CHAPTER XC—That Human Choices and Volitions are subject to Divine Providence

THE government of providence proceeds from the divine love where with God loves His creatures. Love consists chiefly in the lover wishing good to the loved one. The more God loves things, then, the more they fall under His providence. This Holy Writ teaches, saying: God guards all that love him (Ps. cxliv, 20); and the Philosopher also teaches that God has especial care of those who love understanding, and considers them His friends.⁶⁷³⁶⁷³Aristotle, Eth. Nic. X, ix, 13: “If; as is commonly supposed, the gods have any care of men, we may well believe them to take delight in that which is best and most akin to themselves: . . . . the intellectual worker then will be best loved of heaven.” This is not Christianity, but may be turned that way. Hence He loves especially subsistent intelligences, and their volitions and choices fall under His providence.

6. The inward good endowments of man, which depend on his will and choice, are more proper to man than external endowments, as the gaining of riches: hence it is according to the former that man is said to be good, not according to the latter. If then human choices and motions of the will do not fall under divine providence, but only external advantages, it will be more true to say that human affairs are beyond providence than that they are under providence.