DIVINE WILL. — It comprehends the entire complex of acts and virtues that constitute the affective life of the Supreme Being, Goodness by essence, Infinite Love.
I. EXISTENCE
Holy Scripture offers numerous testimonies in this regard. Genesis recounts the repeated divine command that creates the universe: “Let there be light... Let there be a firmament... Let us make man” (Gen. 1): these are acts of divine intelligence that, in the anthropomorphic style of the sacred text, likewise signify acts of free will. Will, freedom, and divine omnipotence often appear intertwined in the praises that inspired authors offer to God (cf. Ps. 115:3; 135:5–6; Is. 46:10; Esth. 13:9). The New Testament presents to men in life the supreme rule of their conduct: a rule to which the human will of Jesus Christ always conformed: “Not my will, but yours be done” (Lk. 22:42); “Our Father, who art in heaven... thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Mt. 6:9–10); “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God” (Rom. 12:2).The Fathers exalt the monotheistic and entirely spiritual conception of God above pagan polytheism and sensualism, and defend the wise and free providence of God. According to St. Thomas: “In God there is will as there is intellect, since will is intimately connected with intellect as an inclination toward the good apprehended through an intelligible species... Therefore it is necessary to admit that in God there is will, since there is intellect” (Sum. Theol., I, q. 19, a. 1 c.). Yet in God the will does not exist as an accident inhering in the substance of being, as in created spirits, but is really identical with it, though it is conceptually distinct from II. Nor, properly speaking, is the divine will a principle of “appetition,” that is, an inclination toward a good not possessed and therefore desired; rather, it is the purest love of complacency in the Infinite Good, with which it forms one single thing (cf. St. Thomas, ibid., a. 1, ad 3; Contra Gent., I, 73).
II. OBJECT
God wills only his own Goodness as the primary, necessary, and sole admissible motive and object of his will, the only object proportionate to the will of the Supreme Being. Every other good, therefore, insofar as it is destined to exist outside of God, is a secondary and non-necessary term of the divine will: it is an effect of his free love, more than an object and motive.Scripture abounds with texts in which, while the inexhaustible expansive power of the Infinite Good is magnified, it is at the same time made clear that God created all things for his glory (Is. 43:6–7; Ps. 115:2–3; 1 Thess. 4:3). “Thus, then, God wills himself and other things. Yet he wills himself as the end, other things as means to the end, since it is especially fitting for divine Goodness to be shared even with other beings” (Sum. Theol., I, q. 19, a. 2). In reality, there is but one act by which God loves his own goodness and the goodness of creatures, just as there is but one formal motive: the supreme lovableness of the Supreme Good, whether it be immanent in God or reflected and participated in the created universe. Therefore, God loves us for his own sake, as the ultimate end to which he destines us; yet he wills “us” inasmuch as in the creation, preservation, and governance of all beings he aims at nothing other than the greater communication of his goodness, so as to impress his image more strongly upon them (Dante, *Paradiso*, I, 103–108).
III. DOCTRINE
These truths are repeatedly affirmed by the Ecclesiastical Magisterium. The Council of Sens (1140) rejected as erroneous the assertion of Abelard: “God can do only what he has done, in the way and at the time in which he has done it” (Denz.-U. 374); the Council of Florence (1441) declared it to be a firm article of faith of the Roman Church that “the one true God... when he willed, moved by his goodness, produced all creatures, both spiritual and corporal” (Denz.-U. 706); Pius IX vindicated, against the semi-rationalism of A. Günther (q.v.), “the Catholic doctrine of the supreme freedom of God, exempt from any necessity in the creation of things” (*Eximiam tuam*, 1857; Denz.-U. 1655); the Vatican Council “believes and confesses that there is one true and living God... Who, by his goodness and almighty power, not to increase or acquire his beatitude, but to manifest his perfection by the communication of goods to creatures, with most free purpose, produced the universe from nothing” (Session III, chap. 1; Denz.-U. 1782, 1783); and it declares anathema whoever affirms that “God did not create the world with a will entirely free from necessity, but necessarily, just as he necessarily loves himself” (can. 5; Denz.-U. 1865). Pius XII saw a dangerous novelty in the assertion of those who “hold that the creation of the world is necessary, as flowing from the necessary liberality of divine love” (*Humani generis*, 12 Aug. 1950; AAS 42 [1950], p. 570). The Fathers and theologians consistently defended the freedom of the creating God against recurring errors of a deterministic or optimistic stamp sponsored by Eckhart (q.v.) and Wyclif (q.v.) in the Middle Ages; and more recently by Luther (q.v.), Calvin (q.v.), Malebranche (q.v.), Leibniz (q.v.), Wolff (q.v.), Hermes (q.v.), and Günther (q.v.).It cannot, however, be asserted that divine freedom, having a non-necessary relation to creatures that are in themselves mutable and contingent, is in itself a mutable and contingent perfection. In reality, it identifies with Pure Act and consists properly in the dominative power or active indifference of the divine will with respect to every good that is not the Infinite Good.
The will of God is moreover “most orderly,” because always regulated by supreme wisdom; “most simple,” because free from any bond of internal or external dependence or succession of acts; “infallible” in its effect, provided that it concerns a “consequent” or absolute will (q.V. PREDESTINATION); “irresistible” and thus most strong and at the same time most sovereign, because it does not impose necessity of action upon all beings, but disposes necessary causes for the production of necessary effects, and contingent or free causes for the production of non-necessary effects, remaining itself the first and universal cause; “most holy,” because it is entirely averse to willing moral evil in any way, though it permits it only with a view to a greater good that it can draw from it by its omnipotent wisdom (q.V. GOOD; EVIL; SIN; PREDESTINATION).
IV. ACTS AND VIRTUES
Three are the principal acts of the will of God, distinguished from it only conceptually: love, which is the first and fundamental; delight; and joy. “God takes proper delight in himself, and then rejoices in himself and in other things” (*Contra Gent.*, I, 90). The love of God toward his own goodness is not love of concupiscence or of friendship, but a supreme complacency that realizes all the perfection there is in both of these acts. Hatred, sadness, despair, fear, boldness, anger are attributed to God in Scripture only in a metaphorical sense; to these there corresponds in the divine will an act of perfect conversion to the Good that rejects even the slightest affection toward evil. Justice and mercy (cf. Ps. 36:11; Is. 56:1; Jer. 23:6; Dan. 9:7; 1 Cor. 1:3; Eph. 2:4) belong to God in a proper, formal, and eminent sense, resolving the apparent antinomy of their concepts in the higher unity of doctrine. They are, in fact, but two distinct and coeternal aspects of Infinite Love; in their specific object and in their actual exercise they are independent of the existence of creatures.Justice in God is nothing other than the most orderly love He has for His infinite Goodness; mercy, on the other hand, is the purest love directed toward His perfection, capable of removing every misery of creatures (cf. Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 21). For this reason St. Thomas writes: “Every work of divine justice always presupposes the work of mercy, and is founded upon it... And thus in every work of God mercy appears as its first root” (ibid., a. 4 c). St. Bernard had expressed the same concept in a striking manner, defining divine mercy as: “Causa causalissima causarum omnium.” In the will of God all creatures have their source, and in conformity with it they find their own perfection and beatitude (cf. Par., III, 85-87).