The medieval concept of free will, human and divine

Daniel J. Castellano

May 16, 1997

Revised August 19, 2006

Intuitively, few things are more obvious than the existence of free will; intellectually, few things are less obvious. It is this latter consideration which has led innumerable modern thinkers to replace the notion of free will with some variant of scientific determinism or an equally mindless notion of randomness. At the other chronological extreme are the classical pagan ideologies which are saturated with ideas of fate, fortune, and predestination. Nestled in between classical fatalism and modern rationalism lies the medieval idea of free will, both as a Church doctrine and as a philosophical concept. The defenders of this doctrine faced the additional difficulty of rationalizing it within the context of Christian theology. Reconciling the freedom of human will with the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient Deity is no small task; for the sake of coherence, only the works of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas will be considered. Though their conclusions are similar, their methods are disparate, reflecting a shift in style engendered by the incorporation of Aristotelianism into Christian thought.

In St. Augustine's time, only the Platonic dialogues were available to Western readers; the Aristotelian texts would be received indirectly centuries later, after they were translated from Arabic. As such, St. Augustine was severely hampered by the limits of his sources, and was forced to draw upon his own brilliant insight in order to rise above historical constraints.

In his City of God, he tackles many difficult questions regarding the theological inplications of free will; in doing so, he introduces several important concepts:

Evil men do many things contrary to the will of God; but so great is his wisdom, and so great his power, that all things which seem to oppose his will tend toward those ends which he himself has foreknown as good and just.¹

Aside from establishing wisdom and power as defining characteristics of God (important in discussing Aquinas), Augustine introduces the idea of predestination as being a foreknowledge, rather than a direct cause. This distinction is crucial to many of his other arguments, and eliminates the necessity for belief in astrology and other fatalistic notions still prevalent in Augustine's time. Moreover, this concept is useful in resolving many apparent contradictions:

For this reason, when God is said to `change his will', as, for example, when `he becomes angry' with these people to whom `he was lenient', it is the people who change, rather than God; and they find him, in a sense, `changed' in their experience.²

This is essentially a summary of God's twofold immutability; of nature and of will. This attribute of God brings about further complications in the relationship between God and man; for, how can man's prayers affect an unchanging God? The whole dilemma of the effectiveness of prayer is discussed in the same passage. A distinction is first made between God's will and the effect of prayer; when God does not effect the prayers of his saints one may therefore say “God wills it and does not effect it.”³ God may also “will what he does not will himself but makes his followers will...”⁴ At this point, we must clarify what Augustine means by “will”. If we take it in every instance to simply mean “desire”, the preceding statement becomes nonsensical. In fact, Augustine often uses the word in the sense of bringing an act into existence. We shall see that using this definition will make subsequent quotations more intelligible.

Another impediment to the understanding of Augustine's teaching, and another one of his historical constraints, is the use of temporal terminology to discuss the atemporal. Augustine was conscious of this; in his Confessions he observed that, speaking properly, “there be three times; a present of things past, a present of things present, and a present of things future.”⁵ In this transcendent perception of time, Augustine superimposes unchanging eternity over past, present, and future, maintaining that his “three times” exist at least in the mind, in the forms of memory, sight and expectation.⁶ This sophisticated understanding of the atemporal is also evident in his assertion that asking what God did before the Creation is meaningless, since “time cannot be without created being...”⁷ Modern physicists use a similar argument to defuse criticisms of the `big bang' theory.

If we acknowledge that Augustine did, indeed, have a profound understanding of the concept of timelessness, the temporal aspects of words such as foreknowledge and predestination may be mentally discarded. These ancient ideas, long used in reference to oracles, fortune-tellers, and pagan deities, have been infused with a new meaning. Immutability may now be regarded as a consequence of timelessness:

`It will happen when God wills.' This does not mean that God will then have a new will which he did not have before; but that something will then come about which has been prepared from all eternity in his unchanging will.⁸

Here we can see the equivalence of foreknowledge with timelessness, as well as the temporal overlaid with the eternal. With this well-thought description of the attributes of God, Augustine has established a set of theological constraints within which he must incorporate the notion of human free will.

