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Objection 1: It seems that some cause can be assigned to the divine
will. For Augustine says (Qq. lxxxiii, 46): "Who would
venture to say that God made all things irrationally?" But to a
voluntary agent, what is the reason of operating, is the cause of
willing. Therefore the will of God has some cause.
Objection 2: Further, in things made by one who wills to make
them, and whose will is influenced by no cause, there can be no cause
assigned except by the will of him who wills. But the will of God is
the cause of all things, as has been already shown (Article 4).
If, then, there is no cause of His will, we cannot seek in any
natural things any cause, except the divine will alone. Thus all
science would be in vain, since science seeks to assign causes to
effects. This seems inadmissible, and therefore we must assign some
cause to the divine will.
Objection 3: Further, what is done by the willer, on account of no
cause, depends simply on his will. If, therefore, the will of God
has no cause, it follows that all things made depend simply on His
will, and have no other cause. But this also is not admissible.
On the contrary, Augustine says (Qq. lxxxiii, 28): "Every
efficient cause is greater than the thing effected." But nothing is
greater than the will of God. We must not then seek for a cause of
it.
I answer that, In no wise has the will of God a cause. In proof of
which we must consider that, since the will follows from the
intellect, there is cause of the will in the person who wills, in the
same way as there is a cause of the understanding, in the person that
understands. The case with the understanding is this: that if the
premiss and its conclusion are understood separately from each other,
the understanding the premiss is the cause that the conclusion is
known. If the understanding perceive the conclusion in the premiss
itself, apprehending both the one and the other at the same glance, in
this case the knowing of the conclusion would not be caused by
understanding the premisses, since a thing cannot be its own cause;
and yet, it would be true that the thinker would understand the
premisses to be the cause of the conclusion. It is the same with the
will, with respect to which the end stands in the same relation to the
means to the end, as do the premisses to the conclusion with regard to
the understanding.
Hence, if anyone in one act wills an end, and in another act the
means to that end, his willing the end will be the cause of his willing
the means. This cannot be the case if in one act he wills both end and
means; for a thing cannot be its own cause. Yet it will be true to
say that he wills to order to the end the means to the end. Now as
God by one act understands all things in His essence, so by one act
He wills all things in His goodness. Hence, as in God to
understand the cause is not the cause of His understanding the effect,
for He understands the effect in the cause, so, in Him, to will an
end is not the cause of His willing the means, yet He wills the
ordering of the means to the end. Therefore, He wills this to be as
means to that; but does not will this on account of that.
Reply to Objection 1: The will of God is reasonable, not because
anything is to God a cause of willing, but in so far as He wills one
thing to be on account of another.
Reply to Objection 2: Since God wills effects to proceed from
definite causes, for the preservation of order in the universe, it is
not unreasonable to seek for causes secondary to the divine will. It
would, however, be unreasonable to do so, if such were considered as
primary, and not as dependent on the will of God. In this sense
Augustine says (De Trin. iii, 2): "Philosophers in their
vanity have thought fit to attribute contingent effects to other
causes, being utterly unable to perceive the cause that is shown above
all others, the will of God."
Reply to Objection 3: Since God wills effects to come from
causes, all effects that presuppose some other effect do not depend
solely on the will of God, but on something else besides: but the
first effect depends on the divine will alone. Thus, for example, we
may say that God willed man to have hands to serve his intellect by
their work, and intellect, that he might be man; and willed him to be
man that he might enjoy Him, or for the completion of the universe.
But this cannot be reduced to other created secondary ends. Hence
such things depend on the simple will of God; but the others on the
order of other causes.
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