Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Q19 A8: Whether the will of God imposes necessity on the things willed?

No. The divine will imposes necessity on some things willed but not on all because God wills some things to be done necessarily, some contingently, to the right ordering of things, for the building up of the universe.

Therefore to some effects He has attached necessary causes, that cannot fail; but to others defectible and contingent causes, from which arise contingent effects.

Consequents have necessity from their antecedents according to the mode of the antecedents. Hence things effected by the divine will have that kind of necessity that God wills them to have, either absolute or conditional. Not all things, therefore, are absolute necessities.