Most of Augustine's discussion concerning the freedom of will focuses on explaining the existence of evil. His previous inability to resolve this question had been a major factor in his attraction to Manichæism. In City of God, which is more theological than philosophical in its approach, we are treated to a summary of his views. In regard to God's creation of free will (with foreknowledge that his creations would sin), Augustine writes that it is “an act of greater power and greater goodness to bring good even out of evil than to exclude the existence of evil,”⁹ obviously an allusion to Christian redemption. Endowed with a capacity to change, God's creation, though initially good, “produced evil for itself by sinning.” The existence of sin shows the goodness of nature (meant to enjoy God) much as the blindness of an eye shows the goodness of an eye (for blindness would not be a defect in a hand or a foot, since sight is not expected of them).¹⁰ In this same work, Augustine gives a negative definition of evil acts as “a falling away from the work of God to its own works, rather than any substantive act.”¹¹ Furthermore, the choice of will is free only when “not subservient to fault and sins...”¹² Sin, once again, is negatively defined, this time as man relinquishing his own free will. The only indication of a positive cause for for the ability to sin is in his Miltonesque account of how Satan “chose to rejoice over his subjects rather than be a subject himself...”¹³

A more rigorous treatment of the question of evil as it relates to free will is found in the last of the dialogues following Augustine's conversion to Christianity (386), The Free Choice of the Will. The style of argumentation is Socratic-Platonistic; one could easily imagine Socrates confounding the Sophists in place of Augustine refuting the Manichees. His companion, Evodius (a Christian), is far from a mindless foil; he asks provocative and penetrating follow-up questions which enhance the depth of the discussion. In a reversal of the Protagoras dialogue, Evodius asks if evil can be learned. Augustine answers in the negative; since the pursuit of knowledge is good, its cause is in the sinner: “...evil is nothing else than to stray from the path of learning.”¹⁴ Following this strikingly Platonist remark, Augustine relates his own past difficulties with the question of evil,¹⁵ and then proceeds, using various examples, to show how sin can not be defined by outward acts, since there could always be some mitigating circumstance. It is passion or desire that makes something a sin.¹⁶ Continuing this line of thought, he defines sin again, this time as the neglect of the eternal for the sake of the temporal; significantly, he takes care to clarify that evil resides in the will, rather than the temporal goods pursued.¹⁷ The important conclusion here is that free will alone enables man to sin. Yet if free will is good, is one to say that evil arose from good? Precisely this question evoked a conflict with Manichæism.

Christianity did not exist in an intellectual void; had Augustine made no attempt to provide a rational basis for the Catholic faith, there was no lack of enemies who were eager to debunk it. Though one may debate the relative virtues of theological or philosophical arguments, their existence, at least, is necessary to lend credibility to existing bodies of doctrine, as well as to remove ambiguities. This latter function was especially important, as it provided an effective means of distinguishing orthodox Christians from “heretics” (literally, in Greek, “choosers”). The Manichees had used Christianity's paradoxes regarding the existence of evil to buttress their claims that the principles of Good and Evil must have been distinct from the beginning. Augustine, a former Manichee, was naturally concerned with this issue.

He begins his justification of God's creation of free will by stating that free will is also necessary to do good deeds, and that the possibility of sin is not the purpose of free will, hence God justly punishes sin.¹⁸ The matter might have rested here, were it not for Evodius' proposal: “While I accept all of this with firm faith, yet, since I have no intellectual grasp of it, let us so conduct our inquiry as if it were all uncertain.”¹⁹ In moving beyond this point, Augustine assumes the role of a philosopher rather than a theologian, a distinction that would not be fully developed until the thirteenth century. Citing Biblical verses showing how belief is necessary for understanding,²⁰ he proceeds painstakingly to demonstrate that without free will man could not live rightly.²¹ Having shown free will to be good and necessary, Augustine restates his negative definition of sin, leaving Evodius unconvinced.²²

Evodius still sees a contradiction between God foreknowing sin and sin being a product of free will.²³ To quell this discontent, Augustine employs his special definition of foreknowledge to show that God's foreknowledge does not destroy free will but presupposes it, since God foresees man having a will which is truly his own, by virtue of being in his power.²⁴ To illustrate the point, he explains that if Evodius had foreknowledge of another man's sin, that sin would certainly happen, but Evodius is not to be held responsible.²⁵ In this fashion, Augustine completes his most powerful polemic against the Manichees and an invaluable contribution to the Christian doctrine of free will.

Ironically, in attacking one heresy, Augustine lent credence to another. His affirmations regarding the necessity of free will in relation to sin and good deeds were used by the Pelagians to defend their theory that human will was sufficient to earn salvation. Augustine was therefore compelled to redress his apparent neglect of divine grace, and he attempted to do so in a way that imposed no further constraint on his definition of free will, which, so far, seems to be in agreement with most intuitive notions of the concept, making it an extremely powerful doctrine which could resonate with any man.

