|
Objection 1: It seems that the Will of God is changeable. For
the Lord says (Gn. 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.
Objection 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.
Objection 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.
Objection 4: Further, God does not will of necessity what He
wills, as said before (Article 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 (Question 9, Article
1; Question 14, Article 15). Therefore His will must be
entirely unchangeable.
Reply to Objection 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 to Objection 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" (Is. 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 to Objection 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 to Objection 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
(Article 3).
|
|