A. God loves Everything

7. The proof of the first is that (as shown in I d.2 nn.75-88) God of himself naturally understands and wills, and is consequently capable of blessedness [cf. 2 d.1 nn.30-31, 4 d.49 p.1 q.1-2 n.27]. But in him power does not precede act, for then he would be imperfect; so he is blessed in actuality, and just by willing and understanding himself, for no other object can beatify the rational creature (from I d.1 n.15). Therefore, he actually understands and loves himself.

8. But the proof that he also loves other things is that, just as every intellect has power for anything intelligible, so every will has power for anything willable. Therefore the divine will can love all lovables, and not as doing so potentially before doing so actually. Therefore he loves all other lovables in addition to himself.

9. An objection here is that, if so, God would love contraries at the same time, because both contraries have the idea of being lovable.

10. This conclusion must necessarily be conceded of those natures that are in themselves contrary. But God does not love them so that they be present at the same time in the same subject, for this is not something lovable. Certain things he also loves by willing them, and willing them by effective will, namely those that he at some point produces in being. Certain things he loves by a will of simple well-pleasingness, not by effective will; but these things he never produces in being, though they are shown by his intellect capable of having as much goodness as the things he does love with effective will.

11. A reason also put forward in support of this conclusion too (which is a presupposition in the proof in I d.2 n.74, nZ that God is formally willing) is that ‘to be willing’ is a pure perfection [a perfection simply]. For in all things that divide being the more noble divisor is a pure perfection. But if being is divided into willing and non-willing, the willing is simply more perfect; therefore it is a pure perfection.