Of God and His Creatures
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.* 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.
3.89 : That the Motion of the Will is caused by God, and not merely by the Power of the Will
3.91 : How Human Things are reduced to Higher Causes