactantius concludes, that if Religion cannot be taken away, so that we may retain both the Wisdom by which we differ from beasts and the justice by which common life is safer, how can Religion itself be held or guarded without fear, etc.

The fourth proof is deduced from the very title of Creator, for as St. Ambrose wisely and elegantly notes, lib. 1. Officiorum, cap. 13. What worker, he says, would neglect the care of his own work? Who would desert and abandon what he himself thought should be made? If it is an injury to govern, is it not more an injury to have made? Since not to have made something is no injustice, but not to care for what you have made is the height of unkindness? Theodoretus urges the same argument, ser. 1. De Providentia, where, when he had said that love is innate in individual things, and an inborn care of their effects, he concludes: But the whole world and the whole human race is the pledge of its Creator, and therefore from this very affection, by which he made us love our pledges, he wished us to understand how much he himself loved his pledges. The same St. John Damascene urges, lib. 2. De Fide, cap. 29. It is necessary, he says, that the same be both the maker and the provider of the things that are; for it is neither fitting nor consequent that one be the maker of the things that are and another their provider: for thus each would be subject to weakness and debility.

Fifthly finally, the demonstration of divine Providence is deduced both from the perfection and excellence of all created things, and from their stable order and concordant discord. The first St. Augustine excellently weighs, lib. 5. De Trinitate, cap. 11.

God, he says, the one omnipotent Creator and maker of every soul, and of every body.... From whom is every mode, every species, every order. From whom is measure, number, weight. From whom is whatever exists naturally, of whatever kind it is, of whatever value it is. From whom are the seeds of forms, the forms of seeds, the motions of seeds and of forms. Who gave even to the flesh origin, beauty, health, fecundity of propagation, disposition of members, well-being, concord. Who gave also to the irrational soul memory, sense, appetite, and to the rational moreover mind, intelligence, will: who not only Heaven and Earth, nor only Angel and man, but neither the viscera of a tiny and contemptible animal, nor the little feather of a bird, nor the little flower of a herb, nor the leaf of a tree, left without the fittingness of their parts and a certain peace as it were, in no way is it to be believed that he wished the kingdoms of men, and their dominations and servitudes, to be alien from the laws of his providence.

The second, however, Boethius sets forth, lib. 3. De Consolatione, Prosa 12.:

The world, he says, would by no means have come together from parts so diverse and contrary into one form, unless there were one who would join together things so diverse. But the very diversity of natures once joined, discordant with each other, would dissociate and tear apart, unless there were one who would hold together what he had bound. Nor would the order of nature proceed so certain, nor unfold motions so disposed in places, times, efficacy, spaces, qualities, unless there were one who, himself remaining, disposed these varieties of changes.

The same St. Chrysostom urges most elegantly, Homil. 10. ad populum:

If this short and little body, he says, using so many medicines.... perishes nonetheless and is corrupted, disturbance having often occurred in it, how could so great a world, composed of the same elements, have remained undisturbed for so long a time, unless it had received much of providence? If we, ill-disposed toward one another not by nature but by will, do not spontaneously agree while we remain enemies, but need another who joins us and holds us in peace: how could the elements, having neither reason nor sense and by nature enemies to themselves, have come together and been able to remain together, unless there were some ineffable power which gathered them and, once gathered, always held them by this bond? Do you not see how this body, when the soul flies away, flows down and wastes away and is lost and returns to the limit of each of its elements? This very thing would surely happen also in the world itself, if, deprived of its own providence, it were left behind. If a ship without a helmsman would easily be sunk, how would the world subsist for so long a time with no one governing.... and why do I say a ship? Someone fitted together a little hut among the vineyards and, the fruit having been taken away, left it deserted, and it does not remain even two days, but is dissolved and falls shortly. Therefore a hut indeed would not stand without one providing for it. But a creature so great, so beautiful, so marvelous, and the laws of night and day and the dance of alternating hours and the course of nature, varied and all-manifold in earth and sea and air and heaven and plants and animals flying, swimming, walking, creeping, and in the human race stronger than all of them, how would it have remained stable for so long a time without any providence?

You will say 1. If there were in God any care and providence of human affairs, there would be no freedom of men, and no contingency of created things: but reason persuades and experience demonstrates that the consequent is absurd: therefore also the antecedent. The consequence of the major is proved. If all the actions of man were foreseen by God, they will come about either avoidably or unavoidably. If the first: therefore divine Providence will not be infallible. If the second: therefore the operations of man will not be contingent, nor will they be able to be done or not done, and so neither will they be free, but necessary and natural.

I deny the consequence of the major and to its proof I say that the operations of man happen necessarily, not indeed by an antecedent necessity, which would take away freedom and impose an unavoidable necessity; but by a consequent one, which supposes the free determination of the will as foreseen. For the divine will, by its eternal decree, does not predetermine the created will, but codetermines it, nor is its determination prior or posterior in nature or in reason to the determination of the created will in the order of causality, but simultaneous with it (as we have already said when treating of the conciliation of human freedom with the invariable decree of the divine will.)

Add. that divine Providence itself accommodates itself to created things and so bestows its care, that it supplies to necessary things necessarily and to free things freely the fitting means for attaining the end due to them, as the holy Dionysius plainly teaches, lib. De Divinis Nominibus, cap. 4., saying: Just as the providence of each nature is salvific, it provides for things movable per se as movable per se, and all particulars according to the property of the whole and of each one, insofar as the nature of the things provided for receives the provided goods attributed proportionally to each one by the whole providence.

You will insist. So certain and so invariable is the divine ordering of things, that with it standing, there can be no free determination and election of man; but all are snatched and agitated by a certain inevitable necessity and immutable fate: therefore, either there is no freedom of man, and no prayers of his to God and vows, or there is no providence in God. Seneca proves the antecedent, libro 2. q. natural., cap. 35. and 36., where, opening up the immobility and invariability of divine providence and ordering (which he calls by another name, fate, after the manner of the ancient Philosophers), he says:

the fates otherwise perform their right, nor are they moved by any prayer, they are not bent by mercy, not by favor, they keep their irrevocable course, they flow from what is destined. Just as the water of rapid torrents does not run back into itself, nor even delays, because the water coming upon it drives the earlier one headlong. So the eternal series of fate rolls the order of things, whose first law is to stand by the decree. For what do you understand Fate? I think it is the necessity of all things and actions, which no force may break. If you judge that this can be won over by sacrifices and the head of a snow-white ewe, you do not know the Divine. You deny that the judgment of a wise man can be changed, how much more that of God, since the Wise man knows in the present what is best, and to his Divinity everything is present?

With these words he excellently demonstrates the immutability of divine providence, and so, with it posited, excludes every fortuitous and free event.

The same Philosopher answers, cap. 37. that by this certain and immutable decree of divine providence, the free choice of human liberty is in no way harmed, nor will the prayers of men be vain and void.

For some things, he says, have been left so suspended by the immortal Gods, that they turn out for good, if prayers have been offered to the Gods, if vows have been undertaken. Then objecting to himself, either it will be, he says, or it will not; if it will be, even if you have not undertaken the vows, it will happen; if it will not be, even if you have undertaken the vows, it will not happen. He answers: that interrogation is false, because you pass over that middle exception between these: it will be, I say, this — but if the vows have been undertaken. Again objecting: This too must be comprehended by fate, whether you undertake the vows or not. He answers: suppose that I give you my hand and confess that this too is comprehended by fate, that the vows are indeed made; it is fated that this one be eloquent, but if he has learned letters, it is contained by the same fate that he learn letters... so although health seems to be of fate, health is nevertheless owed to the physician, because the benefit of fate comes to us through this man's hands.

With these things he excellently teaches that the immutability of fate, or of divine providence, does not harm man's freedom, but supposes the free determination of his will; for it does not predetermine it, but codetermines it.

You will say 2. If there were in God any care of mortals, there would likewise be a secure happiness of the pious as the reward of their virtue, but upon the impious calamity and misery as the vengeance and punishment of their wickedness: but far otherwise it happens, for the perverse lead their days in goods and abound in honors, pleasures, and riches. Whence the semi-atheists gather that all things are overlooked by God, says Salvian, lib. 1. De Providentia, because he neither restrains the evil nor protects the good, and therefore in this age the state of the better is quite worse: the good being in poverty, the evil in abundance; the good in weakness, the evil in strength; the good always in mourning, the evil always in joy; the good in misery and abjection, the evil in prosperity and dignity. Nor is this the complaint only of them, but also of the Saints, for Ieremias 12., as if reproaching God, says: Why does the way of the impious prosper? It is well with all who transgress and act iniquitously. And Habacuc 1. Why do you look upon those acting iniquitously and hold your peace, while the impious devours one more just than himself? David likewise marvelously weighs and exaggerates the same complaint, Psal. 72. I was envious, he says, of the iniquitous, seeing the peace of sinners, because there is no regard for their death, etc.

Answer 1. St. Augustine — this argument indeed seemed so valid to the Royal Prophet himself, that he hoped for its solution and elucidation not in this mortal life, but in the blessed and eternal life. Whence he subjoins in the same place; I thought to know this, it is labor before me, until I enter into the sanctuary of God. St. Augustine weighs these words thus:

Before my face I see a certain labor as it were inextricable, to know how God is both just and cares for human affairs and is not iniquitous; because sinners and those committing crimes have happiness in this land, but the pious, serving God, are mostly wearied in temptations and labors. It is a great difficulty to know this: but until I enter into the sanctuary of God. For then it will appear how the just will receive the legitimate reward of their good works, and also eternal life for their tribulations. But the impious will be thrust into eternal fire.

Answer 2. The above-cited Salvian holds that these things are unjustly objected by the calumniators of providence.

For first, he says, from those who either grieve or accuse that it is so, I ask this: whether they grieve about the Saints, that is, about the true and faithful Christians, or about the false and impostors. If about the false, the grief is superfluous, which grieves that the evil are not blessed. Since certainly whoever are evil become worse by the success of things, rejoicing that the pursuit of wickedness turns out well for them. And therefore for this very reason they ought to be most miserable, so that they may cease to be evil, claiming the name of religion with the most shameless questions and preferring the title of holiness to the most sordid dealings, whose wickednesses, namely, if miseries are compared to them, are less miserable than they deserve, because, placed in whatever miseries, they are nevertheless not so miserable as they are evil. In no way therefore must one grieve for these, that they are not rich and blessed. Much less, however, for the Saints, because however much they may seem to the ignorant to be miserable, they cannot nevertheless be other than Blessed.... For no one is miserable by another's sense, but by his own. And therefore they cannot by anyone's false judgment be miserable, who are blessed by the true witness of their own conscience; for none, I think, are more blessed than those who act according to their own judgment and desire.

The Religious are humble, this they will; they are poor, they delight in poverty; they are without ambition, they spurn ambition; they are without honor, they despise honor; they mourn, they are eager to mourn; they are weak, they rejoice in weakness. In no way therefore must we grieve over this affliction of weaknesses, which we understand to be the mother of virtues. And so, whatever it may be, whoever are truly Religious are to be called blessed, because among any hardships, none are more blessed than those who are what they will.

