Book I, Chapter 22

Chapter XXII. That God has an actual willing or nilling, distinct in respect of any object whatever of the will. 1

Following on what has been said, it seems next to show that the divine will has an actual willing or nilling, 2 proper and distinct, in respect of any object of the will whatever: good or evil, true or feigned, possible or impossible, present, past, and future. As for all such things as are posterior to the divine will, this will be shown by chapter eighteen. For he knows in complex form 3 that all such things are such, and this he cannot do except through his will going before, by some act of it. Again, if it is not so, there is some object about which God has no act of will, and it is certain that he can have one. Therefore he is in potency, and as it were sleeping, with respect to such an object. So he can also be more actual, nobler, and more perfect than he now is. Therefore he is not now the most actual, most noble, and most perfect, which the first Supposition and the third part of the first Corollary forbid. For act is prior to potency in definition, in perfection, and in time, as is clear from Metaph. 9, 13 and following, 4 where Averroes says in comment 16: A1 "The sign that it is act is that it is completion and perfection, since act is operation, and operation is the completion and perfection of the one operating. And therefore act in the Greek language signifies that which signifies completion and perfection." *A2 And in comment 17 he says that the first mover is pure act, in which there is no potency at all. And on Metaph. 12, comm. 38, he says that that which moves the first thing moved, since it is pure act without any potency, cannot have any disposition different from the one it has.

Again, if there were potency in God, that potency would be good, and for any such potency its act is better and more honorable, as is proved in Metaph. 9, 19. Again, as understanding in act stands to understanding in potency, so willing or nilling in act stands to willing or nilling in potency. But understanding in act is more perfect than understanding in potency. Therefore willing and nilling in act are also more perfect than these in potency. Therefore, by the first Supposition and the third part of the first Corollary, these are to be attributed to God.

B1 Does not the Philosopher prove by this, in Metaph. 12, 51, that God understands in act and not in potency, in these words: "If it does not understand, what then will there be that commands reverence? But it is just as [would be] one sleeping"? 5 B2 On this Averroes says: "It must be, if it is an intellect, that one of these two always holds: either according to a disposition in which the knower does not use his knowledge, or one in which he uses it. If the first is granted, it is as it were sleeping, and no noble disposition is found in it, and this is unfitting." Again, happiness consists in use, not in possession; in operation, not in habit, B3 as the Philosopher proves in Ethics 1, 12, by the fact that a habit can be present in one who does no good, as in a sleeper, but an operation cannot. The same is found above in 5 and below in the last [chapter], where he also cites those who say that the happy differ in no way from the wretched for half of life. 6 But God is most happy, and therefore also most actual. All this is clearer, indeed explicit, in Ethics 10, 12, where the Philosopher proves that happiness is contemplative operation, by the fact that the gods are supremely blessed and happy, and this by operating and not by sleeping, and this operation will necessarily be contemplative. On this Averroes says: "God the glorious, and the Angels, C1 are of a nobler state and happiness than the other beings; therefore they have act, for it is not fitting that they be sleeping."

Is it not for this reason that Algazel, in Metaph. 3, sentence 7, says that C2 "in the Necessary Being there is nothing in potency," and Dionysius, in On the Divine Names 7, leads to this as to an impossibility, that God stands idle somewhere, as the fifteenth of this work recounted more fully? Does not the Prophet too say of the Lord in Psalm 120 [121], "Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep"? That is, neither much nor little, whether by idling or by being free from work. In the future beatitude, too, of Angels and men there will be no idleness, no ceasing, no vacancy of intellect or even of will, as both reasons and Authorities teach us; there will be the actual and perfect operation of each, persevering without ceasing. How then is it not to be judged likewise of God, then and now and always incomparably and infinitely more blessed? Again, such a disposition in our intellect or will has a certain indifference, potentiality, and imperfection attached to it; so too in God, likewise. Therefore it is not to be posited in him, as the first Supposition and the third part of the first Corollary of this work attest. And for this reason D1 John [Scotus] holds this opinion, on Sentences 1, dist. 39, q. 2. 7 For he says that the freedom of our will, which is indifferent to opposite acts, necessarily has some imperfection attached, namely passive potentiality and mutability, and therefore such freedom is not to be posited in God.

Again, God has memory and Intelligence about any object whatever, as is clear from chapter 6. If, then, about some object he has no act of will, memory, intelligence, and will will be unequal in God, although in us they are equal, as is declared in De Trin. 10, penult., and 15, 23. 8 Some inequality would also appear in the divine persons, to whom these are appropriated by the orthodox Fathers. And if it were so, would not one of those powers fail to be supremely perfect, against the third and fourth parts of the first Corollary of this work? Further, if God had no act about a certain object of the will, though he can have one, it seems that he could in some way be changed, against the fifth of this work. Just as, if he had no act of intellect or of will about any object at all, and could have one about any whatever, and were set in being, he would seem to have been changed, so it is also the other way round; for if he ceased from every such act, he would appear changed in some respect. Moreover, unless God by necessity had some act of will about whatever is his object, he could have no act of will about Antichrist, neither that he should be nor that he should not be. Wherefore also, as it seems according to what was premised in the fourteenth of this work, Antichrist would neither be going to be nor be going not to be, and so with all the other posterior contradictories. Again, if it would not detract in any way from the perfection of the divine will to have no act about one object, neither would it to have none about another, and about all the rest. Again, then, by the same reasoning it will not be repugnant to the divine intellect in any respect to have no act of cognition about one object, nor about another, and so about each singly and all alike. Therefore it would not detract from his perfection

in any respect that the Lord should always be like one asleep, like a mighty man drunk with wine. 9

