Celebriores Controversiae in Primum Sententiarum Ioannis Scoti — Tomus Alter (de Scientia Dei et Ideis)

ARTICLE II

Does God foreknow future contingents in their causes?

SUMMARY.

Exposition of the question; and refutation of Luis Molina. Num. 1. The opinion of Maurus and Granada, that God foreknows future contingents in causes infallibly inhering in the future morally. Num. 2. The opinion of the Thomists, that God knows the future in free causes intrinsically and physically premoved. Num. 6. The text of Scotus for settling the controversy. Num. 9. Repeated explanation, for which it is weighed what hypothetical necessity is, and the Digression in Scotus. Numer. 11. Four oppositions ad hominem against the preceding doctrine. Num. 14. The true opinion is established against the foreknowledge of futures in their causes; either on account of a moral propensity, or on account of a physical determination which pertains to the first act of operating. Num. 16. Other confirmations of the true opinion against the predetermination of free choice by the immission of an intrinsic form; and satisfaction to certain objections. Num. 20. Scotus's final argument ad hominem against the maintainers of intrinsic premotion; drawn from the necessity of beatific fruition. Num. 21. The foundations of the adversaries are demolished. Num. 25. The final opposition concerning the liberty of the operations of Christ the Lord, and of the blessed, from Numer. 64 up to 69.

Title of the dissertation, and refutation of Molina, who takes away the medium on the side of the object for the foreknowledge of futures.

1 FOR the title of the present dissertation it must be premised that, when we inquire how God foreknows future contingents? the inquiry does not bear upon the medium on the side of the knower; since it is most evident that God, by His essence as by an illumined light, and the most actual form in the order of the intelligible, comprehends whatever He apprehends; and consequently, that there is no difference interposed in the mode of knowing between necessary and contingent objects, but that it is regarded on the side of the apprehending faculty of God.

Wherefore the difficulty presses only concerning the medium of the divine science on the side of the object; for, suppose the intellect, suppose that the fitness of knowing the object through the essence of God is present, nevertheless it imports the reason of the intelligible; so that to foreknow an object determinately, that object does not claim a determinate reason of knowability.

Wherefore Luis Molina did not rightly maintain that future contingents are known by God, not because they have a determinate truth in themselves; but on account of the illumination of the intellectual light, and the omnipotent light conformed to free choice; q. 14. art. 13. disp. 51. and often elsewhere; in which he is refuted by all.

For Molina seems to have followed Aureolus, who, although he denies a determinate truth in future contingents, nevertheless holds that they are foreknown by God determinately, as Catholic doctrine; as we show below in part 4, q. of this dist. from n. 44. up to 49. — defending Aureolus from the stigma which Gregory of Rimini and Vásquez brand upon him.

This therefore having been premised; let us discern whether future contingents in their causes regard that objective determination, or necessity on the side of the object, which as an objective medium can be the indivisibly stable one for shifting contingents.

The opinion of Machado and Granada, that God foreknows futures in their causes by a moral connexion.

2 The first opinion maintains; that future contingents, in their most proximately prepared causes, gain that objective determination, or infallible moral necessity; which can be the object of the science of God.

So among the Neoterics James Granada, 1st part. tract. 4. on the science of God, disp. 4. sect. 4. num. marg. 21. nor does Machado dissent, 1st part. disp. 32. sect. 1. §. Dico secundo.

Where, that they may ascribe to the future the determination in its causes; they expound free choice amid that concourse of circumstances, that judgment of the intellect, that propensity of appetite; such that the consent would be inferred by a certain morally unsurmountable necessity.

Whose opinion can be supported by that testimony of Christ in Matthew ch. 11.

Woe to thee, Corozain, woe to thee, Bethsaida; for if in Tyre and Sidon the virtues had been done which have been done in you, long ago they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes. Where Christ predicts the conversion of the Sidonians and Tyrians, not as conjectural, but infallible, from the virtues and miracles; by which their minds, stirred, would be softened to repentance.

And yet the signs and miracles, as they are suited to stir such men from the torpor of life to repentance, are only moral causes of conversion, and in them the effect is foreknown as infallibly future; therefore the composed cause of a free act, with such judgment, and that concourse of circumstances and objects, must not be denied to have such a moral contraction of acting that it could not elicit an effect necessary by hypothesis.

3 Furthermore James Granada argues; that that certitude of apprehension and of judgment must not be denied to the perspicacity of the divine understanding, which experience assigns as manifest to human capacity. But it is most certain, even with metaphysical evidence; that the will, amid that composition of circumstances and objects, would so act; although absolutely, or in the divided sense, it could conduct itself otherwise. So that any prudent and sensible man, who has known another inwardly and to the quick, would infallibly pronounce that he would so act, and not otherwise, in that encounter of temptation; therefore God also, with the will so anticipated, could be skilled in the consent as infallibly future.

4 Then it is argued thirdly from Machado; that future contingents acquire in their morally determined cause that necessity by hypothesis, which can pertain to the assent of faith, and to theological axioms. Such is the pronouncement asserting; that man, in the state of fallen nature, tossed by the gravest temptation of the demon, not anticipated by any special help, would fall infallibly into sin.

Similarly; that no man, through the whole course of life, will avoid venial sins without the most special foreprevention of God assisting. Moreover, that man not confirmed in grace will at some time commit a mortal sin.

But pronouncements of this sort about the future refer to only moral necessity; and yet they acquire that infallibility which could be the object of the assent of faith; therefore they too will be able to terminate the infallible science of God.

5 Finally; the aforesaid opinion is suaded from the doctrine of Vásquez, which he labors to establish, 1st p. disp. 98. cap. 7. and more purposely, 2nd 1. disp. 128. cap. 5. — that, upon a twofold object being proposed by the intellect, one tepidly or sluggishly, another intensely; the will will of necessity pursue either the more expressive, or the more moderate proposition of the lovable object. In which hypothesis, God would foreknow a future contingent in its cause; while nevertheless between the assent of the will and the judgment of the intellect there intercedes only moral connexion, and necessity; not indeed a physical predetermination.

Second opinion; affirming that God foreknows the future in intrinsically premoved causes. 6 The other opinion defends the foreknowledge of futures in their causes, on account of the physical predetermination, which it asserts is made through the impression of some intrinsic form completing the free power in the order of a most proximately expedited principle for undertaking causality. So most of the Thomists, Báñez, 1st part. question 14. article 13. conclusion 3. and 4. Didacus Alvarez, book 2. on the Helps, disput. 12. Peter Ledesma, book on the Helps, disput. on the science of future contingents, dub. 2. in the response to the principal argument.