Returning to his theological style in Grace and Free Will, Augustine systematically denounces the Pelagian viewpoint, attesting that “...God's grace is not given according to our merits.”²⁶ Without grace, man falls; hence, the beginning of goodness and virtue ought to be ascribed to God.²⁷ Grace, in Augustine's view, is available to all; one uses free will to receive it. In this way, good merits come from God, though, once received, they pertain to the bearer.²⁸ This last part would justify the Church in ascribing virtues to its saints without contradicting its own doctrine on the necessity of the grace of God, to which the Church owed its existence. Augustine then continues with a stronger claim that attacks the heart of Pelagianism. He defines God's grace as “neither the knowledge of God's law nor the mere remission of sin, but that grace which makes it possible to fulfill the Law so that our own nature is set free from the dominion of sin.”²⁹ [Emphasis added.] With this clarification, Augustine intends to undercut the Pelagian doctrine by showing that the Pelagians, purportedly defenders of free will, undermine human freedom by denying the grace which is necessary for man to be free. Augustine leaves us with this final contribution, the distinction between free will in general and the “true” freedom, the freedom from sin. In this way he is able to coherently maintain that grace does not deny free will, but makes possible good will where there was evil.³⁰

The eight centuries between St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas were anything but stagnant. The Germanic conquerors of Rome would be Christianized, and Christian culture would receive Germanic influences. The Roman Church split with the Greek, and all of Christendom would be menaced by the expanding Islamic empire. The Muslims were threatening not only militarily but culturally. They reintroduced Aristotelian ideas to Europe, providing new fuel for heretical movements.

To say that the contribution of St. Thomas Aquinas to Western thought was his application of Aristotelianism to medieval Christianity would not do him justice; his appeal has outlasted both that of Aristotle and the medieval era. In fact, he was less appreciated in his own time, as many of his points were considered heretical. He rejected philosophical teachings of fellow Christians, such as the “ontological” arguments (as Kant later referred to them) of St. Anselm, who postulated that the very idea of God itself implied God's existence.³¹ Aquinas retained, however, the premodern notion of causality, which was formalized by Aristotle in the following manner. To the question, “Why does this table exist?” one may respond in four ways: “Because it is wood” (material); “Because it has the form of a table” (formal); “Because a carpenter made it” (efficient); “Because he produced it in order to put things on top of it” (final). Modern men (save those knowledgeable in philosophy) only recognize the efficient notion of causality; in the classical and medieval mind, these were all considered valid types of real causes.³² Aquinas, however, was careful not to conflate the different notions of causality, and that is largely accreditable to his careful attention to the text of Aristotle.

St. Thomas' deviations from Aristotle were usually in the realm of theology. While agreeing, for example, that God is “pure actuality” (energeia in Greek), he distanced himself from Aristotle's handling of objects in kinesis ('movement' toward actuality).³³ Aristotle reasoned that God could not be free from kinesis if he thought about objects in kinesis, thereby eliminating the possibility of divine providence, since the immutable Aristotelian God is necessarily oblivious of the world. St. Thomas, in contrast, would argue that God's eternal self-knowledge included transcendent knowledge of his creation.³⁴ Thus, Aquinas avoided a wholesale assimilation of Aristotelianism, yet the influence of “the Philosopher” (as Aquinas referred to Aristotle) was nonetheless profound.

Although St. Augustine had some knowledge of Platonic “substances” and “forms” (as indicated, for example, by his argument that memory, understanding and will are of one substance, one mind³⁵), it is only in Aquinas that we first see a thorough Aristotelian understanding of these concepts. This permeates much of Aquinas' work, but is especially explicit in his commentaries on Aristotle's De Anima. In his enquiry into the essence of a human soul, the Greek philosopher observes that the soul “is substance as definable form,”³⁶ as opposed to substance as matter. Aristotelian form, simply stated, are those immaterial qualities that make something what it is (e.g. shape, function, etc.). Observing that physical bodies (and living bodies) are substances, Aquinas infers that Aristotle defines the soul as a form that characterizes “a physical body potentially alive.”³⁷ In this framework, questions such as whether the soul and body are one become meaningless,³⁸ precluding any sort of dualism or monism. With this definition of the soul, Aristotle inquires as to its “motive forces,” of which he concludes there are two, “mind and appetency.” “Mind” is subdivided into intellect and imagination, the latter occuring only in combination with appetition.³⁹ Finally, we arrive at the Aristotelian teaching respecting will:

Now reason does not appear to cause movement apart from appetency; for will is an appetency. When there is movement by reason there is also movement by will.⁴⁰ [Italics added.]

