rist. i, 32), "Because God is good, we exist." Therefore God
is the cause of things by His nature, and not by His will.

Obj. 4: Further, Of one thing there is one cause. But the [cause of]
created things is the knowledge of God, as said before (Q. 14, A. 8).
Therefore the will of God cannot be considered the cause of things.

_On the contrary,_ It is said (Wis. 11:26), "How could anything endure,
if Thou wouldst not?"

_I answer that,_ We must hold that the will of God is the cause of
things; and that He acts by the will, and not, as some have supposed,
by a necessity of His nature.

This can be shown in three ways: First, from the order itself of
active causes. Since both intellect and nature act for an end, as
proved in _Phys._ ii, 49, the natural agent must have the end and the
necessary means predetermined for it by some higher intellect; as the
end and definite movement is predetermined for the arrow by the
archer. Hence the intellectual and voluntary agent must precede the
agent that acts by nature. Hence, since God is first in the order of
agents, He must act by intellect and will.

This is shown, secondly, from the character of a natural agent, of
which the property is to produce one and the same effect; for nature
operates in one and the same way unless it be prevented. This is
because the nature of the act is according to the nature of the agent;
and hence as long as it has that nature, its acts will be in
accordance with that nature; for every natural agent has a determinate
being. Since, then, the Divine Being is undetermined, and contains in
Himself the full perfection of being, it cannot be that He acts by a
necessity of His nature, unless He were to cause something
undetermined and indefinite in being: and that this is impossible has
been already shown (Q. 7, A. 2). He does not, therefore, act by a
necessity of His nature, but determined effects proceed from His own
infinite perfection according to the determination of His will and
intellect.

Thirdly, it is shown by the relation of effects to their cause. For
effects proceed from the agent that causes them, in so far as they
pre-exist in the agent; since every agent produces its like. Now
effects pre-exist in their cause after the mode of the cause.
Wherefore since the Divine Being is His own intellect, effects
pre-exist in Him after the mode of intellect, and therefore proceed
from Him after the same mode. Consequently, they proceed from Him
af