Book Three — Providence

Summa Contra Gentiles, Book III. 163 chapters. Translated by Vernon J. Bourke.

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Chapters

1. Prologue
2. How Every Agent Acts for an End
3. That Every Agent Acts for a Good
4. That Evil in Things is not Intended
5. Arguments which Seem to Prove that Evil is not Apart from Intention
6. Answers to These Arguments
7. That Evil is not an Essence
8. Arguments which Seem to Prove that Evil is a Nature or Some Real Thing
9. Answers to These Arguments
10. That Good is the Cause of Evil
11. That Evil is Based on the Good
12. That Evil Does not Wholly Destroy Good
13. That Evil Has a Cause of Some Sort
14. That Evil is an Accidental Cause
15. That There is no Highest Evil
16. That the End of Everything is a Good
17. That All Things are Ordered to One End Who is God
18. How God is the End of All Things
19. That All Things Tend to Become Like God
20. How Things Imitate Divine Goodness
21. That Things Naturally Tend to Become Like God Inasmuch as He is a Cause
22. How Things are Ordered to Their Ends in Various Ways
23. That the Motion of the Heavens Comes from an Intellectual Principle
24. How Even Beings Devoid of Knowledge Seek the Good
25. That to Understand God is the End of Every Intellectual Substance
26. Whether Felicity Consists in a Will Act
27. That Human Felicity Does not Consist in Pleasures of the Flesh
28. That Felicity Does not Consist in Honors
29. That Man’s Felicity Does not Consist in Glory
30. That Man’s Felicity Does not Consist in Riches
31. That Felicity Does not Consist in Worldly Power
32. That Felicity Does not Consist in Goods of the Body
33. That Human Felicity Does not Lie in the Senses
34. That Man’s Ultimate Felicity Does not Lie in Acts of the Moral Virtues
35. That Ultimate Felicity Does not Lie in the Act of Prudence
36. That Felicity Does not Consist in the Operation of Art
37. That the Ultimate Felicity of Man Consists in the Contemplation of God
38. That Human Felicity Does not Consist in the Knowledge of God which is Generally Possessed by Most Men
39. That Human Felicity Does not Consist in the Knowledge of God Gained Through Demonstration
40. Human Felicity Does not Consist in the Knowledge of God which is Through Faith
41. Whether in this Life Man is Able to Understand Separate Substances Through the Study and Investigation of the Speculative Sciences
42. That We Cannot in this Life Understand Separate Substances in the Way that Alexander Claimed
43. That We Cannot in this Life Understand Separate Substances in the Way that Averroes Claimed
44. That Man’s Ultimate Felicity Does not Consist in the Kind of Knowledge of Separate Substances that the Foregoing Opinions Assume
45. That in this Life We Cannot Understand Separate Substances
46. That the Soul Does not Understand Itself Through Itself in this Life
47. That in this Life We Cannot See God Through His Essence
48. That Man’s Ultimate Felicity Does not Come in this Life
49. That Separate Substances Do not See God in His Essence by Knowing Him Through Their Essence
50. That the Natural Desire of Separate Substances Does not Come to Rest in the Natural Knowledge which They Have of God
51. How God May be Seen in His Essence
52. That no Created Substance Can, by Its Own Natural Power, Attain the Vision of God in His Essence
53. That the Created Intellect Needs an Influx of Divine Light in Order to See God Through His Essence
54. Arguments by which it Seems to be Proved that God Cannot be Seen in His Essence, and the Answers to Them
55. That the Created Intellect Does not Comprehend the Divine Substance
56. That no Created Intellect While Seeing God Sees All that Can be Seen in Him
57. That Every Intellect, Whatever Its Level, Can be a Participant in the Divine Vision
58. That One Being is Able to See God More Perfectly than Another
59. How Those Who See the Divine Substance May See All Things
60. That Those Who See God See All Things in Him at Once
61. That Through the Vision of God One Becomes a Partaker of Eternal Life
62. That Those Who See God Will See Him Perpetually
63. How Man’s Every Desire is Fulfilled in that Ultimate Felicity
64. That God Governs Things by His Providence
65. That God Preserves Things in Being
66. That Nothing Gives Being Except in So Far as it Acts by Divine Power
67. That God is the Cause of Operation for All Things that Operate
68. That God is Everywhere
69. On the Opinion of Those Who Take Away Proper Actions from Natural Things
70. How the Same Effect is from God and from a Natural Agent
71. That Divine Providence Does not Entirely Exclude Evil from Things
72. That Divine Providence Does not Exclude Contingency from Things
73. That Divine Providence Does not Exclude Freedom of Choice
74. That Divine Providence Does not Exclude Fortune and Chance
75. That God’s Providence Applies to Contingent Singulars
76. That God’s Providence Applies Immediately to All Singulars
77. That the Execution of Divine Providence is Accomplished by Means of Secondary Causes
78. That Other Creatures are Ruled by God by Means of Intellectual Creatures
79. That Lower Intellectual Substances are Ruled by Higher Ones
80. On the Ordering of the Angels Among Themselves
81. On the Ordering of Men Among Themselves and to Other Things
82. That Lower Bodies are Ruled by God Through Celestial Bodies
83. Epilogue to the Preceding Chapters
84. That the Celestial Bodies Make no Impression on Our Intellects
