15. Providence in Relation to Rational Creatures (SCG 3,111–163)
Providence in Relation to Rational Creatures (SCG 3,111–163)
AT THE OUTSET of SCG 3,111 Aquinas takes himself to have shown “that divine providence extends to all things.”1 But he still wants to explain “that there is a special meaning for providence in reference to intellectual and rational creatures.”2 This is the task he devotes himself to in SCG 3,111–163.
He begins by arguing that rational creatures, by which he now chiefly means human beings, differ from other creatures. Then he claims that people are governed by God providing laws directing them in their actions. Divine law, he holds, “looks to the ordering of people toward God.”3
So Aquinas next considers how people are ordered to God in different ways and by various courses of action. He maintains that God orders us to act in accordance with reason concerning physical matters. He then spends several chapters talking about fornication, marriage, and the use of food. He also offers discussion of those in his day who attacked voluntary poverty and perpetual abstinence from sexual activity.4
Having noted that what we do is punished or rewarded by God, Aquinas then spends time discussing punishment in general and punishment by God in particular. Yet, returning to his claim that God can help people to attain ultimate happiness (see SCG 3,53), he goes on to reflect on how God might aid some people by grace (gratia) while withholding it from others. Aquinas clearly thinks that God might not give grace to some people. But he also believes that God does not have to give grace to anyone. He therefore views grace as given to rational creatures by God’s will and mercy, not because of desert.