emselves are ordered to some good
end; and this order they thought was expressed in the words "that
evil should be or be done." This, however, is not correct; since evil
is not of itself ordered to good, but accidentally. For it is beside
the intention of the sinner, that any good should follow from his
sin; as it was beside the intention of tyrants that the patience of
the martyrs should shine forth from all their persecutions. It cannot
therefore be said that such an ordering to good is implied in the
statement that it is a good thing that evil should be or be done,
since nothing is judged of by that which appertains to it
accidentally, but by that which belongs to it essentially.

Reply Obj. 2: Evil does not operate towards the perfection and beauty
of the universe, except accidentally, as said above (ad 1). Therefore
Dionysius in saying that "evil would conduce to the perfection of the
universe," draws a conclusion by reduction to an absurdity.

Reply Obj. 3: The statements that evil exists, and that evil exists
not, are opposed as contradictories; yet the statements that anyone
wills evil to exist and that he wills it not to be, are not so
opposed; since either is affirmative. God therefore neither wills
evil to be done, nor wills it not to be done, but wills to permit
evil to be done; and this is a good.
_______________________

TENTH ARTICLE [I, Q. 19, Art. 10]

Whether God Has Free-Will?

Objection 1: It seems that God has not free-will. For Jerome says, in
a homily on the prodigal son [*Ep. 146, ad Damas.]; "God alone is He
who is not liable to sin, nor can be liable: all others, as having
free-will, can be inclined to either side."

Obj. 2: Further, free-will is the faculty of the reason and will, by
which good and evil are chosen. But God does not will evil, as has
been said (A. 9). Therefore there is not free-will in God.

_On the contrary,_ Ambrose says (De Fide ii, 3): "The Holy Spirit
divideth unto each one as He will, namely, according to the free
choice of the will, not in obedience to necessity."

_I answer that,_ We have free-will with respect to what we will not of
necessity, nor by natural instinct. For our will to be happy does not
appertain to free-will, but to natural instinct. Hence other animals,
that are moved to act by natural instinct, are not said to be moved by
free-will. Since then God necessarily wills His own goodness, but
other things not necessarily, as shown above (A. 3), H