85. That the Celestial Bodies are not the Causes of Our Acts of Will and Choice
86. That the Corporeal Effects in Things Here Below Do not Necessarily Result from the Celestial Bodies
87. That the Motion of a Celestial Body is not the Cause of Our Acts of Choice by the Power of Its Soul Moving Us, as Some Say
88. That Separate Created Substances Cannot be Directly the Cause of Our Acts of Choice and Will, but Only God
89. That the Movement of the Will is Caused by God and not Only the Power of the Will
90. That Human Acts of Choice and of Will are Subject to Divine Providence
91. How Human Events May be Traced Back to Higher Causes
92. How a Person is Favored by Fortune and How Man is Assisted by Higher Causes
93. On Fate: whether and What it Is
94. On the Certainty of Divine Providence
95. That the Immutability of Divine Providence Does not Suppress the Value of Prayer
96. That Some Prayers are not Granted by God
97. How the Disposition of Providence Has a Rational Plan
98. How God Can Act Apart from the Order of His Providence, and How Not
99. That God Can Work Apart from the Order Implanted in Things, by Producing Effects Without Proximate Causes
100. That Things which God Does Apart from the Order of Nature are not Contrary to Nature
101. On Miracles
102. That God Alone, Works Miracles
103. How Spiritual Substances Do Certain Wonderful Things Which, However, are not Truly Miracles
104. That the Works of Magicians are not Solely Due to the Influence of Celestial Bodies
105. Where the Performances of the Magicians Get Their Efficacy
106. That the Intellectual Substance which Provides the Efficacy for Magic Works is not Morally Good
107. That the Intellectual Substance Whose Help the Arts of Magic Use is not Evil in Its Own Nature
108. Arguments Whereby it Seems to be Proved that There Can be no Sin in Demons
109. That Sin Can Occur in Demons, and in What Way
110. Answer to the Previous Arguments
111. That Rational Creatures are Subject to Divine Providence in a Special Way
112. That Rational Creatures are Governed for Their Own Sakes, While Others are Governed in Subordination to Them
113. That the Rational Creature is Directed by God to His Actions not Only by an Ordering of the Species, but Also According to What Befits the Individual
114. That Laws are Divinely Given to Man
115. That the Divine Law Principally Orders Man Toward God
116. That the End of Divine Law is the Love of God
117. That We are Ordered by Divine Law to the Love of Neighbor
118. That Through Divine Law Men are Bound to the Right Faith
119. That Our Mind is Directed to God by Certain Sense Objects
120. That the Cult Proper to Latria is to be Offered to God Alone
121. That Divine Law Orders Man According to Reason in Regard to Corporeal and Sensible Things
122. The Reason Why Simple Fornication is a Sin According to Divine Law, and that Matrimony is Natural
123. That Matrimony Should be Indivisible
124. That Matrimony Should be Between One Man and One Woman
125. That Matrimony Should not Take Place Between Close Relatives
126. That not All Sexual Intercourse is Sinful
127. That the Use of Food is not a Sin in Itself
128. How Man is Ordered by the Law of God in Regard to His Neighbor
129. That Some Human Acts are Right According to Nature and not Merely Because They are Prescribed by Law
130. On the Counsels that are Given in Divine Law
131. On the Error of the Attackers of Voluntary Poverty
132. On the Ways of Life of Those Who Practice Voluntary Poverty
133. In What Way Poverty is Good
134. Answers to the Arguments Brought Forward Above Against Poverty
135. Answer to the Objections Against the Different Ways of Life of Those Who Embrace Voluntary Poverty
136. On the Error of Those Who Attack Perpetual Continence
137. Another Error Concerning Perpetual Continence
138. Against Those Who Attack Vows
139. That Neither Meritorious Acts nor Sins are Equal
140. That a Man’s Acts are Punished or Rewarded by God
141. On the Diversity and Order of Punishments
142. That not All Rewards and Punishments are Equal
143. On the Punishment Due to Mortal and Venial Sin in Relation to the Ultimate End
144. That by Mortal Sin a Man is Eternally Deprived of His Ultimate End
145. That Sins are Punished Also by the Experience of Something Painful
146. That it is Lawful for Judges to Inflict Punishments
147. That Man Needs Divine Help to Attain Happiness
148. That by the Help of Divine Grace Man is not Forced Toward Virtue
149. That Man Cannot Merit Divine Help in Advance
150. That the Aforesaid Divine Help is Called Grace, and What Sanctifying Grace Is
151. That Sanctifying Grace Causes the Love of God in Us
152. That Divine Grace Causes Faith in Us
153. That Divine Grace Causes Hope in Us
154. On the Gifts of Gratuitous Grace, Including a Consideration of the Divinations of Demons
155. That Man Needs the Help of Grace to Persevere in the Good
156. That He Who Falls from Grace Through Sin May Again be Restored Through Grace
157. That Man Cannot be Freed from Sin Except Through Grace
158. How Man is Freed from Sin
159. That it is Reasonable to Hold a Man Responsible If He Does not Turn Toward God, Even Though He Cannot Do this Without Grace
160. That Man in the State of Sin, Without Grace, Cannot Avoid Sin
161. That God Frees Some Men from Sin and Leaves Others in Sin
162. That God is not the Cause of Sin for Any Person
163. On Predestination, Reprobation, and Divine Election