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

ARTICLE VI

How does God foreknow future contingents, the acts of the wicked?

Summary.

The opinion of Aureolus, and of those who deny the predetermination of God concerning the matters of wicked acts. Num. 1.

Objections of the contending Adversaries, that God be determined by the creature to the matter of sin; where Vázquez is refuted, as opining that God does not produce the substrate of sin insofar as it is moral and free. Nu. 9.

The escapes are foreclosed; and the reasons against the predetermination of wicked acts are pressed. Nu. 12.

The excuse of the divine innocence concerning predetermination to the matter of sin, on account of the intention of a right end, is refuted. Num. 15.

The testimonies of Scotus are opposed, which seem to disapprove the premotion of God to the matters of wicked acts. Nu. 19.

The placitum of Aureolus, who asserts that God does not concur immediately to the matters of wicked acts. Nu. 24.

Aureolus is defended from the charge of an improbated doctrine, from Bonaventure, Scotus, and Gregory of Rimini. Likewise also the censure of the placitum of Ladou. Dola the Capuchin, adhering to Aureolus. Num. 30.

It is shown against Aureolus that God concurs immediately to the matter of sin; where the proofs of Scotus are weighed, and the foundations of Gregory of Rimini, whom Vázquez follows, are rejected. Num. 32.

The letter of Scotus for confirming the true opinion. Num. 40.

Observations on the text; where we demonstrate that the predetermination of the substrate of moral malice must necessarily be sustained from the mind of Scotus. Nu. 43.

The testimonies of Basolius and William of Rubione, Auditors of Scotus, for the promotion of God to the matter of sin, and for the potentiality of free choice toward an individual use of action. No. 48.

That Bonaventure does not expel the concursive predetermination of God to the matter of sin, but expressly guards it. Num. 56.

Reasons for the opinion of Scotus. Nu. 58.

To imply, not only in the thing and physically, but also through our conception, that the divine will is contracted by the created will for the concourse to the matter of sin; against Scotus and his partisans. Num. 61.

What causality does the permission of sin import? To the first objection of Aureolus. Num. 64.

Why is God not the cause of sin? To the second objection of Aureolus; where we weigh the excellent reason of Scotus and of Alensis. Num. 68.

What did Anselm judge concerning predetermination to the matter of sin? and something from Basil. Nu. 72.

For the dilution of the opposed reasons it is shown; that either one must opine with Aureolus, that God does not concur immediately to the matter of sin; or that the arguments which are opposed to us do not specially press the assertors of physical predetermination. Nu. 75.

Answer is made to the foundations of the Recentiors. Num. 79.

For the eliding of the cavil of the Neoterics we show that God is not excused from the causality of sin on account of the intention of a right end; where we assail the Adversaries ad hominem from Alensis. Num. 87.

The testimonies of Scotus which are opposed against our opinion are weighed. Num. 93.

The testimonies of Maior, and of other followers of Scotus, for the promotion of God to the substrate of sin; and how the priority of nature between the concursive premotion of God and the operation of created free choice is established; on the mind of Scotus. Nu. 97

The objections of Vázquez and of others against our opinion are shattered; where the reason is also weighed, why, the premotion standing, the sin of omission is not attributed to God? Num. 101.

The objections of Card. Aureolus, disapproving the immediate concourse of God to the matter of sin, are discussed; and the vindication of the same Aureolus from the rigid censure of the Neoterics; together with the crown of noble Theologians added, who subscribe to Aureolus. Nu. 106.

Examination of the placitum of Ambrosius Machinus concerning the predetermination of God to the substrate of sin. Nu. 113.

1 That opinion is celebrated which denies the premotion of God concerning the matters of wicked acts; so that from it it seeks sharper foundations for impugning the predetermination which is a medium on the side of the object of the foreknowledge of futures; inasmuch as it judges such a medium to be wholly to be exploded in the foreknowledge of wicked acts. Which doctrine Cardinal Aureolus weighs most acutely and most eloquently from the ancient Theologians; with such force of judgment and weight of reasons, that from the sworn enemies of physical predetermination nothing further is furnished that is to the purpose, and presses the adversaries.

But while Aureolus assails us with that vehemence, having slipped into another extreme, he entered upon the claim, that God concurs immediately to the positing of the entity of the sinful act, and, as I reckon, consequently; because the machinations of the adversaries either plead that God is not the immediate physical cause of the wicked act, or they accomplish nothing, as will be clear from what is to be said.

Aureolus, insofar as he attacks the predetermination of the wicked act, is followed by the whole school of the Jesuits; Suárez Opuscul. 1. de Auxilijs. lib. 2. cap. 3. à n. 12. usque ad 20.; Peter Arrubal 1. parte. disput. 66. capit. 3.; Valentinus de Herice 1. pars. tractat. 1. de Scientia Dei. disp. 6. cap. 3. praecipuè numer. 40.; Didacus Ruiz de Voluntate Dei, most extensively from disp. 27. usque ad 45.; and so vast a work, which he composed on the will of God, he almost wholly insinuates in the confutation of the predetermination of God to the matter of sin. Which predetermination to the matter of sin Curiel confutes, 1. 2. q. 79. a. 2. dub. unico. §. a. cond. 2..

And not a few authors adhere to the Jesuits, who, while they defend predetermination in good acts; under the guise of piety, and the mask of religion, fail in the consequence of the doctrine. So Zumel, whom Machinus reports and follows, 1. p. disp. 35. sect. 5.

But it pleases to confirm this opinion from Aureolus, and, on account of the eminent subtlety of his arguments, to begin from those things which he hands down, in 1. sententiar. distinctio. 38. art. 1. §. Restat ergo nunc dicere. folio 875. Vaticanae editionis. where he has it thus.

2 That God does not know by the determination of his will, in respect of which there is no determination of his will: but it is manifest that the divine will does not determine the created will to sinning; therefore it cannot be said that, by knowing the determination of his will, God knows that Judas at such a now will be about to sin.

But perchance it will be said, that although God does not determine the will to sinning, he nevertheless permits; and according to this he has a will of permission, according to which he knows that Judas at such an instant will sin; inasmuch as he himself will permit.

But if it be so said, it does not avail; for that, it being posited, the effect still remains indeterminate to either part of the contradiction, because being possible to be made, or not to be made, does not lead by certitude, and determinately, into the one part of the contradiction; but the will of permission being posited, the created will still remains indeterminate, and the sin is possible to be made, or not to be made. For permission does not determine to sinning, but beyond this there is required the determination of the created will, which wholly remains indeterminate, however much it be permitted; therefore God does not know determinately the future sin in such a now from this, that he knows the permission of his will.

And it is confirmed; because the cause which does not posit the effect determinately, does not lead certitudinally into the cognition of it.

3 Further perchance it will be said; that in the aforesaid there is always something positive; namely the act substrated to deformity; therefore although the divine will does not determine to the deformity of sin, it nevertheless determines to the act substrated, since it is something positive.

But if it be so said, it does not avail; for it is impossible that something determine to the act, without determining to the deformity inseparable from that act; but the deformity is inseparable from that numerical act in which it is; and altogether the deformity cannot be separated from the act of hatred of God; therefore if God determine the created will to the act; he will determine also to the deformity, and to sin.

It is confirmed; because neither does the created will intend the deformity per se, but the delectation, and that which is positive in the act; for no one looking to evil operates according to Dionysius; moreover it displeases that the deformity is annexed to the act; and if he could, the sinner would will to enjoy the delectation, and to have whatever is positive in the act, the deformity excluded. And yet notwithstanding this he is said the author of sin; on account of that he is the cause of the act, which the deformity necessarily accompanies.

Wherefore if God determined the created will to such an act, he would necessarily be the author of sin; and again it ought not to be imputed to the sinner, if he be determined to an act of this kind, positive, by the divine will which is efficacious, and which is always fulfilled.

4 Further perchance it will be said; that God knows to whom he has proposed to give grace, and to whom not to give it; by knowing therefore this proposal, he may know who will sin; because he to whom he will not give grace, and he who will have grace, will not sin.

But if it be so said, it does not avail; because it happens that one having grace sins; and one not having grace, sometimes does not sin.

5 Further perchance it will be said; that although by the determination of the will God cannot know evils; he can nevertheless know other futures.

But neither does that avail; in the first place, because there remains to us the difficulty, how does he know the acts of free choice, in which sins occur? In the second place, because the difficulty is general about all futures; and some he knows in himself, without the determination of the will; it seems that he can also know all things in this way.

In the second place, because although of some futures God is the author by his will; he is not nevertheless of all. Whence it is not because God foreknew futures that they are; according to the Master in the present dist.

Thus therefore it is demonstratively concluded for any believer; that God does not know all futures by the cognition of the nods of his will, and of its determination.

Thus far Aureolus, from whose last pronouncement, which we transcribe under numer. 5., it is held that they manifestly fail in the consequence of the doctrine, who, while they deny to future contingents a determinate truth from the hypothesis of futurity, and receive the predetermination of the divine will as the sole medium of objective determination, nevertheless judge otherwise of the futures of wicked acts; opining that in the predetermination of the divine will they are not foreknown: for Aureolus evidently convicts them. Because the difficulty is general about all futures, and if he knows some in himself, without the determination of the will; it seems that he can also know all things in this way.

Then from those words of Aureolus; although of some futures God is the author by his will, he is not nevertheless of all; the opinion of this author, which he established by design in 2. sentent., is sufficiently openly gathered; namely that the wicked acts as to the matter, or as far as their positive entity, are not effected by God.

6 Then, against the predetermination of wicked acts, the more recent Adversaries argue thus.

First; because, as is clear from that of James, chap. 1. Deus intentator malorum est, ipse autem neminem tentat, unusquisque verò tentatur à concupiscentia sua abstractus et illectus. — "God is not a tempter of evils, and he himself tempts no man; but each one is tempted, drawn away and enticed by his own concupiscence." — it is plainly deduced that God cannot be asserted the moral cause of a wicked action, even materially accepted, and by reason of the substrate of the sin-stricken obliquity.

For, in order that one be held the moral cause of sin, it is not required that he formally intend the malice; for as a man holds another to the perpetration of malice it does not exact that he suggest the privation of due rectitude, but the utility, or the pleasure from the base deed. Add, that concupiscence also tempts the will, insofar as it allures it to the appetition of a delightful good, the formal character of malice not being sought, which is not perceived by the sensitive and material apprehension, by which the concupiscible faculty is directed. Wherefore, just as the sensitive and material insinuation of the object regards only the delightful good, and does not perceive the good or the moral evil; so, in order that concupiscence be asserted to tempt the intellectual appetite, it will be more than enough if it draws to the pursuit of a sensible good; but it does not incline immediately to moral deformity.

But if God physically predetermine the created will to the matters of wicked acts; he would also morally influence acts of this kind, to which moral deformity is intrinsically composed: therefore God could be asserted the tempter, and the planter, of man in the perpetration of a wicked action.

7 Which seems to be produced aptly enough from the principles of the opposite opinion; because just as the aforesaid authors seek the predetermination of all the acts of the created will from the essential subordination of the second cause to God; so consequently they are obliged to confess that God predetermines the intellect and the imagination to all those apprehensions of base objects, to the appetition of which the cunning and craftiness of the demon instigates man. So that the imagination can elicit no proposition of a forbidden object, unless it be premoved and predetermined by God to an effection of this kind; however much the demon harasses the phantasy, and composes phantasms for the insinuation of a dishonest act.

Therefore that proposition of the forbidden object, which allures the will to a culpable assent, must be ascribed to God as the premoving and predetermining principle; but since such a motion of the imagination, which excites the will on the side of the object, or in the genus of final cause, is a certain moral drawing and causality; it will come about that God must be renounced the moral cause tempting and alluring the will to the fall.

For just as God on that account is asserted the moral cause of an honest and pious operation; insofar as he sends in indeliberate thoughts and inspirations, or predetermines the intellect and the will of man to the first-first motions of holy illuminations and inspirations; which are therefore said to be made by us without us, because the vital faculties are premoved by God to the indeliberate production of such supernatural motions, to this end, that by the mediation of those motions God obtain from the sinner the assent of a holy operation. If God were also asserted the promoter and predeterminator of wicked apprehensions; why should he not also be asserted the moral cause, exciting and sending in suggestions of this kind to this end, that, a physical premotion to evil afterwards acceding, the sinner may be unable not to assent, both to that moral and to that physical motion?

8 Moreover let the argument be invigorated from the temptation of the demon; for while he instigates the sinner to elicit an act of hatred of God, he conducts himself in no other way than by applying in the imagination such a composition of phantasms as may elicit the apprehension of God as a truculent and most hostile enemy; and by harassing the sensitive appetite, that he may enter upon the indeliberate motions of wrath and rage, with such contention that the sinner, succumbing to the suggestion, then deliberately pursues God with hatred; whereas the demon's power does not proceed further to changing immediately the spiritual faculties of the intellect and will. But God, the principles of the adversaries being supposed, seems so to complete the demon's assault, as to defeat the man and lay low his powers: both by predetermining the imagination, and the sensitive appetite, to eliciting those indeliberate acts, which the demon's powers cannot effect without divine premotion: and further, by immediately premoving the rational faculties to the fall: therefore God so efficaciously consummates the defeat of the sinner, which the devil suggests, that he must be judged the chief tempter of man, and the vanquisher of human frailty. Objections of the acting Adversaries, that God be determined by the creature toward the matter of sin; in which Vázquez is refuted, as opining that God does not produce the substrate of sin as it is a thing moral and free.

9 Secondly it is argued; because if God does not set forth a concourse which in itself is indeterminate toward good and evil; but rather contracts his concourse, not stirred up by our malice, but from the office and function of the first cause, toward the eliciting of an act contrary to the divine law, for instance, hatred of God; it would come about that it could not be avoided in God, that he be held the author of sin.

Which is opened up by the example of a man harassed by the suggestion of a demon; who before he rushes into the fall is supposed, with an indifference and deliberate insinuation of the object, to lie open to either alternative, so that he can embrace good as well as evil; such that no assault of the demon, however sharper and more troublesome, can extort an assent to the evil, God not pre-establishing or pre-defining the one part of the contradiction, or driving the sinner to his fall. Such that it does not occur, what God could answer to that just complaint of the sinner, which Soarius, at the place cited, libr. 2. capit. 2. numer. 14. throws up under the supposed principles of the adversaries.

Far from God be that: for indeed he could have determined my will to dissent, and would not, not by my fault, but of his own will; for before I sinned in any way, he so decreed and so acted.

Truly he could even say, he himself implanted me; for he himself determined my will, and made me act: and unless he himself had begun such a will in me, I could not have begun; nor after he himself had determined me, could I have avoided the malice, while I had it conjoined with such an act: in truth nothing occurs which could be answered to such a man.

And under marginal number 17. the aforesaid author storms thus against the opposite opinion. Denique non video, quomodo illud verum sit; perditio tua ex te, tantummodo in me auxilium tuum. Hosea 13. — "Finally I do not see how that is true; thy ruin is of thee, in me alone is thy help." Expendantur, quaeso, primùm exclusiua illa, (tantummodo.) Haec nam determinatio ad malam voluntatem, quantumuis addas pro materiali, est ne auxilium? Quis enim tale auxilium desideret? Si ergo à Deo tantummodo est auxilium; quomodo ab illo est haec praedeterminatio, et ab illo solo, et ex sola eius voluntate? Deinde ponderentur illa verba (perditio tua ex te) nam si vera est praedicta sententia, quanto impugnamus magis est perditio nostra ex Deo, quàm ex nobis, etc. — "Let those exclusive words, I beg, first be weighed out, (in me alone.) For this determination toward an evil will, however much you add for the material, is it then help? For who would desire such a help? If therefore help is from God alone; how is this predetermination from him, and from him alone, and from his will alone? Then let those words be weighed, (thy ruin is of thee) for if the aforesaid opinion is true, the more we assail it, the more is our ruin from God than from us, etc."

10 Moreover the aforesaid assault is pressed; because in that state in which the sinner is constituted, actually attacked by the devil, with that whole presupposition [presupposed] in which the sinner, still wavering, does not lend consent to the temptation. I ask, whether God, as first cause, can equally well predetermine assent to the shameful object, as indeed dissent? Neither can this indifference of the first cause toward granting a concourse to either be denied; nor can it validly be asserted in the Catholic way, that the will of the sinner, throughout that whole course of the temptation before he is fought down, is not indifferent, and proximately and morally charged toward good as well as evil; since either lies in the hand of his own counsel.

But if God is not asserted to set forth a concourse which lies open to either, the created will would not be able to be claimed as a proximate and moral principle expedited toward either; therefore, given any vehement temptation of the demon, it is unconditional for God, saving the office and functions of the first cause, to pre-establish the good or evil operation of man. Accordingly the fall of man is to be ascribed to God as his primary mover and promoter; not only because he was able to avoid it; but because he gladly preordained to consummate the temptation and defeat of the demon, when he could have premoved the created will toward good.

Wherefore it follows that God would be the planter of the impious man; as of Ecclesiasticus, chap. 15. Wherefore that of Ecclesiasticus, chap. 15. seems to militate against the aforesaid opinion: Non dicas ille me implanavit, non enim necessarij sunt illi homines impij; — "Say not, He planted me; for they are not needful men, those impious men;" since from the pronouncements of the adversaries it seems to be inferred that God is the planter of man, drawing him morally and impelling him physically into the fall.

Objection; that God predetermines toward evil according to the exigency of free choice. If you object; that God predetermines toward evil according to the exigency of the created will; because it is not equally prone toward good and evil, but rather is so inclined toward evil that it seems to await the concourse of God, that it elicit a perverse act.

Refuted in the will before the first mortal sin. That such a refuge be shut off; let the objection go forward about the first sin of man, presupposing [which presupposes] no mass of other sins, which by the weight of depraved custom would drag him into other falls; for instance, about the first fall of Adam, and about the first sin of the Angel, in which any disposition, or inclination toward the fall preceding consent could not have been culpable. And therefore the whole root of that sin-stricken obliquity seems to be reducible to the sheer absolute decree of God, not involving the condition of a cooperation of the created cause; which, in that by his nod he could have predecreed dissent, he predetermined assent toward evil.

The reason is pressed, even given a vehement propensity toward evil. Then especially; because that greater propensity toward evil being given, by the mode of a first act before the actual consent; if it belonged to the office of the first cause to premovet the created will toward evil according to the force of that inclination; it would come about that as often as the demon, vehemently attacking man, while he stands in such a state, that agonizing in vehement danger of a fall he leans more toward shameful assent; then it would belong to the function of the first cause to premovet and consummate the temptation of the demon, and to drive the sinner, even the wavering one, into the fall; which the pious mind in Soarius recoils even to think.

Arg. 3. that God would be the cause of sin, as sin, formally. 11 It is argued thirdly; because if God, without expecting the transgression of the sinner, determined assent absolutely toward evil, nor from his side offered a concourse indifferent though to be contracted from the operation of the failing sinner; there would be no reason why God should not be renounced in the whole rigor as a sinning and failing cause? Since whatever is physical and moral in a sinful act is effected from a failing will.

Evasion out of the doctrine of Vazquezii; that God is not the cause of moral character in a perverse act. Nor, indeed, does that answer of Vázquez please: t. 2. tom. 1. disput. 129. capit. 9. numer. 25. that God is therefore not the cause of sin, because he does not produce moral character in the perverse act; since such a predicate is not something intrinsic in the act, but only an extrinsic denomination connoting the intrinsic principle freely failing; not truly the extrinsic principle, such as is God.

Vázquez refuted. For this does not stand in the way; because that which is the efficient physical cause of a form, from which the extrinsic denomination is drawn, is also the true principle of the extrinsic denomination that accrues toward such a form. But God effects, not an influx which is indeterminate and indifferent in himself toward truth, but an influx contracted toward such a species of action, whatever physical can be considered in the act, as it is the substrate inferring moral character; therefore he also attains secondarily, and consequently, the denomination of a moral and free being, which infallibly follows upon such a substance of an act, elicited under such a composition of circumstances.

In what way an extrinsic denomination consequent upon an intrinsic form is effected. Nor indeed can any other genus of emanation be ascribed to extrinsic denominations than a certain sequel and accretion upon such an intrinsic form, which is truly effected physically and primarily by the agent; as the denomination of dexterity recognizes no other physical principle than local motion, which, while it constitutes the located thing under such a where and situation, denominates the located thing secondarily and consequently right or left; for the local motion, by which the animal advances toward the right hand of the man, while the animal first intends to locate in such a space, consequently and secondarily denominates that located thing right.

It follows that God would not be the principle of moral character in an upright act. Then; that if the effecting of the predicate of moral character, or of liberty, in a sinful act, could not be ascribed to God, since it is not something intrinsic and physical, it would also come about that God could not be the cause of an honest act, since moral goodness also presupposes the predicate of a free being in the act, which carries the habitude of the connotation not toward an extrinsic cause, such as is God, but toward an intrinsic principle. And accordingly it would follow; that while Vázquez strives to avoid God as author of sinful obliquity, he would be compelled to pronounce him also not the principle of the right action, (by which he dons moral honesty.)

Moreover, and more efficaciously; because it does not express grammatical justification for the predicate of moral character and liberty, nor more than the predicate of vitality; as is perspicuous to all and on the whole acknowledged. But though the act imports vitality through a habitude of the principle intrinsically aimed at; undeniably the predicate of vitality is effected by God, since it is a real and intrinsic grade of being: therefore, grant that moral and free being expresses a connotation to the intrinsic principle; that will not stand in the way of its being attained by God, if the causality of God immediately attains whatever is elicited by a created cause as the foundation of such an extrinsic denomination.

There is added, on behalf of the liberty of an act not only elicited by God, but rather more priorly pending toward the first cause than toward a created free choice, an elegant testimony of Scotus ex 1. sent. dist. 39. quaest. unica §. Ad aliud de tertia opinione. at the end of the question, under marginal number 35. where he has it as follows.

Dico, quòd contingentia non est tantum privatio, vel defectus entitatis, sicut est deformitas in actu secundo, quae est peccatum; imò contingentia est modus positivus entitatis, sicut necessitas est alius modus; et omne positivum, quod est in effectu, principaliùs est à causa priore. — "I say, that contingency is not only a privation, or defect of entity, in the way that deformity is in a second act, which is sin; nay, contingency is a positive mode of entity, as necessity is another mode; and every positive that is in an effect is more principally from the prior cause."

Et ideò non sicut deformitas est ipsius actus à causa secunda, et non à causa prima, ita est contingentia; imò contingentia perpriùs est à causa prima, quàm secunda: propter quod nullum causatum esset formaliter contingens, nisi à prima causa contingenter causaretur; sicut ostensum est. — "And therefore not as deformity is of the act itself from the second cause, and not from the first cause, so is contingency; nay, contingency is more priorly from the first cause than from the second: wherefore no caused thing would be formally contingent, unless it were caused contingently by the first cause; as has been shown."

Where Scotus argues that the predicate of liberty in a human and moral act is not deferred to the secondary free cause alone, as Vázquez wills; but more priorly to the first, than to the second. But we subjoin below a fuller elucidation of this testimony of Scotus in hac controuer. de Scientia Dei. distin. 3. de Scientia contingentium absolutorum. art. 4. marginal numbers 5 and 8. which text is to be recited, since it refers the constant mind of Scotus on the premotion of the concursive God with respect to every created operation.

But in the use of those words there remains this to be noted. Contingency is a positive mode of entity, as necessity is another mode: namely, that when Scotus asserts contingency, or indifference, and liberty, in the operation of free choice to be a mode of operation; there he does not take the intrinsic mode insofar as it is opposed to the thing, or entitative form, which, as con-distinguished from the mode, is not identified really with the composition of its mode to the substrate. In which sense Scotus, in Quodlibeto 3. §. Habemus ergo primum membrum, under mar. num. 3. holds that relation is not a thing, but a mode; in which use of mode, too, he judged that substance, quantity, and quality alone were things, but relation, and the other categories, modes: of which we have treated visibly in the preceding article, in a physical digression on the potentiality of the will toward such an individual, *marginal num. 61.*omitting the action composed intrinsically to this agent, not even by the absolute power of God composable to another agent; since it is a mode identified with the actual composition of the latter to this agent.

Therefore contingency and the liberty of an act are to be asserted as the mode of the act in that use of the mode affixed to the substrate per its essence; since liberty, and necessity in the act of the will, as we have more than once shown, are not intrinsic predicates, but mere extrinsic denominations, which accrue to an act and recede, saving its physical substance. As is plain in an impulse of the will not free, because of a defect of deliberation, which, with the deliberation of reason then itself acceding, continues freely without any mutation, and physical addition, from the side of the impulse.

Therefore the mode is called liberty, and contingency of the act, in that acception of mode which does not say the substance of being, but the circumstance of the thing, insofar as it abstracts from an intrinsic, or extrinsic circumstance. Of which take the testimony of Scotus at the place cited, ex Quodlib. 3. mar. num. 3.

Secundo modo accipit Boetius distinguendo rem contra modum rei; sicut loquitur libro de Trinitate. Patet (inquit) quae fit differentia praedicationum; quia aliae quidem quasi rem monstrant, aliae quasi circumstantiam rei; quia istae praedicantur sic; quòd secundùm se rem aliquam monstrant, illa verò, ut non esse, sed poriùs extrinsecùs aliquid apponunt. Vult ergo distinguere rem contra circumstantiam; et sic secundùm eum, sola tria genera, substantia, qualitas et quantitas, rem monstrant: alia verò rei circumstantias. — In that second way Boethius takes it, distinguishing the thing against the mode of the thing; as he speaks in the book On the Trinity. What is apparent, he says, of the difference of predications; because some indeed point out as it were the thing, others as it were the circumstance of the thing; because those are predicated thus: that they point out some thing in themselves, but those as though not being, but rather as applying something extrinsically. He shall therefore carry the thing, that there be distinguished the thing against the circumstance; and thus according to him, the only three genera, substance, quality and quantity, point out the thing: but the others the circumstances of the thing.

It is to be added moreover; that although contingency insofar as it is taken for the liberty of an act, and necessity insofar as it is opposed to liberty, are intrinsic modes of being; nevertheless contingency insofar as it is opposed to necessity in being the sign, and as it imported a convertibility into nothing, or a logical power of not being, is not an extrinsic mode of created nature, but an intrinsic mode transcending the quiddity of created being, according to that use of mode which sounds a predicate imbibed in the quiddity of the thing. As infinity is a mode of Deity in Scotus; and finity is a mode of a participated being transcending the quantity of its virtue, or perfection. Of which see, what we have sketched out above, in contro­versia 2. de Unitate Dei. in the appendix of the distinction of being. art. 3. de distinct. modali, et quadditate modi. marginal number 5. These things premised for the expugnation of the mode of speaking of Vázquez; let us pursue the machinations of the other adversaries against the premotion of God toward the matter of sin.

12 WHEREFORE it is argued for the fourth time; if God, without our fall being awaited, were to adopt an absolute proposition of determinately effecting an act contrary to the divine law, for instance, hatred of God; the sinner would be held to so assent to that divine premotion, that he could not hold himself back from hatred of God without the lethal crime of the attempt on the divine omnipotence.

Which opposition, that it may strike at the adversaries the more, supposes; that someone by a divine revelation should be intimately acquainted with the absolute decree of God for the predetermining of the will of Man toward such a perverse act, for instance, toward hatred of God. Then, either would that one be bound to labor something against the absolute proposition of God not involving the condition of the cooperation of the created cause; which would be to attempt the violation of the divine omnipotence; or he would be held to pursue God with hatred.

A man might confirm it; because thus far no reason has been delivered by the adversaries, nor can one be rendered, why God cannot not be the moral cause of the perverse act materially claimed, or insofar as it is a substrate of moral malice, if God is asserted to be the premover, and physical predeterminer of every perverse act as to its every positive reason? For if nothing absurd results in this, that God, not as stirred up and moved by our malice, but upon the ground of the sole statute of his will, pre-establish before the consent of the created will the effecting of a shameful act; why should he not elicit the indeliberate motions in the intellect and will of the sinner for this end, that the sinner consent more sweetly and more freely into the shameful object? But the first, concerning the moral causality of God around the materialia of perverse acts, even when the formal ratio of malice is not intended, cannot be asserted without the heavy note of error; therefore neither can such a physical predetermination, which God would perform, be defended.

13 Moreover; nor does that sufficiently tested response of the Theologians seem to satisfy the foregoing objections; that God bears himself by the same ratio when he predetermines and premoves toward the act of hatred, as he would bear himself in that hypothesis in which, by himself alone, without the cooperation of the created cause, he would effect the same act of the hatred of God, (which we have more than once taught to be essentially posited not in action, but in vital quality,) and would compose it to the same will. But that God, on account of the production of that quality, should not be credited author of sin, although by the force of the composition of such a form to the created will, the created will would pursue God with hatred: therefore neither in fact, when the will cooperates, does God flow into such an act.

The hypothesis of the producibility of the act of hatred of God, in that it is performed by the first cause without a concourse of the second cause, Didacus Ruiz expels, tome on the will of God, disput. 27. section. 7. num. 21. although the other vital qualities could be elicited by God without the concourse of the living faculty.

But gratuitously, and against the common opinion of the ancient Theologians; for although some Authors sustain that the production of a vital quality without influx of a power is self-contradictory, nevertheless to esteem the other vital qualities producible by God alone, and to declare only the form of the hatred of God unproducible, seems a voluntary pronouncement.

Nor indeed does a probable reason occur why, admitted the possible production of the other impulsive qualities by God alone, without the concourse of the vital faculty, we should deny that virtue in God around the materialia of perverse acts, whose effecting he concurs in stepping into without injury to his supreme sanctity, not contracted from the absolute decree prior to the exercised cooperation of the failing free choice; since such a contracted operation of free choice, not prodding from a determined will of God, is unintelligible and contradictory, as we evidently show in this article.

Then therefore; since many Theologians sustain that an act of volition, from God without an efficacious influx of the will, cannot constitute the will in the vitally pursuing object; yet the more common opinion of the Thomists affirms that a vital quality (as being that which depends not immediately and by its essence upon a vital faculty) can be effected by God without the cooperation of the vital power; although they declare the same impossible concerning the action, or vital influx.

Wherefore, given the producibility of the act of hatred of God, Ferrariensis extracts the matter; whom I transcribe, that it stand clearly how open an assertor of the physical premotion of God toward the materialia of perverse acts he was; toward certain Authors of the Jesuits, who aver such a premotion to be not the pronouncement of the ancient Theologians, but a new invention of the recent Thomists. Thus, therefore, he has libr. 3. contra gentes capit. 71. §. Aduerte, quod ex ista responsione. vbi subdit.

Sed occurrit unum dubium. Nam movens causam secundam ad actionem, quam semper, et inseparabiliter concomitatur defectus, et malum; videtur non solùm esse causa bonitatis actionis, sed etiam malitiae concomitantis; unde ut habetur ex 2. Physic. quod pro maiori parte euenit, non dicitur esse praeter intentionem. — "But one doubt occurs. For the one moving a second cause into action, from which defect and evil always and inseparably are concomitant; seems to be not only the cause of the goodness of the action, but even of the malice concomitant; whence, as is held from Physics II, what happens for the most part is not said to happen against the intention."

Sed sunt aliquae operationes humanae habentes semper annexam malitiam, puta odium Dei; ergo si Deus est causa entitatis actionis, oportet dicere quòd etiam sit causa malitiae et deformitatis coniunctae; et sic non refertur illa operatio, inquantùm deficiens est, solùm in causam proximam deficientem. — "But there are certain human operations having malice always annexed, for instance hatred of God; therefore if God is the cause of the entity of the action, one is obliged to say that he is also the cause of the conjoined malice and deformity; and thus that that operation is not referred, insofar as it is a defect of the good, to the proximate failing cause."

Respondetur ex doctrina Sancti Thomae; quòd malitiam consequi inseparabiliter actum aliquem, dupliciter potest intelligi; uno modo ut consequatur ipsum absolutè consideratum secundùm entitatem suam: alio modo ut consequatur ipsum secundùm quòd à tali agente, puta à libero arbitrio, procedit. — "It is responded out of the doctrine of Saint Thomas; that malice's inseparably following upon some act can be understood in two ways; in one way, that it follow it itself considered absolutely according to its entity: in the other way, that it follow it insofar as it proceeds from such an agent, for instance, from free choice."

In the first way no deformity of sin is concomitant with any act; because if the essence of that act of hating God, produced by the free choice of the creature, were produced by God alone, the act would not be an evil and deformed act; because it would not be done badly. For although that act cannot proceed from man without deformity, because it never proceeds from him except insofar as it disagrees from its own rule; nevertheless the first agent can move the cause to acting the entity of the action, and not act toward deformity. But in this Ferrariensis displeases; for he judges that through the form of the act of the hatred of God, without the efficacious concourse of the vital faculty, there cannot be constituted in being one hating God; for thus he subjoins.

Ad hoc vt aliquit per actum odij dicatur alium habere odio, non sufficit quòd essentia illius actus sit à illo immediatè causata; sed requiritur quòd sit operatio à ipsius voluntate deficiente immediatè elicita; etc. — "For it to be said by any act of hatred, that one has another in hatred, it does not suffice that the essence of that act be immediately caused by him; but it is required that it be an operation immediately elicited by the failing will; etc."

*Quod latè expugnatum praemittimus, in contrauersia 9. generali de Visione Dei: dist. 3. subdist. 1. ar. 1. chiefly from n. 46. up to 49.

Quare melius sic res explicat Aureolus, in 2. sent. dist. 38. q. 1. art. 1. §. Ad primum patet: in quolibet peccato actuali sunt tria: where he says.

Ad propositum dico; quòd absolutè de potentia, posset Deus ponere in voluntate mea odium sui; ita quòd actus ille esset virtute diuina in voluntate mea, et esset malum, et defectus voluntatis; non tamen esset peccatum nec culpa. — "For the purpose I say; that absolutely in power, God could put into my will hatred of himself; so that that act were in my will by divine power, and were an evil, and a defect of the will; nevertheless it would not be a sin, nor a fault."

