II. To the Principal Arguments

182. To the arguments. To the argument of the first question [n.159] I say just as was said to the first question of this distinction in the fourth article [n.17], that the idea of end is not the proper idea of the enjoyable, but the idea of the absolute good is to which the idea of end belongs. Although, therefore, God is not the end of himself, yet with respect to his will he is that absolute object to whom naturally belongs the idea of end, because he is the supreme good; but the idea of end cannot belong to him with respect to himself (just as neither is he the end with respect to himself) but with respect to all enjoyable things, of which sort are all the goods that can be ordered to another.

If the objection is raised how God then is said to act for an end, and also that a superior agent has a superior end, I reply: with respect to nothing is there any final cause unless with respect to it there is an efficient cause, because the causality of the final cause is to move the efficient cause to act; God then, as not being something that can be effected, has no final cause. But the first common saying [God acts for an end] must be understood to mean that he acts for the end of the effect; but not for the end of himself, because he is not an agent of himself. Likewise the second common saying [a superior agent has a superior end] must be understood of the end of the effect, because a superior agent orders, not himself, but the effect to a more universal end; and so the superior end is the agent’s, not as its end, but as that to which it orders what it does.

183. To the argument of the second question [n.161] I say that, besides the act of desire which is with respect to something not possessed, by which the just wayfarer desires God for himself with an act of concupiscence, the just wayfarer has another act, one of friendship, by wanting well being for God in himself, and this act of friendship is enjoyment, but not that act which is of desire; and this second act is properly the act of charity, but not the first, which is the act of one desiring, as will be said in 3 Suppl. d.26 q. un n.17. The major then is false.

184. To the first argument of the third question [n.163] an exposition of the minor can be given, that what adheres to a movable thing does not rest simply, although as far as depends on its own part it makes itself rest in it, and so the conclusion is to be conceded, because the mortal sinner does not simply rest, although as far as depends on his own part, by his own act of ultimate rest, he makes himself rest in a movable thing. If it be added that nothing enjoys a thing unless it makes itself rest simply in that thing, this must be denied, but one must add: ‘unless it makes itself rest as far as depends on the part of the act itself,’ namely the act by which he adheres to the object; and also: ‘as far as depends on the part of the object’, in disordered enjoyment. Nor ought supreme rest to be what is understood here, because to all rest on the way there follows the greater rest of the fatherland, but because of an act accepting the object that cannot be referred to another.

185. As to the second [n.164], the major can be denied, because although by ordered love no one enjoys anything save what he does not wish anyone to use but to enjoy, yet with disordered love someone can very well enjoy what he does not wish another to enjoy but only to use, or not to love in any way, as is evident with disordered jealousy. - To the proof of the major one can say that although the enjoyer values the enjoyable as the supreme good, yet he does not wish it to be thus valued by everyone when he is enjoying it in disordered way; therefore the conclusion does not follow: ‘he wishes it to be the supreme good or he loves it as the supreme good, therefore he wishes others thus to love it’.

One can reply in another way by denying the minor. - For the proof, when it is said ‘he wishes the enjoyable to be, therefore he wishes it to be from God’, the conclusion does not follow. Nor does this follow either: ‘he wishes it to be from God, therefore he wishes God to use that act’. And the cause of the defect of each consequence is that he who wills the antecedent need not will the consequent when the consequent is not per se included in the antecedent but only follows through an extrinsic topic. So it is in the proposed case.

186. As to the authority of Augustine for the fourth question [n.166], it is clear that his authority is to be expounded of abusive enjoyment, or of the term ‘enjoyment’ in an extended sense, because the sensitive appetite does not refer by understanding negatively, nor by contrariety, because it does not adhere to the object as to something that cannot be referred, because, although the thing cannot be referred by it, this results from its natural impotency, not from the goodness in the object or in the acceptation of the power. About the difference between these, namely not being referred in negatively, by contrariety and by privation, there will be discussion at 2 d.41 q. un n.3.

187. As to the argument of the final question [n.168], it is plain that although the natural appetite adheres to something for its own sake negatively, not however by contrariety for the most part, and if it does do so by contrariety, yet it does not adhere by love; nor does it properly adhere either, but by itself giving the nature it is fixed as it were in the object itself, not indeed by an elicited act other than nature, as is the case with the sensitive appetite, but by nature’s habitual inclination. Hence as was said [n.181], enjoyment belongs less to it than to the sensitive appetite which by an elicited act adheres as to an object already known, though not freely; but natural appetite is perpetually inclined without any cognition.

From what has been said about enjoying, and especially in the third question of this distinction (namely ‘whether enjoying is an act elicited by the will or a passion received in the will, to wit delight’ [nn.62-76]), one can be clear about use, which is a more imperfect act of the will ordered to enjoying as to a more perfect act of the same power.