Scotus Academicus, Tomus secundus: De Deo Intelligente et Volente

Note 1. The divine decree is that volition of God by which He decides the future actuality of things; and this either absolutely, so that the decreed things will infallibly come to pass; or only conditionally, when of course the outcome of things depends on some condition, which if it is posited, that thing will truly exist; but if such a condition is not posited, the thing likewise will not be. Again, this conditional decree can be considered either on the part of the one decreeing, or on the part of the thing decreed, that is, on the part of the willing subject, or on the part of the object willed. In the former way it signifies not so much a firm and stable will as a certain velleity of having this stable and firm will about some object, if some condition were posited; such is this proposition, I would will to wage war against the Turks if it were lawful for a religious man: in which proposition there is not signified directly an efficacious will of waging war, but directly there is only expressed a velleity and a certain desire of forming such an efficacious volition on the hypothesis, that that efficacious and sincere volition would not be unbecoming to a religious man. In the latter way the decree is said to be conditional on the part of the thing decreed, or of the object willed, when of course a determinate volition is actually formed on the part of the one willing; but the outcome is suspended until the condition is posited; v. g., If Peter will have heard Mass tomorrow, I will give him the book: for the volition of giving the book is efficacious and sincere; nevertheless that gift depends on the condition to be posited, namely on the hearing of Mass.

Note 2. There is this difference between those two conditional decrees, that the first involves the greatest imperfection, in that it signifies an inefficacious volition and imports a certain potentiality; by which the one decreeing, as it were, hangs suspended, and seems powerless to form an efficacious volition about the outcome of things: which of course inefficaciousness and indetermination of the will, since they are altogether unbecoming to God, who is omnipotent in every way and a most necessary and most actual being, such a conditional decree cannot even be found in Him on the part of the subject decreeing and willing. But the second is not so; for the whole potentiality and indetermination is referred back not to the one willing himself, but to the thing willed, whose future actuality and existence depend on some condition, which if it is posited, that thing will truly be future, but if it is not posited, it will not come to pass. We speak only of conditionals in the latter way, not of conditionals in the former way.

Note 3. The present question is moved only about conditionals, both consequent and disparate, which are declared in Sacred Scripture or become known through some revelation. But about the others, which are manifest in neither way, since it is altogether uncertain whether they have any connection among themselves, whether on the part of the thing consequent upon another, or on the part of God decreeing that consequence of one thing from another with which it has no connection of itself, it would be absurd to determine anything: since such an inference of the consequent from the antecedent is in no way made known in conditionally future things that are not related, v. g., in these propositions: If some Turk should sleep at Constantinople, Peter will be converted at Paris: if Socrates had set out for war, I will devote myself to philosophy. And so we have only to resolve whether conditionally future things, which become known through revelation, for instance the conversion of the Tyrians and Sidonians if they had heard Christ preaching, etc., suppose in God some conditional decree.

Only conclusion. — Decrees are to be admitted in God, absolute indeed subjectively and on the part of God decreeing and willing, but conditional objectively and on the part of the thing decreed, and of the object willed.

Proof first. From all those texts of Sacred Scripture by which God signifies His will about things conditionally future, if the condition had been posited, but especially 4. Regum 13: If you had struck the earth five or six or seven times, you would have struck Syria even to destruction: by which words the Prophet Elisha announces to King Joash that God had decreed the general devastation of Syria and had determined with King Joash himself to concur in driving out the Syrians, if King Joash himself had struck the earth with the spear five, six, or seven times: therefore it supposes a decree about that conditionally future thing, which nevertheless did not come to pass for lack of the condition not being posited. Likewise 3. Regum cap. 9. God foretells to Solomon:

If you will walk before me as your father walked, in simplicity of heart and in uprightness, and will do all things which I have commanded you, and will keep my statutes and my judgments; I will set the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, as I spoke to David your father, saying: there shall not be taken away a man of your kindred from the throne of Israel. But if you and your children, turning away, shall have turned away from me, not following me, nor keeping my commandments and my ceremonies which I have set before you, but shall have gone and worshipped strange gods and adored them, I will take away Israel from the face of the earth, etc.

