Tractatus de Deo uno secundum naturam

On the antecedent and consequent will of God.

Although the divine will is in itself one most simple act, yet for us, on account of the diversity of the objects to which it is referred, there is need of manifold consideration and distinction of reason; but with regard to the saving will, the distinction most necessary and used by the holy Fathers and theologians is into the antecedent and the consequent will. In this partition, according to the doctrine of those same Fathers and of the old theologians, and especially of St Thomas and St Bonaventure, the term by which the saving will is called antecedent or consequent is the foresight of the free acts of the creature, and not, before all foresight, a predefined manifestation of justice and of the beauty of the universe.

I. From what has been demonstrated above concerning divine simplicity and the distinctions of reason, it is clear enough a) that the divine will cannot be conceived as a power which elicits diverse acts; but that it is one simple act, and the divine essence itself regarded under the reason of volition, which has as its principal and necessary object the infinite and essential good itself; and that it freely terminates to other goods, that they may be, without any change in itself (see p. 307. sq.). It is clear b) that the same infinite volition eminently equals many acts, insofar as that one act terminates to many diverse objects, to which a finite will can be carried only by distinct and diverse acts. Hence, just as in the divine volition every real distinction must be denied, so virtual distinctions, as they are understood by us through inadequate concepts, are necessarily to be admitted (see p. 159.). Therefore, although it is indubitable, as the Fathers say with Cyril of Alexandria, dialog. V. de Trin. T. V. p. 555, « that the divine will is not distinct from God himself, and that he who says will signifies the very nature of the Father and of the Son, » nevertheless the same Fathers distinguish the divine will in many ways, in view of the diverse reasons of the objects to which it extends.

II. The most important distinction, frequent among the holy Fathers and most clearly declared by them, is that of the antecedent or first will and the consequent or second will. Antecedent and consequent are relative terms; for something is understood to antecede by being prior to another that is posterior, and to follow in relation to another prior either in reality or in reason. The question therefore is, what is the term in relation to which the will of God is said to be antecedent and consequent. The solution of this question is of such moment that from it, as from its principle and foundation, depends the sincere interpretation of almost the whole doctrine on the saving will and on predestination to glory.

There have not been wanting some theologians of the School, from the sixteenth century on, who, in order to reconcile their opinions about predestination, about the predefinition of all our acts absolutely antecedent to foreknowledge, and about the mode of premotion and of efficacious grace, with the Catholic doctrine of the antecedent will for the salvation of all men, were compelled to defend that the term by which the will of God is called antecedent and consequent is not our foreseen free acts but plainly something else. They took the immediate occasion of their interpretation from a certain explanation of each will, which St Thomas has, 1. q. 19. a. 6. There the Angelic Doctor teaches that the antecedent will is that by which God wills the good considered in itself: but because sometimes what, considered in itself, would be good ceases to be good by some attached circumstance; hence, he says, it happens that by the consequent will, which is referred to the thing considered according to all its circumstances, God sometimes does not will what he wills by the antecedent will. These circumstances, from which it comes about that by the consequent will God does not will the salvation of all men, those interpreters affirmed are not, in St Thomas, to be understood as the sins of men, but something altogether different, entirely independent of the free will of men. It is, in their opinion, a circumstance by which God is moved not to will the salvation of innumerable men, namely that, if all were saved, the justice of God would not be sufficiently manifested, and the beauty of the universe would be less. Hence they say that the term, in relation to which the saving will of God is called antecedent or consequent, is by no means the foreseen holiness or depravity of the creature, as we assert; but that the antecedent will is that by which God wills the salvation of all, considered in itself, with that circumstance set aside, namely that this salvation of all would impede « a greater universal good and the beauty of the universe; » and that the consequent will is that by which God, that circumstance of a greater good being considered, wills the salvation of the predestined only, and does not will the salvation of the others.

Whether we have faithfully reported the opinion which we undertake to refute will be judged from the very words of those interpreters, which read thus. « 1°. It is called the antecedent will, not because it precedes the good or evil use of our free choice; but because it precedes the will by which God is carried toward the object considered with some circumstance, which is his consequent consideration of it. » 2°. « If the salvation of the reprobate (i.e. not the predestined, while they still enjoy this life) is considered in itself and absolutely, thus it is willed by God; but if it is considered as having attached to it the privation or lack of a greater good, namely of the universal good of divine providence, of the beauty of the universe, of the manifestation of divine justice in the reprobate, and of a greater splendour of his mercy in the elect, thus it is not willed by God. And according to this we assert that by the consequent will God does not will all to be saved, but only the predestined. » 3°. « It is not necessary that God by the antecedent will will the opposite of what he wills by the consequent will »¹ 4°. « The antecedent will formally implies in God a conditional act, by which he would will the salvation of all, unless from this the beauty of the universe and the universal good of divine justice and mercy were impeded. » Didac. Alvarez de Auxil. disp. XXXIV. nn. 3-5. p. 260. 261.

