Summa I, Q.19, Articles 5–6: Nothing Causes God's Will, and His Will Is Always Fulfilled (Antecedent vs. Consequent Will)

Orientation #

He opens by recalling that article four asked whether the will of God is the cause of things (prev. lecture), and that article five now asks the converse, whether there is a cause of the divine will. He ends with “take a little break now before we go on” to the next article. The previous class covered aa. 3-4 and the next covers aa. 7-9.

The class, in order #

1. Article 5: the objections and sed contra (“some cause of the divine will”) #

The point: the objections press that a voluntary agent’s reason for acting is a cause of his willing.

• Preliminary difficulty he flags: the will of God is God, and the act of will is the divine substance, so a cause of the will would be a cause of God — “got a little problem here”.
• Obj. 1 (Augustine, Eighty-three Questions): who dares say God constituted all things unreasonably? For a voluntary agent the reason for what he does is the cause of his willing.
• Obj. 2: if the divine will has no cause, all natural things need no cause but the divine will, and the sciences that assign causes become superfluous. His example: why are the front teeth a different shape from the back teeth? Instead of “to bite as opposed to chew”, one would just say “because God so wills”.
• Obj. 3: what comes from a will without a cause depends on the simple will alone; then all things would depend on God’s simple will and have no other cause.
• Sed contra (Augustine, same book): every efficient cause is greater than what it effects; nothing is greater than the will of God — “pretty clear there from Augustine”.

2. Corpus, the side of understanding: discourse and the axiom (“the same is not a cause of itself”) #

The point: the will follows the understanding, so a cause of willing can happen only in the way a cause of understanding can.

1. In us, understanding the premise is the cause of knowing the conclusion; hence Aristotle defines demonstration as a syllogism making us know the cause and that of which it is a cause, and that it cannot be otherwise; the premises are cause of the conclusion both as maker and as matter (“we’ve talked about that before”).
2. Recalled: Shakespeare’s definition of reason, the ability for a large discourse looking before and after; discourse = coming to know, or in some cases guess, something from something already known or accepted.
3. But if the understanding saw the conclusion in the very beginning, by one insight grasping both, its knowledge of the conclusion would not be caused by its knowledge of the premises, “because the same is not a cause of itself” — “nice axiom”; the more general axiom: nothing is a beginning of itself. Yet such a knower still understands the premises to be causes of the conclusion.

• Distinction A vs. B: knowledge of one being the cause of knowledge of the other (our discursive mind) vs. knowing one to be the cause of the other while knowing both in one act (God). He asks “is that clear?”
• Example (senses vs. reason): going through the art museum from one painting to another, or playing one Mozart piece after another, is going from one thing to another; but I do not see one painting through seeing another, nor hear the Jupiter Symphony through hearing Così fan tutte; reason alone goes from one thing to another by or through knowing the first.
• In God there is one act of understanding and one act of will, whereby He understands and wills Himself and, in that, other things — with the difference that He wills other things freely but understands them necessarily (prev. lecture).

3. Corpus, the side of will: end and means (“the end is to the means”) #

The point: Aristotle’s proportion — premises are to conclusion as end is to means — is carried over to the will.

• In us, one can will an end without yet willing the means; when the means is discovered, the willing of the end causes the willing of the means. Examples: wanting wine, then hearing from his sister-in-law that BJ’s sells it cheaper (no card needed), so the desire for wine causes the desire to go to BJ’s; wanting to understand God causing one to want to read Thomas; high-school students willing to go to college before knowing which college, then choosing Virginia Tech or wherever — the first willing causes the second.
• In God, who wills the end and the means by one act, the one cannot be cause of the other (same axiom), but it is true that He wills to order the means to the end: “He wills this to be on account of that, but not on account of this does He will that” — “a very interesting distinction”.
• His summary: for us, knowledge of cause without effect (Euclid: knowing what a triangle is without knowing its angles equal two right angles until Proposition 32 of Book One, having gone through the first 31) or, more often, effect without cause (reasoning to the existence of God from effects; Romans 1:20, quoted by Vatican I: the hidden things of God made known through the things that have been made). In God, seeing the cause He sees the effect; He knows one is cause of the other, but His knowing one is not a cause of His knowing the other.

