.

Subsections

Revealed Will has a Foundation in God
Divine Disposition, Inclination & Willingness
Revealed Will as Improperly God’s Will
Revealed Will may Express Purpose
Ineffectual Will
Rutherford on

.

.

Order of Contents

Articles  7
Quotes  32+

On Lombard  2
Thomism  4
Scotism  1
Aquinas vs. Scotus  1
Jansenism  1
Historical  3
Latin  3

.

.

Articles

1600’s

Perkins, William – pp. 96-102  in 4th Crimination  in A Christian & Plain Treatise of the Manner & Order of Predestination & of the Largeness of God’s Grace  (d. 1602: London: Welby & Clarke, 1606)

“Hence it appears what we ought to think of Damascene his opinion, who divides the will of God into his precedent and consequent will…  And indeed this distinction in itself is to be allowed, but that is not a very fit example [of it] which he has set down or alleged concerning his precedent will.” – pp. 96-97

White, John – ch. 25, ‘The text of 1 Tim. 2:4, God wills all men to be saved, etc. expounded.  The diverse expositions that are given of those words.  God’s antecedent will, as they call it, is not his will formally.  The antecedent and consequent will of God expounded diverse ways.’  in A Defence of the Way to the True Church…  wherein the motives leading to papistry…  are handled and fully disputed  (London: Field, 1614), pp. 207-40

White (1570–1615) was an English clergyman, a royal chaplain and controversialist.

White has a detailed discussion of how the antecedent/consequent will distinction was variously used by the medieval scholastics.  White argues against the distinction, at least with regard to his understanding of his Jesuit opponent’s view (who claims to follow Aquinas and others).

Du Moulin, Pierre – ch. 5, ‘Of the Antecedent & Consequent Will of God’  in The Anatomy of Arminianism…  (London: Snodham, 1620), pp. 27-41

“II. The one of these wills is called the antecedent will, the other is called the consequent, not because that will goes before this, for in this sense, this distinction may be admitted, because there is a certain order among the purposes of God: Thus his will of creating man was in order before his will of feeding or clothing him.  But with [John] Damascene and [James] Arminius…” – p. 28

“XXIV. All these [previous] things are not therefore spoken that we should reject this distinction of the will of God into his antecedent and consequent will: For we know that among the decrees of God, some are before and some are after in order.  But we deny that there are two decrees of God, between which man’s will steps in, as if man’s will came between the decree of creating man and the decree of condemning certain men.  But we deny that the will of man does so come between the two decrees of God that the first, or antecedent decree, is broken off by the will of man and that God is compelled to absist from that end which He had propounded to Himselfe and which He did seriously intend: We deny also in the work of our election, the precise will of God to depend on the foreseeing of any power or action of man’s free-will, or the consequent will of God to be suspended on man’s will.” – pp. 40-41

White, Francis – pp. 78-80  in ‘Answer’ in ‘Touching the Necessity of Understanding the Quality of the Roman Church’  in A Reply to Jesuit Fisher’s Answer to Certain Questions Propounded by…  King James…  (London: Islip, 1624)

White (c. 1564 – 1638) was an Anglican bishop who here seeks to refute in a bit of detail the teaching of a divine antecedent and consequent will as held by Romanists (including Aquinas), in relation to their teaching that the true Church is visibly universal in all places in the world.  White was an Arminian, but that does not appear to affect the argument(s) here.

Rutherford, Samuel – Rutherford on the Antecedent Will of God  (1636; RBO)

Turretin, Francis – 16. ‘May the will be properly distinguished into antecedent and consequent, efficacious and inefficacious, conditional and absolute?  We deny.’  in Institutes of Elenctic Theology, tr. George M. Giger, ed. James Dennison Jr.  (1679–1685; P&R, 1992), vol. 1, 3^rd Topic, p. 226 ff.

Rijssen, Leonard – A Complete Summary of Elenctic Theology & of as Much Didactic Theology as is Necessary  trans. J. Wesley White  MTh thesis  (Bern, 1676; GPTS, 2009), ch. 3, God

Controversy 1 – ‘Is the real (realis) will of God sometimes antecedent, by which He desires something in Himself, not in relation to circumstances, before foreknowledge, and at other times consequent, by which, after having foreseen the act of the creature, He decides the contrary?  We deny against the Socinians and Arminians.’ pp. 39-40

.

.

Quotes

Collection of

ed. Ponter, David – ‘Antecedent / Consequent Will’  23 quotes at Calvin & Calvinism

.

Individual Quotes

Order of

John of Damascus
Aquinas
Vermigli
Perkins
Yates
Wolleb
Weemes
Donne
Ames
Rutherford
Stock
Davenant
Burgess
Twisse
Owen
Whitfield
Jeanes
Norton
Hall
Bramhall
Durham
Thaddaeus
Voet
Barker
Baxter
Henry

.

700’s

John of Damascus

Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, bk. 2, ch. 29, ‘On Providence’  in NPNF2, vol. 9, pt. 2, p. 42   Damascus (c. 675 or 676 – 749) was Christian monk, apologist and theologian, known as the last of the Greek fathers.  Damascus appears not to believe in an unconditional predestination underlying his antecedent/ consequent distinction, per ch. 30.

“Also one must bear in mind that God’s original wish was that all should be saved [1 Tim. 2:4] and come to His Kingdom.  For it was not for punishment that He formed us but to share in his goodness, inasmuch as He is a good God.  But inasmuch as He is a just God, his will is that sinners should suffer punishment.

The first then is called God’s antecedent will and pleasure, and springs from Himself, while the second is called God’s consequent will and permission, and has its origin in us.  And the latter is twofold: one part dealing with matters of guidance and training, and having in view our salvation, and the other being hopeless and leading to our utter punishment, as we said above.  And this is the case with actions that are not left in our hands.

But of actions that are in our hands, the good ones depend on his antecedent goodwill and pleasure, while the wicked ones depend neither on his antecedent, nor on His consequent will, but are a concession to free-will.  For that which is the result of compulsion has neither reason nor virtue in it.  God makes provision for all creation and makes all creation the instrument of his help and training, yea often even the demons themselves, as for example in the cases of Job and the swine [Mt. 8:30 ff.].”

.

1200’s

Thomas Aquinas

Commentary on the Sentences, bk. 1, dist. 48, quest. 1, The conformity of our will to the will of God, art. 4, Whether we are bound to conformity in the thing willed, reply to obj. 1

“What is divinely willed, as regards his antecedent will, is known to us from the natural inclination itself.  But what is willed by the consequent will he makes known to us either through a revelation or through his activity.”

.

1500’s

Peter Martyr Vermigli

Most Learned & Fruitful Commentaries…  upon…  Romans...  (London: Daye, 1568), ch. 9

pp. 269-70

“‘Thou wilt say then unto me: why doth he yet complain? For who can resist his will?’…

And forasmuch as not all which hear the Gospel are inwardly with efficacy moved of God, thereof it comes that Paul says to the Corinthians, that it is to some the savor of life to life, and to other some the savor of death to death.  This is a plain  and simple conciliation of that contrariety which appears to be in the will of God.  And because that in these vocations and promises seems to be expressed some will of God which yet takes not effect, certain divines have not unskillfully said that there is one will of the sign, or of the antecedent: another will of efficacy, or of the consequent.

For it oftentimes happens, that God either threatens or promises a thing, which yet shall not come to pass.  And yet does not God therefore lie, or deceive.  For He pronounces those things, either as nature was then ordered, or as through ill deserts it might come to pass, unless some change were had in the mean time.  So was Ezekiel told that he should die: because that disease whereof he was sick was by nature deadly.  Wherefore the prophet in those threats pronounced, God’s will of the sign: that is, so much as could be known by the force of nature.  But the changing came of the will of God which is of efficacy, which they call the consequent.

Nineveh also for the grievous sins thereof was worthy to be destroyed.  Wherefore Jonah showed unto them the antecedent will of God, which they call the will of the sign: Wherefore when God calls Pharaoh or any other reprobate, by that vocation or outward promise we understand the antecedent will, or the will of the sign, but that other hidden will, which they call the will of efficacy, or the consequent, we understand not.

Wherefore God cannot deny Himself, neither does He in these wills strive against Himself.  But by his doctrine and promises being in differently and generally set forth, He stirs up the minds of the ministers of the Church, cheerfully to preach the word and that unto all men: which thing doubtless they would not do, if He had made them assured of his hidden will.  For if they knew that they had to deal with men reprobate, they would utterly be discouraged, and give over.”

.

p. 273

“Wherefore he teaches that God in these threatnings and promises does not always reveal his hidden and unchangeable will, whereby He has most firmly decreed what He will do: but only his will, which they call the antecedent will, or the will of the sign, that is of admonition: for that their present estate requires that.  But Paul in this place and the prophet in the beginning of the chapter entreat of that will and power of God whereby He by most good right both makes, and makes n•w all things as pleases Him.”

.

The Common Places  (d. 1562; London, 1583), pt. 3, ch. 1, Of Predestination upon the 9th Chapter to the Romans, pp. 31-33

“Further, there are some which interpret these words of the apostle [1 Tim. 4:2, “God will have all men to be saved”], of the will of the sign or of the antecedent, that all men are invited, for that preaching is indifferently set forth to all men.  Neither is there any, in a manner, which inwardly feels not some prick whereby he is oftimes stirred up to live well.  So that if we respect this will of God, we easily grant that He will have all men to be saved.

But they will not have it to be understood of the hidden and effectual will, which they call consequent: and after this manner may those kinds of speech be understood: ‘God lightens every man which comes into this world;’ (Jn. 1:9)  ‘Come unto Me all ye which labor, and are laden.’ (Mt. 11:21)  For all men are provoked by the oracles of God, and all men are inwardly moved by some provoking.  All these interpretations are doubtless very likely, and also apt…

46. They object also a sentence of Christ, ‘How often would I have gathered together thy children, as a hen gathers together her chickens, and thou wouldest not?’ (Mt. 23:37)  But here also is meant of the antecedent will of the sign, whereby God by his prophets, preachers, apostles and scriptures, many times invited the Jews to fly unto Him by repentance: which yet they refused to do.  But yet God, by his effectual will, which they call consequent, perpetually drew to Him those that were his: neither was there ever any age wherein He gathered not together as many of the Hebrews as He had predestinated.  Therefore Augustine said, ‘Those which I would, I have gathered together, although thou wouldest not.'”

.

1600’s

William Perkins

A Treatise of God’s Free Grace & Man’s Free Will  (Cambridge, 1601)

pp. 133-34

“The third point comes now to be considered, namely the harmony or consent of both wills.  For the words are, ‘I would, ye would not.’ [Mt. 23:37]  Here it may justly be demanded whether there be a harmony or consent between God’s will and man’s will, and how it stands with this text.

I answer, there is an excellent harmony: and generally it stands in this, that God’s will has a sovereign lordship over the will of man, and man’s will stands subject to it absolutely, and simply depends upon it.  And by this means, where man has a will, God has an antecedent will;† and where man’s will has any stroke or action, there God’s will formerly had his stroke and action.

† [Given the context and below, it is likely Perkins means God’s will of decree is antecedent to man’s will, involving the predetermination of man’s will.  Perkins below criticizes Damascene’s sense of the term antecedent will.]”

.

pp. 146-48

“Again, some school-divines following Damascene make and ascribe to God an applied or depending [consequent] will, on this manner: God for his part [antecedently] would have all men without exception to be saved: why then are they not saved?  They themselves will not.  And because they will not, God therefore [consequently] chooses some and refuses others.

