?

Objection 1: It seems that whatever God wills He wills necessarily.
For everything eternal is necessary. But whatever God wills, He wills
from eternity, for otherwise His will would be mutable. Therefore
whatever He wills, He wills necessarily.

Obj. 2: Further, God wills things apart from Himself, inasmuch as He
wills His own goodness. Now God wills His own goodness necessarily.
Therefore He wills things apart from Himself necessarily.

Obj. 3: Further, whatever belongs to the nature of God is necessary,
for God is of Himself necessary being, and the principle of all
necessity, as above shown (Q. 2, A. 3). But it belongs to His nature
to will whatever He wills; since in God there can be nothing over and
above His nature as stated in _Metaph._ v, 6. Therefore whatever He
wills, He wills necessarily.

Obj. 4: Further, being that is not necessary, and being that is
possible not to be, are one and the same thing. If, therefore, God
does not necessarily will a thing that He wills, it is possible for
Him not to will it, and therefore possible for Him to will what He
does not will. And so the divine will is contingent upon one or the
other of two things, and imperfect, since everything contingent is
imperfect and mutable.

Obj. 5: Further, on the part of that which is indifferent to one or
the other of two things, no action results unless it is inclined to
one or the other by some other power, as the Commentator [*Averroes]
says in Phys. ii. If, then, the Will of God is indifferent with
regard to anything, it follows that His determination to act comes
from another; and thus He has some cause prior to Himself.

Obj. 6: Further, whatever God knows, He knows necessarily. But as the
divine knowledge is His essence, so is the divine will. Therefore
whatever God wills, He wills necessarily.

_On the contrary,_ The Apostle says (Eph. 1:11): "Who worketh all things
according to the counsel of His will." Now, what we work according to
the counsel of the will, we do not will necessarily. Therefore God
does not will necessarily whatever He wills.

_I answer that,_ There are two ways in which a thing is said to be
necessary, namely, absolutely, and by supposition. We judge a thing to
be absolutely necessary from the relation of the terms, as when the
predicate forms part of the definition of the subject: thus it is
absolutely necessary that man is an animal. It is the same when the
subject forms part of the notion of the pr