Primum probo; quia esset disconueniens voluntati; malum est autem coniunctio disconuenientis, vt patet suprà. — "I prove the first; because it would be unconforming to the will; but evil is the conjunction of what unconforms, as is apparent above."

Second; that it is not sin, I prove. For sin is said in order to an agent, but the will would not be there actively, but passively; therefore with respect to the will there would be no sin there.

Because guilt connotes a dominion in the agent with respect to the act of the will; but the will would then be necessitated by God to that act; therefore it would not be a guilt of the will, nor imputable to it. Nor is it incongruous that God place in the will anything whatever absolutely, without imputability.

Here Aureolus admirably teaches by what rationale — even granted that the created will pursued God with hatred by a form infused by God without any influx of the power — the will would not sin in that hypothesis; which we too seriously opened up at the place cited.

But still, from those things we observed there, the following opposition is formed against the assertors of the physical predetermination of the substrates of moral malice. Because, as is clear from what we established there: given the infusion of a vital form without the power influencing in the first production of that form — if, however, the will afterwards concurred effectively in the conservation of such a quality with deliberation and use of reason — the created will would truly sin. But by a better right the deformity inseparably connected with such an act ought to be ascribed to God predetermining the will to the act of hatred, than that it could be deferred to the created will, not first producing such an act but only deliberately conserving the form of hatred infused by God; therefore.

Then, or thus, I press the argument in that hypothesis: that free choice would elicit the act of hatred of God; and, given the free production of such a sinful act, it would be necessitated by God to the continuation of such an evil act. For free choice could be necessitated according to our principles if God infused some quality of the species of a power which would affix free choice to one in the first act; or by His power specially composed in the role of a particular principle He would supply the effective force of that quality and determine free choice to one in the first act; so that the power of God be composed with free choice not to either-in-the-first-act, but determinately to one in the first act.

In this hypothesis, then, in which free choice would be necessitated to the continuation of the evil act freely elicited by the created will, free choice would not sin in the continuation of that act, because it would be necessitated by God to such a continuation. But it would no less be affixed to continuing the matter of sin in that supposition than it is in fact affixed to its first production by the predetermination through the absolute purpose of the divine will; therefore neither in fact does free choice sin, predetermined by an absolute and efficacious decree.

Then also, because free choice would not conduct itself otherwise on the side of the effect in that supposition — or the cooperation of free choice would not be otherwise, nor would it be more fixed to one part of the contradiction — than it exists in fact when the will is said to be freely predetermined by God to the continuation of the evil act; therefore nor on the side of the decree composing the power of God with free choice would there be any dissimilarity, since it implies a disparity of decrees of the divine will without a diverse change on the side of the effect answering to them.

Or, contrariwise, I produce the argument thus: if it were against the essential sanctity and innocence of God that He necessitate free choice to the continuation of an evil act, because the author and cause of sin would be renounced — so much the more does it contradict the supreme purity of the divine nature that God, not excited by the foreknowledge of a freely acting will actually deficient, should contract free choice to the fall.

14 Nor does that solution avail which Scotus intimated, in II Sent., dist. 37, q. 2, §. Ad solutionem istorum obiectorum, under marginal num. 14, where he labors to have God avoid being the cause of sin on the ground that He is not subject to the law; for thus it runs:

Thus therefore if two wills concur to the willing of the created will — namely the created will and the divine — there can be a defect in the willing itself from the defect of the other cause; and this because that cause could give rectitude to the act, which it is bound to give, and yet does not give it; while the other, although not bound to give it, nevertheless as much as in it lies would give it, if the created will cooperated.

For such doctrine does not untie the knot; rather it seems to have offered an occasion of falling to the Sectaries, as is evident from the Catholic Treasury of Jodocus Coccius, vol. 2, book 2, on the sin of man, art. 1, where he introduces Zwingli blaspheming in this manner against the essential sanctity of God:

God impelled him to kill; and he who impels acts without all suspicion of crime; for he is not under the law. One and the same deed — say adultery or homicide — as much as it is of God, the work of the author, mover, impeller, is no crime; but as much as it is of man, it is a crime and a foul deed.

Wherefore Scotus, in the aforesaid solution, does not stand fixed; nor did he assert that God is precisely not the cause of sin because He is not subject to the law. Whence he subjoins: §. From this the objections are answered, under marginal num. 16.

But then there is a doubt with respect to the principal question: for although it is saved that sin is not ascribed to God as cause, but to the created will, still it is not shown that God cannot be the first cause of the defecting.

Here the mind of Scotus seems to tend to this: that although from the fact that God is not subject to the law it may be inferred that God cannot act against a law that is coercively superior, still it is not shown why He should not be the first reason of defecting with respect to the created cause, if He premoves to the substrate of moral malice.

The excuse of the Divine innocence concerning predetermination to the matter of sin, on account of the intention of a right end, is refuted.

15 But in very truth, neither does the other reply any more evacuate the difficulty — the one that excuses God from the causality and influx of sin on account of the intention of a right end. So that, granted that God attains in the act of the law and right reason the very same terminus which man sinning and the devil tempting intend, nevertheless God is not had as the author of sin, because He produces that matter, or substrate of moral malice, only for this end: that He may satisfy what is owed and to the functions of the first cause.

Against this solution Diego Ruiz objects such figments, disput. 30, section. 1. It would come about, he says, that if God, on account of the intention of an honest end, could premove the created will to an act contrary to right reason and the divine law, the authority of the divine veracity could waver; indeed, the faith of the whole Church could waver.

As if God were to infuse into a man, whether sleeping or waking, the material entity of false assertions; not intending the formal reason of lying, but predetermined the intellect to assent to a false enunciation, on account of some good end.

Or if He were to form in the air human voices enunciating something false, and join miracles for the confirmation of that falsehood, the formal reason of lying not being intended — as if, at the voice sounding in the air from one excited four days after death, that miracle exhibited by God were for the attestation of some falsehood. All which things are most absurd and execrable; yet those are the ones which do not seem to be able to be fittingly avoided by the adversaries, if it can be asserted that the created will can be predetermined by God to an evil act on account of the intention of a right end.

16 Moreover; because although such a defense of the divine causality around evil could be sustained on account of some honest ends of His providence, still the disquisition presses: why should it belong to the functions of the first cause to premove the created will to that almost immense multitude of base acts, which in number and weight far outweigh the pile of pious operations?

Nor does that common reply about the fragility of the human condition — which demands rather to be premoved to evil than to good — elude the difficulty.

Because, supposing that the created will cannot work evil unless predetermined by God, that excuse of human fragility seems to involve a manifest begging of the principle: since it is the same thing for the will to be predetermined more often to evil than to good on account of its fragility, as for it to be predetermined by God to most frequent falls because it is predetermined by God.

Because since the sinner is morally impotent for the fall if he is not premoved by God, no other rationale of fragility is to be admitted which does not lean on the divine premotion, so that by the same the will be said to be such that it is frequently premoved by God at His nod into falls, and the will of man to be changeable — unless we wish to play with words.

17 Then, too, another escape of the theologians is precluded, contending that God is not the cause of sin because moral malice does not follow upon the act unless it proceeds from a deficient cause:

Because if God were to command, or counsel, the sinner to elicit the act of hatred of God as to its matter, God would not be freed from the note of a moral principle, or cause, of sin.

Nor would he elude the difficulty in that hypothesis who should assert that that act does not carry the sinful obliquity as it is from God, but as from a created cause that is deficient. Therefore, not even in virtue of the fact, given the physical predetermination attaining the whole positive substance of the act, which is the infliction of the privation of the rectitude that is owed.

Then Ruiz argues, disput. 27, section. 7, num. 19. Because if God were to predetermine, as to the material entity of such lies, to the enunciations of error all the Authors of Sacred Scripture, and all the Pontiffs, founders of the Sacred Canons, and besides the Catholic Church itself — still, the aforesaid escape being supposed, could anyone contrive that the eternity of the lie does not follow upon the substance and entity of the false enunciation as from God, but from a deficient cause? Therefore that reply is to be exploded which seems to favor heretics and absurd pronouncements.

18 Add that even the weakest confutation of the opposite opinion is not that one which argues that nothing supernatural is required to persevere for a long time without sin, even in the heat of a most grave temptation, if premoving the created will to the matters of evil acts belonged to the functions of the first cause.

For who will deny that it is integral to God (the gift of the first cause being safe) to predetermine, or not to predetermine, man to the matters of evil acts for a long time; therefore, upon the onset of a most grave temptation, the sinner in the state of fallen nature could, without any gratuitous aid, not sin, or for a long time hold himself from the ruins of sin — since it is more certain than certain that such a negation of physical premotion to evil cannot be numbered among the aids of grace.

But if, abusing the word grace, you should reckon such a negation of the predetermination to evil for a long time, or in the struggle of a most troublesome assault of the devil, among the series of the aids of grace — it would come about that, since the sinner is unable to carry out horrendous deeds, such as the destruction of himself or of his sons, without physical premotion, if the subtraction of physical predetermination for a long time be a benefit of grace; it would follow that infidels and barbarians, who avoid that truculent savagery their whole life long, would achieve it by the aid of grace; all of which are most false and absurd.

The testimonies of Scotus are opposed, which seem to disapprove the premotion of God to the matters of evil acts.

Finally it is argued from the authority of Scotus, who seems to attack this predetermination to evil, in II Sent., dist. 37, q. 2, §. Ad solutionem istorum obiectorum, under num. 14, where he says:

Universally, whatever God gives antecedently, He would give consequently as much as in Him lies, unless there were an impediment; but, giving the will free, He gave antecedently the right works, which are in the power of the will; and therefore as much as lies on His side He gave rectitude to every act of the will, and in consequence He would give it to the will, if the will itself elicited any act whatever rightly as far as its own side goes.

Therefore there is a defect in the effect of the two causes; not on account of the defect of the superior cause, but of the inferior. Not because the superior cause would cause rectitude in the effect, and the inferior crookedness; but because the superior cause, as much as lies of itself, would cause, if the inferior cause were to cause in accordance with its causality; and therefore that rectitude is not caused is on account of this, that the second cause, as far as it concerns itself, does not cause.

Now to that text Hugo Cauellus, scholiast of Scotus, appends his Scholium. "From which it is plain clearly, that God does not predefine absolutely the act of sin, with no cooperation of ours foreseen; otherwise, certainly, He would not be prepared, inasmuch as He is of Himself, to cause a good act: since before He should see what I was going to do, He decreed that such an act ought to be done by Himself and by me."

Wherefore the aforesaid Scholiast, expelling predetermination as it were upon the mind of Scotus, joins to the cited text these marginal annotations. Note against the predetermination, intrinsic and extrinsic, of the will toward its own acts. And a little below. The divine will does not therefore always cause good, because the created one does not will it: this therefore determines toward evil.

20 Moreover; that the second cause is determined by the first cause to operative effect; but not conversely, that the second cause is from the first premoved; the aforesaid author contends is held by Scotus, in 2. physic. question 8. §. As regards the fourth thing to be noted. where he says.

Third mode; there is called an immediate cause that which is not determined through another agent more particular to produce this, or that; and a mediate cause is called that which is determined by one, or by several, particular agents, toward the production of that effect, more than of the other.

For instance; the universal causes, such as God and the heaven, are said to be mediate causes of the effect here produced; inasmuch as they are determined toward the production of that effect by particular agents, such as, say, by fire, and by heat.

And so fire is said to be an immediate cause, or heat also; because it is not determined through any agent more particular to produce this, or that.

Here is Scotus expressly asserting; the first cause to be determined by the second as regards the species of its influx; and, not on the contrary, the first cause premoves and contracts the second as regards the species of such a causality, especially in depraved acts.

21 Nor does another testimony of Scotus press less, in 2. sentent., in the same cited place, dist. 37, q. 2, §. 'And if it is objected of those two instants', under marginal num. 15, where he seems to disprove that the action of God is prior by a priority of nature to the action of the creature; from which pronounced statement is plainly evinced (ma*ni-*mifestè producitur) that the influx of God is not a premotion or a predetermination: thus therefore he frames it.

"And if it is objected of those two infants of nature, as it is objected; that God in the first gave rectitude to the act."

I answer, and say; that the priority which includes that those [causes] can be without each other mutually without contradiction, is not an order in causes as they cause the common effect; but simultaneously they cause.

For just as, speaking of the different genera of causes, matter is not first by nature materiated before the efficient effects; as if without contradiction it could be matteriated and not effected, or conversely; but only by nature prior, that is, more perfectly one causes than the other; so in the same genus of cause: different ordered causes, although they have an order according to more perfectly and less perfectly causing; nevertheless do not have a priority of nature, which should say that [they] can be without each other mutually, with respect to a third.

Nay rather, just as in one instant of nature matter materiates, and the efficient effects; so two efficient causes, ordered in one instant of nature, cause the common effect, so that neither then causes without the other.

But that the effect not right be caused, that is not now on account of the prior cause, which, as far as it is of itself, would cause rightly, if the second were to cause; but on account of the defect of the second cause, which has in its power to co-cause with the first cause, or not co-cause; and if it does not concause with it, as is held, there is not rectitude in the common effect of both of them.

In which text of Scotus, not only every priority of nature, being other than a priority of perfection, and which cannot be sustained without an improbated premotion, seems to be driven out; as is clear from those words: Nay rather, just as in one instant of nature matter materiates, and the efficient effects, so two efficient causes, ordered in one instant of nature, cause the common effect. But even it seems to deny premotion concursive; while he asserts: that the sinning will has in its power to co-cause, or not co-cause, the depraved act; and that the first cause, as far as it is of itself, would cause rightly, if the second caused. Therefore it itself determines and is not determined to the matter of sin.

22 There is added another pronouncement of Scotus, which also seems to attack predetermination, in the same question cited. §. 'But why in the uncreated will there cannot be a first reason of deficiently willing', n. mar. 17, where he subjoins:

I answer; if God does not cause freely the rectitude, which ought to be in the act of the created will, and this on account of the liberty of His own will, nor however on account of the defect of the created will not voluntarily cooperating; then there is not then in the created will a cause of sin, because there is not there a lack of due justice.

For it is not a justice due from the created will, except in so far as it is in its power to act rightly; so that no subtraction of a prior cause is understood, on account of whose defect the will could not act rightly.

If, therefore, God were the first cause not causing rectitude; the act not right would not be a sin. Against divine premotion, from which words the following opposition is formed.

Then, according to Scotus, a sinful action could not be ascribed to the created will when something prior, necessarily required for eliciting a pious operation, would be subtracted from God. Otherwise the base operation [turpis operatio] would not have to be imputed to the created will, but to the first cause, for the nod and vote of Him that takes away that which, as something prior coming before the created influx, is necessarily required for acting honestly. Therefore the predetermination of God toward the good either does not conduce to the action of the creature by the way of the prior and the pre-acting, and consequently predetermination, or premotion, will not be; or sin will not be imputed to the creature, but to God.

That Scotus's argument seems to press especially in the sin of omission; which, if the premotion of God is insisted on for the fulfillment of the precept, therefore God omits before, who does not premote toward the observance of the precept.

23 Finally; since Scotus expressly and frequently repudiates intrinsic predetermination, whether by the influence of some form sent into the will; it remains that, if any premotion were to be sustained according to the principles of Scotus, it would be extrinsic – whether through the absolute decree of God, inasmuch as it is an influx ad extra, or the causality of the divine faculty as executing – because the action of God, in Scotus, (as being that which is intrinsic to God himself, just as every action coheres to its agent,) is the absolute volition of God itself.

Which assertion seems greatly to favor the errors of the Innovators who bark that God, by his absolute and unimpedable will, necessitates our will to act; as can be seen in the Catholic Treasury of Jodocus Coccius, tom. 2, book 2, On the Sin of Man, art. 1, where he transcribes the blaspheming rabble of heretics on this point. On which our own Franciscus Feuardentius also treats at length, piously and learnedly, in the Calvinistic Theomachy, book 2, On the Perfection of the Holy Trinity, chap. 12, On the Supreme Integrity of the Innocence and Sanctity of God, against the 31 heresies by which the Calvinists strive to deform it, and to make it the author and guilty party of all the sins of the world.

The opposing tenet of Aureolus is discussed, asserting that God does not concur immediately to the matters of wicked acts; and whether it merits the note? In what way it differs from Durandus?

24 The foundations which we set forth from Aureolus for the negative opinion shook him so greatly, that they drove him into the diametrically opposite opinion; for in order to escape the predetermination of God to the matters of wicked acts, he denied that God concurs immediately to wicked acts. Although, the emanation of those acts and their efflux from the created will being premised, he opined that they hang immediately upon God in their conservation: that however

That Aureolus expressly taught that God concurs immediately to the conservation of wicked acts, is plain from his testimony transcribed by us in this article under margin-n. 33, near the end of the number. Nevertheless, because although Aureolus embraced a less approved opinion, he yet confirmed it acutely, as the quality of the matter required, and confuted the opposite one with his wonted dexterity; therefore I transcribe his words. Then especially, that it may appear openly how far he dissents from the opinion of Durandus; who although he maintains that God does not inflow immediately into wicked acts, nevertheless sustained this generally of all the effects of secondary causes; moved by those foundations, slight as they are, which are ill received by very many. Thus therefore has Aureolus, in 2 Sent., dist. 38, q. 1, art. 1, §. Alia est opinio opposita. Where, while he reports the tenet of certain unnamed authors, to which he subscribes, he subjoins.

Not every act is from God, even as to what is positive, elicitive-wise; and this they say to be true especially of the act of our will. And if it be asked of them, how does that act depend on God? They answer, that it does so in the habitude toward the conserver, because according to them the habitude is not the same as the habitude of the producer. Now I lay down certain propositions. The first is, it seems to me that the second opinion is the more rational; nor do I see what they say, that every act is from God, granted that it is positive, unless perhaps by way of desiring the power which elicits, and the nature of the elicited act. And so I say, that God does not act immediately into the act of the will deformed by sin; nor is it necessary that he act immediately into every creature.

25 I prove this proposition; because if he acted into the positive act as substrate, he would necessarily act toward the deformity; the contrary of which the Saints say, and they themselves also who hold the other opinion.

I prove the consequence; since when certain things so stand that one is a privation in the other, inseparable from it, the agent acting into the one necessarily acts into the other; but deformity so stands toward the act: therefore.

The major is plain; for because the privation of whiteness in blackness is annexed inseparably to blackness, therefore he who produces blackness necessarily produces what is not white.

I prove the minor; I take this, which is to hate God; I say, that so does deformity attach to that act, that it is impossible for it to be separated and taken away.

And this is what the Doctors say: that God cannot dispense in the precepts of the first table; because they have from themselves annexed deformity.

26 Second; because things that are evil from the object cannot come to be without deformity; the reason is, because they are of themselves entangled [conuoluta] with evil.

I confirm this through Aristotle, Ethics 3: for he inquires, whether habit is in us voluntarily? And he says, that it is; because we elicit voluntarily the acts, from which it is necessarily generated.

Because whatever is the cause of a cause, is necessarily the cause of the thing caused by that second cause; but deformity in an act follows the nature of the act necessarily, no less than [does] habit; therefore if God causes the act as to the substrate, necessarily he will cause the deformity.

27 Second, principally to the same [point] thus. If God co-acts with an act of the will, either this is because it follows the determination of the will in that act; so that the will first by nature determine itself to that act, and from this God co-act with the determined will.

Or conversely; first God determine himself to action, and our will follow the determination of such a kind, and come to that action; but it is by neither of those modes; therefore: the major is plain by a sufficient division.

I prove the minor; first, that not in the first mode; because then it would be held as proposed that in that determining God does not co-act; and thus it is not a cause with respect to every positive act.

Nor can the second mode be given; because the will would be determined by God toward sin; therefore it would not act from itself, but from another; and thus the will would not sin, because it would not have of itself whence it might be a cause of sin, because it would not be free: for it would be determined from without.

28 In Aureolus's doctrine take these observations. The first is about the text n. 25: that the difficulty which bursts forth from the premotion of God to the substrates of sins equally touches those who constitute the essence of sin in the negative, just as also the others, who constitute it in the positive; nor by any reason can a refuge from this present rending [praesurae] be sought by those who deny that sin formally is a positive something.

Because, as in the opinion of Scotus asserting that sin formally is a privation of due rectitude, the is [the] being right-claimed [affruictur] of the created will, truly and properly (as) the cause of sin; inasmuch as it elicits the positive act, as it is inductive [inductiuum] of that sinful privation; so if God should attain whatsoever is positive in the depraved act, inasmuch as it imports the defectibility [defectibilitatē] of the bearing [illatioā] of the privation of due rectitude (or inasmuch as it does not express the carrying-together [compatationē] of the essential continuation and conjunction with God in the reason of the end, which carrying-together removes [ablegat] crookedness, according to those things that we hand down from the Alensian and from Scotus in the present articulus from n. 68 up to 70) — that granted, God could not be held properly and rigorously the author of sin. Because the privation cannot be otherwise the terminus of the positive influx than inasmuch as it is necessarily connected with the positive, which is the terminus of physical causality; and under that comparison of causality, or quasi-causality, by which it infers the negation: in that manner in which, with Aureolus and the common opinion, the privation of whiteness in blackness is not effected, except inasmuch as blackness is produced inseparably, and necessarily inferring the not-being of whiteness. For that obtain those responded utterances of Aureolus: Because the privation of whiteness in blackness is annexed inseparably to blackness, therefore producing blackness, necessarily it produces what is not white.

The other observation is: around those words of Aureolus put forward under n. 27, that if the created will should determine God to such a species of sinful influx; it would follow that in that determining God does not co-act, and thus it is not a cause with respect to every positive act. For if it were true, that the created [creatā] and the uncreated [volūtātē] will were so composed together into the concourse, that the created will, as exercised in the second act, might determine the divine will to inflowing [influendū] into the matter of sin; it would be done, that the influx of the creature, inasmuch as it is the determining reason of the divine concourse toward the depraved act, should have to be conceived (under such a causality, or quasi-causality, of contracting [contrahendi] the influx of God) as immediately independent [of God].

Because, if the hatred of God, under which reason it expresses [rationeexprimit] the flight from God, and is conceived to determine God, indifferent of himself toward the influx of pursuit and of flight, were to depend on God; it would not determine God, but would proceed from God already determined to such a species of act; since an action cannot flow out from a principle not determined, or not contracted, in the sense of composition, or inasmuch as it is composed with the action. I judge that this probation of Aureolus is of such pressing force that I judge it conclusive: of which see below under number 61.

Therefore either the action flows out from God determined to such a species of influx; and consequently the action of the creature does not determine the will of God, nor contract it to the species of act. Or such an action is produced, or flows out from God, inasmuch as from a principle indeterminate, and potential, to such a species of impulse; and it would be done, that the principle, inasmuch as it is composed with the exercised influx, would be indeterminate to such a species [speciẽ] of exercised causality; which involves an implication in the predicate.

Next; that if the created causality were apprehended as hanging from God for that sign, by which it manifests the divine influx; for that presupposition the causality of God could not be conceived (which is not distinguished really from the created influx as from God) under an indetermination or potentiality contractible to assent or dissent, but contracted to the species of such an action, for instance, of the hatred of God. Indeed, for that anteriority of our conception, the act of the hatred of God is understood, not only as hanging from the created will, but also from God; and consequently for that prior [priori] [consideration] it is of no avail to be regarded as the divine influx, as potential toward love and toward hatred, but as contracted to hatred; since the causality of God, with the adversaries, is the operation of the creature, (as it hangs from God in that sign,) is the hatred of God; the causality of God was unable to be conceived under the commonness of the indetermination to assent or dissent, love or hatred. Because the determinate act of flight, as hanging from God, is the action of God; and consequently it is an action, not potential and contractible, but determinate and contracted to such a species.

Or it would have to be brought forward, that the action of the creature, according to the determinate species of such an action, is of avail to be pre-conceived for a certain sign of causality, as future infallibly, and absolutely, by comparison with the sole created cause, without the habitude of immediate dependence on God (whom in that prior [priori] [consideration] we conceive indeterminate to either [alternative]); and Aureolus would have his intent; which we shall pursue more broadly below, shutting out the evasions of the adversaries, under n. 61.

39 Third, the words of Aureolus are to be noted, under n. 24: I say, that God does not act immediately in the deformed act of the will, through sin; nor is it necessary that he act immediately in every creature. From which it stands that the said author has taught, once indeed, deliberately [rãtùm ex instituto], and under assertion, that the act of sin is not effected from God immediately; and held only incidentally, and as an opinion [opinatiuè], that it is not necessarily required for the influx of any cause, that God concur immediately to the first instant of effective production; provided he supply a conserving influx.

That however Aureolus in the other pronouncement [spoke] of the action of other secondary causes without the immediate cooperation [cooperatiohe] of God; and did not disprove that the first cause concurs immediately with any secondary cause whatever, as Durandus asserted; stands from the cited place, §. the third reason is this, where he subjoins: Not of lesser power is the will with respect to its own act, than other natural things are with respect to their own proper acts; but some natural principles so elicit their own acts of themselves, that God there cooperates actively only by conservation: therefore.

Where, around those words, some natural principles so elicit their own acts of themselves, that God there cooperates actively only by conservation, it is to be observed that although Aureolus asserts, God does not concur immediately to the matter of sin in the first effecting of the act; he nevertheless maintains the immediate conservation [cõseruationẽ] of the depraved act by God, as we show below under n. 33.

Next; §. secondly, by his reasons: concerning the judgment of certain solemn Doctors, whom he does not name, he says that it does not appear why God cannot communicate to the creature an action without the immediate concourse of God; inasmuch as for such a reason an infinite power is not required. Whence Aureolus never esteemed it implicatory (which he deservedly taxes in Durandus) that God concur with the creature to its operation, since in fact he maintains this in very many cases. But in order to pave the way for showing that God does not concur immediately to a wicked act, he was moved by this: that it is not implicatory that a natural cause can act without the immediate cooperation of God. Which stands from those words: Some natural principles so elicit their own acts of themselves, that God does not there operate actively except by conservation. If therefore some natural causes act without the immediate concourse of God, therefore not all, according to Aureolus; and accordingly, in his view, the immediate cooperation of God with the creature is not implicatory, as it is in the view of Durandus.

Wherefore I judge Peter Hurtado manifestly deceived, in his Physics, disput. 10, On the First Cause, sect. 2, subsect. 2, §. 32, where, disallowing the tenet that God can concur immediately with the creature, he attributes it to Aureolus; whereas Durandus alone expressed it, in 2 Sent., dist. 1, q. 5, where he deliberately asks: Whether God acts immediately in every action of the creature? For under margin-n. 14: It is plain therefore, that the things which are produced through the action of the creature are not produced immediately by God: God could nevertheless produce them immediately, if he willed, but then the creature would do nothing there.

Which assertion is judged by Hurtado, and commonly by others, worthy of a note and of a sharp censure. In this, however, Hurtado proceeded skilfully, in that he asserted that the pronouncement which he sustained is not so far disallowed: that God can, at his nod, concur immediately with the creature; and can, at his will, not concur.

Nevertheless, because Aureolus deliberately treated in the cited question only of this, that God does not concur immediately to the matters of wicked acts; as is plain from the title of the article, where he inquires: Whether an evil act is from God? And only incidentally, and as it were from the opinion of others, he hints that some created cause can act without the immediate cooperation of God; the same note of a disallowed doctrine ought not to be branded upon Aureolus, which is affixed to Durandus by many – and that for asserting it not specially of the immediate production of a wicked act, but universally of the causality of any creature whatsoever – and for the asserted implication of the immediate concourse of the first cause with second causes, as is plain from what has been said.

Aureolus is defended from our disallowed doctrine by Bonaventure, Scotus, and Gregory of Rimini; and the tenet of Ludovicus Dolanus, an adherent of Aureolus, is examined.

30 It now remains to inquire whether, on account of the denial of the immediate divine concourse to the matter of sin, which Aureolus delivers ex professo, he ought to be ill reputed. Gabriel Vázquez, in 1. 2, tom. 1, disp. 129, cap. 2, num. 5, does not disallow the opinion of Aureolus disallowing that God concurs immediately to the act of sin; nay, he even labors to fortify it with many authorities of Augustine, which I pass over, because they seem able to be easily eluded, and to be interpreted of the formal, and not of the material, of sin.

The tenet of Aureolus was judged probable by the Alensian, book 2 of the Summa, tract. 27, cap. 3; to whom Gregory of Rimini assents, in 2, dist. 38, q. 1, art. 3, where he says.

It is a doubtful matter, concerning which there are the solemn opinions of the Doctors; by rashly asserting neither of them, I hold the affirmative conclusion in this matter as the more probable, and, as it seems to me, the more consonant with the sayings of the Saints; and so too it is more commonly held by the modern Doctors. For the defense also of this tenet Peter Hurtado cites the Alensian, 1 p. q. 3, memb. 2; but what he says seems to me to the purpose, and to favor Aureolus.

Bonaventure nevertheless favors it, in 2 Sent., dist. 37, art. 1, q. 1, where he asks: Whether every action, inasmuch as it is an action, is from God? where he teaches, under §. the response to the arguments.

It is to be said, that as the Master says in the text, concerning this question there were diverse positions of men so great, and so reasonable, that not even the Master dared to define which of them contains more truth. Nevertheless, because by much discussion doubts are led to manifestation, it is now commonly held that that opinion is the truer which says that every action, whether a substrate of sin or not, inasmuch as it is an action, is from God. To this Scotus also accedes, who in 2 Sent., dist. 37, q. 2, §. If this way were true, margin-n. 6, does not condemn the aforesaid opinion, which Aureolus afterwards holds; nay, he even dissolves the arguments opposed to it; for thus he has:

If this way were true, it could easily be assigned according to it, how God is not the cause of sin; for, speaking either of the material or of the formal in sin, the whole would be caused by the will, as by a total cause, and yet in no way by God, except mediately, who as God produced such a will, which could will thus and thus.

But against this way it is objected, because this way would not save that God is the cause of merit, since merit is as free as sin. And similarly it would not save the essential order of causes; because according to the first proposition concerning causes (every primary cause, etc.). But according to this way the primary cause would not inflow into the effect, except because it produced this cause. To the first of these it can be said, that God is in some way the cause of merit, in the way that he is not the cause of sin; because he immediately causes in the soul grace, or charity, which by way of nature inclines to meriting; and whatever active form is by way of nature is from some agent, and the action also of that form is from it. And from this it would also be plain how the effects of other causes would be from God otherwise than the effects of the will: because those causes, being determinate, received from God an inclination and a necessity toward such effects, but not so the will. To the second it would be said: because although sometimes there is an order of principal and less principal causes, of which neither moves the other, as the object and the cognitive power stand toward the act of knowing. Sometimes, however, the order comes about thus, that the principal moves the less principal, whether to the second act or to the first, in such a way nevertheless that these two causes are partial, and by themselves integrate one total cause; as the hand and the staff with respect to the motion of a ball; or as the sun and the father with respect to a son. Nevertheless in total causes with respect to their immediate effects there can also be an essential order, so that the second cause be a total immediate cause with respect to its effect, just as the first cause with respect to its effect, and yet be essentially second; because according to its causation, as according to its being, it depends essentially on the first: not however in such a way that this dependence be the immediate dependence of the effect itself upon it and upon the prior cause.

Thus far Scotus; where he contends that it can in some way be sustained, without the peril of a condemned doctrine, that God does not concur immediately to the free supernatural operations of the created will.

In support, however, of that response of Scotus which assigns to God specially the supernatural operations of free choice – even granted that they do not flow immediately from God – this much remains to be noted. That the supernatural operations of free choice which pertain to cooperating grace are ascribed to God as their special author not only because they are immediately elicited by a supernatural habit sent in by God; but also because God immediately elicits the indeliberate motions of holy illuminations and inspirations, which look to exciting grace, and morally allure to the supernatural free consent which is called cooperating grace.

For although in this way of thinking God is not the immediate principle of supernatural free cooperation – inasmuch as the aforesaid opinion contends that the cooperation of the free created will is not composable with the immediate concourse of God – nevertheless the immediate concourse of God is not denied as to non-free operations, such as are the first-first motions of holy illuminations and inspirations, which are therefore asserted to be made by God in us without us, because they are made without us freely, or deliberately, cooperating; although there have not been wanting some Theologians who have thought that such supernatural excitations are made by God alone, in that they esteem that it is not implicative of the vitality of qualities that it be effected immediately by God alone, and sent into a living faculty comporting itself merely passively. Which nevertheless is not approved by us: because although we sustain that the intellect can be constituted in the account of one understanding, and the will in the being of one pursuing or fleeing, through the forms of qualities sent in by God alone; yet that this is done preternaturally, and not according to the connatural exigency of such forms.

From these, those words of Aureolus transcribed under margin-n. 29 receive a congruous interpretation: Some natural principles so elicit their own acts of themselves, that God does not there operate actively except through conservation.

That Aureolus denies the immediate concourse of God only as to free actions, but not as to non-free ones; which I evidently infer from other words of Aureolus transcribed under n. 27, at the end of the number.

Nor can the second mode be given; because the will would be determined by God to sin; therefore it would not act from itself, but from another, and so the will would not sin, because of itself it would not have whence it might be the cause of sin, because not free; for it would be determined from without. Which argumentation of Aureolus blocks not only the immediate concourse of God to the matter of sin, but also to any free operation whatsoever.

He never, however, sought the implication of the immediate influx from the repugnance of a concourse, or convening, of several co-principles which would be partial with the partiality of a cause, and not with the partiality of an effect, as Durandus prattled, transcribed by us under margin-n. 29; whose doctrine is blunted and evidently routed in the conjunction of power and object for the generation of knowledge.

