Chapter 90 — That human choice and will are subject to divine providence

Hence it follows that human will and choice must be subject to divine providence.

For whatsoever God does, he does according to the order of his providence. Therefore, since he is the cause of our choice and will, (Ch. 89.) these are subject to divine providence.

Moreover. All corporeal things are governed by means of spiritual things, as we have shown above. (Ch. 78.) Now spiritual things act on corporeal things by their will. Consequently, if the acts of choice and will in intellectual substances are not the concern of God’s providence, it follows that corporeal things also are withdrawn from his providence: so that there will be no providence at all.

Besides. The higher a thing is placed in the universe, the more must it participate in the order in which the good of the universe consists. Hence Aristotle (Physics 2.4.) reproaches the ancient philosophers for admitting chance and luck in the scheme of the heavenly bodies, but not in the things of the lower world. Now intellectual substances hold a higher place than corporeal substances. Therefore, if corporeal substances, as regards their essence and operation, are included in the order of providence, much more so are intellectual substances.

Again. Those things which are nearest to the end are more subject to the order whereby things are directed to the end, since by their means even other things are ordered to the end. Now the actions of intellectual substances are more intimately ordered to God in their end than the actions of other things, as we have proved above. (Cc. 25, 78.) Therefore, the actions of intellectual substances come under the order of providence, whereby God directs all things to himself, more than the actions of other things.

Further. The government of providence proceeds from God’s love for the things created by him. For love consists chiefly in this: the lover desires the good of the beloved. (Rhetoric 4.) Consequently, the more God loves a thing, the more it comes under his providence. This is the teaching of Sacred Scripture, where it is said: *The Lord preserves all who love him (*Ps 145[144]:20). The Philosopher also says (Nicomachean Ethics 10.8.) that God cares most for those who love the intellect, as being his friends. From this we may conclude that he loves intellectual substances most of all. Therefore, their acts of will and choice are the object of his providence.

Moreover. Man’s interior goods, which depend on his will and action, are more proper to man than external goods, such as acquiring wealth and the like. Hence a man is said to be good in respect of the former and not of the latter. Consequently, if human choice and the movements of man’s will do not come under divine providence, but only external happenings, it will be truer to say that human affairs are not the concern of providence than that they are. But the former saying is put into the mouth of blasphemers: Thick clouds enwrap him, so that he does not see our things (Job 22:14), and: The Lord has forsaken the land, and the Lord does not see (Ezek 9:9), and: Who has commanded and it came to pass, unless the Lord has ordained it? (Lam 3:37).

Some passages in the sacred doctrine might seem to give utterance to that opinion. Thus it is said: God created man in the beginning, and he left him in the power of his own inclination (Sir 15:14), and further on: He has placed before you fire and water: stretch out your hand for whichever you wish. Before a man are life and death, and whichever he chooses will be given to him (Sir 15:16–17). Also: See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil (Deut 30:15). But these words indicate that man has a free-will, not that his choice is withdrawn from divine providence.

Likewise, the statement of Gregory of Nyssa (in his book On Man): Providence regards those things that are not in our power, and not those that are, (Gregory of Nyssa, On Providence, ch. 8. 9; cf. Nemesius, De Natura Hominis, ch. 44.) and what Damascene says in the second book, following him, that God knows but does not predetermine the things which are in our power, (John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith, bk. 2, ch. 30.) is to be understood as meaning that the things which are in our power are not subject to the divine predetermination in such a way as to be necessitated by it.