Summa summae S. Thomae, Tomus II

Note that it is one thing for the will to act or to will, another for the will to move itself. The will is said to act simply, when it elicits a volition. It is said properly to move itself, when it passes from one act into another, as while from volition of the end it applies itself to acting for its attainment; for each thing moves insofar as it is in act. These things noted,

I say 1°: The will moves itself as to exercise in certain acts¹.

Proof. The end holds itself in desirable things as the principle in intelligibles. But the intellect, by the fact that it knows the principle, reduces itself from potency into act, as to the knowledge of conclusions, and in this mode moves itself. Therefore similarly the will, by the fact that it wills the end, moves itself to willing those things which are unto the end.

You will say, according to the common axiom: « Whatever is moved is moved by another. » Therefore the will is not moved by itself.

I answer. I deny the consequence. Because self-moving and being moved by another stand together. « When something moves itself, says the Author, q. 3 de Malo, a. 2, ad 4, it is not excluded that it be moved by another, from which it has this very thing that it move itself, namely from God. »

I say 2°: The will, in the first volition of the end simply and with respect to the whole of life, does not move itself as to exercise, but is moved by God².

Proof 1°. What is in potency needs to be moved by what is in act; because, as I already said, a thing moves insofar as it is in act, and is moved insofar as it is in potency. But the will with respect to the first volition simply is not in act, otherwise it would not be first volition. Therefore.

2°. In every life, the first motion of that life is from the generator, as appears in the motion of the heart. But God is author and begetter of intellectual life. Therefore the first motion of that life, namely the first cognition of the intellect and the first volition of the will, is specially from God.

Beware however lest thence you infer that God moves the will only unto the first volition, and not unto its other volitions. Indeed he moves unto the first volition with a special motion which supplies the prior act from which the will would move itself and apply itself to the subsequent act; but moreover, as first mover and first universal cause, he moves the will unto all its volitions, inasmuch as it is a second cause subordinate to the first, of itself indifferent and active only in first act, as is broadly proved in philosophy concerning physical premotion.

You will say: Man can sin in the first instant of reason. Therefore he moves himself in it; otherwise sin would be refunded into God.

I answer. I distinguish the antecedent. Man can sin in the first instant initiating the use of reason; I deny; terminating, I concede. The instant of acquired use of reason through discourse is moral, consisting of several physical instants. In the first, man specially moved by God does not move himself, nor can he sin; in the following, now posited in act, moving himself, he can sin.

I say 3°: The use of reason supposed, when new affairs begin and a new end is intended, unto its first volition thereof the will sometimes moves not itself, but is moved by God, namely when in the will no act preceded having connection with this new end, but there are rather contrary dispositions; as when God specially and suddenly moves an infidel to faith, a sinner to penance³. Sometimes indeed it moves itself, namely when some act or effect preceded having connection with that new affair.

Exposition of a difficult text of St. Thomas.

To many it gives trouble the reply which St. Thomas has here, a. 6, ad 3, wherein he says: « God moves the will of man, as universal mover, to the universal object of the will which is good, and without this universal motion man cannot will anything; but man determines himself by reason to will this or that which is true good or apparent good. Yet sometimes God specially moves some to will something determinately, which is good, as in those whom he moves by grace, as will be said below. » From which reply not a few infer that St. Thomas admits not physical premotion unto all acts, but only unto good ones.

But this understanding diametrically repugns the constant doctrine of St. Thomas in almost innumerable places, nor is it the legitimate [understanding] of the present text. And so by the first motion, in that reply, the holy Doctor understands not that common motion whereby God, as first mover, moves all secondary causes subordinated to himself, and whereby thus secondary causes are moved so as to move themselves; but he understands that singular motion whereby God so moves the will to the first volition of the end that it moves not itself, whereof he had spoken at a. 4, and we said a little above. Indeed St. Thomas calls this motion universal, both because it is of the universal mover, both because it is unto the universal object of the will which is good, both because it is universally necessary to every first agent cause. We however called it above special or singular, not that we might exclude those universals, but that we might signify that it adds something above the common, namely that it supplies the prior act from which the will itself could move itself, which the general or common motion required unto all other actions of secondary causes does not do.

But when the holy Doctor subjoins: « But man determines himself by reason to will this or that which is true good or apparent good, » he excludes not the common motion whereby God, as first mover, so moves secondary causes that they also move themselves, but that singular motion whereby he so moves the will that it move not itself. And thus he satisfies the argument which he objects to himself, namely that « if the will were moved by God alone, it would never be moved to evil. » A distinction must be made. If the will were moved by God alone, so that it would not move itself, it would never be moved to evil; I concede; if it is so moved by God that it also moves itself, I deny. For from the fact that under the common motion of God the will also moves itself, it can move itself to evil or apparent good; and this is refunded into the defectible cause itself, not into the first indefectible, as will be expounded elsewhere.

Finally, when St. Thomas adds: « Yet sometimes God specially moves some to will something determinately, which is good, as in those whom he moves by grace, » the sense is that, as God moves us to good as such without our moving ourselves to it, so sometimes he specially moves us to a determinate particular good, without our moving ourselves to it: as in those whom he moves by operative grace, e.g., infidels to faith, sinners to penance, thinking nothing at all of faith or penance. But this singular motion, as appears from what has been said, excludes neither cooperating graces unto other supernatural acts, nor common motions unto other natural acts, whereby man is so moved that he also moves himself.