But according to the former doctrine, I take this kind of applied will to be an invention of man’s brain.  For the contrary is the truth, namely that man’s will wholly depends on the will of God.  That vessels be some of honor, some of dishonor, it is not in the power of the clay, but in the will of the potter.  The first cause orders the second, and not the second the first.  To make God’s will depend on man’s will, is to put God out of his throne of majesty, and to set the creature in his room.

Others set forth the depending will of God on this manner: God (say they) decrees nothing in particular of things that are casual and contingent, but He foresees within Himself what the will of the creature will do or not do, when things are thus or thus ordered: and upon this foresight He consequently determines what shall be done. (Bellarmine, bk. 4, ch. 15, Of Grace & Free Will; Richard Tapper)

But this opinion, as it gives unto God a common or general providence, so it takes away the certain determination of God touching all particular events.  And it is absurd to think that God should foresee the future acts of man’s freewill, when as yet He has determined nothing: for things that shall be, are therefore to come to pass, because God by decree has determined their being.  And therefore the foreknowledge of things that shall be follows the decree of God.”

.

John Yates

God’s Arraignment of Hypocrites with an Enlargement concerning God’s Decree in Ordering Sin...  (Cambridge, 1615), pt. 3, Reasons Objected to make God the Author of Sin, p. 76

“But thus they [medieval scholastics] expound themselves, that God works, decrees and wills the deformity that is found in the sins of commission, not by his antecedent will, whereby He works things out of his own liking, but by his consequent and conditional will, whereby presupposing the purpose of suffering his creature to avert and turn from Him, He still intends to move, impel and carry them forward, though being by their own fault out of the way, He carries them thither whither they should not go: first, say they, by substraction of grace, upon the withdrawing whereof He saw the creature would turn from Him, He purposed to suffer the sin of aversion or omission to enter: secondly, this purpose being presupposed, and foreseeing that which would follow upon it in his consequent and conditional will, He positively decreed the other, which is of commission.

Man by creation was made to seek an infinite good, and love it infinitely; which if he omit to seek in God, then must he needs commit the contrary and seek it in himself: for so God decreed that man not continuing to adhere unto Him, should fall into self-love, pride and all evils of that kind.

All this might be borne withal, save only they make deformity of the essence of an action, which cannot be borne withal…”

.

Johannes Wolleb

The Abridgment of Christian Divinity...  (d. 1629; London: Mabb, 1660), bk. 1, ch. 3, Concerning the Works of God & the Decrees of God in General, The Rules, pp. 33-37

“[I] This is called his [Greek] (Acts 2:23), Determined purpose, [Greek] (Acts 4:28), The hand and counsel of God; [Greek] (Eph. 1:9), The good pleasure of God and Gods eternal providence. (Now this is called his eternal providence, that it may be distinguished from actual providence, which is nothing else but the execution of God’s decrees.)

II. This is called, the Will of God, or The will of his good pleasure.

Indeed the decree is the very will of God; yet for our better understanding, the will is considered as the cause efficient, the decree is the effect.  Now whereas this word ‘will’ is taken diversely, it is diverse ways distinguished by divines, to wit, into the will of his good pleasure and the will of the sign; into an antecedent and consequent; into absolute, and conditional; into secret and revealed.

But these are not real distributions of the divine will, but distinctions only of the name: For to speak properly, there is in God but one only will, which is called the will of his good pleasure, because out of his most free good pleasure He has decreed what shall be done: It is called also his antecedent will because it had existence before any creature and from eternity with God it was established: It is named also absolute, because it depends upon God’s good pleasure and not from the things which are done in time.  Lastly it is called secret, because in respect of priority it is known neither to men nor angels.  But these things are improperly styled by the name of divine will which are comprehended in that ordinary verse:

Praecipit, et prohibet, promittit, consulit, implet:
“Commands, forbids, promises, consults, fulfills.”

(Alexander Ross: The Schoolmen take God’s antecedent will in another sense, for his velleity [willing, desire or wish], and they call it conditional; they make his consequent will absolute and which is always fulfilled, the other not always.)

For as the magistrates’ commands are called his will, so the name of will is attributed to precepts, prohibitions, promises, to effects also and events.  And this is it which is called the will of the sign, because it signifies what is acceptable to God and what He would have done by us.  It is also called his consequent will because it follows that eternal antecedent will: And ’tis a conditional will because God’s precepts, prohibitions, comminations and promises have the condition of obedience and disobedience annexed.

Lastly, his revealed will, because it’s daily set forth in God’s Word.  This distinction of the will is duly to [be] observed lest we should imagine that there are in God either really different or contrary wills.

III. What things are done against the will of God are not done besides his will.

For many things may be done against his revealed will, which notwithstanding, are consistent with his secret will or will of his good pleasure.  God by his revealed will desired not man’s fall, but most severely forbade it, yet He did will and decree the same by the will of his good pleasure, as it was a means for manifestation of his glory.

IV. Therefore by the decree and will of God, good and evil comes to pass; good by efficiency, evil by permission.
…

X. Gods decree in itself is one and most simple; neither is there priority or posteriority in it.

XI. But in respect of the things which are decreed, is so distinguished, that in what manner or order they come to pass, God is said to decree them that they should thus come to pass.

These are idle questions: whether God decreed this or that first?  Whether He first ordained the end or the means?  For whereas the decree of God in itself is one and a most simple action, there is neither priority nor posteriority in it, but it is distinguished only in regard of the things which are decreed…”

.

John Donne

Fifty Sermons. The Second Volume Preached…  (d. 1631; London: Flesher, 1649), Sermon 26, on Isa. 65:20  Donne

“And we consider an antecedent-will in God, and that
antecedent will is before all; for by that will, God would have all men saved.”

.

John Weemes

An Exposition of the Moral Law, or Ten Commandments...  (London: Cotes, 1632), bk. 1, Commandment 1, Exercitation 7, pp. 50-51

“Question: But how could he [Paul] wish this [to be accursed from Christ for his brethren’s sake, in Rom. 9:3], seeing it imports a diminution of the love of God…

Answer: If ye will consider this petition by itself, it was neither sin nor dimunition of this love: but if ye will consider the consequents of this wish, if indeed he had been excluded from the Kingdome of heaven, then it had been a sin for him to have wished it.  One may wish a thing simply without sin, yet to wish it vestitum omnibus circumstantiis [clothed with all circumstances] it may be sin.

Example: a woman has her husband to be executed for some capital offence, the woman wished her husband to live, as her husband and a father to her children to provide for them; but if she should desire her husband to live as an enemy to the commonwealth contrary to the law, then her wish were a sinful wish: So for Paul to wish this to testify his earnest love to the Church, it was no sin; but if he had wished it vestitum ominibus circumstantiis, with a diminution of the love of God and want of eternal happiness, then his wish had been sin.

Again we wish a thing antecedente voluntate vel consequente voluntate, ‘with an antecedent or consequent will.’  Example: a judge by his antecedent will wishes that all the subjects may live; but by his consequent will, he wishes the malefactor to die.  So Paul wished this by his antecedent will, but not considering it with all the consequents that might follow upon it.

Fourthly, Paul wished not this absolutely, but in comparison: as the natural mother who pleaded before Solomon chose rather that the child should be given to her who was not the mother of it than that the child should be cut in two, 1 Kn. 3:26.  If ye consider Paul’s wish here, it was only in comparison; rather than they should die, he wishes this to himself.”

.

William Ames

The Marrow of Sacred Divinity...  (d. 1633; London: Griffin, 1642), bk. 1, ch. 7, Of the Decree & Counsel of God, pp. 32-33

“38. Hence the will of God is the first cause of things. Rev. 4:11, ‘By thy will they are, and were created.’  But the will of God, as it wills to work outwardly, does not presuppose the goodness of the object, but by willing does make the object.  James 1:18, ‘Because He would, He begat us.’  Rom. 9:18, ‘He hath mercy on whom He will.’

39. Therefore there is no cause properly so called to be given of God’s will.

40. Hence it is rightly said that God does will one thing to exist for another: but not that that one thing is a proper cause whereby the will of God is inwardly moved to appoint that other thing.  So God would that the sun and stars should exist, for the generation, conservation and corruption of things below: yet the sun and stars are not a cause why God would that those things should be generated, conserved and corrupted.  And so it is in all things out of God, which indeed among themselves are causes and effects, even as they depend upon the divine will, but there is no cause of God’s will out of itself.

41. Also the willing of one thing in God is not properly a cause effecting that He will another thing in Himself, because the efficiency of a cause upon an effect, and dependance of the effect upon a cause, cannot be in the will of God, which is God Himself, truly and simply willing all things together and at once, with one only act; yet it is true that the Schoolmen say that a passive attingency of the divine will in respect of one thing is a cause of a passive attingency in respect of another: and so in this sense it is truly and piously said that God wills some one thing because He wills another.

42. Therefore although He wills many things which will not follow but upon some antecedent act of the creature, yet the very act of willing in God does not properly depend as a consequent thing upon the act of the creature.  Neither is it lawful under the appellation of an ‘antecedent will’ to give unto God that imperfect will which is called velleitas, a ‘woulding’ in the schools.  For it does not agree to an omniscient, omnipotent and infinitely, blessed Nature.

43. Wherefore that opinion which determines that God does will something antecedently to the act of the creature, which same thing afterwards He wills not towards them, but wills another thing, is not to be admitted: because it makes the will of God mutable and depending upon the act of the creature, so that as often as the act of the creature is changed, so often also it is changed.

44. By that opinion also, that form of speech prescribed in the Word of God wherein we commit ourselves and all ours to God, as ‘I will do this or that if God will,’ [Jm. 4:15] should not be used in all things, but [rather, it is by that opinion] turned contrarily, ‘God will do this or that, if man will.’

45. This will determines of all things, greatest, least, contingent, necessary, free, without exception…”

.

Samuel Rutherford

Apologetic Exercitations, II.iii.1, p. 323  as translated in Richard Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics  2nd ed.  (Baker Books, 2003), vol. 3, ch. 5.4, E. The Ad Intra–Ad Extra Distinctions, 6. Voluntas antecedens and voluntas consequens, p. 466

“[a divine will resident] in the antecedent causes from which an effect follows, but not necessarily; so that God antecedently wills that all people be saved, insofar as He gives to all the natural capacity to be saved and in no way impedes the sufficiency of the means; and God wills consequently that which He wills not in the causes but in Himself, namely, that believers be saved.”

.

Richard Stock

A Stock of Divine Knowledge, being a lively Description of the Divine Nature, or  the Divine Essence, Attributes & Trinity particularly explained and profitably applied…  (London: T.H., 1641), ch. 13, pp. 133-34  Stock (c.1568-1626) was an English puritan.

“Objection: Again it is objected, the apostle Paul says in 1 Tim. 2:4 that God would have all men saved: How should it be then that any should perish, unless his will be changeable?

Answer: Ambrose upon this place of the apostle expounds it thus: God will have all men to be saved, but so as they come to Him, He will have them saved; if they will salvation to themselves; and if this sense be admitted, there is no shadow of change in God, though many be not saved, because those many that are not saved, do not seek salvation…

God will have all men saved, He wills the salvation even of the reprobate, as a thing in itself good and suitable to the disposition of a gracious God: but yet He does not determine or appoint it, and therefore though many perish, there is no change in God’s will: this place showing what God might approve of being done, not what He determined to do; He wills it by an antecedent will, as in itself considered; but not with a consequent will, and here is no change in God’s will;”

.

