1. About the First Conclusion

276. The first conclusion is made clear by division thus: in genus there is only a twofold act of will: ‘to will’ and ‘to will-against’.Or, more colloquially, ‘to will’ and ‘to refuse’. Not to will at all, or to be indifferent, which is possible, is not an act but an absence of act. ⁵⁰ ‘To will’ too is double in genus: either because of the thing, or the good of the thing, willed; or because of the thing, or the good of the thing, that wills.

277. The first ‘to will’ is said to be the willing of the love of friendship, the second the willing of the love of concupiscence; and only the first is enjoyment, for to enjoy is to inhere with love [n.181] because of the thing itself, namely the thing loved.

278. Against this second distinction an objection is made through Augustine, On the Trinity 9.12 n.18, “The appetite of the seeker becomes the love of the enjoyer” [n.197]; the appetite of the seeker belongs to the love of concupiscence;     therefore etc     .

279. I reply: the wayfarer, as to the willing of concupiscence, wills a good for himself and, as to the willing of friendship, he wills well-being for God. The first appetite, in respect of a good to be possessed [sc. the love of concupiscence, or ‘the appetite of the seeker’], becomes the love of satisfaction for him in the good possessed, and so it becomes ‘the love of the enjoyer’ - it does not, however, become the love by which he formally enjoys, but it becomes his love who, by the other love [sc. the love of friendship], enjoys the same object in itself that, by this love [sc. the love of concupiscence], he loves for himself. The second appetite [love of satisfaction], that is, imperfect love, becomes the perfect love of the enjoyer by which, namely, he enjoys.

280. Having set down the division [nn.276-277] I give proof of the principal conclusion, not including nor excluding the passions (about which there will be question later, nn.413, 426, 431-433), but only speaking here of these acts of will [n.277].

281. It is plain that beatitude cannot consist in any willing-against; first because willing-against has evil for per se object, which cannot be the beatific object; second because the beatific act is first and immediate in respect of the ultimate end, and so is not had by virtue of any prior act of will. But it is plain that willing-against is not first with respect to the ultimate end; indeed it is not simply first among acts of will, but is either not had or not commonly had save by virtue of some willing, according to Anselm Fall of the Devil 4, “No one deserts justice save by wanting something else that does not stand with justice,” as he exemplifies about a miser and coin and bread.“For a miser, when he wants to keep the coin and prefers bread, which he cannot have unless he gives the coin, first wants to give it, that is, to give up the coin, before he does not want to keep it.” ⁵¹

282. Second, beatitude does not consist in an act of concupiscence:

First because although [such act] could be good when duly circumstanced, yet it is not good by reason of itself or by its object, even by God, because it can be immoderate. This is plain from Augustine 83 Questions q.30, “Perversity lies in using what is to be enjoyed” (just as above, in Ord. II d.6 nn.34-73, it was said that the angel first sinned by immoderate concupiscence of the beatific object for himself), as Anselm maintains in Fall of the Devil 6, where he maintains that the [fallen] angels desired what they would have had if they had stood; but they desired nothing before, or more than, beatitude, because to that does the affection of advantage first and supremely incline. Now an act of friendship in regard to God is good by reason of itself and of its object, at least because it cannot be immoderate by excess, though perhaps by deficiency.

283. Second, because an act of concupiscence is not and cannot be the first act of the will in regard to the end, for every act of concupiscence is in virtue of some act of friendship; for I desire a good for this [person] with concupiscence because I love him for whom I desire it.

284. Third, because an act of friendship is in the will according as it has an affection for justice; for if it had only affection for advantage, it could only supremely will things of advantage, according to Anselm [ibid. n.282, chs. 12, 14. But an act of concupiscence is present in the will according as the will has an affection for advantage, because it is necessarily present according to that affection, even were that affection alone present; but the affection of justice is nobler in idea than the affection of advantage, because the former is ruler and moderator of the latter, according to Anselm [On Concord q.3 n.11], and is proper to the will insofar as the will is free, because the affection of advantage would belong to the will even if the will were not free.

285. Then, fourth, because the act of friendship tends to the object as it is good in itself, but an act of concupiscence tends to it as it is good for me; but nobler is an object in itself than as had by something else - at least this relation of the object to the haver, which is in an object as desired by concupiscence its formal idea, diminishes the objective perfection that this good has as it is in itself.