Whether the Will of God Imposes Necessity on the Things Willed?
Objection 1: It seems that the will of God imposes necessity on the
things willed. For Augustine says (Enchiridion 103): "No one is saved,
except whom God has willed to be saved. He must therefore be asked to
will it; for if He wills it, it must necessarily be."
Obj. 2: Further, every cause that cannot be hindered, produces its
effect necessarily, because, as the Philosopher says (Phys. ii, 84)
"Nature always works in the same way, if there is nothing to hinder
it." But the will of God cannot be hindered. For the Apostle says
(Rom. 9:19): "Who resisteth His will?" Therefore the will of God
imposes necessity on the things willed.
Obj. 3: Further, whatever is necessary by its antecedent cause is
necessary absolutely; it is thus necessary that animals should die,
being compounded of contrary elements. Now things created by God are
related to the divine will as to an antecedent cause, whereby they
have necessity. For the conditional statement is true that if God
wills a thing, it comes to pass; and every true conditional statement
is necessary. It follows therefore that all that God wills is
necessary absolutely.
_On the contrary,_ All good things that exist God wills to be. If
therefore His will imposes necessity on things willed, it follows that
all good happens of necessity; and thus there is an end of free will,
counsel, and all other such things.
_I answer that,_ The divine will imposes necessity on some things
willed but not on all. The reason of this some have chosen to assign
to intermediate causes, holding that what God produces by necessary
causes is necessary; and what He produces by contingent causes
contingent.
This does not seem to be a sufficient explanation, for two reasons.
First, because the effect of a first cause is contingent on account of
the secondary cause, from the fact that the effect of the first cause
is hindered by deficiency in the second cause, as the sun's power is
hindered by a defect in the plant. But no defect of a secondary cause
can hinder God's will from producing its effect. Secondly, because if
the distinction between the contingent and the necessary is to be
referred only to secondary causes, this must be independent of the
divine intention and will; which is inadmissible. It is better
therefore to say that this happens on account of the efficacy of the
divine will. For when a cause is efficacious to act, the effect
follows upon the cause, not only as to the thing done, but also as to
its manner of being done or of being. Thus from defect of active power
in the seed it may happen that a child is born unlike its father in
accidental points, that belong to its manner of being. Since then the
divine will is perfectly efficacious, it follows not only that things
are done, which God wills to be done, but also that they are done in
the way that He wills. Now God wills some things to be done
necessarily, some contingently, to the right ordering of things, for
the building up of the universe. Therefore to some effects He has
attached necessary causes, that cannot fail; but to others defectible
and contingent causes, from which arise contingent effects. Hence it
is not because the proximate causes are contingent that the effects
willed by God happen contingently, but because God prepared contingent
causes for them, it being His will that they should happen
contingently.
Reply Obj. 1: By the words of Augustine we must understand a
necessity in things willed by God that is not absolute, but
conditional. For the conditional statement that if God wills a
thing it must necessarily be, is necessarily true.
Reply Obj. 2: From the very fact that nothing resists the divine
will, it follows that not only those things happen that God wills
to happen, but that they happen necessarily or contingently
according to His will.
Reply Obj. 3: Consequents have necessity from their antecedents
according to the mode of the antecedents. Hence things effected by
the divine will have that kind of necessity that God wills them to
have, either absolute or conditional. Not all things, therefore,
are absolute necessities.
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