Whence it is inferred that Hugo Cauellus has not only often overleaped the Scholastics, but even fallen short of Scotus; while he appears to condemn the opinion of Aureolus, which Scotus in some way defends, so as even to labor to dissolve the opposing arguments. Thus therefore Hugo has it, in his scholium on the text, §. Against this opinion it is argued, under mar.-n. 8.

He resolutively rejects the said opinion denying that God inflows immediately into our volition, because it takes away the knowledge and the omnipotence of God; on which the Doctors cited, and their opposite is esteemed against it – Job 10 (Thy hands, Lord, have made me) and Psalm 146 (Who produceth grass on the mountains), John 5 (My Father worketh until now), on which Augustine, 3 On the Trinity, cap. 3 and 4.

But as far as it can pertain to Augustine, read below in this article under n. 110; as far as Scotus, however, it is clear that he did not so far reject the aforesaid opinion as to condemn it; for he subjoins, §. Therefore, under mar.-n. 9.

For these two reasons, concerning God’s omnipotence and omniscience, if we do not follow this path, it remains to inquire how sin can be from the created will with respect to the first question, and how it is not from God with respect to the fourth question.

Behold where Scotus calls this manner of thinking a path; yet it would be not a path but a precipice if it could not be upheld while preserving the canon of faith.

31. After these matters had been prepared for the press, I came upon the treatise of Ludovicus Dolanus, a Capuchin, entitled A Four-Part Disputation on the Manner in Which God and the Creature Concur in Free Acts of the Natural Order, Especially Evil Ones. This work, sanctioned by the signatures of very eminent theologians and prelates, supplies ample material; in it Dolanus vigorously refutes the immediate concourse of God to evil actions and all other free acts. At the outset of his treatise, chapter 1, no. 1, he prefaces it thus: He is not minded to compose subtle or thorny disputations that, without any fruit, weary and torment the minds of theologians; rather, he chooses what is most useful for curbing the innovators, who take their cue from a philosophical assertion in which all the Neoterics—both those called Praeterminantes, because they assert physical predetermination with stubborn insistence, and the proponents of middle knowledge—agree in assigning an indispensable necessity of divine cooperation, immediately proximate and identified, to each and every one of our acts, good and evil. They blaspheme by making God the cause of sin and deny free choice.

In which matter, that I may candidly open my judgment such as it is: first, I have proved and do prove the man's piety and zeal of faith, and I pray God that this study of his turn to his felicity; yet I judge he has undertaken a great enterprise, and I fear lest such a manner of reconciling liberty with foreknowledge be in vain, so as to close the mouths of the drivellers. Because the impious mind, while the yoke of faith is thrown off and the bridle of Christian modesty cast aside, once it has imbibed heresy, rusheth upon all things sacred, and labors to blacken that essential innocence and sanctity of God. Therefore if with Dolanus those axioms common to every school about the immediate concourse of God upon every effect of a created cause do not effectively withstand this immedicable disease; how shall they press the heretics with the pronouncements of Aureolus, denying the immediate concourse to all free acts, which are disapproved by the great part of the Scholastics, so that their defense wearies us not a little and compels us to sweat?

And how anciently procacious is this crimination of the heretics against God as the author of sin, take from Tertullian adversus Marcionem, book first, at the beginning: Languens enim, (quod et nunc multi, et maximè haeretici,) circa mali quaestionem: unde malum? Et obtutis sensibus ipsa enormitate curiositatis, inueniens creatorem pronuntiantem, ego sum, qui condo mala; quanto ipsum praesumpserat mali authorem, et ex alijs argumentis, quae ita persuadent peruerso cuique, tanto in creatorem interpretatus malam arborem malos fructus condentem scilicet mala; alium Deum praesumpsit esse debere, in partem bonae arboris bonos fructus. — "For being sickly, (as many also now, and especially heretics,) about the question of evil, whence evil? and with the senses sheerly dazed by the enormity of that curiosity, finding the Creator pronouncing, I am he who create evil; by how much he had presumed him the author of evil, and by the other arguments which so persuade every perverse man, so much did he interpret of the Creator the evil tree bearing evil fruits, that is evil; and he presumed there must be another God, on the side of the good tree bearing good fruits."

Behold the most ancient expostulation of the heretics with God about the concourse of sin, and how many absurdities it has begotten! Therefore in vain labors he who persuades the perverse doctrines of Aureolus, denying the immediate concourse of God to free acts, that he may coerce the blaspheming heretics; since it is more useful to traverse the trodden ways of our Fathers, distinguishing between the concourse to the substance of the act and its defectibility. On which see Anselm, transcribed in this article under n. 72. and Alexander of Hales under n. 89.

It is added, that the most subtle and verily golden wit of Aureolus, following this way, is bound up with these mites, from which it could not disentangle itself; it remains to be seen whether Dolanus can disengage himself? Because Aureolus, although he denied the immediate concourse of God to the production of free acts, yet did not dare deny it about their conservation. Because if there appeared a probable reason why such a creature should not hang upon God for being conserved, the way lay open that no creature should require to be conserved essentially by God; but that it be conserved only by a secondary cause. Therefore if God immediately concurrs to the conservation of a free act, then I press the reason.

Either free choice, consenting with God for the conservation of the operation of free choice, has in its power the concourse of God tempered to the free concourse of our will; or it has not? If God tempers his concourse to free choice about the immediate conservation of its act; therefore also he can temper the concourse about its first production; so that free choice have in its power its own operation, although this hang immediately upon an extrinsic principle: against what Aureolus labors, transcribed by us in the preceding number.

For to this tend those words of Aureolus: Therefore the will would not act of itself, but from another, and so the will would not sin, because of itself it would not have whence it should be the cause of sin, since it is not free: it would be determined from without. Or the operation of free choice, insofar as it is immediately conserved by God; and thus, hanging upon an extrinsic principle as regards its conservation, it would not be free, but necessary from a necessitating extrinsic principle; and accordingly it would follow, that through the conservation of the act, and its duration, even without any intensive decrease added to the act in its first effecting, the will could not merit and demerit, which is absurd.

Moreover, that the reason which chiefly moved Scotus to assert the immediate concourse of God to the matter of sin was the foreknowledge of future contingents, and the determinate objective truth of those, which Scotus requires from a decree immutating a future objectively to be such, or not to be; which objective immutation, bursting forth from the decree, demands the immediate concourse of the divine will concerning such a thing willed, or one thus objectively immutated.

Wherefore, on the contrary, as Aureolus disapproved the immediate concourse of God about free acts, so he denied the determinate truth of free acts before their actual emanation from their causes: whence he also asserts, less truly, that futures of this kind are known from eternity by God: although determinate truth is not available from eternity to futures. On which matter we have read in freeing Aureolus from those who brand him with the note, that he denied in God a determinate foreknowledge of futures, as is evident from what was premised below, in this distinction, article 4, from num. 44 up to 49.

Since these things therefore are so, I am not deceived as to how Dolanus defends the determinate truth of future contingents; since he drives out the immediate concourse of God to free acts, and wars against all the Predeterminants, and the assertors of middle knowledge. Because those who assert middle knowledge, just as they profess a determinate objective truth that is conditioned, so also they admit the determinate truth of conditionals, not only on the side of the object, but also on the side of the act; which, although it is not actually in God, would nevertheless be in him if the condition were fulfilled. And for the same reason, just as they assert decrees concerning such objects, so also they maintain the immediate concourse of God in a conditioned way, without which such determinate conditioned truth does not subsist among them. In what way therefore Dolanus, without any immediate conditioned concourse, asserts objective truth; I do not perceive. Of which again against Dolanus in the following distinction, on the foreknowledge of conditioned contingents, 4. 2. 4. margin-n. 53 up to 57.

Lastly, I object against the aforesaid author that he presses his attack and charge against the Predeterminants with great insistence, on the assumption that all or most of them hold that God concurs in acts of free choice through an action identified with the action of free choice. Yet this view, common among Jesuit authors, differs from the common Thomist account: Thomists do not distinguish God’s action from his eternal substance. On this point the Scotist school agrees with them, holding habitually that action belongs to the agent and not the patient, as though it had not thought otherwise. Given this, the action of God, intrinsically conjoined with and identified with him, cannot really be identified with the influx of a created cause. Further, if God were to predetermine the created will through that same cooperation of the will as proceeding from God, such predetermination could not be real and physical, but only conceptual and rational, as we have often observed.

These points arise in the aforesaid disputation of Dolanus; they may divert the reader and strengthen the opposing opinion of the theologians concerning God’s immediate concourse to the free acts of the created will (whether identified with the act or not—a distinction that matters little to the disputation’s principal aim). Nevertheless, I dare not condemn Dolanus’s opinion, which Scotus did not disapprove and which the judgment of weighty men has confirmed.

Moreover—and this is important to me—every created cause, whether natural or free, cannot be determined from an intrinsic principle to this individual action; therefore it needs the determination of the first cause’s concourse. Aureolus did not extricate himself from this knot, although he denied that an individual produced by one cause could be generated by another cause of the same species; nor did Vázquez, who, speaking less philosophically and yielding under pressure, when he saw that this opinion conflicted with the Jesuit position disapproving the determination of free choice by God, wished to number it among nature’s hidden secrets. We discuss this at length in article 5, in the physical digression under numbers 46 and 57, in our arguments against Dolanus and Vázquez.

Lastly, that the aforesaid opinion, rejecting the immediate concourse to the matter of sin, rests upon no slight foundation, Petrus Hurtado asserts among the more recent writers, in his Physica, disp. 10, on the first cause, sect. 2, subsect. 3, § 35. But on freeing Aureolus from a new censure, on account of the denial of the concourse of God to the matter of sin, see below from n. 107 up to 111.

It is shown against Aureolus, that God concurs immediately to the matter of sin; where the proofs of Scotus are weighed, and the foundations of Gregory of Rimini, and of Gabriel Vázquez are rejected.

21 Moreover; because we do not receive Aureolus, whom we wish immune from us, his placitum must be stormed; and first, even with a light pen, the weak attacks of such an opinion are to be confuted. Thus therefore against Aureolus Vázquez constructs a reason from Gregory and Gabriel in the cited place, capit. 3, under num. 11. Both the terminus of an action that is immanent and vital, and that which is produced through exterior illumination, depends immediately upon its own cause not only in becoming, but also in being conserved. But those termini, while they draw the benefit of conservation from their causes, depend also immediately upon God; therefore, just as they are conserved immediately by God, so are they effected; since no reason appears why they should draw conservation from God, and their production not so?

But that, while the terms of vital actions, and of external illuminations also, are immediately conserved by their causes, namely by the living faculties and by luminous bodies, they are also immediately conserved by God, is thus shown.

For it would come about, that if God did not immediately conserve forms of this kind, he could not bring it about that the vital faculties, and the luminous agents, should be able to cease from their actions; unless either by destroying the operative principles, or by sending in a form positively contrary to such an operation; yet not through the mere cessation of the divine influx: which seems absurd, and unworthy of God.

The sequel is plain; because the causality of any operative principle cannot be impeded otherwise than in a threefold way: as if by a more powerful agent a contrary form be impressed; for example, if while snow chills, a more vehement fire heats, by retarding and weakening the action of the contrary; or if the operating principle be destroyed; or on account of the negation, or suspension, of the divine concourse. Therefore, if God did not immediately conserve the action, it would follow that by no other means could he blunt the energy of the agent except by destroying the agent itself. Or by sending in a contrary form more powerful than its energy; yet not through the mere negation of himself; which seems to be judged altogether alien to the power of God.

And the argument is pressed in forms that lack a positive contrary, as in the illuminating action of the Sun, which, since it cannot be taken away by the immission of a contrary action, it would follow that God could not bring it about that, the Sun surviving, it should not exhibit its illuminating action.

33 But the aforesaid proofs do not seem to compel; both because they do not conclude universally, but specially against the term of illumination, and of vital action. Wherefore one might cavil; that the collection is enervated which is drawn from the aforesaid terms of actions, to all the other remaining ones, which do not hang upon created causes in their conservation. For one might contrive; that just as it is singular in terms of this kind, that they hang immediately in their conservation upon their created causes: so also that they hang immediately in their conservation upon God; so that such a doctrine must not of necessity be extended to the terms of other actions.

Next, that although Durandus intimate that the actions of secondary causes do not hang upon God immediately in their conservation; that nevertheless Aureolus openly reproves, asserting that although an action can be given which in its first efflux from the created cause does not hang upon God; it yet implicates a created action, which may happen not to hang in its conservation upon the first cause. From which it is deduced, that God could by a mere suspension of the concourse impede the conservation of any created action whatever; nay even, that by a mere suspension of the influx he could not take away the first emanation of the action from a created principle.

But when you press Aureolus; that if God is the immediate cause of the conservation of all creatures, so much ought he to be the immediate principle of their production.

He answers by denying the syllogism; for that immediate universal conservation of creatures is more proper to God than their production; since God assumes every operating creature to the fellowship of the productive action of its effects; yet not to the fellowship of the conservative action of them. For that de facto God conserves by himself alone, without the consent of secondary causes, all creatures (besides the terms of vital actions and of external illuminations, which are conserved by created causes) nevertheless he does not effect creatures without the concourse of secondary causes. Therefore the conservative action of creatures is more proper and singular to God than their production; since to all created agents he communicated the elicitive power, yet not the conservative power of their effects; and accordingly not from this; that he conserve immediately the actions of all created agents, is it inferred that he elicits them immediately.

Thus therefore says Aureolus in the place cited, in his answer to the first. Ad idem facit; quia Deus communicat actiones creaturae, et non communicat eis conseruationem: quaelibet enim res immediatè, et totaliter conseruatur à Deo, sed non quaelibet res totaliter, et immediatè producitur à Deo, sed per causas secundas; ergo non est idem creatio, et conseruatio. — "To the same it tends; because God communicates to the creature the actions, and does not communicate to them the conservation: for every thing is conserved immediately and totally by God, but not every thing is produced totally and immediately by God, but by secondary causes; therefore creation and conservation are not the same."

But if you press against Aureolus; that, given the immediate conservation of a wicked act by God; the same inconveniences follow which war against the immediate effecting of a sinful act.

It can be answered by denying the disparity; because it is one thing to premote, or to concurr, to the first effecting of sin; another, upon the supposition of the emanation of such an act from a deficient created cause, according to the exigency of secondary causes and for the office of the first cause, to concurr to the conservation of the wicked act.

34 These assaults therefore being lost; against Aureolus one must go with the reasons of Scotus, which although they proceed specially about the immediate concourse of God to the acts of created will; yet also aim at God's operating immediately with every created agent upon the production of every effect whatsoever.

Which proofs Scotus instills upon us, in 2. sententiar. dist. 37. quaest. 2. vbi inquirit.

Whether the created will be the total and immediate cause of its own willing, so that God with respect to it have no immediate efficacy, but mediate? For there, §. Contra istam opinionem arguitur dupliciter. sub n. marg. 8. he contends by two reasons that God immediately concurr to the acts of created will.

The first is; that if God, through his absolute volition, inasmuch as it is of an objecting external causality, or of his divine faculty of execution, did not immediately touch the acts of the created will; such acts would not bear that objective determination which can be the object of the infallible divine judgment; and consequently God would not be foreknowing of futures. Which reason we shall lay open below for the principal confirmation of our position; where we shall also transcribe it textually, under n. 45 and 46.

The other reason is: that if God did not contribute immediate concourse to the acts of the created will, he would not be omnipotent; which proof Scotus supports in a threefold way in the cited place, where he subjoins.

35. The proof of the second consequence in three ways. First; because whatever the Omnipotent is able to do, this comes to pass; but if he wills that my volition be, and this is in the power of my will, as of a total cause bearing itself contingently toward that; therefore the volition itself can be determined of itself to one part, or to the other, indifferently; and so the act can fail to obtain that to which the divine will determined it.

36 Secondly; because the divine will cannot impede my will, save by doing violence to it; for if it be determined of itself to one part, from the very fact that it has been determined to one thing it cannot be impeded except violently: but that the will be violated involves a contradiction; therefore God cannot impede the thing willed by my will. Concerning the second proof, however, of Scotus, who contends that if the will could operate without the immediate cooperation of God, God would not be able to incline the created will to the other part of the contradiction opposed to that which the will had pre-chosen, except by doing violence to the will; whereas it is nevertheless implicatory that the will be able to be violated as regards elicited acts, though indeed as regards commanded acts it can be.

Against the aforesaid reason of Scotus it is also objected; that if the will had resolved to hold God in hatred; God could, by himself alone, have effected in the created will a most vehement act of love, without its effective concourse; by which form, positively contrary to the act of hatred, (a more intense love prevailing,) the opposite hatred would be checked without violence to the will; since an act of love elicited by God alone, although it be not free, is nevertheless voluntary (inasmuch as voluntary signifies that which, according to natural exigency, demands to be elicited from an intrinsic principle with cognition, as we showed, in controversy 9, On the Vision of God, distinct. 3, subdistinct. 1, art. 1.) and consequently not against the internal impetus of the will, nor inferring violence upon it.

Which opposition shows that the proof of Scotus, which we transcribed under num. 36, is not conclusive, the principles of his school being presupposed, which is wont to hold that the created will can be constituted in the being of one pursuing, or fleeing, an object through the form of volition sent by God into the will bearing itself merely passively. Although the proof of Scotus has force in the more common opinion of the Thomists, who assert that the created will cannot add the vital denomination of one willing, or nilling, through a form not elicited by itself. On which see the Ferrariensis transcribed by us in this ar. under num. mar. 13.

39 The third reason of Scotus, from num. 37, is the firmer and more common one, inasmuch as it shows that not only the acts of the created will, but not even any participated being, can be effected without the immediate concourse of God. For to this tend those pronouncements of Scotus: The will of the Omnipotent produces the object willed in being for that time, for when he wills that it be; for there is no other act of the divine will in respect of an angel, or of any other created being, whereby it is produced into being. Because the acts of our will are produced by the divine will into willed being by the same reason; just as an angel is produced, and any other created being. But that a creature be produced by the divine will into willed being, according to the phrase of Scotus, which we have often weighed, is nothing other than that the creature be objectively changed to futurition; so that it be drawn out from the mere collection of possibles, and drawn to the class of futures.

But indeed, no created being can be drawn from itself, or from any created cause, from the aggregate of possibles into the series of futures, but only from the efficacious act of the divine determination: since for that sign, and presupposition of reason, for which possible creatures antecede the free proposals of the divine will, they are conceived only with a non-repugnance to existing, but not with an objective mutation toward futurition. Nor for that sign of reason is the created thing understood as the principle, or efficient cause of another, but from the decree of the divine will it is drawn that such an effect proceed from this cause, and not from another; since it is precontained within the virtuality of several agents of the same species, and is of itself potential that it be elicited from this cause rather than another.

Then especially; that a possible thing, for that sign of presupposition to the decree, is conceived in negative being, or in non-repugnance to existing, without production into willed being, as Scotus speaks, or without objective immutation according to the common manner of speaking; and hence there is not force available to it to immutate another possible thing to an absolute and infallible futurition for some difference of time; since a possible being cannot transfuse into an effect that mutation, or habitude to existing, which it does not itself have: therefore every objective mutation of creatures to futurition is drawn from the free volition of God.

Nor again can a cause already objectively mutated to futurition by the absolute decree of God be the objective ratio of the mutation to absolute futurition in a free act; because the objective mutation of a future, or the passive production in being willed according to the phrase of Scotus, demands a real volition exercised from all eternity; and efficacious also, and unimpedable, from all eternity, such as the volition of any created principle is not, so that from it could be awaited the passive production of some future object in being willed, or the objective mutation through which the future is drawn out from the mere collection of possibles, and contracted to the series of futures.

Therefore from the decree of God is drawn the absolute and objective mutation of every created future; and accordingly, also from the absolute decree of God, (that it performed the function of the externa causality, or the use of that divine faculty executing,) the existence of every created being ought also to be effected immediately. The sequel is proved; because real existence essentially premits the absolute futurition of the thing, as a being existing essentially supposes a being future, or objectively mutated to an absolute futurition. But the thing cannot be objectively mutated to an absolute and infallible futurition without the immediate efficacy of the divine will; therefore neither can the thing be drawn from the eminence and virtuality of causes to the state of position outside causes, without an immediate dependence upon the will of God, or upon that faculty of his executing.

With these proofs of Scotus we join that which has sinews, and makes much trouble against the deniers of the premotion of the first cause to the matter of sin; which we ask from the subtle Theologian and Metaphysician William of Rubuse, auditor of Scotus, as is plain from those things which we transcribe from him below, in the present article sub num. marg. 52. where he so far sustains that the secondary cause be determined by the first to the matter of sin; that free choice cannot be determined by an intrinsic principle to such an individual of operation. By which reason also Gregory of Rimini has made use, transcribed by us sub numer. marginal. 77. although inconsequently he alters it, that God is roused, or moved, by our wicked operation to influx into the substrate, or matter of sin; as we observe there.

The text of Scotus for deciding the dissertation; from which we evince, of the mind of Scotus, that the premotion of God must of necessity be sustained to the materials of the acts of the wicked.

40 THUS luculently did Scotus report the premotion, or predetermination, to the substrate of sin; so that he alone can be in doubt who blinds himself willingly. Thus therefore teaches Scotus, in 1. sentent. distinct. 41. q. unica. §. Sed adhuc contra istud instatur. num. marg. 13. vbi inquit.

» It is urged; because God would not certitudinally foresee that Judas should be evil, upon that way. For the mere permission of any act, and certitude about the permission, does not make a certitude about that act, because there ought to be had some efficient cause; therefore from this alone, that God foresees, that he wills to permit Judas to sin, he will not be certain of Judas about to sin, or that Judas will be about to sin.

» Moreover; what is that willing to permit Lucifer to sin? If this is some positive act of the will with respect to sin; therefore it seems, that he wills him to sin. If it is not a positive act with respect to the act of sin; but with respect to the act of permission; then it will be a reflex act, and then one will have to ask of that permission, what act it is? If a positive act of the will; therefore it seems still, that God have a positive act with respect to the sin which he permits.

» 41 The first of these is solved by this, that God foresees that he will concur to the substance of that act, which will be sin; but this he foresees, because he wills to concur to it; if it be a sin of commission.

» Or he foresaw that he would not concur to an act — Scotus — any act, if he does not will it, and this having been known, the first act is a sin of omission: and by knowing that he would concur to such substance of an act with circumstances not due, or that he would not concur to it for a necessary act, and consequently which he will omit, he will know that he will be about to sin.

So that he knows this one about to sin, not only because he knows that he would permit; but also because he knows that he would concur to this one about the substance of an act not circumstantiated; consequently he commits; or that he would not concur to him for a necessary act, and consequently he omits.

» 42 The second doubtful difficulty inquires, touching the divine will, of which not now, but elsewhere.

» Of those opinions, because the Apostle seems, disputing about that matter, in the final part of the Romans, to leave all as it were unsearchable: (O the depth of the riches, of the wisdom, and of the knowledge of God! and who hath known the sense of the Lord, or who was his counsellor?) Therefore lest by searching, and profoundity, according to the saying of the Master, one should go into the depth, let that be chosen which more pleases, provided however that the divine liberty be saved without any injustice, and the other things which must be saved about God; so that he who chooses liberally; and whoever shall hold another opinion, let him answer to the things that have been done against it.

43 From which words it liquidly patesceth, how confiting an assertor Scotus was of physical predetermination (of the determined malice of moral evil; which those words especially demonstrate which we transcribed under num. 41. He knows this one about to sin, not only because he knows that he would permit, but also because he knows that he would concur. Where Scotus, distinguishing the permissive and the cooperative will of God, teaches, that in the will of permitting sin, it cannot be that sin be foreseen by God; but in the will of cooperating; for that the will of permitting the lapse can be so interpreted, as to involve an indeterminate concourse to contraries and contradictories, and only to decree the wicked act by hypothesis, and importing the condition, if created will wills.

And accordingly upon the mere permissive will, viewed by itself, the determinate and infallible futurition of the wicked act cannot be apprehended by God; if the very determination of the creature be not observed. But when the act of created will, upon Scotus, for the whole state of futurition, and as it is drawn out toward all duration antecedent to the production of such an act (if the objective mutation, or the infallible determination to futurition, which accrues to our volition from the absolute proposition of the divine will, be removed) does not have determinate truth in itself; even upon the supposition of any hypothesis whatever (since every supposition of futurition, the objective mutation to being-determinately-future being cut off, which is sought from the absolute decree of God, is beneath the potentiality of a free principle indeterminate to either.)

There remains; that besides the permissive will, which does not appear to have an influx contracted to such species and individuation of the act, that will be required which is called cooperative by Scotus; which certainly determines in second act, and by way of actual cooperation, our will to one part of the contradiction, with such energy of concourse, that it obtain assent, or dissent, infallibly.

But if such disparity between the permissive and the cooperative will be not constituted, according to the mind of Scotus; it would be pronounced stolidly, that in the mere permissive will the future contingents of wicked acts cannot be apprehended: yet indeed in the cooperative will. Moreover, if we were to assert the cooperative will, that which contracts the community of the divine concourse, and moves determinately by way of second act to one part of the contradiction, (without our cooperation being awaited as determinative of the communicated or potential causality of the divine ę, indifferent to contraries and contradictories) we cannot sustain such cooperation, not predetermining or premoting.

Lastly, from those words; He knows that this man will sin, not only because he knows that he will permit, but also because he knows that he will cooperate. It is sufficiently and more than sufficiently clear, that Scotus acknowledged no other rationale of predetermining, which does not pertain to the act second, or to actual cooperation. For if God otherwise predetermined the created will to the matter of sin, Scotus would have rendered that rationale of determining, distinct from the actual and exercised cooperation itself, a sufficient medium on the side of the object for the foreknowledge of the material, or substrate, of moral malice; whereas he so seriously turns over and searches out the contraction of the second cause by the first toward the matter of sin.

44 From which is uncovered the frivolous and extorted interpretation of Hugo Cavel, which in a marginal annotation of this place he invents; subjoining. That the aforesaid letter of the Doctor is not understood of the absolute decree, unless our free cooperation be foreseen. For if the foreknowledge of our free cooperation be necessarily required for this, that God in his decree foresee the future contingents; why was it denied, that such futures be apprehended in the mere permissive will? Whereas yet the will of permitting, our cooperation being taken in, may well be a sufficient medium of infallible judgment?

Next; that if, upon Scotus, our operation has not in itself a determinate truth, or a determination, from eternity by hypothesis of some futurition, which does not erupt from the absolute proposition of God; wherefore it imports extrinsic contraction only that which accrues to it from the decree; which is the very objective mutation to a determinate fore, or the infallible destination of such a cooperation to existing for such a difference of time. When however the principle of the objective mutation antecede, by causality, the mutation, which it produces; so far is it away, that the divine volition, which produces the acts of created volition in acted willed being, according to the phrase of Scotus, or denotes those unimpedibly to futurity, should depend in its determination upon the knowledge of created will; but, on the contrary, the operation of created will (the divine motion being cut off) is left neither neutral nor indifferent to being about to be, or not about to be; and accordingly not attaining that objective determination which might be the object of infallible foreknowledge, and contract the divine will to such a species of motion and influx.

Two other testimonies of Scotus for the concursive premotion of God to the matter of sin.

45 THIS doctrine I fortify with another most excellent proof of Scotus; which he constructs against those who asserted that God does not immediately concurr to the acts of our will; which he delivers in the place cited, ex 2. sent. dist. 37. q. 2. §. cõtra istam opinionem arguitur sub n. mar. 8. where he says.

From it itself it follows; that God be not naturally prescient of futures. Because he has no science about future contingents, unless because certitudinally he knows the determination of his own will with respect to those things, toward which his will is immutable, and unimpedible; but if the created will be the total cause with respect to its own willing, and itself holds itself contingently toward that willing: therefore however much the divine will be posited determined to one part of those things which depend upon the created will, the created will could will otherwise; and thus no certitude follows from the cognition of the determination of the divine will.

But that we may proceed with a purified exposition of the Scotican proof, I premit. That if God did not immediately concurr to the acts of our will, (as Durandus feigned, and as Aureolus asserted about the wicked acts,) but such acts flowed forth from the created will alone as from the immediate principle; if the opinion of the Jesuits about the infallible determination, by hypothesis, of futurition, or about the determinate truth of future contingents in themselves, were true; the determinate truth in the very acts of created will could not be rejected, on the hypothesis of futurition; nay even that God did not immediately concurr to such acts.

But Scotus, on the contrary, just as he rejected all that truth of futures which is not posited in an objective mutation, which is drawn from the decree; supposing that God could effect nothing physical concerning the acts of our will could immediately perform, so neither would he have been able to produce them into willed being, or to destine them to an unimpedible futurition. That objective mutation which is left by the decree being cut off, the whole rationale of futurition vanishes, or the determination of the truth of acts of this kind.

Having set out these preliminaries, I construct the argument in this way. No hypothesis (or supposition of a determined futurity, with the production of the creature in the willed being taken away, or with the objective mutation that is drawn from the decree) is such as imports an objective infallible determination; so that the act of our will — however much it be asserted to be most determined to be about to be, by the hypothesis of futurity — if it were not contracted by the decree of God to one side of the contradiction by an objective mutation toward existing for such a difference of time, would not be determinately true, nor knowable by God.

Therefore, that a wicked act could be foreknown by God, not only is required the will that offers a concourse indeterminate, common to contraries and contradictories; but there is required a volition that objectively mutates the act of our will to the infallible existence for such a difference of time. So that the wicked act, before the mutation toward being-about-to-be which it draws from the decree, is conceived as neither true nor false; upon the advent, however, of God's statute, it passes over into the infallible class of future things.

But a contraction or objective mutation of this kind, in which is placed the adequate reason of the truth of the contingent wicked act, presupposes the decree as the efficient principle of such a mutation; therefore such a determination is a predetermination, as being the reason of the whole determination of our volition.

46 Moreover, the argument proceeds against Hugh Cavellus, [Fabri], Smisingius, and other Neoteric Scotists manifestly departing from the camp of Scotus. For as is plain from those words: Non habet scientiam de futuris contingentibus nisi quia certitudinaliter nouit determinationem voluntatis suae respectu eorum, ad quae voluntas est immutabilis, et inimpedibilis — "He has no knowledge of future contingents unless because he knows with certitude the determination of his will regarding those things toward which the will is immutable and unimpedible."

Scotus would have exhibited an empty and futile proof, if he had proceeded from a will involving the condition of the cooperation of a created cause, at the arbitrament of one contracting the divine will as possible to himself toward such a species of action; for such a will would be impedeible by a created will (upon its dissenting nod).

Nor would the divine will be said to be frustrated, since in the said hypothesis it decrees the act of our will only conditionally, supposing that the will itself wills. Just as neither would the will of Peter, disposing himself to walk with Paul, be frustrated if he will it, Paul not giving consent; for as Peter had provided nothing about the walking except at Paul's arbitrament, so the will of Peter, which precedes the foreknowledge of Paul's cooperation, could not be accounted absolute, immutable, or unimpedeible.

Whence, just as if Peter had not determined to run except at Paul's wish, inept could be rendered the reason of the futurity of such a course, looking at the will of Peter alone; so, if that determination in which God, with Scotus, foreknows the future were to import the condition of the cooperation of a created cause to be purified by the created will, there would be sought from the divine will alone an insufficient and inept reason of futurity. And yet Scotus, while he most frequently unravels the medium on the side of the object of the foreknowledge of future things (as is plain from the places we have frequently cited throughout that whole distinction), has not once named the foreknowledge of the cooperation of a created cause, which might be the reason for the contraction of the divine will to such a species of influx; and if it were required, [Scotus] would manifestly show that in a matter of such weight [his opponent] had proceeded drowsily and stupidly. I add, and that he expressly asserted that God is not determined by a created will to act in such a manner; see on this infra, under n. 61, at the end.

47 There is added, further, another perspicuous testimony of Scotus for the determination to the matter of sin, ex 1. sentent. dist. 41. quaest. unica, at the section on Uiterius in particular, under margin-num. 9, in which, while he argues against Henry, who asseverates that the foreseen good use of free choice from grace is the cause of the predestination of the elect, he subjoins: Deus non praeuidet, istum bene usurum libero arbitrio, nisi quia vult, vel praeordinat, istum bene usurum eo. Quia sicut dictum est dist. 39. certa praeuisio futurorum contingentium est ex determinatione voluntatis diuinae. — "God does not foresee that this man will use his free choice well, unless because he wills or pre-ordains this man to use it well. For as was said in dist. 39, the certain foresight of future contingents is from the determination of the divine will. Si ergo offerantur voluntati diuinae duo aequales in naturalibus; quaero, quare istum praeordinat bene usurum libero arbitrio, et illum non? Non est huius, vt videtur, assignare rationem, nisi voluntatem diuinam; et haec est prima distinctio inter eos, quam sequitur electio, vel reprobatio: ergo in prima distinctione pertinente ad praedestinationem, sola ratio est diuina voluntas." — "If therefore two equals are offered to the divine will in natural things, I ask, why does he pre-ordain this one to use his free choice well, and not that one? The reason of this, as it seems, is not to be assigned except the divine will; and this is the first distinction between them, which election or reprobation follows: therefore in the first distinction pertaining to predestination, the sole reason is the divine will."

There Scotus performs several things most to the purpose; first, that he reports and stabilizes that doctrine which he had delivered in 1 sent. dist. 39, q. unica, which text we transcribed in article 4 of this distinction from margin-n. 11 to 14, in which we had confirmed, as Scotus's own assertion, that doctrine which recognizes in a future contingent no other determined truth or intelligibility except a production in the willed being, or an objective mutation erupting from the absolute decree.

Second, that with most express words he defends that God pre-ordains the good use of free choice from grace, and also the wicked as to its matter, without expecting any other reason of knowing the oblique use that would be sought from a determined truth of the act in itself (which there he openly rejects), but from the absolute decree of the divine will, as is plain from those words: Non est huius assignare rationem nisi voluntatem diuinam; et haec est prima distinctio inter eos. — "The reason of this is not to be assigned except the divine will; and this is the first distinction between them."