Moreover; that, with such a predetermination constituted, namely by the composition of an intrinsic form or virtue completing the created will in the proximate act of eliciting the influx, futures contingents acquire every determination, it is abundantly established. For such an intrinsic premotion, standing on the side of the cause and anteceding the free influx, is that which infallibly brings in the future consent; since only the reason is sought which suades the probability of such a predetermination.

But it is demanded from the aforesaid authors by reason of the essential subordination of the second cause to the first; which necessarily requires that the second cause cannot strive into effect, unless as moved by the first, who completes or applies the operative faculty, that it may influence in the second act.

And indeed such an application is incongruously provided, unless through a form intrinsically composed with the second cause; since by virtue of this excitation it passes from not being the proximate and expedited principle of a free influx, to being the proximate principle of such free causality. But since the denomination of the principle proximately potent for the second act is intrinsic; it remains that it requires a form intrinsically premoving, which should antecede the actual efflux of the free action from the second cause.

7 It is argued secondly; because, if it were supposed that such a premotion is not constituted in a form intrinsically composed with the free cause, and which antecedes the second act, as an operative quality of the species of the power; another intrinsic premotion would be impossible. For this reason: that every predetermination which can be drawn from an intrinsic form, either regards the first act and is had as its intentum; or regards the second act; that it is impossible in this way is shown.

If an intrinsic premotion of the created will were rendered from the second act of the same will, as from God (under which connotation it is called the external action and causality of God); it would come about that such a premotion would not be real, and consequently not physical, but only intelligible or of reason. For since physical premotion tends to this, that it may excite and move the will to elicit the impulse; if such a predetermination were rendered through that very impulse, as from God, just as there would intercede only a distinction or relation of reason between the free action as from God and as from the intrinsic cause; so also only an excitation and premotion only of reason could be asserted.

Since a real excitation of the power, which is rendered from the second act, is implicative of the eliciting of the same second act; for this reason: that there intercedes a connexion of causality between the form exciting and moving the free power to eliciting the influx, and the influx itself really elicited, for whose effecting the virtue of the power is prepared proximately and expedited.

Then, too; that the predetermination which a free influx would afford, as it flows forth from God, does not pertain to the genus of formal cause; such that the second act of the created will, as from God, contracts the will as a form preparing the composition of the will with that same form of causality, as from the created will; or predetermines it to the composition of the will with the same second act of impulse, as exercised from the created will. But such a premotion pertains to the genus of efficient cause, inasmuch as the second act of the created will, as from God, is said to predetermine the will to eliciting the same influx, as from the created cause.

But a contraction, or predetermination pertaining to the genus of efficient cause, necessarily requires a real distinction between the predetermining and that which from such a predetermination is drawn elicitedly; therefore, since between the same influx and itself as it connotes dependence upon God and upon the created will there intercedes only the distinction of reason, even a predetermination only conceptible will have to be assigned.

And consequently, that an intrinsic predetermination can be asserted, it is necessarily to be constituted in some intrinsic form of the operative virtue immitted by God before the second act of the created volition.

8 Nor does Scotus seem to refuse this; while he constitutes that connexion between a second cause moved, and the first moving one; that if by impossibility the first cause were not acting freely, the second cause could not act freely, on account of the impulse of the first cause necessarily influencing, and consequently drawing, by virtue of itself, the second cause to the necessary influx; which connexion could not somehow be shrewdly asserted without the immission of some operative or excitative virtue, which would antecede the free motion of the second cause.

So therefore Scotus holds in 1st dist. 39. q. unico. §. Tertia positio dicit. under num. marg. 12.

«Against these it was argued at dist. 2, where it was proved that God is intelligent and willing other things to exist contingently, by the contingency of things. Because no contingency can be in the causation of any cause with respect to its effect, unless the first cause has itself contingently toward the cause proximate to it, or toward its own effect.

Which is now briefly proved from this: that the moving cause, inasmuch as it is moved, if it is necessarily moved, necessarily moves; therefore any second cause, which produces inasmuch as it is moved by the first, if it is necessarily moved by the first, necessarily moves the cause proximate to it, or produces its own effect: therefore the whole ordering of causes, up to the last effect, would produce necessarily, if the relation of the first cause to the one proximate to it were necessary.

Moreover; a prior cause regards its own effect naturally and simply prior to a posterior cause; therefore in that prior relation, if it has a necessary relation to it, it gives it to be necessary: but in the second instant of nature, the proximate cause cannot give itself to be contingent, because it is already understood to have from the first cause a being repugnant to contingency.

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The text of Scotus, from which we lay the foundations for the true opinion.

THAT the present dissertation may be unfolded, the letter of Scotus must be handled, in 4th sent. dist. 49. question 6. where he asserts; that the blessed in the composed sense (namely, as premoved and anticipated by God to eliciting the perpetual and unceasing act of enjoyment, is impeccable;) but otherwise in the sense of division, the premotion of God predetermining that beatific impulse being set aside; which act Scotus pronounces not necessary, but simply free. Against which doctrine he thus objects, §. against this, under n. mar. 13.

9 The determination of the will by a superior cause takes away its indifference no less than by an inferior cause; therefore if from the reason of its own causality it is indeterminate to operation, it thus repugns its own nature that that indifference should be taken away by a superior cause; as by an inferior: as therefore it is against the nature of the will that a habit determine it necessarily, so it is that God determine it.

It is confirmed; because more does a superior cause determine the inferior, than the reverse:

It is confirmed; because the superior cause determines the inferior more than conversely: therefore a superior cause determining more takes away the indifference of the inferior in acting, than if the inferior were to determine.

10 To which opposition Scotus thus replies, §. Respondeo, quòd voluntas, n. mar. 15. in these words.

It repugns the liberty of the will that the contingency which is necessarily on its own side do not put contingency simply inasmuch as it is on the side of all inferiors; because it takes away that it be the cause in the superior order.

But it does not repugn itself that its contingency does not put contingency on the side of the effect simply, inasmuch as it is on the side of the superior cause; because the superior cause is not determined by itself.

It is not therefore simply against its nature that it be determined by a superior cause, that is, that it be not against its nature to act the opposite; as it would be against its nature to be determined by a habit, or by an inferior nature.

Therefore, to the form: it is against its nature to be determined in its own order, and nothing else primarily repugns itself. But consequently it is against its nature to be determined by an inferior cause; for then itself would not be the superior. But it is not against its nature to be determined by a superior cause; because with this standing, it is the cause in its own order.

The contrarian argument: — the superior cause certainly determines; therefore the will in its order of causing is determined; therefore in its order of causing it is not contingent.

