Logical necessity includes both absolute necessity and necessity by suppositum. There isn’t just one kind of logical necessity. What is illogical about necessity by suppositum?
Necessity by suppositum is not **logical **necessity. A denial of something necessary only by suppositum does not involve a logical contradiction in itself.
He discusses the issue “whether whatever God wills He wills necessarily” … maybe he’ll lay it down better than us non-angelic minds.
Absolutely. Objections 1, 2, 4, and maybe 5 are easily dealt with. But the meat of the matter are objections 3 and 6. As we see, Aquinas skirts around the issue.
Objection 3. Further, whatever belongs to the nature of God is necessary, for God is of Himself necessary being, and the principle of all necessity, as above shown (2, 3). But it belongs to His nature to will whatever He wills; since in God there can be nothing over and above His nature as stated in Metaph. v, 6. Therefore whatever He wills, He wills necessarily.
Objection 6. Further, whatever God knows, He knows necessarily. But as the divine knowledge is His essence, so is the divine will. Therefore whatever God wills, He wills necessarily.
The relevant part of the reply…
I answer that…But God wills things apart from Himself in so far as they are ordered to His own goodness as their end… Hence, since the goodness of God is perfect, and can exist without other things inasmuch as no perfection can accrue to Him from them, it follows that His willing things apart from Himself is not absolutely necessary. Yet it can be necessary by supposition, for supposing that He wills a thing, then He is unable not to will it, as His will cannot change…
Yes, now how can other things be ordered to God’s goodness if God’s goodness is impossible to increase, being already perfect without them? But note the contradictory answer to the previous question…
It pertains, therefore, to the nature of the will to communicate as far as possible to others the good possessed; and especially does this pertain to the divine will, from which all perfection is derived in some kind of likeness. Hence, if natural things, in so far as they are perfect, communicate their good to others, much more does it appertain to the divine will to communicate by likeness its own good to others as much as possible. Thus, then, He wills both Himself to be, and other things to be; but Himself as the end, and other things as ordained to that end; inasmuch as it befits the divine goodness that other things should be partakers therein.
Look, he is here stating it pertains to the **nature **of the will to communicate
as far as possible to others the good possessed - God’s will can’t go against its own nature, and so we have Leibniz’s argument right here!
Reply to Objection 3. **It is not natural to God **to will any of those other things that He does not will necessarily; and yet it is not unnatural or contrary to His nature, but voluntary.
But this is saying that there **is **something in God over and above His nature. Now which is it?
Reply to Objection 6. As the divine essence is necessary of itself, so is the divine will and the divine knowledge; but the divine knowledge has a necessary relation to the thing known; not the divine will to the thing willed. The reason for this is that knowledge is of things as they exist in the knower; but the will is directed to things as they exist in themselves. Since then all other things have necessary existence inasmuch as they exist in God; but no absolute necessity so as to be necessary in themselves, in so far as they exist in themselves; it follows that God knows necessarily whatever He wills, but does not will necessarily whatever He wills.
There’s an equivocation on “necessarily” here. Let’s look at,
A1
necessarily, God knows whatever He wills,
A2
necessarily, God wills whatever He wills (tautology),
A3 God knows
necessarily whatever He wills
A4 God wills
necessarily what He wills.
Now, obviously, God knows what He wills. Aquinas is saying A1 and not A4. That’s fine. If Aquinas meant A3 then it’s all over; if God knows what He knows in all possible worlds, then there’s only one possible world. But that is precisely what objection 6 is stating, for it to have any force. A3 and not A1 is the premise of the original objection, or else Aquinas just set up a straw man.