John Davenant

Animadversions upon a Treatise entitled, God’s Love to Mankind...  (Cambridge: Daniel, 1641), ‘Answer: Whether the decree of absolute Reprobation is contrary unto the use and end of God’s gifts bestowed upon men,’ pp. 390-99

“That God wills the good of men in bestowing any good gifts or graces upon them, needed no proof at all: We have always willingly granted this proposition.  Yet for the true understanding thereof it must be observed that when we say, ‘This is God’s will; this is God’s aim or intent,’ these words have not always the same signification.  This author [Samuel Hoard, an Arminian], by confounding the diverse meaning of these and the like words, does strangely entangle himself through his whole discourse.

First therefore: Anything is said to be according to God’s will which, considered in itself, is according to the goodness and pureness of the Divine nature.  This is a perpetual and necessary volition in God, qua Deo placet omne bonum [by which God is pleased by every good thing]. (See [Diego] Ruiz [d. 1632], Of the Will of God, disp. 6, §2, p. 38)  And this simplex complacentia [simple complacency] towards all good actions of men, or events unto men, is possible circa creaturas omnes etiam nunquam futuras [about all creatures, even which will never be].  For there is no goodness imaginable which has not an agreement with the good will of God which we call amorem simplicis complacentiae [a love of simple complacency].  Satis constat hujusmodi complacentiam Dei versari circa poenitentiam, gratiam et gloriam possibilem Judae aut cujus libet damnati [It is sufficiently clear that this kind of complacency in God has reference to the possible repentance, grace, and glory of Judas, or of any damned person whatsoever]. (Ruiz, disp. 19, p. 214)  But this is not it which we now speak of.

2. Secondly, God is said to will, desire or aim-at that good, for the obtaining whereof He affords fitting means, though withal He wills that it shall be in the liberty of the creature to hinder and frustrate those means, and though He have absolutely decreed to permit the creature to abuse them unto his own destruction.  This is that which usually is termed by divines voluntas antecedens, voluntas conditionata, voluntas simplicis complacentiae [the will preceding, will-conditioned, will of simple complacency].

And thus God is said to aim-at or to will and desire the conversion, justification and salvation of those who never shall be converted, justified or saved.  Neither must we think that by these men God’s omnipotent will is crossed, because his voluntas simplicis complacentiae [will of simple complacency] is not fulfilled.  For the absolute will of God was that in such persons their own free-will might hinder the good effect of his gifts and graces, which He was absolutely resolved to permit for some greater good.

Lastly, there is a will in God which strictly and most properly is called voluntas beneplaciti [will of good-pleasure] or his absolute will, which is not only a liking of the good willed unto the creature, and an ordering of fit means whereby the creature (if his own free-will hinder not) may attain it, but a merciful decree of so ordering the means and the very will of the creature, that it shall infallibly and infrustrately obtain the good end whereunto such means were accommodated.  And of this will Ruiz truly affirms:

Sola haec voluntas absoluta simpliciter amplectitur objectum, et ideo sola simpliciter et absolute meretur nomen voluntatis Beneplaciti [Only this absolute will simply embraces its object, and therefore only it, simply and absolutely, deserves the name of the will of good pleasure.]. (disp. 18, §4, p. 185)

We grant, therefore, that in the second acception of the word ‘will,’ God truly wills, likes, desires the repentance, faith, perseverance and salvation of all to whom the Gospel is preached and Christ offered.  But in the last and most proper acception, God wills the perseverance and salvation only of his elect, in whom He never ceases working till the happy effect be produced.

Our divines at [the Synod of] Dort [1618-1619] granted a true and serious will in God according to the second acception of the word ‘will,’ but not according to the last.  Which will simplicis complacentiae [of simple complacency] may stand with absolute reprobation.

If this author can be content to acknowledge that for a true, serious and no delusory will, which affords the creature means of repenting, believing and being saved, though under an eternal absolute decree of permitting the final disobedience and perdition of the creature, we will free him from the trouble of answering the places of Scripture, and with him embrace the interpretation of Damascene, who tells us (Of the Orthodox Faith, bk. 4, ch. 20) that albeit the Scriptures do in such places seem to make God’s benefits causes of man’s sin and ruin, yet they must be understood [Greek], not [Greek].

A physician does give his patient physick with an absolute will to cure so far as his skill and ability will stretch: But God does not always give the means of salvation unto all men out of his absolute will, for then all should be cured and saved.  Ps. 135, Omnia quaecunque voluit Deus, fecit in coelo et in terra [All which God wills is done in heaven and in earth].  Fulgentius gives the reason (1 ad Mon., ch. 12), Quia cui semper subest cum volet posse, non aliud est in illo velle quam posse [For to whom there is always present the ability whenever he wills, in him to will is nothing other than to be able.].

The will of God inviting or moving men to perform such good acts as tend to their salvation is God’s true and serious will, though He have not decreed by such means to produce their salvation. (See [Michael] Bajus, Institutes, bk. 1, ch. 104, etc. etc. 115, 116)  This will is often despised by men to their own damnation.  But there is a will not only ordaining means to the end, but of causing men to use the means unto the consecution of the end.  And thus by giving them special grace, God wills the kingdom of glory only unto the elect.

The former will is not to be baffled with the name of dissimulation, because this latter is only it which brings men unto glorification.  And we further add that the reprobates in resisting the former will, which is vera voluntas simplicis complacentiae [the true will of simple complacency], do always fulfill the latter, which is God’s absolute will of permitting this resistance and of gathering out of it a greater illustration of his own glory.

The blessings and means which God out of his goodness afforded to the angels, to Adam and which He continually affords unto wicked men, by the ill frame of their hearts may be and have been turned to their own hurt; and yet we cannot but acknowledge in them an antecedent and gracious will to do them good.  But we do acknowledge, over and above this will of complacency, an absolute will of efficiency, by which God has mercifully decreed to work in some persons the will and the deed, and by the means of grace, de facto, to bring them unto glory.

These two different manners of willing and working the salvation of men do demonstrate an absolute will in God of saving some, which we call the absolute decree of their election, and an absolute will of permitting others to draw upon themselves damnation by voluntary abusing the means of grace, which we call absolute reprobation.  Chrysostom (who is no depressor of man’s free-will) was not ignorant of this absolute will of God turning and bending man’s which way He pleases: Si Deus voluerit, nullus impediet [If God wills, none impedes]. (See many times in homily 2 on Ps. 50)  And of this will St. Augustine speaks (Enchiridion, ch. 97):

In coelo et in terra non quaedam voluit et fecit, quaedam vero voluit et non fecit, sed omnia quaecun{que} voluit fecit.

[In heaven and on earth, He did not will some things and accomplish them and will other things but not accomplish them; rather, He accomplished all things whatsoever He willed.]

And St. Jerome, speaking of the Samaritans, says (apud Petr. Diac.): Si voluisset, ex indevotis devotos fecisset [If He had willed, He had made the impious pious].  And that prayer of Basil is famous (On the Incarnation, ch. 8):

Malos, quaesumus, bonos facito; bonos in bonitate conserva.  Omnia enim potes: quem enim volueris, salvas: et non est qui resistat tibi.

[Make the wicked good, we beseech You; preserve the good in goodness.  For You can do all things: whomsoever You will, You save; and there is none who may resist You.]

Since therefore the Scriptures and the Fathers, and all orthodox divines, who confess that to be a true will which by affording ordinary means aims at the sanctification (1 Tim. 4:3) and salvation of all men (1 Tim. 2:4), do notwithstanding, intimate unto us an absolute will eternally predestinating and in time infallibly working the salvation only of some men; it is but a weak kind of reasoning from the affirmation of the one to conclude a negation of the other.

The doctrine of absolute election and reprobation infers that God had not an absolute will by those means of grace which He bestowed upon the non-elect angels or men to bring them unto glory; and that He had an absolute will to permit themselves to abuse them to the procuring of their own eternal misery: And yet he that should say that God by giving the non-elect angels such excellent endowments, or by giving Cain and Judas such fatherly admonitions, did in those means aim at their destruction, speaks both ignorantly and profanely.  For the aim of God and the end of any good gift which He vouchsafes unto men, is to be measured by the nature of the gift itself and not by the perverse use which God suffers the receivers to make of it.

Calvin usually speaks in the Scripture-phrase, even in those points which seem harsh to the ears of the Remonstrants.  But this author having before truly explained how such phrases are to be understood, namely of the end whereunto reprobates always finally abuse them, and not of the end whereunto God has ordained them, he had done much better to have afforded Calvin’s words this charitable construction.

And as for Beza, he denies not a proper and true ordination of the divine grace unto the effecting of salvation in all to whom it is afforded, nor a true will of complacency in God, that by them it should be used to that good end: but he denies an absolute will in God of saving them by that grace; and he shows the end which the wicked always come to by abusing it, which is, ut gravius puniantur [that they are more severely punished].

That Calvin had no other meaning, appears by these words of his which shut-up the section out of which the former are taken:

Quid sibi vult Dominus eos docendo a quibus ne intelligatur curat?  Considera unde vitium, et desines interrogare.  In verbo enim qualiscunque sit obscuritas, satis tamen semper est lucis ad convincendam impiorum conscientiam.

[What does the Lord intend by teaching those whom He takes no care should understand?  Consider from where the fault proceeds, and you will cease to inquire.  For in the Word, whatever its obscurity may be, there is nevertheless always enough light to convict the consciences of the wicked.]

The drift of Calvin is not to affirm that God works either by any positive action, or by proper ordination of his Word unto any such end that deafness, blindness, senselesseness whereunto the reprobate grow only by their own default.  But because God, who could soften their hearts and would if they were in the number of his elect, has ordained not to do it, this ordination is intimated by the event which perpetually follows upon it, namely deafness, blindness, etc.  So that all which Calvin intends is this (see §14-15, where is mind is explained), that where God has not comprised men within his merciful decree of predestination, there He has decreed to hold-off his hand from effectually opening their ears and eyes; and they suo vitio obsurdescunt [become deaf through their own fault], etc.  And Beza had no other intent, but to show that the Word preached unto the reprobate (Opuscula, p. 30 and Of Predestination, p. 434):

non eo usque conjunctum cum Spiritus ministerio, ut illos vera fide, qua propria nota electi a reprobis dignoscuntur, Christo ut palmites frugiferos inserat.

[is not so joined with the ministry of the Spirit as to insert them into Christ by true faith, by which, as the distinctive mark, the elect are distinguished from the reprobate as fruitful branches.]

Whence follows that woeful event, ut justo exitio devoti magis ac magìs reddantur [Greek] [that they may be rendered more and more devoted to just destruction].

For [Johannes] Maccovius, if his speeches [see pp. 372-73 in the previous section] tend to show the intentional end of the gospel preached, and not the eventual success, we utterly disclaim his opinion.

For God properly intends no end of his volitions or actions but Himself, unto whose glory all things have naturam mediorum [the nature of means], not intenti finis [the intention of an end].  The intention therefore of means by God unto any lower or inferior end is nothing else but the fitness of such means considered in themselves (and not abused) for the producing of that end: And this intention is not altered by the decree of reprobation; for that decree as it is immanent and eternal in voluntate divina, nihil ponit in reprobato [in the divine will, puts nothing in the reprobate]: And when the temporal execution comes, it puts no malice into his will; it puts no necessitation unto wicked actions upon his will; it only puts in God an absolute will of not-giving effectual grace, and of not-working in him salutiferous actions, whereupon follows perditio tua exte [your destruction is out of yourself, Hos. 13:9].”

.

Alexander Ross

A Century of Divine Meditations upon Predestination…  (London: Young, 1646), pp. 15-16, 19, 21-23, 89-92  Ross (c. 1590–1654) was a Scottish minister and chaplain-in-ordinary to King Charles I.  He was not the Aberdeen doctor of the same name.