4. Article 5, replies (“the will of God is reasonable”) #

• Ad 1: God’s will is reasonable, not because something is a cause of His willing, but because He wills this to be on account of that.
• Ad 2: since God wills effects to come about from certain causes so that there be order in things, seeking other causes is not superfluous; it would be superfluous only if other causes were sought as something first, not as depending on the divine will. Augustine, On the Trinity book 3: it pleased “the vanity of the philosophers” (“that’s me, I guess”) to attribute contingent effects to other causes because they could not see the cause superior to all, the will of God. So no contradiction between “from the will of God” as first cause and “from something else” as secondary or proximate cause.
• Ad 3: effects that presuppose other effects do not depend on God’s will alone; only the very first effects do. Thomas’s chain: God wills man to have a hand to serve his understanding by diverse works; to have understanding that he might be a man (“reason more than anything else is man”); to be a man that he might enjoy God or complete the universe — which is not reduced to any further created end. Aside on the hand: Anaxagoras said man is the most intelligent animal because he has a hand; Aristotle reverses it — because he is most intelligent he has a hand, the tool of tools serving reason’s infinity of operations, whereas other animals have a claw for limited things like catching prey.
• His restatement: God willed my stomach so that I could eat and be nourished; His willing that I eat was not a cause of His willing that I have a stomach, yet He willed one in order to the other — “the subtle distinction that Thomas is making”. A student adds that we start doing something and find “I have to do this first”; he agrees people are confused about where to begin until they see the means.

5. Article 6: the objections, and a preview of the answer to obj. 2 (“God wills all men to be saved”) #

• Obj. 1 (the Apostle, 1 Timothy): God wills all men to be saved and come to knowledge of the truth; this does not always happen. He notes the reply to this objection is two or three times longer than the others, longer even than the corpus — “a very important objection”.
• Obj. 2: as knowledge is to the true, so will is to the good; God knows all truth, so He wills every good; not every possible good comes about.
• His preview: the likeness fails because, as Aristotle points out in the sixth book of Wisdom (First Philosophy, the book after the natural books), the good is primarily in things, the true primarily in the mind; so the perfection of the divine mind requires knowing all truth, but the perfection of the divine will does not require willing every good to be in itself — He wills other things freely, they add nothing to His goodness. Geometrical comparison: a creature’s goodness added to God is like a point added to a line, or a line added to a square — “makes us pretty insignificant”.
• Obj. 3: the first cause does not exclude middle causes (previous article); the effect of a first cause can be impeded by a defect of the second cause, as the soul’s moving power is impeded by weakness of the shins.
• Sed contra: the Psalm, “all things whatever he willed, he has made”.
• Asides: on “the Apostle” — a recent issue of the magazine edited by Neuhaus quoted a Scottish theological journal, a non-Catholic Christian, on the good evidence that both Peter and Paul died in Rome.

6. Article 6, corpus: particular vs. universal cause (“outside the order of some universal cause”) #

1. An effect is conformed to the agent according to the agent’s form, so the reasoning for formal causes holds for agent causes.
2. Something can fall short of a particular form (not be a man, not be living) but not of the universal form: nothing can fail to be a being — “very easy to see”.
3. Likewise something can fall outside the order of a particular agent cause, but not outside the most universal cause under which all particular causes are included: if a particular cause fails, it is because another particular cause impedes it, and that one falls under the universal cause.
4. Bodily case: a star can be impeded, but whatever follows from the impeding cause is reduced to the middle causes and the universal power of the first heaven.
5. Since God’s will is the universal cause of all things, it cannot fail of its effect; what recedes from it in one order returns under it in another: the sinner who recedes from God’s will by sinning falls under it when punished by His justice.

• His old teacher [name unclear in recording, “Cassar”/“Casiré”] used to say: willy-nilly you will do honour to God — repent and you glorify His mercy, refuse and you glorify His justice; and one can, in a way, choose between the two.

