Whether the Will of God Is Changeable?
Objection 1: It seems that the will of God is changeable. For the Lord
says (Gen. 6:7): "It repenteth Me that I have made man." But whoever
repents of what he has done, has a changeable will. Therefore God has
a changeable will.
Obj. 2: Further, it is said in the person of the Lord: "I will speak
against a nation and against a kingdom, to root out, and to pull
down, and to destroy it; but if that nation shall repent of its evil,
I also will repent of the evil that I have thought to do to them"
(Jer. 18:7, 8). Therefore God has a changeable will.
Obj. 3: Further, whatever God does, He does voluntarily. But God does
not always do the same thing, for at one time He ordered the law to
be observed, and at another time forbade it. Therefore He has a
changeable will.
Obj. 4: Further, God does not will of necessity what He wills, as
said before (A. 3). Therefore He can both will and not will the
same thing. But whatever can incline to either of two opposites, is
changeable substantially; and that which can exist in a place or not
in that place, is changeable locally. Therefore God is changeable as
regards His will.
_On the contrary,_ It is said: "God is not as a man, that He should lie,
nor as the son of man, that He should be changed" (Num. 23:19).
_I answer that,_ The will of God is entirely unchangeable. On this
point we must consider that to change the will is one thing; to will
that certain things should be changed is another. It is possible to
will a thing to be done now, and its contrary afterwards; and yet for
the will to remain permanently the same: whereas the will would be
changed, if one should begin to will what before he had not willed;
or cease to will what he had willed before. This cannot happen,
unless we presuppose change either in the knowledge or in the
disposition of the substance of the willer. For since the will
regards good, a man may in two ways begin to will a thing. In one way
when that thing begins to be good for him, and this does not take
place without a change in him. Thus when the cold weather begins, it
becomes good to sit by the fire; though it was not so before. In
another way when he knows for the first time that a thing is good for
him, though he did not know it before; hence we take counsel in order
to know what is good for us. Now it has already been shown that both
the substance of God and His knowledge are entirely unchangeable (QQ.
9, A. 1; 14, A. 15). Therefore His will must be entirely unchangeable.
Reply Obj. 1: These words of the Lord are to be understood
metaphorically, and according to the likeness of our nature. For when
we repent, we destroy what we have made; although we may even do so
without change of will; as, when a man wills to make a thing, at the
same time intending to destroy it later. Therefore God is said to
have repented, by way of comparison with our mode of acting, in so
far as by the deluge He destroyed from the face of the earth man whom
He had made.
Reply Obj. 2: The will of God, as it is the first and universal
cause, does not exclude intermediate causes that have power to
produce certain effects. Since however all intermediate causes are
inferior in power to the first cause, there are many things in the
divine power, knowledge and will that are not included in the order
of inferior causes. Thus in the case of the raising of Lazarus, one
who looked only on inferior causes might have said: "Lazarus will not
rise again," but looking at the divine first cause might have said:
"Lazarus will rise again." And God wills both: that is, that in the
order of the inferior cause a thing shall happen; but that in the
order of the higher cause it shall not happen; or He may will
conversely. We may say, then, that God sometimes declares that a
thing shall happen according as it falls under the order of inferior
causes, as of nature, or merit, which yet does not happen as not
being in the designs of the divine and higher cause. Thus He foretold
to Ezechias: "Take order with thy house, for thou shalt die, and not
live" (Isa. 38:1). Yet this did not take place, since from eternity it
was otherwise disposed in the divine knowledge and will, which is
unchangeable. Hence Gregory says (Moral. xvi, 5): "The sentence of
God changes, but not His counsel"--that is to say, the counsel of His
will. When therefore He says, "I also will repent," His words must be
understood metaphorically. For men seem to repent, when they do not
fulfill what they have threatened.
Reply Obj. 3: It does not follow from this argument that God has a
will that changes, but that He sometimes wills that things should
change.
Reply Obj. 4: Although God's willing a thing is not by absolute
necessity, yet it is necessary by supposition, on account of the
unchangeableness of the divine will, as has been said above (A. 3).
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