The Operations of God's Will

a) THE DIVINE WILL The will is the tendency to follow intellectual knowledge by appropriate action. It is the intellectual appetency. It is the power or faculty to choose a course of action which is intellectually manifested as good to follow. All these descriptions of will are, of course, literally applicable to the faculty of willing in a rational creature, that is, in a creature endowed with understanding and the ability to act with conscious purpose in consequence of its findings. When we speak of God, we must remove from our concept of will all that makes it a limited and imperfect thing, all that makes it a faculty or accidental power, all that makes it something really distinct from understanding and from the essence of the being which understands. For in God there is no real distinction save that of the distinction of Persons in the Trinity, a distinction which we have no right to discuss in a purely human or rational science. God’s will must exist, for will is a perfection and God is identified with the infinity of all perfections subsisting in simple and eternal unity. But God’s will is not, as our wills are, a power which God has; no, God’s will is a perfection which God is; it is one with the essence of God. Therefore, just as it is correct to say that God is infinite mind or infinite understanding or infinite knowledge, so it is correct to say that God is infinite will. Still, we are limited by the inadequacies of creatural understanding and of human speech, and, if we are to discuss the Divine Will at all, we must perforce discuss It in terms that express It as something akin to the creatural faculty of will that we know and experience within our limited selves. Our language is necessarily analogical in this discussion, as it is in the discussion of all the Divine Perfections. Now, can God be truly and factually regarded as Will? Is God infinite will? In more understandable, but less accurate speech, is there a will in God ?

1. In God there is, formally or as such, and in an eminent or transcendent way, all that our knowledge of creatures discloses to us as pure and unmixed perfection. Now, will in itself (and not in its halting and limited creatural exercise) is unquestionably a pure and unmixed perfection. For there is nothing of imperfection in the tendency to follow knowledge with appropriate action; on the contrary, knowledge without tendency or ability to act upon it would be itself imperfect, since knowledge finds its fulfillment and rounded meaning in being carried out; and hence this capacity or faculty for carrying out knowledge is itself a perfection. In creatures, the will is subject to influences that hamper and thwart it; it is capable of an abuse that turns it against the very purpose of its existence; it is possible to employ it in a fashion that is morally evil and to make it the directive force behind movements that are both physically and morally bad. We say that every human will is weak; we say that many a human will is a bad will (not in itself indeed but in its use); and these declarations point to deficiencies, limits, evils. But none of these limitations, deficiencies, and defections is an evil in the willingpower itself. In will, considered purely in itself, there is nothing that the mind can discover but pure perfection. Therefore, this perfection is a pure and unmixed perfection, and it must be attributed formally to the Infinite Being. Hence we must attribute will to God. God is Infinite Will.

2. Wherever there is understanding there must be will. For wherever there is knowledge there is tendency to follow knowledge. This truth is evident, almost self-evident, and it receives full confirmation in the check-up of our own experience. For knowledge is seldom purely and entirely speculative; very frequently,—and in some measure always,—it points on to something-to-be-done. Knowledge is a light that frequently reveals a path that may be followed; it discovers not only facts, but ways and means; it illumines no meaningless universe with a merely entertaining light, but shows ends to be attained. And this truth which is predicable, in due measure, of all knowledge, even sentient knowledge, is manifestly most truly and inevitably predicable of intellectual knowledge. Rightly do we declare that where there is understanding there is a drive and tendency to use understanding practically, to act on it, to carry out its plans for good, to achieve the

objects it shows to be desirable or necessary. In a word, rightly do we say that where there is an understanding there is a will. Now, as we have seen, God is Infinite Understanding; therefore (since God is simple and all perfections are identified with His essence) God is also Infinite Will. b) CLASSIFICATION OF WILL-ACTS IN GOD

