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Objection 1: It would seem that necessary and eternal things are
subject to the eternal law. For whatever is reasonable is subject to
reason. But the Divine will is reasonable, for it is just.
Therefore it is subject to (the Divine) reason. But the eternal
law is the Divine reason. Therefore God's will is subject to the
eternal law. But God's will is eternal. Therefore eternal and
necessary things are subject to the eternal law.
Objection 2: Further, whatever is subject to the King, is subject
to the King's law. Now the Son, according to 1 Cor.
15:28,24, "shall be subject . . . to God and the Father
. . . when He shall have delivered up the Kingdom to Him."
Therefore the Son, Who is eternal, is subject to the eternal law.
Objection 3: Further, the eternal law is Divine providence as a
type. But many necessary things are subject to Divine providence:
for instance, the stability of incorporeal substances and of the
heavenly bodies. Therefore even necessary things are subject to the
eternal law.
On the contrary, Things that are necessary cannot be otherwise, and
consequently need no restraining. But laws are imposed on men, in
order to restrain them from evil, as explained above (Question 92,
Article 2). Therefore necessary things are not subject to the
eternal law.
I answer that, As stated above (Article 1), the eternal law is
the type of the Divine government. Consequently whatever is subject
to the Divine government, is subject to the eternal law: while if
anything is not subject to the Divine government, neither is it
subject to the eternal law. The application of this distinction may be
gathered by looking around us. For those things are subject to human
government, which can be done by man; but what pertains to the nature
of man is not subject to human government; for instance, that he
should have a soul, hands, or feet. Accordingly all that is in
things created by God, whether it be contingent or necessary, is
subject to the eternal law: while things pertaining to the Divine
Nature or Essence are not subject to the eternal law, but are the
eternal law itself.
Reply to Objection 1: We may speak of God's will in two ways.
First, as to the will itself: and thus, since God's will is His
very Essence, it is subject neither to the Divine government, nor to
the eternal law, but is the same thing as the eternal law. Secondly,
we may speak of God's will, as to the things themselves that God
wills about creatures; which things are subject to the eternal law, in
so far as they are planned by Divine Wisdom. In reference to these
things God's will is said to be reasonable: though regarded in itself
it should rather be called their type [ratio].
Reply to Objection 2: God the Son was not made by God, but was
naturally born of God. Consequently He is not subject to Divine
providence or to the eternal law: but rather is Himself the eternal
law by a kind of appropriation, as Augustine explains (De Vera
Relig. xxxi). But He is said to be subject to the Father by
reason of His human nature, in respect of which also the Father is
said to be greater than He.
The third objection we grant, because it deals with those necessary
things that are created.
Reply to Objection 4: As the Philosopher says (Metaph. v,
text. 6), some necessary things have a cause of their necessity:
and thus they derive from something else the fact that they cannot be
otherwise. And this is in itself a most effective restraint; for
whatever is restrained, is said to be restrained in so far as it cannot
do otherwise than it is allowed to.
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