“XVIII. God by his antecedent will decreed to bestow faith and grace on us, which by his consequent will He resolved to deny us; his former will was moved by his own goodness, but his latter will was provoked by our wickedness: if we have unjustly rejected the grace which by his former will He resolved to give us, may not He justly by his latter will deny that grace, which was rejected so perversely by us.  Lord, if thou art resolved by thy first will to bestow grace on me, let me not by my disobedience provoke thy second will to deny that grace unto me.

XIX. Our wickedness is the cause that moves God to exercise his acts of justice; but his own bounty is the cause, and our misery the occasion, why He exercises his acts of mercy…”

“XXI. God will have all men to be saved and He will have wicked men to be damned: that, is his antecedent will; this, his consequent: that, is sometimes frustrated of its end, this never; and its fitting that seeing his will cannot be fulfilled by us, it should be fulfilled upon us.  They that will not satisfy his will by their obedience, shall satisfy his will in suffering just vengeance.”

“XXIII. There is in man a twofold judgment, to wit, an antecedent, which is that of the affections and senses; and a consequent, which is that of reason: so there is a twofold volition: the one follows the judgment of sense, and it is rather an imperfect desire than a perfect volition; the other follows the judgment of reason:

both these volitions were in Christ more eminently than in us, because in Him were two wills, and these, by reason of his two natures, were distinct in Him, though his person was but one; therefore He desired the cup might pass from Him, but willed it not; or, He willed it by his antecedent, not by his consequent will.

O Thou that madest in Thyself the judgement of affection stoop to the judgment of reason and madest thy desire subservient to thy will, and causedst thy antecedent will to give place to thy consequent: produce in me the same effect, that these sinful delights which my affections so earnestly run after, and thy gentle corrections, which they so earnestly run from, may be so ordered that the one by me may be courageously subdued, the other patiently endured, that my affections may submit to my will, my will to reason and reason to thy Spirit.”

“LXXXVIII…

…
7. There is a complete will, or volition; and there is an incomplete will, or velleity.

8. There is a general or confused judgment; and there is a more particular or distinct judgement.

…
7. Volition follows the last judgment of reason, velleity follows the antecedent, or confused judgement.

8. By a general and confused judgment my will affects the good which is commanded by God’s law; by a particular and distinct judgment, my will affects the evil which is condemned by God’s Law.”

.

Anthony Burgess

Vindiciae legis, or a Vindication of the Moral Law & the Covenants…  (London: Underhill, 1647), Lecture 24, on Dt. 4:13, pp. 231-33

“Having proved it [the Mosaic deliverance of the 10 Commandments] is a covenant, all the difficulty remains in declaring what covenant it is; for here is much difference of judgements, even with the learned and orthodox…

Some explain it thus: God (say they) had a primary or antecedent will in giving of the Law, or a secondary and consequent: His primary will was to hold out perfect and exact righteousness, against which the apostle argues and proves no man can be justified thereby: but then God, knowing man’s impotency and inability, did secondarily command repentance and promises a gracious acceptance through Christ; and this [understanding] may be very well received, if it be not vexed with ill interpretations.

But, lastly, this way I shall go: The Law (as to this purpose) may be considered more largely, as that whole doctrine delivered on Mount Sinai with the preface and promises adjoined and all things that may be reduced to it; or more strictly, as it is an abstracted rule of righteousness, holding forth life upon no terms but perfect obedience.  Now take it in the former sense: it was a covenant of grace; take it in the later sense, as abstracted from Moses’s administration of it, and so it was not of grace, but works.”

.

William Twisse

The Riches of God’s Love unto the Vessels of Mercy consistent with his Absolute Hatred or Reprobation of the Vessels of Wrath...  (d. 1646; Oxford, L.L., 1653), bk. 1, pt. 2, Discourse, 3rd Sort of Reasons, pp. 250-51

“Election and rejection or reprobation, and in general the will of God, may be considered either quoad actum voluntis, ‘as touching the act of’ God ‘willing,’ or as touching the things willed.  Of this distinction, this author [Samuel Hoard] takes no notice; It is fit for some and advantageous to fish in troubled waters.

Now as touching the act of God willing, both Aquinas has proved that there can be no cause thereof and withal professes that never was any so mad as to say that merits can be the cause of predestination, quoad actum praedestinantis, ‘as touching the act of’ God ‘predestinating’.  And Bradwardine has curiously disputed this way, that no will of God is conditional, to will quoad actum volentis; and [Johannes] Piscator against Vorstius has proved the same after his way; and by variety of demonstration this way may be convinced, as in part I have showed in this discourse, both on the part of election and on the part of reprobation.

And both Dr. [Thomas] Jackson [an Arminian] in his book of Providence, professes that the distinction of Voluntas antecedens and consequens, or antecedent and consequent will in God, is to be understood quoad res volitas, ‘as touching the things willed’, as much as to say, non quoad actum volentis.  And Gerardus Vossius [an Arminian], drawing the distinction of will antecedent and will consequent unto the distinction of will absolute and will conditional, applies it only quoad res volitas, and so interprets Fathers’ discourse[s] thereof;

And of a conditional will gives this instance: God will have men to be saved in case they believe, where faith is clearly made the condition of salvation, a temporal thing, the condition of a temporal thing, not the condition of God’s will to save, it being no way fit that a temporal thing should be made the condition of a thing eternal, such as is God’s will to save.  And this is more apparent by the reading of Vossius himself, History of Pelagianism, bk. 7, treating of God’s will to save all.

Now if we speak thus of God’s will quoad res volitas, ‘as touching the things willed,’ these things willed being very different, we have reason to consider them distinctly also.  Now these things are either grace or glory, commonly called salvation; and as touching grace, to wit, the grace of regeneration, the grace of faith and repentance, we willingly confess that God’s will to confer them is so absolute that He has determined to confer them according to the mere pleasure of his will, not according to man’s works (which is plain Pelagianism and condemned in the Synod of Palestine above 1200 years ago); and as He gives them to whom He will, so He denies them to whom He will, according to that Rom. 9:18, ‘He hath mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He hardneth.’

But as touching salvation or damnation, in which respect this author usually speaks of the absolute or conditional will of God, we utterly deny that God in the dispensation or administration, or execution of these proceeds or ever did decree to proceed according to the mere pleasure of his own will, but altogether according to their works.  For albeit God has made no law according whereto He means to proceed in giving or denying grace, yet has He made a law according whereto He proceeds in bestowing salvation and inflicting damnation.  And the law is this:

‘Whosever believeth shall be saved; whosoever believeth not shall bedamned.’

2 Cor. 5:10, ‘We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every man may receive the things, which are done in his body according to that he hath done, whether good or evil.’

So that according to that sense wherein this author usually speaks of the absolute and conditional will of God, we utterly deny that God does absolutely elect any man to salvation or reject any man unto damnation, though He does absolutely elect some unto grace, that is to the grace of regeneration, to the grace of faith and repentance, and absolutely reject others therefrom.  For as much as He bestows these graces on some and denies them unto others not according to their works, but according to the mere pleasure of his own will, but he does not inflict damnation or bestow salvation according to the mere pleasure of his will, but according unto man’s works.  And as he carries himself in the execution of salvation and damnation, after the same manner He did from everlasting decree to carry Himself, namely to save no man of ripe years but by way of reward of their faith, repentance and good works, [and] so to damn none but for their infidelity, impenitency and evil works.”

.

A Discovery of Dr. Jackson’s Vanity…  (Amsterdam: Thorp, 1631), pp. 677-80

“In the next place you [Thomas Jackson, an Arminian] touch upon a distinction much talked of, and as much advanced by some as cried down by others.  Yet both Scotus and Durandus give a tolerable, and Aquinas with the Dominicans after him, an orthodox interpretation thereof, though neither suitable to the mind of [John] Damascene, commonly reputed the father of it.  Yet look what in this kind is wanting in them is supplied by [Gregory] Arminiensis, who gives both an orthodox construction thereof, and that also in conformity to the opinion of Damascene, of whose text he gives a very sound and orthodox interpretation and the more orthodox the more opposite to their constructions who, with great cry of words draw it to the countenancing of their Arminian tenets without cause.

Love, you say, is the fruit of God’s antecedent will, wrath and severity are the proper effects of his consequent will.  Fruit and effect you make all one (as with good reason you may).  Now what, I pray you, is this effect which you call love?  You seem to intimate that they are the effects of creation, as when you say, ‘Every particular faculty of soul or body is a pledge undoubted of God’s love.’  Yet faculties of souls and bodies are found in beasts, but God’s antecedent will in Damascene is referred wholly unto men.  Neither does Damascene at all refer it to the work of creation, but makes it to be that whereby God will have all to be saved.

Liberty of will is proper to man in distinction from beasts, but who sees not that this indifferently makes him obnoxious unto damnation as well as capable of salvation?  Then when you say wrath and severity is the effect of God’s consequent will, what do you mean by ‘wrath’?  Is it either a resolution to take vengeance, or the execution of vengeance itself?  I think you take it for the execution of vengeance itself.  Now there is an execution of reward also properly opposite unto this which, whether it be the same love you speak of, it became you to express so much, or whether you conceive it to be different, yet it were fit you should take notice of it and acknowledge that this is a fruit of God’s consequent will as well as wrath; that as effectually presupposing obedience, as this disobedience: and that love in rewarding is every way as infallibly consequent to the obeying of God’s will revealed as wrath is of our neglecting and despising it.  A full explication of this distinction you promise in good time; how well you perform it we may in good time consider with God’s help.

Next you enter upon another form of the same distinction (as you pretend) and you suffer it to fly with one wing, for you talk of God’s absolute will (which you seem to confound with God’s antecedent will), but as touching the member congruously opposite, you leave us to seek for that.  But as it is we are to consider it: God’s absolute will was (you say) to have men capable of Heaven and Hell, of joys and miseries immortal.  This cannot be understood of God’s consequent will; for this absolute will is indifferent to end in the bestowing of reward or punishment, and is immediately terminated only in making man capable of either; but his consequent will is not so indifferent.  For the only effect thereof you mention to be wrath and severity, and this presupposes rather than causes capableness.

Neither can this absolute will be the antecedent will of God according to Damascene’s meaning.  For the antecedent will in Damascene is only referred to the will of God, whereby He wills man’s salvation: but this absolute will is (you say) to have men capable of Heaven and Hell.  To help this, you tell us that this absolute will (whose possible objects are two) is in the first place set on man’s eternal joy.  But you do not proceed to show on what it is set in the next place, as if by such like incongruities you desired rather to confound your reader [rather] than to satisfy him.

Yet by the tenor of your discourse you leave it to us to guess that in the second place, to wit upon the despising of God’s love, it is set upon a man’s damnation.  So that by this your doctrine, both God’s antecedent will and consequent will is all one, and that is God’s absolute will.  But no such thing is found in Damascene, from whom, such as you are, do usually take this distinction of will antecedent in God and will consequent: And indeed you do well to make one as absolute as another; for like as wrath, the fruit of this will of God in the second place (as you imply) has not its course but upon presupposition of disobedience; so in like manner, the proper opposite to wrath on the other side, the fruit of this will of God in the first place, has not its course but upon presupposition of obedience.”

.

John Owen

Salus electorum, sanguis Jesu, or the Death of Death in the Death of Christ…  (London: W.W., 1648)

bk. 2, ch. 4, pp. 91-92

“First, ‘God’ (say they [Arminians]), ‘considering all mankind as fallen from that grace and favor in Adam where they were created, and excluded utterly from the attainment of salvation by virtue of the covenant of works which was at the first made with him, yet by his infinite goodness was inclined to desire the happiness of them all and every one, that they might be delivered from misery and be brought unto Himself, which inclination of his they call his universal love and antecedent will, whereby He would desirously have them all to be saved, out of which love He sends Christ.’