From which it is clear that God decreed under condition that He would preserve the Israelite throne with Solomon's family, on the presupposed condition that both Solomon himself and his descendants would keep His divine commandments: since that condition was not fulfilled, and Solomon himself worshipped strange gods, therefore in cap. 11. the Lord, appearing to him again, says: Because you have had this with you and have not kept my covenant and my precepts which I commanded you, rending, I will tear your kingdom and will give it to your servant. By which it is established that the Israelite empire was to be preserved by God in the family of David and Solomon under a condition; and so it is established that there are in God some conditional decrees.

Proof 2. This same truth from the opinion of all the holy Fathers praised in the previous Question, who affirm that the divine predictions about things conditionally future, yet never to be fulfilled, were sincerely ordained by God. To which is added the almost unanimous opinion of the older Scholastics, who raise various questions about conditionally future contingents; and some fight expressly for one part of the contradiction, others for the other; and so they judge that one or the other part in these contingents is determinately true, and therefore willed by God. Such are those questions, whether if Adam had not sinned the Son of God would have been incarnate: whether if the state of original innocence had persisted, in it the Sacraments would have been instituted, sacrifices ordered, the dominion of things prescribed: and other things of that kind, which, the condition being removed, did not come to pass: the resolution of which questions most certainly supposes a decree of the divine will about the event, or about the non-event, of such effects in the state of innocence. For how could these things have existed unless God had willed them, especially since most of them depend on the will of God alone, such as the Incarnation of the Word, the institution of the Sacraments? etc.

Nor should you say. The Scholastic Doctors in these questions only inquire into and resolve, not what would truly have been future if such a condition had been posited, but only what would have been more expedient and what would have been more fitting, this condition being supposed.

I answer. For it is not debated by them alone what in this hypothesis would have been more fitting, but also what would truly have come to pass, as is clear from the reasons adduced by them, which are drawn not only from the will of God sweetly and fittingly disposing all things, but also from theological arguments deduced, namely from Sacred Scripture and the authorities of the holy Fathers, as well as from reasoning and discourse, as may be seen in their writings, and most especially in the Subtle Doctor.

Proof third, by reason. The future actuality of those events supposes a divine decree, which cannot have the notion of future except from the divine decree itself: but conditionally future things can in no way have the notion of future except from the divine decree itself: therefore they presuppose it. The major is evident per se.

Proof of the minor. First indeed, from those things which we have already said to prove that the future actuality of things is formed and depends only on the divine decree. For in the same way we must reason about the future actuality of conditional contingents as about the future actuality of absolute contingents: but the future actuality of these depends on the absolute divine decree, both on the part of God decreeing and on the part of the object decreed: therefore likewise the conditional future actuality of contingents will depend on a conditional decree on the part of the thing decreed, although absolute on the part of the one decreeing.

— Secondly: The future actuality of those things supposes a conditional decree of God, whose consequent does not follow from the antecedent except dependently on the will of God so establishing and decreeing: but the devastation of Syria, v. g., was not to follow from the earth being struck six or seven times with the spear by King Joash, except because God had so ordained, since there was no connection between the two from their own nature: therefore this general devastation supposed a divine decree; not indeed an absolute one, since in reality this devastation did not exist: therefore it supposed a conditional decree, and so it is given. — Thirdly: Every divine promise and divine pact expresses the sincere will of God promising and covenanting, who truly wills to fulfill what He promises, if of course the presupposed condition is present: but God in fact promised many things and established pacts about things under condition, yet never to be fulfilled: therefore God has volitions and decrees, absolute indeed as to the act, but conditional as to the object and by reason of the condition not to be posited. The major is evident per se: for if God did not will sincerely to fulfill what He promises, it would follow that He mocks men, and He could be accused of falsity and lying in His promises and pacts. The minor, however, is proved from the already cited promises about the perseverance of the Israelite empire with the family of Solomon, if they kept His commandments; since this was not fulfilled, even Solomon's descendants were cast down from the Israelite empire: for the empire was divided at the time of Rehoboam the son of Solomon, and stood only over Judah and Benjamin until Zedekiah, who was the last of the kings of Judah. — These all are confirmed by the words of Christ, Matth. 26., where, rebuking Peter because he had struck with the sword the servant of the prince of the priests, He says: Do you think that I cannot ask my Father, and He will show me now more than twelve legions of Angels? From which words I argue thus: Christ asserts that the divine Father would minister angelic help to Him if He were asked by Him: but such a ministration and exhibition of angelic help would not be so constantly asserted by Christ, unless He certainly knew that the Eternal Father had decreed that help, if His divine Son had so entreated and wished; otherwise He would assert that the Eternal Father willed what in reality He did not will: therefore in reality a conditional decree had been posited about ministering such angelic help if Christ had entreated: therefore consequently such a decree is admitted.

