Cap. 1 subject: angels prove election before stand/fall; Thomas terminus
That God can elect and reprobate before any foresight of sin is plain in the angels. Those who stood were elect; those who fell were passed by or reprobated — and that before any foresight of standing versus falling. Before the decree to create or save them, God knew which angels, given such grace, would in fact persevere and reach eternal blessedness, and knew which would infallibly fall if given only the grace he later in fact gave. Why give the good angels grace he knew would bring them to glory? Only because a will to save them — election or predestination — came first. Why give the wicked angels grace he knew, taken alone, would leave them to perish? Because a will to permit their falling short of blessedness came first: otherwise he knew and could have given them, no less than the others, grace that would have carried them infallibly to glory. So toward the angels God's will to elect some and not others did not arise after foresight of who would stand or fall; it is rather the cause of that different outcome, and prior in order. Election and passing-by therefore do not, from the nature of the acts themselves, necessarily presuppose foresight of sin in the subject — not in angels. Nor does it seem necessary in humans to place foresight of sin as a condition in the subject prior to the decree of predestination and reprobation. Thomas notes rightly: motion takes its species from the terminus to which, not from the terminus from which. As whitening does not care whether the thing whitened was black, pale, or red, so predestination does not care whether someone is destined to eternal life from a state of misery or not. On Thomas's showing the act of predestination can fall on a subject not yet tangled in sin's misery.
Latin
Posse Deum eligere & reprobare ante omnem praevisionem peccati, manifestum est in Angelorum electione & reprobatione. Nam qui steterunt, proculdubio electi fuerunt; & qui ceciderunt, praeteriti sive reprobati, idque ante praevisum discrimen standi & labendi. Quod hac ratione ostendo. Necesse est ut concedamus, Deum intellexisse ante voluntarium decretum creandi aut salvandi Angelos, eos, quos tali gratia donaret, de facto in sanctitate perseveraturos, & aeternam beatitudinem adepturos; e contra, vidisse eos qui perierunt, infallibiliter casuros, si illam solam gratiam iis daret, quam de facto postea dedit. Quaero, Cur dedit bonis Angelis illam gratiam, quam sciebat illos ad gloriam perducturam? Aliud fingi non potest, nisi quod antecessit voluntas illos salvandi, quam appellamus Electionem vel Praedestinationem. Quaero itidem, Cur dedit malis illam gratiam, qua sola accepta intellexit illos infallibiliter perituros? Respondemus necesse est, Quia antecessit voluntas permittendi illos deficere a beatitudine: nam alioquin novit, & potuit Deus non minus illis quam aliis dedisse gratiam, quae infallibiliter eos provexisset ad gloriam. Videtis erga Angelos habuisse Deum voluntatem eligendi quosdam ad gloriam, & non eligendi alios, non ortam post praevisionem standi in his, labendi in illis; sed causam potius hujus discriminis & diversi eventus, ac proinde ordine priorem. Electio igitur & praeteritio non praesupponunt necessario ex ipsa natura actuum praevisionem peccati in subjecto; quia non in Angelis. Sed videtur etiam quod nec in hominibus necessarium est ponere praevisionem peccati, ut conditionem in subjecto praedestinato & reprobato, priorem ipso decreto Praedestinationis & reprobationis. Nam (ut recte annotavit Thomas) metus non accipit speciem a termino a quo, sed a termino ad quem. Sicut ergo nihil refert quantum ad rationem dealbationis, utrum ille qui dealbatus fuerit niger, aut pallidus, aut rubens; sic nihil refert ad rationem praedestinationis, utrum aliquis praedestinetur in vitam aeternam, a statu miseriae, vel non. Haec ille. Potest itaque (secundum Thomam) actus praedestinationis cadere in subjectum peccati miseria nondum implicatum.