Moving Day

I'm moving into some new digs today, with the result that lately I've been packing and not reading. Here's a quote, which I don't have time to translate, but enjoy.

Ordinatio III d. 32 q. unica nn. 19-22

*Update*

I have added a very rough translation, which precedes the latin. The text is somewhat relevant to my previous post on Fr. Schall, as one sees the will having both metaphysical priority and willing in accordance with reason. So what exactly is voluntarism? Is it a useful term? I would say yes, as long as we don't use it as a blanket cipher for Scotus and Muslim fundamentalists; As we should remember that "intellectualism" does not indicate exactly the same thing in Thomas, his predecessors or successors.

"The third is apparent, because there is one power and one first object, and he has one infinite act adequated to himself. Nor is it necessary for that one act to be of all things, as if all things were required for the perfection of this act, but only from the perfection of this act follows this which perfectly tends into the first term; it tends also into all things around which the first term is the total means of acting. Essentia alone is able to be the first means of acting both to the divine intellect and the divine will, because if something else could be the first means, that power would be lowered.

From this it follows that there is not inequality in God's loving of all things, by conparing the act to the agent.

But by comparing the act to connotated objects (?) or to those things over which it passes, there is inequality, not only because those willed things are inequal or inequal goods are willed for them, but also because according to every grade something passes over; for every rationally willing agent, first wills the end, and second immediately that which attains the end, and third other things which are more remotely ordered to attaining the end. so also god most rationally, although not by diverse acts, but by a single act, insofar as he in various ways tends over ordered objects, first wills the end, and in this there is a most perfect act and his intellect is perfect and his willed is blessed; in the second he wills those things which are immediately ordered into him, namely by predestining the elect, who immediately attain him, and this as if by relfecting, by willing others to love the same object with himself; for he first loves himself ordinately (and as a consequence not disordinately by zeal or jealousy), in the second he wills others to have co-lovers, and this is to will others to have his own love in themselves - and this is to predestinate them, if he should willthem to have a good of this sort finally and eternally; third however he wills those which are necessary for attaining this end, namely the goods of grace; fourth he wills - on account of them - other things which are more removed, for example, this sensible world for others so that they might serve them, and so it is true what is said in Book II of the Physics, "in a certain way man is the end of all things," indeed of sensible things, because on account of him willed by God as if in the second instant of nature, are all sensible th ings willed as if in the fourth moment; that also which is nearer to the ultimate end, is accustomed to be called the end of those which are more removed. Either therefore because God willed the sensible world to be as ordered to predestined man, or because he more immediately willed man to love himself than that the sensible world should be, man will be the end of the sensible world.

And so appears the inequality of willable things - as far as the things willed - not as volition is of the one willing, but as it passes over the aforesaid objects. nevertheless, that inequality is not in act on account of the presupposed goodness in whatever objects other than himself, which is a quasi reason wherefore such and such a thing is to be willed, but the reason is in the divine will alone; for because he accepts something in such a grade, therefore they are good in such a grade, not vice versa. Or if it be granted that in them - as they are shown by the intellect - there is some grade of essential goodness, according to which rationally they ought to please the will ordinately, at least this is certain that they are pleasing, as far as actual existence, merely from the divine will, without any reason determining on their part."

In Latine:

tertium apparet, quia una est potentia et unum obiectum primum, et habet unum actum infinitum adaequatum sibi. Nec oportet istum unum actum esse omnium, quasi omnia requirantur ad prefectionem huius actus, sed solummodo ex perfectione huius actus consequitur hoc quod perfecte tendit in primum terminum; tendit etiam in omnia circa quae primus terminus est totalis ratio agendi. Tam autem intellectui divino quam voluntati sola essentia potest esse prima ratio agendi, quia si aliquid aliud posset esse prima ratio, vilesceret illa potentia.

Ex hoc patet quod non est inaequalitas Dei in diligendo omnia, comparando actum ad agentis.

Sed comparando actum ad connotata sive ad ea super quae transit, est inaequalitas, non tantum quia illa volita sunt inaequalia vel inaequalia bona sunt eis volita, sed etiam quia secundum ordinem quemdam transit super ea: nam omnis rationabiliter volens, primo vult finem, et secundo immediate illud quod attingit finem, et tertio alia quae sunt remotius ordinata ad attingendum finem. Sic etiam Deus rationabilissime, licet non diversis actibus, unico tamen actu, in quantum ille diversimode tendit super obiecta ordinata, primo vult finem, et in hoc est actus suus perfectus et intellectus eius perfectus et voluntas eius beata; secundo vult illa quae immediate ordinantur in ipsum, praedestinando scilicet electos, qui scilicet immediate attingunt eum, et hoc quasi reflectendo, volendo alios condiligere idem obiectum secum: qui enim primo se amat ordinate (et per consequens non inordinate, zelando vel invidendo), secundo vult alios habere condilegentes, et hoc est velle alios habere amorem suum in se, - et hoc est praedestinare eos, si velit eos habere huiusmodi bonum finaliter et aeternaliter; tertio autem vult illa quae sunt necessaria ad attingendum hunc finem, scilicet bona gratiae; quarto vult – propter ista – alia quae sunt remotiora, puta hunc mundum sensibilem pro aliis ut serviant eis, ut sic verum sit illud II Physicorum “homo quodammodo est finis omnium,” sensibilium quidem, quia propter ipsum volitum a Deo quasi in secundo signo naturae, sunt omnia sensibilia volita quasi in quarto signo; illud etiam quod est propinquius fini ultimo, consuevit dici finis eorum quae sunt remotiora. Sive ergo quia in ordine ad hominem praedestinatum vult Deus mundum sensibilem esse, sive quia quodammodo immediatius vult hominem amare se quam mundum sensibilem esse, homo erit finis mundi sensibilis.

Et ita patet inaequalitas volibilium – quantum ad ipsa volita – non ut volitio est ipsius volentis, sed ut transit super obiecta modo praedicto. Nec tamen ista inaequalitas in actu est propter bonitatem praesuppositam in obiectis quibuscumque aliis a se, quae sit quasi ratio quare sit sic vel sic volenda, sed ratio est in ipsa voluntate divina sola: quia enim ipsa acceptat aliqua in tali gradu, ideo ipsa sunt bona in tali gradu, non e converso. Vel si detur quod in eis – ut ostensa sunt ab intellectu – sit aliquis gradus bonitatis essentialis, secundum quem rationabiliter debent ordinate complacere voluntati, saltem hoc certum est quod beneplacentia eorum, quantum ad actualem exsistentiam, mere est ex voluntate divina, absque aliqua ratione determinante ex parte eorum.