God's Will is the Cause of All Things

Summa Theologiae I, Q19, a4
 
Here Thomas is primarily interested in proving that God causes the universe by Will, and not by the necessity of His nature. His target is the Neo-Platonic tradition, who talked about finite things as “proceeding” from the One, rather than being intentionally created by God. Thomas argues that the first agent must act by intelligence and will and not simply by the necessity of His nature. Like all agents, God acts for the sake of an end. Since no end demands His choice, beyond His own existence, this means that all finite creatures are freely chosen for the sake of the proliferation of divine goodness.
 
Thomas appeals to Question 7, article 2, to the effect that God’s effects cannot be undetermined and indefinite. Thomas here anticipates a view recently defended by Notre Dame philosophy Peter van Inwagen. Van Inwagen proposes that God wills indeterminate facts, which the creation makes definite by chance. E.g., God could dictate that a certain coin should land either Heads or Tails, without choosing either option. When the coin falls one way or another, the determinate effect will exceed God’s intention in specificity. Similarly, van Inwagen imagines that the early history of the universe might be the result of chance filling in the indefiniteness of God’s decree. In Question 7, Thomas denies that God could give any created thing an indeterminate nature, since forms (both substantial and accidental) are always definite, and all forms come from God.
 
Is the Will of God always Fulfilled?
 
Summa Theologiae I, Q19, a6
 
No effect can escape the scope of God, who is the universal cause.
 
But, doesn’t God desire for all men to be saved? (Objection 1, appealing to I Timothy 2:4) Thomas’s best response is to distinguish between God’s “antecedent” and “consequent” will. Take some particular man, like Judas Iscariot. Does God want Judas to be saved? Yes—other things being equal, it is always better for a human to be saved rather than damned. But, things are not always equal. So, God’s antecedent will (His will about some result considered by itself, in isolation, other things’ being equal) is for all to be saved, but His consequent will (all things considered, with things not being equal) is only for the salvation of the elect.
 
What God wills antecedently need not happen, but what He wills consequently always happens.
 
Does God’s Will Abolish Contingency from the Created World?
 
If everything happens according to God’s will, in what sense can things be “contingent” in the created world. Things that God creates are absolutely contingent, in the sense that He could have chosen not to create them. But, given that He does will that a certain event or action happens, it is necessary that it should happen (as we saw in the last section). We might put it this way: our creaturely actions ever contingent in their actual circumstances (this is sometimes called historical contingency)? Is there any room for the creature to make its own contribution to what happens, a contribution that is in some sense independent of God’s will?
 
There is an important sense in which my action is free and undetermined in its actual circumstances (historically contingent). If I exercise free will, then my choice is not determined by the whole history of the world up until that point, including my current psychological state at the moment of acting. There are possible worlds in which exactly the same events and conditions obtain as obtain in the actual world, and in which I make a different choice. This doesn’t require changing the natures, powers, potentialities, or accidents of anything in creation, including myself.
 
But, of course, this does not make my free choice independent of God’s will. I cannot choose in a way that is contrary to the way that God wills that I choose. Doesn’t that make me unfree? I don’t think so. God’s will about my choice is also undetermined by the past. At the moment of my choice, both God’s will and my will are undetermined. They are jointly contingent—either of us could make either choice. My choice is necessarily caused by God’s will, but God’s will is not necessitated by the past. God’s will is free to cause me to act in either way that is open to me.
 
Of course, it is impossible for God to will that I choose A and for me to choose B, or vice versa. However, there are two live options: (i) I choose A and God wills that I choose A, or (ii) I choose B and God wills that I choose B. Is the choice between these two options in any sense “up to me”? I think it is. It is also up to God. The choice is 100% up to me and 100% up to God. The relation between God’s will and the will of a creature is a unique sort of relation, quite different from the relation between any two creatures. Crucially, although my choice of A (if I do choose A) is contingently caused by God’s will, but it isn’t caused by the fact that God wills that I choose A. The fact that I chose A and the fact that God willed that I choose A are the very same fact, looked at from two different perspectives. Facts cannot cause themselves, so my choice is not caused by God’s choice, nor is God’s choice caused by my choice.
 
Is my choice nonetheless explained asymmetrically by God’s choice? In some cases, Yes, and in other cases No. It may be that my choice plays some important role in God’s providence, in which case my free choice will be explainable in terms of that role (think of Mary’s sinlessness or Judas’s betrayal). But in most cases, God wills that I make a certain choice simply because that is the sort of choice that I would be inclined to make from time to time. God’s permissive willing is a kind of fiduciary willing: He wills what, putting Himself in our place, it makes sense for us to choose freely.
 
An analogy that I like to use is the relationship between a human author, like J. R. R. Tolkien, and one of his fictional characters, like Frodo. Does Frodo act with free will? Yes, I think he does. Does this make him independent of Tolkien’s choices? No. It’s not as if Tolkien had to go into a trance and let the spirit of Frodo move his pen or his typewriter in order to exercise his free will. Frodo decided freely to accept the One Ring, and Tolkien willed that Frodo should so decide. The two cases of free agency are compatible.
 
Article 12 is quite relevant to this point. In that article, Thomas distinguished five ways in which God wills things: prohibition, precept, counsel, operation, and permission. The most relevant distinction at this point is between operation and permission. If I choose to sin, God does not operationally will that I do so—instead, He permissively wills so. This does not mean that God wills only that I should sin or not sin, and then leave the result up to me. God cannot will something indefinite or indeterminate. Instead, God permissively wills that I sin, and He does not will consequently that I not sin. He does will antecedently that I not sin (He wills antecedently that each person abstain from sin on every occasion), but His antecedent will is not effective. His consequent will, even when that will is permissive, does necessitate the result.
 
The other three forms of God’s will, like His antecedent will, are not universally effective. God expresses what we ought to do and not do by way of prohibition, precept, and counsel. It is still up to us (and to God’s consequent, permissive will) whether we do what God commands.