That the testimony of Scotus also wholly rejects a science of conditionals in the determined truth of those conditionals, with the actual decree about the conditioned complex removed — just as it admits a science of conditionals in a free decree — wherefore with that text we strengthen our own doctrine in the following distinction on the foreknowledge of conditionals, art. 1, margin-n. 21, in which we also defend Scotus from the attack of Vitalis Zuccolius, the expounder of Henry, who assails Scotus because he asserted that God pre-ordains the wicked use of free choice as to its matter.

The testimonies of Bassolius and William of Rubione, Auditors of Scotus, for the determination of God to the matter of sin, and for the potentiality of free choice toward such an individual of action.

48 Wherefore John Bassolius, Auditor of Scotus, defended the determination of God to the matters of sin expressly; in 1 sentent. dist. 38, quaest. unica, art. 2, at the section on Ad primum eorum, where he thus teaches.

Ad confirmationem; quòd Deus non potest determinare aliquem ad odiendum se ipsum, scilicet Deum. Dico; quòd sicut Deus potest creare actum odiendi se ipsum, et id quod est sibi positiuum, et propter se ipsum, vt propter finem naturalem actus, non obstante quòd sumè diligat se ipsum; ita etiam potest determinare aliquem ad actum odiendi se ipsum, dato quòd ipse Deus in hoc non peccet, sed summè diligat se ipsum. — "Toward the confirmation; that God cannot determine someone to hating himself, namely God. I say, that just as God can create an act of hating himself, and that which is positive to himself, and for himself, as for the natural end of the act, notwithstanding that he loves himself most supremely; so also he can determine someone to the act of hating himself, granted that God himself does not sin in this, but loves himself most supremely."

Ad aliam confirmationem; quando dicis; quòd saltim aequalis necessitas te peccaret peccator, sicut ignis calefacit. — "Toward the other confirmation; when you say, that at least an equal necessity would make you, sinner, sin, as fire heats."

Dico; quòd verum est quantum ad hoc, quòd stante diuina voluntate, quòd ignis calefaciat praesente combustibili, impossibile est quòd ignis non calefaciat; ita necessitate consequentiae impossibile est, quòd iste non peccet. Non tamen naturaliter peccat, nec à principio naturali sicut ignis; sed à principio libero, quod quidem determinatum est ad peccandum, non naturaliter, sed liberè. — "I say; that this is true in this regard, that, the divine will standing that fire heat with combustible matter present, it is impossible that fire do not heat; so, by the necessity of the consequence, it is impossible that this man not sin. Yet he does not sin naturally, nor from a natural principle as fire does; but from a free principle, which indeed has been determined to sinning, not naturally, but freely."

Where Bassolius acutely, or thence, brings it out, that God can, without injury to his supreme sanctity and innocence, determine free choice to elicit an act of hatred of God; because he can, without the effective concourse of the created will, produce an act of hatred of God in the created will, it bearing itself merely passively: in which hypothesis God would not be the cause of sin, as is evident, since neither would the created will bearing itself merely passively sin; and under the same comparison of causality the power of God would be terminated to the act of hatred, and without a mark of sin in either hypothesis, whether when he concurs with the will that sins, or when without sin on the part of the will bearing itself merely passively, he produces an act of hatred in the created will.

For that is what those pronouncements of Basolius intend: just as God can create the act of hating himself and on account of himself, as on account of the natural end of the act; so he can determine someone to the act of hating himself, etc. On which see what we did against Didacus Ruiz, who denies that God can cause an act of hatred in the created will bearing itself passively; and against Ferrara, who asserts that the will bearing itself passively could not hold God in hatred, against whom we disputed from Aureolus: see n. 13 of this article.

49 To Basolius assents that other distinguished auditor of Scotus, Guil. Rubionus, or de Rubione, who published four most learned volumes on the four books of the Sentences in the year of the Lord 1323, under Gerard, Minister General of the Order, under whom the aforesaid Guil. de Rubione administered the Province of Aragon as its Minister Provincial: that this Guil. de Rubione was a disciple of Scotus, the learned man Dermicius Thadaei accurately observed, in his Nitela Franciscana Religionis against Bzovius, fol. mihi 27. And the reason and the series of times agree, because Scotus died in the year 1308. Scotus therefore obtained two distinguished adherents from among our Spaniards and from the kingdom of Aragon, and auditors: Antonius Andreas, a most faithful follower of the Master, and Guilielmus de Rubione.

But William not only confirms that doctrine which, in the preceding physical digression, we established concerning the indetermination of the second cause to the production of this individual rather than another; nay rather, he also seeks from it the necessity of the divine determination, in that, such determination being removed, there is left no second cause, whether natural or free, proximately expedited to actual influx. Thus therefore he teaches in 1. sen. distinct. 38. quaest. 1. conclusione 3. The second cause, in the manner touched upon in the conclusion, is determined; not by any other than by the first cause.

Proof; for either the second cause (say, this fire) is determined to produce this fire, and not another; and the created will to produce this act of willing, or nilling, rather than another, by itself, or by another second cause, or by the first. But not by itself; nor by another second cause: therefore by the first.

The minor is proved; and first as to its first part; namely, that not of itself. For neither fire, nor any other natural agent, which of itself is a uniformly productive principle of all effects of the same kind, and consequently is equally indeterminate toward all of them, can determine itself to produce one rather than another; nor to produce this one first and another second, rather than the contrary.

The created will also, although it freely wills or nills, cannot nevertheless will or nill through every act of willing or nilling; for the will cannot elicit any act already produced by another: nor can it again elicit an act once elicited by itself. Nor even, in regard to the same object often willed or nilled, does it seem that an act elicited in the second instance could have been elicited in the first: nor one elicited in the first, in the second: therefore the second cause does not seem to be of itself determined, but rather indeterminate; since it is no more productive of this effect than of another of the same rationale, as far as lies in itself.

50 The aforesaid author also most highly supports this opinion in 2. sent. dist. 34, where he weighs the question Whether God is the cause of sin; for there in q. 2 of the aforesaid distinction, under the § There are here two doubts, he supplies us with the following doctrine learnedly enough. To the first, in which they argue against another dictum given above, concerning the determination of the first cause as necessary to the second cause for acting. To the first, it must be said; that although a natural cause is determined to act, or to produce a determinate effect in species, as fire fire, it is not determined to an individual: and therefore, although fire does not need something determining it to produce fire, it yet needs something determining it to produce now this fire, now another. For unless some cause thus determined it to produce a certain and determinate individual, this fire would no more produce now this fire, and afterwards another distinct from the former, than the converse; so that it would either produce both at once; or be able to produce neither.

51 And this reason can be assigned, why the same thing, corrupted, cannot naturally be repaired; namely, because no secondary cause can act except toward that effect to which it is determined by the first cause: but the first cause does not determine the second, nor does it co-act it toward any corrupt effect to be repaired, the same in number.

For since that fire, once corrupted, is no more nothing, nor impossible after it has been corrupted, than it was before it existed, having been produced by another fire; consequently, that then it could be produced naturally, and not otherwise — this does not seem able to be except from the first cause unwilling to co-act the second toward the same effect in number except once.

52 To the second, about a free agent, it must be said in like manner; that neither can it determine itself to one act rather than another, of itself and by itself. For although the will can will or nill whatever is presented to it; yet that, regarding that object understood, it elicit now this act of willing or of nilling, and afterward another distinct from the former, rather than the reverse — this cannot be except from the uncreated will determining it, and co-acting it now toward this act, and afterward toward another.

53 To the confirmation; it must be said that the first cause determines the created will to one of the two opposites by a determination de inesse only; but not de possibili; nay, in that way it is indeterminate.

And therefore, although de inesse it is determined to one only, yet it is not necessitated; since it remains indeterminate de possibili. Wherefore it can [be about] that to which it is not determined; it can (I say) de possibili: yet it does not make it de facto.

From this it appears that it does not follow, what is inferred; namely, that it is not sufficiently determined. For it is thus sufficiently determined de inesse, that nothing else de inesse, or de facto, ever happens than that to which it is determined; although it could de possibili happen.

And by this the free agent is distinguished from the natural agent, which is so determined de possibili and de inesse, that, of itself, it can neither do, nor does do, anything other than that to which it is determined.

There the aforesaid author renders that the best physical reason, which we set forth in the preceding digression under n. 73, showing against Vázquez why — that because every individual, within its own virtuality, has pre-had all the individuals of the same species, it cannot reproduce a corrupted effect? Namely, because God does not premove or determine the secondary cause to the reproduction of the same individual.

Next; since the aforesaid author, weighing the concourse of God toward the matter of sin, establishes universally that God determines our will, wholly indifferent of itself toward the production of this sinful individual before another; he plainly judges that [God determines] toward the matters of wicked acts; as is plain from those things which we have done against Suárez, articul. 5. of this distinction, from n. 27. to 29.

That predetermination William's doctrine reports, which we set forth under n. 53 of this article; where he asseverates that that contraction which the secondary cause seeks from the first — that it is that unimpedeible determination, asserted de inesse, or de facto; which is to asseverate a will absolute about the matters of wicked acts, and not expecting the knowledge of the cooperation of a created cause.

See the coherent opinion of that other most celebrated Auditor of Scotus, Francis Maironius, below under number 98, where especially occur those words to be recalled, which instil the general doctrine of the determinate truth of all contingents, even of wicked acts. For thus he has it, in 1 sentent. dist. 39. quaest. 4. §. Quantùm ad secundum.

This then, namely the first, being proved, sufficiently evidently. To every active predestination there corresponds necessarily some passive; but the divine will from eternity produced those future beings into willed existence, which is nothing else than an action unto determining. To the cited place there, ar. 98.

54. In support of the physical predetermination also of the substrate of moral malice, Franciscus Lycheus, Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor and a learned interpreter of Scotus, is deservedly cited; who in 2. sen. dist. 39. q. 4. a. 2. there inquires, whether it can be from God through a cause, under 4; there, from the profane way, he says.

I suppose one thing for myself, that between the first and the second cause there is simply an essential order in causing; so that every second cause acts in the virtue of the first, and moves in that manner in which it is moved by the first.

Therefore, in Lycherus, the motion of God to the matters of wicked acts being weighed, the created will that fails does not determine God to concourse, as the adversaries speak; but on the contrary the created will is moved by God and contracted to the matter of such deformity.

Peter Tartaret, professor at Paris, concurs, in 1. sent. dist. 39. de praescientia futurorum contingentium. §. et hoc quantum ad tres quaestiones. where in concl. 3 he says.

The third conclusion: a future contingent, for this that it be made determinate to one side of the contradiction, must have an extrinsic cause determining it to one side. For the confirmation of which conclusion he very often turns over, as a Scotist axiom, that which we showed above: that the act of the created will obtains from eternity no other rationale of determinate sciibility, besides that which is posited in the objective mutation drawn from the absolute decree.

In order, therefore, that a wicked act about to be may be foreknown by God, there must necessarily be premised, of the mind of Scotus, an absolute determination of the futurition of an act of this kind, in which the adequate rationale of its knowability consists. But that that extrinsic determination, which the aforesaid author assigns as the adequate rationale of the determinate truth of a contingent future, is the divine will, is plain from the same author in the cited place under concl. 6, where he says: The primary and extrinsic cause determining a contingent future to one part of the contradiction is the divine will.

Therefore, in Tartaret, the created will, failing, does not excite and move the uncreated will, of itself indeterminate, to give assent to the matter of sin. Because the created determination, for that priority for which the indifference of the divine will stands, just as among the adversaries it must be maintained as determinately true, and consequently as knowable by God, so that after it contracts the indifference of the divine will, which it could not determine unless such a created determination to evil were foreknown by God infallibly and determinately; so the created determination would not derive its knowability from the absolute purpose of God; which is against the common consensus of the Scotists.

The same has Jacobinus Batgius, a celebrated disciple of Scotus, whose doctrine we transcribe below in this article under nu. 97, where especially those pronouncements are to be observed. The sixth conclusion: the first extrinsic cause determining the future contingent to one side is the divine will.

55 Moreover; among the recent adherents of Scotus, Franciscus de Herrera, Professor of Salamanca, expressly sustains the premotion of God to the matter of sin, in 2. sen. tom. 2. disp. 38. quaest. 6. conclus. 5, where he says.

The divine will, under the aspect of the executive power, promotes the created will to every action of that will itself, whatever action it be, real; (even if it be of sin,) with a physical promotion; for it implies a contradiction, that the created will should work anything not premoved by the first cause.

Moreover, St. Bonaventure’s commentators embrace the aforesaid opinion of Scotus with open arms, as though it were Bonaventure’s own; among them is the Capuchin Peter Trigosus (1st part, q. 1, art. 4, dub. 3, sect. 5). Certain points must therefore be noted to refute this opinion; these will be explained more fully below in the reply to Trigosus’s third argument. Francis Coriolanus, also a Capuchin, agrees with Trigosus; in his commentary on St. Bonaventure (*2nd part, q. 19, art. 3, § “I say fifth”), he writes: “God predestines, or has predestined, the assumption of sin insofar as it is assumed.”

That Bonaventure does not expel the concursive predetermination of God to the matter of sin; nay, expressly guards it.

But a certain testimony of the Seraphic Doctor seems to militate against the opinion of Scotus; it remains for us to subject it, and to dilute it. Which is objected to us from 2. sen. dist. 37. art. 1. quaest. 1. where Bonaventure, opposing against his own opinion the following objection, which is the sixth in order, says.

If God cooperates with free choice in the action which is the substrate of sin; either therefore free choice moves more principally than God, or conversely. It is certain, that free choice in that operation can move neither more principally, nor equally principally as God; since God, as much in moving as in causing, of whatever thing he is said to be the cause, or is understood as the most principal mover: therefore God moves more principally. If therefore the principal mover excites and moves the non-principal mover, it seems that in a culpable operation free choice is excited by God; therefore when the adulterer is wanton, and the thief steals, they are excited by God to such actions: which is altogether absurd.

To which opposition St. Bonaventure thus answers, at the end of the question. To that which is objected, that God is the principal mover in such actions. It must be said; that it is different. For it does not follow from this, that he excites free choice to do that operation, an excitation of this kind denotes a certain strengthening of grace preventing the will itself, which by nature is required in good meritorious works. But in other works indifferent, or even evil, there is not need of the cooperation of the divine power alone; which, existing in the creature potentially, essentially, and presentially, as it conserves it in being, so it assists it in operating: on which account there is conceded there cooperation alone, not prevention, or subsequution.

From these last words, where Bonaventure confounds the prevention of God toward a wicked work, the adversaries take their boldness, as though Bonaventure seemed to explode even physical predetermination, since prevention appears to sound the same as a certain previative predetermination. But so far is it from being the case that Bonaventure leans toward our opinion, that he expressly confirms it; since he plainly concedes that God, even in the operation underlying sin, is the first mover; as is evident from those words. To that which is objected, that God is the principal mover in such an action. It must be said; that it is true. What is more open? Saint Bonaventure therefore asserts God to be the principal physical mover toward the substrate of sin, and denies him to be the moral mover and exciter. Therefore, in Bonaventure, the operation of the deficient creature does not excite, move, or endeavor by exciting the indifference of the divine will, so that the will of God furnish the concourse to the wicked act. Wherefore, since the holy Doctor rejects only that excitation which is made after the manner of the moral causality of prevenient grace; so that God inflicts indeliberate movements morally impelling to a fall, and those, that he may obtain a wicked assent; in that manner in which he effects in us without us the movements of holy illuminations and inspirations, so that they render the cooperation of the created will consequent. Which those words plainly demonstrate: It does not follow from this, that he excites free choice to performing that operation (you understand, a wicked one); for excitation implies some effect of grace forestalling the will itself. That is, it expresses the excitation toward sin, which Bonaventure explodes, to be the moral causality of God inviting free choice to a fall; by that similitude, (if any such there be, which can be taken from the contrary reason of operating honestly) or analogy, which holds between the moral causality toward good and toward evil, through the immission of indeliberate apprehensions and appetitions, which allure to consent. Whence it comes about, that although God is asserted to be the moral cause of a pious operation; he nevertheless cannot be a moral principle of an impious or wicked action; although he premove to the physical entity of the inordinate action.

Next; since Bonaventure rejects every motion of God toward the substrate of sin, which is not that very cooperation; although he may reprove that doctrine which asseverated that the created will is pre-moved by God through the immission of some form, or quality of the species of power pertaining to first act, or the principle of operating; and consequently really co-distinct from second act, the actual influx or cooperation of the created will. The doctrine of Scotus, however, it does not touch; which recognizes no other predetermination except the actual cooperation of the divine will, as fulfilling the function of external causality, or the use-toward-the-external of the divine faculty as executing; which causality of God, although it not precede the influx of the creature by priority in-what, or of time, yet it antecedes it by priority from-which, or of dependence; about which more fully infra.

There is added, also, on behalf of the doctrine of St. Bonaventure, his judgment about the doctrine reprobating the immediate concourse of God toward the matter of sin, which we transcribed in the present article under margin-n. 30, for freeing Aureolus from the mark of a reprobated doctrine: Attamen (inquit,) quia per multam discussionem dubia ducuntur ad manifestationem; nunc communiter tenetur, quòd illa opinio verior sit, quae dicit, quòd omnis actio, siue substratum peccato, siue non, secundùm id quod est actio, est à Deo. — "Nevertheless, (he says,) because by much discussion doubts are led to manifestation; now it is commonly held, that that opinion is the truer which says, that every action, whether a substrate of sin or not, insofar as it is an action, is from God." That testimony of Bonaventure I judge to be most to the purpose for confirming the pre-motive concourse of God toward the matter of sin; because, as I showed above, the same urgent reasons hold of a pre-motive concourse as of an absolute decree to concur, as is plain from those things with which we assail Suárez infra under n. 62. Wherefore I judge that from that much discussion, which St. Bonaventure reports, there erupted that perspicuous pronouncement: Ad illud, quod obijcitur, quòd Deus est principale mouens in tali actione; (substrata peccato) dicendum, quòd verum est. — "Toward that which is objected, that God is the principal mover in such an action; (substrates of sin) it must be said, that it is true."

Lastly, there remains to be weighed in the pronouncements of St. Bonaventure this: that in this matter he carries great weight against those denying the immediate concourse of God toward the matter of sin. That Bonaventure draws the immediate concourse of God toward the matter of sin from the immediate conservation of a wicked act; as is plain from those words: sicut conseruat creaturam in essendo sic adiuuat in operando — "as he conserves the creature in being, so he aids it in operating." Whence it is inferred that there must necessarily be asserted an immediate conservative causality of God regarding the matter of sin, which Aureolus did not dare to deny; because if the immediate dependence of a wicked operation, as to its matter, upon God as conservant were taken away, even the foundation upon which rests the immediate dependence of a secondary cause upon God as conservant would likewise be prostrated.

57 Wherefore, although we do not receive those authors who asseverate a physical predetermination through a form composed intrinsically to the will, and really dissolved into the actual cooperation of the will; on the ground that such a predetermination would have itself on the side of the principle, and not of a mere action, and consequently look toward first act, adverse to liberty — as Scotus pursues [them]. Yet we adhere to the same authors insofar as they constitute that the created will does not move, or contract, a quasi-universality, community, or indifference of the divine will toward concurring or not concurring toward the matter of sin. Nay, on the contrary, we defend the potentiality of the created will being contracted by God; and that such a determination can not be conceived without a priority of nature, or of causality, in the divine influx.

Wherefore, the passage from Ferrariensis that we transcribed above under no. 13 plainly states that the creature is premoved by God toward the matter of sin. Capreolus maintains the same in Distinction 37, q. 1, art. 3, reply to the second principal argument, where, speaking of God’s influx toward the matter of sin, he adds:

As to every positive thing that is in the act of the will, the created action willed is posterior to the action of God in producing any such thing; because no creature acts unless moved by God.

And afterwards: The motion of God to determining the created will to something is not of itself evil, but is toward that which is of itself good by its own nature, although it be evil as regards the deformity which it has in respect of the second cause.

Wherefore, there is reason why we marvel, that it came into the mind of Didacus Ruiz, lib. de voluntate Dei disp. 37. sect. 1. n. 10. and of other recent Jesuit writers asserting, that the opinion pronouncing that God premoves to the matter of sin is not in the mind of the ancient Theologians; whereas Scotus expressly sustains it with the proofs of his school, as we have made plain, and among the more ancient Thomists Ferrariensis, and Capreolus, to whom, from the more correct, assent Domin. Banez. 1. par. q. 14. art. 1. dub. vlt. Nunius Cabezudus. 3. p. q. 62. ar. 5. q. 1. et 2. de auxilijs, Cabrera. 3. p. q. 18. art. 4. disp. 2. s. 12. Nauarrete. 1. p. to. 2. contro. 25. concl. 6. et 7. Aluarez de auxilijs. dispu. 24. conclus. 2. et alibi saepe. Ledesma q. 2. de auxilijs ar. 18. concl. 3. Albelda, and all the other Thomists of the Dorithican family.

And lastly, the Salmantic College of the Discalced Carmelites defends the predetermination of God through an absolute decree to the matter of sin: 1. p. tract. 4. On the Will of God, disp. 10. dub. 7. from num. marg. 124 up to 223; and lastly Ioan. de S. Thoma, professor at Complutum, 1. p. q. 14. disp. 19. ar. 3. §. Aduertendum principium. But I pass these over, and hasten to the proof of the Scotist opinion.

It is shown, that God predetermines our will to the matters of wicked acts.

With the sense therefore and mind of Scotus concerning the predetermination of God to the matters of wicked acts having been touched upon; the rest remains, that our opinion be established by reasons. And first there deservedly occurs to be censured the opinion of Ludovicus Molina in concordia quaestion. 14. articul. 13. disputat. 53. numbr. 3. who teaches that he guides himself so as to avoid the premotion of God to the matter of sin; in that he esteems the divine concourse potential and indifferent, and contractable by the influence of the created cause to such a species of act; which pronouncement we touched on somewhat more obscurely above under num. 29. For since, with Molina and the whole Jesuit School, the action or causality of God to the outside is nothing else than the influence of the created cause, as hanging upon God; whereas the action of the creature does not hang upon God according to common and universal predicates only, but also according to the contracted specific and numeric degree of being; it comes about that the influx of the creature is the causality of God, not only according to the most common concept of the action viewed in its term as a universal degree of being, but also according to such a specific and individual rationale.

Wherefore, if the act of God, as it imbibes the ultimate concept of such an act of flight, and of aversion from God, depends not only on the created will, but also on God, for any presupposition of reason; (otherwise there would be given some sign of reason, in which a created being could be conceived as objectively immutated to an absolute futurition without immediate dependence on God; and hence could also be produced without its flowing immediately from God, as Aureolus willed) therefore the action of God is not contracted by the causality of the creature, as a common thing by a particular. Moreover; that a physical action does not prescind in its tendency to the terminus, or does not attain it under one predicate, and not under another; inasmuch as such an action intends the existence of the terminus, so as to draw it out from the potentiality and eminence of causes; but existence does not agree with a thing according to abstract concepts, but as it puts on the ultimate rationale of a singular being; therefore the action of God cannot be potential, and contractible, but contracted to such a species of influx.

59 Hence; Francis Suárez does not establish the community, or universality, of the concourse of God, which is contracted from the created will to the causality of sin, immediately in the divine influx itself — for he asserted this influx to be determinate — but in the will of God, which does not absolutely pre-establish the fall before the absolute knowledge of our cooperation, but rather appears offering, and presents the concourse toward several individuated acts of diverse species, for example, toward such an individuated act within the species of love, or of hate, etc. So that with a free principle it is integral that in the divine influx one either follow God, or flee from him; yet flight is not pre-established, nor is the species of hate determined, before the absolute knowledge of the deficient will, for that would be to pronounce God the author of sin; so that author often teaches in Opusculo 1. de concursu Dei cum voluntate, especially lib. 2. cap. 3. num. marg. 17.

But the doctrine of Suárez premised above does not evacuate the present difficulty: For, just as God, presenting the concourse in the first act for the various species and individuations of acts, in very truth does not exercise the executive power, or executing faculty, except about that species of influx which free choice elicits; so about that one species alone does God bestow actual concourse, about the others, however, only potential, and by way of first act.

Let the inquiry therefore be recalled to the sole determination of the actual and exercised concourse to such a species of influx: into which principle should it be deferred? into deficient free choice? or into the first cause?

Either, therefore; that God actually flows together with our will into a depraved act, and not into a studious one, must be attributed to free choice contracting, as it were, the potentiality of the divine will offering the concourse to either alternative; or to God determining the species of his influx; or to both principles concurring equally and without any order of presupposition.

If this contraction of the species of influx be deferred to both wills, namely the divine and the created, simultaneously cooperating, without any habit of priority; it will already come about that God, not excited by our malice, but by the sole function of the first cause, bestows such a species of a sin-prone concourse; and therefore that useless accumulation of arguments would collapse, which is constructed against the opinion asserting God's premotion to the matter of sin; since it proceeds equally against the concurrent will, with every reason of predetermining set aside. Since in either hypothesis (namely, given God's predetermination to the matter of sin; or given the denial of a natural priority in the action of the deficient creature, so that such a fall, by a priority by which God's insufficiently congruous influx to the matter of sin does not excite God to bestowing such an influx), the contraction of God's influx to such a species of sin-prone action could not be attributed to the creature; since in either hypothesis the malice of the creature does not precede the determination of the divine influx as the reason of such determination, or of the exciting of God to bestowing the concourse toward evil; of which again below.

Either God and the creature are composed together for the effecting of depraved acts; so that by a priority of nature, or causality, God's action precedes our cooperation, with an anteriority, namely, by which it precedes, not in which it coexists; and the intent of Scotus's opinion would have.

Or finally, that the oppositions of the adversaries may be pressed, it will have to be said; that the determination of the influx of God to such a species of causality is to be reduced to the created will, as to the formal rationale contracting the concourse to such a species; so that God, not as answering to the functions of the first cause, but excited by our malice and as it were contracted, enters upon such a deficient concourse.

The third part of this pronouncement is assailed from the admitted comparison. 60 But in very truth, that the third part of this pronouncement, which Molina and others defend, is false and impossible, is shown thus. Because the influx of the creature cannot really and physically determine the equal concourse of God, given the opponents' principles; as we said under num. 55, since God's concourse toward ad extra can differ from the concourse of the creature by reason alone, because the creature's cooperation is the very action of God among the opponents; and the same individuated act, under a diverse comparison of habitude to another concurrent cause, cannot really and physically contract the elicitive power for effecting the same individuated act from another concausa. Therefore the influx of the creature, as from a created cause, cannot truly and really determine the executing faculty of God for effecting the same numerically one influx as from God; which is asserted by reason to be the action and causality of God.

Escape from the contraction of influx amid real identity in causes agreeing through natural sympathy. If you object: to that physical contraction which obtains between the causalities of principles mutually agreeing through natural sympathy toward acting, a real discretion of the contractor from the contracted, or of the determiner from the determined, is not required; as is clear in the influx of the intelligible species and the possible intellect toward the production of the mental word; for the very effecting of the mental word, as it flows forth from the impressed species representatively of such an object, contracts the potentiality of the intellect, and its indifference, so as to elicit the very same action as proceeding from the possible intellect, indeterminate of itself, toward the production of the expressed image of such and such an object. So neither will it obstruct that the influx of the creature, determined by the second cause to such a species of deformed action, contracts physically the faculty of God as executing, so as to elicit such a species of influx in preference to another.

The opposing instance is met. But the escape is precluded with no trouble; since it obtrudes, and voluntarily assumes, that which by the same right we explode; namely, that the production of the word, as it flows forth from the impressed species, truly and really determines the intellect to eliciting the same numerically-one causality, as it imports a habitude to the possible intellect, inasmuch as it is a mere potentiality in the genus of intelligibles; for there is affirmed a physical determination that is implicatory, which the action supplies with respect to the elicitive power, so that the same numerically-one action emanate from such a power.

The preceding doctrine is disentangled in the principles of Scotus and the Thomists. Hence; the Thomists, who maintain physical and real predetermination, do not establish it in the second act elicited by the created will insofar as it depends upon God; but in an intrinsic form really distinct from the second act of our will. The Scotists, however, who while receiving physical predetermination renounce premotion by way of first act, accordingly maintain predetermination through the extrinsic volition of God; because, since such volition, as it exercises the office of causality toward ad extra, is really distinct from the second act of the created will, there intervenes between them a real discretion, which could supply the habitude of determiner and determined; or for this, that the divine causality by way of an actual concourse premoves and contracts our will to such a species and individuation of influx.

Corollaries from the premises. Whence it comes about that, although the indetermination and potentiality of the possible intellect toward the expression of this image in preference to another is physically contracted — either immediately by the object, on account of the natural sympathy of the intellect and the object, toward the intentional causality to be exercised; or by the species as the vicar of the object, and what suffices in its place — nevertheless it cannot be contracted by the influx of that same intellect, as it emanates from the impressed species, so that the same influx (as indeterminate from the intellective power) it would contract effectively and elicit; since there is no real discretion between the exercised elicitive influx of the word, as from the impressed species, and as from the intellective faculty, which of itself is a mere potentiality in the genus of intelligibles.

Objection from the doctrine of Scotus But if you answer otherwise to our proof from the doctrine of Suárez; by conceding, that the concourse of the created will does not immediately contract the divine influx to such a species; because among the adversaries there does not intervene a real distinction between the influx of the created will, as from our will, and from God, whence it is evidently inferred, that the exercised concourse of God must be determined, and as it were really identified with the specific degree of such an influx, which is attributed to, and answers, the deficient second cause. Nevertheless, that it does not follow from this, that the influx of the created will, as it hangs upon our deficient will, does not determine the divine will, of itself indeterminate, to several species of influxes; since between the cooperation of our will and the divine will exhibiting a concourse to the diverse species of causalities, there intervenes a true real discretion.

To imply, not only in the thing and physically, but also through our conception, that the divine will is contracted by the created will for the concourse toward the matter of sin; against Suárez and his partisans.

61 BUT Against; it is to be contended that this determination of the divine will, which is drawn from the foreknowledge of the influx of the deficient created will, is implicative, not only in the thing and physically, but also through our conception.

Because every determiner, under that concept under which it contracts the potentiality of another, must precede the thing determined or contracted, as its reason in such being; otherwise the foundation would be utterly uprooted, upon which universal philosophy, built, professes a priority of nature (or of-from-which), with simultaneity existing (in-which) or of time, for any grade of being, and its constitutive reason in such being, which is conceived as a whereby in respect of it.

Therefore, if the operation of the defi-[Marginal note: If the created operation determines the will of God terminated to such an act, it must be prior to such by the reason of an extreme determination of the divine will.]cient creature is the contracting reason of the community of the divine will toward bestowing the concourse toward the various species of causality, so that the will of God, before the determination of the created will, is conceived only with an aptitudinal preparation for concurring toward this or the other species of influx; and our intellect, among the opponents, must seek from the deficient created cause, not from God himself, the foundation for apprehending the contraction to such a species of action; so that the divine will, on that presupposition of reason, because of which it is conceived to precede the absolute foreknowledge of the determination of the created will to evil, is not understood as exercised, and actually terminated to such a species of influx, but only conditionally, and applied in first act to such a species of operation which the created will will in fact elicit, as also to the other species, toward which it will by no means be determined:

It would therefore come about, just as with respect to those species of influx toward which the external causality is prepared to our will by God, yet which our will will never in fact elicit, that the divine will, offering the concourse, behaves aptitudinally and in a merely designated reason, but not actually and exercisedly; so with respect to that species of sin-prone causality which the deficient will will in fact bestow, before the absolute foreknowledge of our cooperation, the divine will is conceived only as potential, but not as contracted:

So that the will of God, on that designation, could not supply the foundation for our conception to this end, that the will of God be understood as determined to that species of influx, unless the operation of the creature accedes, presupposing the absolute knowledge of the existence of the sin-prone operation, from which the whole reason is drawn of the contracting of the divine will, potential of itself, to such a species of causality.

Add from Aureolus (as we did under num. 29), that if our operation determined God to such a species of act; it would come about that the motion of the created will, as contracting the causality of God toward ad extra, either would not proceed from God; or would proceed from God as from a principle indifferent, or indeterminate, to such a species of influx; though it is implicative that the action flow from a principle indifferent in the sense of composition, or as it is composed to the action contracting the potentiality or indifference of the principle in second act. Or if the motion of our will proceeds from the divine will as determined to such a species of influx, therefore the motion of the created will neither contracts nor determines the will of God to such a species of influx.

Either, therefore, the philosophical axiom must be rejected, which universally constitutes a priority of nature (or of-from-which) sought from dependence of this upon another as upon the constitutive reason of it in such a determinate order of being. Or a sign, or instant, of nature must be assigned, in which the creature can be conceived determined equally to such a species of influx, without dependence upon the actual and exercised termination, or extension, of the divine will to such a species of causality; but with a merely potential or aptitudinal termination. And therefore a created being could also be conceived immutated objectively toward the absolute and infallible futurition, with only that determination of the divine will which could subsist around the acts and operations of free choice, which will never exist, for the sake of some difference of time; as we showed.

Hence, either it will have to be brought forward that God is not excited by the exercised act of the deficient creature, so as to approach the absolute intention of concurring toward such a species of influx; but rather that the absolute intention of God precedes the contraction of the created causality to such an exercised species. Or it must be maintained that our operation can be conceived with an absolute objective immutation toward futurition, indeed and with a real exercised existence for some sign of from-which, without the actual and exercised termination of the divine will into our depraved cooperation conceived and foreseen by God as exercised.

