The will of God is the attribute by which God wants something.

This will is God’s as it is understood, a very simple act, not distinct from his divine nature, yet proportional to the various things towards which this will is directed. To accommodate to our way of conceiving things, theologians distinguish in God several kinds of wills.

They divide them into the sign will and the good pleasure will , the antecedent will and the consequent will , the efficient will and the inefficient will, and the absolute will and the conditional will.

They call the sign will that which God makes known to us by some exterior sign, like the counsels and the precepts one calls by metaphor God’s will. Thus it is generally agreed that this will is only metaphorical. The theologians distinguish five species of it: the precept, the prohibition, the permission, the counsel, and the operation. These they express by this versifying technique:

The good pleasure will is a real and interior will which resides in God. It is that which the apostle said ut probetis qua sit voluntas Dei bona et beneplacens et perfecta. Rom. xii. v. 2. The good pleasure will is always found in conjunction with the sign will mode of God. It is sometimes shared and sometimes it is separated in what he ordains, counsels, or defends. But it is never a part of that which he permits in regard to sin. For it would be blasphemous to say that God wants intentionally and actually that one commit a sin.

The good pleasure will is divided into antecedent and consequent will . By antecedent will one means that which considers a thing in and of itself, abstracted from its particular and personal circumstances. It is usually called goodwill or mercy. Consequent will is that which considers a thing accompanied by and clothed in all its circumstances, as much general as particular. It is also called judicial will . This distinction is found in Saint Chrysostom homel. 1. sur l'épître aux Ephésiens; in Saint John of Damascus, lib. II. de fid. orthodox. cap. xxix. And even more explicitly in Saint. Thomas, part. I. quest. XIX. art. 6, respons. ad 1.

The efficient will of God is that which is always in effect. Inefficient will is that which is stripped of its effect by the resistance of man.

Finally, by absolute will one means that which depend on no condition whatsoever. It is uniquely contingent on the decrees of God, such as was the will to create the world.

By conditioned will one means that which depends on a condition such as the will to save all men, provided that they themselves want to cooperate in grace and observe the commandments of God.

That God wants to save all men is a truth of faith clearly expressed in the scriptures. But which of his wills is it? This is a point on which diverse heretics have erred and which has sharply divided the theologians.

The Pelagians and the semi-Pelagians claim that God wanted to save all men without making any distinction, without any special predilection for the elect and that, as a consequence, Jesus Christ had given his blood for all men equally. The Predestinarians, to the contrary, have advanced that Jesus Christ had died for the elect and that God sincerely wanted only the salvation of those who were predestined. Calvin subscribed to the same error and the Jansenists imitated him, although in a more discreet and inductive way. For Calvin recognized that God wanted the salvation of all men in the sense that no one is saved except through his will or that the word “all” had to mean “several out of a large number,” or finally because God inspires them with the desire and the will to save themselves. But all of these explanations are insufficient. The true knot of the difficult is to know if God prepares or sincerely confers on all men the grace truly sufficient to work for their salvation. This is what the Jansenists and their disciples refuse to recognize.

Among the theologians, some, such as Hughes de Saint Victor, Robert Pullus, etc. say that the will of God for the salvation of all men is only a sign will , since they do not admit that God has a true and real will , but rather that it is efficient. They claim that all men do not save themselves, but on the other hand, they recognize as a consequence of this sign will, God gives truly sufficient grace to men.

Others, such as Saint Bonaventure and Scotus, admit in God an antecedent will , true, real, and of good pleasure for the salvation of all men. But according to them, this will has for a purpose only those truly sufficient graces that precede salvation. And it is for this reason that they call it the antecedent will .

Sylvius, Estius, Bannez, etc. teach that this antecedent will for salvation of all men is not properly or formally in God, but only virtually and eminently, since God is an infinite source of good things and mercy, and that he offers to all men generous and sufficient means to attain this salvation.

Aureolus, Suarez, and others explain this antecedent will as an indulgent love of God for the salvation of all men, an active and necessary love which prepares them for the grace with which they will save themselves if they use it well.

Vasquez distinguishes between adults and children. He claims that God wants with a sincere and antecedent will the salvation of adults, but one cannot say the same thing for the children who die in the bosom of their mother, or for those who have not been able to be baptized.

Finally, Lemos, Alvares, Gamache, Isambert, Duval, Bellarmin, Tournely, and the majority of the modern theologians think God wants with an antecedent, true, real, and formal will the salvation of all men, even the damned and the children who die without baptism. Further, that he prepares them, offers them, or confers on them the sufficient means for salvation, and that Jesus Christ died and spent his blood for the salvation of more than just the predestined.

It is generally agreed however that God does not want with a consequent will the salvation of only the elect and that it is also with an absolute, consequent, and efficient will that Jesus Christ died for the salvation of the predestined, for, as was expressly said at the Council of Trent, session V iii. quoique le Sauveur du monde soit mort pour tous, tous néanmoins ne reçoivent pas le bienfait de sa mort [although the savior of the world died for all, all nevertheless do not receive the benefit of his death].