You will say 1. If conditional decrees were given in God, they would have to be free; but those decrees cannot be free: therefore they are not given. The major is clear, for the decree is that free determination of the divine will by which God wills to produce something outside Himself, or not to produce it. The minor is proved: a divine decree is not judged to be free, except by reason of a free termination to something extrinsic, which of itself can be and not be: but conditional decrees have nothing extrinsic to which they could be terminated, or not terminated: therefore they cannot be free. The major is evident: for since God is a most necessary being and is immutable, He cannot be free with a freedom to opposite acts, but only to opposite objects, or to the positing or not positing of the same object; and so He is judged to be free in this way by reason of free termination. The minor is also evident; for since a conditional future sometimes has a condition not to be posited, it is also about a thing not future; and so for the most part it has nothing extrinsic to which it is terminated.

I deny the minor. For just as absolute decrees are said to be free, because the absolutely decreed effect could have been decreed or not decreed absolutely; so likewise conditional decrees ought to be said to be free, because the conditionally decreed effect could have been decreed or not decreed conditionally by God. To the proof I distinguish the minor: conditional decrees cannot have a free termination to effects which will never be, that is, which are altogether impossible and repugnant, I concede: that is, which will not be future, because the condition will not be posited, which is the specificative condition of that decree, I deny: and so just as the absolute decree is said to be that which is terminated to an effect absolutely to come; so likewise the conditional decree is called that which is terminated to an effect future under a condition, to which respect it would also have a free termination.

You will say 2. That ought not to be asserted to be in God which is gathered neither from revelation nor from the Scriptures: but such conditional decrees are gathered neither from Scripture nor from revelation to be in God: therefore they are not to be asserted. The minor is clear: since there is no text of Scripture which signifies such decrees; indeed Sacred Scripture expressly affirms that all the decrees of the divine will have been fulfilled or are to be fulfilled: For the Lord has done all things whatsoever He willed, Psalm. 113. But those things which He is said to have willed conditionally, He would not have done, and so He cannot be said to have willed them.

I deny the minor. For nothing is more frequently suggested in Sacred Scripture than either promises made under condition, or pacts expressed under condition, which bear the sincere will of God, not indeed absolute, but conditional, and so they also import a conditional decree.

Add. That as the will of God was to confer original justice on the descendants of Adam, if Adam himself had preserved the innocence given to him and had obeyed the divine command about not eating the forbidden food; such also was the pact entered into with David and repeated with his son Solomon about saving the Israelite Sceptre with their posterity forever, if they obeyed the divine precepts, as David himself indicates Psal. 131. The Lord has sworn truth to David and He will not frustrate it (which words indicate an open decree of God and His sincere volition) of the fruit of your womb I will set upon your throne, if your sons will keep my covenant and these my testimonies which I will teach them, and their sons forever will sit upon your throne. Which decree, however, was not fulfilled, because the condition to be posited was lacking, namely the observance of the divine commandments, as we said above.