I reply; on account of its determination in its own order there is an equal contingency: but that the effect which proceeds from itself, not altogether contingently proceeds from its own contingency; this is, because another prior cause is determined to that effect.

Explanation of the letter, for which it is inquired what is the necessity of composition, and of division in Scotus?

11 CIRCUMSCRIBING whom text first observes; that Scotus utterly drives away that premotion of the created will which is made by the immission of any operative virtue anteceding the second act of the created will; as is clear from those words. It would be against the nature of the will to be determined by a habit, or by an inferior nature.

Where by the name (habit) he comprehends any operative faculty taken from an extrinsic principle, namely, sought from God; to contract the will to one side of the contradiction. Which the following words refer, (or by an inferior nature.) wherein by the name of an inferior nature, (whose predetermination with respect to the will he disapproves,) he embraces every operative form, created or creatable; whose intrinsic premotion, completing the will in the order of a first act, he asserts to be utterly contrary to the indifference of the will.

And he does not think that the common evasion concerning the sense of composition or of division should be tolerated; such that the will, intrinsically composed with the predetermining form, should be asserted only as affixed to one side of the contradiction in the composed sense, and by hypothesis; not indeed absolutely and simply.

For if that distinction, which sound and common theology embraces, should admit so much latitude of the divided and composed sense of interpretation; it would come to pass that no contraction of the indifference of the will could be asserted which renounced necessity absolutely and simply, but only in the sense of the composition of the will to such premoving form, and by hypothesis.

And consequently, that the enjoyment of the blessed would not be simply, and intrinsically necessary; as the common scholasticism of the Thomist school defends. For the necessity of that act could be eluded by that evasion of the divided and composed sense; such that the blessed should be asserted necessarily to pursue God through a supernatural enjoyment-producing impulse in the composed sense; namely as it is joined to the facial intuition of God. But otherwise in the divided sense; as it can be divided or separated from the clear vision by the mere will and choice of God, intentionally altering the created mind to the clear inspection of the Deity.

Then, too; that Peter, bound to a beam with an iron chain, would be said to be in readiness, and to have a proximate and expedited faculty for running; not in the composed sense, namely as he is fastened to the stake, but in the sense of division, as he is conceived expedited from the impediments. All which things are absurd, yet would be plainly introduced, if the composed sense could be held in that universality, as to be extended to any composition whatsoever of an intrinsic form, which would antecede the second act of a free power by the mode of a power, or of a first act.

So therefore most accurately, and with the wonted maturity of his genius, Scotus unfolds the divided and composed sense on the indifference simply, and the merely hypothetical necessity of the beatific enjoyment; which he constitutes against the common scholasticism of the Thomists in the same question 6. previously cited §. dico ergo, quòd causa huius perpetuitatis, under number 11.

12 I reply; that the blessed is impeccable in the sense of composition, that is, he cannot at the same time be blessed and sin; but in the sense of division, that remaining blessed he not have the power and possibility to sin; this can be understood in two ways. Either through something intrinsically of himself, which excludes such power; or through an extrinsic cause, which excludes the proximate power from himself.

Thus I say; that there is no intrinsic cause in the will of Michael now blessed, by which the power to sin would be excluded otherwise, in the divided sense; but there is no intrinsic cause prohibiting that power altogether from being brought to act; but by an extrinsic cause, that proximate power to sin is impossible.

Namely, through the will of God pre-anticipating that will, that it may always continue the act of enjoying; and thus it can never bring its power remote from enjoying, or sinning, to act.

For indeed a second cause, once anticipated by a superior cause acting toward one opposite, can no longer have the proximate power to go forth into the other opposite.

13 Concerning which explanation of Scotus on the sense of division and of composition, this occurs as to be set forth; that when he asserts that the will of the blessed does not import a proximate power to sin (for he indeed maintains that same will to be intrinsically indifferent to sinning and not sinning, and asserts it only to be anticipated by the extrinsic will of God, and determined to not sinning); there by the proximate power, which he removes, he understands the will as compatible or subposed to the act of sinning de facto, which repugns in the composed sense, on account of the extrinsic conjoining of the will of the blessed with the premotion of the divine will.

Just as on the other hand; he calls the power of the blessed to sin and not to enjoy, a remote power, on the hypothesis of the anticipation and premotion of the divine will predetermining the will of the blessed extrinsically to perpetual enjoyment; with which premotion the composition of the will with sin, or with not being of enjoyment, is incompossible in the composed sense.

Observe, then, that Scotus openly asserts premotion of the created will, or the predefinition through the extrinsic volition of God; as is clear from those words.

Through the will of God pre-anticipating that will, and from those words. Never can a second cause, once anticipated by a superior cause acting toward one opposite, have the proximate power to go forth into the other opposite. Serious oppositions ad hominem against the preceding doctrine.

Through the will of God pre-anticipating that will, and from those words. Never can a second cause, once anticipated by a superior cause acting toward one opposite, have the proximate power to go forth into the other opposite.

Serious oppositions ad hominem against the preceding doctrine.

But Scotus strives to blunt that strike; by that distinction of predetermination, which is rendered by an inferior and a superior cause. For he maintains; that altogether to injure liberty is that premotion which is taken from a form intrinsically composed; but otherwise that which accedes from the extrinsic motion of the divine will.

Of which this is the reason; that the divine will, so far is it from diminishing the indifference of the created will by itself, that rather from it is drawn the reason of all indifference, and of created liberty; whether such liberty be regarded in the first act, which is that which is enjoyed by the volitive power; or which coheres to the second act of volition.

Wherefore, just as against the liberty of the power of impulse in the first act it is not what flows forth from an extrinsic will of God; (nay indeed that the indifference of the created will to either must be drawn from the indifference of the first and uncreated will, so necessarily that, if the first will were not essentially free, but a principle utterly determined and necessary, neither would the created will assume to itself liberty expedited by the mode of a first act) so by a similar reason it is to be judged of the volition, and of its liberty by the mode of a second act, such that the liberty of a free impulse of a created will is drawn from the liberty of the divine volition.

For the extrinsic premotion of a principle free by essence, and pre-having within its virtuality every mode, or causality of indifference to either of the created appetite, cannot be brought under that supposition which is called antecedent for breaching the rights of liberty. For the premotion, which Scotus assigns, does not consist in the causality of a divine faculty executing, which would be something created; but it is the very substance of God and the uncreated will, unlimited in the reason of pre-having every mode of participable indifference.

Further, the premotion extrinsic to a principle essentially free, which contains within its virtuality the whole mode, or causality, of the indifference-to-either of created appetite, cannot be brought forward as that supposition which is called antecedent, so as to break the rights of liberty. Since the premotion which Scotus assigns does not consist in the causality of an executing divine faculty — which would be something created — but is the very substance of God and the uncreated will, which (unlimitedly) praehaares within itself every mode of participable indifference.

