Article 5 — Whether God can do what he does not do and can leave undone what he does

The fifth point of inquiry is whether God can do what he does not do and can leave undone what he does. (Parallel texts: ST I.25.5; SCG II.23, 26‒27; III.98; In I Sent. 43.2.2.)

Obj. 1: It would seem that he cannot. For God can do only what he foresees that he will do. Now, he does not foresee that he will do anything but what he does. Therefore, God cannot do anything but what he does.

Obj. 2: But you may say that this argument considers power in its order to foreknowledge and not absolutely.

On the contrary, divine things are more unchangeable than human things. Now, with us it is impossible for what has been not to have been. Much less, then, is it possible that God did not foreknow what he foreknew. But so long as his foreknowledge stands, he cannot do anything else. Therefore, absolutely speaking, God cannot do anything other than what he does.

Obj. 3: Just as God’s nature is unchangeable, so is his wisdom. Now, those who said that God acts by a necessity of nature asserted that he cannot do anything other than what he does. Therefore, we too must assert this, since we say that God acts according to the order of his wisdom.

Obj. 4: But it may be said that the foregoing argument is based on power as ruled by wisdom and not absolutely.

On the contrary, that which cannot occur according to the order of wisdom is said absolutely to be impossible for Christ the man, although he could do it as regards his absolute power. Thus, it is said: if I shall say that I know him not, I shall be like to you, a liar (John 8:55). For Christ could say those words, but since it was against the order of wisdom, it is said absolutely that he could not lie. Much more, therefore, must we say absolutely that God cannot do what is not according to the order of wisdom.

Obj. 5: Two contradictory things cannot be in God. But the absolute and the ruled entail a contradiction since the absolute is that which is considered in itself, whereas what is ruled has an order to something else. Therefore, we should not place both an absolute and a ruled power in God.

Obj. 6: God’s power and wisdom are equal. Hence, the one does not exceed the other. Therefore, his power cannot be without his wisdom and consequently the divine power is always ruled by wisdom.

Obj. 7: What God has done is just. But he can only act justly. Therefore, he cannot do anything but what he has done or will do.

Obj. 8: It belongs to God’s goodness not only to communicate itself but to do so in the most orderly fashion. Hence, what God does is done in an orderly way. Now, God cannot act without order. Therefore, he cannot do anything other than what he has done.

Obj. 9: God can only do what he wills to do; for in voluntary agents the power follows the will as commanded by it. Now, he wills only the things that he does. Therefore, he cannot do anything except what he does.

Obj. 10: Since God is a most wise agent, he does nothing without reason. Now, the reasons for which God acts are, according to Dionysius, productive of the things that exist, (Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names 5.4 (PG 3:818).) and the things that exist are the things that are. Thus, God has no other reasons other than those of the things that are. Therefore, he cannot do anything other than what he does.

Obj. 11: According to the philosophers, the things of nature are in the first mover (that is, God) as artifacts are in the craftsman; hence God works like a craftsman. Now, a craftsman does not work without having the form or idea of his work, for, according to the Philosopher, the material house comes from the house that is in the builder’s mind. (Aristotle, On the Generation of Animals 2.1, 733b25–30.) But God has ideas only of those things that he has done, or does, or will do. Therefore, God cannot do anything else.

Obj. 12: Augustine says on the Creed: God is unable to do that alone which he does not wish to do. (Augustine, On Faith and Symbols 4.7 (PL 40:185–86); Sermons 214.4 (PL 38:1076–78).) Now, he does not wish to do save what he does. Therefore, he cannot do but what he does.

Obj. 13: God cannot change. Therefore, he cannot be open to either of two contraries; and thus, his own power is determined to one thing. Therefore, he cannot do things other than the things he does.

Obj. 14: Whatever God does or omits to do, he does or omits for the best reason. Now, God cannot do or omit to do anything except for the best reason. Therefore, he cannot do or omit to do anything but what he does or omits to do.

Obj. 15: According to Plato, the best produces the best: (Plato, Timaeus 30a–b.) therefore, God, who is the best, does whatever is best. Now, the best, being superlative, is only one. Therefore, God cannot do anything other than what he has done.

On the contrary (1) Christ, who is God and man, said: cannot I ask my Father? (Matt 26:53). Therefore, Christ could do what he did not.

Furthermore (2), it is said: to him who is able to do all things more abundantly than we desire or understand (Eph 3:20). But he does not do all things. Therefore, he can do things that he does not.