We distinguish in God will-acts that are antecedent and those that are consequent, and so we speak of God’s antecedent will and His consequent will. God’s antecedent will is the Divine Will inasmuch as it wills good and rejects evil simply, without taking into account (hence antecedently to) any conditions or circumstances that might make what is simply or generally good a non-good or evil in certain cases. Thus, by His antecedent will, God wills all men to be saved. For salvation is the highest good of man, and God wills it simply or antecedently for all, without consideration of the circumstances which, in individual cases, might make it unjust. God’s consequent will is the Divine Will inasmuch as it wills what is good and rejects evil, not absolutely, simply, unconditionally, and in a general way, but in the special circumstances and conditions of each complex situation. Taking into account (and hence consequent upon but not dependently on) these special circumstances and conditions, God’s consequent will decrees the punishment, and not the salvation, of the unrepentant sinner, even though, by His antecedent will, God wills the salvation of all men. Of course, the consequent will decrees what is good, and this in a more special way than the antecedent will. It is good, in general, that all men be saved, and the salvation of all is willed or wished by the antecedent will of God. It is good, in each special case, that full justice should be done, and it is evil for justice to be traversed or offended; the consequent will of God wills that the unrepentant sinner should have justice. In the case of the unrepentant sinner, punishment is good, as being required by justice. c) OBJECT OF THE DIVINE WILL

The object of any faculty is what that faculty obtains or achieves in its normal function, and that which it is connaturally fitted to attain and towards the attainment of which it tends. Now, while the Divine Will is not a faculty, but is identified with the Divine Essence, we speak of It in human terms as though It were a faculty. The object of any faculty is twofold, namely, primary and secondary. The primary object, as we have seen in discussing the Divine Intellect, is that which the faculty tends to attain by its direct and immediate and first-and-foremost action; it is that which the faculty tends per se primo (of itself and primarily) to attain. The secondary object is that which the faculty tends to attain in, through, or by reason of its primary object. Thus, for instance, the faculty of sight in man tends to attain, that is, to perceive, colored surface. This is the primary object of sight. But because sight perceives colored surface, it perceives also where such surface terminates, and thus perceives the shape or figure of visible objects. This is a secondary object of sight. We have already learned that the primary object of the Divine Mind or Intellect is the Divine Essence Itself. And we have also seen that, in comprehending the Divine Essence, the mind of God comprehends all the Divine Powers and all that these can accomplish, and hence comprehends all creatures. In and through and by reason of the perfectly comprehended Divine Essence (primary object), the mind of God comprehends all creatable things (secondary object). Now, as it is with the Divine Mind, so is it also with the Divine Will. The primary object of the Divine Will is the Divine Essence Itself, and the secondary object is all that is in line with the primary, and may be viewed as related to it as means to end. But, before discussing and proving this point, we must say a word about the nature of will-acts in general. The intellect tends to embrace and understand all truth. The will tends to attain and possess and enjoy all good. Now, the tendency towards good is at the same time a tendency away from evil. And this tendency may, in all cases, be truly regarded as love. The acts proper to the will itself are often listed as these six: wish; intention; consent to the requisite means of carrying out intention; choice of suitable means; use of such means; enjoyment of the good attained. Every one of these six will-acts is ah aspect or expression of love. To have a wish is to entertain a simple love of the thing wished for; to intend a thing is to like or love it enough to have the purpose of attaining it; to consent to the means required to achieve an end is to like or love that end enough to undertake or undergo what is necessary to attain it; to choose means is to like the end enough to take pains in the election of ways to come by it; to use the means chosen is a further expression of this love; and to enjoy the beloved object when attained, is to rest in it complacently or lovingly. And where there is love there is hatred, where there is choice there is rejection; just as a step towards the north is inevitably a step away from the south. Hence, to wish an end or object is to reject what is opposed to that object and its attainment; to intend an end is to turn away from its opposite; and so with all the will-acts. Thus rejection or hatred is, so to speak, the under-side of love; it is part and parcel with love itself. Therefore, we repeat, all will-acts may be considered in terms of love. And when we come to the study of the object of the Divine Will, primary and secondary, we seek to learn what the Divine Will loves. We have two points to establish. First, God loves Himself necessarily, as the primary object of the Divine will. Secondly, God loves things other than Himself freely, as the secondary object of the Divine Will.