Because, since on Scotus's account action instats in the agent throughout his whole universality, whether he ranges over the created or the uncreated (and is not a passion, as the school of the Jesuits maintains), it follows that God's action coheres with God himself by identity. And just as the executing faculty is not severed from the attribute of will, so the second act of that divine faculty is the very form of uncreated volition, from eternity congruent to the Deity, and for its time producing an effect ad extra; and hence God's action is that very infinite virtue which subjuggles to itself every mode of created liberty, since the latter flows from it as from an illimited fountain of all creatable indifference. On this more precisely in the controversia On the Power of God, where we shall elucidate the act of the executing divine faculty, inquiring: whether it is created or uncreated? — against Aureolus and other more recent writers. And on this also something in this dist. art. 7, at num. 50 down to 56.

15 But you will urge; the difficulty about antecedent supposition is not laid to rest; for the premotion of the created will is not drawn from a form intrinsically inhering, but from the divine volition inferring no necessity simply, on account of the essential liberty of the divine volition precontaining every rationale of participated and participable indifference. Because any premotion whatever, whether of a created or of an uncreated form, whose composition to the will is not placed in the power of the will, (so that it is open to our created appetite to be composed, or not composed, with such a premoving form for influx,) is called antecedent supposition; because it seems more than most certain that God can by his absolute power infer necessity upon our will through his extrinsic volition: since no implication can be assigned on account of which it repugns that the created will be contracted extrinsically to the other part by an absolute and simple necessity; and not only consequently and by hypothesis.

But on such a supposition this necessity would be produced by an uncreated form, essentially free, and within its eminence praehabens the whole causality of created liberty; therefore the Scotists do not extricate themselves from a necessity simply, or of antecedent supposition, given that the premotion which they assert is not drawn from a created form contracted intrinsically to one side of contradiction, but from an uncreated form free by essence, and indifferent to either.

Moreover, that premotion by which God, say, pre-defines the conversion of Peter is not ascribed to the attribute of the divine will insofar as it is conceived for some sign of reason with indifference to either in respect of that object, but as it is determined to one side of the contradiction; yet such a contraction wholly antecedes Peter's consent; therefore it fastens Peter to one side of the contradiction no less than if such a form of uncreated volition were not free by essence.

Hence the doctrine of Scotus which we have transcribed, at margin num. 10, is overturned: that while a contraction by the impression of an intrinsic form repugns to free choice, it is otherwise for one by statute, or by the decree, of a superior cause.

It is answered: that if the extrinsic will of God, or the premotion of the executing divine faculty, does not alter the created will in respect of a first act, but only contracts it by way of a second act, presupposing the intrinsic and expedite indifference to the contrary, together with the provision of concourse to either in the first act; and neither infers absolute necessity but only from hypothesis — such as the will undergoes in the common opinion when it exercises its own causality, contracted by God through the absolute decree of concurring.

Hence, although we should hold it possible that the premotion of the divine will should bind the created appetite with a merely simple necessity — namely, if God's volition imprinted a form in the first act, fastening the created will to one side of the contradiction; or supplemented an operative quality of the species of potency fastening free choice to one side of the contradiction, so that the will should suffice proximately in place of that quality, and supply its causality, not formal but effectual; or should necessity our will by his uncreated volition, according to what we examine below, at num. 40 and 41, not furnishing in the first act, before actual cooperation, the concourse to the contrary; because the will's power to either in the first act would already be impeded. Otherwise if the premotion were by way of a second act, having this look: that it contracts the indetermination of the will to producing this individual of action rather than that; which predetermination, since it cannot be ascribed to any second cause, remains to be attributed to the uncreated will, or to the executing divine faculty. As will be seriously examined in article 5 of this distinction, where we shall raise the physical digression, inquiring from what principle the contraction of the created will to an individual act is drawn?

Finally, on the text at num. 10, those words must be weighed.

It is repugnant to the liberty of the will that the contingency, which is of necessity on the part of the will itself, should not set a contingency absolutely in the way that it is on the part of all inferior causes; for thereby it is deprived of being the cause in the superior order. But it is not repugnant to it if its contingency does not set a contingency absolutely on the part of the effect, in the way that it is on the part of the superior cause; for the superior cause is not determined by the will itself.

Where not only does Scotus confirm and establish the dissimilarity that intercedes between the premotion of the created will through the impression of something intrinsic, and the predetermination of the uncreated volition contracting the potentiality of free choice; as being an illimited form prehaving within its eminence every mode and condition of free influx. But he also pronounces that it is not against the rationale of liberty that the divine premotion be not subjected to it, as actual and exercised by way of concourse; (by which rationale alone it is asserted by Scotus,) as to the positing, or the negation, of such a concurring premotion, or with contingency to non-being on the part of the effect as it is attained by God predetermining, in the sense of composition.

On which account also Scotus rightly establishes that the superior cause is not determined by the will. Because only on that account could the actual and exercised premotion of the divine will be subjugated to the nut of free choice, so that at its discretion it should be composed, in the second act, to such premotion, or to its negation; if the concourse of free choice should antecede in priority of nature the motion of God, and contract it to such a species and individuation of influx. All of which Scotus denies; and they must be seriously handled for what is drawn in the following articles on the composition of the divine will with the created in concourse; especially at margin num. 19 down to 22, and also under num. 31.

Therefore in Scotus there is no obstacle to participaled liberty in that it is so contracted by the first mover that such premotion takes away contingency de inesse, or in the composite sense, of free choice toward such motion of the first cause. Yet it would contradict if the contingency of the operation toward being and non-being were impeded in the will by some created principle. For this is the meaning of that celebrated Scotist axiom. It is not repugnant to it if its contingency does not set a contingency, insofar as it is on the part of the superior cause.

Which those words confirm: It is repugnant to the liberty of the will that it should not set a contingency absolutely, insofar as it is on the part of all inferior causes. Wherefore he constantly concludes: It is not therefore simply against its nature that it be determined by a superior cause; that is, that it be not against its nature to act the opposite. Herein Scotus speaks somewhat obscurely; therefore he intends that it is not against the nature of the will to be determined by the first cause, because the determination of the first cause does not take away. That the created will act the opposite de possibili, though it take away that it act the opposite de inesse, and in the composite sense in respect of concurring motion. Of which the following words of the contexts are the referents: As it would be against its nature to be determined by a habit, or by an inferior nature. Wherein he thereby repels the contradiction, of the will by a quality implanted; because it would take away indifference not only de inesse but also de possibili.

