# Divine willing and miracles are different theological claims

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH04.P026](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH04.P026/#char=223,277): "miracles in the stricter sense that they were _wilful_"

The 'stricter sense' is Chesterton's proposed distinction between wonder and intention; it should not be mistaken for a standard theological definition. Aquinas, *Summa theologiae* I, question 105, article 5, holds that God acts in every created agent while preserving the creature's own effective operation. Divine agency therefore need not displace natural causation. Article 7 distinguishes miracles from ordinary divine activity by their relation to the natural order, rather than simply by their having God as cause. Its first reply even excludes creation itself from miracles properly so called. [Aquinas, I.105.5 and I.105.7](https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1105.htm).

This comparison allows the paragraph's insight—that familiar events may depend upon personal willing—without identifying every event as a technical miracle. It also keeps open a distinction Chesterton's magician metaphor does not resolve: willing through created causes versus directly replacing their action. The inspected text is New Advent's online reproduction of the English Dominican Fathers' second, revised translation (1920), not a medieval English witness or a contemporary source for Chesterton's wording.

## Sources

- [Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, Prima Pars, question 105](https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1105.htm), Article 5, answer and replies 1–3; article 7, answer and reply 1; translation information at page foot

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