Single Question. Whether God could Make Things other than He has Ordained them to be Made

1. About the forty fourth distinction - where the Master deals with the question ‘whether God could have made things better than he did’ - I ask this question: whether God could make things other than he has ordained them to be made.

And it seems not:

Because then he could make things in a disordered way. The consequent is false,     therefore the antecedent too.

On the contrary:

Things being made other than they have been made does not include a contradiction; nor is the universe necessary; therefore etc     .

I. To the Question

3. I reply:

In everyone acting by intellect and will, who is able to act in conformity with right law and yet not by necessity in conformity with right law, one must distinguish between ordained power and absolute power; and the reason for this is that he can act in conformity with that right law and so according to ordained power (for the power is ordained insofar as it is the principle of carrying things out in conformity with right law), and he can act without that law or against it, and here there is absolute power, exceeding ordained power. And therefore not only in God but in any agent acting freely - who can act according to the dictate of right law and without that law or against it - one must distinguish between ordained power and absolute power; therefore the jurists say that someone can do something de facto, that is by his absolute power - or de iure, that is by ordained power according to right.

4. But when that right law - according to which one must act in ordered way - is not in the power of the agent, then his absolute power cannot exceed his ordained power about any object unless he acts about it in disordered way; for it is necessary that such law stand - comparing it to such agent - and yet that an action ‘not conformed to that right law’ is not right nor ordered, because such an agent is held to act according to the law he is subject to. Hence all those subject to the divine law, if they do not act according to it, act in disordered way.

5. But when the law and the rightness or law are in the power of the agent, so that it is only right because it is established, then an agent acting from his own freedom can ordain otherwise than that right law directs; and yet along with this he can act rightly, because he can establish another right law according to which he may act in ordered fashion. Nor does his absolute power then simply exceed his ordained power, because it would be according to some law ordained, just as it was according to the prior law; yet it exceeds ordained power precisely according to the prior law, against which or without which it acts. This can be exemplified in a prince and his subjects, and in positive law.

6. Applying this to the issue at hand, then, I say that some general laws, giving direction rightly, have been pre-established by the divine will and not indeed by the divine intellect as it precedes the act of the divine will, as was said in distinction 38 nn.5-6, 9-10;a but when the intellect presents some such law to the divine will, namely that ‘everyone who is to be glorified must first be endowed with grace’, this law, if it please his will - which is free - is right, and so it is about other laws.

a [Interpolation]: because there is found no necessity from the terms in these laws (as that every sinner will be damned), but only from the divine will accepting them, which will operates according to laws of this sort that it has made; or enough for the issue at hand to say that the laws are established by divine wisdom.

7. God then, being able to act according to those right laws as they have been preestablished by him, is said to act according to his ordained power; but as he can do many things that are not according to but without the laws already pre-established, he is said to act by his absolute power; for because God can do anything that does not include a contradiction, and can act in every way that does not include a contradiction (and many other ways are such), therefore he is then said to act according to ordained power.

8. Hence I say that he can do many other things in ordered way; and the fact that many other things can be done in ordered way, other than those which are made in conformity with the laws, does not include a contradiction when the rectitude of this sort of law - according to which someone is said to act rightly and in ordered way - is in the power of the agent. Therefore just as God can act otherwise, so he can establish another right law, - which, if it were established by God, would be right, because no law is right save as it is established by the divine will accepting it; and then his absolute power for something does not extend itself to something other than that which would be done in ordered fashion, if it were done; it would not indeed be done in ordered fashion according to the existing law, but if would be done in ordered fashion according to another order, which other order the divine will could establish, just as it has power to act.

9. One must note too that something’s being ordained and being done in ordered fashion can happen in two ways:

In one way by universal order - which pertains to the common law, as is ordained according to the common law that ‘everyone finally a sinner is to be damned’ (just as when a king establishes that every murderer is to die). In a second way in particular order - according to the judgment that the law in universal does not pertain to, because law is about universal cases; but about a particular case there is no law, but there is judgment according to law of that which is against the law (as that this murderer is to die).

10. I say then that God can act not only otherwise than has been ordained by particular order, but he can also act in ordered fashion otherwise than has been ordained by universal order - or according to the laws of justice, - because both the things that are without that order and the things contrary to it, can be done in ordered fashion by God by absolute power.a

a [Interpolation, Appendix A] Again, one must know that a distinction is to be made in the case of this proposition, ‘God can produce things otherwise than he has disposed’. In the composite sense it is false; for what is signified is that this proposition is true, ‘God produces things otherwise than according to his disposition’; in the divided sense it is true, and there are two categorical propositions, and the sense is: ‘God can make things in this way’, ‘he did not dispose to make them in this way’. And yet it does not follow that he acts in disordered way, as is plain from what has been said.

11. However ordered power is not spoken of save as in accord with the order of universal law, and not in accord with the order of right law about some particular. The point is plain from this, that it is possible for God to save someone whom he does not save and who however will die in sin finally and be damned - but it is not conceded that he can save Judas already damned (though this is not impossible by God’s absolute power, because it does not include a contradiction), therefore this thing, namely ‘to save Judas’, is impossible in the way in which it is possible to save him [sc. possible according to existing ordained power]; therefore God can by ordained power save this person (which is true) and not save that one. Not indeed by particular order (which is as it were about this particular doable and workable thing only), but by universal order, because if he saved him, it would now stand with right laws - which he truly pre-fixed - about the salvation and damnation of particular individuals. For it would stand with the proposition that ‘he who is finally evil will be damned’ (which is the pre-fixed law about those to be damned), because this person is still not finally a sinner but can be a non-sinner (especially when a wayfarer), because God can prevent him by his grace; just as, if a king were to prevent someone from committing murder, then, if he does not damn him, he does not act against his universal law about murderers. But it would not stand with that particular law that he would save Judas; for he can fore-know that Judas is to be saved by ordained power, though not ordained in the existing way but in a way absolute from this way, and this other way is ordained according to some other order, because established according to another possible way.a

a [Interpolation] Absolute power then can save Judas, - but ordained power can save this sinner, although he will not be saved; but a stone can be beatified neither by absolute nor ordained power. And in this regard, it is plain as to what it is in respect of that there is said to be absolute power in God, that is insofar as he has power against universal law but not particular.

12. But how the divine will has power about particulars and about establishing right laws, by not willing the opposite of what he now wills, was stated above in distinction 39 [in the interpolation for that question above].

II. To the Principal Arguments on Both Sides

13. To the argument [n.1] it is plain that the consequence is not valid, because if God were to make things in a way other than he has ordained them to be made, they are not for this reason made in disordered way, because if he established other laws according to which they were made, they would by that very fact be made in ordered way.

14. To the argument for the opposite [n.2] I concede what it proves about absolute power - which, however, if it was the principle of anything, would by that fact be ordained, but not according to a pre-fixed order of God that was the same as he had before.