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Hi Father,

I would need your help to understand how God’s Will works in our lives.

We live in a world where things happen: there are things which are independent from us (e.g. a storm that destroys my crop) and there are things which depend on us (e.g. I meet Lucia and then Beatrice, and I decide to marry Beatrice).

I could go on and on with examples.

How God manifest His will in all events?

Can I say that marrying Beatrice was God’s Will? Or is God indifferent about whom I choose to marry (when I am happy and follow Him during my marriage?

And, about the crop destroyed by the storm: does God not care about its destruction (or at least does He not prevent it) whether I do not part myself from Him in that trial?

Thank you.

Alessandro

The Priest’s answer

Dear Alessandro,

1. there is no pre-established plan in our choices.

Rather, God indeed assumes and respects our choices.

When they are righteous, God makes them as His own.

It is like what He said to St. Peter: “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Mt 16:19).

Since you have decided to marry Beatrice, God wants your life dedicated to her.

2. God not only respects our good decisions but He also inspires them without diminishing our free will.

God always remains the first cause of everything.

St. Thomas writes: “God, therefore, is the first cause, Who moves causes both natural and voluntary. And just as by moving natural causes He does not prevent their acts being natural, so by moving voluntary causes He does not deprive their actions of being voluntary: but rather is He the cause of this very thing in them; for He operates in each thing according to its own nature“ (Summa Theologiae, I, 83, 1, ad 3).

3. We should note that God’s will is expressed in many ways.

Saint Thomas lists five:

by works, as happened in the creation or in the miracles by Christ;

by permission, not hindering evil doing, for example, an evil will of man or the rebellion of the angels;

by declaration, as when He orders another to perform a work, for example by precepts and His sacraments;

by prohibition of evil;

by counsel, persuading to do a good work (rf. Summa Theologiae, I, 19, 12).

4. Also, an action may happen outside the accordance with God’s counsel by overwhelming passions or selfish interests. That is by God’s permission. He also permits when a person, who is bound by a previous marriage, marries in a civil wedding, or He permits evils of a material nature, such as a cloudburst that destroys the crops.

5. St. Thomas says that these five ways, which express God’s will, are part of the petition that the Lord commanded us to express in the prayer of the Our Father: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Mt 6:10).
And he concludes: “the same five are sometimes denominated with regard to the divine will, as the expression of that will. […]

That permission and operation are called the will of God is clear from Augustine (Enchiridion 95), who says: ‘Nothing is done, unless the Almighty wills it to be done, either by permitting it, or by actually doing it’ ” (Ib.).

6. And he adds: “There is nothing to prevent anyone declaring his will about the same matter in different ways; thus we find many words that mean the same thing. Hence there is not reason why the same thing should not be the subject of precept, operation, and counsel; or of prohibition or permission” (Ib., ad 1).

7. And, still: “Rational creatures are masters of their own acts (…) inasmuch as God ordains rational creatures to act voluntarily and of themselves.
Other creatures act only as moved by the divine operation; therefore only operation and permission are concerned with these” (Ib., ad 3).

I wish you all the best and I bless you.

Father Angelo