Scotus Academicus, Tomus secundus: De Deo Intelligente et Volente

You will ask 1. Whether it is to be admitted.

I affirm it, since Sacred Scripture clearly indicates it in many places: first indeed Exod. 32., where Moyses, addressing God, says: Either forgive them this offense, or if you do not, blot me out of your book which you have written; and in the same place: Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot him out of my book. Psalm. 68. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living and not be written with the just. Psal. 138. In your book all will be written: which passages, although by some they are explained of Sacred Scripture, or of the book in which the notable deeds of the just, who shone in the time of the old law, were written, which book is therefore called the Book of the Just Iosue 10. and 2. Regum 1. cap., so that Moyses chose rather to be blotted out of that book than that God remain offended at the people: nevertheless they are more fittingly and more rightly understood of that metaphorical book, or of the knowledge which God has of the number of those to be saved or reprobated; as becomes more clearly evident from the other following texts of Scripture, Daniel 11. In that time, he says, your whole people will be saved, whoever will have been found written in the book: and many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to eternal life, others to reproach, to see it always. This passage cannot be understood of those saved with temporal salvation, as some wrongly interpret; since the Prophet speaks of the salvation to be obtained after the resurrection of the dead. Nor likewise can it be explained of the knowledge of the saved themselves; since they, before the pronouncement of the final sentence, do not know who are to be saved and who are to be damned: it remains therefore that it be understood of the knowledge which God has of those who will certainly be saved or damned. This is confirmed by the following texts of Scripture. Apocal. 3. Whoever overcomes, thus will he be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot his name out of the book of life: and cap. 13. All who inhabit the earth worshiped the beast, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb, who was slain from the origin of the world: and c. 17. The inhabitants of the earth will marvel, whose names are not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world: and cap. 21. Nothing defiled will enter into it, nor anyone doing abomination and lying, unless those who are written in the book of life of the Lamb. These words are clearer than that they could conveniently be understood of anything else besides the book of the knowledge of God.

You will ask 2. What the Book of Life is.

He answers. St. Augustine lib. 20. De Civit. Dei, cap. 14. says that the Book of Life is a certain divine power, by which it comes about that all the works of each one, whether good or evil, are recalled to memory, and are discerned with wonderful swiftness by the gaze of the mind, so that knowledge accuses conscience, and all and each are judged accordingly: which divine power, to be sure, received the name of book, for in it, in a certain way, is read whatever is recollected by its doing. But this definition cannot square with the aforementioned texts of Scripture; for Augustine understands by the Book of Life the consciences of those to be judged, and also the Saints and Elect themselves, who are said to be opened, insofar as all their works will be manifest to each one, so that it may be made known even to the Reprobate that the observance of the commandments of God had been possible: but this certainly cannot be reconciled with the aforesaid texts of Scripture: both because in the example, or the life, of the Saints the works of the Reprobate do not appear; and so in them there cannot appear written the judgment of the Reprobate, according to their works: and because by a like reason the Reprobate could be called books, insofar as by their example they show the Elect that the observance of the commandments had been possible; and therefore that they are justly crowned for their free observance of them. — Whence it seems more rightly to be defined that the book of life is the certain and most penetrating knowledge of God, by which he intuitively beholds the number of those to be saved, both in species and in the individual. This knowledge, moreover, is therefore metaphorically called the Book of Life, because just as the writing of a book is a sign of the things that are to be done, so the knowledge and memory of God, by which he firmly knows that he has predestined some, is a sign with him of those who are to be led to eternal life, according to that 2. ad Timotheum 2.: The firm foundation of God stands, having this seal: the Lord knows who are his. Hence it follows first, that the Book of Life is, as it were, a knowledge consequent upon the decree of Predestination, and is formally distinguished from it; since it presupposes it, and the predestining decree, without this consequent knowledge, can be adequately and formally conceived. It follows second, that this book properly regards the life of glory and the supernatural end; so that it is a certain inscription, or knowledge, of the elect to the life of eternal glory, because that to which someone is elected and inscribed has the character of an end: just as a soldier is not chosen or enrolled that he may be armed, but that he may fight. Third, finally, it follows that since the book of life is the inscription of those ordained to eternal life, and someone is ordained to it on the basis of two things, namely divine predestination and sanctifying grace; for whoever has divine Predestination, by this very fact is worthy of life, because it never fails; but otherwise as to the latter, because many fall away from grace through mortal sin, of whom that can be understood, Ps. 68. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living and not be written with the just: the former are said to be in the book of life simpliciter: the latter, however, are said to be written only secundum quid; as our Alexander of Hales explains 1. p. q. 23. memb. 3. art. 4. Something, he says, is said to be written in the book of life in two ways, simpliciter and secundum quid; simpliciter, those are written there who have final perseverance in grace: but secundum quid the reprobate are said to be written there, when they have present justice.

You will ask 3. Whether in reality there is also a Book of Death, in which the Reprobate are said to be inscribed.

I affirm. For just as the book of life corresponds to predestination, so it can be said that the book of death metaphorically corresponds to reprobation, that is, the knowledge and memory of God by which he firmly knows and retains that he has condemned some, on account of final sin, to eternal death; for it is certain that God has an indelible foreknowledge of all those who perish, just as he has of all those who are saved; and so, just as that knowledge is called the Book of Life, so this can truly be called the Book of Death. The Church seems to prove this manner of speaking, since in the Office of the Dead she sings thus: A written book will be brought forth, in which everything is contained, whence the world is judged. It is also gathered from Apocalypse 20. Books were opened, and another book was opened, which is of life, and the dead were judged from those things which were written in the books, according to their works, and whoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the pool of fire: whence St. Basil, in c. 4. of Isaiah, expounding that saying of Ier. 17. Those who depart from you will be written in the earth, says: Two inscriptions must be understood: one indeed is of those who are for life: the other, however, is of those who are written for perdition. — Nevertheless the memory of the predestined is more fittingly called the Book of Life, than the memory of the reprobate is called the Book of Death: both because, says the cited Alexander of Hales, God has as his own what is proper to himself, namely to save and to reward, but properly from himself, or according to himself, it is not his to punish, but from ourselves; and because a book is written that it may be kept before the eyes of the writer and for the perpetual memory of the matter: but God rather in a certain way forgets the reprobate, who are unworthy of eternal memory, according to that Oseae 1. I will utterly forget them: on the contrary, however, the just will be in eternal memory, Psal. 111. Likewise because, just as in Scripture God is said more specially to know the things which he approves, and not to know those which he reprobates, Matth. 25., Lucae 13. et Corinth. 14., so the book is said more specially to be that one which contains the names of the Elect, of whom it is said 2. Timoth. 2. The Lord knows who are his; according to the probable interpretation of many. In which sense Euthym. on Psalm. 68. says thus: The book of God is the sum of his knowledge: but the writing is perpetual memory. In the book, therefore, of divine knowledge all are written, both the just and sinners; but this book of divine knowledge is more universal, for there is another book of the knowledge of God more private, (that is, more proper) in which only the just are written, for the reason that he is said to know, that is, to approve, only them, according to that which is written: the Lord knows the ways of the just.

Imprimatur:

Fr. Albertus Lepidi O. P. S. P. Ap. Magister.

Ioseph Ceppetelli, Archbishop of Myra, Vicegerent.