I answer 3. Divine providence exercises all just persons with tribulations for many reasons, and those the most just. First indeed, because Seneca says in the book De Providentia:

Virtue withers without an adversary; then it appears how great it is, how much it is worth and can do, when patience shows what it can do.... Unscathed happiness bears no blow; but where it has had a constant struggle with its own disadvantages, it grows callous through injuries and yields to no evil; but even if it has fallen, it fights on its knees.

Then, when he had said that brave men are tested in wrestling bouts and that men delight in the spectacle of a steadfast youth receiving and tearing apart a wild beast rushing upon him, he adds:

Behold a spectacle worthy for God, intent upon his own work, to look upon. Behold a match worthy of God, a brave man pitted against evil fortune, especially if he has also provoked it. I do not see, I say, what Jupiter has on earth more beautiful, if he should wish to turn his mind to it, than to watch Cato standing after his party had been broken more than once, and nonetheless upright amid the public ruins.

With him Tertullian agrees, in lib. De Patientia, where, celebrating the stupendous patience of the Patriarch Job, he says:

What a trophy did God erect in that man out of the Devil! What a banner did he raise from the enemy of his glory! What was he laughing at? God: what? The evil one was being cut to pieces, when Job with great equanimity was wiping away the foul overflow of his ulcer, when he was playfully calling back the little creatures bursting forth from there into the same caves and feeding places of his perforated flesh?

Second. Virtue is perfected in infirmity, as Christ himself says, addressing Paul, 2. Corinth. 12. Tribulation, says Augustine, compels the unwilling, teaches the ignorant, protects the failing, rouses the sluggish, humbles the proud, purges the penitent, crowns the innocent. Whence St. Hilary, lib. 4. De Trinitate¹: Just as of old the ark was borne higher as the flood's waves rose, and at last, victorious over the storms, rested upon the mountains of Armenia, not otherwise does the Church flourish while it is exercised; grow while it is oppressed; advance while it is despised; conquer while it is struck.

Third. No one is so given over to impiety as not sometimes to perform some morally good work, which, since it has no charity and grace attached to it — the seeds of eternal recompense — therefore demands only a temporal reward. But, on the contrary, no follower of justice is so faithful and tenacious as not sometimes to deviate a little from the straight path of virtue, and not to offend God by lighter faults; therefore there is also no one among the just who does not deserve an avenging punishment, at least a temporal one. Hence it is so far from being the case that the prosperity of the wicked and the adversity of the pious is a defect of divine governance, that it is rather an evident argument of divine providence. For divine justice suffers nothing to go unpunished and nothing unrewarded, rewarding the wicked indeed in this life with temporal goods for their temporal work, according to that saying of Luke 16, Remember, son, that you received good things in your lifetime, says Abraham to the rich glutton. And punishing the just in this mortal life, lest after death it find in them something to be avenged by strict sentence, as David earnestly prayed: Lord, do not rebuke me in your fury (that is, in Hell) nor in your wrath, that is, in the avenging flames of Purgatory; but have mercy on me, that is, in your mercy, burn here, cut here, provided that you spare me for eternity, says St. Augustine.

Add. that tribulation and affliction is the royal road to eternal happiness; for just as it was fitting that Christ suffer and so enter into his glory, so it is fitting that we enter into the kingdom of God through many tribulations; for, says Gregory, we who departed from the joys of Paradise through delights are called back to them through lamentations.

You will say 3. Providence imports solicitude toward the things provided for; but in God there can be no solicitude, since he enjoys supreme peace and eternal quiet. For unmoved he moves all things, and, remaining stable, he gives all things to be moved, says Boethius: therefore, etc.

I distinguish the major. That providence imports a solicitude having attached to it an agitation and restlessness of mind arising from deliberation, inquiry, and uncertainty of the outcome — I deny. That it imports one which merely entails an exact care for the things provided for, supplying them the fitting means by which they may attain their due end — I concede; and likewise, with the minor distinguished, the consequence must be denied. For God, without any disturbance or restlessness, always watches with his whole being over the governance of all things.

You will say 4. What is not foreknown is not provided for: but chance things, since they are beyond the intention of the agent, are not foreknown: therefore neither is there providence concerning them; and hence, since almost all things happen by chance, providence is either none or rare.

I distinguish the minor. That chance things are not foreknown by God — I deny; by creatures, in respect of which they are called chance things — I concede. Nothing therefore is chance with respect to God, who connects and orders absolutely all secondary causes to an end. Whence Boethius says, lib. 5. De Consolatione: Although chance is an unforeseen event arising from concurrent causes in those things which are done for the sake of something else, nevertheless that order proceeding from an inevitable connection, which, descending from the fountain of providence, disposes all things in their places and times, makes the causes concur and flow together.

Second conclusion. — God provides not only for the most excellent things, but also for the vilest, not only in common, but also in particular.

Proof, first. from all those texts of Sacred Scripture in which God is celebrated as looking upon and caring for created things, even the vilest. Thus Ps. 137. The Lord is high and looks upon the lowly. Ecclesiasticus, in the first chapter, when it had said: All wisdom is from the Lord God, and it was always with him and is before the age, asks: Who can number the sand of the sea and the drops of rain and the days of the age? After similar questions it answers: There is one most high Creator. Whence Wisdom, in chapter 8, when it had celebrated the illustrious praises of divine Wisdom, concludes: Therefore she reaches from end to end mightily and disposes all things sweetly; that is, says St. Bernard in the book De libero arbitrio: from the highest Heaven to the lower parts of the earth, and from the greatest Angel to the vilest little worm. For he himself, says David, Psal. 146, gives fodder to the cattle and to the young of the ravens, brings forth hay on the mountains, etc. He himself, as Christ asserts, Matth. 6, feeds the birds of Heaven and clothes the lilies of the field.

This same truth did not escape the pagan Philosophers; for as St. Augustine, lib. 10. De Civit. Dei, cap. 14.² relates, Plotinus the Platonist proves that God's providence reaches even to these earthly and lowest things by the beauty of little flowers and leaves, whereby he confirms that all things, though as it were cast off and perishing, cannot have the most fitting proportions of their forms unless they are formed from that place where the intelligible and at the same time unchangeable form, holding all things, abides. Which the Lord Jesus shows there where he says: Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they do not labor, neither do they spin. But I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these.

The Fathers confirm the same in many places. First indeed St. Augustine in many places, but especially lib. 5. De Genesi ad litteram, cap. 21: They are not to be heard, he says, who thought that the sublunary parts of the world are agitated by chance, but that the sublime ones are governed by divine Providence. The Psalm also speaks against these, which, when it had set forth the praises of the heavenly things, turns itself also to the lower things: Praise the Lord from the earth, you dragons, abysses, fire, hail, snow, ice, which do his word. And when Christ says that not one sparrow falls to the earth without God's will. And that God clothes the grass which is cast into the oven. Does he not confirm that the vilest and most abject little parts of the world are ruled by his divine Providence?

The same truth is proved by reason. If God had no care of the smallest and vilest things, this would chiefly be either because he could not, or because he would not, or because it would not befit his supreme majesty. The first detracts from his infinite power, which, since it produced all things from nothing, can also preserve and administer all things. The second offends his divine goodness. For what workman would neglect the care of his work? says St. Ambrose. The third, finally, is so far from unbefitting his supreme majesty — the production and care of the smallest things — that it rather celebrates it and commends it in a wonderful manner. For God, says St. Augustine, lib. 11. De Civit. Dei, cap. 22, is so great an artist in great things that he is not less in small ones, which small things are to be measured not by their own greatness, which is none, but by the wisdom of the artist. Whence Pliny says elegantly, lib. 11. cap. 2: Nature, he says, is nowhere more wholly present than in the smallest things. Hence St. Augustine, lib. 3. De Genesi ad litteram, cap. 6: He created animals smallest in body and acute in sense, so that with greater attention we may marvel at the agility of the flying fly rather than at the size of the walking beast of burden, and wonder more at the works of the ant than at the loads of Camels. And deservedly indeed: for who would not marvel at God's supreme and infinite Wisdom, Power, and Majesty in those vilest and most abject little creatures, which have such tiny heads, with so many workshops of the senses mingled without any confusion, as many as are required for seeing, hearing, and perceiving odor and taste, etc.

Let your Charity attend, says St. Augustine on Psalm 8, who disposed the limbs of the flea and the gnat, so that they have their order, have their life, have their motion? Consider one little creature, however brief and tiny, if you consider the order of its limbs and the animation of life by which it is moved, so that it flees death on its own behalf, loves life, seeks pleasures, avoids annoyances, puts forth its various senses, thrives in the motion suited to it. Who gave the gnat the sting with which it sucks blood? How thin is the tube through which it drinks! Who disposed these things? Who made these things? You tremble at the smallest things, praise the Great One; he who made the Angel in Heaven, he himself made the little worm on earth.

You will say 1. God is held and delighted by the contemplation of heavenly things; therefore he does not care for these sublunary things, nor does he provide for the smallest things. The antecedent is proved from Job 22. Clouds, he says, are his hiding place, and he does not consider our concerns, and he walks about the hinges of heaven.

I answer. These words are indeed uttered not by the Patriarch Job from his own mind, but from the opinion of the impious. For when he had said: Do you not think that God is higher than heaven, and is exalted above the top of the stars? he adds: And you say: what indeed does God know? and he judges as through darkness. Clouds are his hiding place, etc. From which it clearly appears that these words are uttered by Job from the absurd opinion of the impious, and are condemned at the same time.

You will say 2. God does not have care of brute animals: therefore his divine Providence does not watch over all things. The antecedent is proved from 1. Corinth. 9. Is it for the oxen that God has care? says the Apostle, as if he would say that God takes no care of irrational things.

Our Alexander of Hales answers, in the first part, q. 26. member 4. art. 1. that the care of divine Providence is twofold:

One, he says, is the care of divine Providence, which is general, by which things are preserved in their being by divine Providence through the times due and determined to them; and in this way it is true that he has care of all things. The other is the special care of Providence, which has to do specially with the rational creature, according to which he instructs it by giving it precepts and law; and according to this he does not have care of all things.

It is of this latter care that the Apostle speaks, not indeed of the former. Or it must be said that God does not have so peculiar a care of brute animals as of creatures endowed with reason; for those are ordered to us as means to an end and serve us. Whence the Apostle adds: Did he not indeed say this for our sakes? For they were written for our sakes.

You will object 3. The difficult opinion of St. Jerome, who, weighing that saying of Habacuc 1. Your eyes are pure, that they may not see evil, says:

It is absurd to draw down the majesty of God to this, that he should know at each single moment how many gnats are born, how many die, what multitude of bugs and fleas and flies there is on earth, how many fish swim in the water, and which of the smaller ones must yield as prey to the greater. Let us not be such foolish flatterers of God that, while we draw down his power even to the lowest things, we are injurious to ourselves, saying that the same one is provident over rational beings. Whence that apocryphal book is to be condemned for folly, in which it is written that a certain Angel named Tyri presides over reptiles.

By which he seems clearly to signify that God's knowledge does not descend to contemplating the vilest things individually, and that he takes no care at all of the viler things.

