Chapter 77 — That the multitude of things willed is not inconsistent with the divine simplicity

Hence it follows that the multitude of things willed is not inconsistent with the oneness and simplicity of the divine substance.

For acts are distinguished according to their objects. If, then, the plurality of things willed by God indicated any kind of multitude in him, it would follow that there is not only one operation of the will in him, and this is contrary to what has been proved. (Ch. 76.)

Again. It has been shown (Ch. 75.) that God wills other things inasmuch as he wills his goodness. Therefore, things stand in relation to his will for as much as they are comprised in his goodness. Now all things are one in his goodness, because other things are in him according to his mode (material things immaterially and multitude unitedly), as we have shown above. (Ch. 58.) Hence it follows that the plurality of things willed does not argue plurality in the divine substance.

Further. The divine intellect and will are of equal simplicity, since each is the divine substance, as we have proved. (Cc. 45, 73.) Now the multitude of things understood does not involve multiplicity in the divine essence, nor composition in his intellect. (Cc. 51–58.) Neither, therefore, does the multitude of things willed prove either diversity in the divine essence or composition in his will.

Moreover. The difference between knowledge and appetite is that knowledge results from the thing known being somehow in the knower, whereas appetite does not; on the contrary, it results from the appetite being referred to the appetible thing, which the appetent seeks and wherein it rests. For this reason good and evil, which regard the appetite, are in things, whereas true and false, which regard knowledge, are in the mind, as the Philosopher states in Metaphysics 6. (Aristotle, Metaphysics 6.4, 1027b25–27.) Now it is not inconsistent with the simplicity of a thing that it be referred to many, since even unity is the principle of the multitude of numbers. Therefore, the multitude of things willed by God is not inconsistent with his simplicity.