So all of the mind's activity is linked to appetition, including the intellectual, entailing an absolute freedom of will. One should note, moreover, that intellect is considered infallible;⁴¹ mistakes only occur as a result of the “pushing and pulling” of motive forces.⁴² This is a Platonist line of thinking, which Aquinas explicates: “If we act amiss it is...because we fall short of what we intellectually know.”⁴³ Every object man pursues “is either a real good or a seeming good.”⁴⁴

Aristotle felt compelled to explain everything in terms of movement; this resulted in a small dilemma. While asserting that “an animal is self-moving inasmuch as it is appetitive,” he also links appetition to imagination (which can be rational or sensitive).⁴⁵ It remains unclear how imagination can bring about self-movement if the “cognitive faculty...does not move.”⁴⁶ As Aquinas illustrates, this is resolved by noticing that the particular rather than universal conception causes movement. As his example, “children ought to honour their parents,” is a universal concept, and cannot cause movement. “I am a son and I ought here and now to honour my parents,” is a “particularized” version of the universal concept, and this is what prompts action.⁴⁷ This is not an argument for moral relativism or against universals, but an assertion that only the application of universals to concrete circumstances can prompt an act of will.

Aquinas' concept of “particularization” could be used to explain why Christians sin: “...one's good judgment as to what should be done in the particular is neutralised by a pleasure or motion of some kind; one's universal opinion remaining however, unaltered.”⁴⁸ Here we have an implicit rationalization of the relevant Church doctrines regarding temptation, sin, repentance, and reconciliation.

The need to provide rational justification for Church doctrines is more evident in the Summa contra Gentiles, where Aquinas' imagined audience consists of the Muslims and their sympathizers. If St. Thomas could be said to have an archrival, as Augustine did in Pelagius, it would be the Arabian philosopher Avicenna. Since he saw himself engaged in a philosophical struggle, Aquinas took pains to distinguish the roles of philosopher and theologian, a precursor to the sort of specialization that would redefine Western science. Succinctly stated, a philosopher, according to Aquinas, views things “as they are,” while the theologian considers their relation to God.⁴⁹ Furthermore, just as philosophy uses the natural sciences to support its arguments, so theology may employ human philosophy, arguing from the first cause, God.⁵⁰

In deducing God from less fundamental, but more intuitive, principles, Aquinas establishes himself as a philosopher, and retains that role in his discussion of God's nature. As in Augustine, power and wisdom are God's defining characteristics. In fact, “God's power is his very substance.”⁵¹ Divine power is defined with respect to God's actions, of which all creation is an effect. Additionally, “intellect and will are in God.”⁵² God's active power extends “to everything not repugnant to the notion of that which is being an act, namely to everything except that which implies a contradiction.”⁵³ Instead of regarding logic as an external constraint on God, Aquinas considers logical consistency as being built into the notion of action, perfect action being the substance of God. This is an important construction, necessary to discredit “those who assert that things proceed from God, not by the divine will, but by natural necessity...”⁵⁴

In defending the Christian doctrine of divine omnipotence, Aquinas clarifies that God is omnipotent in the sense of “active potency,” not “passive potency.”⁵⁵ Basically, he reasons that God cannot do those things which would cause him to be antithetical to himself; the limitation is existential, rather than extrinsic. In another work, Aquinas says that divine power extends to “all things that are possible in themselves.”⁵⁶

The doctrine of immutability is reasserted in a manner similar to Augustine;⁵⁷ in his Quæstiones Disputat æde Potentia Dei, he attempts to reconcile this doctrine with that of divine free will: “Though God is unchangeable, his will is not confined to one issue as regards things to be done: hence he has free will.”⁵⁸

As the Summa contra Gentiles is directed in large part toward the Muslim sages, Aquinas is emphatic in his refutation of the second half of this “double error”: “that God can do only that which He does because He is bound to this; and the error of those who assert that all things follow from the will of God.”⁵⁹ The treatment of this “error” touches many aspects of Christian cosmology, and it will dominate the remainder of this discussion.