Various people answer in various ways, to free the holy Doctor from every error against God's general providence. First indeed, some say that he speaks only comparatively, as if he means that the providence over irrational creatures is not the same as that over creatures endowed with reason, so that God does not bestow the same care on things deprived of reason as he bestows on rational ones. Second, some judge that he means that God's knowledge is not increased or diminished, nor changed by the vicissitude of things, as if he acquired moment by moment a fresh knowledge, item by item, of things coming to be; but that from eternity he sees all things at once in a single most simple intuition. Third, there are those who think that he wrote these things popularly and for the grasp of the common people, and that it is one of those passages which Jerome himself, in the book against Rufinus, says he wrote in his commentaries on the Prophets not from his own opinion but from that of others. Fourth, finally, some affirm that St. Jerome distinguishes a twofold divine knowledge and care: one indeed Particular, by which it is restricted only to those things which are loved and intended for their own sakes by the Provider; and this care St. Jerome denies that God bestows on irrational things, which are not loved nor intended for their own sake by the Provider, but only insofar as they can serve man. The other indeed General, by which God administers what is necessary to each single thing. Jerome himself indicates this twofold acceptance of divine Knowledge and Providence in c. 38. of Jeremiah:

There are, he says, those who confess the Providence of the Creator as far as rational beings, but assert that brutes either perish or live by chance events. And the prophetic discourse declares that there is nothing which escapes divine Providence and the Knowledge of God, because some things were created for their own sake, others for the use of men. A few words interposed: whose care it is mine to rule all things, to dispose all things, and to render to each one according to his ways.

But that St. Jerome judged that divine Providence extends even to each of the vilest creatures is evident in the commentaries on c. 10. of Matthew, where, weighing these words, Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?, he says: If small animals do not fall without God as their author, and providence is always in all things, and what is to arise in them does not perish without God's will, you who are eternal ought not to fear that providence is exercised without God's nod. Likewise he has it in cap. 5. of the Epistle to the Ephesians and in cap. 1. of Zachariah.

You will ask. Is God's care and providence equal concerning all things?

I answer. that it is not; and this is established by a threefold reason. First, because not all things are ordered to an equal end; but some to a purely natural end, as all creatures devoid of reason, some indeed to a supernatural end, as creatures possessed of reason, such as Angels and men; and therefore they have more excellent means, and God watches over and provides for them in a nobler manner. Second, because God provides for some things immediately and per se, for instance the superior Angels; but for the rest he provides only with the help of secondary causes and of other creatures, superior and inferior. Third, finally, because God seems to provide for man before other creatures, both on account of his dignity — for all things were founded for his sake: For all things of which the world consists, and whatever it generates from itself, are accommodated to the use of man, says Lactantius, lib. De Ira Dei c. 13, where he treats this argument at length and elegantly. Whence, although God also provides for the others, he nevertheless seems to do that only accidentally and for the sake of man, as Origen declares with this elegant simile, lib. 4. against Celsus:

Just as, he says, in Cities he who has the care of the grain supply and the market labors for the sake of no one other than men, yet the fruit of his providence is seen to reach even to the dogs and other brutes; so divine Providence looks out chiefly for beings endowed with reason, but consequently even the brute animals enjoy it, which were brought forth for the sake of men.

Then also on account of man's infirmity and weakness, which is far greater than that of the other animals, whence he needs innumerable aids for his own preservation. For no animal is more fastidious, none to be handled with greater art, none to be more spared, than man, says Seneca, lib. 1. De Clementia cap. 17. Whence St. Ambrose judges that God bestows a special care on him, as it were from the office of justice, on Psalm 118: Because he is just, he says, so as to protect and preserve the work of his hands, so that those whom he cast naked, by a certain unendowed lot of nature, into this infirmity of body, he may deign to clothe, poor as they are, with the vigor of the soul and the dowry of his mercy. Then finally, because creatures devoid of reason and freedom are driven and directed to their ends by necessary causes always acting in the same manner, nor do they labor under great variety and inconstancy; and therefore they are easier to lead and to handle. But human affairs, which proceed freely from the choice of the will as from a changeable and inconstant cause, are therefore uncertain and mutable, and so have need of ampler care and greater solicitude, so that so great and so inextricable a variety may be directed to the fitting order and end. Whence Hierocles handed down in lib. De Providentia: A general Providence, spent upon the whole species, suffices for brutes; but we, unless we are governed by Providence individually and in all things, so that nothing which pertains to us is outside the scope of Providence, by no means obtain a care suited to us. Nor does it matter that we read in Wisdom 6: His care is equally for all; for by these words the Sage does not affirm that God bestows the same care on all created things, but that in truth there is none over whose preservation and protection he does not watch. For there the Sage treats of God's vengeance and punishment upon the Powerful and the Great, who oppress the little and their subjects; whence, when he had said: To the little one mercy is granted, but the Powerful shall suffer torments powerfully, he adds: for God will not accept the person of anyone, nor will he fear the greatness of anyone; since he himself made the small and the great, and his care is equally for all. From which it is clear that this very equality of care designates and commends only the protection of all, and especially of little men.

The existence of divine Providence having been intimated and proved at the same time, its very nature is now to be investigated and unfolded, which, since it is the internal operation of God by which He leads the things subject to Himself to suitable ends, thence, regarding the resolution of the present Question, a twofold difficulty arises and is proposed for solution. The first indeed is whether that divine Providence is formally an act of the intellect or of the will of God: for besides intellection and volition no internal operation of God can either be or be conceived. The second is whether this divine ordering and administration of things is engaged and occupied not only with suitable means, but also with the due ends to be infallibly attained, the solution of which, so that it may appear easier and more evident

Note 1. Divine Providence, for its constitution and integrity, requires a threefold act of the intellect and as many of the will; on the part of the intellect indeed, it is necessary first that the possibility both of the end and of the means be known; otherwise Providence will be vague and erroneous. Second, it is necessary that the power and efficacy of the means for attaining the proposed end be discerned: for if one does not know these, he will manifestly lie in the danger of never attaining the proposed end. Finally, a certain knowledge of the future attainment of the end through the proposed means is required; for no one would wisely decree that the end is to be attained through proposed means, unless he foresaw that that end could be obtained through such means. The first is disclosed through the knowledge of simple Intelligence, which is occupied with the possibility of things: the second through conditioned knowledge, by which the outcome of things is foreknown with this or that condition posited: finally the third through the knowledge of Vision, by which the certain future, present, or past existence of things is disclosed. Providence likewise desires three acts of the will, namely the intention of obtaining the end, the preparation and election of the means, that is, the efficacious decree of attaining the end through such suitable means: finally the actual use, that is, the will applying the divine Omnipotence to the supplying of the means.

Note 2. This order among the aforesaid acts required for the integrity of divine Providence is to be observed: first indeed God knows through the knowledge of simple intelligence the possibility and the goodness of the end and of the means: second, through conditioned knowledge He discerns the efficacy and suitability of the means: thence follows the intention of attaining the end, the election and application of the means: finally, by the knowledge of vision God sees the attainment of that end through such means. It is certain, however, that divine Providence does not formally consist in this knowledge of vision, for this presupposes providence and is posterior to it: whence only the difficulty remains concerning the other acts of intellect and will, in which of them the formal notion of divine providence is to be placed. Concerning this resolution different men think different things: some, with St. Thomas, wish providence to consist formally in the act of the intellect by which God foresees and judges the certain attainment of the end through suitable means: some, with our Alexander of Hales, contend that it formally imports a double act of intellect and will; finally, others more correctly, with our Subtle Doctor, hold that it is to be constituted formally in the act of the divine will, which presupposes and connotes indeed the act of divine knowledge.

Note 3. Means can be compared and related to the end in a twofold way. First indeed insofar as they are its cause and as the end is to be attained through them: second insofar as they are its effect and inasmuch as the end is at once the reason and the cause for the sake of which the means are chosen and employed. Hence it comes about that Election and Intention tend to the end and to the means in different ways; first indeed simpliciter and absolutely; second comparatively and respectively. In the former way, intention is borne directly and solely toward the end; election, however, is occupied only with the means. In the latter way, intention tends to the end primarily indeed and principally, but to the means only secondarily insofar as they are the cause or the effect of the end; election, however, quite to the contrary, is borne primarily to the means insofar as they are efficacious for attaining the end, and secondarily it intends the end itself to be attained and for its sake chooses the means which seem more suitable for its attainment.

First conclusion. — Providence consists formally in an act of the will. This is the teaching of the Doctor in 1. dist. 40. quaest. unica n. 2., where, unfolding the definition of Predestination (which is the noblest and principal species of Providence), he says: Predestination, properly taken, denotes an act of the divine will, namely the order of election through the divine will of some intellectual or rational creature to grace and glory.

Proof of the Conclusion. First indeed from Sacred Scripture, which expresses predestination and providence by names and verbs signifying the operation of the divine will; for it calls both election, purpose, decree, direction, hatred, mercy, wrath, complacency; which words designate an act of the will, not however of the intellect. Election indeed, Ephesians 1: He chose us in Him, etc. Purpose likewise in the same place: He predestined us according to the purpose of His will. Love and Hatred, Romans 9: Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. Mercy and wrath likewise in the same place: He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens, etc. Finally complacency, Luke 12: It has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom: and Wisdom 1: His soul was pleasing to God: therefore He hastened to bring him out of the midst of iniquity. All these and many other similar texts of Sacred Scripture openly signify that Providence and Predestination are a genuine act of the divine will.

Proof 2. By the authority of the holy Fathers, most especially St. John Damascene, lib. 2. De Fide cap. 29: Providence, he says, is the will of God by which all things that are receive suitable governance. A little below: and its operative and contemplative and provisive power is the good will of God itself; whence he adds: therefore because He is good He provides; as if he would say that Goodness is, as it were, the cause by which the divine will provides for all things. Nemesius agrees with him, lib. De facultatibus animae c. 43.¹ where, defining divine Providence, he says: Providence is the will of God by which all things that are are suitably governed.

Proof 3. By theological reason. Dilection is an act of the will: but Providence and Predestination are acts of the highest divine dilection: therefore they are likewise acts of the will. Second, Providence is the efficacious ordering of things to their ends: but in God only the ordering of the will can be efficacious; for He works all things according to the counsel of His will: therefore only the ordering of the will is formally Providence. Third, Providence is an act of the executive potency, for God by His executive potency orders and fulfills all foreseen effects: but the executive potency in God is the will alone, not the intellect: for the executive potency is that in which the effect to be produced is contained, as illumination is in the illuminative power and heat in the calefactive potency: therefore Providence pertains above all to the divine will. Finally, Providence is necessarily an act either of the intellect or of the will; but it is not an act of the intellect: therefore it is necessarily an act of the will. The major is evident; for besides intellect and will there is in God no operative and productive potency. The minor is proved: if Providence were an act of the divine intellect, it would be either a speculative knowledge of the things to be made and ordered by God, antecedent to every actual determination of the divine will; or a practical knowledge, likewise preceding every act of the will and dictating and regulating the things which are to be done and ordered; or finally a certain command of the intellect, following upon the election of the will, and dictating to it that this is to be done, and so applying the executive potency to operating: but neither of these is the case. Not the first indeed; for Providence is only about those things which are and actually exist, not about those which are possible; for no one is said to provide for things which do not yet exist, but is only said to foresee them, so that when they exist they may lead to a suitable end. And so Providence is not that speculative knowledge of the divine intellect which is occupied only with possible and not yet existing things. Nor likewise the second; for the divine intellect admits no formally practical knowledge: for every practical knowledge is said to be that which is regulative of practice, which only the act of the will is: but the act of the divine will does not need regulation and direction, and so, since the act of the divine intellect cannot be regulative of the divine will, it cannot be truly practical either. Nor finally the third; since that act of command is superfluous in us, and consequently in God. The consequence is evident: for we must speak of divine things with proportion to human things, especially in those which are superfluous, because since God is of more excellent and infinite power, He requires fewer things for eliciting His acts and producing His effects. The antecedent is proved: if a command were required, it would be most of all for determining our will; but for that it is superfluous; then because a command presupposes a volition in whose power it moves; whence if any volition presupposed some command, it would also presuppose another volition and determination of the will; and so there would be a process to infinity; or some efficacious volition would have to be admitted which no command had preceded: but by the same reason that that efficacious volition would not need a preceding command, by the same reason the following volitions will not need one. Then because if a volition were to be determined by a command, none would be formally free and of itself, but only by reason of another, namely by reason of the command freely determining the will: the consequence is absurd: therefore so is the antecedent. Then finally because, although a command might be desired for determining the created will, nevertheless in God it would be superfluous for executing a transient operation, since for the immanent action of the divine will the direction of reason would be required no less than for a transient action: but for the immanent action of the divine will the command of the intellect and of reason is not required: therefore neither for the transient action.