7. Ad 1: three readings of “God wills all men to be saved” (“antecedent will, not consequent will”) #

He notes Thomas gives several solutions and elaborates the third most, perhaps because it is strongest; compare the Catena Aurea, where Augustine, Chrysostom and another give different readings of the same sentence, all making sense, one seeming better.

• (i) Accommodated distribution: God wills to be saved all who are saved — not that there is no one He does not will to save, but no one is saved whom He does not will to be saved (Augustine).
• (ii) Distribution over kinds of singulars, not singulars of every kind: some from every state — men and women, Jews and Gentiles, little and great — but not all of every state. Student: this is like Thomas on John, “I will draw all (omnia, not omnes) to myself” — all the elect. He: the first time it looks ad hoc, but once seen in many places it is not arbitrary. Another student: it still doesn’t seem to reach the first intention of the text. He: like saying “Mozart writes well for every instrument” — not every piece for each instrument is great, but a very good piece for each can be found.
• (iii) Damascene: understood of the antecedent will, not the consequent; the distinction taken not on the side of the divine will (in which there is no before and after) but of the things willed. Each thing is willed as it is good; something absolutely considered may be good but, with something added, contrary: for a man to live is good, to be killed bad, but if he is a homicide or dangerous to the multitude it is good to kill him. So the judge antecedently wills every man to live, consequently wills the murderer hanged; God antecedently wills all saved, consequently wills some damned by the requirement of His justice.
• Simply vs. secundum quid: what we will antecedently we will secundum quid, what we will consequently we will simply, because (Aristotle) the will is compared to things as they are in themselves, and in themselves they are particular — not “man” but this man with his deeds. So the just judge simply wills the homicide hanged and in some respect wills him to live insofar as he is a man; the antecedent is better called a wish (velleitas) than absolute will.
• Application: Our Lord in Gethsemane — simply He wills to die, the Father’s will; in a sense He wills not to die, by a natural wish. He wills to die but the death, all things considered, is more a cause to rejoice than to be sad (a father in the Catena on John 14, laetari), since it is the only way we could be saved. Conclusion: whatever God wills simply comes about; what He wills antecedently need not.
• Student: Thomas uses the same distinction on whether guardian angels are saddened by our harm or damnation — the angel, like God, wills all saved — and Aristotle’s Ethics example of the merchant in a storm: absolutely he does not want his goods thrown overboard, but simply he wills them thrown to save his life.
• Asides: on “Apostle”/“first cause of all things” — does “all things” include God? Either “all beings except itself”, or “being” means what has existence, and He does not have existence, He is existence. He links this to Aristotle, fourth book of Wisdom: wisdom is about being as being, reasoned from the proemium’s claim that wisdom is about the first cause, whose causality extends to all being. Also: a recent issue quoted Cardinal Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) that one cannot support abortion or euthanasia and be Catholic, while one can disagree about capital punishment and war — the distinction bishops are being confused about when refusing communion to politicians. Filioli in John 13 or 14: servants, then little children, after the resurrection brothers, as they improve; de Koninck could get away with “okay, children” after a seminar break.

8. Digression: Einstein (“Einstein didn’t believe in free will”) #

From a new biography (its author a Time editor he saw interviewed on Charlie Rose; the book at BJ’s): Einstein rejected free will out of determinism; did not want to be called an atheist, having a pantheistic notion of a greater mind from Spinoza, from whom he also took soul and body being the same; “one life is enough for me” on immortality; “my punishment for rejecting all authority was being made an authority myself”. The Bohr episode: Einstein’s last objection to the Copenhagen interpretation shook Bohr, who stayed up and found the defect — Einstein had not applied his own relativity to his example, hoist with his own petard. And to Heisenberg he said theory determines what can be observed, the reverse of what people said about his theory.