The first question that arises is whether things are good in themselves or good because of God; essentially a recasting of the Augustinian theory of grace. Following Aristotle's thinking, Aquinas sees an “appetite for the good” in all things; inanimate objects have a natural appetite (in modern speech, the laws of physics); lower animals have only an animal appetite, whereas humans also have an intellectual or rational appetite, known as the will.⁶⁰ The idea that things are good in themselves is also supported in the Summa Theologiæ by the following syllogism:

Sed contra est quod omnia sunt bona inquantum sunt. Sed non dicantur omnia entia per esse divinum sed per esse proprium. Ergo non omnia sunt bona bonitate divina sed bonitate propria.⁶¹

However, God acts as a source of goodness in a Platonic sense, acting as “primo principio exemplari, effectivo et finali totius bonitatis.”⁶² In this manner, Aquinas hopes to have eluded his critics.

As St. Augustine did in The Free Choice of Will, Aquinas appears to have asserted the independence of creation a bit too strongly. He addresses this potential criticism in the Quæstiones, explaining how “God works in both nature and will...as a man causes the knife's cutting by the very fact that he applies the sharpness of the knife.”⁶³ The sharpness of the knife is nonetheless necessary for the cutting; in this way, Aquinas refutes the Moorish sages in their claim “that fire does not heat but God creates heat” whenever an object is placed near fire.⁶⁴ Aquinas' universe is neither self-winding nor inert. By postulating God as the sole cause of being, the Angelic Doctor renders it impossible for a created intelligence to give being except when acting as “an instrument of the divine power operating.”⁶⁵ In sum, by “upholding their being...[God] acts in every agent immediately, without prejudice to the action of the will and of nature.”⁶⁶ This is intended as a direct denial of Avicenna's doctrine of a separate agent intellect.

Lastly, we re-encounter the perennial Christian conundrum revolving around God's responsibility for man's sin. Here, once again, Aristotle's presence is felt, as Aquinas holds that “every intellectual substance is incorruptible,” and that “all corruption occurs through the separation of form from matter.”⁶⁷ God would be capable of sinning were he able to will to sin; since the latter is precluded by divine wisdom, God cannot sin.⁶⁸ As for the sins of men, the responsibility is divided as follows. The “entity and actuality” of the sinful act has God as its cause, but “the deformity of sin” is attributable to the sinner; by analogy, the “movement of limping comes from the power to walk, whereas the defect is owing to the misshapen leg.”⁶⁹ St. Thomas follows Augustine in regarding evil as a privation, yet he attributes a positive existence to sinful acts, while his use of Aristotelian metaphysics enables him to analyze sin in a way that places all blame on the sinner. In this vein, he adds that God may “incline man's will to evil” only “by permitting and directing the evil.”⁷⁰ Characteristically meticulous, Aquinas also accounts for the good deeds that God does not do, maintaining that the Creator “does not omit them, since he is not bound to do them, which is a necessary condition of omission.”⁷¹

On this note, we conclude our discussion, having found the single most important aspect of the Christian doctrine of free will to be man's responsibility for his own sins. From St. Augustine's notion of free will evidenced by external consciousness,⁷² we have arrived at Aquinas' conception of man's will as having “dominion over its act”; in both cases, free will acts “not to the exclusion of the first cause.” ⁷³ The presence of the divine will created many problems for the Christian theologians and philosophers, difficulties which were exploited by their non-Catholic adversaries who wished to either enhance or diminish the role of the divine will. A “middle road” was chosen by both Augustine and Aquinas, a path which asserted a strong omnipresent Deity while emphasizing man's responsibility for his sin and consequent need for repentance. While Augustine made this argument in a largely theological context, Aquinas found himself in an entirely different set of historical circumstances, necessitating a more philosophical approach, while upholding the truth of the same religious doctrine defended by his predecessor.