1. God loves Himself necessarily as the primary object of the Divine Will. This truth has two distinct parts; God loves Himself as the primary object of the Divine Will; and this love is not free but necessary, (a) The primary object of any will is that which is the ultimate and full answer to the will-tendency. Now, the Divine Will is an infinite tendency or appetite for good, and Its ultimate and full answer must be Infinite Good Itself, that is to say, the ultimate and full answer to the tendency called the will of God must be the Divine Essence Itself. For only the Divine Essence is an Infinite Good. Again, as we have already seen, will is consequent upon intellect. Will is a tendency to follow understanding, and to lay hold of and possess (that is, to love) what the understanding knows as good and desirable (that is, as lovable). Now, the Divine Intellect or Understanding knows the Divine Essence as supremely perfect and lovable, and hence the Divine Will tends primarily towards the Divine Essence as Its end. God, therefore, loves Himself; the Divine

Essence is the primary object of the Divine Will. (&) The tendency of any faculty towards its primary object is a necessary tendency; it is what the faculty is for; it is that which defines the faculty and gives it meaning. But, as we have seen, the primary object of the Divine Will is the Divine Essence. Hence, the Divine Will tends towards (that is, loves’) the Divine Essence necessarily. This does not involve any limitation in God; it does not mean that God is necessitated by anything extrinsic to Himself. In creatures, it is true, the perfect object of a faculty necessitates that faculty and, by the same token, limits the faculty and indicates its finite character. This is because the determining or necessitating factor in the case is extrinsic to the creatural faculty itself. But in God, the necessary object is Himself; it is not something extrinsic to the Divine Essence which forces, directs, or limits It; it is the Divine Essence Itself. Therefore, to say that God necessarily loves the Divine Essence is merely to say that God is God; it is not to say that God is necessitated by anything that bears upbn Him, so to speak, from without, for this (as is manifest, since God is the First Being and the only Necessary Being) is wholly impossible.

2. God freely loves things other than Himself, as the secondary object of the Divine Will. Three special points are to be distinguished in the declara-

tion. (a) God loves or wills things other than Himself. The fact that creatures exist is ample proof that God wills them to exist; otherwise their existence is inexplicable. And, even abstracting from the actual existence of creatures, we may prove that God loves or wills things other than Himself, for God is Infinite Goodness and goodness is, of its nature, a thing that tends to communicate itself and to spread itself abroad (bonum est diffusivum sui). Now, the only way in which Infinite Goodness can communicate Itself is by the sharing out, so to speak, of Itself in finite beings. “All creatures,” says St. Thomas Aquinas, “are but the participations of the Divine Goodness.” This does not mean that God must create, or that His goodness forces Him to bring creatures into being; we shall see in a moment that God’s love or will towards creatures is perfectly free and not necessitated. It means only that the tendency of the perfect love, that is, the Divine Will, is to give of its goodness; it means that God wills or loves things other than Himself, yet in Himself, and not as though creatures could be (which they cannot) independent of Himself or endowed with any excellence of their very own. (b) God wills things other than Himself as the secondary object of the Divine Will. For God, in His perfect comprehension of the Divine Essence, which is the primary object of the Divine Will, perfectly comprehends all that is within His power to create, and wills the

2l6 precise items of this infinite knowledge which shall have actual existence as creatures. Now, the knowledge of creatables in the Divine Essence is the secondary object of the Divine Mind, and, since will follows understanding, in mode as in fact, the actual choice of what creatables are to be creatures is the secondary object of the Divine Will. In a word, God wills or loves the creatures He is to create as the secondary object of the Divine Will. Take up the point in another way: All creatures are means to manifest the perfections of God. But means are never the primary object of the will; they are secondary to the end towards which they are directed by the will. Hence, creatures (that is, things other than God) are loved or willed as the secondary object of the Divine Will, (c) God loves things other than Himself in a manner that is not necessary but free. For the will, even of a creature (man or angel) is not necessitated to any means without which its end can be achieved. But God is Himself the end of the Divine Will, and this end is perfectly possessed, perfectly achieved, without creatures. While creatures serve to manifest the Divine Perfections, nothing is added to God Himself by such manifestation; it does not supply any lack in God; it is something extrinsic to Him without which He is infinitely perfect. The manifestation of the Divine Perfections effected by the creation, conservation, and governance of creatures, is no more an addition to God