Wherefore Scotus means only this: that it is necessary for the indifference of the will that no inferior principle (which does not praehaare within its virtuality both the impulsive faculty itself and the whole indifference of its exercised motion) determine the created free choice.

For that is shown by those last words. By reason of its determination in his own order there is an equal contingency: but that the effect which proceeds from the will should not proceed altogether contingently from its contingency — this is because another prior cause is determined to that effect.

The true and common opinion is established against the foreknowledge of future contingents in their causes, whether by moral propensity or by physical determination pertaining to the first act of acting.

16. It must be said first: that God does not foreknow future contingents in their causes, however circumstantiated and morally prone toward their future production; this is the common consensus of theologians. And it is proved because every composition of circumstances is either such that it injures liberty, while it infers the consent of the will unimpedibly; or such that the will can strive toward the contrary; and consequently neither does it furnish a medium on the side of the object for God's knowledge to be absolutely infallible.

First of all, on the part of the judgment of the intellect, the will cannot be contracted unimpedibly to one side of the contradiction — this is clear. Because no apprehension of the object, whether the most intense or the most tempered, compels the will to one side; if it is within the will's rights to follow even an opposed and remiss apprehension.

Since in Scotus even the facial intuition of the Deity does not necessity the will to perpetual fruition (the extrinsic premotion of the divine will being set aside), so that in the beatific vision as in its cause perpetual and unending fruition cannot be foreknown by God, the premotion of the divine will being cut away.

Nor is the opinion of Vázquez, contending that the will of necessity pursues the more express or the more tempered insinuation of the intellect, received by authors of notae probationis; as being adverse to liberty.

Further, neither the burning propensity of the appetite nor the most pestilent assault of the demon is of such force as to extort consent infallibly; otherwise the laws of liberty would be trampled. Whence it results that just as man, although most frail, and beset by the strong excursion of the demon, can dissent or withhold consent; so too God would be reduced to fallible judgment about future contingents in a cause however morally prepared, provided only that physical premotion be set aside.

17 Moreover, that such a confluence of circumstances conduces to a knowledge beyond conjecture — so I judge.

Because that confluence of circumstances, by whose composition the will remains necessitated by hypothesis, is either furnished by the will itself composing such circumstances; or by another extrinsic cause. If such a confluence of circumstances emanate from an extrinsic cause, and upon it being posited the consent be inferred unimpedibly, liberty is swept away; since that is not a supposition consequent upon the influx of the will, but one anteceding it: because it is the supposition of the cause, or of what appertains to the cause, as the cause is proximate.

Or the composition of the circumstances is furnished freely by the will itself; and the inquiry returns: how are those circumstances, which are contingently annexed to the will for acting, known by God? Since the collection of those circumstances is also free, and hence the same dissidium presses concerning the conditions and circumstances that freely and confluence to the influx of the will — how do they fall under the infallible judgment of God? And concerning the impulse of the will, which bursts forth of necessity upon those suppositions?

For, to be sure, again: how is that collection of circumstances known by God — in itself, or in its cause? If in itself it bears an all-manner objective determination, so that such a conjunction of circumstances could be apprehended infallibly, even though it were composed freely: the same judgment must be made concerning the future contingent which imports in its own self, by reason of its determined futurition, an all-manner objective determination, the absolute decree of the divine will being set entirely aside — which as false we shall disprove in the fourth following article.

Or such a composition of circumstances must be known in its cause; concerning which I likewise ask: is it necessary, or free? Not necessary; otherwise the exercise of liberty would be impeded. Nor yet free; for then it would be indifferent to either. And accordingly, either we must halt at a cause altogether necessary — and liberty is trampled underfoot; or it must be denied that such a confluence of circumstances can be assigned, that in a cause thus prepared the future should be infallibly foreknown.

18 It must be said second: that future contingents are not known by God in causes intrinsically premoved by the implantation of some quality of the species of potency, or of operative virtue; whether immanent or transitive. So Scotus, with his followers, at the place cited, which we transcribe at margin num. 10.

Which he also maintains in 4. distinct. 1, quaest. 1, in fine, under the section: Ad vltimum, cum dicitur in virtute, at margin num. 34, where he has:

And from this it is clear that when the first cause acts alongside the second cause properly so called, there is no new influx, which should be the creation of some inherents in the second cause; but the influx there is a determined order of those causes in producing the common effect.

On this point all the Jesuit writers adhere to Scotus; and among the Dominicans not a few, to whom such a rationale of predetermining — by the impression of a form contracting the will in the first act — seemed altogether too rigid.

That Scotus, however, acknowledged no causality of predetermining which did not pertain to the exercised cooperation itself but to the principle, or first act of operating, is clear from 1. sentent. distinct. 41, quaestione unica, under the section Sed adhuc contra istud instatur. Which text we transcribe below, in this distinctio, On the Knowledge of Contingents set in the absolute, article 6: How does God foreknow the material of wicked acts? at margin num. 41 and 43. Where Scotus asserts that God foreknows that Judas will sin, not in the permissive act; but because he knows that he will cooperate with him in the substance of the act not circumstanced.

If, however, Scotus had espoused another rationale of predetermining, distinct from the actual cooperation, looking to the first act of operating; he would have assigned as the medium on the side of the object for foreknowing the matter of sin, while he was earnestly and seriously investigating the medium of such foreknowledge.

19. And our assertion is proved as follows: every impression of a form pertaining to the first act of the will — whether it be by way of the immanent or the transitive, or in the manner of a virtuous application, or of the proximate and immediate disposition for the second act, or be called by whatever other rationale by the adversaries, provided it look to the first act of the free potency — is such that its negation takes away the potency expedite proximally toward dissent; therefore it of necessity compels the potency to consent.

The result therefore would be: that the will, composed with the implantation of such a form, would not conduce proximately to the undertaking of free causality; and consequently that a sufficient help for living piously would not be absolutely and simply a sufficient help. Because since such physical premotion is not of the essence of sufficient help (otherwise every sufficient help would be efficacious, and he who lapsed into fault would not have obtained a help sufficient for salvation); it would follow that, this intrinsic premotion being set aside, no sufficient help whatever would be furnished for man's being proximally able to act rightly; since there is not implanted in him the form pertaining to the first act, or the proximate potency for acting.

And therefore neither could the lapse of sin be ascribed to the created will; but to God, withdrawing at his nut the impression of that form which completes, or applies in the first act, the proximate potency of the will for eliciting the second act. Which line of reasoning is drawn from Scotus, in 2. sent. distinct. 37, quaest. 2, under the section Sed quare in voluntate creata non potest esse prima ratio deficiendi, at margin num. 17, where he says:

» Justice is owed from the created will only insofar as it is within its power to act rightly; so that no subtraction is understood of a prior cause on whose defect the will could not act rightly. If, therefore, God were the first cause not acting rectitude, an act not right would not be sin.

