Book III, Chapter 7

Chapter VII. He raises the question whether anything is in the power of the created will; he gives one response, and corrects it.

These points, once laid down, give birth to a grave question: whether, that is, anything is in the power of the created will. For how will anything be judged to be in the power of the created will, when all its action and non-action depends on the divine will, which naturally precedes it, as 20, 30 and 32 of the second taught? For how is it in the power of a second cause, namely the created will, that the first cause, namely the divine will, should precede it by willing, when that divine will, moreover, must necessarily be imitated by the created will, as the tenth of the first teaches? How, finally, is any act, cessation or abstention in our power, when all these things come to pass in us from a necessity that naturally precedes them, as the second of this premised? And if nothing is in the power of the created will, how is created free choice preserved?

Some here reply that, given general influence, something is in the power of the created will, but otherwise nothing. But we must ask about that general influence whether it is something or nothing. If nothing, nothing comes of it. If something, then it is either the creature or the Creator. It is not the creature, because the Creator, namely God himself, is necessarily required as the truly efficient cause of every action of the created will, as the foregoing has taught. If, then, the Creator is posited, namely God himself, then either he is taken absolutely, in so far as he is merely God, or in so far as he is actually influencing toward an act of the created will. Not in the first way, because by 8 and 9 of the first, so taken he does nothing outwardly, and therefore does not influence in that way. If in the second way, then by 8 and 9 of the first he does nothing outwardly, and therefore does not influence except by willing1. And this not universally and confusedly, but singularly and distinctly, just as he also knows, as will easily be shown by 22, 27 and what follows in the first. Thus his general influence is his willing, or rather a special willing2, by which he wills specially to do this or that. To say, then, "given general influence, some act is in the power of the created will" is nothing other than to say, "given God's willing, or special volition, toward a certain act of the created will, that act is in the power of the created will." And so this response does not resolve the question but rather entangles it further.

But if anyone should wish to imagine that general influence is God's general conservation of things, and his general permission by which he permits things to operate according to the powers placed in them, and that, this being supposed, the created will can by itself alone, without God otherwise and properly co-acting3, produce its act, he will be most clearly refuted by 21 of the second and what follows. But since "general influence" is a commonly used term, flying on everyone's lips, I will not pass it over wholly unexplained for the unlearned. I say that general influence is nowhere found in the sacred writings. In the manner of speaking of the natural philosophers, the astrologers4 and likewise the magicians, it is an emanation, or rather an irradiation (as the Author of the book On Rays maintains)5, from a heavenly body, derived in a general way into the things subject to it. It could nevertheless be said in a Catholic sense that God's general influence is his general willing, or general volition, by which he generally pours into all things whatever they have, as 8 and 9 of the first taught. This willing is in no way so general to all as not also to be special to each, as 22, 27 and what follows in the first teach.