[Owen:] That God has any natural or necessary inclination by his goodness or any other property to do good to us or any of his creatures, we do deny: everything that concerns us is an act of his free will and good pleasure, and not a natural necessary act of his Deity, as shall be declared.

Secondly, the ascribing an antecedent conditional will unto God, whose fulfilling and accomplishment should depend on any free contingent act or work of ours, is injurious to his wisdom, power and sovereignty, and cannot well be excused from blasphemy, and is contrary to Rom. 9:19, ‘Who hath resisted his will? I say.'”

.

bk. 4, ch. 2, p. 203

“Many more effectual reasons are produced by our divines for the denial of this natural affection in God [necessarily resulting in sending Christ for the human race, Jn. 3:16] in the resolution of the Arminian distinction (I call it so, as now by them abused) of God’s antecedent and consequent will, to whom the learned reader may repair for satisfaction: so that the love mentioned in this place is not that natural affection to all in general, which is not:”

.

Frederic Spanheim the Elder

Miscellaneous Theological Disputations  (d. 1649; 1652), vol. 1, Decrees of God in General  tr. AI by Roman Prestarri  Latin

“XV. But we reject:

1. Socinian and Vorstian fictions by which accidental, temporal, finite, mutually adverse, and mutable decrees are feigned to God.

2. Errors of Remonstrants and others attributing conditional decrees to God; for although certain decrees can be called conditional a posteriori [from what is posterior], insofar as certain means have themselves subordinated to them and are not only concerning ends but also concerning means, and the former ought to be attained through the latter, yet a priori [from what is prior] no decrees of God are conditional.

3. Errors of those who make causes of things willed causes of divine volition, and under the name of antecedent will feign velleity [a wish] to God, and teach that God wills something antecedently to the act of secondary cause, e.g., salvation of all and each, which he does not will consequently to that act.  For this is both to oppose the immutability of God’s decrees and to suspend the Creator’s will from the creature’s will.

4. Those who divide God’s decrees into various parts fighting among themselves.”

.

Thomas Whitfield

The Doctrines of the Arminians & Pelagians truly stated and clearly answered...  (London, 1651), ‘An Examination and Confutation of the Arminian erroneous tenets concerning Election’, pp. 34-35

“4. Antecedent and consequent wills are such as cannot agree to God as they [Arminians] understand them.  For his antecedent will they make to be such whereby He wills and earnestly desires the salvation of all men: the consequent will, that whereby He wills the damnation of some, namely such as persist in unbelief; and the salvation of others; namely such as persevere in the faith; now these cannot agree with the nature of God; for:

1. For this antecedent will has sometimes an end and the consequent will always a beginning; the absolute or peremptory decree of damnation, never taking place till the antecedent or conditional will touching salvation be expired: and so likewise the peremptory decree of salvation, not taking place till the ceasing of the other.  Now the acts of God’s will are immanent acts, therefore eternal like Himself.

Objection: But God foresees who will persevere in believing, and upon this foresight grounds his purpose.

Answer: Then upon this foresight, He only purposes to will their salvation when they do believe and persevere; but He does not actually will it, that is, will it with his consequent and peremptory will, till they do believe; which cannot stand with the eternity of his will.

2. This antecedent will they make rather to be a velleietas, than a volitio, rather ‘a wishing’ and desiring, than ‘a willing,’ which cannot agree to God; who is totus actus, all act, yea actus purissimus et perfectissimus, the most pure and perfect act: therefore no imperfect wishes and desires belong to Him.

(Si Deus non potest, est impotens, si potest sed non efficit quia non licet, tum Deus vellet aliquid quod non liceret [If God cannot, He is impotent; if He can, but does not effect it because it is not permitted, then God would will something which is not permitted]. Dr. Twisse)

3. If God by his antecedent will does seriously and heartily desire the salvation of all men, when some of these come to be damned, then this desire either still continues in Him or not: If it does not continue, then his will is changeable, but he says of Himself, ‘I am the Lord, I change not,’ Mal. 3:6.  Besides, they make this antecedent will whereby He wills the salvation of all to flow from his nature; and being natural to him, it must be unchangeable as his nature is: If it does continue, then God continues earnestly to desire the salvation of wicked men when they are damned; so never has his desire accomplished, which cannot stand with perfect felicity: yea if it does continue, then God does seriously will their salvation and damnation at one time, and so wills a flat contradiction: or else when He damns men, He does not will to damn them; and so his actions are not guided by his will.

4. If he does will their salvation, why does He not work it, for He is in heaven, and does whatsoever He will?  ‘He works all things according to the pleasure of his will,’ Eph. 1:11.”

.

Henry Jeanes

A Vindication of Dr. Twisse from the Exceptions of Mr. John Goodwin in his Redemption Redeemed  (Oxford: Robinson, 1653), pp. 254-55  appended to William Twisse, The Riches of God’s Love…  (Oxford: L.L., 1653)

“First, you cannot deny but that in these words of Christ, ‘Father if it be possible, or if it be thy will, let this cup pass from Me,’ Christ prayed not as a Mediator for his elect, for so He was engaged to drink of this cup, but as a man naturally declining and abhorring death and the ignominy of the cross as they are in themselves evil: and yet all your arguments, mutatis mutandis, ‘with due change’ may be applied unto this interpretation, as well as unto Dr. Twisse’s notion (as you call it) upon Lk. 23:34.

Secondly, in answer unto your objections, we may make use of a distinction of prayer brought by Suarez in the 3rd Part, Summa, Aquinas, quest. 21, art. 4, ‘Prayer is nothing else but an unfolding of the will unto God.’  Now in Christ’s manhood there was a twofold will, one absolute and effectual, another conditional and uneffectual, which may otherwise be termed a velleity, a will of simple complacency, a will of a thing only secundum quid, in some particular respect, ‘according to some particular consideration’.  Of such a will of his we read, Mk. 7:24, ‘He entered into an house, and would have no man know it, but He could not be hid.’

Answerable unto these two acts of the will in Christ, there may be attributed unto Christ two sorts or kinds of prayer: one proceeding from an absolute and effectual will, and this was always heard: the other from a conditional and uneffectual will, and this was not always heard; such was his prayer in his agony, ‘Let this cup pass from Me’; and of this sort or kind of prayer is that passage, Ps. 22:2, in reference unto Christ, understood, ‘O my God, I cry in the day time, but Thou hearest not, and in the night season and am not silent.’

Now to apply this distinction: Christ could not pray as a private man for those of his persecutors for whom He did not pray as a Mediator, if we speak of that kind of prayer, which comes from an absolute and effectual will, which is styled by Gregory de Valentia, Voluntas rationis undequaque deliberatae [the will of the rule which has deliberated in every respect], because it proceeds upon regard had to all circumstances.  And the reason is, because with this kind of prayer, He never prayed for any thing, but what He knew would be granted; for He never absolutely and effectually willed any thing, but what was agreeable unto God’s absolute will, the will of his decree or good pleasure; and this is all that your [John Goodwin’s] arguments can prove.

But yet notwithstanding this, He might pray (taking prayer for a representation of a conditional or uneffectual will) for the pardon of even those of his persecutors, who He knew should be condemned and for whom therefore He prayed not as Mediator: or more plainly, He might express a velleity, a gracious, merciful, and charitable desire, to have all his crucifiers pardoned, so as it were not contrary unto God’s decree, unto which He did submit, and in which He did acquiesce, as He did in his prayer for the removal of his passion, ‘not my will but thy will be done.’

An answer very like unto, if not coincident with this, may be easily gathered out of Dr. Twisse; and it is that Christ, as a private man, prayed for the pardon of all his persecutors, taking prayer for an expression of Christ’s antecedent will, not as prayer is a representation of his consequent will.

An antecedent will, as Alvarez explains it, is the willing of a thing considered absolutely, as it is in itself, abstracting from all other considerations of it.  A consequent will is the willing of a thing considered with all circumstances wherewith it is clothed.

Thus a merchant wills the preservation of his wares with an antecedent will, as the preservation of his wares is considered in itself; but he does not will it with a consequent will as it is considered with this circumstance, as ’tis accompanied with hazard and danger of his life.  Thus also a judge with an antecedent will, wills the life of a prisoner, because his life is in itself a thing good and desireable: but he does not will it with a consequent will, as he is guilty of murder, incest or any the like capital crime.

Now Dr. Twisse, though he reject the application of this distinction to God, with whose simplicity and infinite knowledge several successive considerations of one and the same thing are utterly incompatible, yet he denies not but it may have place in the manhood of Christ:

Ratione diversarum considerationum non nego (says he) distinctionem istam competere posse in hominem; quippe cui variae considerationes occurrere possunt invicem succedentes: sic Christus naturali sui conservandi desiderio ferebatur, cum a patre peteret, ut calix transiret; at considerata voluntate et decreto patris de calice isto ad bibendum ipsi propinato, eidem se submittere consultum duxit.

[With respect to different considerations, I do not deny that this distinction can apply to man; for various considerations may occur to him, succeeding one another.  Thus Christ was moved by His natural desire for self-preservation when He asked the Father that the cup might pass from Him; but, having considered the Father’s will and decree concerning that cup which had been appointed for Him to drink, He judged it expedient to submit Himself to the same.]

This distinction in regard of diverse considerations of one and the same thing, may be ascribed unto man, in whom are found several considerations of the same thing succeeding one another: So Christ as man, out of a natural desire of self-preservation, prayed that the cup of his passion might pass from Him; but the will or decree, the command of his Father, his own office, and man’s salvation being considered, He submitted himself to the drinking up of this cup, even to the very dregs; nevertheless not my will but thy will be done. Lk. 22:42. If this cup may not passe away from me except I drinke it, thy will be done. Mt. 26:42. He did not will his passion with an antecedent will, but he willed it (you see) with a consequent will. Jn. 4:34. And so he prayed against it, as a prayer is a proposal of an antecedent, not consequent will.

Now that Dr. Twisse resembles this prayer of Christ, for the forgiveness of all his crucifiers, unto Christ’s deprecation of his death and passion, and makes it to be as that, an expression only of an antecedent will, a desire of their pardon, considered absolutely in itself, abstracting from God’s decree unto the contrary, I shall evidence by giving you Dr. Twisse’s own words. Vindication of the Grace, Power & Providence of God, bk. 1, pt. 2, page 188:

Non dicit Molinaeus istam voluntatem Christi hominis, secundum quam oravit pro crucifigentibus ipsum, contrariam fuisse voluntati divinae; potuit enim fieri cum submissione voluntati Dei tacite facta, licet non expressa, ad formulam precationis illius: pater transeat a me calix iste; Sed non mea voluntas fiat, sedtua.

[“Molina does not say that this will of Christ as man, according to which He prayed for those who crucified Him, was contrary to the divine will; for it could have been made with a tacit submission to the will of God, although not expressly stated, in accordance with the form of that prayer: ‘Father, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done.’]

And again afterwards in the same page:

Annon homini sanctissimo convenit, privatam offensam remittere, et palam protestari, se (nisi Deus aliter statuisset) percupere ut ipsis ignosceret; de quibus tamen Deus aliter forsitan constituerit, quod et ipsi forsitan innotescit?  Annon petiit salvator, et ardenter obsecravit, ut si possibile esset, calix transiret, cum tamen Deum aliter constituisse, ne scilicet eum transiret calix, ipsi satis constaret? etc.