It is confirmed. If in the divine intellect there were given such an act of command, it would belong either to the knowledge of simple Intelligence, or to the knowledge of Vision: but it belongs to neither: not indeed to the first, since the knowledge of simple intelligence precedes the decree, and is natural and necessary: but a command is a free act and presupposes the election and motion of the will. Nor to the second, because an act of command is efficacious and produces creatures ad extra: but the knowledge of Vision is purely speculative, nor does it cause things, but rather presupposes and contemplates them as present and existing, either in their own measure or in the superior measure of eternity: therefore in the divine intellect there is no such act of command.

You will say 1. From St. Dionysius, cap. 2. De divinis Nominibus: The Deity looks upon all things with wonderful Providence; but to look upon is an act of the intellect: therefore Providence too. The same is confirmed from Boethius, lib. 4. De Consolatione: Providence, he says, is the divine reason itself established in the Supreme Ruler, which disposes all things: therefore in truth Providence is an act of the divine intellect.

I answer. By these and similar sayings it is only proved that Providence requires an act of the intellect foreseeing and foreknowing how things can lead to and be ordered toward a suitable end; not however that it does not formally and specifically import an act of the divine will. Whence the Doctor, after having said that Predestination is an act of the divine will, adds that it can nevertheless be taken for the act of the intellect accompanying the election of the will; not that it really consists formally in that act of the intellect, but that it connotes and presupposes it.

You will say 2. As often as Sacred Scripture speaks of divine Providence, so often it designates and expresses it by names signifying knowledge and an act of the intellect. For first it frequently uses the verb of seeing, which designates intuitive knowledge: thus Genesis 22., when Abraham had said: God will provide for Himself the victim of the holocaust; it is added: He called the name of that place, The Lord sees; whence even to this day it is said, On the mountain the Lord will see. Second, Sacred Scripture for the most part expresses Providence by the name of the eyes, thus Psalm 10.: His eyes look upon the poor, and His eyelids question the sons of men. Third finally, it often uses the verb of looking upon, which denotes a special reflection and attention of the one seeing; thus Exodus 2.: The Lord looked upon the sons of Israel: and cap. 4.: That He had looked upon their affliction, etc. and Psalm 21.: My God, my God, look upon me, why have You forsaken me? And Psalm 79.: Look from heaven, and see, and visit this vine.

I answer. that these and similar contexts designate only the transient operations and effects of divine Providence, not however the internal divine Providence itself, which presupposes indeed the vision and consideration of the intellect, but formally denotes and imports an act of the will.

You will say 3. Prudence is most of all in an act of the intellect: but Providence is a part of prudence: therefore Providence consists formally in an act of the intellect. The minor is proved: first indeed from the Sacred Scriptures, Wisdom is written for the Prudence and Providence of God; thus Isaiah 40.: Nor is there any searching out of His wisdom; which the Septuagint read, Nor is there any finding out of His prudence. Second, the holy Fathers constitute prudence in an act of the intellect; thus St. Ambrose, lib. 3. De Virginibus: Prudence, he says, is of human reason: and St. Augustine, lib. De libero arbitrio cap. 13.: Prudence is the knowledge of things to be sought and avoided. Third finally, Aristotle, lib. 6. Ethicorum cap. 9. near the beginning and cap. 5. a little from the beginning: Those, he says, are called prudent who have well devised for some virtuous end the things of which there is no art; wherefore also he is altogether prudent who is apt for taking counsel. The minor, however, is evident per se: for Providence and Prudence, on account of their greatest affinity, enjoy the same definition of the name; for the provider and the prudent man is said to be, as it were, one seeing far ahead: whence Bede, lib. 2. on chapter 10. of Proverbiorum, says: Prudence took its name from providing: therefore Providence, just like Prudence, is an act of the intellect.

I distinguish the minor. Providence is a part of Prudence insofar as it imports the prevision of a thing future and to be ordered, I concede: insofar as it denotes the study and care of the things to be done, I deny; for as such it formally pertains to the will: in the same way the proof of the minor is to be solved; for Providence has affinity of name with Prudence to that extent, inasmuch as both foresee the things to be done and ordered so that they may lead as good to the end.

You will say finally. Predestination, from what has been said, is the noblest species of Providence: but this is formally an act of the intellect: therefore that too. The minor is proved from Sacred Scripture, which many times explains Predestination by the name of knowledge and foreknowledge; thus Rom. 8. the Apostle writes Predestination and Foreknowledge as synonyms, saying: Those whom He foreknew He also predestined. Which words St. Augustine, lib. De bono Perseverantiae cap. 18., thus weighs: This, he says, that He foreknew is not rightly understood except that He predestined, which the circumstance of the passage itself shows: for he was speaking of the remnants of the Jews, which were saved while the rest perished. The same Apostle, ibidem cap. 11.: God, he says, has not cast off the people whom He foreknew: whence St. Augustine, ibidem, in cap. 17.: These gifts of God, if there is no Predestination, which we defend, are not foreknown by God; but they are foreknown: this therefore is the predestination which we defend. By which both the Apostle and Aug. define Predestination through foreknowledge: but foreknowledge is an act of the intellect: therefore Predestination, and so Providence, of which predestination is the noblest species.

I deny the minor and to its proof I say that St. Paul does not write foreknowledge and predestination as synonyms, but as two distinct divine acts subordinated to one another: whence after he had said; those whom He foreknew He also predestined; he adds: Those whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; but whom He justified, those He also glorified. By which he explains the whole order of Predestination; so that foreknowledge precedes, thence predestination follows, finally the three effects of predestination, which are calling, election and glorification. Likewise to St. Augustine I say that he does not use foreknowledge and predestination for one and the same act, nay rather he distinguishes both acts. For he adds after the praised words, cap. 18.: In this election therefore and in these remnants, which, as Paul testifies, were saved by the election of grace, he wished the people to be understood; therefore God did not cast them off, because He foreknew them: this is that election by which He chose in Christ those whom He willed before the constitution of the world, that they might be holy and immaculate in His sight in charity, predestining them to the adoption of sons. By which Aug. openly acknowledges Predestination to be an election, and so an act of the will distinct from foreknowledge. Which he declares more evidently in lib. De Praedestinatione Sanctorum: Predestination, he says, is the preparation of grace, which cannot be without foreknowledge; but foreknowledge can be without predestination; for by predestination God foreknew what He Himself was about to do. Whence foreknowledge extends more widely than predestination, and so they are not one single act, but a double one, that indeed of the intellect, this of the will.

Second conclusion. — Divine Providence, from its formal notion, does not necessarily and infallibly infer the attainment of any particular end intended by a creature. But it suffices that it infer the attainment of the general end befitting His glory and the good of the universe. This is against Cajetan, 1. p. qu. 22. art. 1., where he wishes it to pertain to the perfection of divine Providence that it infallibly attain the particular end to which it orders any creature whatsoever.

Proof 1. Providence, as we said in the preceding Conclusion, is, according to St. John Damascene, the will of God by which all things that are receive suitable governance: but suitable governance of things requires that means proportionate to their freedom be supplied to free causes, by which they can cooperate or not cooperate as they please; whence Wisdom 12., addressing God, says: With great reverence You dispose us, doing violence indeed to no one, but leading free creatures also freely to the end through means suitable to their freedom: therefore since a free creature can deviate from the intended end and will not to attain it, even when some means have already been taken up and applied to its attainment, it follows that God, by supplying such means, does not efficaciously intend the attainment of this end.

Proof 2. Providence has no greater efficacy regarding the attainment of the end than the divine will; for the whole efficacy and power of Providence is drawn from the divine will itself: but the divine will is not always fulfilled regarding the attainment of a particular end. For God truly wills all to be saved, and that not by simple complacency alone, but by a sincere antecedent will, as will be shown at length below in treating of supernatural Providence, even regarding the reprobate: therefore divine Providence, from its formal notion, does not infallibly infer the attainment of any particular end.

Proof 3. Finally, there are two things from which that infallibility of divine Providence in attaining a particular end could arise. The first indeed is the intention of attaining such an end, which exists in the will of God. The second is the will of conferring those means which God foreknew would be most efficacious for such attainment: but from neither source can such infallibility of Providence arise. Not indeed from the first, because God does not always intend the end with absolute will; but either with simple affection, or with a will including some condition, which either God does not absolutely will, or which so depends on the creature that it can be impeded by it. Which is clear from the example of the Reprobate, whom although God truly wills to be saved, nevertheless because salvation depends on their freedom and on the cooperation which they do not supply, therefore that divine will is not fulfilled. Add that since God is supremely free, He can intend particular ends as He will have wished, especially with respect to the supernatural end, whose ordering and tendency is joined to the rational nature from the freedom of God alone, and consequently God could, at His nod and choice, not confer such a tendency to the supernatural end on all, nor order all to that end by an absolute decree, but only by a simple affection and antecedent will, not however a consequent one.

Nor yet from the second. because God is not bound to give creatures those means which He foreknew to be more efficacious for attaining the end; nay, any means supplied by God the rational creature can render inefficacious by its freedom, for a means is rendered inefficacious in two ways. First indeed, from the intrinsic condition of the rational creature itself, which, since it is free, can resist, nor is God bound in any way always so to prevent it that it incline infallibly to the other side. Second, a means becomes inefficacious on account of an impeding efficient cause, as happens in natural agents, which, since they lack reason, are directed and ordered by the First Cause alone to attain their ends, nevertheless for the most part deviate from them and are impeded by the concurrence of other causes: whence monstrous births and casual effects arise in them. Therefore divine Providence does not attain that particular end which it antecedently and inefficaciously intends through one cause, although it attains the ends proposed in common, for example the manifestation of its attributes, which is the most universal end of Providence itself, or the good, or the advantage, of the universe itself.

