Of God and His CreaturesLet us say then in answer to these objections, that as good apprehended by the intellect moves the will, the act of the will must follow the condition of the mental apprehension. Now the mind apprehends the thing, not only as it is in the mind, but also as it is in its own nature: for we not only know that the thing is understood by us (for that is the meaning of its being 'in the mind'), but also that the thing exists, or has existed, or is to exist in its own nature. Though then at the time the thing has no being other than in the mind, still the mind stands related to it, not as it is in the mind, but as it is in its own nature, which the mind apprehends. Therefore the relation of the divine will to a non-existent thing is to the thing according as it is in its own nature, attached to some certain time, and not merely to the thing as it is in the knowledge of God. For God wills the thing, that is not now, to be in some certain time: He does not merely will it inasmuch as He Himself understands it.* Nor is the relation of the will to its object similar to the relation of Creator to creature, of Maker to made, of Lord to subject. For will, being an immanent act, does not involve the actual external existence of the thing willed:* whereas making and creating and governing do signify an action terminated to an external effect, such that without its existence such action is unintelligible.
1.78 : That the Divine Will reaches to the good of Individual Existences
1.80 : That God of necessity wills His own Being and His own Goodness