Perhaps, however, it seems that it should by no means be supposed that God acquires some perfection from the cognition, or the willing, of objects. Rather, because he is supremely perfect, he therefore produces such perfect operations. So the Sun is not more perfectly bright, nor is its light more perfect, because it perfectly illuminates the medium; because it is perfectly bright and its light perfect, it therefore perfectly illuminates. Yet if these perfect operations were taken away from God, God would be less perfect. That would be not because of the removal of some perfection acquired by him through them, but because of the removal of the perfect powers, of his supreme actuality and his omnipotence, from which (powers) or from which (omnipotence) these operations proceed. In the same way, if the illumination of a medium so disposed did not come about from the Sun, the Sun would be less perfect. That would be not because of the removal of some perfection which it acquired from the illumination, but through the removal of that light with which it ought to illuminate. Nor does any absurd necessity follow from this in the divine will, any more than in his Intellect. What follows is infinite power, efficacy, actuality, and goodness, which neither wishes nor is able to be made imperfect, to be idle, or to slumber in the least. Likewise no unworthy necessity follows that same will if it immutably loves and wills the divine essence, the persons, Christ, and the promised glory of those who will be saved in the future and of those who were saved in the past. What follows is a stability more than worthy, and a most free communication of goodness.

Corollary

1. And it has this corollary: that God wills every truth, and does not positively will, but rejects, every falsehood. 2. That if God wills some antecedent, he wills any consequent of it, and does not positively will everything repugnant to it. 3. That of any pair of things repugnant to each other, he has the willing of the one and the nilling of the other. 4. That from God's willing anything there follows his nilling its opposite, and conversely. 10 5. That from God's not willing anything signified affirmatively or negatively there follows his willing its opposite. 6. That from God's not nilling anything there follows his nilling its opposite. 7. That from God's positively nilling anything there follows his nilling the same privatively as well, and likewise conversely. 8. That whatever is, in whatever way it is, God wills it so to be; and whatever is not, in whatever way it is not, God does not will it so to be.

From these, moreover, certain other matters follow clearly: hidden, yet most worthy of being seen.

First, that God wills every truth, and does not positively will, but rejects, every falsehood. Second, that if God wills some antecedent, he wills any consequent of it, and does not positively will everything repugnant to it. Third, that of any pair of things repugnant or incompossible with each other, God has the willing of the one and the nilling of the other. Fourth, that from God's willing anything there follows his nilling its opposite, and conversely. Fifth, that from God's not willing anything signified affirmatively or negatively, say that A is or that A is not, there follows his willing its opposite. Sixth, that from God's not nilling anything stated affirmatively or negatively, there follows his nilling its opposite. Seventh, that from God's positively nilling anything there follows his nilling the same privatively as well, and likewise the other way round. Eighth, that whatever is, in whatever way it is, whether present, past, or future, true or false, possible or impossible, necessary or contingent, God wills it so to be; and whatever is not, in whatever way it is not, God does not will it so to be.

The first part of this Corollary follows manifestly. For if, as the Chapter teaches, God has some act of will about any truth whatever, and has no act of nilling about any truth (because then, by 10 of this work, it would not be true; for it would not be so in reality as it signifies), then he has an act of willing about any truth whatever. The other particle of this part is evident in like manner. For if, as the Chapter teaches, God has an act of will about any falsehood whatever, and about no falsehood (that is, a thing falsely signified) has an act of willing, because then, by 10 of this work, it would be so in reality and in truth, then about any falsehood whatever God has an act of nilling: a nilling, that is, that it be so in reality as it signifies. The second part of the Corollary follows from the first, and the parts of this second follow correspondingly from the parts of the first, when two very well-known maxims are added: "If the antecedent is true, so is the consequent," and "Everything repugnant to a truth is false."

The third part follows evidently from the first, together with this logical rule: of all things repugnant and incompossible, one is true and the other false. The fourth follows manifestly from the third, with this commonplace to support it: God does not at the same time will and not will anything. The fifth and the sixth are demonstrated through the third. The first part of the seventh of these is evident from that commonplace stated in the proof of the fourth part. Its remaining part 11 follows fully from the third part of this. The eighth is evident from the first, because its parts correspond to the parts of that: for whatever is, in whatever way it is, it is true that it is so. Therefore, by the first of the first, 12 God wills it so to be. And whatever is not, in whatever way it is not, it is false that it is so; therefore, by the second of the first, God does not will it so to be.