All these things St. Thomas expresses lucidly in the Tract. De Veritate quaest. 6. art. 3:

The order of Providence, he says, is found to be certain in two ways: in one way in particular, when namely the things which are ordered by divine Providence to some end attain that particular end without defect; as is clear in the celestial motions and in all things that are done necessarily in nature: in another way in general and not in particular, as we see in generable and corruptible things, whose powers sometimes fail of their proper effects to which they are ordered as to their proper ends, just as the formative power sometimes fails of the perfect completion of the members; but nevertheless that very defect is divinely ordered to some end, and thus nothing can fail of the general end of Providence, although it sometimes fails of some particular end.

You will say 1. All things, as far as the order of providence is concerned, are fixed, stable, immovable and certain: therefore the attainment of the end intended by the creatures themselves is equally stable and certain. The antecedent is proved from St. Gregory of Nazianzus Oratione ad Iulianum, where he says: All our affairs are at once fluctuating and least fluctuating, as things which are indeed moved through changes and are agitated up and down, and one is otherwise disposed than another; but as far as the order and constitution of divine Providence is concerned, they are fixed and stable, even if they proceed through contraries. Boethius urges the same, lib. 4. De Consolatione, prose 6, where after he had said: God by providence indeed singularly and stably disposes the things to be done, he adds:

This, namely Providence, binds also the acts and fortunes of men in an indissoluble connection of causes, which, since they proceed from the immovable beginnings of Providence, must themselves also be immutable. Thus also are things best governed, if the simplicity remaining in the divine mind lays beforehand an unswerving order of causes. But this order restrains mutable things, otherwise about to flow away at random, by its own incommutability.

By these words he confirms that not only general providence, but also special providence, efficaciously intends and attains the end: therefore, etc.

I distinguish the antecedent. That all things are stable and fixed in their ordination with respect to the ultimate, adequate and principal end intended by divine Providence itself, I concede: with respect to particular ends, I deny: nor did Boethius intend anything else either, for there, toward the end of the chapter, he says: A certain order embraces all things, so that what has departed from the assigned reason of order, this falls back nevertheless into another order, lest anything be permitted to temerity in the kingdom of Providence. Thus, therefore, are the stability, immovability, incommutability and indissoluble nexus of Providence to be understood, which does not bind to one particular end, but constrains so that he who has deviated from one falls back into another end. By a similar reason is that little prayer of the Church to be explained: God, whose providence in his disposition is not deceived: for although the special end intended by a creature is not attained, this comes about because Providence itself so wills to permit this non-attainment of the end and to order it to a better end.

You will say 2. Even particular providence supposes this willing and intention of the end; for the farmer would be imprudent who would scatter seeds in the field unless he absolutely willed to gather the fruit, although this gathering is sometimes impeded by the concurrence of other causes: therefore even particular providence, even concerning the end intended by the creature, ought to be efficacious and infallible. It is confirmed: for the efficacious will of the means arises only from the efficacious and absolute willing of the end; for the means, as means, is not appetible, nor willed except on account of the end: therefore the absolute will, that is, particular providence, which supplies to creatures the means for attaining the particular end intended, ought also efficaciously and absolutely to infer and intend the attainment of that end.

I deny the antecedent. Its falsity is shown by that very example of the farmer; for the farmer would not be imprudent if he scattered seeds in the field, although he did not have a certain and efficacious will of gathering fruit from each of the individual grains sown, indeed although he certainly knew which grains would be eaten by the birds, which would be trodden down by travelers, or dried up and trodden down upon the rock; for the fruit will always be more copious from the grains hidden in the earth, and far more grains will be gathered than had been sown, although many of the sown grains may have failed and perished.

Add. that from material things no fitting and apt argument can be drawn to express that divine Providence which especially applies itself to governing creatures endowed with reason.

I distinguish the antecedent. That providence supposes an absolute willing of the end, whether particular or universal, I concede: that it always supposes a particular one, I deny: and similarly, with the confirmation distinguished, the consequence is to be denied.

You will say 3. Divine Providence would be only conditional, not truly absolute, if it provided for some end not to be attained: but it involves a contradiction that the Providence of God be conditional, for that would argue impotence in the provider who could not attain the intended end unless a condition were posited, such as, v. g., would be the providence of a merchant who would will to preserve his wares, which end nevertheless he could not attain except by avoiding shipwreck, or by the jettison of part of the wares being made: therefore, etc.

I deny the minor. For conditioned providence does not belong only to a provider who cannot attain the intended end unless a condition is posited; but it is more proper to a provider who can, but does not will, both on account of the sweet ordination of Providence, and on account of some more excellent good, namely the good of the universe, which he judges to be preferred to the proper good of each particular creature.

You will say 1. It would be the greatest imperfection in a provider if he used and ordered means to an end whose attainment he did not intend: for this empty and ineffectual use of means would arise either from ignorance of the efficacy of such means, or from impotence to apply them; for if someone knows which means conduce to the end and can use and apply them, certainly the will to attain the end cannot be lacking to him, if the end is truly intended: therefore if God intends the particular end of his Providence, either he attains it infallibly, or he is ignorant of the means by which it is most certainly to be obtained.

I deny the antecedent. For the failure to attain the end does not arise from impotence or ignorance; but from the freedom of the divine will, and because this is more in keeping with the things themselves, and more befits and profits the office of the Governor and general Provider. Nor, however, does it follow from this that God in no way intends the end, but only that he does not intend it efficaciously and with absolute will: nor does it equally follow that divine Providence is frustrated; for what fails of one order of divine Providence necessarily falls into another, as St. Anselm teaches, lib. 1. Cur Deus homo, c. 15.

Although, he says, man, or the evil Angel, may not will to be subject to the divine ordination, he cannot nevertheless escape it: because if he wills to flee from under the commanding will, he runs under the punishing will, and passes under the will of the one permitting. And this very thing that he perversely wills or does, the supreme Wisdom converts into the order and beauty of the aforementioned universe.

With him St. Thomas agrees, quaest. 19, art. 6.² saying:

Since, therefore, the will of God is the universal cause of all things, it is impossible that the divine will should not attain its effect; whence what seems to recede from the divine will according to one order falls back into it according to another: just as the sinner who, as far as in him lies, recedes from the divine will by sinning, falls into the order of the divine will while he is punished through its justice.

Finally you will say. Even particular providence pertains to the consequent will: but the consequent will is always fulfilled: therefore it brings about the attainment of the end. It is confirmed: Providence, as a per se cause, extends to all beings whatsoever: but every per se cause always attains its end: therefore Providence also attains its end.

I deny the antecedent. For Providence embraces the antecedent will and the consequent will together. The former, indeed, inasmuch as God wills to administer to each thing the suitable means by which they may attain their end: the latter, indeed, inasmuch as he administers those means in fact to creatures and sometimes leads them to the desired end. Thus teaches St. John Damascene, lib. 2. De Fide, cap. 29, where he enumerates among the principal modes of providing the will by which God wills all men to be saved, not only metaphorically, but properly and really, and that by the antecedent will. For when he had said: It must be known that there are many modes of the providence of God, which can neither be explained by speech nor comprehended by the mind; he adds finally: and especially and antecedently to will all to be saved; for he did not form us to punish us, but that he might make us partakers of his goodness. This effect, however, namely the salvation of all, is not obtained by divine Providence.

You will ask. What is Fate, and in what way is it distinguished from divine Providence?

I answer. Fate is so called from the verb Fandi, because it signifies the divine word or decree concerning created things. But according to the truth of the matter, Fate, says Boethius, lib. 4. De Consolatione, prose sixth, is an inherent disposition in mutable things, through which Providence also binds all things in its own orders. Providence, however, according to the same author, is the very reason constituted in the highest prince of all things, by which he disposes all things. Whence Fate is distinguished from Providence as effect from cause, and disposition from the one disposing. For Providence is the eternal disposition of God concerning things, but Fate is the application and execution of that disposition itself, or, as Boethius speaks there, Fate disposes individual things distributed in motion, places, forms and times; so that this unfolding of the temporal order, gathered in the prospect of the divine mind, is providence; the same gathering, however, when digested and as it were unfolded in times, is called Fate. And having adduced the example of the craftsman who, beholding in his mind the form of the thing to be made, sets in motion the effect of the work, he concludes: That certainly is manifest, that the immovable and simple form of things to be done is Providence; but Fate is the movable nexus and temporal order of those things which divine simplicity has disposed to be done. Hence it appears how disgracefully the ancient Philosophers wandered from the truth, who judged Fate to be a certain eternal and immutable thing, bringing so great a necessity upon individual things that not even the Gods could free themselves from it. Seneca follows this error, lib. De Providentia, cap. 5, where he speaks thus of fate: Whatever it is that has commanded us so to live, so to die, the same necessity binds even the Gods; irrevocable, it carries alike human and divine things in its course: that very founder and ruler of all things wrote indeed the fates, but follows them; he always obeys, he commanded once: Whence the same author in Oedipo warns:

We are driven by the fates; yield to the fates: Anxious cares cannot Change the threads of the determined spindle. Whatever we suffer, mortal race, Whatever we do comes from on high. Scarcely may God turn those things Which, bound to their causes, run on. For each goes a fixed order, Movable by no prayer.

But this fatal necessity Nemesius learnedly and elegantly rejects from God, cap. 38, where he proves that God does not fall under necessity, nor does his will obey any necessity: for since he is power, and a nature endowed with power, he does nothing of nature by necessity; nor is he constrained by the obligation of law: and all things are contingent to him, even those which are necessary. To show which, he once restrained the course of the Sun and of the Moon, although they are carried necessarily and always in the same way, so that he might show that nothing happens to him necessarily, but that all things are contingent according to his power.

The sense of the Question is whether sins, monsters, and any defects of created will or of a nature going astray are justly and wisely ordered by Divine Providence to some suitable end; that this may appear more evidently

Note 1. From the Seraphic Bonaventure, in 1. dist. 46. q. 5.:

That just as something is said to be healthy in three ways — either subjectively, as an animal is said to be healthy; or dispositively, as a drink is said to be healthful; or ostensively, as healthy urine: so something is said to be orderable in three ways; either as receptive of order, or as dispositive, or as ostensive. As receptive, nothing is orderable except what is a being and some nature; and thus evil is not orderable except per accidens, namely by reason of the good. As dispositive, evil is orderable, but not as a positing disposition, but as a privative one. For order is twofold, namely of nature and of justice. The order of nature is instituted, the order of justice is acquired; but evil deprives the order of a particular nature and, by depriving it, falls into the order of justice, because it offends: whence the ground of ordering, as a disposition in the order of justice, is merit or demerit. As ostensive: evil is orderable and ordered, because it manifests the order of goods by contrast: opposites, however, placed side by side, shine forth more.

Note 2. From the same, q. 6.:

Evil contributes something to the adornment of the universe by accident, not indeed per se, but per accidens. For the adornment of the universe, he says, is partly substantial, that is, as regards being: partly accidental, that is, as regards well-being: as regards the first, evils contribute nothing to adornment, neither per se nor per accidens: but as regards some accidental adornment, well-ordered evils do contribute; not because they are evils, but because they are well ordered: and so per accidens, just as they are ordered per accidens; with that adornment set aside, the universe would still be seemly and perfect, although it would not have this adornment. Evils contribute to this adornment not by reason of themselves but by reason of the subject which is ordered to punishment for the manifestation of divine justice; or by reason of the opposite, because adornment shines more brightly from the presence of evil, just as opposites placed side by side shine forth more, as is commonly said; or by reason of the good elicited, for God made many goods and they were made, which would not have been made unless sin had furnished the occasion, such as those things which were done in our reparation: yet without all these the universe would be complete.

