This chapter turns to an examination of choice and its hylomorphic structure. To spell out this structure, it further investigates the formal-causal dependence relation between volition and judgment already considered in Chapter 4. It argues that Aquinas draws a distinction between two types of forms, a form extrinsic to the volition, which is the preceding practical judgment, and a form intrinsic to volition, which is the intentional structure that volition inherits from the preceding judgment. It furthermore suggests that the intentional structure of volition involves two components analogous to those present in judgment. There is an attitudinal component analogous to assent in judgment, which Aquinas refers to as “adherence,” and there is also a content adhered to, namely, a means as related to an end. The final section applies this general picture to choice to explain its hylomorphic structure. It argues that choice is a volition whose intrinsic form consists of an attitude of preferential adherence attaching to one means rather than another, where this form is an intentional structure derived from the previous judgment of choice.

Having examined the judgment crucial to the hylomorphically structured act of choice, this chapter turns to the act of choice itself, which is a volition. It does not yet offer an account of choice’s hylomorphic structure but lays important groundwork for doing so in Chapter 5 by shedding light on Aquinas’s general account of volition and its dependence on judgment. It first argues that a volition differs from judgment because it involves a world-to-mind rather than mind-to-world direction of fit. It then examines how volition depends on judgment. Aquinas himself characterizes judgment as the formal as well as the final cause of volition. The chapter suggests that these are two descriptions of one and the same dependence relation: judgment orders volition to an end, which makes it a final cause, and in so doing it also determines the volition’s kind, which makes it a formal cause. The last two sections deal with Aquinas’s view that the will “moves itself.” They argue that this does not imply any freedom of the will to operate independently of reason. In short, the chapter advocates a strongly intellectualist account of the will’s freedom.

Ideas of likeness are central to accounts of participation. In this chapter, we consider not only what it means for creatures to derive their existence (or – better – being) from God but also their nature, essence, or characterfulness. This is the territory of exemplarity and exemplary causation. A Platonic tradition of thinking about exemplarity is considered, not least in terms of the way it has been taken up and transformed by writers working in a Biblical tradition. Different ways to think about exemplarity are considered, particularly the theological distinction between likeness, image, and vestige, and between a likeness to a divine idea and a likeness to a divine perfection. Attention is given to the idea of the imago dei.

In the first of five opening chapters on participation and divine causation, we look at 'efficient' or 'agent' causation: what it means, from a participatory perspective, for God to be the cause and agent of creation. The chapter situates the idea of participation within the foundational doctrine, common to the Abrahamic faiths, of creation as being ex nihilo. Nothing is coaeval with God; nor did God rely upon anything else for creation: on eternally existent matter, for instance. Creation is not some past event, now over, but should rather be seen as a relation of dependence upon the creator. This is explored in terms of gift and of the relation of the doctrine of creation to the doctrine of God. This leads on to a discussion of theological apologetics.