Himself than a picture of a man is an addition to the man himself. It is an external manifestation. The end or primary object of the Divine Will (which is God Himself, or, in other words, the Divine Essence) is perfectly and eternally and necessarily attained, without reference to creatures, and would be so attained if no creature ever existed. Hence, if creatures are loved or willed (as we have seen that they are) this must happen in a way that is not requisite, not needed, not necessary, to fill up or fill out any perfection in God Himself. But that which is not requisite, nor needed, nor necessary, is free. Therefore, God wills (or loves) things other than Himself freely. It is wholly wrong, therefore, to assert, as some learned but mistaken men have done in times past, that God is forced by His goodness to create. God freely chooses to create. And His choice is an expression of the Divine Will (or the Divine Love) freely attaining a secondary object. It is plain that God is not forced by any of His perfections to any activity affecting things other than Himself, for every one of His perfections is infinitely identified with every other and with the Divine Essence Itself, and the Divine Essence, which is the only Necessary Being, is wholly self-sufficing and requires nothing beyond Itself for Its infinite being and existence. The point is manifest, but it may be effectively proved to the most stubborn or stupid of minds by a brief reductio ad absurdum, that is, by an argu2l8 ment which shows the impossible and silly and selfcontradicting consequences of the assertion that God is forced to create. For, were God compelled by His goodness, or by any other of His perfections, to create, He would be forced to create all creatable things, since Infinite Perfection is not to be satisfied by any limited expression. Further, all creatable things would necessarily be created from eternity, for the inner force (or perfection) compelling God to create would exist as long as God is God. Hence, all creatable things would of necessity exist from eternity; none would come into existence in time; none would suffer change or dissolution. Here we have a twofold absurdity, namely, the eternal existence of an infinity of finite things, and the eternal necessity of what is itself a contingent world. The conclusion is inevitable: God’s will is not forced with reference to its secondary object, but chooses this object freely. A seeming difficulty may here be considered. God is absolutely simple, uncompounded, uncomposed. But we have just seen that the one identical and simple Divine Will embraces Its primary end by a necessary action, and Its secondary end by a free action. Is there not a conflict here? How can one simple activity of one simple Infinite Will be at once necessary and free ? And, with reference to creatures, how can the one Divine Will, which is simple and changeless, choose freely to create certain finite beings; does not Its changelessness involve the necessity of creating just those things which are created or to be created, and so destroy the Divine freechoice? The difficulty here arises from the imperfection of our human concepts, and from our too-great readiness to attribute (unconsciously) human limitations to the unlimited God. To solve the difficulty, remember that God’s necessary will (or love) towards Himself is merely a phase or expression of the truth that God is God. And freedom (which marks God’s choice of the secondary object of the Divine Will) does not formally consist in a plurality of various acts, or in an ability to “change one’s mind”; indeed such plurality and such changeableness or hesitation indicate limitation and imperfection. Freedom consists fundamentally in an independence from outside influences. Now, God is wholly independent of creatures, and therefore His relation towards them is wholly and perfectly free. But how shall we compose the apparent difficulty which arises from the fact of God’s changelessness when seen in conjunction with God’s free choice of creatures? Is not a choice a kind of change? And creatures are essentially changeable things, contingent and non-necessary; it would seem that they must be the fruit of a will that has come to a decision about them, and so has changed. We must recall that the will of God is identified with the essence of God, and that this essence is eternal. What God wills may be itself contingent and changeable without inducing change and mutability in the Divine Will Itself. God, from eternity, knows all things by perfect comprehension; from eternity His will exercises Its eternal and changeless, yet free and independent, choice of creatures. By one simple act God knows all things; by one simple eternal act God wills all that He wills; by one simple act, nay, by the One Simple Divine Essence, God stands in changeless relation towards Himself necessarily, while He freely brings all things other than Himself into their relations towards Him.

