Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters as we continue our dive into the ocean of truth searching for those pearls. We’re going through the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas now in an attempt to understand the doctrine of God fuller. Our guide for this has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. That can be read for free at newadvent.org. Those who have products like the IPhone or Kindle can also download it. Best, however, would be to just purchase your own copy someday, at least the Prima Pars. We’re talking about the Will of God and today we’re going to be talking about the Will of Sign. Is that something distinguishable?
The Will of Sign refers more to the moral relationship that exists between God and men. This would mean such things like the Ten Commandments. Now in idea, we can speak about different wills in God. There is his sovereign will and there is his moral will. Sometimes, we speak of an individual will for some people, but I often think this falls more under the sovereign will in that he has a desire and he’s chosen certain individuals to fulfill that. In other words, the individuals play a part in the greater will of God. The will of God is not subservient to the individuals. We make it all about us, when really, if “God has a plan for our life” it is all about him. Not us.
The way we know what God’s will is also is that he has revealed it and he acts in accordance with what he desires. He punishes sin and he rewards goodness. We read in the Bible that God gets angry at sin. However, this is for our understanding of God’s view of sin. God does not get angry in the literal sense, but anger is a characteristic of one who punishes another and so when we see God acting in this way, we say of him that he is angry in the sense that he acts the way that an angry person acts.
The reason of course that God has only one will ultimately is that God is simple as has been said and what he has, he is. If there were two wills in God, then there would be parts to him. Once again, we are reminded that God is simple in his nature and why this is important. Aquinas went through his work in the order that he did for a reason and as we’ve gone through, we’ve seen that each part beautifully comes and builds on the part that came before it.
Today, we Christians should get out of this that we ought not to focus on so much an individual will for our lives but building on the nature of holiness in our lives. Is it not so much if you’re marrying the right person as it is if you are going to be the kind of spouse that you ought to be. It is not so much that you are picking the right career so much as if you are being the kind of employee you ought to be. It is not so much that you are going to the right school so much as you are being the right kind of student. God’s will for you, in fact, is not about you but about his glory.
I hope this has been a help to you. Remember everyone that what I do does depend on part from the help of people like you. I encourage any way in which you might want to help to make that a reality.
We shall continue tomorrow.
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