Whence Aureolus, skillfully transcribed by us under num. 27, teaches; that if God were to concur to the matter of sin, determined or comoved by our deformed operation; that our operation determining God, upon that presupposition of causality (because of which it anticipates the will of God as contracted and determining), would undergo an absolute and infallible immutation toward existing, without an actual and exercised will of God; and therefore could even be produced without the immediate influx of the divine will.

If the will (he says) first determines itself by nature to that act, and from this God co-acts with the determined will, then the intention is had; because in that determining God does not co-act, and thus is not the cause with respect to every positive act.

Hence Scotus; just as he steadfastly denied that the actual and exercised premotion of God is subject and subjected to free choice, as regards the positing or negation of such predetermination of in-esse and of fact, so he deduced the aforesaid pronouncement from another axiom most familiar to himself; namely, that the first cause is not determined by the created will.

For so it stands in 4. sentent. dist. 49. quaest. 6. num. margi. 15. Non repugnat sibi, (intellige voluntatem creatam,) quòd contingentia eius non ponat contingentiam ex parte effectus simpliciter, quantum est ex parte causae superioris; quia causa superior non determinatur ab ipsa. What could be plainer?

Therefore, with Scotus, the premotion of God could be subjected to the arbitrament of our will only by that reason, as regards the positing or negation of it of fact and in-esse: if free choice were to contract, as it were, the potentiality of the divine will; so that God would undergo such an influx because the created will had so constituted itself. For those words sound that: Non ponit contingentiam ex parte causae superioris, quia causa superior non determinatur ab ipsa.

62 But that from the pronouncements of Suárez it is evidently inferred, that he thinks the determination of the created will to evil to be seen by God, and understood for some sign of nature as proceeding from the power of God, as in signified act, and before the exercised termination of the divine will upon the matters of wicked acts; is plain from Suárez himself, in Opusculo 1. de Concursu, et motione Dei Dei. lib. 2. de concursu Dei ad actus ordinis naturalis. cap. 3. §. Voluntate quasi generali concurrit Deus ad actus malos. num. margin. 7. Where, when he had censured the manner of thinking of those who hold, that God, the conditioned foreknowledge of a wicked act being supposed, concurs with a determinate and absolute will to the wicked act; he afterwards subjoins the assertions following, which I transcribe, that it may be clear from the words of Suárez, that he asserts the matter of sin to be understood not only as absolutely future, but also as actually exercised, with only an aptitudinal dependence upon the power of God, without actual and exercised dependence; for thus he has it.

Hence that will of God is not idle, or superfluous, since it tends to this, that the will of the deity in very truth be expedited toward an act of whatever species, which in that instant it could effect; but since that will is conditioned, it is not necessary that it posit something in the effect without the condition being applied, but that it be only in affection, or preparation, on the part of God. Where weigh those words: sit tantùm in affectu seu praeparatione ex parte Dei. For there he openly opines that the exercised emanation of the act of free choice can be understood from the power of God, not actually operating, but prepared in affection, or expedited in first act toward acting.

And that this is the clear mind of Suárez is evident from the antecedent pronouncements; where, opening the composition of the power of God toward depraved acts, he subjoins: Vocatur autem illa voluntas generalis; quia Deus, quantum est de se, nõ limitat concursum ad istum actum seu adfersitum ad alios, bonos, vel malos; etiam in particulari, quos in eodem momento posset voluntas hominis facere si vellet.

If, therefore, with Suárez, the concourse which the will of God offers for cooperating with free choice, in the issuing of the depraved operation from the deficient will, is not limited to such a species, but indifferent toward good and evil acts; therefore it does not import the composition of the divine power as actually operating, but as operating in aptitude; since the exercised influx is not indifferent and potential toward the various species, as we evidently showed.

The remainder therefore is, that with Suárez it can be conceived, for that first sign, that the operation of deficient free choice issues from the created will with only that composition of the divine power toward operating which is potential and merely designated, and therefore also which could subsist without that exercise of the deficient created will; just as in very truth, with Suárez, it subsists around those other species of pious operations which are not in fact elicited by free choice.

That placitum, if it is not maintained openly with Aureolus, that God does not concur immediately to the materialia of depraved acts, nevertheless lays firm foundations beneath him; granted, namely, that nothing obstructs, from the participated being, that it can be understood to issue forth physically from a created cause without exercised dependence upon the first cause (that is, with that comparison of causality on the part of the first cause which would in fact remain, with Suárez, even if the depraved act were removed); consequently, that the existence of the operation of free choice would not imply dependence exercised immediately upon God, as Aureolus willed.

Therefore Suárez loco citato, sub nume. margin. 18., when he had objected against the premised doctrine: Ergo exponitur in rerum natura aliquis effectus positiuus, et realis, sine absoluta, et efficaci voluntate, qua Deus velit, illum esse. To that blow he either meets thus: Respondetur, concedendo, aliquem realem effectum à voluntate creata fieri, quem Deus absoluta voluntate beneplaciti non vult esse. Per voluntatem vero conditionatam tantùm intelligit voluntatem in affectu praeparatam ad agendum, non tamen actu agentem; quia dum actu agit (contracta iam à cooperatione liberi arbitrij) est efficax in actu secundo, et absoluta; quatenus purificata existit conditio ob scientiam visionis terminatam ad operationẽ liberi arbitrij actu deficientis.

Hence Suárez concludes, at the end of that number 18: “Therefore, it is not necessary that God simply will the will to act, but only that he will to provide concurrence and leave it to use its voluntary faculty of acting.” Accordingly, if there is only a will to provide concurrence, without God’s exercised concurrence, then at least in some natural sign an exercised volition could be understood in relation to the created cause alone. That either amounts to falling back into Aureolus’s position or undermines those foundations of essential, exercised dependence with which the whole school of theologians attacks Aureolus and Durandus.

There accrues against Soarius this strength, that since in Soarius the action of God toward without is the very cooperation of the creature, as from God; if it were understood that for some sign the cooperation of free choice proceeds from the divine will not yet contracted to one part of the contradiction; it would follow that from a principle indifferent, as indifferent, and undetermined, in the composite sense, the action would proceed; or that insofar as the action is compounded with the agent in act second, the agent would be undetermined, which is implicatory, and evidently absurd.

63. The other confirmation of our opinion is that which we draw from the potentiality and indetermination of our will toward such an individual instance of action rather than another; which it may suffice even to have touched upon, for we weighed it pressingly against Suárez, art. 5 of this distinction, from num. 27 up to 29. Let the physical digression be seen, where the present doctrine concerning the indetermination of the created cause to such an individual instance of action is seriously defended against Vázquez.

Now in passing I would have that only noted; that besides Suárez and Hurtado, who assert that the first cause determines the second cause to such an individual of action; Valentine de Herice sustains the same opinion, 1. part. tract. 2. de voluntate Dei. disput. 19. capit. 4. §. Quod attinet ad specialem modum dicendi. sub n. 33.

Although Vázquez not undeservedly opines that the aforesaid Jesuit Authors fail of the consequence of their doctrine; because that opinion concerning the contraction and determination of the second cause by God to such an individual of action appears not to cohere with the placitum of authors of this kind, who attack predetermination with all their might. See the cited places; for it is not permitted to inculcate the same things. Yet Vázquez accomplishes nothing the more to the purpose, in that he does not explicate the rationale of the contraction of the will to such an individual of action, as we observed in treating against Dolanus in this article under numer. 31, near the end of the number.

Confutation of the opposing reasons of Aureolus; where, for the enervation of the first objection, there is expounded by design what is to be understood by the name of the permission of sin. The Tridentine definition is weighed; and the oppositions of Suárez are lopped off.

64 It remains now to break the subtleties of the adversaries; and because the first reason of Aureolus, which we proposed under number 2, labors that God does not foreknow the future contingents of wicked acts in the permissive will of such acts; it will be worth the while briefly to unknot, what under the name of permission should occur as to be understood among the classic authors? Our Alensis thus resolves the matter, parte 2. Summae Theologicae, quaestione 94. articul. 6. §. 2. An actio mala, inquantum mala, sit à Deo? In responsione ad secundum, where he says.

Concerning the will of permission, it is true that, God willing, evil comes about; so that there is noted here a concomitance through that ablative, and not any causality: because permission, as such, does not posit a cause in respect of the thing permitted.

But the will of approbation posits some causality in respect of the object willed; and so, speaking of this will, it is not to be conceded that evil is done with God willing; because if that ablative imports causality, whereas no causality is in God in respect of evil.

He admits this, that the substrate of malice is authored by God. Because, however, he does not weigh whether such a will of approbation, intending the matter of sin, involves the condition of the cooperation of the created cause, or absolutely pre-establishes it; whence it comes about that from this place it is not perspicuous, whether such a will, terminated upon the matter of sin, according to the mind of Alensis supplies a medium on the side of the object for infallible foreknowledge?

But Alensis, transcribed by us below, seems to insinuate the premotion of God to the matter of sin; see numer. 70 of this article, where, weighing it seriously, in summa Theologica part 2. quaest. 94. art. 6. §. 3. Whether an evil action, insofar as it is an action, is from God, under the versicle Afterwards it is asked, he openly concedes; That free choice is a mover under God. So that in the action substrated to sin free choice is a mover under God, and subordinates, and subjects, itself to God in eliciting the substrate of malice; therefore the cooperation of free choice does not contract God to effecting such a species of act.

Then, which for this matter is of greater moment for observation, it is evident from the text of Alensis, who also expressly takes up that celebrated elucidation of the Tridentine Council; that God concurs only permissively to wicked works, and not properly and perfectly, so that the permission is referred to the malice, and the causality of God to the substance of the work: as is evident from those words. Therefore let not malice be from God as author, but that which is subserved to malice, because the will of God is compared to that, in the aspect of the object willed. Alensis, transcribed in this article above 69, and above n. 89, has similar things.

Now also the perfected permission, having been supposed, presents the objective rationale of the infallible judgment in that acceptation which Scotus, transcribed by us under number 40, employs, where he maintains that in the permissive will the future fall of Judas is not apprehended by God, but in the cooperative will. For elsewhere, that we might be able to discern the cooperative will from the permissive, as regards that which, more operatively, can supply a medium on the side of the object for infallible foreknowledge, whereas the permissive does not so: we have called that will permissive, which assists the executing faculty of God to operate, and is reduced, if we wish, to the apparent concourse indeterminate to either of two in act first, before God enters upon the absolute purpose predefining one side of the contradiction: but we have asserted that will to be cooperative, which absolutely contracts the indetermination of the created will in act second, and in exercise, to such a species and individuation of act.

Moreover; because the common phrase of the Saints calls the positive causality of God concerning the substrates of wicked actions permission; by the name of permission there can also be understood a will positively, and absolutely, intending the matter of a deformed action; and bearing itself merely negatively toward the deformity which follows upon the action, not as from God, but from a deficient cause; in which acceptation, permission would afford a determination of every kind objective to the foreknowledge of God; in which sense Alensis seems to speak, transcribed and elucidated in this number.

§ 5 But while we weigh the permission of sin, and inquire in what manner it can import causality in respect of the sinful action; it will be to the purpose to report the dogma of faith from the Tridentine Council, which is opposed to us by the adversaries with that contention, as if it shook the firmness of our opinion, or in some way.

Thus therefore the Tridentine Council, sessione 6. de iustificatione. Canone 6. Siquis dixerit, non esse in potestate hominis vias suas malas facere, sed mala opera, ita vt bona, Deum operari, non permissiuè solùm, sed etiam propriè, et per se; adeò vt sit proprium eius opus, non minus proditio Iudae, quàm vocatio Pauli, anathema sit. From which definition of faith Suárez assails our opinion thus. Opusculo 1. de diuina motione, et concursu. libr. 2. capit. 2. §. Assertio ex Tridentino confirmatur. numer. 22.

And first; it is objected from those words: Esse in potestate hominis vias suas malas facere. Because, supposing that man cannot sin if he be not premoved to the matter and substrate of malice; it follows that to be in the power of man, to make his ways evil, is not; just as neither does it rest in his arbitrament to be premoved by God in this way or in that.

Second; it is objected from those words: Sed mala opera, ita vt bona, Deum operari. Where, since the Council disapproves of God properly and per se operating evil works; it seems to show, not only that the malice of depraved works is not from God, which was incontrovertible and confessed even among the heretics themselves; but that neither is the very substance of the evil act effected by God through a will determined of itself to such a species of sin-prone influx, for that those words (mala opera) seem to intimate, which sound not only malice, but also its substrate.

Third; it is objected against our opinion from the following words: Nõ permissiuè solùm; sed etiam propriè, et per se. Where the permissive action, as distinguished from the action properly and per se intending the depraved work (which the Council execrates as utterly impious and unworthy of God), imports nothing else than an offering, or presentation, of the concourse toward either alternative, so that the created will is not fastened to the evil operation; because that would no longer be to permit the evil, but to preordain, predefine, or predestine it; as the heretics speak.

66 But from the premises it will be no laborious task to demolish the aforesaid objections. To the first of the acting arguments: that from our opinion it follows that it is not in the power of man to make his ways evil. We say: that, since the predetermination which we defend as of the mind of Scotus does not take away the indetermination of the possible, but only of in-esse, as we shall more fully weigh in the following art.; it is from there that, although man, premoved to the matter of sin, may sin necessarily of in-esse, that is, hypothetically, yet not of the possible, and absolutely. For this reason, that although, on account of the essential dependence of the participated being upon God, the cooperation of the created will cannot but first hang upon God by a priority of from-which, that is, of dependence (since otherwise those inconveniences would follow which we disclosed against Suárez, of the absolute immutation of the created being toward futurition without the actual termination of the divine will into it); yet with Scotus the created will is not contracted in first act to one part of the contradiction, nor is it fastened to the fall; since rather the concourse appears to it toward either alternative in first act; as is clear from what has been said, and from what is to be more fully written out below in the following art.

Whence, if such an excursion should pretend any acuteness, it would also assail the immediate concourse of God to the matter of sin without any posteriority of sign, or nature, on the side of the concourse of the first cause; since that premotion which we maintain is only concursive, involving the hypothesis and necessity of in-esse, or of second act; not of the potentiality, or in first act; and therefore it does not fasten in first act to the fall, just as neither does it take away the proximate power toward a pious operation. On which see what we discourse below in the following art. 7, on the conciliation of our liberty with the foreknowledge of God, sub n.mar. 38.

But when you press; that the premotion to evil is not subjected to the nod of our will; and consequently that it is not left in the power of man to make his way evil; since he cannot bring this about without the premoving causality of God.

To the aforesaid objection we have sufficiently and abundantly replied in art. 5. huius distinct. num. margin. 30. et 31., where we showed that it pertains to the condition of the free agent only that it be moved by God according to the exigency of its indifference and the rights of its liberty; but not that God be so composed to the created cause for acting, as to expect from it the motion and contraction; so that a priority of nature in operating must necessarily be ascribed to the created cause, as to the principle, or quasi-contracting principle, of the community or potentiality of the divine executing faculty toward such a species of influx. Which priority of nature, although the adversaries deny it, as it were playing with words, they nevertheless embrace it in the thing; since a priority of nature is nothing else than a sign of presupposition, because of the dependence of this upon another in such a grade of being or order of causing; and God, among the aforesaid Authors, waits upon the operation of the deficient creature, as the excitation and motive of it toward such a species of causality.

Dissolution of the second objection from the Council of Trent.

67 The second objection, sought from those words of the Council: sed mala opera, ita vt bona, Deum operari — it sufficiently demonstrates how tortuously and violently the definition of the sacred Council is opposed to us; which those last words of the Canon chiefly attest: Adeò vt sit proprium eius opus, non minus proditio Iudae, quã vocatio Pauli.

The Council damns a moral causality in God with respect to the depraved act.

From which it is clear that the intention of the Council was only to censure the madness of the heretics snarling; suggesting that God be the moral cause of the fall of Judas, urging his sin by the introduction of depraved thoughts into the intellect and of impious affections into the deliberations of the traitor's will; just as he was the moral cause of the calling of Paul, anticipating him by the motions of his holy illuminations and inspirations. For if the mind of the Council had been to remove from God all the exercised and absolute political causality with respect to the substance of the depraved act; and to exhibit the divine will as so permissive that it would behave merely negatively around our fall; it would also impugn the concourse of God to the matter of sin.

St. Bonaventure proceeds in the same sense.

In which sense of moral causality, St. Bonaventure denies the predetermination of God to the matter of sin; as is clear from the premises under num. marg. 56.: namely, inasmuch as he morally allures to sinning. For those words openly express it: Non sequitur ex hoc quòd excitet liberum arbitrium ad faciendam illam operationem; excitatio enim dicit aliquem effectum gratiae praeuenientem ipsam voluntatem. And that the Council speaks in the sense intended by Bonaventure is clear from those words: Sed mala opera, ita vt bona, Deum operari.

Nor has SoÁrez's replica any force at all: that in respect of premotion to evil, God carries himself not only as a physical but also as a moral principle; on the ground that such premotion proceeds from God freely, and applies man to moral action.

For if that objection accomplished anything, it would surely establish that God, in respect of the concourse with the matter of sin, is not only a physical but also a moral cause; since he inflows freely, and bestows causality toward the moral operation of the will that is deficient. Wherefore, just as SuÁrez is bound to answer — that moral causality toward the substrate of sin is not denied to God in that sense, because he does not operate freely, or does not concur with a free action; but because he does not wickedly suggest or morally allure to the fall — so likewise we, or else we would have broken SuÁrez's objection in this way, ought not to displease him.

Another excursion of SuÁrez is overthrown.

But if SuÁrez should have recourse to the contraction of the divine will to such an oblique influx on account of the foreknowledge of free choice's failing, we premised the overthrow of this doctrine in this article under num. 62, on the ground that it is unintelligible and selfcontradictory, unless the immediate exercised and absolute concourse of God with the matter of wicked acts is driven away together with Aureol.

Reply to objection 3.

The third objection of Suárez is also without force; for, as is clear from what has been said, before the actual premotion to evil (which we maintain only by way of concourse, or actual cooperation, and not by way of a principle or form belonging to the power of acting), God prepares for our will a concourse toward either alternative in first act. Thus, before the actual premotion takes place, this concourse must be regarded as a proximate moral principle, ready for either alternative, and therefore not contracted in first act, nor—before the operation is exercised—necessitating a fall, as the heretics blaspheme.

The heretics are therefore condemned because they assert that concourse to sin takes away the power of not sinning, and the virtue of sufficient aid unto salvation; and besides, because they do not distinguish between the substance of the act, and the malice or moral disconvenience, in respect of which God bears himself permissively, and not through positive causality, as is clear from Alensis transcribed under numer. 64 and under numer. 89, and from Bonaventure transcribed under nu. 30.

Why God, determining to the matter of sin, ought not to be reckoned the principle of moral deformity? To the second opposition of Aureolus; where we weigh the excellent reason of Scotus and of Alensis.

68 The second opposition of Aureolus, which we premised under num. 3, scrutinizes and investigates the reason; why God, determining to the material, or substrate, of moral deformity, to which that is inseparably annexed, should not be censured as the author of such malice? For the dilution of which argument, the doctrine of Scotus must be turned over from 2. sen. dist. 37. q. 2. §. Sed tunc est dubium. num. marg. 16. where he has it thus.

I answer; that God cannot sin in himself; this is plain from the fact that he cannot turn away from himself, neither formally, because he cannot fail to love himself, and that ordinately, and with all the circumstances required, otherwise he would either not be able to love himself ordinately; or could be changed; both of which is impossible. Nor can he even virtually turn away from himself; because nothing other than himself is necessary to him for willing himself, for whatever else is other than himself, because it is willed by him, and willed in this manner, both for now, and for then, is on this account to be willed in an ordered way.

Where Scotus contends to this end, that a deficient or sinful causality cannot be attributed to God; in that, in all his causality, God cannot turn away from himself, either formally or virtually; because every created being, insofar as it is attained by God, and as the term of his causality, is essentially referred to God, and subjected to him, not only in the genus of efficient cause, but also in the genus of final cause.

Wherefore the hatred of God, although, as it is elicited by the created will not subjecting and subordinating itself to the first cause in the production of such an act of flight, it falls short of God; yet as it is effected by the first cause touching that substrate, or matter of sin, on account of the uncreated goodness, as on account of the intrinsic motive rationale of the action eliciting such an act in the being of nature; so far is the effecting of such a form, as it flows from God, from importing an aversion from God, in which the rationale of sin is posited; that rather it essentially imbibes a continuation with God in the genus of end; or coheres with the divine goodness, as with the final rationale of its production.

69 Alensis acutely writes the matter out, in summa Theologica, par. 2. quaest. 94. ar. 6. §. 3. Whether an evil action insofar as it is an action is from God? where under the versicle Afterwards it is asked: objecting against his own opinion asserting that God concurs immediately to the matter of sin; separately he sets before us these assertions, which confirm the pronouncements of Scotus. And it seems that not; because free choice is a mover under another, namely God; whence it is a particular mover. But this particular agent is sometimes conjoined with the supreme agent God, who is a universal agent; sometimes it is discontinued, and separated from him: when however it con-

From this it is objected thus: nothing, that proceeds from free choice itself through discontinuation and separation from God, can be said to proceed from God in any way: but an evil action is of this kind, etc.

He enervated this opposition in his reply to the first; where he says. It must be said: that when I speak of the discontinuation of free choice from God, I say two things. For there I speak of the separation of free choice from God, as regards the affection, or effect: I speak also of its conjunction as regards being. That separation therefore induces deformity, or malice: (for this belongs to the will that is deficient,) but that conjunction with the supreme good as regards being, induces the action.

Therefore the evil action, by reason of the malice or deformity, proceeds from free choice through its discontinuation from God, but not by reason of the action; but rather by reason of the action it proceeds from him through its continuation with God. And therefore an evil action, inasmuch as it is an action, is from God; but inasmuch as it is evil, from free choice failing, however, or discontinuing itself from God.

70 Where, concerning the doctrine of the Alensis, it occurs to be noted; that free choice is called a particular mover, or a mover under God; as appears from that pronouncement which the Alensis subjoins, and premits to the objection against the concourse with the matter of sin: Free choice is a mover under another, namely God, whence it is a particular mover. As though in every motion free choice subordinated itself to God as a mover moved; and consequently did not contract, as it were, a potentiality of the divine will, but rather was contracted and determined by it. Which assertion of the Alensis seems to confirm that sufficiently hackneyed axiom of Scotus, which he alleges; that free choice acts so as moved by God, that if God were a necessary agent, and not free, the created will too would operate necessarily; because God does not preconstitute our actions by involving the condition of our cooperation, or ex hypothesi, but absolutely, and consequently as unimpedible. Next; it is gathered from those words (where the Alensis calls the motion of God to evil as substrate, and matter, a continuation with God in the being of entity; although there is annexed to such a continuation a discontinuation in the genus of morals, on account of the subsequent moral deformity,) that the Alensis manifestly indicates the dependence of any created entity on God, as it is the terminus of the divine action, not only in the genus of efficient cause, but also in the genus of final cause.

On account of which quidditative continuation, or conjunction of the creature with God in the genus of end, as a created entity, as it is attained by the first cause, it cannot fail to be referred to the goodness of God, as in the ratio of his final end; thus God, as eliciting that terminus, under such a motivative and final ratio, can neither be formally nor virtually averted from by God; and consequently is neither the author nor the cause of sin, since sin quidditatively imbibes aversion from God.

71 To the same belongs Basolius, transcribed by us under num. 48, where he treats of this, that God in the production of the act of hatred of God cannot be the author of sin; since he elicits such an act of flight on account of his uncreated goodness; not as on account of an end that is per accidens and accidentally appendant and adjunct to such a form, as it is the terminus of the divine causality; but as on account of an end essential to any created entity, as it is beheld and intended by the influx and motion of God.

To which argument for removing from the influx of God all causality of sin, there would subscribe, as the probabler one among recent theologians, Ludouicus Montesinos, Primarius professor at Complutum. 1. 2. tom. 2. q. 79. arti. 2. disput. 10. quaest. 4. versiculo. Dicendum ergo est. numē. 42.

Which doctrine can be illustrated by the instance of the first-first motion, or of the indeliberate act of hatred of God; which, just as it induces no peccaminous obliquity, inasmuch as it anticipates the deliberation and judgment of reason; so also it is touched by God, on account of the end of his uncreated goodness. But with deliberation supervening, without any physical immutation of such an act of flight, or hatred of God; although moral deformity accedes to it from the created cause not subordinating, nor subjecting itself to God in the conservation of such a form; it does not accede from the first cause, which attains the term in the being of being, conserves it, and beholds it under the same final rationale, under which it first elicited it before the deliberation of reason, and the free conservation of such a form.

From which doctrine of the Alensis and of Scotus concerning the essential composition of the causality of God, or the essential continuation with the divine goodness in the genus of end, the edge of that objection could be blunted which would attack the immediate concourse of God with the matter of sin in this way.

Because, if per impossibile, God had constituted the supreme Angel of such energy to create; that he should suffice as it were in the place of a first cause, on which all the other Angelic substances should hang in operating. That supreme Angel would be bound not to concur with the inferior Angels toward the substrates of wicked actions; in such a way that the will of bestowing such a concourse would imbibe and transcend that turpitude which cannot be defecated or depurated on any title whatsoever of exigency of such a concourse on the side of the lapsability of the inferior failing spirits: whence, ex hypothesi, that Angel would be bound to leave all the others weary and inert unto eternity, rather than supply them with a concourse toward millings wicked by nature and object, although those desert spirits would be caused, bereft of the due concourse, nor could that concourse toward evil be colored under any pretext whatsoever, however masked.

That, therefore, which would defile the goodness of that supreme Angel — why should it not displease the illimited sanctity of God? Therefore it cannot be asserted that God answers to his gift of first cause, and universal provider, when he not only concurs but even predetermines toward the substrate of sin.

To which opposition we meet, taking what is sought from the similitude of the things premised; insofar as no creatable nature can express the essential continuation with the divine goodness in the genus of end; and consequently neither can there suit that apparati[on] of a concourse toward the substrate of sin, so that it can be depurated from the deformity annexed; just as there suffices for the essential innocence of God that composition or continuation of the action with its rule of reason and goodness, so that to fall from it implies: for which see another excellent pronouncement of the Alensis transcribed by us below: in hoc art. sub nu marg. 89.

What Anselm judged concerning predetermination to the matter of sin? and something from Basil.

72 Last of all at length I observe; that the aforesaid opinion concerning the predetermination of the substrate of malice is also buttressed by the authority of Anselm; for when he weighs the argument, why sin is assigned to the failing will, but the work rightly to God? So it stands tom. 3. libr. de concordia praescientiae, et praedestinationis. §. Quòd sit praedestinatio, et quòd praedestinatio nihil inferat necessitatis libero arbitrio.

For there, when at the beginning he had opposed to himself: That predetermination seems to be the same thing as preordination, or preconstitution; and therefore that when God is said to predetermine, he is understood to preordain; which is to establish that a thing is to be in the future. But that God establishes a thing to be in the future, it seems to be in the future by necessity: wherefore whatever God predetermines, it is necessary that it be in the future.

Therefore if God predetermines goods and evils, which happen, nothing comes about through free choice; but all things from necessity. But if he predetermines only goods; only the goods are from necessity, and there is no free choice except toward evils, which is too absurd: therefore God does not predetermine only goods.

Thus he dilutes the objection; subjoining. In the first place therefore, before the answer of the question, it is to be seen; because predestination is not only of goods, but can be said of evils; just as God is said to do the evils which he does not do, because he permits. For a man is said to be hardened when he is not softened, and to be led into temptation, when he is not delivered; it is not therefore incongruous that he predestinate in this way, while he does not correct the wicked and their wicked works. But goods he is said more specially to foreknow and to predestinate, because in them he makes that they are, and that they are good; in evils, however, not, except that they are essentially; not that they are evil, as was said above.

Where, from Anselm it is to be noted, that the word of predetermination to evil with respect to the material, or of the preconstitution or preordination of God toward the substrate of sin, does not abhor; but rather that he admits it expressly. As is clear from those words: Predetermination is not only of goods, but can be said of evils. Where he makes much of that word of preconstitution, or preordination of evils as material, which he had objected to himself as incongruous under: That predetermination seems to be the same as preordination, or preconstitution, etc. For he only wishes that God be said to foreknow and predetermine goods more specially; not however that he does not preconstitute or predefine evils. Of which see also n. 32. at the end.

Wherefore Anselm, with the said discretion between pious and wicked acts, admits the predetermination of all future contingents, which are the objects of divine foreknowledge; as is clear from the words following. Let us now consider, whether any things can be predetermined through free choice to be in the future? By no means ought it to be doubted, because its predetermination and foreknowledge do not disagree: but as he foreknows, so too he predetermines. And a little below, near the end of the same, §. he subjoins. Therefore it is clear from those things which have been said, if they be well considered; that neither does predetermination exclude free choice, nor does free choice oppose predetermination; since all those things which we showed above, that free choice does not resist foreknowledge, equally show that it agrees with predetermination.

Next it is to be noted, that with Anselm there intervenes this distinction between the preordination of a wicked and of a pious action; that God does not only attain the right work as it is an entity, but also as it is good; but the wicked he elicits only as it is an entity, or inasmuch as it is born of entitative goodness, but not as it bears moral deformity. So that in the causality or concourse of God toward the oblique and the right operation, Anselm did not assign that rayon of discerning which has been devised by the neoterics; namely, that toward the right operation God moves and determines of himself; but toward the evil he is excited and contracted by our malice. Whereas Anselm, seriously investigating the disparity of the predetermination of God toward evil, or toward good, did not intimate such a rayon of discrimination; which demonstrates that it did not even come into his thought.

Whence he subjoins, or rather this dissimilitude between the concourse toward a good and an evil operation: That in goods God makes that they are, and that they are good; but in evils not, except that they are essentially, not that they are evil. What could be more luculent from Anselm to our purpose? For he does not even mention its contraction toward the concourse of a wicked action, with the fall of free choice beheld; as the oppugners of physical preconstitution, or predetermination, would have; which (the very word of preconstitution retained) Anselm seems to have defended in respect of the concourse toward evil.

Besides, those words of Anselm do not disapprove the premotion of God toward the matter of sin: a man is said to be hardened, when he does not soften, and to be induced into temptation, when he does not liberate, etc. which seem to deny the absolute purpose of God preconstituting the matter of sin. For therein, as appears from the sequel, he treats only that he does not concur nor premote toward the wicked work, as it is wicked, but as it is an entity: for otherwise, if those words were intended, that God carries himself merely negatively toward the substrate of sin; they would also attack the concourse of God toward the matter of the acts of the wicked.

73 Something also to the purpose seems to have been touched by St. Basil. in the Homily Quod Deus non est author malorum. Where, while he pronounces that God is not the author of sin, just as neither of a bodily disease, in that sense, that he intends the evil of pain, as evil to man, but as a medicament for man; so too he denies that sin is from God. But since Basil does not deny that the physical reality of the disease is effected by the first cause; it is consequent also, that he should affirm the immediate concourse toward the matter of sin.

Further, since this account says nothing of the excitation and contraction toward the matter of sin posited by the more recent authors—namely, that God asks free choice, in its act of failing, to furnish concourse toward the substrate of a wicked act—but speaks in precisely the same way of the production of disease and of concourse toward evil materially, it remains that this way of thinking is not the meaning of this Father, when he seriously investigates why God is not the author of sin. This, then, is what he says. ¹

Whence therefore (you will say) has it essence, if it is neither without principle, nor was it made? Such things are asked by those inquiring. Whence disease? Whence the lesions of the body? For disease is not uncreated, nor is it the work of God. Behold where Basil appears to have spoken equally concerning the disease of the body and concerning the substrate of sin. Then a little after he renders no other reason, except that God neither intends the disease as an enemy of nature and deficient from health; which also fits, not only to the concourse, but even to the premotion con coursive toward the matter of sin.

For he says: And so God made the body, but by no means the disease; and in like manner God made the soul, but not sin. Yet he does not assign that reason for avoiding the concourse of God toward evil; because the appetite, failing in the second act, excites God to bestow the concourse; since such an excitation by free choice, in the second act, is selfcontradictory, inasmuch as it imbibes the dependence of the second act itself upon God, already determined toward such an exercised action; as Aureol acutely gathered.

Wherefore Basil, in the concourse of God toward evil, although he seems to have respected the lapsability and liberty of free choice in the first act, or by way of potency; as appears from those words. But whence is it at all capable of evil? Because it was made with free choice, which best befitted a rational creature. Yet Basil did not regard free choice in the second act composed with its elicited volition or inclination, on account of which God is contracted, or excited, to bestow such a determined concourse, since that implies; as we have evidently shown from Aureol.

74 To the third opposition of Aureol, from n. 4. we say: that with grace prevening, namely with the motion of holy illumination on the side of the intellect, and of inspiration on the side of the will, just as non-assent can stand, so too sin; yet not with grace accompanying, to which we assert the premotion of God toward supernatural works to belong; because we maintain that predetermination, which we constitute from the mind of Scotus, is that which does not regard the principle of operating, but the actual operation, with which, as a matter of fact, the negation of the concourse, or of the concursive premotion, cannot stand. But the aforesaid objection of Aureol is wholly diluted in the following article, where we shall reach: whether it conduces to the ratio of sufficient aid, that, suppar data in physico esse being posited, one be converted in fact, another however not?

To the last instance of Aureol, from n. 5. where he inveighs against those who hold that future contingents of honest operations are foreknown in the determination of the divine will; but not so the future of wicked actions.

It is answered; that Aureol plainly obtains; that the aforesaid authors are not consistent with themselves, who, when they explode the determination ex hypothesi of futurition, with the decree secluso, which does not involve the condition, and drive the determined truth of future contingents into the things themselves; acknowledge no other medium on the side of the object of infallible determination in free future contingents, than the absolute purpose of God changing objectively the thing to one side of the contradiction for any difference of time. It is consequent, therefore; either that future contingents of wicked actions are not foreknown by God; or that the absolute decree of God is admitted, destining objects of this kind to be determinately. Which decree must at least antecede, by prioritas à Quo, the influx of our will, as the ratio and principle of its contraction to one side of the contradiction; which objective alteration not involving the condition to be purified by the cooperation of the created cause, we call preconstitu- tion, preordination, or predetermination of the future entity, according to the phrase of Anselm. For the purpose of blunting the subtleties of the More Recent, it is urged; that either it must be held with Aureol, that God does not immediately concur with the substrate of sin; or that we are not specially touched by the millings of the adversaries.