Here Scotus concludes acutely: that if God should subtract some form which the created will of necessity pre-requires, in order to be completed in the rationale of the proximate principle of an honest influx; the obliquity of sin would not be attributed to the created will, but to God, fastening the will to an oblique act while he does not confer the proximate potency for pious and right operation.

But that premotion which the adversaries adduce pertains to the first act of the will; therefore the created will, not composed with such a premoving form, is not in proximate potency for an honest act; and consequently is not a debtor so as to elicit a right act.

But you will object, and press ad hominem: that the predetermination which is furnished by the absolute decree of the divine will, among the followers of Scotus, looks not only to the second act, namely the influx of the created will; but also to the very potency of the will, which it contracts and applies, that it should educe such an influx. So that God determines not only that such-shall-be for this act of the will — for consent, say — but that he determines the very principle, namely the will, to consent.

But the determination which looks to the will, so that it elicit such an act, pertains to the rationale of the first act; since it intends not only the contraction of the act but also the contraction of the principle, that it should undergo such an influx. Therefore we pronounce not only a contraction by way of actual concourse, but we assert it by way of a first act anteverting the second act.

It is answered: that God contracts the created will neither by implanting some operative quality, nor by supplementing it, which would be contracting in the first act before the exercised and actual cooperation; nor by the divine will as determining free choice in the first act; but the whole predetermination is exhibited through the extrinsic volition of God, which (as it performs the function of action ad extra) antecedes the actual influx of the created will only by priority of that-from-which, or of nature, though in the same instant of time, or in-that. On which see below the accurate disputation on the composition of the divine potency with free choice to either, at num. 49 down to 63.

But that the created will be applied and contracted by the divine volition, insofar as it performs the function of the mere concurring causality of God ad extra; no intrinsic alteration of the created will is required, which should antecede, for that prior that-from-which, or of nature, the actual influx and cooperation of that will; but the extrinsic application and contraction suffices, by reason of the natural sympathy in acting, whereby the created will is subjugated to God, so that it is contracted without the impression of anything physical.

In the like manner as the motive power obeys the appetite while it suggests the motion without any physical alteration of the potency; and as the will is captured by the intellect for assenting to a credible object, without any implantation of an intrinsic form which the impelling faculty would imprint upon the intellect.

Other confirmations of the true opinion, and satisfaction to certain objections.

Moreover, the aforesaid opinion is assailed from the decree of the Council of Trent, session 6, cap. 5, canon 4, defining: Our will, however much anticipated and roused by the grace of God, can dissent, if it will. But if such an intrinsic premotion be implanted into the proximate potency of the will, it will come about that the will is not in proximate potency to dissent; since there is not imprinted in it a form valid for dissent but one compelling to consent.

Nor does that escape of the composite sense serve, which we rejected at num. 11; on the ground that the impression of such a habit, or operative form, or premoving impulse is an antecedent supposition; as being that which pertains to the first act of operating.

But you will insist further: that the premotion by the impression of an intrinsic form which the Thomists assert — held by not a few of them also to be that which does not pertain to the rationale of a principle — looks merely to be in the manner of an exercised motion and application, yet in such wise that in the instant of cooperation itself it not only contracts the consent to such-future-being but also predetermines the very principle of assenting.

And indeed we also assert this same contraction in the instant of the cooperation of free choice, not only in respect of assent, but also in respect of the principle of assenting, from itself potentiale toward such a species and individuation of acts; therefore we fall back into the same Thomist opinion that we assail.

Nor does it avail to rejoin; that such an intrinsic impulse, or previous motion, must be referred to the rationale of a principle, and not of a mere exercised action; to this end, that such an impulse be really distinguished from the concourse, and action, of the created will, and that an action of an action not be given. Wherefore, if such a motion, or form sent in by way of a transient to acting, be compared in the genus of efficient cause with the operation of free choice, and an action of another created action cannot be given; it remains that that previous motion be set up as the principle of the action, and not as the action. And consequently it does not pertain to the predicament of action; but of quality, under some species of natural or supernatural power, according to the degree of natural or supernatural action.

It is met, in eluding what precedes: that it presses also against our own opinion. For this does not stand in the way; because it presses ad hominem also in our own way of thinking; in which, since we assert that the extrinsic predefinition is the rationale of the contraction of free choice, it would also come about that either an action of an action is given; or that that predetermination pertain to the rationale of a principle, that is, of a first act.

Another of our opponents. Further, that it seems to advance the matter little, that the motion or predetermination be furnished by way of a principle, or by way of an action, if it be furnished by God in the same instant of cooperation and not before. Therefore if the contraction be admitted by way of action, it can also be sustained by way of a principle.

It is shown that our opinion is more consonant with free choice. But these things notwithstanding: to anyone seriously weighing what has been set forth it becomes clear how far our assertion surpasses in the maintaining of the free condition of the created will; since we assert no other genus of contraction save that which, from God concurring, and by the same concurring act, antecedes solely by priority of nature. Nor is it incongruous that an uncreated action be given of a created act; as we shall treat below in this distinction, article 7, at margin num. 50 down to 52.

To the objections of the adversaries. But to that instance which objects: that it injures our liberty no more, nor less, to compel it to assent by the form of an act than by the principle of acting, given the hypothesis that the principle of acting would be implanted and composed with free choice, not before the instant of the exercised cooperation.

Pre-determination by way of concourse does not stand in the way of the provision of the divine potency to either in the first act. It is answered: that predetermination by way of concourse does not obstruct the furnishing of God's concourse to either; since all maintain that God is at hand to free choice to either in the first act, although free choice be contracted in the second act to one side of the contradiction by the concurring act. Nor is there any repugnance between the furnishing of help in the first act to either, and the actual and exercised contraction to one side of the contradiction. But there is contradiction between the furnishing of concourse to either in the first act, as by way of principle; and its involved fastening to one side by way of principle, or first act — even though such a principle of assenting were being imprinted upon the will in the same instant of actual cooperation. On which see below in this art., at num. 38 and 39.

If the objection pressed, it would equally assail the converting action of God. Whence, if the objection pressed, it would also assail the action of God concurring, equally first in the same sign of nature with created free choice; so that God does not operate as if impelled or contracted to such a species of influx by a motion of free choice that runs before him.

