Cajetan (Summula, under “lot”) says the divinatory lot is evil by its own kind. Yet toward the end of that section, “Briefly,” he says, “to use lots is not, of its own kind, an evil.” Abulensis omits the divinatory, and asserts both the divisory and the consultory [lots] to be indeed from an evil, yet in themselves neither [of them] evil; but the consultory, indeed, [to be] in some measure, as he says, evil.
I say, first: Those lots, in which a fitting adjustment of them to what is sought is expected from a demon, or from a God — a false and empty one — are by their own nature evil. Of the demon it is plain, because this is to have fellowship with him, [and] to be willing to be instructed and taught by him: [and] to attribute to him, as it were, some honor and worship. Of the [false] God
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it is likewise plain, because “it is nothing” (1 Cor. 8:4); and the demon plays the person of it, as though it were something. And so [this] is partly a vanity — to expect, from a thing which is not, that some thing come to pass — [and] partly idolatry and superstition.
II: Lots whose adjustment [temperatio], too, is expected wholly and certainly from heaven [the sky], [are] by their own nature evil — because a power is attributed to heaven which it lacks, as Cajetan explains (on the 2a2ae, in the place cited). And to these and the above lots belong those [treated] in Cicero (On Divination 2), in Agrippa (On Occult Philosophy bk. 2, ch. 54, and the bk. On Geomancy, fol. 393); nay too those [in] Canon Law (C. 26, q. 5, ch. Qui divinationes; ch. Sortes; and [the Decretals,] On Lots, ch. In tabulis). To [these] also belong the sins and punishments of lot-castings.
III: Lots in which either the end, or the matter, or the mode (or form) is vicious, are by their own nature evil. For if their end be to wish to attain a knowledge not befitting man, and proper to God, [then] who skilled in morals would deny [it] to be vicious by its own nature? For in these moral [matters], the goodness or the vice of actions is regarded from the end. The matter will be vicious if the mode and form [be] vicious — as if fraud intervene: in the way it was done by Cresphontes against the tokens of Aristodemus, in Pausanias (in the Messenica), [and] Victorius (bk. 25 Various Readings, ch. 15). And [so it is vicious] if, as [it is] in the Comic Poet, the lot of the one were of poplar[-wood], of the other of fir[-wood], in the water.
IV: With these and other similar false and depraved opinions and modes removed, lots are not evil by their own nature. First: The whole kind of lot is universally praised in Scripture. Therefore it is not vicious of itself. For nowhere are idolatry, homicide, adultery, theft, and the like praised without qualification. But of lots [it is said], Prov. 16:33: “Lots are cast into the lap, but they are disposed by the Lord.” And ch. 18, v. 18: “The lot represses contentions, and judges even among the mighty.” Secondly: Lots are sometimes commanded by God — and indeed not to some one man only, or to two, in secret, but to the whole people of Israel, at once and openly, as in this place, and Lev. 16. Thirdly: they are everywhere and often used in the Scriptures, nor is there anywhere any reproof of them. Who, then, would dare to believe them vicious of themselves? Fourthly: they have always been in use among Christians too, as St. Luke indicates (Acts 1), and those who write about the dividing [of the missions] of the Apostles — as I noted in [my] little book On the Apostles, and as Gregory of Tours, Caesarius, and others cited above (q. 17) note. Fifthly: it is even now used in many military and civil affairs — as in dividing an inheritance among a family [herciscunda familia] and other goods, in receiving [assigning] holy governorships, in choosing sacred ministers at a time of pestilence (St. Augustine, Epistle 80), in giving alms (the same, bk. 1 On Christian Doctrine, ch. 28), in doing certain actions (St. Bonaventure, in the Life of St. Francis, ch. 13; Peter of Blois, Epistle 30), and in similar [matters]. Sixthly: those cited at the beginning nearly grant this — Cajetan (on the 2a2ae, at the eighth article of the cited question, concerning lots which are committed to fortune), Abulensis, nay St. Thomas himself in article 8 of the cited question, when he says: “Such a lot (namely, which expects a judgment from God) is not, in itself, evil”; and he proves it by the authority of St. Augustine (Sermon 2 on Psalm 30), saying, “the lot is not something evil” — as it is also cited (36, q. 2, ch. 1). Origen (homily 23 on this book), when he had gathered from the Scriptures those [passages] adduced a little before in favor of lots, concludes [that] they are not evil. “For us,” he says, “the lot drawn from [handed down by] the Apostles designates [something], because where, from an entire faith and with prayer sent before, the lot is drawn, what the will of God holds in secret, the lot declares openly to men.” Nay, he thinks in the same place that it comes about by lot to the Angels, that this [one] or that be the guardian of this man, [or] the president of this province or affair. As for the lot, Gregory of Toulouse (bk. 34, ch. 5, at the beginning) says, “the uses of lots seem in a manner to be established among things indifferent [adiaphora].” Seventhly: That is not evil of its own kind, all of whose species are sometimes good; but the divisory and consultory species of the lot are sometimes good, as is granted by all, and the divinatory too can be good — because nothing hinders any human knowledge (even of a future thing which can fall under conjecture) from being sought, in the way [it is sought] in the two above kinds of lot, [where] the truth of distributing, or of doing something else, is sought. For there is no reason [for making the] reasoning different. Eighthly: If anything should vitiate the lot from its own kind, [it] would be because there is no power in the lot to be able aptly to show the truth sought — for there is no connection of those things which are done in casting lots with any truth. And it is against right reason to seek one thing through that which has no power of showing it; for an action and investigation of this kind [would be] vain. But I deny the assumption [minor premise]. For God concurs, either by some special concurrence or by a general one only, to the composing and directing of lots. If by a special [one], it is now certain that in lots there is a very great power of indicating the thing which is sought. Whence in Cicero (bk. 1 On Divination) his brother Quintus says: “Lots, [when] drawn so that they fall out aptly for the matter, I believe can come about by divine [power].” If he concurs only by a general course, it must indeed be confessed that no true and certain power is present [in the lot]: yet there is some feeble [power], which exists not so much from the thing itself as from some watch-post [expectation] of men, while they hope God will concur by some special providence — and this because he himself can [do so], because he sometimes does [so], because he sometimes has praised the use of lots. But now to take up a way which sometimes leads certainly [to the goal], sometimes indeed does not, yet is hoped to be about to lead [there], [is] not vicious of itself. He who, about to set out for India, commits himself to the sea, undertakes a truly doubtful, dangerous journey, utterly uncertain from the force of winds and storms; and yet in this very [act] — provided the other [things] which ought to be present be present — there is nothing of depravity of itself. He supposes it will come to pass that the journey succeed, [though] perchance it will not succeed. “From a rope [cable],” as it is wont to be said, [comes] a fit voyage — and yet who would seriously disapprove it?