59 The agents against SuÁrez, under nu. 59. we touched that which is now to be investigated briefly; whether, the priority of nature having been removed between the determination of God and the created will (in such a way that the motion of our volition does not antecede, by prioritas à Quo, the absolute volition of God concerning the bestowing of a concourse toward the matter of sin) they can touch by the Scotist opinion the foundations of the adversaries, which they attack concerning the predetermination of God toward the matter of sin?

For we asserted, that if such a priority of nature be disapproved; there remains, that that excitation and determination of the absolute divine volition, which the adversaries pronounce to be drawn from our failing volition, fall. Wherefore, either there must be sustained the priority of nature on the side of the act of our volition, which we there seriously overthrew; or there must be overthrown the determination of the divine will, which is supposed to be drawn from our determination: and consequently it would come to pass, that God inflows into the matter of sin, not excited by our wicked operation (as it were, from a reason, on account of which he expires his absolute purpose of bestowing such a concourse); since the presupposition of our determination is selfcontradictory, which is understood to antecede, even by prioritas à Quo, the absolute purpose of God concerning the bestowing of a concourse.

Therefore if God does not operate the substrate of sin as comoved by our deformed operation, on account of any antecedent sign of supposition of nature of the absolute statute of God concerning the bestowal of such a concourse; it will come to pass, that the refuge be precluded to the adversaries, while they constitute that as the mark of discrimination between the two opinions; that the assertors of the predetermination of God toward the substrate of sin cannot assert that God is excited by our evil operation, since our deformed operation is posterior in nature to the motion of God. But with the adversaries, however, the excitation and contraction of the divine will toward such a species of causality in respect of the substrate of malice can be defended on this ground; that the determination of our volition is the ratio of determining the divine will toward such a species of influx.

For it appears selfcontradictory, that there should be an assignable excitative and motive ratio of the determination of any cause, which cannot be conceived as prior to that cause as contracted and determined; and consequently, either the priority of nature on the side of the influx of the created cause must be sustained, which the adversaries deny with one mouth; or that ratio of discrimination which they constitute between the two opinions is prostrated, so that they would wish the arguments which they infer from the absurd, that God is the author of sin, to militate only specially against the mind of Scotus.

Whence Ambr. Machado seems to have labored in vain, while he endeavors to expedite the matter otherwise, or thus. 1. par. q. 22. artic. 4. disp. 45. sect. 5. §. Ad hanc difficultatem. That the determination of the created will, if it be taken in the genus of formal cause, as insofar as as a form it inwardly contracts the will to one side of the contradiction, is posterior to the determination of God; nevertheless, if the will be conceived in the genus of efficient cause, or as the principle eliciting its own determination; as so apprehended, it is understood to antecede the absolute determination of the divine will, as the ratio on account of which God is said to decline to decree thus the act as wicked as material, because the created free choice shall have preconstituted it.

But on the contrary; because this created will, which is affirmed in the genus of efficient cause as the contracting ratio of the divine will, is conceived merely in the first act; and thus it is altogether potential and indifferent toward contraries and contradictories; and consequently cannot be apprehended as contracting the divine will toward such a species of act.

Or it is conceived as composed in the second act; and thus it is not the bare and naked faculty of the will, but also its exercised appetition. And consequently the pressing opposition of Aureolus would return; that either the second act of the created will is not effected by God; or that, if it proceed from God, it is elicited by him as contracted to such a species of influx; since it is implicatory that an action flow from a principle indeterminate in the second act, or indeterminate to such a species of action, insofar as it is compounded with a real action.

You will say again with Machado in the same place, that although the created volition be posterior to the divine determination in the genus of efficient cause; it is nevertheless prior in the ratio of terminus, or connotate of the divine will, from which the divine will is contracted. By a like reason, by which the eternal production of the Son is prior, by a priority of origin, than the Son himself as produced through such a generation; the Son, however, is prior in the ratio of terminus of the divine cognition, which cannot comprehend a generation without the term of such a production being preconceived.

But who does not see that the similitude is altogether beside the matter? since the priority of origin in things divine does not at all obstruct the connection and simultaneity of cognition; as we seriously weighed in controuersia 9. de Visione Dei. distinct. 3. subdistin. 2. ar 2. nu. margi. 22. in which we have also the consenting school of the Thomists.

Nor is it more elegant, what the aforesaid author subjoins concerning practical cognition, which, although it be prior in the genus of efficient cause than its effect, is nevertheless posterior in the ratio of terminus specifying; since cognition is specified by the effect, as by a terminus.

Because that being granted; therefore be it that it were true, that the influx of the created will concerning the matter of sin was prior in the ratio of terminus, or connotate, than the absolute termination of the divine will; it would nevertheless be posterior to that in the genus of efficient cause. And consequently it would come to pass, that our wicked operation would earlier be from God, as from an efficient, than from the created free choice; as practical cognition is a principle contracted and determined by itself, the efficient of its effect.

Nor does even the last reunir of the aforesaid author avail; that since the effective causality in the influx of free choice is inseparable from the causality of the terminus or connotate determining the divine will toward such a species of influx; so, although the divine will antecedes our determination in the genus of efficient cause, it is by no means to be judged to determine toward evil; since this dependence of our volition upon the will of the first cause in the genus of efficient cause does not subsist without the presupposition of our volition in the ratio of terminus or connotate contracting the divine will.

But on the contrary; because this determination of the divine will by the created will, either is fictitious; or it premits the subsistence of the created volition, as hanging from the first cause, since it is a participated entity: see by what argument the oppugners of physical predetermination concerning the matter of sin extricate themselves.

76 Wherefore; Gabriel Vázquez. 1. p. q. 13. ar. 6. disp. 99. cap. 4. num. 16. thought; that Gregory of Rimini in 2. dist. 28. q. 1. ar. 3. in responsione ad 12. argumentum, taught; that the action of the failing creature is prior to the determination of God.

But Gregory is cited falsely; unless Vázquez derived such a priority from the pronouncement of Gregory, alleging that God is excited and comoved by our wicked cooperation, to concur toward the matter of sin. Truly, if the aforesaid illation compels, that the Ariminensis be held the assertor of such a priority of nature; it is consequent, that the Jesuit authors are bound to assert the same priority of nature on the side of the determination of the created cause; since they pronounce that the will of God is contracted from our deformed operation toward such a species of causality. So therefore has Gregory, cited by Vázquez; for we shall transcribe Gregory, that we may discuss the pronouncement of Vázquez against it.

Thus therefore I say to the argument; that God helps us by immediately effecting the very act, and that he does not alone effect the act, but the will also co-effects; but, as I already touched, God helps to good willing not only by co-effecting partially, which is the common mode by which he concurs to any effect of any created agent, as was said in the argument; but by a certain other, special one: namely by making the will itself partially co-cause, so that the will itself partially co-causes, applied and as it were instrumentally moved by God to thus partially causing. In which motion, however, the will is not necessitated, but, existing as a free instrument, in whose power it is to follow the motion of the first agent, accordingly, so that it do what, not so aided, it could by no means have done.

But toward the production of the evil act, God alone concurs, because he does not make the will act the evil act, as he makes it act the good act.

Thus far Gregory, where he asserts nothing of the priority in nature of the determination of the created failing will; but rather he expressly denies such a priority, in the same. 2. sen. dist. 35. quaest. 1. artic. 3. in responsione ad 8. argument. where he says.

I say, according to the manner of speaking of the arguer; that God follows the determination of the will; not that the determination of the will is any entity distinct from the will and its act, which is first made by the will; as the argument seems to imagine.

Nor even understanding, that the will acts that act by nature earlier than God, speaking properly of the priority of nature; because then it would follow, that it could act it with God not coacting, as appears from the definition of the prior according to nature.

But in this sense I say: that God follows the determination of the will; because God acts that act because the will acts it; and not because God acts it, therefore the will acts it: and therefore it is more properly said that God coacts with the will in causing toward such an act, than that the will is said to coact with God.

Where Gregory asserts nothing of the contraction of the divine will to concur toward the matter of sin, which is sought from our deformed operation; which scarcely any of the Jesuit authors would except with open arms; wherefore, as with them, neither is there inferred from such a determination a priority of nature, in the consent of our volition, in respect of the divine determination; so neither is there reason why such a pronouncement should be ascribed to Gregory. But if from the contraction of the divine will toward such a species of influx, which is sought from our determination, there is necessarily inferred a priority of nature, whether à Quo, in our operation, in respect of the absolute determination of God; consequently they deny that priority, the authors of the opposite opinion.

77 Yet indeed, in very truth, that the Ariminensis also consequentially enlarged it, that God is excited or moved by our wicked operation to inducing the matter of sin; but that, according to his principles, it must necessarily be asserted that the created will is premoved by God to the substrate of the sinful action, is plain from what he hands down in the same dist. 35. q. 1. art. 3., in the second proof of the conclusion, where he says.

I suppose, that in no species of evil act is there only one act producible from the will in number; nay rather, many are producible altogether similar and of the same rationale, whether more of them can be in the will at once, or not.

I suppose also, that none of these is of itself producible more at one time than at another; nor even, in any given time, is one more producible than another. These things are proved in dist. 1. and 35., and are also sufficiently conceded in common; although perhaps the opposite might be said by some.

These supposed, I prove the proposition thus. When the will produces some evil act, not every possible one similar to it is produced; therefore it is not produced from the will alone.

The consequence is plain; because since none of those acts is then more possible than another, and the created will itself is indifferently disposed toward each of them, and cognizes none distinctly before the act itself is; and by that token neither can it distinctly will to produce any of them determinately, unless another cause naturally determined to the production of one determinately only concur — which is evident to be false — or some free cause, which cognizes them distinctly, will to co-produce one determinately, it would never produce any; because by the reason by which it would produce one, by the same it would produce any whatsoever.

But such a free cause, cognizing those distinctly, cannot be other than God, as is certain; therefore, etc.

Where he constitutes as asserted, that which in the physical digression of the preceding article we weighed concerning the indetermination of the created will to such an individual of action rather than others, from which we have shown that the premotion, or predetermination, of all the acts of our will is manifestly inferred, against Suárez and others who, having asserted such a contradiction of the created will by the divine will, labored to escape, so as to maintain that it is not a predetermination. Nor is it even to be passed over, from the Ariminean, that he constructed an excellent proof against Aureolus, to show that the created will cannot effect its acts without the immediate influx of God; because, the causality of God being removed, by which our will is contracted to such an individual of action rather than another, the created will is not left as a proximate, or expedited, principle for operating.

78 But Gregory being dismissed, that we may come to the chief point of the undertaking; either the priority of nature in the wicked acts of our will in respect of the motion of God must be altogether exploded; and consequently God would not be excited by our lapse, as by a motive rationale contracting the indetermination of the divine will. For if, equally, and without any priority, in the aforesaid Authors, God and the creature are compounded to influence into a wicked act, every habitude of presupposition being removed; and the creature is therefore not moved by God to the substrate of sin, because the motion of God is not presupposed as the rationale of the determination of the failing will; it is also consequent that neither is God asserted to be moved, or excited by our lapse; since our failing cooperation cannot be conceived as prior, and consequently as the rationale of the contra-action of the divine will to such a species of causality.

Or if a priority of nature on the side of the determination of the created cause be asserted; it would come about that, for some sign of preconception, there would belong to the created being an infallible destination to futurity, nay, and real existence without immediate dependence upon God; and accordingly also that the wicked acts of our will could be effected without the immediate influx of God; as Aureolus acutely inferred, and we made plain from him under n. 62.

Beaten by these reasons, perhaps, some recent writers, compelled to sing a palinode, maintain; that God and free choice are so equally composed for operating, that neither does free choice determine God to the species of act, nor conversely. Thus Alarcon 1. par. tract. 2. de Scientia Dei. dispu. 5. cap. 8. §. 3. num. margin. 4. where, following Lessius, he subjoins.

That the omnipotence of God being once applied, and assisting in act first to the created will through an antecedent applied decree, in a certain blind manner and as it were by compulsion, from the force of such application divine virtue is attributed to the will, that it may will, nill, since it produces indivisibly love, or hatred, without any excitation between either agent; and without God antecedently foreseeing in the created will any inclination, by which it may be inclined to love rather than hatred.

What more open for vanquishing the determination of God by the creature to the matter of sin? On which we treated in this distinction, art. 2, n. marg. 63.

Granada seems to belong to that blind tendency of God’s concourse with the second cause, since he denies that ideal rationales for producing the substrate of moral malice are present in God, indeed even rationales for producing a vicious habit. On this, see below, Contra 1.2, De ideis, art. 2, n. marg. 14.

Answer to the foundations of the Recentiores against God’s predetermination to the matter of sin.

79 With these points premised, the foundations of the Recentiores can be refuted more readily. Accordingly, to the first argument from no. 6, we say: although God premoves the imagination, and the other apprehensive faculties, material and immaterial, by a concursive influx toward the presentation of wicked actions; and although apprehensions of this kind morally allure the will to assent; nevertheless, God does not premove the powers to elicit a proposition concerning shameful objects in order to induce our will to assent, but rather to discharge the office of the first cause and stand ready to the motive power of the objects and the composition of the phantasms, without doing violence to such physical agents by withholding from them the concurrence due for acting. Therefore, he cannot be called the moral cause of the substrates of sins, as he is called the moral cause of pious actions, which he elicits primarily and through himself by means of the indeliberate motions of holy illuminations and inspirations, intending our consent.

To the objection, however, concerning concupiscence tempting the will, where also the formal rationale of malice is not sought, as is evident from num. 6.

We say: that although the sensitive appetite does not formally intend moral evil, it allures nevertheless to the wicked act, to which moral deformity is not repugnant, as it is referred to the sensitive appetite insofar as it is compounded with free choice. But to the substrate of sin moral deformity is contradictory, inasmuch as it is the terminus of the divine causality; since it expresses an essential continuation with God in the genus of end; as we have made plain from the Alensis.

Whereby also it is clear against the instance from num. 8: for the devil is therefore the moral cause of our fall, because he assaults and harries the imaginative power and the appetite, and composes the phantasms to acting, so that he may suggest assent to foul objects.

80 To the second argument, from num. 9, that God, before he premoves the created will, by the mode of actual cooperation, to the substrate of sin, exhibits in act the first concourse to contraries and contradictories; so that, before actual cooperation is entered, free choice be supposed in the nearest battle-array toward either, so much so that nothing is lacking to the will on the side of the principle for acting freely.

Should you object, however: that the premotion of God is wanting. We say: that in the same sense there is not available to our will, before its operation, premotion (which we posit only by the mode of concourse), just as there is lacking to it actual cooperation and the concourse of the first cause.

Whereby, just as the created will lacks the second act because it does not exercise its operative virtue, which is wholly supposed sufficient and at hand for the act; so also it is not actually premoved to good by the mode of exercised concourse, because it does not explicate itself and in fact exercise toward the right operation, for which it is supposed to be furnished with the virtue and sufficient aid. For although the motion of God is prior, by the priority of the from-which (a Quo), that is, of nature, to our cooperation, owing to the essential subordination of the created agent to the first cause; it is not nevertheless prior by the priority in-which (in Quo): see what we set out below under num. 94, disputing against Hugo Cauellus. Therefore it is always true, that if the creature in any instant of time had exercised itself toward assent, it would have received the premotion of God, by the mode of concourse, and of the second act.

Whereas when you press: that, according to our opinion, therefore the causality of sin seems rather to be ascribed to God than to the devil; because without such a premotion no most valid invasion of the devil could prostrate man.

We say: that if such an objection were efficacious, it would also argue that God does not concur to the matter of sin; because although the devil should rush upon man with all cunning, if God does not concur to the fall, man cannot in fact and de inesse relapse into evil.

81 To that painted-over complaint of justice, which Soarius， in the person of the sinner, lodged against the principles of our opinion. It is answered: that since, among the adversaries, our wicked operation is not prior in nature to the concourse of God, but God influences into the substrate of sin equally first with the creature (our deformed operation not premised as some sign of presupposition), the sinner might likewise murmur, or take exception, against the divine providence.

Before I committed any sin, or God premised my transgression as if binding by pact to the providing of concourse to evil; he cooperated to evil equally first with my will, my fall not awaited as some sign of presupposition following upon the absolute will of God concerning the bestowing of concourse I ought therefore no more to be in fault than God, who cooperated to evil equally first with me.

Nor is that opposition any firmer, which Soarius instructs from the words of Hosea: your perdition is from you, only in me is your help. For there the Prophet only intends this: that whatever of aid is assigned for right and pious operation, that is to be sought from God alone; not yet that whatever concourse our will awaits from the first cause merits the name of aid, taken strictly and narrowly, inasmuch as it sounds a concourse within the order of grace.

Otherwise, indeed, the argument could be turned back against Soarius thus: If aid for the sinner is from God only, how is the concourse to the matter of sin from God; since the concourse to the substrate of a wicked action is by no means reckoned among the aids of divine grace? But if the name of aid be extended to the concourse toward actions of the natural order; the premotion also to the matter of sin, which regardsthe good only in the being of nature, can be called aid; if among the adversaries the concourse of God to the matter of sin be called by that name.

82 To the instance from num. 10, we say: that for the whole course of temptation which precedes the assent of our will to evil, just as it is true that the created will has the power of dissenting, even on the side of the extrinsic principle, when the concourse in act the first is presented to it toward either; so also it is certain that God is able to premove our will toward either. Nevertheless, in that instant of duration in which God, by the mode of concourse or of actual cooperation, premoves the created will to assent, it has not the power of predetermining to dissent; because such premotion involves, by the necessity de inesse of the created cooperation, that is, by hypothesis, the sense of a composite attending the divine motion. Wherefore, as it implicates that the will be compounded to assent while dissenting; so also it is repugnant that the will of God premoving in exercised act to dissent should contract our will to assent.

Whereas when the opposition urges: that the premotion to a wicked act is imputable to God, because he could have established the right act.

It is answered: by denying that he could have de inesse and de facto premoved to the right act in the same instant of duration, that is, in which the created will operates the oblique act; since in no instant of time does such a motion to the wicked act flow forth from God, in which the created will does not compound itself to a wicked determination; and consequently the sense of a composite is already involved, of actual cooperation on the side of the creature, and of concursive premotion on the side of God: because God, with Scotus, predetermines by the concursive action alone, and not by any form attaining to the first act.

Should the objection, however, be drawn back to the instants of duration antecedent to the cooperation of our will; it must be said: that just as the created will, for that whole extension of duration before it is compounded to cooperation and to concursive premotion, in the sense of division and separation from the exercised cooperation of free choice, is proximately at hand toward either, but will exercise itself freely toward one only of the two parts of the contradiction; so, although God is able to premove toward either (just as the created will also can act toward either), he will de inesse establish only the one part, and premove to the other, eliciting his influx at once with the created cause, deficient in the same instant in Quo; to the second cause, however, the sinful obliquity is ascribed, because it is not subordinated to God in its causality; as, on the contrary, the terminus of the divine motion, as it is attained by it, is essentially conjoined and subjected to God in the genus of end, as we have said.

The opposition would indeed strike home, if for some presupposition of the instant in Quo, God, without the fellowship of our will, were to premove to the fall; or contract in act the first, and in the sense of division or of separation from the act of concurring. To elicit, however, the one part of the contradiction at once with the created cause, admitted only the priority from Quo (which is unavoidable, owing to the quidditative dependence of the participated being upon the first cause), and with the concourse presented toward either in act the first, is not for God to compel us to the fall, which he might have forestalled were the laws of a general providence supposed. Then, because the concourse was most readily exhibited toward either in act the first before the entrant actual influx contracted to one part of the contradiction; then, above all, because God, having now suffered a necessity de inesse, by reason of the fellowship of the created cause deficient in the same instant in quo, that is, of duration, could not de facto, by the hypothesis of the creature's attending operation, premove to good.

Should the adversaries, however, wish us entangled amid these subterfuges, why do they not also free themselves? For with the supposition that they disapprove the priority of nature in the fall of the cooperation of the created cause, it follows that they will have God equally first concurring with the created will to evil, and consequently not excited by our prevenient malice.

Lastly, in place of a coronis, I oppose to this grave calumny of the adversaries against the concursive premotion, Anselm, tomo 3. libro de Concordis gratiae et liberi arbitrij, where he has it thus. For it is not the fault of God, who created in him the will with liberty of choice, and bestowed on it justice, that it should will nothing but justly; but the fault of man, who deserted the justice he was able to keep. God therefore has in goods, indeed, what things are good through justice; in evils, however, only what things are good through essence; not what things are evil through the absence of the justice owed, which is not something.

Where Anselm, closely weighing the reason why, to God concurring with a wicked operation — nay, with Anselm's own phrase, to God predetermining the matter of sin (as is plain from his own words transcribed under num. 72 of this article) — sin is not attributed? He delivers that reason: because free choice, before it be compounded to a wicked operation, is supposed indifferent toward either, and altogether free: moreover there is available to it whatever is required, that it may be able to operate with a just and right influx, by the virtue of sufficient aid: for that is established by the pronouncements of Anselm. For it is not the fault of God, who created in him the will with liberty of choice, and bestowed on it justice, that it should will nothing but justly; but the fault of man, who deserted the justice he was able to keep.

Then, when he reports why our good works especially are ascribed to God, but not our evil ones, he does not deliver that reason which Molina, Soarius, and their followers weigh, namely that God concurs to the matter of sin, excited and contracted by the wicked operation of free choice; but because in good acts he attains the substance and rightness; in wicked ones, however, the entitative goodness, but not the malice, which, with Anselm, is not something, that is, consists not in something positive but in mere privation.

Take Anselm: God therefore has in goods, indeed, what things are good through justice; in evils, however, only what things are good through essence: not what things are evil through the absence of the justice owed, which is not something. Hang upon those words: which is not something: for the opinion of Scotus, who constitutes the essence of sin not in something positive, but in the privation of the rightness owed; which privation Anselm called the absence of the justice owed, which is not something.

83 To the third argument, from num. 11 — although it specially directs itself not against our opinion, but conspires against the whole company of the Theologians, insofar as the argument seems to disprove the immediate causality of God with respect to the substrate of sin; wherefore Vazquez, that castigator of predetermination, framed the same argument against his own opinion concerning the immediate concourse to the matter of sin.

We say: that with the response of Vazquez discarded — which is there left sufficiently disapproved — we maintain that not therefore is God not the author of sin, because he is unable to be the cause, in that whole abstraction, of the extrinsic denomination, or of the predicate of morality as such; since God elicits such a denomination of a moral and free operation while he concurs to a pious and right act; but on the reason which we weighed at length in the response to the second opposition of Aureolus, from num. 68 vsque ad 71. Namely because the terminus of the divine causality is essentially referred to God in the genus of end; just as it quidditatively depends upon him in the genus of efficient cause; so that the created thing, inasmuch as it is attained by God, is essentially subjected to God, and consequently, as the terminus of the divine causality, cannot be averted from God; and therefore can neither put on the morality of sin. Ad ea, quae inibi ex inftituto aperimus.

84 To the fourth argument, from num. 12, it is answered: that if it struck us, it would obtain likewise against the adversaries admitting the absolute will of God to bestow a concourse upon the matter of sin, with the absolute foreknowledge of the fall of the created will supposed; if such an absolute will of God were made known to the sinner by revelation.

Therefore we say: that just as God, premoving de inesse and de facto to the substrate of sin, does not compel the will to that part of the contradiction, so as not to present a most ready concourse in act the first toward either, together with sufficient aid for pious operation; so, upon any revelation whatever in insinuating that the created will is as it were pinned to the fall, it will be lawful, with the sufficient aid which such a will has attained for pious operation, to strive in act the first toward the right operation. But de inesse, and in act the second, it will not strive toward the opposite of the premotion: for the premotion we maintain is merely concursive, and the will does not receive a concourse opposite to the premotion, because that would be to receive an exercised concourse opposite to the same exercised concourse: although in act the first it can strive toward the opposite. Nor would this be an attempt at violating the divine omnipotence; for just as with the omnimodal determination de inesse to such a fall, which is a determination in the sense of a composite, or by hypothesis, there is compossible an indetermination of the possible proximate, in the sense of division, which is an indifference simply; so simply and absolutely there can be a power proximate and morally expeditious to the will, that it intend and effect the right act.

It would be, however, an attempt of violating the divine omnipotence, thus compounded as to the exercised concourse, de inesse and de facto; for as is plain from Scotus, transcribed by us in this article under num. 21: The priority, which includes that the things can be without one another without contradiction, is not an order in causes, such that they cause a common effect; but they cause it at once. Whence it comes that the concursive premotion cannot be frustrated, because it is such as to import the necessity of consequence, and an infallible attendance de inesse, which corresponds on the side of the exercised cooperation of free choice; whence it implicates a contradiction, that free choice should attempt something in act the second against the concursive premotion which involves the sense of a composite of the created cooperation, just as it contradicts that Peter, as sitting, should run.

And although free choice, sinning, can tend to the opposite, and refert a full and moral power to acting piously by the virtue of sufficient aid; yet that would not be an attempt, or the contriving of a violation of the divine omnipotence, as Didacus Ruiz speaks and wills; because the divine omnipotence, although it is compounded determinately to one in act the second of the concursive premotion, is compounded nevertheless with the created free choice toward either in act the first; and so there becomes to free choice a proximate power toward either, even on the side of the extrinsic principle.

85 To the confirmation of the fourth argument, under the same num. 12: that if such an opposition were efficacious, it would press the adversaries likewise on moral causality, not so that the will respond to the premotion, but to the concourse upon the matter of sin. For, as among the adversaries, although God does not premove to the matter of sin, he concurs physically to it nonetheless; so it could be objected that as the immediate physical concourse to the matter of sin does not contradict the divine goodness, so neither would a moral influx alluring the created will seem repugnant — not so that it should follow the physical predetermination of the divine will, but so that the created will should bestow the concourse; so that God would send in the undeliberate apprehensions and appetitions of wicked objects to this end, that the created will, harried by these motions, should bestow the concourse and respond to God physically premoving to the matter of sin.

Therefore, just as the adversaries are compelled to answer, that the moral causality alluring to the physical concourse of sin is altogether alien to the goodness of God — although the physical causality concurring to effect the substrate of malice is not unworthy of God; so we also blunt that blow by the same argument.

Which presses the more, not only in the opinion of Corduba, who wills the action of the creature to precede the action of God, or his determination, for some priority of nature; but in the doctrine of the Jesuits denying the priority of nature in the action of the creature. Which being premised, the argument concerning the moral causality of God to the matter of sin can be retorted thus.

Because although, with the mind of Scotus supposed concerning a concursive predetermination antecedent by the priority of nature, the sending in of undeliberate apprehensions and appetitions of the forbidden object would be easy, to the end that the will should freely and efficaciously cooperate with such an impulse, for instance, of hatred — because, with Scotus, the creature is determined by the concursive premotion, with which the negation of cooperation in the deficient creature is not de facto compossible; consequently that moral determination alluring to the matter of sin would come to nothing, since the physical predetermination more than suffices to render infallible such an impulse; because the motion of the creature follows the prevenient motion of God.

But with the supposition that God and the creature are compounded equally first, without any sign of priority, to the eliciting of the matter of sin; the impression of undeliberate actions morally alluring free choice to concurrence in the matter of sin does not appear idle, seeing that the creature is not established as determined by the first cause, nor following the prevenient determination of the first cause; God, therefore, could allure the second cause morally, that it bestow the concourse upon the matter of sin, just as God in fact assists and co-aiding physically the created will toward the matter of sin, that the concourse of the creature to the wicked act, as to the matter, be rendered infallible; and so the adversaries are pressed by the same instance of moral causality to the substrate of sin, by the mode of a simultaneous concourse, by which they contend that we are pressed, on account of the physical concursive premotion.

Response to the other objects urged against the premotion of God to the matter of sin.

§ 6

The other instance, concerning the implication of the production of the hatred of God, from num. 13, does not press, once those things are premised which we there supposed. For it is answered: that although the will, deliberately conserving, by the influx elicited from itself, the form of the hatred of God, infused into the will having it merely passively from the first cause, would sin; because although it did not comport itself actively in the first production of such an act, it exhibited afterwards an active and sinful influx for the conservation of such an act. But the influx of God, which is called premotion, cannot be defective; because it is repugnant to the terminus of the divine causality as it is attained by it, that it be able to refer an obliquity, aversion, or deordination from God; since it essentially imports a subordination to God, or a continuation with God, not only in the genus of efficient cause, but also in the genus of final cause; as we showed from the Alensis.

To the other opposition, from the same num. 13, which presses in that hypothesis, that free choice would elicit the act of hatred of God freely, and afterwards be necessitated by God to the continuation of the act. It is answered: admitting the hypothesis, that free choice can be necessitated by God to the continuation of the act. But then God would not be renounced as the author of sin in that hypothesis; just as there would be no sin in that necessary continuation of the act; nor would the created will sin in the continuation of the act, although it sinned in the first effecting of it.

Whence, although that act would be physically individual, and altogether undiscerned; yet morally, and as to the extrinsic predicates of a free, and necessary, operation, it would be different. Because in the first efflux it would proceed from the will in first act indifferent to either; not only on the part of the intrinsic principle, but on the part of God composing his power to either in first act with free choice. But in the continuation of the act, free choice would be necessitated by an extrinsic principle composing its power determinately to one in first act; in the way in which it would comport itself, if he impressed a quality of the species of potency, which would affix free choice to the continuation of the act of hatred of God; or through his own will immediately, or through the executive faculty composed in the aspect of a particular agent, he would supply that quality, and so by himself immediately necessitate free choice in the genus of efficient cause, just as it could be necessitated through that quality in the genus of efficient cause, according to what we wrote at length in this dist., in the digression to the 2nd art., Whether the will can be necessitated by God?

Whereby also the instance to the contrary is elided, which labors, that by the same reason free choice, necessitated to the continuation of the act, would comport itself on the side of the effect, and not necessitated to its first effecting; with the supposition that free choice is premoved also by a concursive action to the first effecting of the act of hatred of God.

For we say, from what has been discussed at length in the digression cited, that the operation of the created will would comport itself otherwise morally, not however physically; and that for the distinction of those efficacious decrees, which terminate upon the first act of a power not requiring the formal composition of another co-principle inhering intrinsically, but only assisting extrinsically in the genus of efficient cause (in whatever manner the power of God is compounded to the concourse with free choice), a physical and intrinsic disparity is not required on the side of the terminus and of the connotate, but only an extrinsic and moral one.

To the last objection, however, that it would be against the essential sanctity of God, that he necessitate free choice to the continuation of the act of hatred of God. We say: that there he concurs to that act inasmuch as, in the rationale of the terminus of the divine action, there is imbued an essential continuation with God in the genus of final cause: as we showed from the Alensis, Scotus, and Bassolius.

For the eliding of the cavil of the Recentiors we show that God is not excused from the causality of sin on account of the intention of a right end; in which we assail the adversaries with an argument from the Alensis (ad hominem).

§ 7 Against the Opposition, from num. 15, arguing that God is not excused from the causality and influx of sin on account of the intention of a right end, if he premove to the matter of sin; because it would be unworthy of the divine goodness to intend evil, on account of the extrinsic apposition of the honest end.

We say: that God does not intend evil, on account of the extrinsic appetition of the right end, when he premoves to the substrate of malice; but only premoves to the entitative goodness of the wicked act, inasmuch as, as the terminus of the divine causality, it imports an essential continuation with God in the genus of final cause. Wherefore, although we confess ingenuously that to desire evil, on account of the extrinsic ordination of it to the right end, is altogether alien from the essential innocence and sanctity of God; yet accidentaliter, and per accidens, compounded to the wicked act. Nevertheless God does not intend the natural goodness of the sinful act, on account of the apposition of an extrinsic honest end; but on account of the right end quidditatively imbued in every created nature, as it is the terminus of the divine causality: because for any participated entity, as it is attained by God, the quidditative connection and continuation with God in the genus of efficient cause is no less than in the genus of final cause; as is plain from what has been said. To the absurdities, however, which Didacus Ruiz objects against our opinion, in one word we say: that God cannot intend a foul object on account of an honest extrinsic end; and consequently all those fictions and detestable aberrations, just as they are opposed to us by mere nod, and a voluntary assertion, not by judgment; so they collapse by mere denial. For although God predetermines, by the mode of actual concourse, to the substrate of sin, that he be at hand to the motion of objects, to the composition of phantasms, and to free choice prone to evil; nevertheless that God, without the cooperation of the deficient created will, should form in the air voices uttering falsehood, and put forth miracles attesting falsity; the impiety of the Atheist could not fall into that.

Wherefore, although we confess that God can concur, according to the excitement of a phantasy assaulted by the devil; and according to the exigency of the composition of phantasms, to the production of some false assertion; just as also he concurs in fact, at once with the will, to the first first-movements, or undeliberate appetitions of foul objects; nevertheless in that hypothesis he would not attain evil, on account of the extrinsic apposition of the right end; but he would elicit the entitative goodness of the act, quidditatively subordinated to God in the genus of end, inasmuch as it is the terminus of the divine causality: which he bestows, that he may take away all moral obliquity, inasmuch as such an act is the terminus of the motion of God.

88 But I retort the argument against Ruiz: because he assails our opinion, premising that we defend that God premoves to evil, on account of the extrinsic apposition of the right end; so that such a continuation with the divine goodness neither transcends, nor is essentially imbued in every terminus of the physical causality of God, insofar as it formally exists as the terminus of that causality, according to the doctrine of the Alensis and of Scotus. Which assertion, if it were true, would carry no less an impiety, the premotion of God to the matter of sin supposed, than that which we assert; than that supposing a will concurring immediately to the matter of sin, which the adversaries uphold.