9. Ad 2 and ad 3 (“He does not will every good”) #

• Ad 2: the act of the knowing power is according as the known is in the knower; the act of desire is ordered to things as they are in themselves (Aristotle, sixth book of Wisdom, which Thomas unfolds “for us dimwits”). All that can be true is virtually in God, but not all of it exists in creatures; so God knows all truth but does not will every good except insofar as He wills Himself, in whom every good virtually exists. Examples: the hundreds or millions of other people who could have been generated from the same parents’ eggs and sperm — He is not willing every good that could be, and not because we deserved it more; the week of awful weather He could have ended sooner; the Packers could have won the Super Bowl; the Red Sox’s new Japanese pitcher lost two games (one 2-1) his teammates could have won for him.
• Ad 3: a first cause can be impeded by a defect of a second cause only when it is not universal, i.e. does not contain all causes under itself; God’s will does, so no effect evades its order — “not even Hitler or Stalin”.

His words #

• “beginning” — principium, as in “understanding of the beginning” (the premise) [ed.: principle]
• demonstration — a syllogism making us know the cause and that of which it is a cause, and that it cannot be otherwise
• discourse — coming to know, or in some cases guess, something from something already known or accepted; reason goes from one thing to another through knowing the first
• “nothing is a beginning of itself” — the general form of “the same is not a cause of itself”
• “sixth book of Wisdom” / “First Philosophy” [ed.: Metaphysics VI]; “fourth book of Wisdom” [ed.: Metaphysics IV]
• “hidden things of God” — his gloss of Romans 1:20
• accommodated distribution — “all who are saved”
• kinds of singulars vs. singulars of every kind — the second reading of “all men”
• antecedent vs. consequent will (Damascene) — distinction on the side of things willed, not of God’s will
• simply vs. secundum quid — what is willed all circumstances considered vs. willed only absolutely
• “willfulness” — his rendering of Thomas’s word for antecedent will [ed.: velleitas, wish]
• filioli, fratres — little children, brothers, in John
• laetari — to rejoice, of Our Lord’s death
• omnia vs. omnes — the student’s point on John “I will draw all to myself”

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 19, a. 5 (objections, sed contra, corpus, replies)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 19, a. 6 (objections, sed contra, corpus, replies)
• Augustine, Eighty-three Questions (as quoted by Thomas, obj. 1 and sed contra of a. 5)
• Augustine, On the Trinity, book 3 (as quoted in ad 2 of a. 5)

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Posterior Analytics (definition of demonstration) (inferred)
• Shakespeare, Hamlet (definition of reason as “large discourse”) (inferred)
• Euclid, Elements I.32
• Romans 1:20 and Vatican I
• 1 Timothy (God wills all men to be saved)
• Psalm (“all things whatever he willed, he has made”); he says “Psalm 1:13” [ed.: locus garbled in recording]
• Aristotle, Metaphysics VI (the good in things, the true in the mind) and IV (being as being) (inferred loci)
• Thomas, Catena Aurea on John 13-14; Thomas’s commentary on John (“I will draw all to myself”)
• Damascene, on antecedent and consequent will
• Aristotle, Ethics (merchant throwing goods overboard)
• Thomas on guardian angels (student’s reference, no locus given)
• Anaxagoras and Aristotle on the hand
• Cardinal Ratzinger on abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment; a new Einstein biography

His questions #

• What was Shakespeare’s definition of discourse? Coming to know, or guess, something from something already known.
• Is it clear that in God knowing the cause is not a cause of knowing the effect, though He knows one to be the cause of the other? Yes — one act, and the same is not a cause of itself.
• Why are my front teeth a different shape from my back teeth? To bite as opposed to chew — not merely “because God so wills”; secondary causes are not superfluous.
• What do you think of those first two explanations of “God wills all men to be saved”? They make sense and recur in Thomas (omnia in John), but a student finds they miss the first intention; the third (Damascene) seems best.
• Does “God is the first cause of all things” include God? Either “all beings except Himself”, or “being” as what has existence, which God does not have but is.
• Why is what we will consequently willed simply, and what we will antecedently not? Because the will is compared to things as they are in themselves, and in themselves they are particular.
• Does Our Lord in Gethsemane will to die or not? Simply He wills to die, the Father’s will; in a sense, by a natural wish, He wills not to.
• Is the death of Our Lord something to be sad about or to rejoice in? Both in some respect, but simply more a cause to rejoice.
• How many different people could have been generated from the same parents besides you and me? Hundreds, thousands, millions — so God is obviously not willing every good that could be.