Denique, Christum illis bene voluisse, ut homo erat, quos antecedaneo decreto ab omnis boni spe ac possessione absolute exclusit Deus; hoc enim addendum fuit (licet illud fraudulenter nimiùm dissimulet Corvinus) etiam haec sententia quid horrendi, quaeso te inculcat?  Praesertim cum non sic voluisse dicamus, considerata ista, de eorum a salute exclusione, voluntate divina; sed duntaxat, si per volunta∣tem Dei aliter constitutum non fuisset, et si penes ipsum esset, ut eligeret, utrum in persecutores ipsius vindictam exerceret, aut suspenderet; pro ea quam ut homo in omnes (etiam in injuriis remittendis) charitatem exercere debuit, vindictam suspensam mallet quam exercitam.

[Does it not befit a most holy man to forgive a private offense, and openly to profess that he would greatly desire to forgive them (unless God had otherwise determined); concerning whom, nevertheless, God perhaps had otherwise ordained, a fact which perhaps was also known to Him?  Did not the Savior ask, and earnestly beseech, that, if it were possible, the cup might pass from Him, although it was sufficiently clear to Him that God had otherwise determined—that is, that the cup should not pass from Him? etc.

Finally, that Christ, insofar as He was man, wished well to those whom God, by a prior decree, had absolutely excluded from all hope and possession of good: for this too had to be added (although Corvinus most deceitfully conceals it)—what, I ask you, of anything horrible does this doctrine inculcate?  Especially since we do not say that He willed thus when that divine will concerning their exclusion from salvation is taken into consideration; but only that, if God’s will had not otherwise determined the matter, and if it had been within His power to choose whether to exercise vengeance upon His persecutors or to suspend it, then, in accordance with that charity which, as man, He ought to exercise toward all (even in the forgiving of injuries), He would have preferred that vengeance be suspended rather than exercised.]”

.

John Norton

The Orthodox Evangelist…  (London: Macock, 1654), ch. 1, ‘Of the Divine Essence’, pp. 17-18

“The will of God is God by one simple act, absolutely willing the being of whatsoever He pleases.

That distinction of the absolute and conditional will, as also that of the antecedent and consequent will of God, are both unsound.  God wills it to be a truth that whosoever believes shall be saved: He likewise wills it to be the duty of Judas to believe: Hence follows (in case) a will of approbation concerning things in their own nature possible, which yet never shall be: as namely, the acceptation of the obedience of the reprobates; but it does not follow that God has conditionally willed the acceptation of the obedience of the reprobates.  God decrees the coexistence of two extremes conditionally cohering, as the faith and salvation of Judas, the sight of such miracles and repentance in the Tyrians: the being of which extremes themselves He has not decreed.  Though the things willed be conditioned, yet the volition or willing of God concerning those things is absolute.

The authors and approvers of the second distinction, understand by the antecedent will of God (John Damascene, Of the Orthodox Faith, bk. 2, ch. 29), his will concerning the creature looking at it as in itself, without any consideration of after-circumstances: so they say God wills all men, even the reprobate to be saved: this they call his first will, and it is, say they, uncertain.  By the consequent will of God, they understand his will concerning the creature looked at, not only as in itself, but together with after-adjuncts and circumstances, as sin, etc.  This they call his second will, and it is, say they, certain.  As a judge looking upon such a person as in himself, accounts it best that he should live; but looking upon him in second respects, as a murderer, etc. he accounts it best that he should die.

The vanity of both these distinctions appears in that they are repugnant to the simplicity, perfection and independence of the first cause.  The will of God in the decree, and the revealing of part thereof in the command, do not infer diverse wills in God: The command shows what is the duty of man; the decree contains God’s purpose concerning our doing or not doing our duty.  To will such a thing ought to be and not to will that it shall be, yea to will the not being thereof, are not opposite.  But both may and do proceed from the same will.”

.

Joseph Hall

The Shaking of the Olive-Tree: the Remaining Works of that Incomparable Prelate Joseph Hall…  (London: Cadwell, 1660), Via Media: the Way of Peace in the Five Busy Articles commonly known by the name of Arminius, Of the Fifth Article of Perseverance, pp. 376-78

“Surely it is easy to observe that we are too fearful of some distinctions which carry in them a jealousy of former abuse and yet both may well be admitted in a good sense and serve for excellent purpose.  As that (if we labor for our better understanding to explicate the one will of God by several notions of the antecedent and consequent will of God, which Paulus Ferrius, a reformed schoolman, approves by the suffrages of Zanchi, Polanus and other orthodox divines, to look at it a little running, as that which gives no small light to the business in hand.

As there is wont to be conceived a double knowledge of God, the one of mere understanding whereby He foreknows all things that may be; the other of vision, or approbation, whereby he foreknows that which undoubtedly shall be, so there is a double will to be conceived of God answerable to this double knowledge: an antecedent will, which answers to the mere understanding whereby God wills every possible good without the consideration of the adjuncts appertaining to it; a consequent will answering to the knowledge of approbation, whereby (all circumstances prepensed) God does simply will this or that particular event as simply good to be and which is there upon impossible not to be.  The one of these is a will of complacency, the other of prosecution; the one is as it were an optative will, the other an absolute.

In the first of these God would have all to be saved because it is in a sort good in itself, in that the nature of man is ordainable to life and man has by God common helps seriously offered for the attaining thereof; neither can we think it other than pleasing to God that his creatures should both do well and fare well.  In the latter He wills some of all to be saved, as not finding it simply good (all circumstances considered) to extend this favor to all; this appears in the effect, for if God absolutely willed it, it could not fail of being, neither does ought hinder, but these two may stand well together, a complacence in the blessedness of his creature and a will of his smart.  For both that which we will in one regard, we may not will in another, as we may wish a felon to live as a man, to die as a malefactor; and besides, the possibility of one opposite does not hinder the act of another, as he that has power to run perhaps does sit or lie.

Learned Zanchi methinks gives at once a good satisfaction as to this doubt (Of the Nature of God, 1.3, ch. 4); so to the ordinary exception whereat many have stumbled, of the pretended mockage of God’s invitations, where He means not, as some have misconceived, a serious effect.

In the parable of the Gospel (says he) those which were first bidden to the marriage feast and came not, were they therefore mocked by the king because he only signified unto them what would be acceptable unto him and what was their duty to perform? and yet he did not command them to be compelled as he did the second guests to come to the wedding?  Surely no, yet in the mean time, there was not the same will of the king in the inviting of the first and of the second, for in these second there was an absolute will of the king, that they should without fail come; and therefore he effectually caused them to come.  In the former he only signified, and that fairly and ingenuously, what would be pleasing to him:

Thus he.  The entertainment of this one distinction, which has the allowance of orthodox and learned authors to be free from any danger or inconvenience, would mitigate this strife since it is that which the opponents contend for, which the defendents may yield without any sensible prejudice.”

.

John Bramhall

Castigations of Mr. [Thomas] Hobbes his last Animadversions in the case concerning liberty and universal necessity wherein all his exceptions about that controversy are fully satisfied  (London: 1657), An Answer to his Fountains of Arguments in this Question, pp. 37-38  Bramhall (1594–1663) was an Archbishop of Armagh and an Anglican theologian and apologist.

“He [Hobbes] says:

‘It is not Christian to think, if God had a purpose to save all men, that any could be damned, because it were a sign of want of power to effect what he would.’

It is true, if God had an absolute purpose to work all men’s salvation irresistibly, against their wills, or without themselves.  But God has no such absolute will to save all men.  He loves his creatures well, but his own justice better: And He that made men without themselves, will not save them without themselves.

He co-operates with all his creatures according to their distinct natures which He has given them, with necessary agents necessarily, with free agents freely.  God has given men liberty to assent to saving truth: they abuse it.  He has proposed a condition under which they may be saved: they reject it.

So He wills their salvation by an antecedent will, and their damnation by a consequent will: which two wills in God, or within the divine essence, are no way distinct; for they are the same with the divine essence.  But they are distinguished only in order to the things willed of God; Neither is there the least contradiction between them.

The one shows us what God would have us to do; The other is what God Himself will do.  The one looks upon man as he was created by God, or as he should have been or might have been without his own fault; The other looks upon man as he is with all circumstances.  The one regards only the order of the causes and means designed by God for our salvation; The other regards also the application or misapplication of these means by ourselves.”

.

James Durham

A Commentary upon the Book of the Revelation...  (Edinburgh: Higgins, 1658), ch. 2, Lecture 6, on vv. 18-29, pp. 169-70

“The second conclusion pretended to be drawn from this [Rev. 2:21] is that the Lord has a universal will to have all men saved, seeing He gives her time to repent.  This we say does not follow hence: For:

…
4. It will not follow Christ wills persons to repent; therefore He wills their salvation: because He may be said to will them to repent when He requires it of them as their duty: and thus their duty of repenting is the immediate object of his revealed and preceptive will: but a person’s salvation is the proper object of his will of good-pleasure, or of his decreeing and purposing will.

And no otherways can He be said to will such persons’ salvation (because He commands them to repent) than this, to wit, that in His Word He has signified repentance to be such a person’s duty, and that He has appointed a connection between repentance and salvation; which still relates to his revealed will: even as when God made the first Covenant with Adam, it might be said that He willed Adam to be holy, and that by that Covenant He had made a connection between holiness and life; yet it is not proper to say that the Lord willed life to Adam upon that condition, because that looks to the event and respects the Lord’s will of purpose: which cannot but be effectual.

And if the Lord’s willing of men (at least such as are under his ordinances) to be saved be thus understood as including only the duty which God lays upon men and the connection that He has made between it and salvation in his Word, it may be admitted: but if it be extended to any antecedent will in God Himself, distinct from that which is called His revealed will, this place and such like will give no ground for such an assertion.”

.

Johannes Thaddaeus

The Reconciler of the Bible…  (London: Miller, 1662)

Exodus

“114. Ex. 4:21; 7:3; 10:27; 11:10, ‘But I will harden Pharoah’s heart.’  Ch. 8:15, 32, ‘Pharaoh hardened his heart, and was hardened, etc.’

God hardens permissively, not effectively, by no antecedent will (for He will not the death of a sinner), but by a consequent will, when he punishes by just judgment, and uses evil to a good end.  ‘Satan,’ says Augustine, ‘hardens by persuading, man by consenting, God by forsaking.'”

.

Proverbs

“549. Prov. 1:26, ‘I will mock at your trouble; and laugh when your destruction comes.’  Eze. 18:32, ‘I will not the death of a sinner, for I take no pleasure in the destruction of a sinner.’

God is delighted in his justice, when He punishes those which despise his grace, and that will not hearken to his fatherly vocation; but of his mercy He will not the death of sinners, as death is the destruction of nature.  The former place belongs to God’s consequent will; the latter to his antecedent will; that is ruled by justice, this by mercy.”

.

Ezekiel

“673. Eze. 18:23; 33:11, ‘God will not the death.’  ‘He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked.’  Rom. 9:18, ‘He has mercy on whom He will, and whom He will he hardens.’

God will not the death of a sinner by his antecedent will, but by his consequent will, or his justice; because he justly punishes him who rejects the grace of God offered unto Him.  He hardens therefore permissively, not affectively.

674. Eze. 18:23, ‘I will not the death of him that dies. Ch. 3:18, ‘Thou shalt die the death.’

God as our Father will not by the Gospel, but as He is our judge and revenger, He will by the Law, that a sinner shall die.”

.

Romans

“1224. Rom. 9:18, ‘God has mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardens.’  Ch. 11:32, ‘God has concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all.’

