III. To the Arguments

A. To the Principal Argument

294. To the arguments set down on behalf of the opinion of the philosophers [sc. that something else besides God is immutable, n.223].

As to what they argue about an ancient change in the First thing if the First thing is not necessarily related to what is next to it [n.223], I reply that a new effect could come about from an ancient will without any change of will. Just as I, by that same continued will of mine by which I wish something to be done, will then do it at the ‘when’ at which I will to do it, so God in his eternity wished something other than himself to be at some time and then created it at the ‘when’ at which he willed it to be.

295. And if you object, according to Averroes Physics VIII com.4, that he will at least be waiting for time, if he does not at once put the effect into being when he wishes it to be; -

296. - and in addition to this, according to Averroes elsewhere, a thing indeterminate by contingency posits such indeterminacy as to either eventuality, because what is thus indeterminate cannot of itself, as it seems, proceed to act; therefore if there is in God such contingency as to causing, he does not seem able of himself to be determined to causing.

297. To the first [n.295] I reply. Something existing and willing in time either wills with most efficacious volition, not having regard to the time for which it wills, - or it wills the thing to be for some definite time. If in the first way, it would at once put the willed thing into being if its will is perfectly powerful. If in the second way, to posit that its will were simply powerful would yet not put the thing at once into being but only at the time when it wanted the thing to be; it would wait then for time, because the thing is in time. - But when we apply this to God we must remove the imperfections. For neither is his will impotent nor does it have being in time so that it should wait for the time at which to produce the thing willed; which thing it does not will to be necessarily then when it wills, but it wills it for a determinate time; but it does not wait for the time, because the operation of his will is not in time.

298. And when Averroes speaks second ‘about the indeterminacy of a cause causing contingently’ [n.296], there was discussion elsewhere [I d.7 nn.20-21] about double indeterminacy, namely of passive power and of active unlimited power. For God was not indeterminate as to causing with the first indeterminacy but with the second, and this not to several disparate things (to each of which he is naturally determined) in the way the sun is related to the many effects it is capable of, but he is indeterminate to contradictories, to each of which he could be of his liberty determined. So too our will is indeterminate in this way, virtually, with indetermination of active power as to either contradictory, and it can of itself be determined to this or that.

299. And if you ask why the divine will, then, will be more determined to one contradictory than to the other, I reply: ‘it is a mark of lack of education to seek causes and demonstration for everything’ (according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 4.4.1006a5-8, 6.1011a8-13), ‘for there is not demonstration of a principle of demonstration’. But it is a thing immediate that the will wills this thing, such that there is no cause intermediate between these terms, just as it is a thing immediate that heat heats (but here it is a matter of nature, there of freedom), and so of this ‘why the will wills’ there is no cause save that the will is the will, just as of this ‘why heat heats’ there is no cause other than that heat is heat, because there is no prior cause.

300. And if you say ‘how can there be immediacy here, since there is contingency to either result?’, there was discussion elsewhere in the question ‘On the subject of theology’ [Prol. n.169], that in contingent things there is some first thing which is immediate and yet contingent, because no stand is made at something necessary (for the contingent does not follow from the necessary), and so it is necessary here to make a stand at this proposition ‘the will of God wills this’, which is contingent and yet immediate, because no other cause is prior to the reason of the will as to why it is of this and not of something else. - By this is apparent the answer to what Averroes adduces, that ‘his own action is in him by his essence’ and is not in him accidentally; it is true that his willing is his essence, yet his willing contingently passes to this object and to that, as will be said later ‘about future contingents’ [I d.39, see footnote to n.281].

301. By this the answer to the principal argument [n.223] is plain, that with the necessity of God stands the fact that what he is immediately related to is mutable, because ‘immediately from the immutable’ is mutable without change of the immutable, because the relation of the immutable to what is next to it is mutable; and therefore the extreme of that relation is contingent and mutable, although the foundation is immutable.

B. To the Reasons for the Intention of the Philosophers

302. To the arguments posited for the philosophers [sc. that the first cause necessarily causes, nn.259-262].

To the first, about ‘the things that divide being’ [n.259], I say that ‘necessary’ is a more perfect condition (than ‘possible’) in any being for which the condition of necessity is possible; but it is not more perfect in that being with which it is not compossible, because a contradiction does not posit any perfection, and this is not from its own nature but from the nature of the being with which it is repugnant. And so I say that necessity is repugnant in every respect to what is posterior, because, from the fact that every posterior is non-necessary, the first thing cannot have a necessary relation to any of them.

303. And when you say that ‘all of the more perfect dividers of being are concomitant with each other’ [n.260], I say that this is true of the dividers that state a perfection simply and in themselves (as are act, infinity, and the like), but not of those that state a respect to something posterior, because to have a necessary relation to something of that sort is not a mark of perfection, because it does not stand with the perfect necessity of that which is said to have such a relation; the confirmation of this is that such a relation is not formally infinite, although however infinity is the more noble extreme in the division of being.

304. To the other remark, when it is said ‘if it causes naturally, it would necessarily cause and would then give necessity to the product     etc .’ [n.261], I say that it does then follow that it would cause necessarily, just as from an antecedent that includes incompossibles follows a consequent that includes incompossibles; for in the antecedent that mode ‘naturally’ is repugnant to ‘what it is to cause’, because ‘to cause’ states the production of something diverse in essence, and so of something contingent, but ‘naturally’ states a necessary mode of causing and thus a mode of causing in respect of something necessary; and therefore      the consequent follows which includes two opposites at the same time, by reason of the causation and of the mode of causing. It is in this way that the first proposition is true. - And when you add ‘no perfection is taken from the caused because of the more perfect mode of causing of the cause itself’, I concede it; nor does the mode of causing ‘voluntarily’ take from the causable any perfection that is possible for it, but it takes necessity from the causable (which is in itself a perfection, but one incompossible with the causable), and it gives the caused the perfection compossible with it, just as ‘voluntarily’ in creation states a mode compossible with causation.

305. By this is apparent the response to the confirmation about the many producible differences of being [n.261]; I say that causable being cannot have those several differences, necessary and possible, but every causable being is only possible; and therefore it is not a mark of perfection in the cause to be able to cause those several differences, because there is no power for what is impossible, - likewise, if it were per impossibile to cause necessarily, it would also therefore necessarily not cause several differences of being, because it would produce only necessary things and not contingent ones.

306. To the final one [n.262] I say that no natural connection of cause and caused is simply necessary in creatures, nor does any second cause cause simply naturally or simply necessarily but only in a certain respect. The first part is clear, because any second cause depends on the relation of the first cause to the caused; likewise, no second cause causes save by the first cause causing the caused along with it, and this naturally before the proximate cause causes; but the first cause only causes contingently, therefore the second cause causes simply contingently because it depends on the causation of the first, which causation is simply contingent. The second part, namely about necessity in a certain respect, is plain, because many natural causes, as far as concerns themselves, cannot not cause their effects, and so there is necessity in a certain respect - namely as far as concerns themselves - and not simply; just as fire, as far as concerns itself, cannot not heat, yet, with God cooperating, it can absolutely not heat, as is clear, and as was clear about the three boys in the furnace [Daniel 3.49-50].