Because it is no less unworthy of the sanctity of God to predetermine to evil, than to cooperate to evil; as is perfectly evident in human affairs. For not only does he sin who excites another to the fall; but he also who, another already moved to sin, cherishes and aids him to ruin. Therefore as Ruiz is compelled to answer: that God concurring to the substrate of sin does not cooperate to evil, on account of the intention of the honest end; but the terminus of the divine causality is the entitative goodness of the wicked act; so we also, without any trouble, and ad hominem, break the blow of the aforesaid Author.

89 But it is pleasing to seek the elucidation of this pronouncement from the Alensis, in part 2 of his Summa Theologicae, quaest. 94. art. 6. §. 3., Whether an evil action, inasmuch as it is action, is from God? arg. 2., where he thus assails the common opinion.

Whoever aids the thief in the work of theft is a partaker of the theft, according to that Psalm (if you saw the thief, etc.); which is found in the gloss there; therefore he who aids the sinner in the work of sin. But God is never, nor can be called, a partaker of sin or evil; therefore since an evil action is sin, God never aids the sinner in an evil action: therefore he does not aid free choice itself in the evil action.

But he would aid, if with it he made an evil action; therefore in no way is that action evil, inasmuch as action, from God; nay, only from free choice.

Which objection the Alensis so dilutes in his response to the arguments.

To the second it must be said, that God himself does not aid free choice in the evil; for he aids it only as to the action, but not as to the malice, or defect.

For he gives the power to the action, inasmuch as the action names a nature, or something good; but he does not give the power to the will itself, or to free choice, toward evil, or defect; because that is not a being-able, rather it is a not-being-able.

For nature or power does not have this from God, that it be deficient, but from itself, because from nothing: nevertheless that defect cannot be without some good which God makes; nor yet does God make the defect. Whence Dionysius: the good sustains privation.

Where the Alensis hands down that celebrated distinction (which Anselm, and all the ancient and classic authors observed against the heretics), concerning cooperation to the entitative goodness of the act, but not to its malice.

To the Alensis subscribes Scotus in Sent. 2, dist. 37, q. 2, §. On account of those two rationes, num. marg. 9, where he has: From this is apparent that way, of the cause per accidens; for although that cause does not cause formally, what is in sin, by effecting, but by deficiency; it causes nevertheless, by effecting, something positive, to which that defect, caused by deficiency, is annexed; and thus the authorities of Dionysius stand on the side of the accidentality as it comes from the effect.

Whereby Scotus there establishes that God is not the cause of sin, because the privation of the rightness owed is inflicted upon the positive substrate as deficient from God, or not continued essentially with God in the genus of end, just as the substrate of sin is continued, as it is the terminus of the motion and causality of God: for that is what the words of Scotus will: For although that cause does not cause formally, what is in sin, by effecting, but by deficiency: and the following: It causes nevertheless, by effecting, something positive, to which that defect, caused by deficiency, is annexed.

90 To the instance from num. 16. It is answered: that just as, with the Authors of the opposite opinion, although God does not premove to the matter of sin, he bestows nevertheless an immediate concourse upon wicked works, which incomparably surpass in number the pious operations; because the proneness to sinning of our fallen nature, and the natural fallibility of free choice, demand that God, according to the exigency of our will, be thus at hand to the deficient second cause; so by the same reason God, premoving the created will according to its internal impulse of propensity, and accommodating himself to the laws of free choice exercising itself, predetermines so many sinful operations, as one who knows thoroughly and comprehends superabundantly the strivings of free choice.

Whereas you thrust upon us: that the most frequent premotion to evil cannot be thrown back upon the inconstancy of our nature; because they regard the same, and cast themselves back into the same, that our will is premoved to evil, and that it is fragile; since no other condition of our fragility appears which is not cast back into the premotion of God to evil.

It is answered: that the same argument also wars against the will of God concerning the bestowing of an immediate concourse upon the act of sin, no priority of nature being assigned on the side of the created cooperation contracting God; for if the immediate operation of God concerning the matter of sin be removed (which God bestows in the same sign of nature with the creature, and consequently is not contracted by it), the created will would never relapse into evil; God would nevertheless infringe the rights of liberty, if to the faculty striving toward evil he did not present, and render expeditious, the concourse.

91 To the opposition from num. 17: that although it is repugnant to the terminus of the divine causality (as it is physically attained by it) that it be deficient from God, or not be essentially subjected to it in the genus of final cause; and consequently, although God were the moral cause alluring to the physical production of the substrate of malice, he would not be said to attain the wicked act physically as deficient from God; or physically not continued with God in the genus of final cause, as the Alensis speaks; Nevertheless it contradicts God, that he be the moral cause of sin as to the matter, not on account of the aforesaid reason; but because it is altogether alien from the essential goodness and innocence of God, to effect in us, without us, that is without our deliberation and assent, wicked undeliberate motions, to this end, that he should allure our will to the matter of sin, from which the deformity is inseparable, by the respect to the created will. For it is one, for God, in the same instant of duration, at once with our will consenting, and freely concurring, to predetermine the matter of sin; but another, for God, in us without us, without our assent, to elicit wicked motions, that he may allure to the fall.

Nor ought we pass over: that the argument drawn from the repugnance of moral causality to disprove the physical predetermination of the substrate of malice presses also against the immediate physical causality of God concerning the matter of sin; as we made plain under num. 85.

Wherefore, although it does not stand against the nature of the essential innocence of God, that, for the office of the first physical agent, he contract to such an individual of an action (and consequently to the species, since a physical species does not subsist without its individual), as we treated in the preceding things; it contradicts nevertheless the sanctity of God, that he concur by alluring morally. For to the mere and precise function of a physical agent it does not belong to forestall whatever of moral deformity accrues to the action from another co-principle deficient, but that, for the office of the first mover, he be at hand to the second agent which operates, as moving with motion, or, as moving under God, as the more celebrated speak from the ancient Theologians; the Alensis, transcribed under num. 69, and Bonaventure under n. 56 of this article.

But the moral agent — such as the first cause would be renounced, if it enticed to the substrate of sin by the undeliberate motions of apprehensions and appetitions — ought to attend with care, lest any of the morality annexed accede which is deviant from the rule of reason; even though the physical action, as it flows forth from the first principle, cannot be deficient. For if it belonged to the offices of the physical agent not to concur to an operation connexed with malice, just as it belongs to the function of the moral cause not to cooperate to evil morally; it would follow that the first cause did not concur to the matter of sin; concerning which see the pronouncement of the Alensis in n. 89.

This is also confirmed by the probable opinion of Theologians, who hold that an act supernatural as to its substance can be vitiated by an affection, or motive, of vainglory, or of some temporal advantage, which determines the will composed of supernatural principles to elicit an act supernatural as to its substance.

For example, given that hypothesis on which the will, for some priority of nature, is antecedently aroused by the help of preventing grace and set at liberty to itself, or equipped with a faculty executing its operation, together with an infused supernatural habit and according to its demand; and that the will, in such a disposition, determines itself to act through a vicious affect reflected from another motive of vainglory. Then in that meeting, according to the authors of the aforesaid opinion, although preventing grace and the supernatural habits elicit as to their substance an act to which moral deformity is annexed, they do not morally attain the deformed act; but rather by a kind of physical necessity, on account of the provision of the co-principles supernatural constituted in the last extremity of the physical order for acting. For neither does preventing grace allure morally to a supernatural act insofar as it expresses the relatedness to the extrinsic motive by which it is vitiated, and consequently neither does the supernatural habit morally flow into that act insofar as it is compared to the deficient principle; although the supernatural habit concurs by a physical determination, now contracted to such an act supernatural, to which deformity, vicious and from without, accrues.

It comes about therefore that the physical causality of the supernatural principle is not obstructed by the fact that moral deformity accompanies it; because a physical cause, in virtue of its own physical duty, is not bound to avoid the moral lapse that accompanies it. Which happens otherwise in the moral cause, which, if it be intrinsically straight, cannot allure to an act to which crookedness is compounded; since to a moral cause consulting, or alluring, toward an action to which malice is annexed, such malice is attributed, but not to a merely physical principle: otherwise to a supernatural habit concurring physically in a vitiated act such crookedness of the act would be attributed. That a supernatural act can be vitiated, Ripalda contends, de ente supernaturali lib. 3. disp. 50. sect. 2. praecipue n. num. 7. et 8. where he quotes and follows several authors.

To the other objection Ruiz answers under the same n. 17; that since in the causes of sacred Scripture, among the authors, and in all the summit Pontiffs, founders of the sacred canons, and in the Catholic and universal Church there is no moral propensity toward ensnaring the souls of the faithful through the spirit of lying and of error (which we cannot so much as utter without loathing), therefore if per impossibile God should determine the pillar of truth and the organs of the Holy Spirit to deceiving the souls of men, when he performed it, it would not be according to the exigency of free will demanding concourse toward so execrable lapses, but by his power driving men to ruin: then God would be declared a cause necessitating to sin, and it would be equally implied that God premoves the Church, the pillar of truth, into heresy, just as that he be the author of sin.

To the argument from n. 18, that if God did not concur in any oblique operation, not even in the lightest and venial sin (since the negation of such concourse is not something supernatural, just as neither is the positio of concourse toward the substrate of sin), it would happen that without any supernatural gift man could pass his whole life innocently without the perpetration of deadly and venial sin — that argument would press the adversaries too if the concourse of God toward the matter of sin were supposed immediate.

We say therefore that, just as if God were to deny concourse toward the lapse to our will, according to its labile proneness demanding concourse toward the matter of sin, that could not be done without miracle and a preternatural reason; and accordingly it would be a benefit most singular, beyond all the laws of the order of grace, for God not to concur toward the lapse according to the exigency of the lapsed will; so it would be a benefit most great that man, tending into evil according to the internal and spontaneous impulse of his inclination, should not be premoved by God concurring toward the actual influx; since such premotion is not after the manner of an operating principle, but only after the manner of concourse, as we have shown.

To that frivolous objection, then, about the father taking away his own life and the slaying of his sons. We say: that if the sinner were morally hurtling toward those horrid deeds and close at hand girded for the work, so that God, in virtue of his duty as first cause, ought to be at hand to such a man for concourse, then it would be a miracle for God, by withholding himself, to restrain himself from such causality and influx, so that he should never offer concourse toward sins of this kind; but otherwise if the sinner does not assault for such concourse according to the force of diabolical scheming and the propensity of wicked nature — whence it comes about that the argument proceeds equally against predetermination and against concourse, and consequently it ought to be dissolved by the adversaries, just as it is torn up by us.

The testimonies of Scotus are treated, which are objected against our opinion concerning the predetermination of God toward the matter of sin.

93 The oppositions of the recent writers having been discussed; there remains to be treated certain testimonies of Scotus which are objected against us. And first that one from num. 19, where he teaches. Quòd Deus dando voluntatem liberam, dedit antecedenter opera recta, quae sunt in potestate voluntatis, et ideò quantũ est ex parte sui dedit rectitudinem omni actui voluntatis: si ipsa voluntas quaecunque actum elicitum rectè ageret ex parte sui.

From which assertion Hugo Cauellus produced the position that according to the mind of Scotus there is no premotion toward the matter of sin; because if, with no operation of ours foreseen, he had actually established a depraved act, he would not, as far as in himself, be prepared to elicit a right act.

But the inference is weak, and it tells with equal force against the opposing opinion. For among the adversaries it is an axiom that God provides the readiest concourse toward right action for one to whom a congruent vocation is not given, on the basis of foreknowledge of future consent. Why, then, is concourse toward the good offered to someone who is known not to be going to elicit a right act? Hence, just as those authors earnestly maintain that God offers concourse toward either alternative in first act, so that the laws of liberty are preserved and free choice is left in its own hand of counsel, as a principle proximately and morally equipped toward either alternative in first act—even though God foreknows that, with an incongruent vocation, it will not perform a right act—so too, although God predetermines together with free choice the other side of the contradiction, for example dissent, he also provides concourse in first act toward assent, so as not to violate the rights of liberty.

That he presses the same in the opinion of Soarius, and of others asserting that God absolutely predefines good acts before the absolute science of our cooperation; which authors, although they sustain the aforesaid prestitution, or predefinition, of good acts, receive a concourse furnished in act first toward either of two. Whence the testimony of Scotus cited above does not impair predetermination; since it only establishes the doctrine concerning the provision of the divine concourse in act first toward contraries, and contradictories, which we treated under nu. 80 and 82.

In this, however, we disagree from Suárez and his followers, in that although we establish as the mind of Scotus the provision of divine concourse toward either of two in act first — which indeed the aforesaid testimony of Scotus obtains, with which we are confronted: Deus dando voluntatem liberam dedit antecedenter opera recta, quae sunt in potestate voluntatis; et ideò quantùm est ex parte sui dedit rectitudinem, etc. — yet, such composition of the divine power with created free choice toward either of two in act first being supposed, we defend premotion in act second through the very action of God flowing in concourse; on which we treated above against Cauellus in the present dist. ar. 2 in the Digression, an voluntas possit necessitari à Deo sub n. mar. 58. and 59.

The reason, therefore, why we compose premotion concursive in act second with the provision of concourse toward either of two in act first, is that the liberty of the created will may remain intact in the sense of division, before the exercise of the concourse of God; and that the cooperation of free choice may be conceived to issue forth, for any sign, from the will itself and the power of God determined to such species and individuation of influx; since it would be implied that from a principle indeterminate in act exercised a determined action should proceed, as we evidently showed from Aureolus against Suárez and his followers.

94. Whence from what has been said it follows that weak also is that inference of Hugo Cauellus: Voluntas diuina ideò non causat semper bonam, quia creata id nõ vult; ergo creata ad malum determinat. For although the oblique operation is always thrown back upon the created will as deficient, for the reason which we have often outlined; yet not because the created will determines the first cause toward evil; but because God cannot premove our will, as a matter of simple possibility, after the manner of actual cooperation, with the created will not cooperating, and yielded and consenting to the motion; whence if the will itself did not pursue evil, neither would God premove toward evil.

Which is verified in whatever concausality of several principles concurring by natural sympathy toward the production of the same effect, without however any premotion, or presupposition of the influx of one concause toward the influx of the other; as is evident in the intelligible species, and in the possible intellect, with respect to the generation of the mental word.

For true is that assertion: Species intelligibilis est expeditum principium ad productionem verbi, si intellectus concurrat ad generationem illius; ita vt negatio concursus in facultate intellectiua sit ratio sufficiens, ob quam species intelligibilis siue impressa non concauset verbum mentis. But in no sense can it stand: Quòd intellectus determinet speciem intelligibilem ad generationem verbi, vel speciei expressa repraesentatiuae talis obiecti; eò quòd intellectus sit pura potentia in genere intelligibiliū; et determinetur ab obiecto, et à motione intentionali obiecti per speciem, ad productionem verbi; et nõ è contra intellectus moueat obiectum, vel speciem intelligibilem (quae est agens vicarium obiecti, et semen informationale eius,) ad generationem talis verbi et imaginis obiecti, et non alterius.

This reasoning presses against Cauellus in the case of all co-causes that converge by natural sympathy upon one and the same individual influx without any priority of nature, even though the removal of the influx of any co-principle is sufficient reason for the effect to cease.

From what has been said follows the right understanding of that pronouncement of the authors, who, predetermination having been admitted through an absolute decree, hold that by premotion it entails conditioned necessity; which they judge to be no other than the necessity of consequence, as it is opposed to the necessity of the consequent. So Ioan. de S. Thoma, professor at Complutum, 1. p. quaest. 14. disp. 20. ar. 7. §. igitur cum it was objected to us in Congregation 38. Where, recounting how the Dominicans diluted the objection of the Jesuits in the congregation held at Rome concerning the controversy de auxiliis, contending that premotion through the decree of God takes away liberty, and favours Calvin; he subjoins.

Confutatio erroris Calvini. Calvin denied that distinction de necessitate consequentis tollente libertatem, et de necessitate consequentia salvante libertatem; because, as Driedo says, every heretic has denied that distinction by which all the sophisms of the heretics are dissolved; for that the necessity of consequence, or conditioned, does not injure liberty is the doctrine of the saints, etc. Where the aforesaid author sustains that the absolute proposition imports conditioned necessity.

Qualiter praemotio inferat necessitatē conditionatam, cum sit decretum absolutum. This conditioned necessity, therefore, arising from the decree, or from the fact that the predetermining decree imports the condition of accompanying cooperation of free choice in the same instant in which, must be so understood; not that the decree composes the divine power toward indeterminate concourse, and that free choice purifies the condition, contracting the concourse of God toward such a species of influx, as Suárez wills and his followers. But that the premoving decree is asserted to import in that sense the condition of the cooperation of free choice: because although it premoves by concourse contracted toward such a species and individuation of action, yet it is not prior by a priority of separation than the operation of free choice, as is evident from what we hand down below under n. mar. 100, outlining that celebrated pronouncement of Scotus. Dico; quod prioritas, quae includit, ea posse esse sine se invicem absque contradictione, non est ordo in causis, vt causant effectum communem; sed simul causant.

Firmatur doctrina accidens. If, therefore, the absolute decree implies without the accompanying operation exercised of free choice, in such wise that if per impossibile the operation of free choice did not exist, neither would such a premoving decree, after the manner of concourse, be at God's service; thence it accrues that such a decree imports this condition of accompanying, which is placed in the necessity of inseparability of simple possibility, which is the necessity of consequence.

Datur in arsu intectu spẽs impressa. In which sense the concourse of the intelligible species toward the generation of the word, although it be contracted toward such a species of intelligible diction, and issue from the species contracting the intellect toward such a species of influx, can be called conditioned on account of the accompanying connexion with the concourse of the intellect; insofar as if the influx of the intellect toward the diction of the word did not exist, there would not be at the service of the intelligible species (although moving and contracting the intellect) an actual and exercised influx toward the generation of the word.

Firmatur auctoritate Scoti de contrahente praecedente Scotus. And so also is Scotus to be understood, in 1. sent. dist. 39. q. unica. §. ad auctoritates omnium sanctorum sub n. 35., where he has: Per hoc concedo, quòd contingentia relata ad diuinam scientiam sunt necessaria necessitate consequentia; hoc est, ista consequentia est necessaria; si Deus scit illa esse futura, illa erunt: non tamen sunt necessaria necessitate absoluta, nec necessitate consequentis.

95 From what has been said it follows that even from the camp of Scotus there has fallen away a certain newfangled follower of his, Theod. Smisingius, tom. 1 de Deo uno. tract. 3. disp. 3. de voluntate divina. q. 3. in resp. ad argumenta. sub n. marg. 81.; where he says that the determination of the created will is the formal reason contracting the divine will toward such a species of causality; by a like reason as the substantial form is asserted to be the formal determinative in the physical composite; and subsistence is the formal reason of incommunicability in the supposit; just as in metaphysics the specific difference is the formal reason of the specific metaphysical composite: and hecceity the formal reason of the individuum.

Th. Smisingius falls away from Scotus.

The opinion is refuted. This doctrine must not be admitted; for, apart from the fact that to say the divine will is contracted by the created will is plainly to diverge from Scotus’s school, as is clear from the preceding article’s physical excursus, the examples adduced by that author demonstrate the falsity of such a pronouncement.

Another assault on the opinion of Smisingius. For metaphysical differential grades are asserted as formal determinative reasons of the metaphysical composite toward such a species of being; because they can be conceived as prior to the composite which they constitute. Which is more perspicuous in physical forms, in which there appears the undeniable supposition of the form to the physical composite; just as also the hypostasis precedes by a priority of nature the supposit which it constitutes. Therefore if our determination were the formal and contracting determinative of the community, or quasi-potentiality, of the divine faculty executing, it would come about that our operation could be conceived as prior to the influx of God as exercised, and actually determined to our operation; and accordingly as immediately independent of God; the falsity of which assertion is evident from what has been said, and will be brought forward more manifestly in the following distinction, weighing the truth of conditioned futures.

96 To the second testimony of Scotus from n. 20, it is answered that there he did not assert that the first cause is determined by the action of the second cause, but that God is determined by the particular agents. Which contraction does not belong to the genus of efficient cause, but to the genus of quasi final cause; because God, on account of the operation congruous to the natures of the agents, or on account of the end of the operation congruous, or conformed to the condition of the agents, premoves second causes toward a free or necessary influx.

But that such a determination of God by created agents ought not to be so assumed that the premotion of God, that is, the causality anteceding our operation by a priority of nature, be disapproved, Francis. Aretinus hands down in comment. on the locus cited. under the words: aliqua causa potest dici mediata, vel immediata. where he says.

Observe, nevertheless, that God has causality in these inferior things in a fourfold way; first, because he gives the power of operating to other causes. Second, because he conserves the power of those causes, and makes them and their effects operate. Third, because they are moved by God; for before by nature God moves the celestial orbs, and particular causes, toward acting; although all concur together in the operation, nor is there given an instant in which God operates without causes, or conversely, etc. But that, according to Scotus, the purpose of the divine will is not contracted by the determination of the created will; see above in this art. under nu. 62. and below. under numer. 100.

Testimonies of Maior and of other followers of Scotus for premotion toward the substance of sin; and how there stands the priority of nature between the premotion of God and the operation of free choice in the sense of Scotus.

97 VErily, besides the followers of Scotus whom we cited above from nume. 48. up to 55., who thunder that the indetermination of our will as toward all acts must be contracted by the absolute will of God: even of such a pronouncement the express assertor is Jac. Malafossa of Bergamo in 1. sent. dist. 39. under the word: vel aliter. where he says.

Around the present matter I set down many conclusions. The first conclusion is this: that the contingent, before it is put in existence, is determined to one side of the contradiction by a determination of simple possibility.

Second conclusion: that the future contingent, if it must be determined to one side, it is necessary that it have an extrinsic cause determining it; because as far as from itself it is indifferent, etc.

Then under the sixth assertion the aforesaid author subsribes. Sixth conclusion: that the first extrinsic cause determining the future contingent to one side is the divine will. What could be more open?

98 Vltimately let the host of the Scotists be closed by that most illustrious auditor of Scotus, Francif. Maionius, on account of the splendor of his wisdom called the Doctor Illuminatus by the Parisian school, who in 1. sent. dist. 39. q. 4. whether future contingents have a determinate truth? §. as to the second. has it thus:

*As to the second, it is to be seen whether they have determinate truth in themselves. It is said by some, that because future contingents are not yet, hence it is that they do not have such a deter-*minate truth; because the truth of contingents is together with their existence.

And if it be said; that although they are not in their presence, nevertheless they are in their futurition. He says; that to be future is not except secundum quid to be.

From this it appears that they concede sufficiently to the proposition: namely, that in themselves they have determinate truth in some manner; but when they will be simply created, they will have determinate truth, just as they now have presence.

But that the future have such a determination is evident, for this is simply true: Antichristus erit; and this is simply false: Antichristus non erit. Hoc ego probo primò sic, satis euidenter.

To every active production there necessarily corresponds some passive; but the divine will actively produces those future contingents into willed existence, which is nothing other than actively to determine them: therefore necessarily something is produced.

Not something which is in God formally; therefore necessarily something which is in the creature, or in the future contingent: but the very same is produced into willed existence: therefore it is determined passively.

It is confirmed; because as the productive requires the producible, so the determined productive the determined producible; and in the same manner, as the determinative requires the determinable, so the determining the determined. But the divine will is determining: therefore something is determined: and that can be nothing except the future contingent.

99 Where, around the doctrine of Maionius, it should be observed that it occurred to him as so perspicuous that no other reason of determinate sciibility or truth is fitting to the future contingent which, posited, is not in production into willed existence, that he judged it evident; for he says: Hoc ego probo satis euidenter: productio autem rei in esse volito, in the phrase of Scotus, sounds of nothing else than mutationem obiectivam, in the common manner of speaking.

Moreover; since the objective mutation, which draws a possible being from the immutable decree toward futurition, is posterior to the decree itself, as is manifest; thence it accrues that the truth of any future contingent ought to be posterior to the free determination of God; and consequently also that, without the decree as existing, no determinate truth, or sciibility, can be assigned.

On account of which reason, in the following distinctio concerning the foreknowledge of conditionals, the assertion of the recent writers will be disapproved, holding that without a conditioned decree, which is actually in God, there is given determinate truth of futures under a condition.

100 To the third testimony of Scotus from n. 17, where he seems to deny the priority of nature between the motion of God and the causality of the creature.

It is answered; that Scotus disapproves only that priority which is called of separation, or from which there cannot be a consequence of subsisting; in such wise that the positio of the prior infallibly does not accompany the existence of the posterior. For such a priority between the causalities of the first and second cause is altogether exploded; for otherwise there could be given a premotion of the concourse of God without the cooperation of the creature, which is absurd.

And there would follow that which we have often taxed in Scotus; that God would premove the created free choice in act first, if the premotion of God could subsist with the cooperation exercised of the creature not existing in the same instant in which; therefore the premotion of the concourse of God is not prior by that priority from which there cannot be a consequence of subsisting in the operation of the creature; whence God premoving by concourse entails the necessity of consequence.

Yet the priority of dependence (prioritas in quo) between the causality of God and the causality of the created cause is not refuted; it stands together with the necessity of consequence, without absolute necessity or the necessity of the consequent. Scotus’s words plainly report this: “I say that a priority which entails that they can be without one another without contradiction is not an order among causes insofar as they cause a common effect; rather, they cause simultaneously.”

And that Scotus disapproved the priority of nature between the action of God, and the action of the creature, only in that usurpation of priority, which implies a separation that can survive without contradiction in the composite sense of the premotion of concourse; yet not in that acceptation of the priority of nature, which indicates the priority à Quo, or of the dependence of the action of the creature upon the action of God: is plain from the very words of the context, which is opposed to us, and is transcribed there.

Sicut enim loquendo de diuersis generibus causarum non priùs natura materia materiat, quã efficiens efficiat; quasi sine contradictione possit esse materiatum, et non effectum, vel è converso.

Which objection from the comparison of material cause and efficient, without a priority of nature in the sole sense of the separation of the material causality from the efficient, and with the undeniable presupposition of the dependence of any material and efficient cause in its own order of causing; manifestly demonstrates that Scotus did not deny the priority from which or of dependence of the action of the created cause upon the action of God.

But that God is not drawn by the creature toward the species of act, is expressly handed down by Scotus in 4 senten. distinct. 49 quaest. 6. sub num. margin. 15. Non repugnat sibi (that is, to the will) quòdcontingentia eius non ponat contingentiam ex parte effectus simpliciter, quantùm est ex parte causae superioris; quia causa superior non determinatur ab ipsa.

Indeed the created will is determined by God; as is evident from the context there. Non est autem contra naturam eius determinari à causa superiori; quia cum hoc stat, quòd sit causa in suo ordine.

Which elucidation of the Scotist text I take from Guliel. Rubion. in 2. distin. 34. q. 2. in resp. ad tertium argumentum, where he says:

Toward the third; when it is said, that if the uncreated and the created will concur toward the same effect; either the uncreated acts before, etc.

It is answered; that the uncreated acts before by a priority of perfection; yet both act together with a simultaneity of generation. Nor does it follow from this, that it is inferred; namely that the created does not depend upon the uncreated. For of several concurring toward the same effect with a simultaneity of generation, the more imperfect can depend upon the more perfect; because neither does the uncreated and the created will concur without all order, etc.

Where Gulielmus, admitting the simultaneous concourse in the same instant in which, which he called the instant of generation, professes nevertheless an order of dependence, and consequently a priority of dependence; since it implies the dependence of this upon another in concurring without an opposition of posteriority in the dependent with respect to that from which it depends; for those perspicuous pronouncements of Gulielmus bring it forward. Nec sequitur, quòd creata non dependeat ab increata. And below: Non concurrunt sine omni ordine voluntas increata, et creata.

Similar things Peter Tartaretus has, in 2 sent. dist. 37. q. unica. §. Et vt clariùs dicatur. where he says:

Toward that, that God of a prior nature gives rectitude, or deformity, to the act, before the created will; one must distinguish concerning the prior. One thing is prior by a priority of separation; another is prior by a priority of perfection. An example of the first: the Sun illuminates before it warms; and therefore illumination can be separated from calefaction. An example of the second; as the Sun generates the horse before the horse, that is in a more perfect mode. Similarly, God produces volition before the will; because God independently, and the will dependently; therefore God acts in a more perfect mode.

And when it was argued; that God, in the first instant, in which he gives rectitude to the act; either makes the act right, or not right: and consequently it is not to be imputed to the will?

I say; that the argument proceeds from a priority of separation, such as is not in that action. etc.

Other objections against God’s premotion toward the material aspects of sinful acts are refuted here; the reason is also given why, despite premotion, the sin of omission is not attributed to God.

But you will object from Vázquez, 1. p. disp. 99. cap. 4. n. 25., that the decrees of God establishing the operation of the created will absolutely, and not involving a hypothesis, or condition, of the cooperation of our will, necessarily import a priority, not only from which, but also in which; unless we wish to mock the controversy with words.

It is pressed from Vazquez. For if God absolutely preordains the assent of our will, with the science of our cooperation not awaited; therefore by himself alone, for any sign, he predecrees the futurition, or objective mutation toward being about to be, of our assent; without calling upon our will, or assuming it into partnership of such absolute preordination: for if God did not establish from eternity the consent of the created will by wrapping within the hypothesis that it will, he would therefore exclude the partnership of the will in that eternal and absolute predefinition of the assent of free choice.

The objection is refuted. It is answered; that as God, not by himself alone, but together with the creature in the same instant in which, or of duration, elicits our assent, so also from eternity he preordains that such a species and individuate act be made by such a power; so that that internal definition (as from eternity it in-dwells in the divine will) should be set forth thus: I will with that will to produce such an act of assent, or dissent. Although the simultaneity of the instant in which being supposed, there must be necessarily sustained a priority from which, or of nature; because God concurs as a principle contracting the indetermination of the created will toward such a species and individuation of acts, and the contracting reason is essentially prior to the contracted reason; since he bears himself as that from which with respect to it.

It is driven against Vazquez himself. If, however, the objection of Vazquez pressed, it would also touch the common doctrine concerning the decree of concurring toward such an act of created volition. Wherefore just as God absolutely establishing that he concur toward such a species of act, for instance assent, does not predecree by himself alone that the existence of such an assent be rendered, but assumes the created will into partnership of cooperation; so it must also be pronounced of God predetermining toward assent. Since such predetermination is only concourse in the same instant in which; and not anteceding after the manner of a principle.

The pretence is closed in the decree of concurring. Unless Vazquez wished that which we refuted in Suárez and Herice (in artic. 5. of this distinctio. from numer. 19. up to 22.), that the will of concurring toward such a species of influx involve a condition to be purified by free choice. Which thing supposed, the presupposition of the operation as flowing forth from free choice appears inevitable, if it should purify with a conventional application of so operating according to the nod of the created will.

Another objection, that the will of concurring involve a condition. 102 You will press further; that from what has been said it is inferred that the will of God preordaining our operation is not absolute, but importing a condition of our will cooperating; if God call our will and assume it into the partnership of the predetermination of the acts of the created will.

It is treated, in what way the will of concurring can be called conditioned? It is answered; that then the will of God would not decree absolutely the acts of our will, if it premitted the science of the cooperation of the created will; or if it were composed with free choice toward the effecting of its acts, wrapping within a condition, if free choice wills, and offering an indeterminate concourse toward a species of act, contractible by the created will toward such a species. But since in the preordination of the acts of our will God does not so bear himself, but absolutely (with the science of our cooperation not awaited) decrees to concur with that will toward such an act; therefore such a proposition of God is not conditioned, but simply absolute.

A fuller elucidation of the preceding doctrine. In which sense, however, it can be called conditioned, we showed above in this art. under numer. margin. 94., insofar as such a necessity is not that necessity which from the Theologians is called the necessity of consequence bursting forth from a principle affixed to one, and without a moral power toward the opposite, in the sense of division and of separation from a merely concursive motion; but that necessity (which the premotion concurring imports) is a conditioned and respective necessity, that is, a necessity of consequence, from the hypothesis of the sole concursive motion, and in the same instant in which with the composition of the created will toward its cooperation premittent the absolute power of the will toward the opposite in act first. Whence, although the premoving decree in act second and after the manner of the sole causality concursive is not conditioned in that sense, that it import a concourse contractible at the arbitrament of the will toward such a species of causality; but absolutely establish such a species and individuate influx; yet it is conditioned, because it refers and entails a conditioned and respective necessity, from the hypothesis of the sole motion of the concourse exercised premittent the absolute power of the first act indeterminate, and proximately valid toward either of two, before the causality exercised of the concurring divine decree.

103 If, however, you press a third time: Objection, that predetermination entails the necessity of inference. That accompanying, that of the created will and the divine, if the act of the created will be absolutely established without the foreknowledge of our cooperation, can rightly be called of the necessity of inference; because the will of God infallibly, with a stronger energy, infers the assent, and as it were binds the created will to the preordained act.

Satisfaction to the objection. I say; that if by necessity of inference be understood the emanation of the consequent from the antecedent necessarily, that is, affixed after the manner of a first act toward one side of the contradiction, in such wise that in the proximate power, or outset, it be not after the manner of a principle toward the opposite, in the sense of division and of separation from all exercised motion; the necessity of simple possibility, that is, the connexion of accompanying (which intervenes between the causalities of the first cause and of the second), must be denied to be a necessity of inference. NOTA. But if by necessity of inference only the infallible accompanying be meant, on account of the unimpeded simultaneity of simple possibility and of fact, and of the coherence in the composite sense, of our cooperation with the premotion concursive of God, it ought to be admitted: for in such an acceptance the necessity of inference would sound the same as the necessity of consequence, which receives the common consent of the Doctors; concerning which, in this contro. distinct. 3. de Praescientia conditionatorum. art. 4. de Causalitate, et necessitate conditionalis praescientiae. from n. mar. 4. up to 7.