The first place is concerning the most free will and power of God, who may have mercy on whom He please; his antecedent will reaches to all men, his consequent will is restrained to the believers and unbelievers, and so He will have mercy of the faithful, that they may be saved, but he justly punishes and hardens the unbelievers and wicked men who resist his grace freely offered unto them.”

.

Gisbert Voet

Problems on God, pt. 5  in Select Theological Disputations, pt. 5  (Utrecht, 1669)  tr. AI by Roman Prestarri  Latin

“Question 10: Whether the will is rightly distinguished into antecedent and consequent?  Distinguished.

Answer: If by “antecedent” be understood the declaration of the divine will, and of the order posited by it between the condition and the conditioned thing: Affirmed. E.g., “if anyone believes,” or “if anyone perseveres, he shall be saved”: which is equivalent to that categorical enunciation, “every believer or persevering one shall be saved.”

But if by “antecedent” be understood the will properly so called, or of good-pleasure: Denied.  For in God, or in the act of God’s willing, or on the part of the act of willing, there is neither prior nor posterior, neither antecedent nor consequent, neither condition nor conditioned; but a pure, simple, and indivisible act of will, by which He wills all things which He wills: just as by one most simple act He understands the things which are intelligible.

There are those who expound “antecedent” of the will of the means, e.g. faith; and “consequent” of the will of the end, e.g. salvation.  So Twisse, and with him nearly Walaeus.  Which exposition, as to the matter, is not bad; but can by no means be fitted to the controversy between the orthodox and the Pelagians.  For none of the Pelagianizers has used that distinction in this sense for the plastering-over of their [errors].  Not even Chrysostom himself, who, on Ephesians 4, distinguishes the will into προηγούμενον [antecedent / leading] and ἑπόμενον [consequent / following].”

.

Matthew Barker

Natural Theology...  (London: Ranew, 1674), ch. 8, p. 217  Barker (1619–1698) was an English Independent puritan minister and parliamentarian.

“Men perish by their own will, but against God’s will; I mean his antecedent will, and as revealed in his Word.  For else men perish by God’s consequent will, having rejected the means of their own salvation.”

.

Richard Baxter

A Christian Directory...  (London: White, 1673), pt. 2, Christian Economics, ch. 23, title 2, Some Questions about Prayer Answered, p. 595

Ҥ24. Question 24: May we pray for the destruction of the enemies of Christ, or of the Gospel, or of the king?

Answer: Not with respect to that which is called God’s antecedent will; for so we ought first to pray for their conversion (and restraint till then).  But with respect to that called his consequent will, we may: that is, we must first pray that they may be restrained and converted, and secondly that, if not, they may be destroyed.”

.

Richard Baxter’s Catholic Theology...  (London: White, 1675)

pt. 1, sect. 14, Of Several Distinctions of God’s Will, pp. 56-57

“360. XII. The last now to be named is the antecedent and consequent will.  This also is handled by many Schoolmen and much used by the Jesuits and Arminians.  To pass by others, Pennottus handles it Propugn. bk. 4, ch. 21, having first showed, ch. 20, p. 225 that Chrysostom and Damascene first used it.  His explicatory propositions are:

1. Voluntas antecedens et consequens non est in Deo respectu omnium volitorum, sed solum respectu eorum quae aliquo modo pendent ex lib. arbtrio creaturae.

[The antecedent and consequent will do not exist in God with respect to all things willed, but only with respect to those things which in some manner depend upon the free will of the creature.]

2. Voluntas antecedens est illa qua Deus vult hominis salutem quantum in ipso est, et qua illum ad salutem ordinat, et media ad salutem necessaria praeparat, quibus nisi per ipsum hominem steterit, salutem assequatur.

[The antecedent will is that by which God wills the salvation of man, insofar as it lies in Him, and by which He ordains him to salvation and prepares the means necessary for salvation, so that, unless the hindrance to salvation should arise from the man himself, he may attain salvation.]

3. Non semper voluntas antecedens et consequens circa objecta contraria versantur, sed potest idem objectum esse volitum à Deo voluntate tum antecedente tum consequente.

[The antecedent and consequent will do not always concern contrary objects; rather, the same object may be willed by God both by the antecedent will and by the consequent will.]

4. Voluntas antecedens in Deo est voluntas beneplaciti, et non solum voluntas signi.

[The antecedent will in God is the will of good pleasure, and not merely the will of sign.]

5. Voluntas antecedens est formaliter et proprie in Deo existens, et non solum per metaphoram ad eum modum, quo voluntas signi.

[The antecedent will exists formally and properly in God, and not merely metaphorically, in the manner in which the will of sign does.]

361. I tell you their sense that I may the better open the plain truth to you, which is as follows:

1. This distinction of voluntas antecedens et consequens is not applied to God as He is our Creator, or end, nor as He is mere Proprietor or Benefactor, but only as He is Rector or [the] Moral Ruler of man.

2. As government has an antecedent and consequent part, viz. legislation and judgement (with execution), so God’s antecedent will is nothing but his legal will, or his will as Rector signified by his laws; and his consequent will is his judicial will, or expressed in judgment: one antecedent to man’s part (obedience or disobedience) and the other consequent to it.

3. It is most certain that God wills antecedently all that is in his Law, that is, that all that believe and repent shall be saved: and that He wills consequently that Judas e.g., and every finally impenitent unbeliever, shall be damned.  For what God does, that He wills to do: But God does Himself make such a Law and pass such a judgement: Therefore He is willing of it.”

.

pt. 2, sect. 7, ‘The Antecedent & Consequent Will of God, etc.’, p. 54

“102. The distinction of God’s antecedent and consequent will, used by Damascene, is by many applied to this controversy, but by none that I have read sufficiently explained, which is the cause that so many good men reject it, because they misunderstand it.

It’s truly said that by his antecedent will, God would have all men to believe, repent and be saved, but by his consequent will He will have all condemned whom He does condemn.  But then it must be understood that this distinction is not applied to the will of God as He is merely an Absolute Proprietary or Benefactor, but as He is the King or Rector of the world; and so his legislation is his antecedent will, and his judgment is his consequent will.

And no man of religion can deny either that God’s Law is the signification of his will, or his will signified, or that his judgment and execution is his will declared; or that God’s Law of Grace does conditionally give pardon and salvation to all antecedently to man’s performance or rejection of the condition, or that God condemns infidels consequently to their infidelity.  The Law antecedently to man’s part acted says, ‘He that believes shall be saved;’ and the sentence consequently to his fact says, ‘Judas, an unbeliever or impenitent, shall perish.’  And thus the distinction has no doubt or difficulty.”

.

bk. 2, The Synodists [of Dort] & Arminians, Calvinists & Lutherans, Dominicans & Jesuits Reconciled

Third Day’s Conference, First Crimination, p. 55

“Arminian:

We do not: But we say that as to God’s antecedent will, He both elected and redeemed all alike; and the inequality is only in his consequent will.  But the Synodists [of Dort] say otherwise.

Baxter:

1. If you understand the distinction aright, they say the same as you: that is, if you thus distinguish only of the will of God as Rector, or his governing will, and by the antecedent will mean only the legislative, which making our duty, goes before our doing or not-doing it, and by the consequent will, mean only the judicial which follows duty and sin.  God deals equally by all men in the first (as to the tenor of his Law, though the different promulgation make a difference of obligations), but unequally in the second.

2. And if you distinguish thus of his eternal decrees, either they respect damnation or salvation.  And by his antecedent will, you mean that which goes before the foresight of man’s will, and by the consequent, that which follows this foresight.  Now:

1. Have I not said enough to convince you that as it is actus agentis in God, we cannot prove any diversity or priority? but only ex connotatione objecti.

2. And as to damnation, I have proved that they commonly agree with you, that God decrees not sin, but foresees it, and decrees damnation [in contrast to reprobation] only as for foreseen sin.  Whatever Piscator and a few more say, this is the common doctrine of Protestants and Fathers.

3. But as to election, dare you say yourself that God decrees to change no man’s will, but upon foresight that the person himself will first change it?¹  If man change it first, God need not to come after to change it: If God change it first, then He decreed first to change it and did not first foresee it changed.

¹ Vasquez and many Jesuits profess that God’s first grace is given without any cause, condition or occasion in man.  And says Malderus in pt. 1 of pt. 2 of Thomas, qest. 110, art. 1, p. 469, Deus non praesupponit in creatura bonum, quo ad ipsius dilectionem moveatur, sicut voluntas hominis benefactoris: sed bonum creaturae provenit ex voluntate Dei, qui vocat ea quae non sunt tanquam ea quae sunt.  That is, God’s efficient will of beneficence is first, and then his final will of complacence; first God makes us good, and then loves us as good.”

.

7th Days Conference, 1st Crimination, p. 135

“Baxter:

…1. God absolutely wills that it shall be man’s duty to repent and believe.  Duty is the thing antecedently willed with an absolute will.

2. God wills that heaven shall be his due if he perform that condition.

3. But if he will not perform it, that Hell be his due.  This will is conditional as to the thing willed.

4. These volitions of God belong to Him as Rector (supposing Him a Benefactor), giving out his benefits by a Law.  And this will is expressed by God’s Law, which actually constitutes the absolute debitum obedientiae [debt of obedience], and the conditional debitum premii vel poenae [debt of reward or punishment].

5. The condition being past, God’s consequent will is absolute de premiando vel puniendo [concerning to reward or to punish]: He wills the death of the impenitent consequently.  And this is but God’s will, qua judex [as judge], expressed by his judgment actually.

6. Though in strict sense, the thing that God antecedently wills is not the event, but the debitum vel jus [debt or right], man’s duty, and his due thereupon, yet because it belongs not to a legislator as such to do any more towards the event than command it (supposing necessary power and helps), therefore after the manner of men it is said that God wills the event (repentance and salvation) because He wills to do so much towards it, even all that concerns Him to do as a mere Rector (besides the donation of necessary power or help as a Benefactor).  And this is all that you mean, in which both sides are really agreed.

Arminian:

I confess we use to explain it by his antecedent will, and saying that quantum in se [so much as is in Himself], He would have all repent and live.  But by quantum in se, we do not mean that God does as much as He is able to it: Therefore your explication seems true as well as conciliatory, that He does quantum in se as Rector per leges [a Legislator through laws], supposing also his necessary help.

Baxter:

So God delights not in the death of sinners because it is not his antecedent will that they die, but only his consequent on supposition of impenitency, which he wills not.  And also because it is the good of justice and not our death and hurt as such, or for itself that God loves and delights in.  But when men return and live, they fulfil his antecedent will and do that which He loves as good in itself.

And He would have all men come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved [1 Tim. 4:2], that is, He obliges both ministers to preach to them and others to pray for them and help them, and themselves to obey and receive his grace; and He gives them means and gives Christ and life by free donation to all on condition they will but accept the gift.  And He that strictly wills this much, may be said after the manner of men to will the event.  And this is all that both sides mean, if they understood themselves.”

.

An Apology for the Nonconformists’ Ministry…  (London: Parkhurst, 1681), pp. 122-23, 127

“I long ago began a treatise [Baxter’s Catholick Theology] to reconcile the Arminians and Anti-Arminians in these matters…  And because I know not whether ever I shall live to reassume it…  I must give the judicious a few hints of the media [means] of conciliation which I would have used:

…
20. The doctrine of God’s antecedent and consequent will must be better explained, as being but his governing will, so called from legislation and judgment, which are the antecedent and consequent parts of government.

21. So must God’s will de naturalibus et moralibus [of natural and moral things], and his legislative antecedent will be well opened, and the uselessness and confusion of the distinction of signi [sign] and beneplaciti [good-pleasure] manifested.”

.

