Sunday, May 28, 2006

Q19 A6: Whether the will of God is always fulfilled?

Yes. The will of God must needs always be fulfilled because something may fall outside the order of any particular active cause, but not outside the order of the universal cause (under which all particular causes are included: and if any particular cause fails of its effect, this is because of the hindrance of some other particular cause, which is included in the order of the universal cause).

Therefore an effect cannot possibly escape the order of the universal cause.

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.

Hence that which seems to depart from the divine will in one order, returns into it in another order.

If not all good actually exists, can we therefore say that the will of God is not always fulfilled?

No. An act of the cognitive faculty is according as the thing known is in the knower, while an act of the appetite faculty is directed to things as they exist in themselves. But all that can have the nature of being and truth virtually exists in God, though it does not all exist in created things. Therefore God knows all truth; but does not will all good, except in so far as He wills Himself, in Whom all good virtually exists. (RO2)