2. Objections to the Reasons for the Opinion of Others

134. Objections to these reasons [nn.131-33]:

First against the first [n.131], because a wise man is bound to keep the precept of God, and therefore a wise man cannot make another to be worse unless he sins and so becomes non-wise. For it is not in a wise man’s power freely to cooperate or not cooperate in another’s acting well; because if it was in his power, he would be able not to cooperate while remaining wise, and thus he could make another to be worse - that is, by his not causing goodness in the other’s act, the other would not act well. But it is in God’s power freely to cooperate or not cooperate in a created will’s acting well; therefore, with his will remaining right, God is able not to cooperate with a created will, and the created will thus will commit sin.

135. The reason is confirmed by the fact that, just as God naturally acts for the right action before the created will does (provided the action be right), so the divine will, it would seem, fails to act before the created will fails to act.

136. The argument against the second reason [n.132] is as follows, that a cause that is only necessary (or natural) with respect to some entity is not a cause of not-being, because such a cause acts according to the utmost of its power, and so it cannot not do what it is of a nature to do; but God is not this sort of cause of being for creatures as regard any being with respect to which he can be the principle of acting (where the lack of this ultimate being is evil); therefore God can, by failing to act, be the cause of evil.

137. Further, how can God be more the cause of punishment than of guilt, since punishment, just like guilt, is formally evil? For it is as simply evil not to enjoy God -both with respect to the good that it takes away and with respect to the nature that it harms - as it is not to love God, while a wayfarer, by a meritorious act; and yet this is conceded to be a punishment from God, according to Augustine Retractions 1.25.

138. Further, the privation of grace is as much an evil in itself and in the nature that is deprived as is the privation of the rightness of justice; but God can be the immediate cause of this privation; indeed he is the cause of it whenever grace is annihilated; he alone can annihilate something, and especially something that he himself immediately preserves. So, just as by refraining from action (that is by not preserving grace) he can be the cause of the non-being of grace, so he can by not acting be the cause of the lack of rightness in an elicited act.

139. Against the third reason [n.133]: it seems to have as conclusion that man cannot sin, and this result is false; therefore the reason is not conclusive.

140. Proof that the result does follow from the reason: I am able to sin at [time] a; therefore God can will me not to be right at a. For this follows in the case of non-modal propositions: ‘if I sin at a, then God does not will me to be right at a’, because from the opposite the opposite follows: ‘if he wills me to be right at a, I am right at a’ and so I do not sin; but if he does not will me to be right at a, he does not will me to will at a what he wills me to will at a (for this, according to the reason [n.133], is what it is to be right, ‘to will what God wills me to will’); therefore God is able not to will me to will at a what he wills me to will at a - which is impossible.

140. But if it be said that the reason [n.133] concludes that God, by ordained power [as opposed to absolute power], cannot take away rightness from the will without an act of the willa - on the contrary: this reason does show absolutely that the result of the reason is that my will cannot sin; in like manner, if the reason were to prove that [God can take away rightness] without an act of my will, it would prove it about God as to his absolute power. For the conclusion aims to infer a contradiction: hence is added the words ‘nothing is more impossible’ [n.133], or at any rate, if the contradiction does not follow, nothing is as equally impossible; nor is it possible for the absolute power of God either; for God contingently wills anything other than himself, and he contingently preserves it, because he is able not to preserve it.

a. a[Interpolation] Response: Thomas, Bonaventure: a better use of that which second perfection uses is a more perfect good of an angel than is first perfection.