Single Question. Whether Divine Permission is some Act of the Divine Will

1. About the forty seventh distinction I ask whether divine permission is some act of the divine will.

That it is:

Because otherwise it does not seem that God knows with certitude that this man will sin (for he does not know future contingents without determination of his will); but it does not seem that he has about a sinner any act save that of permitting him to sin (for neither does he, with respect to him, have acts of willing and refusing); therefore if ‘to permit’ is not some act, God will not be certain about the future sin of this man, because there will be no determination of his will for making that future contingent to be known with certitude.

2. On the contrary:

Permission is enumerated along with the other signs or notifications of the divine will; but precept is not any elicited act of the divine will; therefore much more forcefully is permission not so either.

I. To the Question

3. I reply:

In us a double act of will can be distinguished, namely to will and to refuse, and each is a positive act; and if they are about the same act, they are contrary acts - which acts are also expressed by other words, which are ‘to love’ and ‘to hate’.

4. And each of these can in us be distinguished, as that willing is distinguished into efficacious willing and weak willing; so that ‘efficacious willing’ is said to be that by which the being of the willed thing is not merely pleasing to the will but, if the will can at once posit the willed thing in being, it at once posits it; so too ‘efficacious refusing’ is said to be that by which the refuser not only impedes something but, if he can, he altogether destroys it. ‘Weak will’ is that by which the willed thing pleases such that the will does not, however, posit it in being, although it could posit it in being; ‘weak refusing’ is that by which the refused thing displeases such that the will does not prevent the refused thing from being although it could.

5. In us, therefore, weak refusing - properly stated - seems to be the permission of something bad which I know; for I am not said to permit that about which I know nothing, or that which is so done by another that it pleases me - but I permit that which I know is being done badly by another but which I do not prevent.

6. A sign of efficacious will is that, if the thing may be immediately done by the will, there is fulfillment of it - if it may be done by another, there is precept of it; and perhaps the sign of weak will - in us - is counsel, or persuasion or warning. And the sign of weak refusal is permission or dissuasion, and the sign of efficacious refusal is prohibition.

7. But this distinction could be posited in God such that, just as willing and refusing are one act of his (and this without contrariety or dissimilarity in the act in itself), so ‘efficacious willing’ would be assigned to some of the objects willed by him, and likewise efficacious refusing to some of the objects refused by him, - and not assigned to others. And then one could say that God’s refusal is weak with respect to those objects that he refuses in such a way that he refuses to prohibit them; and this refusing by God can be called his permission - and thus the act in God, as it passes over to the object, is related in this way to the divine will.

8. But if this answer does not please (because of the fact that the refusal of anything that has been posited in being would seem to go along with some sadness and with some imperfection in the volition itself and in the will), then it can be said that permission outwardly (or the sign or notification) is that the effect exist, although however it is against the divine precept - and this is the permission that is a sign or notification of divine will; but to this nothing in the divine will corresponds itself save that the will does not will to prevent something from coming to be, or does not refuse it, which refusing is the negation of a divine positive act and consequently is not a positive act.

9. And as to the remark that ‘he who wills allows’, this can be understood to mean, not that he wills to have a direct act about what he permits, but rather a reflex act; for there is offered to the divine will that this man will sin or is sinning, and first God’s will does not have about this man an act of willing (for he cannot will him to have sin); secondly his will can be understood not to be willing this thing, and then his will can will ‘not to will this thing’, - and in this way the one who wills is said to allow and allow voluntarily, namely willing to permit and to permit voluntarily. Just as, on the other side, when Judas is presented to God: first God has a not willing of glory to him, and not first a refusing of it to him (according to the final position in distinction 41 n.45); and he can then secondly reflect on this negation of act and will it - and so he willingly (or voluntarily) chooses, not Judas’ going to be finally a sinner and refusal of glory, but a non willing of glory.

II. To the Principal Argument

10. As to the first argument [n.1], it was explained in distinction 41 [n.50] how there is no foreseeing in God of a future sin by the fact that he knows he will permit this man to sin finally (and so to need to be finally damned), but there is required along with this that he knows he will co-operate with him in the act of sinning, and will not cooperate in the act whose omission is a sin of omission; yet concomitant with each of these permissions is that God foresees that he does not will this man to sin, - and thus it is plain how divine permission is an act of will and how it is not.