104 To the fourth testimony of Scotus from numer. 22, to the 4. testimony of Scotus which takes away predetermination after the manner of a first act. It is answered that there he only tears up predetermination after the manner of a principle, and in act first; but does not defeat the priority of nature after the manner of actual concourse. For if the created will were predetermined by God through composition, whether intrinsic or extrinsic, of an operative virtue in act first, it would manifestly happen that without that premoving form there would not be left to our will a proximate and equipped principle toward either of two. For if the created will, that it be valid proximately toward right operation, demands a form pertaining to the first act of acting; therefore without such a form our will is not proximately and morally potent toward acting well; and consequently before it actually operate evil, it is left by God as it were affixed toward evil, since there is not at its service a proximate power after the manner of a principle toward good.

Wherefore, and consequently, Scotus denied that the causality cooperative, or concursive, of God is prior than the causality of the creature by a priority of separation, or by that priority from which there cannot be a consequence of subsisting; in such wise that the motion of the first cause being posited, there could of fact and of simple possibility not be posited the cooperation exercised of the creature. For there would be left the created will not expediting itself toward the act second, and consequently in act first; and accordingly the motion and determination of the divine will upon the created will, as in act first, would fall; and consequently the created will would be contracted in act first, and consequently would not be in act first indifferent toward either of two.

Wherefore, we also used this same testimony of Scotus in the present distinction, art. 2, On the Foreknowledge of Future Things in Their Causes, under no. 19, to show that, given such a premotion, sin is not imputable to our will, nor is the sufficiency preserved of the aid called sufficient because it readily enables the eliciting of a holy act. Why predetermination of free choice in first act is repugnant. For if, beyond the indeliberate motions of holy illuminations on the part of the intellect and inspirations on the part of the will, another form or operative power belonging to the species of a potency is required so that the will is constituted proximately able to act in first act, then, once that premoving form is removed as a principle, sufficient aid is no longer left sufficient.

But if the premotion pertains not to the act first, but to the exercised and actual concourse, as the will is asserted (as it antecedes the act second of our cooperation) to be proximately able toward either of two, toward contraries and contradictories; since the premotion of the concourse does not bear a priority with respect to the instant in Which, but from Which. Hence it comes about, that our will is not conceived in act first as contracted and affixed to one side of the contradiction; and consequently neither as necessitated by an antecedent necessity.

From these same considerations, the objection that is brought against our position from the sin of omission can also be dissolved; it presses thus.

If the predetermination of God, antecedent by priority-from-what (à Quo) to our operation, which is the fulfilment of the precept, is necessarily demanded for the fulfilment of the affirmative precept; then the sin of omission ought to be referred to that principle, which first and of itself removes the positing of the act that would fulfil the law. But that principle which does not concur by priority-from-what, contracting the potentiality of the created will and applying it to influx, removes the observance of the law beforehand; therefore the sin of omission ought to be ascribed to God.

It is answered in like manner: that the sin of omission could then be referred to God, when something possessing the character of a principle required for acting existed before there was any exercise and actual influx from the will omitting the fulfilment of the precept. But the predetermination of God does not come to the aid of the created will that omits, for the reason that actual concourse for the good is denied to the created will when it does not do the good. The same reasoning holds for the will of not predetermining as for the will of not concurring, since all predetermination in our account is constituted in the very execution of the concourse. Wherefore, just as the will in God of not concurring, when the fulfilment of the precept presses upon the creature, is imputed only to the deficient principle; so also the will of not predetermining, which is not distinguished from concomitant motion.

Whence, when it is urged: if God had predetermined to the observance of the precept, the created will would not have refused. If this objection obtained anything, it would also act against the causal character of the concomitant concourse of the first cause; because if God had furnished the concourse, the created will could not on that hypothesis fail to fulfil the precept, since such supposition involves the compound sense of the cooperation of free choice. We establish the same concerning the predetermining will, since such premotion takes place not by the mode of a principle forestalling the exercised cooperation, but by the mode of concourse.

But if you object further: that therefore free choice is not excused in the sin of omission on the ground that God does not furnish concourse to the observance of the precept; because God therefore does not concur because the creature does not will to act;

Or you could be met thus: that since among the adversaries God and the creature are composed for acting in the same sign of nature, neither is God before the creature, nor the creature before God — as is asserted — therefore, just as it may be objected that God does not concur because the creature does not cooperate, so it could equally be objected that the creature therefore does not cooperate because God does not concur: since neither concourse (if it does not forestall the other by priority of nature) could be renounced as the reason of the other, as regards both the positing and the negating of it.

Whence also Scotus consistently refers the knowledge of the sin of omission to an infallible medium on the side of the object, not to a knowledge of the failure of some principle required for the power to be proximate, that the precept might be fulfilled; but to the sheer negation of the determination of the concourse, which looks merely to the negation of the second act; while in 1. senten. dist. 41. q. unica. § sed adhuc contra istud instatur. num. margi. 13. he subjoins, dissolving the objection.

» But this God foreknows, because he wills » to cooperate with it, if there is a commission » of sin; or he foreknows that he will not cooperate to » some act, if he does not will it, and to have » known this is the first act of the sin of omission: » and in knowing that he will cooperate to » such a substance of act without the due » circumstances, or that he will not cooperate » to a necessary act, and consequently, which » he will omit, he will know him about to sin. » So that he knows this one about to sin, » not only because he knows that he will permit; but » also because he knows that he will cooperate with him to the substance of an act not circumstantiated; and consequently this man will commit it, or will not be one to cooperate with him for the act that is necessary, and consequently this man will omit.

Vindication of the opinion of Scotus from the criminations of the adversaries, that it favours the fall of Calvin and of the Novatians.

105 To the last objection, drawn from the doctrine of Scotus under margin num. 13, which argued that Scotus seems a favourer of the fall of Calvin and of the Novatians, because, through the absolute purpose of the divine will, God, when he exerts his causal character towards the outside, contracts our will to one side of the contradiction, so that it is not within their right to strive in the opposite direction.

It is answered: the heretics deny the proximate equipment and expedition of the divine concourse to either alternative by force of the decree; wherefore they blaspheme that our will is compelled by the decree of God, while with great clamour they rail that our proximate power for contraries and contradictories is not equipped by the divine will as by an extrinsic principle, but that the will is impeded by the purpose of God in first act, before actual cooperation, or in the sense of division, or separation from exercised concourse. Which is altogether alien from the mind of the Scotists, who assert that our will is therefore left in the hand of its own counsel because, before actual cooperation is entered upon, there is supposed a concourse proximately forthcoming to either alternative, even by force of the decree, appearing to either alternative in firstact; and that it sustains only a necessity of inesse, that is, one involving the compound sense of equal cooperation, or of the premotion of concourse; but not an antecedent necessity by the mode of a principle and in the sense of division, which is a necessity simply.

But that this was the assertion of the ancient assectators and auditors of Scotus, it is evident from Guilelmus de Rubione in the place cited, ex 2. sentent. distinct. 34. quaest. 2. in respon. ad tertium arg. ubi inquit.

To the authority of Sacred Scripture I say: that therefore man is said to be in the hand of his own counsel, because although he supposes a cause determining him to one side with a determination of inesse; nevertheless he does not necessarily follow such a determination; nay, he could not follow it as possible, although he follows it de facto.

And therefore when it is said, that if man could not of himself choose what he wills without some cause determining him; he would not be in the hand of his own counsel, but of the cause determining him.

I concede, if man could not act contrary to that to which he is determined. Just as because fire is so determined by the first cause, and any other natural agent whatever, to act upon a passible thing disposed and approximated to it; and now to this fire, now to another, that it can neither not act when a passible thing is at hand, nor act otherwise than upon that to which it is determined; therefore neither it nor any other natural agent acting is in the hand of its own counsel, but rather of the first cause determining it: but so it is not with man, nor with any other free agent.

The like has Bassolius, transcribed by us above in this article under margin num. 48, where to that objection; That the sinner would sin with equal necessity as fire heats. He answers; Bassolius: That is true as regards this, that just as, the divine will standing that fire heat when combustible matter is present, it is impossible that fire not heat; so by necessity of consequence it is impossible that this man not sin. Yet he does not sin naturally, nor from a natural principle as fire, but from a free principle, which indeed is determined to sinning not naturally, but freely.

From which words of Bassolius: Which indeed is determined to sinning not naturally, but freely. It is plainly evident in what the Catholic assertion differs from the fall of the heretics the Novatians.

Those who deny that free choice is expedited by God in act first to either of two, but is driven, or affixed, by the eternal statute of God to one side of the contradiction, so that the power to the opposite is not supplied to it, nor in the sense of division and separation from the exercised concourse: whence also they disapprove the virtue of sufficient help, as we showed above in this article under n. 67, at the end.

Wherefore they also deny that celebrated distinction of the theologians between necessity of consequence and of the consequent; concerning which, for the doctrine of Scotus and Bonaventure, elucidated by us below in the following distinctio, de praescientia contingentium conditionatorum. art. 4. de necessitate, et causalitate conditionalis praescientiae. n. mar. 6. et 7.

And that it may appear the more deeply in what the Catholic assertion differs from the heresy of the Novatians, I transcribe the fall of Calvin from Martinus Becanus. tomus 1. opusculorum. Opusculo 3. de authore peccati. cap. 8. nu. marg. 1. Thus therefore Calvin has it, lib 1. institutionum. cap. 18. §. 1. By tergiversating, therefore, they seek an escape, that this is done by the mere permission of God, not also by his will. But that men accomplish nothing except by the secret nod of God, nor deliberate upon anything except what he has already decreed within himself. And the same Calvin, lib. 3. institutionum cap. 23. §. 9. subjoins, impiously blaspheming and babbling. The reprobate will be held excusable on account of sinning, because they cannot escape the necessity of sinning, especially since such a necessity is imposed upon them by the ordination of God. We indeed deny that they are rightly excused from this, seeing that in the ordination of God (by which they complain themselves destined to destruction) there stands his equity, unknown indeed to us, but most certain.

See how Calvin openly denies power (in the sense of division, or of separation from exercised concourse) except towards that side of the contradiction which has been set forth by the secret nod of God; wherefore he also takes away sufficient grace for the opposite. Observe, too, that he explodes permission with regard to malice, and the causality of approbation with regard to the entitative substrate of goodness, spewing out, that to tergiversate and to contrive escapes of insanity belongs to Catholic authors, when by the permission of God they refer the formal element of sin to it; and that he compares the will and causality of God to the substrate of sin, as is clear from those words: By tergiversating, therefore, they seek an escape, that this is done by the mere permission of God, not also by his will.

Next, that deliberation is not to the purpose for free power to act, even in the sense of division and before exercised cooperation, but that the created will in first act is contracted to one thing by the eternal decree of God — this is evident from those words: Nor do they deliberate upon anything except what he has already decreed within himself. Whence he does not distinguish between necessity of the consequent and of the consequence, by which the machinations of the heretics are cast down: but he asserts an inevitable necessity of sinning, as is clear from that impious pronounce ment; They cannot escape the necessity of sinning, especially since such a necessity is imposed upon them by the ordination of God. Which supposed, it is evidently inferred that the action of God is as much the betrayal of Judas as the conversion of Paul, by an absolute necessity injected from an extrinsic principle, without power to the opposite; whence Calvin moreover holds and ridicules our deliberations as if void and superfluous.

Finally, at length, against Calvin I object against him that utterance of Scotus which I transcribed under number 100 of this article. That it is not against its nature (that is, of the created will) to be determined by a superior cause; because this is its state, that it be a cause in its own order. That it stands so far from the truth that the determination or premotion of the concurrent decree takes away the exercised liberty of the second act of the cooperation of the created will; that rather the liberty of exercised appetite is drawn from the concurrent decree as from a principle, or that the will expatiate itself and exercise itself towards an operation congruent to its nature in its own order of causing, namely as a free agent; just as from the will of God (which is the very executive faculty of it towards the outside) there flows forth as from a principle the impulsive faculty, or the volitive power with indifference to either alternative. Whence as it does not obstruct the liberty of the will in act signed, or of the impulsive faculty, that it should break forth from the extrinsic principle of the divine will as from the fountain of all participated and participable indifference; so neither does it contradict the liberty of exercised impulse, that it should be effected by the divine will as by the principally moving and determining agent, not only to the substance of the act, but even to the mode of its indifference.

Answer to the foundations of Aureolus, rejecting the immediate concourse of God to the matter of sin; and another vindication of Aureolus from the rigid censure of the Neoterics; with the crown of noble theologians also joined, who subscribe to Aureolus.

106 The arguments of Aureolus against the foreknowledge of future contingents in the determination of the divine will we dissolved above from number 64 up to 74; there now remains, with contracted pen as it were, to break down the objections against the immediate concourse of God to the matter of sin.

And first, to the pronounce ment of Aureolus under num. 24, affirming; that God does not act immediately in the act of the will deformed by sin, nor is there need that he act immediately upon every creature. Where Aureolus attempts to establish, that the effecting of a created being does not conflict with the absence of an immediate efflux from the divine faculty exercising. Besides the reasons of Scotus, with which we dealt under number 35, that production involves the implication of some created being which should not depend immediately upon God; firm enough is that one which is drawn from the indetermination of the created cause to the production of this individual rather than another. We asserted that this potentiality of operating stood in need of the contraction of the first cause in such a manner, that if God did not predetermine the created cause, it could not act; which argument, with the assectators of Scotus against Aureolus, Gregory of Rimini, transcribed by us, forms under num. 77.

107 To the other argument of Aureolus, under number 25, where he contends, that if God were the cause of the substrate of moral malice, he would also be held a necessary principle of its very deformity, on account of the unimpedible sequence and concomitance of the privation of due rectitude with the positive substrate; this objection was assailed from margin num. 68 and onwards.

Moreover, because we contend to free Aureolus from the note of censure, insofar as he asserted; that the substrates of depraved acts do not issue from God immediately. It must be noticed that Gabriel Vázquez 1. part. disp. 99. cap. 4. nume. margin 19. candidly confesses, that he has read no one among the Fathers, besides Anselm, who asserted the immediate concourse of God to the matter of sin; to whom Didacus Ruiz subscribes, Tomo de Voluntate Dei, disp. 31. sect. 4. to which he prefixed such a title; The Fathers speak not only of malice, but even of the material operation, when they say that it is not made by God. Where he turns over many testimonies of the Fathers, especially of Augustine, and of his followers Fulgentius and Prosper, which seem to assert, that God concurs neither to the substrates of malice.

108 But because Didacus Alvarez lib 3. de Auxiliis. disp. 24. numer. marg. 16 et 17. attempts to persuade that it belongs to the mind of Augustine, not only immediate concourse, but also physical premotion to the substrate of sin; lest anyone should rave on canonical authorities of Augustine cited tortuously for physical predetermination, as our Francis Coriolanus also seems deceived in the place cited, for the purpose of confirming the opinion of physical predetermination — it will be to the purpose briefly to weigh such pronounce ments, which Alvarez judged to be plainly of the mind of Augustine.

The first testimony is, ex tom. 1. lib. 2. de libero arbitrio. cap. 20. where when Augustine had objected to himself: But perhaps you will seek to know, since the will is moved, when it turns itself away from the unchangeable good to a changeable good, whence this motion arises to it? Which motion is indeed evil, although the will is free, because without it no one can live rightly, it ought to be numbered among the goods. For if this motion, that is, the aversion of the will from the Lord God, is without doubt a sin, can we not say that God is the author of sin? Therefore this motion will not be from God.

Which objection he dissolved thus. But every good is from God; therefore there is no nature which is not from God. Therefore that motion of aversion, which we confess to be sin, since it is a defective motion, and every defect is from nothing: see to what it belongs, and doubt not that it belongs to God.

From which authority of Augustine Alvarez argues thus. In the aforesaid testimony, the motion, as defective, and as importing nothing, namely the privation of due rectitude, is distinguished from the substrate of sin, which in the character of being is pronounced good, and as such to be from God. But the ly to be from God expresses not only the immediate causality of God with respect to the substrate of sin, but also that the indetermination of our will to the matter of sin is contracted by God; therefore the aforesaid pronounce ment of Augustine establishes not only the immediate concourse of God to the substance of the depraved act, but also that our will is determined by God to the matter of sin.

109 But that you contend not, that God conducts himself with respect to the substrate of sin only permissively, of the mind of Augustine; but not predeterminatively. The aforesaid evasion is shut out by the other testimony of Augustine, ex Tom. 7. lib. 5. contra Iulianum Pelagianum. cap. 3. where August. thus lashes Julian.

But what is it that you say; (when they are said to be given over to their desires, they are to be understood as left by the divine patience, not compelled to sins by power) as if the same Apostle had not put these two together, both patience and power, where he says: (So then, God willing to show his wrath and to demonstrate his power, brought with much patience vessels of wrath, which are perfected unto destruction.)

But which of these, nevertheless, do you say that is which is written; (And if the Prophet shall have erred and spoken, I the Lord seduced that prophet, and I will stretch forth my hand upon him, and I will exterminate him from the midst of my people Israel;) is it patience, or power? Whichever you choose, or confess both, you see nevertheless that the sin, and the punishment of the sin, is that of the false prophet. Or will you say even here, when he says: (I the Lord seduced that prophet,) that it is to be understood deserted, that by his own merits seduced he erred? Do as you will; nevertheless he is punished for sin in this manner, that he sins by prophesying falsely.

Where Augustine, when he assails Julian, seems thus to distinguish between permission and promotion to evil with respect to the material and substrate; so that the permission, through which God holds himself merely negatively with respect to the formal element of sin, is referred to the patience of God; but the premotion or physical contraction of our will to the substrate of sin is ascribed to the power of God, because by a strong and sweet energy he moves positively to the material things of depraved acts, in punishment of preceding falls.

110 But the aforesaid pronounce ments of Augustine do not press; for the first testimony cited by Alvarez burst forth from an errant press; because in the accurate correction of the works of Augustine edited by the Doctors of Louvain, there is not read: That motion of aversion, see to what it belongs, and doubt not that it belongs to God. (but) And doubt not that it does not belong to God. So that corruptly and mendaciously the negative particle (non) has been removed.

Wherefore Gabriel Vázquez 1. 2. disput. 129. cap. 2. sub nume. 6. confirms by the same testimony of Augustine, that God does not concur immediately to the matter of sin; nay, that Augustine defended that opinion, Vázquez attempts to show, as often as Augustine asserts that God concurs to every nature of beings. Where by the name of nature, he understands not the operation of a thing (to which, in depraved acts God does not operate, of the mind of Augustine, Vázquez judged) but the substance of the created being; see Gabr. Vázquez in the place cited, and especially 1. part. disput. 99. capit. 4. num. 19.

Nor does the other testimony of Augustine, distinguishing between the patience and the power of God in the causality of sin, press more; because as the Doctors of Louvain optimally observed in their annotations upon the aforesaid passage, sub numero. 23. Augustine does not reprehend Julian the Pelagian, because the Pelagian denied that the giving over of the sinner to a reprobate sense is a physical causality with respect to the substrate of sin; but that he asserted a merely negative permission; for Augustine abstained from these minutiae of scholastic disputation.

But the Doctor of the Saints taxes Julian for this reason; because the giving over to a reprobate sense is ascribed to the patience of God; whereas the patience of God does not intend the punishment of the sinner, but rather makes manifest the magnificent benefit of the divine charity awaiting the repentance of the sinner, until he should come to his senses and return with his whole heart; wherefore the giving over to a reprobate sense is to be ascribed to the divine power; not to patience.

But indeed this giving over (say the cited Louvanists,) is a heavy vengeance, descending from his great wrath, by which it comes to pass that, with a marvellous obduration of mind, sins of ever greater and greater weight are committed daily. Moreover, what is here added concerning the power of God, by which some seem to be compelled to sins, is not to be taken as if God were the author of sinning to anyone, or compel anyone to sin who is so disposed; but that by great calamities and punishments, in which he declares his power and virtue in a marvellous manner, he sometimes severely afflicts certain proud men, such as Pharaoh once was; by which they are so little corrected, that from the occasion they are obdurate more and more against God. Concerning which power of a surety the Apostle speaks, citing that testimony of Exodus concerning this same Pharaoh: (Because for this very thing have I raised thee up, that I might show in thee my power, and that my name might be announced in the whole earth.)

If therefore of the mind of the Fathers there is not an immediate concourse of God to the matter of sin, nay, and Augustine himself seems to declare the opposite most expressly. Tomo 5. lib. 5. de Ciuitat. Dei. cap. 8. where he has it. From whom are all powers, although from him are not the wills of all.

Where he seems to have distinguished the power of the will, or the will as power in first act, from the second and exercised act of the will, when he asserts; that although from God are the impulsive and volitive faculties, yet not the volitions and exercised impulses. And cap. 9. next following. For as he is the creator of all natures, so is he the giver of all powers, not of wills; for evil wills are not from him, because they are contrary to nature, which is from him. It follows therefore, that Aureolus can be excused from the note of rashness, if he imitated the footsteps of Augustine.

But one thing remains to be observed; that it is not so perspicuous that Augustine taught that which Aureolus willed; that God does not concur immediately to a depraved operation, (as Vázquez, Hurtado, and Ruiz opine in the places cited) since the opposite is deservedly defended by Leonardus Coqueus in his Commentaries upon the books de Ciuitate Dei; for thus it is, in Commentar. capit. 9. libro 5. sub numero. 9. upon those words. The giver of the powers of all, not of wills. where he says.

He speaks of the actions and motions of the will itself, not of the faculty itself; for thus he writes libr. 12. confess. cap. 11. this alone is not of thee, which is not of thee; and the motion of the will from thee, who art, to that which is less, because such a motion is a fault and a sin. And the book de spiritu, et litera capi. 31. We read (he says) there is no power except of God, but we do not read, there is no will except of God, and rightly is it not written; because it is not true. Therefore some will is not of God.

But in what sense? Whether because he does not concur to it? Nay, since it has real being, it necessarily hangs upon the concourse of God. Perhaps because God did not compel that will, nor command, nor morally move it, etc.

Add also, for the purpose of freeing Aureolus from the note of censure with respect to the negation of immediate concourse to the matter of sin; that Nicolaus Bonetus, a theologian of the highest note in libr. 7. Naturalis Theologiae cap. 3. where he inquires, whether the first cause be productive of an effect deformed and morally vitious? Thus he answers. Those who posit the necessity of the concourse of the first cause with second causes, would with difficulty escape, that he be the cause of every moral effect, since he be the cause of the substrate, and of the positive entity of the defectuous act itself, to which the deformity of the moral act follows necessarily. Therefore it must be said otherwise. To which pronounce ment he had premised another in the same capit. 3. saying. But when you say further, therefore he is the effective cause of all things: I answer, there is no need that he be the immediate cause, but it suffices that he be the mediate cause, giving the entity to those second causes.

There is added also from among our theologians Pelbartus, a man of signal learning. in Rosario Theologico. tom. 2. sub verbo Malum. §. 7. where he connects himself with the argumentation of Aureolus vanquished above. Therefore it can be said, that concerning the substrate of the act of hatred of God, since it is of itself and secundum se evil: to hate God has no place, the aforesaid position (namely that which is said, that God acts immediately upon every act of ours); but well in other things, which are not of themselves evil.

Peter Aquilanus also gives his suffrage, in 2. sent. dist. 37. where when the foundation of Aureolus had been objected to himself; remitting himself to those things which he had premised as probable, that the will be the sole proximate cause of the free action deformed, in the same, 2. sent. dist. 34. q. 1. He answers in dist. 37. in these words. Perhaps the opinion which in the second article of distinction 34 is the truer.

Nor does Cardinal. Constantius Sarnanus dissent from among recent theologians, in summa Theologica libr. 2. where he teaches. That God is not the proximate and immediate cause, but only the remote and mediate cause of the depraved act.

This noble crown of theologians therefore have we joined to Aureolus, all of whom are of the Franciscan Order, that we might either buttress the placitum of Aureolus, or free him from censure.

112 To the other argument of Aureolus under num. 27. we concede, that God predecrees and premoves the created will to the matter of sin, in such a manner that the causality of God, by priority of nature, precedes the influx of our will; but that supposing such priority there does not follow that God ought to be held the author of sin — this we have sufficiently made clear in the foregoing. As also that the will of God, for inflowing into the substrate of sin, should not be able to furnish a medium on the side of the object of the infallible foreknowledge of future contingents, if such a will be not absolute and predefinitive; or that it involves a condition on the side of the object, so that the divine will passes from the conditioned into the absolute, by reason of the knowledge of vision of the cooperation of our will.

Exposition of the placitum of Ambrosius Machinus concerning the concourse of God to the matter of sin.

113 From which it follows that Ambrosius Machinus does not stand consistent with himself. 1. parte. disp. 32. secti. 3. conclud. 3. where he asserts, that God knows infallibly all future contingents of depraved acts in the efficacious decree, whereby he causes the physical entity of sin: Because the efficacious decree of God concerning the furnishing of concourse to the matter of sin is by nature prior to the very futurition of sin.

For the aforesaid pronounce ment of Machinus does not cohere with another of the same author, in the same section, the second opinion. where he says. This opinion is most false, if it should speak of a decree predetermining every free determination of the will; because in some sins there is an intrinsic malice, so that the material element thereof cannot be embraced without sin.

From which it is plain that this author spoke inconsequentially; because the decree of God concerning the matters of wicked acts is asserted by all to be predeterminative for no other reason than that by an efficacious absolute volition it anticipates the futurition of the wicked act; for if the futurition of our cooperation goes before, it premits for some sign of nature the efficacious will of God; therefore by priority of nature God efficaciously predecrees our oblique operation before it is itself conceived as future. And hence, before the absolute foreknowledge of our consent into a base object, the divine will is not apprehended merely as preparing, or offering, concourse to either of two, or as decreeing the substrate of sin out of a condition; but as contracted efficaciously and absolutely to one part of the contradiction.

Because therefore there is supposed the divine will with that quasi-potentiality and community of concourse; because that contraction, among the adversaries, is sought from our depraved determination, as from the determining reason of such indifference; therefore, although our determination, as infallibly future, is not by nature prior to the absolute contraction of the divine will to such a species of oblique causality; yet it ought not to be by nature posterior to the divine will, as terminated efficaciously and absolutely to the depraved act; because otherwise it could not hold itself as that-by-which (Quo), and as the reason of such contraction, as is evident.

For it is the same in the present case, for the will of God to be efficacious, and to be absolute; since the will of God does not intend efficaciously the matter of sin, unless purified of the condition from the consent of the created will; and supposing the foreknowledge of the cooperation of free choice, the divine will passes from the conditioned into the absolute and efficacious.

NOTA

Therefore not the will efficacious and absolute for concurring to the matter of sin can be the first reason of foreknowing such a future; since rather the will of God, as efficacious and absolute, antecedes such a fall with foreknowledge; on which account it passes from the conditioned into the absolute.

Therefore the contrary: if the efficacious divine volition precedes by priority-from-what or of nature the absolute and efficacious futurition of our determination; God efficaciously decrees the depraved act sooner than it be future; and accordingly he has established, predecreed, and predeter mined our operation; and is not determined and contracted by it.

Moreover; that that efficacious decree of concurring either involves the condition of the cooperation of free choice, and accordingly it would come to pass that, without the absolute knowledge of such cooperation, the determination of God could not furnish a medium on the side of the object for infallible knowledge — since, not purified of its condition, it posits nothing in the being of a conditioned complexion. Or the efficacious decree does not imbibe the condition, which must necessarily be pronounce d, that such a purpose, absolute and simply, may avail as the reason of foreknowledge, as it were, because it does not await the purification of some condition; and there would be inferred in full clarity, that such a decree is predeterminative.

114. Wherefore Suárez and other authors, who sustain the predefinition of good acts with only a conditioned foreknowledge of the future consent, judge that a predefinition (even by the mode of an internal purpose in God) which should determine the material things of depraved actions is not to be sustained with only a conditioned fore knowledge; but to the efficacious and absolute will there is necessarily pre-required the knowledge of vision of the cooperation of free choice, contracting, as it were, the community and indifference of the divine will, exhibited of itself towards either alternative; concerning which see Suárez opus. 1. de diuina motione. lib. 2. cap. 3. n. marg. 17.

Therefore God does not set upon an absolute purpose of the futurition of the depraved act, which as a natural presupposition would precede the futurition of the depraved action; since the absolute futurition of the sinful action, and the knowledge of vision of the existence of the substrate of sin, for such difference of time holds itself as that-by-which (Quo), or as it were the form, contracting the indifference of the divine will to concurring to the matter of sin.

Wherefore those authors, who reject the determination of God to the matter of sin, consequently teach; that God does not foreknow such objects in a decree, but in the truth of the objects themselves. So that they hold Vázquez to be deficient from the consequence of his doctrine, insofar as, the predetermination exploded, he asserted that the decree is the cause, although a remote one, sufficient for the foreknowledge of future things. But for the sharp assault of Machinus concerning the contraction of the power of God by free created choice, for concourse to the matter of sin, seek from n. 75 of this art.

But how Machinus also is deficient from the consequence of his doctrine; we show again below, treating of the foreknowledge of conditioned depraved acts, in distinct. 3. of this controversy, which is de scientia contingentium conditionatorum ar. 2. n. mar. 45.

115. But if you answer in behalf of Machinus, ex 1. part. q. 22. art. 4. disput. 45. sect. 5. §. Ad hanc difficultatem respondeo. that although the wicked cooperation of free choice is posterior in the genus of efficient cause to the absolute and efficacious volition of God, the cooperation of free choice is nevertheless prior in the aspect of term to the efficacious and absolute volition of God, inasmuch as from the foreknowledge of the cooperation of free choice, as flowing from the deficient will, the will of God is as it were contracted so as to be efficacious and absolute. By a similar reasoning, that although practical cognition, or cognition productive of its own object, is prior to its object in the genus of efficient cause; it is nevertheless posterior to the term in the genus of formal cause, because it is specified by the term.

But this doctrine is assailed with the same blows with which we impetuously attacked Suárez, in this ar. sub n. 62. Because that will, which is contracted by the knowledge of the cooperation of free choice, either is a will composed to concourse in first act only; and accordingly it would come to pass, that a determined cooperation of free choice could be conceived without the exercised concourse of the first cause. Or it is a will composed by exercised concourse; and accordingly it implies a contradiction, that it be conceived as indeterminate to either alternative, or as awaiting contraction from the operation of free choice as from a term, whether it be of knowledge or of the will of God.

Next, because if the divine will is contracted by the knowledge of the cooperation of free choice; I ask from which knowledge, whether absolute or conditioned? Not conditioned; because with the same author, in disp. 34. sectio. 2. § secundus modus. he asserts a decree conditioned only on the side of the object and not on the side of the act. The conditioned futures are known by God in an absolute free purpose on the side of the act, which is the reason of the determinate truth of such futures; and consequently those objections of his would be turned back against Machinus, that God, without regard to the knowledge of our cooperation, should predefine the material things of depraved acts by an efficacious decree on the side of the act, although conditioned on the side of the object.

Or the will of God is contracted by the knowledge of vision of the cooperation of free choice; and there would be inferred that absurdity which presses upon Suárez, namely, that the operation of free choice can be conceived in the being of absolute futurition, with dependence upon the sole will of God composed to either alternative in first act, and under that aptitudinal and signed comparison of causality, by which it is referred to other operations of free choice, which will never exist.

At length I add, against similar flights, that that occupation and shutting out is insurmountable, which we drew from Aureolus; namely, that there would follow, that the influx of free choice (which, since it is from God, is the action of God among the adversaries) either would proceed from God as determined to one side of the contradiction, and accordingly would not determine God even in the character of the term, as Machinus wills; since indeed any habitude of absolute futurition and existence in the term imbues an essential comparison of dependence upon a God not undetermined. Or if under some sign of nature the cooperation of free choice could be compared to God as an undeter mined principle towards either alternative; it would come to pass, that the action would issue from the agent as undeter mined in the sense of composition with respect to the action.

116 Next; the aforesaid author subjoins other pronounce ments concerning the foreknowledge of depraved acts, which, although they be true, yet do not appear so necessary for dispatching the matter. For he teaches in conclus. 1. that the decree of permitting sin, insofar as it imports a mere negation of special grace, furnishes a sufficient medium on the side of the object for the infallible foreknowledge of depraved acts; which, by reason of the gravity of temptation, cannot be avoided without special grace. Which assertion rests upon the common consent of theologians, asserting, that man in the state of fallen nature, agitated by the most troublesome temptation of the demon, would fall, unless he be prevented by the special help of God. Therefore, although permission does not imbibe a positive causality, which would premoveto the substrate of such a depraved action: on account of the merely permissive decree alone, which refers a mere negation of the bestowal of such special grace, the futurition of such oblique operation will be made infallible; and accordingly there will intervene that objective determination which is exacted for infallible foreknowledge, although the permissive decree holds itself merely negatively with respect to the object.

117 Machinus further adds, in his second assertion, that a permissive decree does not provide a medium on the side of the object for foreknowledge of sins that can be avoided without special aid. He also derives this from the common axiom of theologians: special grace is not necessary to avoid, in the divided sense, those sins where no grave assault of the devil presses. Therefore a permissive decree that involves the denial of assisting grace does not make the fall infallible once positive causality by way of premotion—which Machinus rejects—is excluded.

Wherefore we rightly premised, that the effort of Machinus is not to the purpose, while he labors that God, in the permissive decree with the negation of a special help, can foreknow the sins in which a more troublesome suggestion of the devil presses; but not those which are perpetrated without a grave incursion of the demon. Since in the present we investigate a universal medium on the side of the object of the foreknowledge of all futures; and Machinus assigns only a particular medium in the permission of sin with a grave invasion of the demon, but not with a light one.