Article 6 — Whether justice in created things depends on the simple divine will

Sixth, it is asked whether justice in created things depends on the simple divine will. (Parallel text: ST I.63.1)

Obj. 1: It seems that it does: for Anselm says in the Monologue, that alone is just which you will. (It is actually Anselm, Proslogion, ch. 11 (PL 158:233D).) Therefore, justice only depends upon God's will.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, something is just inasmuch as it agrees with the law; but the law does not seem to be anything else than the explication of the prince's will, for whatever pleases the prince has the force of law, as the legislator says; (Digesta I tit. 4 lege 1 (ed. Mommsen, p. 7) et Iustiniani Inst. I tit. 2 lege 6 (ed. Krueger, p. 1).) therefore, since the divine will is the prince of all things, it seems that every notion of justice depends upon it alone.

Obj. 3: Furthermore, political justice, which concerns human things, is exemplified by natural justice, which consists in the fact that any thing fulfills its own nature; but each thing participates in the order of its own nature because of the divine will: for Hilary says in the book On Symbols (De synodis n. 23 (PL 10, 520 C).) that God's will conveys essence to all creatures; thus, all justice depends on God's will alone.

Obj. 4: Furthermore, since justice is a certain rectitude, it depends on the imitation of some rule; however, the rule of an effect is its appropriate cause; thus, since the first cause of all things is the divine will, it seems that it is the first rule, by which each thing is judged to be just.

Obj. 5: Furthermore, God's will can only be just; thus, if the reason for justice should depend on something other than the divine will, it would restrict and in some way bind the divine will, which is impossible.

Obj. 6: Furthermore, every will, which is just for some other reason than itself, is such that its reason should be sought; but the cause for the divine will ought not to be sought, as Augustine says in the book Eighty-Three Questions; (Augustine, Book of Eighty-Three Different Questions, q. 28 (PL 40:18).) therefore, the reason for justice depends on no other than the divine will.

On the contrary (1), the works of justice are distinguished from the works of mercy; but the works of divine mercy depend on his will; thus, something else is needed to account for justice than God's will alone.

Furthermore, according to Anselm in On Truth, (Anselm, On Truth, ch. 12 (PL 158:481B).) justice is rectitude of the will; but rectitude of the will in us is really different from the will, since our will can be correct or not correct, but in God it is different at least according to reason or the mode of understanding; thus, the reason for justice does not depend on the divine will alone.

I answer that it must be said that since justice is a certain rectitude, as Anselm says, (Anselm, On Truth, ch. 12 (PL 158:481B).) or an adequation according to the Philosopher, (Cf. Aristotle, Ethics 5.4, 1131a9 sqq.) it is necessary that the reason for justice depends first of all upon that wherein the notion of a rule is first found, according to which equality and the rectitude of justice is constituted in things. However, the will does not have the notion of a first rule, but it is a regulated rule; for it is directed by reason and intellect not only in us, but also in God, even though in us the intellect is other than the will in reality, and for this reason the will and the will's rectitude are not the same; however, in God the intellect and the will are really the same thing, and for this reason the will and the will's rectitude are the same. Thus, the first thing upon which the notion of justice depends is the wisdom of the divine intellect, which constitutes things in their due proportion both with respect to themselves and in respect to their cause, in which proportion the notion of justice consists. However, to say that justice depends upon the unqualified will is to say that the divine will does not proceed according to the order of wisdom, which is blasphemy.

Reply Obj. 1: To the first it must be said that nothing can be just unless willed by God; yet, what is willed by God has the first cause of its justice from the order of divine wisdom.

Reply Obj. 2: To the second it must be said that the will of a prince, although it has the force of law in enforcing from the fact that it is a will, yet it does not have the notion of justice except from the fact that it is led by reason.

Reply Obj. 3: To the third it must be said that God works in natural things in two ways: first by establishing the natures themselves, second by providing for each thing what belongs to its nature. And since the notion of justice requires a duty, thus, since that creatures be established is not in any way a duty but solely voluntary, the first action does not have the notion of justice but depends on the unqualified divine will, unless it is perhaps said to have the notion of justice because of the order to the will of the thing made: for it is obligatory that all that God wills be done from the very fact that God wills it; but wisdom, like a first rule, directs so that this order might be fulfilled. But in the second action the notion of duty is found not on the part of the agent, since God is not obliged by any one, but on the part of the recipient; for it is due to any natural thing that it have what its nature requires, both for essential as for accidental things. However, this obligation depends upon divine wisdom, namely, inasmuch as a natural thing ought to be such as to imitate its own idea, which is in the mind of God; and in this way divine wisdom is found to be the first rule of natural justice. However, in all divine actions by which God gives something to the creature beyond the duty of nature, as in gifts of grace, the same kind of justice is found as that which was assigned in the first operation, by which he established natures.

Reply Obj. 4: To the fourth it must be said that the divine will presupposes wisdom with regard to the mode of understanding, which first possesses the notion of a rule.

Reply Obj. 5: To the fifth it must be said that since intellect and will do not really differ in God, the will is not restricted by another for the reason that it is directed by the intellect, that it is fixed toward something, and is not restrained by another; but it is moved according to its own nature, since it is natural for that will that it always act according to the order of wisdom.

Reply Obj. 6: To the sixth it must be said that on the part of the one willing there cannot be any cause of the divine will other than the will itself, being for itself the reason for willing: for will, wisdom, and goodness are really the same thing in God. But the divine will has a reason on the part of the thing willed, which is the reason for the thing willed and for of the one willing, inasmuch as what is willed is ordered to something either by obligation or by suitability; which order pertains to divine wisdom: hence, it is the first root of justice.