Note 3. From our Alexander of Hales, 1. p. q. 38. art.:

Something cooperates toward the good in three ways. In the first way, as what is per se ordered to the good, like virtue and grace; in another way, as what makes one move more quickly toward the good, like poverty and firmness; in a third way, as a receding opposite contributes to the intensity of its opposite, like the vehemence of cold and of heat, as the cold of snow receding contributes to heat: in this way a receding sin induces the vehemence of sorrow and a greater ardor for doing good, but this is ex consequenti.

These things presupposed, let it be:

First conclusion. — Every sin, even under the formal notion of sin, is subject to divine Providence and is ordered by it to a suitable end. This is common among the distinguished Princes of Theology, for the praised Alexander and Saint Bonaventure plainly affirm that evil is under divine Providence, not as made by it, but inasmuch as it is ordered by it: and Saint Thomas, in 1. distinct. 39. quaest. 2. art. 2., says that evils lie under divine Providence as foreseen and ordered.

Proof 1. By all those texts of Sacred Scripture by which the sins of men are referred to divine counsel, decree, command, impulse, and precept. Thus in lib. 2. Regum, cap. 16, the Lord commanded Semei to curse David: and in cap. 24: Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he stirred up David among them, saying: Go, number Israel. This was the greatest crime of pride. The same thing is evident from countless texts of Sacred Scripture, but most of all from Acts, ch. 2, where the greatest of all sins, namely deicide and the killing of Christ the Lord, is traced back to God's ordering in these words: Him, being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have crucified and slain by the hands of wicked men. And more clearly in cap. 4: There assembled together in this city against your holy child Jesus, whom you have anointed, Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, to do what your hand and your counsel decreed to be done: but it is most certain that God is not the author of sin: therefore it is necessary that those sins be traced back to him only insofar as they are permitted and ordered by him to some good end, and thus be subject to his divine Providence, so that they come to be only when he permits them to be, and neither otherwise, nor elsewhere, nor longer than his divine Providence has judged the permission of sin to be expedient.

Proof 2. By the authority of the holy Fathers, who with one voice affirm that God destines all evils whatsoever to a suitable end; thus Saint Clement of Alexandria, lib. 1. Stromatum, says that it is the greatest argument of divine Providence not to allow vice to remain unprofitable and useless: Thus Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. 8., exclaims: O most wise providence, which converts even evil set before it into an occasion of salvation! For just as the evil will of those brothers of Joseph who pursued him with hatred took occasion for his own administration, and by permitting them out of hatred to sell their brother, took occasion of bringing it about that he should reign: which he also confirms with these words of Psalm. 118: For all things serve you. Thus Basil, homil. 9.: The most provident dispenser of human affairs, God, he says, uses the malice of the demon for our exercise, just as the physician uses the venom of the viper.

But above all others Saint Augustine expends this argument elegantly no less than subtly, in many places, bringing forward various reasons and recounting the various utilities which God draws from the permission of evil; thus on these words of Ps. 7, He has bent his bow and prepared it, and in it he has prepared vessels of death, he says:

It may be asked what the vessels of death are, whether perhaps the heretics; for they too, from the same bow, that is, from the same Scriptures, leap upon souls not to be set aflame with Charity, but to be destroyed with poisons, which does not happen except according to their merits. Therefore this disposition too is to be attributed to divine Providence; not because it makes sinners, but because it orders them once they have sinned; for living by an evil desire through sin, they are wickedly compelled to understand, so that this itself is the punishment of sin; and yet by their death the Faithful of the Catholic Church are roused from sleep as by certain thorns, so that they advance to the understanding of the divine Scriptures;

And in serm. 90., cap. 5., De Diversis: Unless God in earlier ages kept sinners by his patience, whence would so many of the faithful be born today? Other evil men are kept so that good men may be born from them... what! what is more wicked than the devil, and from his wickedness how many good things has God made? The blood of the Redeemer would not be shed for our salvation except through the wickedness of the deserter. And in the preceding c. 4. he had said: As evil men make bad use of good creatures, so the good Creator makes good use of evil men.

Proof by reason. God permits sin precisely insofar as he foresees some good to arise from it, and the permission of such a sin is ordered to the attainment of that good; but to permit sin in this way is to order it by Providence to a suitable end: therefore sin is truly ordered by divine Providence. The major is proved by several texts of Sacred Scripture, most of all by Genesis 45., where it is said that God therefore permitted the selling of Joseph by his brothers, so that, made ruler of Egypt, he might serve their salvation; for Joseph, addressing his brothers, says: Let it not seem hard to you that you sold me into these regions; for God sent me before you into Egypt for your salvation: and a little later: Not by your counsel, but by the will of God, I was sent here, etc. By which he openly confesses that his being sold by his brothers (which was truly a great sin) was ordered by the divine will for this reason, that it might provide for the salvation both of his father and of his brothers. Then, unless God permitted sin with the intention and will of attaining some good, that permission could not be a fruit, nor an effect, of predestination: but this is against the opinion of the holy Fathers, especially Saint Augustine, who in many places affirms that the permission of sin sometimes conduces to the predestination of the Elect; thus, weighing those words of Paul, Rom. 8., All things work together for good to those who, according to his purpose, are called Saints, he adds: even sin; for the predestined, from a fall, rise again more humble, more cautious, and more fervent. Finally, that mode of willing is to be attributed to God which is more fitting to his Wisdom, Goodness, and Omnipotence; but it is more fitting to God to will the permission of sin for the sake of some good arising from it, than merely to permit it because he is not bound to hinder it and ought to do no violence to free causes: therefore the permission of sin for the sake of some good emerging from it is more fitting to God.

You will say 1. From Saint Augustine, lib. De natura boni, cap. 4., Evil is the privation of mode, species, and order: but no privation shares in the notion of that of which it is a privation: therefore if evil, from its formal notion, is the privation of order, it cannot be ordered by divine Providence.

I distinguish the major. Saint Bonaventure, in 1. dist. 46. q. 5., concedes that evil is the privation of the order concerning a particular nature; denies that it is the privation of the order concerning the disposition of universal Providence: for, as Boethius says, Order embraces all things, so that if anyone departs from the assigned notion of his order, it is necessary that he fall back into another class. Or as our Alexander of Hales says, q. 38. n. 2. art. 1.: It must be said that there is an order of particular and universal nature, that is, an order of nature or of providence; but evil is the privation of the particular order, that is, of the order of nature: not of the universal order, that is, of the order of Providence.

You will say 2. What is nothing is not orderable, for to be ordered presupposes being: but sin, from its formal notion, is a non-being and nothing: therefore it is not orderable.

I distinguish the major. What is nothing is not orderable per se and in itself, I concede: per accidens and with respect to another, I deny. And with the minor likewise distinguished, the consequence is to be denied.

You will say 3. What is orderable falls under the power of the one ordering; but sin is not subject to the power of God, because God cannot produce sin: therefore neither can he order it.

I distinguish the major. The Seraphic Bonaventure, ibid.: the orderable is subject to the power of the one ordering as producing, or as providing, he concedes; as producing only, he denies. He likewise distinguishes the minor: sin is not subject to the producing power of God, he concedes; to the ordering power, he denies.

You will say 4. From the cited Saint Augustine, Everything ordered, inasmuch as it is such, is good; but in no way can sin be good: therefore neither can it have the notion of the orderable.

The Master of the Sentences answers, dist. 46. That the acceptation of good is fourfold: for, he says, there is something which is good in itself and for him to whom it is done, but is not good for the one doing it, as when alms are given for vainglory; secondly, there is something good in itself and for the one doing it, but not for him to whom it is done, as when the Gospel is preached from the motive of charity to a man hardened and resisting; thirdly, there is something good in itself and for the one doing it and for him to whom it is done, as when the Gospel is preached from the motive of charity to a believing man; fourthly, finally, there is something which is in itself not good, and harms and damns the one doing it unless he repents, like sin, yet it profits another and serves for some good.

I distinguish the minor. That sin can in no way be good, neither for the one doing it nor for him against whom it is done, of itself and per se, I concede: occasionally, per accidens, and by reason of its ordering to a good, I deny.

Second conclusion. — Every defect of morals and of nature is ordered by divine Providence to the beauty and adornment of the universe, at least per accidens. This is the more common view among Theologians, and it is defended by Alexander of Hales, quaest. 40., membro 3: St. Bonaventure, dist. 46., q. 6.; and St. Thomas, Contra Gentes, cap. 61., where he says:

There are many goods in things which would have no place unless evils existed; just as there would be no patience of the just if there were no malice of the persecutors, nor would there be a place for vindicative Justice if there were no offenses. In natural things too, there would be no generation of one thing unless there were corruption of another: if, therefore, evil were totally excluded from the universe of things by divine Providence, the multitude of goods would also have to be diminished.

Proof. First of all by the authority of St. Ambrose, lib. 3. Exameron, c. 9., who, when he had objected to himself:

Why, along with useful things, are even lethal and pernicious things generated? with the wheat, hemlock? why is something noxious found among the foodstuffs of life? and unless it has been cut away, it is accustomed to harm health; among the other nutrients of life hellebore is also found; aconites too frequently deceive and delude the one who gathers them.

He answers:

Each of them is generated purely in the earth, and has a certain special purpose, by which, to the extent of its share, it completes the beauty of the whole creation; some therefore are born for food, some for drink, some for another use: nothing is empty: the earth germinates nothing in vain. What you think useless is useful to others; indeed, it is often useful to you yourself for another use: what does not help as food suggests medicine: and often the very things that are harmful to you supply harmless pasture to birds or wild beasts. Finally, starlings feed on hemlock, and it does them no harm, because by the balance of their own body they escape the poison of the lethal juice... Moreover, experts say that hellebore is even food for quails, because by a certain natural temperament of their body they avoid the force of the harmful food.

St. Augustine lucidly develops this truth in lib. 11. De Civit. c. 18.¹ where he shows that the beauty of the universe, through God's ordination, appears more luminous from the opposition of contraries:

For neither, he says, would God create anyone — I do not say of the angels, but even of men — whom He had foreknown would be evil, unless He equally knew to what uses of the good He might turn them; and thus He would adorn the order of the ages as a most beautiful poem, even out of certain quasi-antitheses as it were.

Having adduced, moreover, several examples of opposites from St. Paul, he adds: Just as, therefore, these contraries set against contraries give beauty to speech: so, by a certain eloquence not of words but of things, the beauty of the age is composed out of the opposition of contraries. This is most openly set down in the book of Ecclesiasticus in this manner; against evil there is good, and against death there is life; so also against a just man there is a sinner, and so look upon all the works of the Most High, two and two, and one against one: as if Ecclesiasticus were saying that divine Providence and the beauty of the world shine forth most of all from the combination of contraries and the concordant discord of adversaries: just as the charm of a painting arises from the pleasing commixture and tempering of shadow and light and of diverse colors: and just as music more sweetly delights the ears from the consonance of dissonant voices.