Furthermore (3), God’s power is infinite. But this would not be the case if it were determined only to the things that he does. Therefore, he can do things other than those he does.

Furthermore (4), Hugh of Saint Victor says that God’s works are not equal to his omnipotence. (Hugh of St. Victor (ca. 1096–1141 AD), On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith 1.2.22 (PL 176:214–16).) Therefore, his power surpasses his work; consequently, he can do more than he does.

Furthermore (5), God’s power is a boundless act, since nothing can bound it. Now, this would not be the case if it were limited to what it does. Therefore, the same conclusion follows.

I answer that the error of those who say that God cannot do anything but what he does belonged to two groups.

First, it belonged to certain philosophers who said that God acts from a necessity of his nature. (That is, Heraclitus, the Stoics, and Neoplatonists, among others.) In which case, since nature is determined to one thing, the divine power could not extend to things other than the things it does.

Second, it belonged to certain theologians who considered the order of divine justice and wisdom, according to which things come forth from God, which they used to say God could not set aside. And they fell into this, such that they would say that God cannot do anything other than what he does. And this error is ascribed to the master Peter Abelard. (See Peter Abelard, Introduction to Theology 3.5 (PL 178:1096), at: ex his itaque . . . constat id solum posse facere Deum quod aliquando facit.)

Therefore let us inquire into the truth or falsity of these opinions.

To begin with the first, it is evident that God does not act from a necessity of nature. For every agent acts for the sake of an end, since all things seek the good. Now, for the agent’s action to be suited to the end, it must be adapted and proportionate to it, which cannot be done except by an intellect that knows both the end and the account of the end, and also the proportion between the end and the means. Otherwise, the suitability of the action to the end would be fortuitous.

But this intellect ordering the means to the end is sometimes united to the agent or mover, like a man in his actions; sometimes it is separate, as is clear with an arrow whose flight tends to a determinate end, one not determined by an intellect united not to it but by the intellect of the man aiming it. Now, it is impossible that what acts from a necessity of nature determine its end by its very self; for what is such is acting from itself, and because it is acting or moved from its very self, to act or not to act, to be in motion or not to be in motion, is within it, as is said in Physics 8; (Aristotle, Physics 8.4, 254b7–255a13; 8.5, 256a4–258a5; cf. 2.8, 198b10.) and this cannot apply to that which is moved of necessity, since it is determined to one thing.

Hence, everything that acts from a necessity of nature must have its end determined by something that is intelligent. For this reason philosophers say that the work of nature is the work of an intelligence. Therefore, whenever a natural body is united to an intellect, as is clear in man, nature obeys the will as regards those actions by which that intellect determines its end, as is clear in a man’s local motion. But as regards those actions in which the intellect does not determine the end for it, it does not obey, as in the act of digestion and growth. Accordingly, we conclude that it is impossible that a thing that acts from a necessity of the nature be the agent principle, since its end is determined for it by another. Hence, it is impossible that God act from a necessity of his nature. And so the root of the first opinion is false.

Thus, it remains for us to examine the second opinion. One must observe that there are two ways in which someone is said to be unable to do something.

First, absolutely, namely, when one of the principles necessary for an action does not extend to that action. Thus, if his foot is fractured, a man cannot walk.

Second, based on a supposition; for if we suppose the opposite of an action, that action cannot be done. For I cannot walk while I am sitting.

Now, since God is an agent through will and intellect, as was proved, we must consider in him three principles of action:

first, the intellect;

second, the will;

third, the power of his nature.

Accordingly, the intellect directs the will, and the will commands the power that is carried out. The intellect, however, does not move except by proposing its own appetible object to the will; whence the entire movement of the intellect is in the will.

But God is said to be “unable to do a thing” in two ways.

In one way, when God’s power does not extend to it; for example, we say that God cannot make an affirmation and a denial be true at the same time, as we have shown above. (See q. 1, a. 3.) Now, in this way, it cannot be said that God cannot do anything except what he does, for it is certain that his power can extend to many other things.

In another way, when God’s will cannot extend to it. For every will must have an end that it wills naturally and whose contrary it cannot will; for example, man naturally and of necessity wishes to be happy and cannot wish to be unhappy. Moreover, with the fact that the will necessarily wills its own natural end, it also wills of necessity those things without which it cannot possess that end, if it knows this; and these are the things commensurate with the end. (For example, if I wish to live, I wish for food.) But it does not of necessity will those things without which the end can be possessed, the things that are not commensurate with the end.

