2. To the Arguments of the Second Part

167. To the arguments for the opposite [nn.30-32], which prove that the act substrate to sin is not from God, I reply:

To the first [n.30] I say that God wills many things by well-pleased will that he has prohibited by signifying will, and that he did not will all the things to be done that he prescribed, as he did not will Isaac to be sacrificed, and yet he prescribed it [Genesis 22.2, 12]. Nor did he prescribe the opposite when willing something by well-pleased will, because this is a sign of a duplicitous will - and it is simplicity when there is some end of the precept consonant to right reason, as the announcement was of the precept there to Abram, as is clear: “God tempted Abram” [Genesis 22.1-2, 16-18].

168. To the next [n.31] I say that what is formally an act of my will (namely an act by which my will wills) is not an act of the divine will but an effect of it, because the divine will is always ordered and its act always right - and the act of my will is disordered because it lacks the rightness due, but it is willed by God in ordered fashion as he is cause, being material with respect to his causing the way that in us our act is materially good; therefore it follows that the divine act of willing is simply perfect, because it is elicited by charity and has the best end; and thus the external work of the divine willing (which work is my act of willing) is ordered materially or in a certain respect, but disordered simply, to the extent it is the act by which my will simply wills.

169. To the last argument [n.32] I say that the divine will is not the rule of the created will in respect of rightness as to the thing willed (so that the will, when agreeing with the divine will and in the thing willed, would be right), but the divine will needs to be the rule for the created will to the extent it wills the created will to will thus and so -and that too when the divine will is willing with signifying and antecedent will, not with well-pleased and consequent will.