1: Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, City of God (London: Penguin Books, 1972), p.1023. Bk.XXII, Ch.2.
2: Loc. cit.
3: Ibid., p.1024.
4: Loc. cit.
5: Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, The Confessions of St. Augustine, Edward B. Pusey, trans. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1961), p.198. Bk.XI.
6: Loc. cit.
7: Ibid., p.205.
8: Augustine, City of God, op. cit., p.1024.
9: Ibid., p.1022. Bk.XXII, Ch.1.
10: Ibid., pp.1022-3.
11: Ibid., p.568. Bk.XIV, Ch.11. Augustine uses creation ex nihilo to show that creations, made out of nothing, rather than of God's substance, have this capacity of their own volition rather than on account of a flaw in God's substance.
12: Ibid., p.569.
13: Loc. cit.
14: Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, The Free Choice of the Will, from The Fathers of the Church, Edward B. Pusey, trans., LIX (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1968), pp.73-4. Bk.I, Ch.1.
15: Ibid., p.75. Bk.I, Ch.2.
16: Ibid., pp.77-8. Bk.I, Ch.3.
17: Ibid., pp.105-6. Bk.I, Chs.15-6.
18: Ibid., p.109. Bk.II, Ch.1.
19: Ibid., p.111. Bk.II, Ch.2.
20: Ibid., pp.112-3. Isa.7:9, John 17:3, Matt.7:7.
21: Ibid., pp.158-9. Bk.II, Ch.18.
22: Ibid., pp.162-3. Bk.II, Ch.20.
23: Ibid., p.168. Bk.III, Ch.2.
24: Ibid., p.173. Bk.III, Ch.3.
25: Ibid., pp.174-5. Bk.III, Ch.4.
26: Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, Grace and Free Will, from The Fathers of the Church, op. cit., p.265. Ch.6.
27: Loc. cit.
28: Ibid., pp.266-7. Ch.14.
29: Ibid., p.280.
30: Ibid., pp.284-5. Ch.15.
31: José Gaos, Historia de nuestra idea del mundo (Mexico: El Colegio de México, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1992), p.43.
32: Ibid., p.41.
33: W.K.C. Guthrie, The Greek Philosophers (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), p.138.
34: Ibid., p.139.
35: Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, The Trinity, from Augustine: Lost Works, John Baillie et. al., eds. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1955), pp.87-8. Bk.X.
36: Aristotle, De anima, version of William of Moorbeke, with commentary of Saint Thomas Aquinas; Kenelm Foster and Silvester Humphries, trans. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951), p.173. Bk.II, Ch.II.
37: Ibid., p.169. Bk.II, Ch.I. Aquinas.
38: Ibid., p.164. Bk.II, Ch.II. Aristotle.
39: Ibid., p.468. Bk.II, Ch.X. Aristotle.
40: Ibid., pp.468-9.
41: Ibid., p.469.
42: Ibid., p.470.
43: Ibid., p.473. Bk.III, Ch.X. Aquinas.
44: Loc. cit.
45: Ibid., p.477. Bk.III, Ch.X. Aristotle.
46: Ibid., p.478. Bk.III, Ch.XI. Aristotle.
47: Ibid., pp.481-2. Bk.III, Ch.XI. Aquinas.
48: Loc. cit.
49: Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, James F. Anderson, trans., II (Garden City, N.Y.: Hanover House, 1956), p.34. Ch.4, §1.
50: Ibid., p.35. Ch.4, §4.
51: Ibid., p.36. Ch.8, §1.
52: Ibid., p.41. Ch.10, §1.
53: Ibid., p.66. Ch.22, §4.
54: Ibid., p.33. Ch.3, §4.
55: Ibid., p.73. Ch.25, §2.
56: Saint Thomas Aquinas, Quæstiones Disputatæde Potentia Dei, English Dominican Fathers, trans. (Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1952.), Bk.I, p.40. Q.I, Art.VI.
57: Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, op. cit., p.76. Ch.25, §23.
58: Aquinas, Quæstiones, op. cit., p.33. Q.I, Art.V.
59: Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, op. cit., p.85. Ch.29, §20.
60: Ibid., p.142. Ch.47, §2.
61: Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ, Vol.2, Ia. 2-11, Timothy McDermott, ed. (London: Blackfriars, 1964), p.90. Ia. 6, 4. “On the other hand things are good inasmuch as they exist. Now things are said to exist, not by divine existence, but by their own. So things are good, not by God's goodness, but by their own.”
62: Ibid., p.92. “the pattern, source and goal of all goodness.”
63: Aquinas, Quæstiones, op. cit., pp.130-1. Q.III, Art.VII.
64: Ibid., p.128.
65: Ibid., p.132.
66: Ibid., p.133.
67: Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, op. cit., p.158.
68: Aquinas, Quæstiones, op. cit., p.36. Q.I, Art.VI.
69: Ibid., p.37.
70: Loc. cit.
71: Ibid., p.38.
72: Augustine, The Free Choice of the Will, op. cit., p.171. Bk.3, Ch.3.
73: Aquinas, Quæstiones, op. cit., p.135.

This document was translated from L^AT_EX by H^EV^EA.