But indeed, among the holy Fathers and the older theologians it is most certainly said that the saving will is antecedent, insofar as it precedes in reason and does not yet presuppose the foresight of the free acts of the creature; but consequent, which follows upon free acts foreseen and presupposes them.

For a) the will called antecedent by the Fathers is that which God conceives from himself and from his inborn goodness; the will called consequent is that which God conceives, provoked as it were by our free acts. Hence b) by the antecedent will God, whose nature is goodness, who « loves all things that are, and hates nothing of what he has made; » « who loves souls; » « for whom impious men are not necessary » Sap. XI. 25. 27; Eccli. XV. 12; wills only the communication of his goodness, though according to diverse degrees; wills only what is good in every way for the rational creature made by him in his image; but by the consequent will God wills some things, which are good in themselves only upon the supposition of the evil acts of the creature, and which are evils for a sinful creature and privations of great goods. c) Therefore, with the good free acts of the creature foreseen, God wills by the consequent will the goods which he also wills by the antecedent will; but with the evil free acts of the creature foreseen, God sometimes wills things which are not good except consequently upon those acts, and which he does not will by the antecedent will.

Although, therefore, the antecedent and consequent will is also in view of good merits, yet because there the object, with respect to either reason of the will, is not different; while on the contrary, because the object of the consequent will is the infliction of punishment, where the distinguishing term is foreseen evil merits: therefore the Fathers most frequently consider the consequent will in this other way, insofar as it is the will of punishing justice, consequent upon our evil works. « The good pleasure, says Chrysostom, hom. I. in Eph. n. 2, is everywhere the preceding will; for besides this there is also another will. Thus the first will is that those who have sinned should not perish; the second will is that those who have become evil should perish. For surely it is not necessity that punishes them, but will... Therefore Paul calls the good pleasure the will which is first, which is vehement, which is will with desire »² From Chrysostom, John Damascene expressed his own doctrine, which the Scholastics afterwards followed. « One must know, says he, Fid. ortodox. II. 29, that God antecedently wills all to be saved; for he did not create us in order to punish us, but that we might share in his goodness, since he created us as good. But those sinning he wills to be punished, as just. Therefore the will is called first, antecedent, and good pleasure (εὐδοκία), which is from himself; but the will second and consequent and permission, which is from our cause »³ Almost the same things he repeats again in dial. cont. Manichaeos n. 79, and illustrates by a comparison with an earthly judge, which St Thomas afterwards adopted, 1. q. 19. a. 5, and which before him Pope Gregory the Great (if he is the author) used in the same way in 1. Reg. l.II. c.2. n.20. « Although, says John Damascene, he judges (punishes) willingly, yet not by the antecedent will but by the consequent. The antecedent will is what one wills from oneself; the consequent will is what proceeds from the cause of other things, which come about. For antecedently God from himself wills all men to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth, but we sinning he wills us to be punished for our benefit. And the antecedent will of God is that of goodness, but the consequent is that of his justice »⁴ In the same way, and in almost the same words, other Fathers speak, as Tertullian before the rest, contr. Marc. II. 11. « The goodness of God is prior according to nature, severity posterior according to cause; the former innate, the latter accidental; the former proper, the latter adapted; the former put forth, the latter applied. » After the others, St Bernard, serm. 5. de Nat. Domini n. 3, writes: « that he has mercy belongs to him; for he takes from himself the matter and, as it were, the seed-bed of mercy. For what he judges and condemns, we in a manner compel him; so that mercy seems to proceed from his heart far differently than punishment... Rightly therefore he is not called the Father of judgments or of vengeances but the Father of mercies... all the more because he takes the cause and origin of mercy from what is his own, of judging or avenging rather from ours. »

