A Summary of The Summa Theologiae, I, qq. 18-19, By Thomas Aquinas

A Summary of The Summa Theologiae, I, qq. 18-19, By Thomas Aquinas

In QQ18, concerning The Life of God, Thomas answers that: All things are said to be alive that determine themselves to movement or operation of any kind: whereas those things that cannot by their nature do so, cannot be called living, unless by a similitude. (p. 134). To live is not an accidental but an essential predicate. As Aristotle says to live is principally to sense or to understand. Life is in the highest degree properly in God. That being whose act of understanding is its very nature, and which, in what it naturally possesses, is not determined by another, must have life in the most perfect degree. Such is God; and hence in Him principally is life. From this the Philosopher concludes (Metaph. xii, 51), after showing God to be intelligent, that God has life most perfect and eternal, since His intellect is most perfect and always in act. (P. 137) Creatures are said to be in God in a twofold sense. In one way, so far are they are held together and preserved by the divine power and even as they exist in their own natures. Hence things as they are in God are the divine essence. And since the divine essence is life and not movement, it follows that things existing in God in this manner are not movement, but life. (P. 138)

In QQ 19, concerning The Will of God, Thomas answers: There is will in God, as there is intellect: since will follows upon intellect. As His intellect is His own existence, so is His will. (P.140) God wills not only Himself, but other things apart from Himself; but Himself as the end, and other things as ordained to that end. God wills His own goodness necessarily, even as we will our own happiness necessarily. Hence, since the goodness of God is perfect, and can exist without other things inasmuch as no perfection can accrue to Him from them, it follows that His willing things apart from Himself is not absolutely necessary. Yet it can be necessary by supposition. (P. 142). The will of God is the cause of things. Since the Divine Being is His own intellect, effects pre-exist in Him after the mode of intellect, and therefore proceed from Him after the same mode.

Thus, the will of God must always be fulfilled; since an effect is conformed to the agent according to its form, the rule is the same with active causes as with formal causes. And since, then, the will of God is the universal cause of all things, it is impossible that the divine will should not produce its effect. (P. 146). Both the substance of God and His knowledge are entirely unchangeable. Therefore His will must be entirely unchangeable. God wills no good more than He wills His own goodness; yet He wills one good more than another. Hence He in no way wills the evil of sin, which is the privation of right order towards the divine good. (P. 151)

However, it should be noted that in God there are distinguished will in its proper sense, and will as attributed to Him by metaphor. Will in its proper sense is called the will of good pleasure; and will metaphorically taken is the will of expression, inasmuch as the sign itself of will is called will. Precept, counsel, and prohibition are called the will of God from the words of Mat. 6:10: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Permission and operation are called the will of God from Augustine (Enchiridion 95), who says: "Nothing is done, unless the Almighty wills it to be done, either by permitting it, or by actually doing it."(P.153)