?

Objection 1: It would seem that not all things are subject to the
Divine government. For it is written (Eccles. 9:11): "I saw that
under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the
strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the learned, nor favor
to the skillful, but time and chance in all." But things subject to
the Divine government are not ruled by chance. Therefore those things
which are under the sun are not subject to the Divine government.

Obj. 2: Further, the Apostle says (1 Cor. 9:9): "God hath no care
for oxen." But he that governs has care for the things he governs.
Therefore all things are not subject to the Divine government.

Obj. 3: Further, what can govern itself needs not to be governed by
another. But the rational creature can govern itself; since it is
master of its own act, and acts of itself; and is not made to act by
another, which seems proper to things which are governed. Therefore
all things are not subject to the Divine government.

_On the contrary,_ Augustine says (De Civ. Dei v, 11): "Not only
heaven and earth, not only man and angel, even the bowels of the
lowest animal, even the wing of the bird, the flower of the plant,
the leaf of the tree, hath God endowed with every fitting detail of
their nature." Therefore all things are subject to His government.

_I answer that,_ For the same reason is God the ruler of things as He
is their cause, because the same gives existence as gives perfection;
and this belongs to government. Now God is the cause not indeed only
of some particular kind of being, but of the whole universal being,
as proved above (Q. 44, AA. 1, 2). Wherefore, as there can be nothing
which is not created by God, so there can be nothing which is not
subject to His government. This can also be proved from the nature of
the end of government. For a man's government extends over all those
things which come under the end of his government. Now the end of the
Divine government is the Divine goodness; as we have shown (A. 2).
Wherefore, as there can be nothing that is not ordered to the Divine
goodness as its end, as is clear from what we have said above (Q. 44,
A. 4; Q. 65, A. 2), so it is impossible for anything to escape from
the Divine government.

Foolish therefore was the opinion of those who said that the
corruptible lower world, or individual things, or that even human
affairs, were not subject to the Divine government. These are
represented as sayi