Single Question. Whether God’s Will of Being Well-Pleased is always Fulfilled

1. About the forty sixth distinction I ask whether God’s will of being well-pleased is always fulfilled.

And it seems that it is not:

I Timothy 2.4: “God wills all men to be saved;” but not all will be saved; therefore etc.

2. In addition Matthew 23.37 the Savior says to the children of Jerusalem: “How often have I wanted to gather your children as a hen gathers her chicks, and ye would not;” therefore as before.

3. On the contrary:

Romans 9.19: “Who hath resisted his will?”

4. And Psalm 113.11: “Everything that he willed he did.”

I. To the Question

5. I reply:

The will of Goda must, as to all things, always be fulfilled, - because as the Almighty can do everything possible, so, when the divine will is determinate with final determination to posit something in being, that thing will be; but to will that thing with the will of being well-pleased is to will it with the ultimate determination that can be posited on the part of an almighty will that wills the effect into existence; therefore as regard every effect for which God is thus willing, that effect will be.

a [Interpolation] will is double, will of being well-pleased and of sign or notification; the first is double, namely antecedent and consequent. Antecedent will of being well-pleased is that by which God wills conditionally (as far as concerns himself) and antecedently that all men be saved, and this will is not always fulfilled [cf. nn.7-8]; the will of being well-pleased that is absolute is also consequent. [See also the Interpolation after n.6]

6. And the reason can be confirmed, because if a cause, determinate with ultimate determination to something, were not to posit the effect in being, this would seem to be because of its lack of power - as for example that it was not sufficient of itself or was impeded by something else, or because of its capability of changing before the effect is understood to be posited in being; but the Almighty is not lacking in power, nor is he mutable; therefore etc.a

a [Interpolation] But the will of sign or notification is distinguished in five ways: into prohibition, precept, counsel, fulfillment, and permission [see below d.47 n.6]. The first three are reduced to conditional will of being well-pleased, because God’s precept or prohibition or counsel is not always fulfilled; fulfillment and permission are reduced to absolute will of being well-pleased, and in this way nothing is done against this sign or notification.

II. To the Principal Arguments

7. To the first argument [n.1] I say that although the saying of the Apostle could be expounded with an appropriate distribution of terms, to mean all those who will be saved - yet it could be better expounded of antecedent will as follows: ‘he wills to save all men and that all men be saved’, namely as far as concerns his own part - and by his antecedent will he has, to this extent, given them the natural gifts and right laws and common aids that are sufficient for salvation.

8. Just as, in the case of a king who establishes good laws and appoints ministers to guard those laws, one could say that he wills all his subjects to live peaceably and quietly, as far as in him, and yet, if he see someone being unjustly treated, there would be no need for the king at once to intervene to ensure that he lives quietly unless the matter were delivered to him by a complaint of fact (he does indeed antecedently will anyone to live peaceably and quietly, but he does not will anyone immediately to live thus), - so I say in the issue at hand, that although God not have a will of being well-pleased for saving this particular man, yet he wills for him the common aids of salvation, by which aids even that particular man can live well and be saved; for which reason one can say that, as far as concerns his own part, he wills all to be saved.

9. To the second [n.2]: the Master expounds (and well expounds, d.46 ch.2 n.414), that it was not that he willed all to fulfill the will of Christ, but that he gathered by his will all whom he gathered. See and note the exposition of the Master.