Whether the Will of God Is the Cause of Things?
Objection 1: It seems that the will of God is not the cause of things.
For Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv, 1): "As our sun, not by reason nor
by pre-election, but by its very being, enlightens all things that can
participate in its light, so the divine good by its very essence pours
the rays of goodness upon everything that exists." But every voluntary
agent acts by reason and pre-election. Therefore God does not act by
will; and so His will is not the cause of things.
Obj. 2: Further, The first in any order is that which is essentially
so, thus in the order of burning things, that comes first which is
fire by its essence. But God is the first agent. Therefore He acts by
His essence; and that is His nature. He acts then by nature, and not
by will. Therefore the divine will is not the cause of things.
Obj. 3: Further, Whatever is the cause of anything, through being
_such_ a thing, is the cause by nature, and not by will. For fire is
the cause of heat, as being itself hot; whereas an architect is the
cause of a house, because he wills to build it. Now Augustine says (De
Doctr. Christ. i, 32), "Because God is good, we exist." Therefore God
is the cause of things by His nature, and not by His will.
Obj. 4: Further, Of one thing there is one cause. But the [cause of]
created things is the knowledge of God, as said before (Q. 14, A. 8).
Therefore the will of God cannot be considered the cause of things.
_On the contrary,_ It is said (Wis. 11:26), "How could anything endure,
if Thou wouldst not?"
_I answer that,_ We must hold that the will of God is the cause of
things; and that He acts by the will, and not, as some have supposed,
by a necessity of His nature.
This can be shown in three ways: First, from the order itself of
active causes. Since both intellect and nature act for an end, as
proved in _Phys._ ii, 49, the natural agent must have the end and the
necessary means predetermined for it by some higher intellect; as the
end and definite movement is predetermined for the arrow by the
archer. Hence the intellectual and voluntary agent must precede the
agent that acts by nature. Hence, since God is first in the order of
agents, He must act by intellect and will.
This is shown, secondly, from the character of a natural agent, of
which the property is to produce one and the same effect; for nature
operates in one and the same way unless it be prevented. This is
because the nature of the act is according to the nature of the agent;
and hence as long as it has that nature, its acts will be in
accordance with that nature; for every natural agent has a determinate
being. Since, then, the Divine Being is undetermined, and contains in
Himself the full perfection of being, it cannot be that He acts by a
necessity of His nature, unless He were to cause something
undetermined and indefinite in being: and that this is impossible has
been already shown (Q. 7, A. 2). He does not, therefore, act by a
necessity of His nature, but determined effects proceed from His own
infinite perfection according to the determination of His will and
intellect.
Thirdly, it is shown by the relation of effects to their cause. For
effects proceed from the agent that causes them, in so far as they
pre-exist in the agent; since every agent produces its like. Now
effects pre-exist in their cause after the mode of the cause.
Wherefore since the Divine Being is His own intellect, effects
pre-exist in Him after the mode of intellect, and therefore proceed
from Him after the same mode. Consequently, they proceed from Him
after the mode of will, for His inclination to put in act what His
intellect has conceived appertains to the will. Therefore the will of
God is the cause of things.
Reply Obj. 1: Dionysius in these words does not intend to exclude
election from God absolutely; but only in a certain sense, in so far,
that is, as He communicates His goodness not merely to certain
things, but to all; and as election implies a certain distinction.
Reply Obj. 2: Because the essence of God is His intellect and will,
from the fact of His acting by His essence, it follows that He acts
after the mode of intellect and will.
Reply Obj. 3: Good is the object of the will. The words, therefore,
"Because God is good, we exist," are true inasmuch as His goodness is
the reason of His willing all other things, as said before (A. 2, ad
2).
Reply Obj. 4: Even in us the cause of one and the same effect is
knowledge as directing it, whereby the form of the work is conceived,
and will as commanding it, since the form as it is in the intellect
only is not determined to exist or not to exist in the effect, except
by the will. Hence, the speculative intellect has nothing to say to
operation. But the power is cause, as executing the effect, since it
denotes the immediate principle of operation. But in God all these
things are one.
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