You will say 3. Those conditional decrees are ridiculous and nugatory: therefore they are to be kept away from God. The antecedent is proved: a promise would be derisory and nugatory which depends on the free choice of the promisor, which when he could posit the condition, he nevertheless would not will: v. g., if someone promised that he would give something to another on the hypothesis that he would come to him at such an hour, and he himself had in mind not to await such a coming, he would mock him: similarly if someone formed this decree: I will give you a hundred coins, if within an hour you will have gone from Paris to Rome and returned: this decree would be imprudent and illusory. But such would be the conditional decrees, v. g., the decree about the future conversion of the Tyrians and Sidonians on the supposed condition that Christ would preach among them, which condition would be impossible, since God had otherwise established that Christ was not going to preach among the Tyrians: therefore such decrees would be illusory.

I distinguish the antecedent. The decrees would be illusory and ridiculous, if they were about a vain and useless thing, and from a condition altogether repugnant and impossible, I concede; otherwise, I deny: but such are not the divine conditional decrees; for all those either signify the administration of divine providence, or the inclination of divine mercy to relieve man's misery, or the affection of divine kindness by which God accommodates Himself to our freedom and will. Neither are they about an impossible or repugnant condition: because that condition is not repugnant ex natura rei, but only by reason of something extrinsic and from some accidental supposition, which, although it is not fulfilled, nevertheless a promise made under condition, and a derisory decree, ought not to be judged such; because it pertains to the notion of the supreme and general Provider to decree many things under condition, which nevertheless He does not will to execute absolutely, on account of the hidden reasons of His providence.

You will say 4. Every divine decree imports and effects some physical and real change in the creature; for it brings it from the state of possible to future and existing being: but conditional decrees, whose condition will never be fulfilled, cannot effect any physical change in the things decreed, since such a decreed creature will never exist: therefore such decrees are impossible.

I deny the major. For it is not necessary that the divine will and the divine decree infer some real and physical change in the creature, in order that it be said to be freely determined to it, for a moral change suffices for this. For God could have willed from eternity that a man be obliged for some time to some vow or precept, and be entangled in some liability of punishment; and in the following time be released from all these bonds, namely by dispensing him from the vow and from the observance of the precept and by dissolving the liability, either through sufficient contrition and satisfaction already exhibited, or through merciful indulgence and the gratuitous remission of the offense; all of which effect only a moral change in the man; nevertheless they suffice to terminate God's free volition: and so a real and physical change is not required for this. To the minor I say, that conditional decrees do not indeed effect in the things future under a condition to be posited any physical change, but only a moral one, in that they cause in the object a certain objective change, transferring it from purely possible being to future being under condition, and ordering it to an existence to be had conditionally.

You will say 5. If conditional decrees were given in God, it would follow that God has contrary and opposite affections: but the consequent is false: therefore also the antecedent. The consequence of the major is proved: if God had decreed, v. g., the conversion of the Tyrians as conditionally future upon the preaching of Christ, He would have willed that conversion, and since He had elsewhere absolutely decreed that Christ would never preach among them, He would have at the same time willed and not willed the same thing; and consequently He would have had at the same time opposite affections.

I deny the consequence of the major. For those affections are not judged to be opposite which are not engaged about the same object considered in the same way; but such are the divine volitions, for one is efficacious with respect to the effect absolutely to come, v. g., the volition that Christ never preach among the Tyrians: but the other is only inefficacious, v. g., the conversion of the Tyrians on the supposed preaching of Christ among them. But God can at one and the same time will the same thing with an efficacious will, and nill it with an inefficacious will, under a different notion; for He wills inefficaciously to save even all those to be damned, because they are His divine images; nevertheless He also wills to damn them, redeemed by the precious Blood of His Son and about to depart from the living in final impenitence, because they are sinners; which two volitions, although they seem opposite, nevertheless are not such, because they regard the same object by a different means.

You will say 6. Those conditional decrees can neither be proved a priori, because they are free, and nothing precedes in the divine will with which they have a necessary connection; nor can they be proved a posteriori, because they truly have no effect, since they are engaged about things which are simpliciter possible: nor can that very thing be inferred from revelation, for those conditional decrees are inferred neither from Scripture nor from the holy Fathers: therefore in reality there are none.