d) THE DIVINE WILL AND EVIL Evil or badness is the absence of good. It is not a positive thing but a negative thing. It is not the presence of something that has its own formal constitution as a thing or being; it is the absence of something that ought to be present. Evil is a defection, a falling away, a failing, a lack, an absence. It is impossible to conceive of evil or to define it except in terms of absent good. Every being is good inasmuch as it is being at all. This is one of the basic truths of fundamental metaphysics or ontology, and is fully explained in that science. This goodness of being as being is called transcendental or metaphysical goodness, and such goodness is identified with actual being. Being and

goodness are synonymous terms when understood in their abstract and metaphysical sense. Hence there is no being which as such is evil. In other words, there is no such thing as metaphysical evil. But there is such a thing as physical evil, and there is such a thing as moral evil. When a thing has all that its nature demands for normal being and function, it is physically perfect and physically good; any lack of natural item or element or ingredient renders the thing physically evil or bad. Thus when we say that bread is good bread, we mean that it has physical goodness; that it is properly made and baked; that no item or ingredient or element that it should have is lacking to it. And when we say that bread is bad bread, or that it is “no good,” we mean that some item, ingredient, or element, is lacking. Here we see that physical evil is a lack and an absence of something that should be present. So sickness is a physical evil, for it is the lack of normal function in an organic nature. So death is a physical evil, for it is the absence of life in what was once an organism supporting life. Other physical evils are wounds, hunger, plagues, harsh climate, inasmuch as these things afflict men or animals, and hence induce a lack, an absence of natural and normal condition and function. But we must make careful distinctions. Poison is a physically bad or evil thing when used as food or medicine; in itself, as poison, it may be physically good: it is good poison, but not good food for man. As with physical evil, so with moral evil or sin; it is an absence and a lack. It is the absence and lack of the agreement and conformity that should be present between free human conduct (thought, word, deed, desire, omission) and the rule or norm of what that conduct ought to be. It is the lack of conformity between free human activity on the one hand, and the Eternal Law (which is proximately applied by consicence, that is, by human reason) on the other. Now, it is manifest that physical evils, and moral evils or sins, exist in the world. The question that here arises is: how far are such evils ascribable to the Divine Will? Is God in any sense the cause of any evil? Before answering this question, we recall the fact that, since evil is always a deficiency and a lack, it requires not so much an effecting cause as a deficiency of cause, a cause that fails to function. With this consideration in mind, we give a direct answer to our question.

I. God is in no sense the cause of moral evil or sin. The statement means that God does not will sin either per se (that is, in itself) or per accidens (that is, as accidentally and contingently involved in something that He does will). If God could will moral evil per se or in itself, we should be confronted with the absurdity of Infinite Good contradicting Itself, and showing an intrinsic tendency, so

