Question Seven
Why God created, and creates, souls which he knows are to be damned, and angels whom he knew would fall
It is asked why God creates souls which he knows are to be damned, and angels whom he knew would fall.
The theologians answer this first by saying that God’s foreknowledge imposes no necessity upon rational souls, whether to be created or already created, with respect to their works in either direction, but rather leaves them in the hand of their own counsel and choice. Therefore, although God foreknew that souls would be damned, he nevertheless willed to create them, because he also knew that they would act freely in whatever they did.
For this purpose it must be known that God foreknows that certain things will be by necessity, that is, from a necessary cause, as that the sun will rise tomorrow; but that certain others will be from free will, as that this person will run or perform some other action. The sun, therefore, will rise necessarily, because God foreknew and ordained it thus; and a human being will act voluntarily, because God thus foreknew and foresaw it. Those things, therefore, which are from a cause acting necessarily are necessary by necessity; but those which will come from a cause acting freely will come freely, because God established and foreknew that they would occur in this manner. Nevertheless, because the divine intellect from eternity knows each contingent thing, not only as it is in its causes but also as it is in its own determinate being - namely, the being which it has when it is in the nature of things - and because a thing is then known with certainty when it is known according as it exists in act, as is evident in one who sees Socrates actually running, the divine intellect therefore knows from eternity each future thing with certainty and unfailingly. Yet on this account it does not impose necessity upon contingent and free acts.
In the same way, if someone sees another person making a wheel, it follows necessarily that the latter is making a wheel; nevertheless, the former’s seeing is not the cause of the latter’s making the wheel. Thus God also foresees a person’s evil works, but he is nevertheless not the cause of that person’s doing evil.
Second, Augustine answers this question, and likewise the one concerning evil angels, in Book XI of On Genesis, saying: “To those who ask such things I answer: I cannot penetrate the depth of God’s counsel, and I confess that this matter is far beyond my powers and has been reserved to be disclosed by better and holier persons. Nevertheless, since we concede that a rational nature which is altogether unwilling to sin is better, let those who ask such things therefore concede that a creature which was so made that it can refrain from sin if it wills is not evil. Just as true reason teaches that a nature which is pleased by absolutely nothing illicit is better, so reason also teaches that a nature which has it in its power to restrain illicit things is good, so that it may not only rejoice in good and rightly performed acts, but may also rejoice in the violation of the wicked.
“Since, therefore, such a nature would be good, but the former better, why would the Lord God make that one alone, and not rather both? The former now exists in the holy angels, and the latter in holy human beings. Those who from the beginning chose rather the side of iniquity did not therefore have to go uncreated merely because they had been foreknown. For the evil also had their place among things, both for the beauty of the universe and for the usefulness of the saints. Since, therefore, the just advance through the unjust, and the pious through the impious, why should the most wise God not have created those whom he also foreknew would be evil? Why should he not have made those whom he knew would be useful to the good in so many ways - for stirring up and exercising the wills of the good, and for being punished on account of their own perverse will, for the manifestation of justice?” Thus he speaks.
Reasonably, therefore, just as God made the human being upright, leaving him in the hand of his own choice, setting before him commandments and water and fire, as is said in Ecclesiasticus 15, so that he might put his hand to whichever he willed, so in his own manner God made all the angels upright from the beginning. He gave them knowledge and power sufficient for standing in the rectitude of justice, and left them in the liberty of their choice with respect to good and evil.
He decreed that he would concur with their wills in every good or evil act which they might wish to produce elicitively; and this with respect to the entity of the acts, but not with respect to their deformity. Thus, if through their own liberty they should decline toward the side of injustice, divine justice would be manifested in their punishments; but if they should prefer to stand in rectitude, the abundance of divine mercy would be demonstrated in the bestowal of most excellent felicity. Thus Henry of Hesse.
Since, moreover, as Pliny the Elder bears witness, “It is generous and full of honorable modesty to acknowledge those through whom you have advanced,” I shall therefore sometimes note, at the heels and feet of the questions, the doctors and the places from which I have squeezed out and elicited what I write.
Addition
See the Master of the Sentences in Book II, distinction 23; Augustine, Book VII of The City of God, chapter 30; and the Enchiridion to Laurence.