I deny the antecedent. For first, those decrees can be proved a posteriori, for although they have no absolutely future effect, they would nevertheless have it by virtue of the conditional decree preexisting in God, if the condition, upon the positing of which the future is enunciated, had been fulfilled: whence conditionally future things are not in a state of mere possibility, like another world which God could produce if He willed; but they participate in some way in the notion of future, not indeed absolutely, but on hypothesis; those decrees are likewise gathered from Sacred Scripture, as is clear from the first proof of the Conclusion.

You will say 7. Those conditional decrees bring a great absurdity: therefore they are in no way to be admitted. The antecedent is proved: for from them it follows that God would be the cause of sins through a double decree: first indeed through the conditional one, by which God decreed that sins would happen, if certain conditions were present: second, through the absolute one, which results from the former, namely with those conditions posited and foreseen as about to be, by which it comes about that by this double decree the will, indifferent of itself, is as it were predetermined to committing all crimes: whence it follows that God not only permits, but also truly causes sin.

I deny the antecedent. For no Catholic affirms that there is in God any decree, whether absolute or conditional, by which He decreed that sins would happen, nor does anyone likewise assert that He predetermines the will to sin: but the Theologians establish in God an absolute or conditional decree, by which God wills to permit the sin as future absolutely or on hypothesis, and to concur to the entity of the sinful act insofar as they are physical acts and beings, namely according to every notion of entity and goodness which they have, not however according to the notion of deformity and malice by which, on account of the deviation of the created will, they are morally affected.

You will insist. In reality from those conditional decrees God would be judged to be the author of sin, not only according to entity, but also according to deformity: therefore, etc. The antecedent is proved: he would be judged to be the author of sin who, revolving in his mind all the orders of things and all the circumstances of times and places, would determine to bring help to the committing of all crimes under a certain condition, namely if they asked help from him for committing crimes: but this very thing follows from the conditional decree, by which of course God decrees that He will concur with all free causes to all things, even crimes, if namely they determine themselves to committing those crimes and demand His concurrence for this: therefore, etc.

I deny the antecedent. And to its proof I say, that God does not decree that He will concur to the sinful act precisely insofar as it is sinful, but only insofar as it is an entitative act, to elicit which the created will freely determines itself, to which God, as the general and universal cause, ought not to deny His concurrence, as we will teach more fully in Tractatu de Providentia.

You will say 8. From this opinion it would follow that innumerable decrees are to be established in God, indeed imprudent, ridiculous and absurd ones about singular things; namely with useless and ridiculous conditions added, under which almost infinite propositions can be made, v. g.: If I take the book, I will die; if a Turk sits at Constantinople, I will be a religious at Paris; and other similar things, which since they are altogether unbecoming to God, those conditional decrees are also to be removed far from Him.

I deny the antecedent. For we do not admit in God conditional decrees about all the combinations of possible things, but only about those conditionals which are written in the Sacred Scriptures, or are gathered from them. Whence this argument rather militates against the defenders of middle knowledge, who of course assert that God, before every free decree of His will, certainly knows what would be determined, with any combinations whatsoever, even possible ones, of any conditional future being posited.

You will say finally. The same is the reason for conditionally future things as for absolute ones: but prescinding from any divine decree, at least antecedent, there is saved in God the certain knowledge of absolute future contingents: therefore by a similar reason, prescinding from any conditional decree, there is saved in God the knowledge of conditionally future things; and so there is no necessity of admitting those decrees.

I deny the minor. For since all contingents which are absolutely future depend intrinsically on the decree of the divine will, which is eternal; hence it cannot come about that, any divine decree being prescinded, something is de facto future; and so neither can it come about that it is known under the notion of future, since Apocalypsis 4.: All things are yours, and by your will they were, and were created. Whence to suppose something future independently of the divine decree is altogether to deny that God is the First cause of all things.