to speak, towards all that conflicts with It. God would be a contradiction in Himself, and hence would be, not only imperfect, but impossible. We should have the Perfect Being as imperfect; the Necessary Being as impossible. Reason cannot accept such absurdities and contradictions, but is forced to acknowledge that God cannot will per se the existence of moral evil or sin. The sinner, therefore, is the sole author of sin; to him alone it is ascribable; his will is its cause. This does not mean that the sinner is a self-sufficient being, and the creator of his acts; it means that the sinner is wholly responsible for his failures, his lack of due action, the absence of good which should mark his moral conduct. Remember the truth that sin, like every evil, is a lack and a failure, and in itself requires as cause a defecting, a failing, rather than an efficient or effecting agent. Neither does God will moral evil per accidens. To will evil per accidens is to will it as involved in something willed in itself, directly or per se; it is to will it on account of a good greater than that to which the evil in question stands opposed. Thus, to borrow an illustration from the physical order, a man wills the pain and inconvenience and expense of a surgical operation (evils which stand opposed to comfort of body and peace of mind) on account of a good that is greater than comfort or freedom from moneyworries, namely, life itself and solidly established normal health. Now, God cannot will moral evil on account of a greater good than that to which the evil in question stands opposed. For the evil in question (that is, moral evil or sin) stands opposed, directly and inevitably, to God Himself; for moral evil is evil of human conduct inasmuch as this is out of line with the Eternal Law and is thus opposed to the Divine Essence. And there can be no greater good than God who is the Infinite Good. Therefore, God cannot will moral evil per accidens. Now, evil that cannot be divinely willed per se or per accidens cannot be divinely willed at all. For there are no other ways of willing moral evil but these two. Therefore, we are forced to the conclusion that God does not will moral evil at all. God is in no sense the cause of moral evil or sin. God is the author of human nature, which is understanding and free. Now, human freedom consists essentially in the capacity of a man to choose this or that lawful thing, to act or to refrain from acting when either course is in line with reason; it does not consist in man’s capacity to obey or disobey, to do good or do evil. To disobey, to do evil, is always an abuse and not a true use of freedom. God, the Creator is the author of human freedom and of its true use, but not of its abuse or sin. If you give a poor man clothing to cover and warm him, you are the true cause of his comfort and warmth; but if the man uses the clothing to make a rope with which to hang himself, you are

in no sense the cause of his crime. Your gift involves the possibility of an abuse which is entirely outside your will and intention, and even opposed to your will. So the gift of freedom involves the possibility of abuse, that is, of sin, though sin is entirely opposed to the will of God who bestows the gift. God gives freedom, and He does not take it away again from normally functioning man, even when the gift is used for a purpose directly opposite to that for which it was given. To give anything to an unperfected being for proper use is to face the possibility of an improper use, and this fact is particularly evident in the case of the gift of freedom. But to give a thing for use, is not to cause or to will its abuse; on the contrary, it is to will and to make possible its proper use. Therefore, though God has given man the freedom which man abuses when he sins or commits moral evil, God does not will, even per accidens, this abuse of what was given, and willed, to be properly used. 2. God does not will physical evil per se, but only per accidens. Physical evil is not merely a limitation; it is a limitation or falling short of a due perfection, that is, of something that should be present. The natural limitations of any finite thing, each in its own order, are not physical evils; normal limits are not imperfections in the creature which they mark and determine, but, rightly seen, they are perfections. If mere finiteness were a physical evil, the universe and all things in it would necessarily suffer this evil, and there would be no such thing as physical perfection; further, the Creator would be the cause per se of the universal physical evil, even as He is the cause of the existence and nature of creatures. What we mean by physical evil is a lack of normal and finite perfection that should be present in a creature. Sight is a perfection in man, even though its range be strictly limited; and lack of sight is an imperfection in man, that is, it is the absence of a natural perfection that ought to be present, and hence it is a physical evil. God the Creator wills the existence of creatures as the secondary object of the Divine Will. And God wills that creatures should have their being according to the eternal ideas, archetypes, or exemplars in the Divine Mind; these ideas are objectively perfect, each in its kind. Now, we cannot envision an artist or architect turning out broken and incomplete work for its own sake. Nor can reason accept the suggestion that the Divine Architect should will broken and incomplete creatures for the mere sake of brokenness and incompletion. Hence we declare that God does not will physical evil per se, that is, in or of itself, and for its own sake. Nevertheless physical evils do exist in the world, and they cannot be wholly ascribed to rebellious and defecting human wills as moral evil must be ascribed. Physical evils must, in some manner, be ascribed to God. But we have seen that they cannot be ascribed