The Stoics object in Lactantius, lib. 1. De Ira Dei, cap. 13.:

What utility, pray, can be found in mice, in cockroaches, in serpents, which are troublesome and pernicious to man? Does some medicine lie hidden in these? If there is one, it will be found sometime: namely, against evils.... They say that a viper, burnt and reduced to ashes, heals the bite of the same beast. How much better had it been for it not to exist at all, than for a remedy against itself to be sought from it?

Lactantius answers in the same place. That God for this reason created many things harmful to man, so that man might have room to exercise the wisdom implanted in him by God:

He set before him, he says, good and evil, because He gave him wisdom, whose whole rationale consists in discerning evils and goods; for no one can choose the better things and know what is good, unless he knows at the same time to reject and avoid what is evil.... Therefore, just as innumerable goods were given to man which he might enjoy; so also evils which he might beware. For if there were no evil and no danger; nothing, in short, that could harm man, all the matter of wisdom is removed, nor will it be necessary for man: for if only goods are set before one's view, what need is there of thought, understanding, knowledge, reason.... You see, therefore, that wisdom is needed all the more on account of evils, and unless they had been set before us, we would not be a rational animal.

They object 2. Epicurus in the same place:

God, he says, either wills to take away evils and cannot: or can and does not will: or neither wills nor can: or both wills and can. If He wills and cannot, He is weak, which does not befit God: if He can and does not will, He is envious, which is likewise alien to God: if He neither wills nor can, He is both envious and weak, and therefore not God: if He wills and can, which alone befits God: whence then are evils, or why does He not take them away?

Lactantius answers in the same place. This argument indeed presses most of the Philosophers so much that some of them confess that God cares for nothing; but it is easily dissolved:

For God, he says, can do whatever He wills, and yet there is in Him no weakness or envy; He can therefore take away evils, but He does not will it, nor is He on that account envious; for He does not take them away for this reason, because He likewise bestowed wisdom (as I have taught) at the same time, and there is more of good and delight in wisdom than of annoyance in evils. For wisdom makes us know even God, and through that knowledge to attain immortality, which is the highest good. And so, unless we first acknowledge evil, we shall not be able to acknowledge good either; but Epicurus did not see this, nor anyone else: if evils are taken away, wisdom is likewise taken away, nor would any traces of virtue remain in man, whose whole rationale consists in enduring and overcoming the bitterness of evils.

You will ask. Would the world be more perfect, if there were in it no defects of nature and of morals?

St. Bonaventure denies it, in 1. dist. 46. q. 6. art. 1. and with him several other Princes of Theology. He brings forward the reason: Because God made many good things, and they were made, which would not have been made unless sin had furnished the occasion, such as those things which were done in our reparation: yet without all these the universe would be complete. And when he had asked whether the present beauty of the Universe surpasses the beauty of the same under the state of innocence, if it had persevered: he concludes that the present adornment excels:

And the reason for this is, he says, because the divine power eliciting good from evil is more powerful than evil: and therefore the good which it elicits thence prevails over the good which evil corrupts; and therefore the Universe is worth more now than it would have been worth then.... There is an example of a sound cup, which is broken and bound back together with a silver or golden thread, because it is better after than before; not by reason of the breaking, but by reason of the binding back.

It is confirmed. from St. Augustine in the Enchiridio cap. 10. and 11.:

From all things, he says, consists the admirable beauty of the Universe, in which even that which is called evil, well ordered and placed in its own position, more eminently commends the good, so that good things please more and are more praiseworthy when they are compared with evils. For neither would God omnipotent (which even the infidels confess, to whom belongs the highest power of things), since He is supremely good, in any way allow there to be anything evil in His works, unless He were so far omnipotent and good as to do good even out of evil.

With these words St. Augustine says that the defects not only of nature, but also of morals, contribute to the adornment of the Universe, so that its beauty may appear the more from this. St. Anselm lucidly develops the very same thing in the Elucidario, where he speaks thus of the evil Angels: Since God foreknew that they would be such, why did He create them? He answers: for the adornment of His work, for just as a painter lays down black color beneath, so that white or red may be more precious: so by the comparison of evils the just become more brilliant.

You will say. From this it only follows that the universe is more excellent according to appearance, but not according to existence, namely insofar as good things shine forth more clearly by the comparison of evils: therefore, simpliciter and according to the truth of the matter, the Universe ought not to be judged more excellent on account of the defects of morals and of nature.

I deny the antecedent. For evils placed next to goods exhibit them as more commendable, not only according to appearance, but also according to existence, for a twofold reason. First, because many goods are gathered from those defects; of which kind are the manifestation of divine Mercy, Justice, Wisdom, etc., as well as the excellent virtues of the Christian Religion, penance, martyrdom, and the exercises of outstanding Charity. Second, because the very appearance itself conduces to existence and to the truth of the matter, insofar as from those defects men strive to attain evangelical perfection, which shines forth most of all in humility and lowliness of mind.

You will say 2. The good of which those defects deprive us is of greater perfection than the good which is acquired on the occasion of those defects: therefore the universe would be more excellent without those defects. The antecedent is proved, since innocence is a greater good than penance.

I deny the antecedent. And to its proof I say that, although innocence considered in itself is a greater good; nevertheless in order to the Universe and to its integrity, sweetness, order, and proportion, a greater good is the collection of many virtues and gifts, which would not exist if such defects had not been present.

Since a fourfold office and work of divine Providence can be distinguished, namely the conservation of creatures, cooperation with the same agents, the due ordering of these same things to an end, and the execution of this ordering; it is asked at present whether God performs these four offices per se and immediately: or whether he assumes some creature into the lot and share of performing any of these offices.

Note 1. It is certain that God creates all things by his immediate power; for although he uses certain creatures for the formation and generation of others, nevertheless he has an immediate influx of his power upon them, as all those texts of Sacred Scripture indicate which expressly proclaim God the Author and Artificer of all things. Thus Iob. 10. Your hands, Lord, have made me and formed me wholly, etc. Ps. 138. You formed me and laid your hand upon me. Ieremiae 1. Before I formed you in the womb: whence rightly that most unconquered mother of the seven Maccabees, exhorting her sons to undergo a noble martyrdom, speaks thus, Mach. 1. 2. c. 7: I know not how you appeared in my womb: for neither did I give you spirit and soul, nor did I myself join together the life and the members of each one: but the Creator of the world, who formed the birth of man, found out the origin of all things.

Note 2. It is certain that the ordering of all things to an end suitable to them is immediately from God; for Providence, as we have said with Boethius, is that very divine reason established in the supreme Prince of all things by which he disposes all things; and so that ordering is an internal act of the divine will, and consequently proceeds immediately from God himself; for God immediately and per se alone proposed to himself the ends which he willed, and to them he established and decreed the means, or quasi-means, which he chose or permitted. It is likewise certain that he does not execute all things per se alone, but for certain things he joins to himself the concurrence of other causes, whether because the concurrence of those causes seems so necessary to the work, as respiration and nutrition to the conservation of life; or because out of liberality he deigns to communicate the notion of cause to things, and to take them into a share of governance and execution. But in what manner this is done, and which things he uses for the conservation of others, will have to be resolved here.

Note 3. Although it is certain that God provides for all things, nevertheless his care for individual things is not the same, nor is the ordering the same; for a twofold Providence of his can be distinguished, namely Sufficient and Favorable: the former is called that by which God orders all things to an end suitable and designated by his Wisdom, whether meanwhile that end redounds to the private good of the very thing which is ordered, or to the good of the Universe, or of another special creature for whose utility or adornment such an ordering is made. The latter, however, is called that by which God orders certain things to their own private good and to an end suitable and favorable to them. It is certain, however, that God does not provide so favorably to just any things; for there are some things which are ordered to others with their own loss, as food and drink to the nutrition of animals, and the brute animals themselves to the utility and convenience of men: whence he is said to provide favorably only to intellectual creatures, for he orders those alone to an end suitable and favorable to them, namely to eternal life. With these things premised, three things are to be resolved. First: Whether God truly conserves creatures immediately and per se. Second: Whether he operates per se and with immediate concurrence with their agents. Third: Which creatures he uses for the conservation and direction of others to an end; namely, whether the lower sometimes serve the higher, or rather the higher serve the lower.

First conclusion. — Divine Providence conserves all things per se and from its formal notion for as long a time as it judges to be fitting.

This conclusion is proved. first indeed from that passage of Sapientiae 11. How could anything remain unless you willed it? or what was not called by you be preserved? This calling, however, is that very divine command by which he commands things to be preserved, just as he also commanded that they be made, according to that saying: He calls those things which are not as those which are. That very thing St. Paul expressly explains in Hebraeorum 1, where he speaks thus of the Divine Word: Who being the brightness of his glory and the figure of his substance, and carrying all things by the word of his power; that is, as the Master of the Sentences interprets in his commentary on the same place: Carrying, that is, containing and governing all things: by the Word, that is, by his command alone: of his power, that is, of his power and of his charity, which appears no less in governing than in creating. With him Primasius agrees:

The Word of God the Father, he says, carries all things which he made by the word of his power, that is, he governs and rules all things by the power of his might and by the word of his command: for to govern the world is not less than to have created it; for in creating, the substances of things were produced from nothing; but in governing, those things which have been made are contained lest they return to nothing.

Or, as St. Thomas better interprets the same place: By the word of his power, that is, by himself, who is the omnipotent Word. Finally, the same Apostle says to the Colossians 1: All things were created through him and in him, and he is before all, and all things hold together in him, that is, as St. Anselm interprets the same place: All things hold together in him, who just as he created all things, so he contains and rules all things. All things hold together in him, because according to the immensity of his uncircumscribed and incomprehensible Divinity all things are within him, and lest they return to nothing they hold together through him: Or as St. Chrysostom weighs it, Homily 3. Not only did he produce them from nothing so that they might be; but the same he even now conserves and protects them: so that if they were deprived of his care, they would soon perish and be corrupted.

The same truth is proved by reason. We must reason about the conservation of things in the same manner as about their creation: but of creation God alone is the author and Artificer: therefore likewise of conservation. The major is that of the Subtle Doctor, who in 2. dist. 2. qu. 1. num. 9. says with St. Bonaventure that conservation is a continuous creation; so that the same divine action is called Creation, inasmuch as it coexists with the first instant of the existence of the thing: but it is called Conservation, inasmuch as it coexists with the other parts of the time in which that thing endures. — Next, creatures depend essentially on God: but they would not so depend if they needed his influx only for their creation, and not for their conservation: therefore they need the divine influx for both. The major is clear. The minor is proved: If creatures depended on the influx of God only in the first instant of their production, it would follow that through eternity their being would subsist independently of the divine influx itself; and so they would not be essentially dependent on him, but only per accidens; for dependence according to the first instant of their existence is related per accidens to existence and duration in the following instants, or in eternity itself. — Finally, if things, especially the incorruptible ones, for example Angels and rational souls, did not depend on the continuous influx of God in being conserved, it would follow that God could not destroy them and reduce them to nothing: but the consequence is absurd; therefore also that from which it follows. The consequence is clear, for those spiritual creatures cannot be destroyed by any positive thing repugnant to their life and subsistence; because just as they do not depend on any created influx, so neither can anything created be destructive of them: it remains, therefore, that they can be destroyed only by the subtraction of concurrence. Whence the Doctor rightly in 4. dist. 1. qu. 1. n. 33.: I say that to annihilate belongs to God alone, because to annihilate is not to act positively, but not to act, that is, not to conserve; but to conserve the whole creature, and totally, belongs to God alone.