From this constant doctrine of the Fathers is drawn the explanation of the saving will, antecedent and consequent, as handed down by St Thomas, St Bonaventure and the other ancient theologians. As for St Thomas, we affirm that the circumstances on account of which God, by a consequent will, does not will the salvation of those who in fact are not saved are, with the Angelic Doctor, never anything other than the sins of men. But if this is true, then surely the same term is assigned by St Thomas as by the holy Fathers, the term before which the will of God is distinguished into antecedent and consequent. First, therefore, St Thomas, in all the places to be cited where he treats of this matter, appeals to the doctrine of John Damascene, and wholly approves his reason for distinguishing the two wills of God. How plain the doctrine of John Damascene is, we have seen above. Thus in de verit. q. 23. a. 2. he says first, « the understanding of this distinction is to be taken from the words of John Damascene. » Then, after a luminous explanation in the body of the article, he adds in the reply to the second objection: « God wills a certain man to be saved by an antecedent will, by reason of the human nature which he made for salvation; but he wills him to be damned by a consequent will, on account of the sins which are found in him. » Again, in the commentary on 1 Tim. II. lect. 1: « the salvation of all men, considered in itself, has the character of being willable, and the Apostle speaks here in this way, and so his will is antecedent. But if one considers the good of justice and that sins be punished, then he does not will it, and this is the consequent will. » Likewise in 1. dist. 46. q. 1. a. 1., the whole of which article leaves no place for evasion: « considering all the circumstances of the person, it is not found that it is good for all to be saved. » Hear from the Angelic Doctor what these circumstances are: « for it is good that he who prepares himself and consents be saved through the largess of divine grace, but for one who is unwilling and resists it is not good to be saved, because it is unjust... therefore God does not will this man, considered under these conditions, to be saved; but only that man who is willing and consenting: and this is called the consequent will, because it presupposes the foreknowledge of works, not as a cause of the willing (which, as being the very essence of God, has no cause), but as the reason of the thing willed. » He explains this very point there in ad 5: « the conditions by which man is made disordered from the attainment of the end, under which, existing thus, God does not will him to be saved, are from the man himself, and therefore all that follows is imputed to him as guilt. » The same plainly teaches 1. q. 19. a. 6. « A just judge wills antecedently that every man live, but consequently wills the murderer to be hanged. Similarly God antecedently wills every man to be saved, but consequently wills some to be damned according to the exigency of his justice. » I hold that the judge's will to hang a man is consequent upon the homicide, not, however, consequent upon the necessity of the beauty of the commonwealth with no offence yet presupposed. Thus, then, neither the necessity of manifesting justice before the supposition of sin, nor the beauty of the universe, requires that God not will the salvation of all; but, with some final sin presupposed, the exigency of justice is that these should not be saved. How the evils of guilt, which are certainly not from God but from man, are ordered by God to the beauty of the universe, and so how the evils of punishment per accidens contribute to the same, St Thomas declares in 1. q. 19. a. 9. and in 1. dist. 46. a. 4.⁵ From this reason, that God, being good, can also make good out of evils, he explains in 1. q. 23. a. 5. ad 3., after Augustine, why God can permit the evils of guilt and, by a consequent will, reprobate some.

Such is the most luminous doctrine among the other works of St Bonaventure, 1. dist. 46. a. 1. q. 1., where, John Damascene having been cited, he adds this explanation. « The antecedent will is the will with respect to that for the sake of which God made man, and it is irrefragably of good things. The consequent will, however, is not the will which follows merits (existing already in time as things done); but which wills certain things according to the knowledge of merits. The first, namely the antecedent, is called by the Masters conditional, or the will by which God wills, so far as it is in himself. The second, namely the consequent, is called absolute. » Read the rest there.

Corollary. If the antecedent saving will is understood with respect to its term of comparison taken universally, the will is considered as it stands antecedently to the foresight of original sin itself, and all the more of all our free acts. But if the saving will is regarded, as almost always in the Scriptures and mostly by the holy Fathers, as referred, with original sin presupposed, to the human race fallen and restored, the term before which the will of eternal salvation is called antecedent or consequent is the foresight of the final state which is to be, in grace or in sin. This foresight, both as to adults and as to little ones, includes many things which stand in different ways on either side. Although, therefore, abstracting from the manner in which a man is brought to the state of grace or remains in the state of sin, it can be said universally that the term before which the will of eternal salvation is called antecedent or consequent is the final state of this life: nevertheless, in the concrete, looking at this term together with its manner, it must be said simply that the term before which the will of salvation is antecedent or consequent is one thing for little children and another for adults. But another place will be given for speaking of this difference.