Made against the adversaries as ad hominem, who hold that God is not contracted nor yet to the influx in the matter of sin. On which see what we press below in this distinct. art. 5, at margin num. 22, and margin num. 32 throughout, and art. 7, on reconciling liberty with foreknowledge, at margin num. 38. For not a few among the Jesuit authors, pressed by the efficacy of the reasons which assail the decree that involves the condition of cooperation of free choice, having to be purified by the cooperation of free choice, deny that God is excited and contracted by free choice to such a species of act.

If, therefore, God, not determined by free choice, determines from himself to such a species of concourse in the second act; and that determination in the second act is not opposed to the furnishing of concourse to either in the first act; no rationale appears why predetermination of the concourse by way of a second act should obstruct the furnishing of the concourse to either in the first act. On this see the places cited, where the matter is seriously, and of set purpose, handled.

Another reason why predetermination by a form pertaining to the first act ought to be disapproved. Above all, if premotion pertained to the first act or principle of operating, and this necessity were sought from God for every action by reason of the essential subordination of the second cause, then whoever failed to act rightly would lack the principle of honest operation and, consequently, would lack sufficient aid—as we show from Scotus in the preceding number. This does not obstruct, but rather makes it necessary that the created will that does not actually cooperate lack the predetermination of concourse in the second act.

But if you object: that if the contraction we assert looks not only to the determination of the will's assent, but to the contraction of the potentiality of the principle toward such species and individual of assent; such potentiality could not be determined solely by the extrinsic and uncreated will of God; since what this extrinsic composition of the divine will contributes to free choice cannot be shown, whereby the indifference and potentiality of our will should be determined by the sole absolute command, or decree, of God.

We say: that as is clear from what has been set forth in controversia 9, On the Vision of God, dist. 1, sub-distinct. 2, art. 3, On the supplementability of the light of glory: a supernatural habit is supplemented, and the initiated vision of the intellect is carried up, solely by the extrinsic composition of the divine will in the rationale of a particular principle. Why not also, then, that the sole extrinsic will of God, without any intrinsic alteration, contract the created potency, if it carry it up to the elevation of the degrees of the act without any intrinsic alteration?

Scotus's last argument ad hominem against the maintainers of intrinsic premotion; drawn from the necessity of beatific fruition.

21 Further, nor is the refutation of the aforesaid opinion without vigor which we have drawn out from what was said under num. 12. For this is how Scotus stands there, as transcribed by us.

I say that there is no intrinsic cause in the will of Michael now blessed, whereby the potency toward sinning is excluded per aliud in the divided sense; nor is there an intrinsic cause forbidding that potency to be altogether reduced to act. Which Scotus sets up against the opinion of the Thomists, who hold the fruition of the blessed to be an act simply, and intrinsically necessary; because it is inferred by an unimpedible concourse from the clear vision of God. Upon which supposition I thus argue.

Therefore God, among the Thomists, foreknows the fruition of the blessed in an intellect suffused with the light of glory and with facial intuition of the Deity — because the negation of fruition, the vision standing, is repugnant; on account of which unimpedible outflow of fruition such a supernatural impulse is asserted, not only necessary by hypothesis but absolutely and simply.

Either, therefore, God foreknows the future consent of the created will in a cause physically premoved by the impressed form as infallibly as he foreknows the fruition of the blessed in that intellect composed to the intuition of the Deity; or he does not. If he approach the foreknowledge as thus infallible; an equal connection and necessity must be assigned on the part of the object, which should be the objective rationale of the determination, and of the infallibility, of the divine judgment.

And accordingly every influx of the will is of necessity elicited by a will physically premoved, just as beatific fruition is by the impulsive faculty of the blessed presupposing the clear vision of God.

If an equal infallibility do not intervene; then God's foreknowledge, inspecting futures in premoved causes, sustains something of contingency on the part of the object; and consequently it does not claim for itself an all-manner infallibility on the part of the act either.

22 It is wonderful how vastly the opposition will rack the more recent Thomist readers, and what piles of fictions they heap up that they may extricate themselves.

The commoner answer is: that the necessity of fruition is absolute, and simply; because it is drawn from the object through the clear vision proposed to the will; which is so seized by the manifest infinity of such an appetible through the essence of the illimited, and within the compass of that which concludes the whole rationale of good, that it is not open to the will not to be borne into such an object, and consequently not to be fastened to the impulse which most swiftly pursues the Deity. Which fastening to the act, since it does not comport with the premoved will, hence comes about that an equal necessity is not present. But the frivolous evasion is easily precluded, whereby whether from the object, or from the premoving principle, the act be pronounced unimpedibly future in that very contracted principle before actual operation, the indifference to either of the two of true free choice in the first act is forestalled; and consequently it claims for itself an equal necessity, which does not fall under contingency.

Wherefore, if beatific fruition, among the Thomists, is necessary simply and intrinsically by reason of the antecedent supposition of the clear vision anteverting the will, already determined before the exercised fruition; then likewise, by reason of the antecedent supposition of a form predetermining before the exercised cooperation, every influx from the premoved will flows forth absolutely necessary. Whether the antecedent supposition pertain to a motion in the genus of final cause — such as the alluring impulse of the beatific object; or to a motion in the genus of efficient cause, as in a previously premoved will, to elicit the influx. Indeed the physical premotion seems rather to impede the indifference of the will than the metaphorical causality of the finalizing object.

Wherefore Scotus concludes more consistently: just as he pronounces the extrinsic premotion not to infer necessity on the will in the influx, so neither in the fruition of the fatherland; since the same rationale is at work.

You will object: that although Scotus denies the fruition of the fatherland to be a necessary form by comparison with the beatific vision, or with any other intrinsic principle whatsoever; yet he seems to assert it simply necessary by its relation to the will of God premoving the created will to perpetual fruition; so that it cannot — just as it cannot sin — attain, speaking of proximate potency, though it is remotely peccable.

Which the examples of the text plainly elucidate, from the cited distinct. 49. quaest. 6. §. I answer that it is clear that the blessed is impeccable, under num. margin. 11, where he says:

»For example; even though one having sight has an intrinsic power of seeing any body; yet it can be brought about by some extrinsic cause that he be perpetually impossible to see by proximate power; as, namely, if that cause should make a perpetual distance of sight from that body.

Just as, if there were a perpetual obstacle between the empyrean heaven and the eye of the damned; that eye could not see the empyrean heaven, speaking in proximate potency, and this by an extrinsic cause forbidding the potency perpetually; nevertheless it could see in remote intrinsic potency, so that there would be no intrinsic cause of the impossibility.

Herein the Doctor asserts that the will of the blessed is impeccable on that ground, and able to cease from the act of fruition; on the same ground that the eye is asserted to be valid for seeing an object altogether at a distance. But since the eye is not proximally potent to the apprehension of that object which is constituted with the obstacle of perpetual distance; so neither ought the created will to be denied along with a proximate potency toward not-fruition; and consequently in Scotus the will of the blessed, from an extrinsic principle, namely from the divine will, is of necessity compelled to fruition.