You will say. The effects and works of divine Providence are of more vigorous power and of more perfect entity than the works and effects of creatures: but these do not need the continuous influx of their maker, for a house subsists even when the builder is dead; a lion that has been born has no need of the lion that begot it in order to subsist, and a son keeps his life intact even when his Father has died; therefore neither do those need a conserver.

I answer 1. that the reason is not the same concerning the efficacy and the works of divine Providence and of creatures; for that one is the principal, fontal and first cause from which creatures borrow whatever activity and power they have; these, however, are only subservient, secondary and less principal causes: whence it is no wonder if the effects which require the influx of those causes together with the influx of the first cause for their production, do not need that very influx for their conservation, because they can subsist through the influx of the first cause alone. Hence the dependence of effects on the first cause and on the second is not the same; for from the latter they depend only accidentally, for a son begotten by one father could have been begotten by another, and a house built by one craftsman could also have been built by another: but from the former they depend so essentially that they would in no way exist if God did not concur to their production. Whence in form: The effects of divine Providence are more excellent than the effects of creatures, according to the more excellent grades of perfection, I concede; for the fabric of the whole world far exceeds the structure of any most famous Palace: according to lesser dependence, I deny; because effects depend essentially on divine Providence; but on creatures only accidentally.

From these gather. That God, even by his extraordinary power, cannot produce any creature of such power and perfection that it can subsist independently of his influx, because it is essential to every creature to depend on God, both for its production and for its conservation. Nor does it matter that God is omnipotent; for as our Alexander of Hales observes, quaest. 26. membro 5. art. 1., there are certain things which God cannot bring about, which rather strengthen and commend the divine power. Whence, he says:

that he cannot sin, that he cannot make any creature equal to himself, that he cannot confer on a creature that it be sufficient to rule itself; this does not give impotence to God, but rather power. Whence just as it would detract from his power to posit some creature from itself; so it detracts from Wisdom, or Goodness, to posit that a creature be sufficient for its own rule. Whence that a creature cannot rule itself is not from the impotence of God, but from the impotence of nature; which cannot receive so great a power.

Second conclusion. — Divine Providence immediately concurs in all the operations of creatures. This conclusion already remains sufficiently and more than sufficiently proved by the philosophical reasons in our Physics, when treating of the divine concurrence: and it only remains to strengthen it with theological considerations.

And so St. Augustine proves it 1. from that oracle of Christ the Lord: My Father works until now, and I work. Which text he thus weighs, lib. 5. De Genesi ad litteram cap. 20:

There are, he says, those who think that only the world itself was made by God, and that the rest is now done by the world itself, just as he ordered and commanded; but that God himself does nothing: Against whom that sentence of the Lord is brought forth, My Father works until now: and lest anyone should think that he works something within himself, not in this world: The Father remaining in me, he says, does his works: and as the Father raises the dead and gives life, so the Son gives life to whom he wills, etc.

With him St. Chrysostom agrees, Homil. 37. in Ioannem:

But if you should ask how the Father works, since on the seventh day he rested from all his work; understand how he provides for, contains, and tempers all things which he made. When therefore you see the rising Sun, the course of the Moon, the pools, the springs, the rivers, the power of nature, the progress of seeds in our bodies and in the bodies of brutes, and all the other things of which this whole universe consists: understand the perpetual operation of the Father.

St. Augustine had also weighed the same difficulty in book 4. De Genesi ad litteram cap. 12, explaining in what sense God is said to have rested on the seventh day and nevertheless to work: It can be understood, he says, that God rested from founding the kinds of creatures, because he no longer founded any new kinds beyond that: but from then on until now and beyond he operates the administration of those same kinds which were then instituted, etc.

The same St. Augustine proves secondly from that passage of Actorum 7. In him we live, and move, and are. With which words the Apostle embraces the production, conservation and operation of creatures; which words St. Augustine, weighing in book 4. De Genesi ad litteram capite 12, says: That which the Apostle says, in him we live, and move, and are, clearly thought out as far as the human mind can, helps this sentence which we believe and say, that God in those things which he created ceaselessly operates, Then, opening in what manner the aforesaid context of the Apostle is to be understood of the works of Providence, he adds:

Believe therefore that God has not ceased for even one day from the work of ruling what he created, lest they should immediately lose their natural motions by which they are driven and given life, and altogether cease to be anything, if that motion of the wiser God were withdrawn from them by which he disposes all things sweetly.

With him Origen agrees, book 1. Periarchon capite 1. How, he says, do we live and move and are in God, unless because by his power he binds and contains the whole world?

Thirdly: St. Jerome confirms this same truth by several texts of Sacred Scripture in the Epistola ad Ctesiphontem; for, inveighing against him because, in order to defend human free choice, he spurned the help of God, he says:

Hear, I beg you, hear the sacrilegious man. If, he says, I shall will to bend my finger, to move my hand, to sit, to stand, to walk, etc., will the help of God always be necessary for me? Hear, ungrateful one, indeed sacrilegious one, the Apostle preaching: whether you eat, or whether you drink, or whether you do anything else, do all things in the name of the Lord, etc.

Finally, Anastasius Sinaita proves the same truth in book 2. De rectis fidei dogmatibus, from that passage of Psalm. 138. Where shall I go from your spirit, etc. From that, he says, the Prophet refutes the error of those whom it escaped that the actions of God pervade all things everywhere, and that there is no particle of any matter whatever which is not a work of God. The objections which are brought forth against this conclusion by Durandus in 2. dist. 1. q. 5. we have already solved in the Physics; therefore let it be

Third conclusion. — God uses not only lower creatures for the conservation of the higher: but also the higher for the rule and tutelage of the lower. This is common among Theologians, and St. Augustine proves it in book 8. De Genesi ad litteram capite 9, where he distinguishes a twofold operation of divine Providence:

In it also, he says, a twofold operation of Providence is found, partly natural, partly voluntary; natural indeed, through the hidden administration of God which gives increase even to woods and herbs; voluntary, however, through the works of Angels and of men. According to that first operation, the celestial things are ordered above, and the terrestrial below, the luminaries and stars shine, the changes of day and night are driven, the earth founded on the waters is washed within and around, the air is spread over the higher regions, shrubs and animals are conceived and born, grow and grow old, die, and whatever else is done in things by an internal and natural motion. In this other, however, signs are given, taught and learned, fields are cultivated, societies are administered, arts are exercised; and whatever other things are done either in the heavenly society, or in this earthly and mortal one, so that provision is made for the good even through the unknowing wicked, etc.

With which words St. Augustine expressly affirms that God provides for things not only through the lower for the higher, but also through the higher for the lower. Concerning the lower, indeed, no cause of doubting remains, since all material and corporeal creatures whatsoever, whether living or devoid of life, serve man and minister to him either for food, or for clothing, or for utility, or for delight. But neither should there be doubt concerning the higher, since the Angels, than whom we are lesser, are deputed by God to our custody, for they are all ministering spirits, sent into ministry for the sake of those who receive the inheritance of salvation.

You will say. To provide through another argues imperfection in the Provider, for a King therefore provides for his whole kingdom not per se but through his Ministers, because he can be present to each one neither by knowledge, nor by power, nor by presence. But such a defect is unseemly for God: therefore he provides for all creatures not through others, but by himself immediately.

Our Alexander of Hales answers, quaest. 26. art. 2. ad 2. That to provide through another can be from a threefold cause:

either from the defect of him who ought to provide, or from the defect of him to whom provision ought to be made, or from the part of him through whom the provision is made. On the part of the provider, as when he is not able per se to accomplish what he wills, as is clear in the example given of the King. On the part of him to whom provision ought to be made, thus divine Providence administers lower creatures through higher ones, because the lower, on account of their defect, are not immediately susceptible of divine action, as is clear in the eye, which, not being able to see the Sun in the wheel, sees it in the middle, namely in water, or in a mirror. Similarly, the Providence of God administers lower creatures through higher ones, but rational creatures per se, and also certain ones through others, as men through Angels and other Angels through others. Likewise, for the utility of him through whom the providence is, provision is made through another, as God wills that the poor be administered to by the rich for the utility of the rich; he wills also that some be taught through others. By these two last reasons God provides through others, but not by the first reason, because that is not from a defect which is in God: but on account of the defect of the creature to which it is administered, or on account of the utility of him through whom others are administered to, or provided for.

You will ask. How many and which are the fruits of divine Providence to be gathered from its consideration by good men.

I answer. that chiefly four are numbered by Lessius, cap. 9. De Providentia. The first is a great solace of the soul and a pleasant tranquility of mind amid the varied agitation and perturbation of things. For when each one weighs that all things which happen, whether good or evil, occur only with God so ordaining, he easily contains all his own motions, thinking that none of these things would come to be unless God specially permitted it; but he would not permit it, unless most just reasons were available to him, and so unless it were better to permit it than to hinder it. Refreshed by this very thought, St. Job, when he had heard of the loss of all his goods, burst into these splendid words: The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away. David weighed that very thing when he said: My soul refused to be comforted; I remembered God, and was delighted.

The second fruit is the grateful acceptance of all adversities as well, and also the repression and restraint of all murmuring; for we easily acquiesce in the divine ordering while with an attentive mind we weigh that God, most wisely, most kindly and for the most just reasons, sends or permits all those annoyances of body or of mind which sometimes befall us, and which conduce either to the exercise of virtues, or to the punishment of sins, or to the attainment of eternal happiness: for that which is momentary and light in our tribulation works in us an eternal weight of glory, above measure, into sublimity. When one has weighed these reasons, he compresses all the motions of murmuring.

Thirdly, that very consideration of divine Providence removes the anxious solicitude for the things of this life, for as Christ the Savior rightly warns, Matth. 6.:

Be not solicitous for your soul, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the soul more than food, and the body more than clothing? Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them: are not you of much more value than they?

Whence he concludes: Be not therefore solicitous, saying: What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or with what shall we be covered? For after all these things do the nations seek. For your Father knows that you have need of all these things.

Whence the Royal Psalmist admonished: Cast your care upon the Lord, and he himself will nourish you. St. Peter repeats that very thing, primae 5. cap.: Casting all your solicitude upon him, he says, for he has care of you.

Fourthly and finally, this very thought of divine Providence brings the greatest constancy and confidence of soul amid perils pressing upon us. For since God has care of all, especially of the pious, and nothing can be done without his nod and counsel, there is nothing for us to fear, whether the terrors of raging men, or the snares of demons, or anything else troublesome to be inflicted by any creature. Armed and animated by this very consideration as by an impenetrable shield, the Royal Psalmist said, Psal. 28. The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the Protector of my life, etc. And rightly indeed, as St. Augustine weighs it: For the Emperor is protected by shield-bearers and does not fear; a mortal is protected by mortals and is secure; and a mortal protected by the Immortal, will he fear and tremble?