Now, the natural end of the divine will is its goodness, which it is unable not to will. Creatures, however, are not commensurate with this end, such that without them the divine goodness could not be made manifest. This manifestation was God’s intention in creating. For just as the divine goodness is made manifest through these realities that now exist and through this order of realities, so too can it be made manifest through other creatures and ones ordered in another way. Therefore, the divine will—without prejudice to his goodness, justice, and wisdom—can extend to things other than those that he makes. And this is where those making the error were deceived: for they thought that the order of created things is, as it were, commensurate with the divine goodness, as though without it the latter could not exist.

It is clear, then, that God absolutely can do things other than what he has done. Since, however, he cannot make contradictories to be true at the same time, it can be said, based on a supposition, that God cannot do things other than what he has done. For if we suppose that he does not wish to do anything else, or that he foreknew that he would not do anything else, he cannot do anything else, such that this is understood with this composition, not dividedly.

Reply Obj. 1: The expression “God is not able to do anything except what he has foreknown that he would do” is ambiguous because the exception may refer either to the power signified in the word “able,” or to the act signified in the word “do.”

In the former case, the statement is false. For God is able to do things other than those that he foreknows he will do, and it is in this sense that the objection runs.

In the latter case, the statement is true, the sense being that it cannot be the case that something comes to be from God and was not foreknown by him. In this sense, the statement is not to the point.

Reply Obj. 2: In God, nothing is past or future; rather, whatever is in him, is a whole in the present of eternity. Nor is a past or future speech signified in him except in reference to us. Therefore, an objection about the necessity of the past has no place here. Nonetheless we must also say that the objection is not to the point, since his foreknowledge is not commensurate with his power to do (which is the object of our inquiry) but only with the divine action, as already stated.

Reply Obj. 3: Those who maintained that God acts from a necessity of nature held the opinion we are discussing not only on account of the unchangeableness of nature but also on account of the determination of nature to one thing. But divine wisdom is not determined to one, and it extends to many things that can be known. Hence, the comparison fails.

Reply Obj. 4: Christ was not able to wish to say those words absolutely speaking that indicate a lie, without prejudice to his goodness. But this does not apply to the question at issue, as we have already indicated; hence, the conclusion does not follow.

Reply Obj. 5: The absolute and the ruled are attributed to the divine power solely from our own consideration. This attributes something to God’s power considered in itself (which is called the “absolute power”) that it does not attribute to him insofar as it is compared to his wisdom, insofar as it is called “ordered.”

Reply Obj. 6: God’s power is never in a thing without his wisdom; but the power is considered by us without the account of his wisdom.

Reply Obj. 7: God has done whatever is actually just, not whatever is just potentially. For he is able to do that which at present is not just because it does not exist—nevertheless, if it did exist, what he does would be just.

Reply Obj. 8: The divine goodness is able to communicate itself in an orderly fashion, not only in the way in which a thing acts, but in many other ways.

Reply Obj. 9: Though God does not wish to do anything but what he does, he can nevertheless wish to do other things. Therefore, absolutely speaking, he can do other things.

Reply Obj. 10: Those reasons of which Dionysius is speaking he understands to be productive of existing things absolutely, but not only of those that actually now exist.

Reply Obj. 11: The question is whether there is in God an idea of those things that neither exist, nor will exist, nor have existed, and that nevertheless God is able to make. It seems that we should reply that, if we take an idea according to its complete account—namely, insofar as “idea” names an art’s form not only as thought out by the intellect but also as ordered to the work by the will—then of such things God has no idea. On the other hand, if we take an idea according to its incomplete account, that is, as merely thought out in the craftsman’s intellect, then God has an idea of those things. For this is clear in the created craftsman that he thinks out certain actions that he has no intention of executing. In fact, in God, whatever he knows is in him through the mode of what is thought out; for in him to know actually and habitually are not different. For he knows his whole power and everything he is able to do; hence, in him are the accounts of everything he is able to make, as thought out.

Reply Obj. 12: This means that God is unable to do what he does not wish to be able to do; hence, it is not to the point.

Reply Obj. 13: Though God is unchangeable, his will is not determined to one thing as regards things that should be done: hence, he has free decision.

Reply Obj. 14: The best reason, for which God does all things, is his own goodness and wisdom; these would remain even if he made other things or acted otherwise.

Reply Obj. 15: What God does is the best through its order to the goodness of God; and therefore, whatsoever else can be ordered to his goodness according to the order of his own wisdom is still the best.