I answer: that when Scotus maintains that the proximate power to sin, or to cease from fruition, does not suffice in the blessed; there by proximate power he understands a composed power, or one composable in fact with sin, or with the negation of fruition; in accordance with what we weighed above sub n. mar. 13.

If, however, the aforesaid interpretation should please them less, and they should wish God absolutely to necessitate the will of the blessed to the act of fruition (we grant, for the sake of disputation, that beatific fruition is an operation not free but necessary from an extrinsic necessitating principle, namely from the divine will), still, that being granted and not conceded, it will have to be asserted that the motion of the divine will stands otherwise with respect to the fruition of the fatherland and of the way. For then the fruition of the fatherland would be simply necessary from an extrinsic necessitating principle; because the divine will does not supply a concourse in the first act indifferent to contraries and contradictories, namely to enjoying and not enjoying; but in the first act, and in the sense of division from the second act, a concourse compelling the created will to fruition; which would be to take away the proximate power in the first act not to enjoy. That it is otherwise in the predetermination of the fruitions of the way will be evident from what is to be said below; concerning which see us again in dist. 3, on the foreknowledge of things conditionate, ar. 4, on the causality and necessity of conditionate foreknowledge, n. marg. 7; and in the present article, where we seriously weigh the composition of the divine power with created free choice to either, from numer. 49 up to 63.

Dissolution of the opposing reasonings of the first and second opinion, in favour of the foreknowledge of futures in their causes.

23 Now it will be expedient to refute the opposing foundations.

To the first opinion of Granada and Machado concerning the foreknowledge of futures in moral connexion.

To the first argument, from n. 2, we say: that conversion of the Tyrians and Sidonians, on the hypothesis that Christ foretold, was not foreknown in its causes but in a conditional decree; on which in the following distinctio, where we deal with the truth of futures given under a condition.

To the second argument, from nu. 3, it is evident from what was observed under n. 16, where it was shown that no moral certainty can intervene which would surpass a fallible judgment, and consequently such as would not be unbecoming to God; since the will, even in the composed sense, or composed with the assembly of whatever circumstances, is able to dissent.

24 To the third argument, from n. 4: all those axioms that pronounce the future fall of man to be infallibly foreknown by God (are foreknown) in the physical predetermination of the substrate of sinful obliquity; which we shall elucidate most precisely, according to the mind of Scotus, in ar. 6 of this distinctio.

Wherefore consequently we assert that God foreknows that man, assailed by the most urgent assault of the demon, without special aid, will fall — in the negation of the physical predetermination of a premoving (principle) to the right act, or in the positive concursive predetermination of him to the matter of sin.

Likewise, another pronouncement: that man not confirmed in grace will at some time commit a lethal sin — God knows (this) in the predetermination of the substrate of malice.

Then, the other axiom too: that man, through the whole course of his life, without the most special prevention of divine aid, will sin venially; is foreknown by God in the decree denying such a most singular excitation to a most fervent conjunction with God, which can avoid all venial sins.

How it comes about that in mere moral certainty no future contingent can be apprehended by God, but in physical premotion to the contracted object. Which premotion, since with Scotus it in no way pertains to the first act, but to the actual and exercised concourse, as we have shown more than once; the consequence is that the question is the same, whether those pronouncements are not known by God in mere certainty and moral connection, but in concursive predetermination, and are known in the decree of concurring in such a way; and consequently if the argument of Machado should press, it would also press the common opinion concerning the immediate concourse of God to the matter of sin.

25 To the fourth argument, produced from num. 5 out of the doctrine of Vázquez, we say: that it presupposes falsely in the common opinion, which taxes the aforesaid dictum as discordant with the rationale of liberty.

And given that the will, upon the supposition of the opinion of Vázquez, would be necessitated as to specification, so that it could not dissent from a more vehement, or more tempered, insinuation; still it would be free as to exercise, and consequently in the will composed with such a practical dictate of the intellect, the consent could still not be foreknown as here and now infallibly future.

But against Vázquez, who maintains that the will necessarily follows the more express, or the more tempered, proposition of the object, we act below in this distinction, on the science of absolute contingents, artic. 7, from numer. 42 up to 46.

26 To the foundations of the second opinion. To the first: we confess that a premotion anticipating by way of a first act the second act of the will is such as could supply a medium on the side of the object for infallible knowledge, if it did not prostrate the rights of liberty; which we showed to be utterly trodden down, on account of the antecedent supposition. Wherefore we maintain that it pertains to the essential subordination of the second cause that it not inflow unless premoved by the first cause; but that premotion which is by way of a first act we utterly explode; asserting only the premotion through an extrinsic volition of God, in the second act, exciting the created will; of which below.

To the second argument we concede: that, the opinion of Scotus being supposed, no intrinsic predetermination is to be maintained, neither by way of a first act, nor by way of a second act; but only an extrinsic one pertaining to the second act.

Inasmuch as the internal appetition of God can be considered either by way of intention, or by way of execution; inasmuch as, as the action, or causality, of the divine faculty executing, it effects something ad extra. Insofar as no action, or causality, of God ad extra is really at variance with his substance, in Scotus, who constitutes the action of God to be the intrinsic rationale of God acting; as also he pronounces that action, in its whole community comprehending every created and uncreated causality, to cohere to the agent, and not to be a passion.

27 Nor does the opposition drawn from the testimony of Scotus raise any difficulty; because since extrinsic premotion pertains to the second act, and would premise the intrinsic faculty of the will by way of a first act; we assert that it stands harmoniously, that the actual free influx and the exercise of the will be utterly taken away, if God were a necessitating agent. Nor do we admit a divine volition preventing by way of the actual use of the executing faculty, or of exercised causality attaining ad extra the influx of the created cause; but on account of concourse not provided to either in the first act; of which expressly in ar. 5. n. 32 up to 34, and also in this ar. under n. 39 and 57.

Which provision of concourse to either cannot be by way of a second act, since a second act, or exercised influx, cannot be indifferent to either, as is perspicuous; but it is the extrinsic composition of the divine power in the first act with free choice, not determinately to one, but with indifference to the opposite. Of which we treat from num. 49 up to 58 inclusively.

But the composition of the power to one part of the contradiction in the first act with free choice is harmoniously explained in that hypothesis, that the power of God would suffice in the place of a particular necessitating agent, or of an operative form of such a quality, which would be created by God to compel, or affix, the created will to one part of the contradiction in the first act; of which see below, in this art. from numer. 51 up to 54.