to Him per se. It remains that physical evils are ascribable to God per accidens. To say that God wills physical evils per accidens is to say that God does not will such evils in themselves and for themselves but inasmuch as they are involved in the accomplishment of a greater good than that to which the evils stand opposed. In other words, God wills this greater good, and the physical evils that accompany its accomplishment are permitted and endured. Now, the great, the controlling, and the allimportant good in the world, in view of which physical evils must be endured (and thus are divinely willed per accidens) is the right order of the universe, that is, the proper arrangement of fact and function that keeps all things harmoniously tending towards their Last End. The world and all that is in it are to manifest the external glory of the Creator, and man, who holds the highest place among worldly beings, is to know and serve God, by intellect and will, to practise virtue, and so to attain God and happiness for eternity. This is the Last End of visible creation—the manifestation of God’s glory and the service and attainment of God by human beings. This is the great good in view of which or by reason of which order must be conserved even when it involves the enduring of physical evils. Of course, most physical evils would not exist had man not upset the universe by his original sin. But since he has done so, physical evils have come upon the world, not by way of punishment merely, but as out of a rearrangement and an accommodation without which man would surely fail the purpose of his being. For it is a truth capable of clear proof, if not of strict demonstration, that, were the world still the original paradise, no man would save his soul. A homely and very imperfect analogy may help us understand the place of physical evils in the maintenance of order in the universe. If a family is to have the happiness and the comfort of seemly home-life, right order must be preserved in the home. And this order must be a moral order, touching the relations of the members of the family in point of obedience, mutual respect, affection, deference, consideration, and sacrifice; and it must be a material order touching all the physical details of homemaking and housekeeping. There can be no peace and joy in the home that is torn with dissensions, marred by disobedience and want of respect, spoiled by selfishness. Nor can there be happiness in the home that is carelessly managed, unclean, needlessly disordered. If the family is to have peace and happiness, there are sacrifices to be endured; if it is to have decent comfort, there are inconveniences to be undergone. Peace is purchased by much self-sacrifice; rest is purchased by labor; cleanliness is bought at the price of continual care and effort. Now, if the right order of the home is bound up with the hardships of self-sacrifice, self-denial, wage-earning, washing, sweeping, cooking, endless

putting to rights, so the right order in the universe is bound up with the enduring of physical evils. And, as the homemaker wills per se the peace and happiness of family life, and thus wills per accidens all the inconveniences, sacrifices, and discomforts that are involved in maintaining that life, so the Divine Ruler of the world wills per se the eternal peace and happiness of men, and thus wills per accidens all the hardships (called physical evils) which are involved in the ordering of the world in view of that great end. The order of the universe, like that of the home, is both a moral and a material order. Towards the maintenance, and the continual restoration, of this order, physical evils are divinely willed per accidens. The destruction of vegetal life is a physical evil for the plants involved, but it is necessary for the maintaining of the material order: without it animal life could not endure, nor could man be properly housed and clothed. So also the destruction of animal life for the support of human life is a physical evil for the animals concerned; yet it is necessary to preserve the order of a world which is for man before all other creatures. And the suffering that man must endure in his body during life, and the hardship of death which must come to all, are stern reminders of moral duty; they keep a man aware of the fact that his lasting good is not here, and that he has a great task to perform and small time in which to accomplish its proper performance. Further, these physical evils are

2Z0 means of penance by which a man may remedy the faults of the past, and they are apt exercises by which he may strengthen himself for meeting the trials of the future. Even the suffering of animals, their pains, their diseases, and their death, are, to a thoughtful man, strong incentives to eternal human weal; they show man what havoc the original sin has wrought upon earth; they impress upon man a better understanding of the awful evil of sin; they stir man to penance and reparation.

In this Article we have studied the meaning of the Divine Will, and we have learned that God is truly Infinite Will just as He is Infinite Intellect. We have discussed the antecedent will and the consequent will of God. We have learned that the primary object of the Divine Will is the essence of God, or God Himself, so that God necessarily loves Himself by infinite and eternal Love which is identified with His own Being. We have seen that the secondary object of the Divine Will are creatures, that is, things other than God, which He wills freely. We have considered the existence of evil (moral and physical) in the world, and have found that God’s will has no part whatever in moral evil, so that He wills it neither per se nor per accidens; and that He wills physical evils only per accidens, that is, inasmuch as these are involved in the good which He wills per se.