c) On Logical Potency

50. But if it is understood of logical potency, which states the manner of composition formed by the intellect, then in this way the impossibility can be in the composition either because of the intrinsic repugnance of the terms to each other or because of an extrinsic repugnance to what is required for the extremes to be united. An example of the first is ‘man is irrational’. An example of the second is if the eye were in darkness and it were impossible for the opaque obstacle causing the darkness to be removed, then it would be impossible to see; not to be sure because of the intrinsic repugnance of the terms (which terms are ‘eye’ and ‘to see’) but from the repugnance to one or other term of something extrinsic, namely the repugnance of the opaque obstacle to the term ‘to see’.

51. Applying this then to the issue at hand, I say that there is not here [sc. in a bad angel] an impossibility from an intrinsic repugnance of the terms or extremes; on the contrary there is no repugnance to the predicate in the subject. If there is any impossibility, then, it will be from the repugnance of something extrinsic to the union of the extremes; but this extrinsic thing can only be the active cause that is required for the extremes to be united; such a cause, with respect to the union of grace with some subject, is not of a nature to be any other cause than God; therefore, it will only be impossible for the bad angels to will well or to have grace because it is impossible for God to give them grace.

52. Now the impossibility on the part of God is assigned in two ways: on the part of absolute power and on the part of ordained power [Ord. 1 d.44 nn.3-11].

Absolute power is in respect of anything that does not include a contradiction. And it is plain that it is not impossible in this way for God to give grace to that nature; for since that nature is capable of grace (as touched on when discussing passive potency [n.43]), the consequence is that there is no contradiction in the proposition ‘grace actually informs that nature’.

53. The ordained power of God, as was touched on earlier, is that which is conform in its acting to the rules predetermined by divine wisdom (or rather, by divine will [1 d.44 nn.3, 6-7, 1 d.3 n.187]) - and, as to beatifying or punishing the rational creature, the rules are those of ordained justice. These rules are collected from the Scriptures, among which is the authority of Ecclesiastes 11.13, “Wherever the wood falls, there will it be” (that is, in the love of whatever thing the rational creature will have remained, in that it will continue to remain).

54. And Augustine concludes, City of God 21.23, from such rules of Scripture (for example Isaiah 66.24, “their fire will not be extinguished, and their worm will not die,” and Matthew 25.46, “these will go into eternal punishment, but the just into eternal life”), that it is certain God will never give them grace. According to this then it would be impossible for the bad angels to will well, because it is impossible by God’s ordained power to give them grace.

55. But against this it is argued that then there seems to be an impossibility in the same way about the wayfaring sinner who, however, will not in the end repent - for God has pre-ordained not to give him grace; and if the impossibility is only on this side, because of this sort of order, then it does not seem more impossible for a demon to repent than for such a sinner to repent.

I reply that the ordained power of God does not regard particular divine acts (about which there are not universal laws), but regards the universal laws or rules of doable things; of such sort is the law about the damned - and there is no such law about the bad while they are on the way, even if they remain finally bad. An example of this: if someone had laid down that every murderer should be killed, it would not be possible by ordained power - according to the order already in place - to save this particular murderer; if however he could kill a murderer but not because of some such universal law, he could also save him (or not kill him) even by ordained power. Thus a wayfarer who will not be saved can be saved, because there is no universal law laid down already against this as there is against the salvation of the damned.

56. If it be objected against this that ‘as law is about the universal so is judgment according to law about the universal, and the judgment follows from the law (    therefore the reason there can be no going against the law is equally a reason there can be no going against judgment following the law); but this wayfarer, if he will be damned, will be so according to a judgment consonant to the law; therefore etc     .’ - I reply that the law is about him who is bad in the term, and therefore when the law is applied to some particular individual (that is, to this or that already judged individual, because he is in the term), the judgment is no more revoked than is the law; but about this bad individual still present on the way there is no judgment by any law, just as the general law itself does not extend itself to the wayfarer.

57. There is another doubt: is this obstinacy of a bad will from God or from the bad will itself? For if it is from the will, it seems that the will could spring back itself from the obstinacy, just as it could of itself have willed the bad; for the power by which it moves itself to something is the same as that by which it rests in it, and it can withdraw itself from it and move to something else that more inclines it, of which sort is the object of it. But if the obstinacy is in place from God, then the malice will be from God, and thus God is cause of sin, which seems unacceptable.

58. On this point.

Although Augustine [Fulgentius] may seem to say, On the Faith to Peter ch.34 that God has ordained the turning away of the will to evil to abide perpetually, and obstinacy is sign of a bad will - yet because the act, while it exists, has as it were a cause continually (because its being is as it were in a state of continually being caused), then just as God cannot be the cause of bad ‘qua bad’ in the first act of eliciting it so neither is he in its continued being, which is its ‘being continually elicited’; therefore the will alone will be the cause, but from God is the punishment of fire, which is what punishes evil. Also, this obstinacy, as it states the malice of sin in the will, can be said to be from God, not indeed as positively willing it, but as abandoning and refusing to give grace; for just as God graces him whom he disposes to give grace to, so he does not grace him whom he forsakes (that is, with respect to the gracing that he has a refusing of).

59. When, therefore, it is argued that if the obstinacy is from the will alone then the will alone can spring back to the opposite (namely back from the object toward which it inordinately inclined itself) - I reply and say that for springing back meritoriously there is required a principle other than the will, namely grace, which a bad angel cannot have of himself - and God, according to his desertion of him, has disposed not to give him grace. But if you argue that a bad angel can at least have a ‘circumstanced willing’ as to what he inordinately willed, although that willing would not be meritorious for him -then this belongs to the following point, namely about moral goodness [nn.75, 28, 30, 39].

60. From what has been said, then, it seems there is no denial of power, that is, of power as active principle, unless ‘active principle’ is taken to be the total or principal principle [n.44]. Nor is there denial of the power which is order to act, save of proximate power [n.49]. Nor denial of logical power save extrinsically [n.51], on which side there is no impossibility of uniting the extreme terms when speaking of God’s absolute power [n.52], but there is when speaking of his ordained power, as collected from Scripture (as was said before from Augustine [n.54]), because God has not disposed to unite those extreme terms, and because there is no other cause of the permanence of the bad in bad than divine abandonment [n.58] - or the fact God has disposed not to give them grace, since they are in the term [n.59], and that he has not made this disposition about bad wayfarers [nn.55-56].

61. It seems too that this is proved by the authorities of the saints - first from Damascene ch.18, “What the fall is for the angels, this death is for men;” second from Augustine City of God 21.11, 23, “There is nothing more certain in Scripture than the judgment [sc. about the saved and the damned] of Scripture.”