Universal Redemption of Mankind by the Lord Jesus Christ Stated & Cleared…  (London: Salusbury, 1694), ch. 2, pp. 27-33

“11. We must as is said before distinguish between Christ (and the Father in Him) as Rector per Leges [Legislator through laws] or Legislator, and as Dominus Absolutus [Absolute Lord].  And so we must distinguish between those benefits which Christ as Rector gives by his laws and those which as mere Benefactor and Absolute Proprietary He gives, though not contrary to his laws or Covenant, yet over and above what by Covenant or Law He gives.

Also we must distinguish between the event and nature of things as such, and the right to and dueness of things as such.  And consequently we must most carefully distinguish between God’s will de rerum eventu [concerning the event of things] and his will de debito [concerning debt], as such.  The clear distinguishing of these two is a singular key to the opening of the sense of Scripture, and in particular of this controversy.

For indeed, it is to distinguish between our physics and our ethics.  God’s will about natural beings as such stands at the top of physics as the first cause.  God’s will de debito, as such, stands at the top of our ethics as the first cause.  And you may easily conceive how the confounding of our physics and ethics must needs blind us and lose us in our divinity, as it would do in philosophy.

I join all these distinctions together, for in some they all come to one or are of necessary consideration jointly that any one of them may be understood.  Our divines, usually with the Schoolmen, distinguish between voluntatem signi and beneplaciti [will of sign and of good-pleasure].  But in the ordinary school-sense, that is not the same distinction with that which I here intend.  Dr. [William] Twisse oft uses the distinction between voluntatem propositi et praecepti [will of putting forth and of precept], and means in effect the same that I do: But he oft speaks of it as being but metonymically God’s will and not properly.  By which I must conclude that he meant quoad eventum [as to the event], and not quoad debitum [as to debt]; for God properly wills that this shall be man’s due or duty.

I shall therefore a little further explain this distinction and then show you the soundness of it, and then the exceeding usefulness and necessity of it, both in this and many other controversies:

1. For the title I choose rather to denominate it from the object than the act, because the diversity is in the object, but none in the species of the act naturally considered: Debitum and natural being are two distinct things; but ‘to will’ one and ‘to will’ the other is all one as to the nature of willing.  God does as properly will duty as He wills natural beings.  Yet if I must denominate it from the acts, I would distinguish between God’s Directive Will and his Legislative.

For to call it voluntas praecepti is too narrow a term, for the precept is but one part of God’s Law and determines only of one sort of right, that is, of the dueness of obediential actions or forbearance of forbidden actions.  But there is also a debitum praemii et beneficii–pure vel absolute–dati, et debitum poenae [debt of reward and benefit, whether purely or absolutely given, and a debt of punishment], which the rest of the Law, Testament or Covenant of God determines of, which must all be here included as well as the former.  In sum, the Law determines:

1. What shall be due from us;
2. and what shall be due to us, and on what terms.

I call it therefore, The will of God de eventu, et de debito [of event, and of debt], as such.  I say ‘as such,’ for else they are coincident: For God’s will de rerum natura, vel existentia determines de debito quatenus evenit esse debitum [determines the nature or existence of things, and debt so far as debt comes about], but not qua debitum [as debt].  And his will de debito determines of the dueness of some events, not as eventual [as to the event], but as due.  Or to avoid all ambiguity: call it God’s will de ente mere naturali [concerning merely natural being] and his will de debito morali [concerning moral debt], or Legislative or Governing.

2. And for the nature of the distinction, understand further that there are two acts which I call God’s will de debito:

The first is that immanent act of his will by which He strictly and properly wills what shall be due.  This also is twofold:

1. Productive, or instituting dueness;
2. and approbative, or taking complacency in duty.

The former of these I principally intend, but exclude not the latter.  God does eternally will every due, but it is not therefore eternally or from eternity due.  For He wills from eternity (to speak vulgarly) only that this shall be due at such a time and by such a means.  I say by such means: For though God’s will produce all dueness, yet only by means does He produce it.  That means is the revelation of his will.

2. This revelation of God’s will de debito we call his Law.  This therefore is the second thing which I call God’s will de debito, or his Legislative will, that is, the Law as it is signum voluntatis divinae [a sign of the divine will], that is, formally as a law.  This I call God’s will de debito, only metonymically, as it is the sign of his will before expressed.

If the proper will of God were separated from this, it would then be no producer of dueness or right at all, for it would be no law, no signum; it would lose its nature as abrogated laws do.

Also observe that you must here carefully distinguish between God’s act in making a law and the moral act of that law, or of his will by that law when it is made.

I call not legislation itself, ‘God’s will de debito‘ or ‘his legislative will’.  His ordaining the sign itself, or making the law which is his instrument, is an act of his will de rerum eventu vel naturae [concerning the event of things, or of their nature].  For it only makes that instrument or sign by which right [of debt] shall be after[wards] produced, but [it] does not directly thereby produce that right.  But it is the signification and moral act of that law, which flows from its nature, which does produce right, and which we here intend.

The scribe that writes a statute, and the sovereign himself, in composing the matter, order and terms, does but make that signum or instrument which, being made, does therefore institute right, because it signifies the sovereign’s will to institute it.  So much for the explication of my meaning in this distinction.

2. Next I shall say somewhat to prove the soundness of it, which is therefore necessary because some ignorant persons laugh at it, as if we feigned two wills in God, and one of them contrary to the other.  Otherwise, to men of understanding, it is not very needful; and therefore I shall say but this briefly:

It is not two wills in God as two distinct essences or faculties that I assert, but only two distinct acts: Distinct, I say, in regard of their distinct products or effects, and so to man’s apprehension, though in God we say there is no diversity or distinction.

Yet as we cannot handsomely conceive of his will to save Peter, and his will to damn Judas, as one act, having such different effects: so it is here.  Who knows not that naturality and morality, physics and ethics, event and right are different things, and consequently we may and must distinguish of God’s willing them accordingly.

When a man says, ‘You shall do this,’ preceptively, he does only say, ‘It shall be your duty to do it,’ but says not that eventually you shall do it.  Nor are his words false if you never do it.  He that says prophetically or by prognostication, ‘you shall do this,’ means that it shall so come to pass; and if it do not, his words are false; but he does not say, ‘It is or shall be your duty.’

12. Accordingly we must distinguish between the antecedent and consequent acts and will of Christ as Ruler of mankind.  For the understanding of which and avoiding mistakes, observe:

1. That we speak not now of eternal decrees, but of the will of Christ in this relation as He is the Ruler of the world and Church, and as He is the conveyer of his mercies according to and by his Covenant, and as He judges the world according thereunto.

2. That by his antecedent will and acts, we mean only that which in his government is antecedent to man’s obedience or disobedience, which is principally legislation and making his new Covenant, and also the giving of preachers and other acts, which are the first part of his administration.  And by his consequent acts and will, we mean only that second part of government which finds man obedient or disobedient, and is commonly called judgment and execution.

And when we say that by his antecedent acts and will Christ gives pardon, justification and right to glory equally to all, we mean that as Legislator and Promiser He has antecedently made an universal act of oblivion, or deed of gift, conditionally pardoning, etc. all, and no farther than conditionally pardoning any.  And when we say that He consequently justifies and saves none but true Christians, and in that sense died for no other according to his consequent will, we mean that as Judge of mankind, He will give justification and salvation to believers and to no others; nor [did He] ever intended to do otherwise.

(Let the reader know that the foresaid scheme of the effects of Christ’s death is more accurately, and yet more briefly, done in my Methodus Theologiae: and therefore let him that dislikes the number or order of distributions pass it by: But I have not time to reform it here.”

.

1700’s

Matthew Henry

Commentary on the Whole Bible, on Ezekiel 18, vv. 21-29

“(3) What encouragement a repenting returning sinner has to hope for pardon and life according to this promise…

he has this to support himself with, that God’s nature, property, and delight, is to have mercy and to forgive, for He has said (Eze. 18:23): “Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?  No, by no means; you never had any cause given you to think so.”

It is true God has determined to punish sinners; his justice calls for their punishment, and, pursuant to that, impenitent sinners will lie for ever under his wrath and curse; that is the will of his decree, his consequent will, but it is not his antecedent will, the will of his delight.

Though the righteousness of his government requires that sinners die, yet the goodness of his nature objects against it.  ‘How shall I give thee up, Ephraim?’  It is spoken here comparatively; He has not pleasure in the ruin of sinners, for He would rather they should turn from their ways and live; He is better pleased when his mercy is glorified in their salvation than when his justice is glorified in their damnation.”

.

.

Commentaries on Lombard

Lombard does not use the terms antecedent and consequent, but he discusses the issues surrounding such in bk. 1, distinctions 45-46, where his later commentators discuss divine antecedent and consequent willings.

.

Order of

Quotes  2
Latin  1

.

Quotes

1200’s

Bonaventure

Commentary on the Sentences  (d. 1274), bk. 1

dist. 40, art. 3, On Divine Election, quest. 1, ‘Whether election is in God from eternity, or in time.’

“To the arguments: To 2. To that which is objected [against election being eternally in God], that the will and love of God is without discretion, it must be said that there is an antecedent will and a consequent will: the antecedent, by which He wills as much as is in Him, and the consequent, by which He wills with the foreknowledge of our salvation; and the first is indeed of all, but the second is not.

According to this mode, love is twofold: one, which regards the antecedent will, and with this He loves all; and there is another, which regards the consequent, and with this He loves all those to be saved, and this is election.”

.

dist. 41, Treatment of the Questions

“3. Again, by an antecedent will God wills all men to be saved: if, therefore, He reprobates anyone, this is by a consequent will, for He creates no one of Himself for punishment; but the consequent will is a concession for our cause; but it is not for any other cause than merit: therefore, etc.”

.

dist. 45, art. 3, quest. 2, On the number and sufficiency of the signs of the divine will

“In another way, they can be distinguished thus: The divine will, as will be clear below, wills something simply, and wills something conditionally or as much as is in itself; and in both ways it happens that it is signified.

Therefore, the absolute will can be compared to something either by way of complacency or by way of displeasure.  If by way of displeasure, that in no way happens: and thus it does not happen that this is signified or known by any exterior sign.  If by way of complacency, either because that which happens pleases, and thus fulfillment; or because something from that pleases, and thus permission; and thus we have two signs. 

Again, the divine will can be signified as antecedent or conditional, and this in two ways: either by way of complacency, such that the opposite does not please, and thus command; or by way of displeasure, and thus prohibition; or by way of complacency, such that the opposite does not displease, and thus counsel.  By way of displeasure, however, such that the opposite does not please, it is impossible to find [this].  And according to this, the number and sufficiency and the solution to the objections are clear.”

.

dist. 46, Question 1, ‘Whether God wills all men to be saved by the will of his good-pleasure? [No]’

“But Damascene makes the emphasis on the mode of willing.  For he distinguishes in God an antecedent will and a consequent will.  And the antecedent will is the will with respect to that for which God makes man, and it is irrefragably of goods.  The consequent will, however, is the will, not that which follows merits, but that which wills some things according to the foreknowledge of merits.

The first, namely the antecedent, is called by the masters the conditional will or the will by which God wills, as far as it depends on Him.  The second, however, namely the consequent, is called absolute.

The difference, however, between this will and that is not according to a diversity of affection or mode of willing that is in God, but according to the reason of connoting and understanding.  For as God is said to will the salvation of all, as far as it depends on Him and antecedently, there is connoted in all men an orderability to salvation, both on the part of the nature given and on the part of the grace offered.

For God gave a nature according to which they could know Him and, once known, seek Him, and once sought, find Him, and once found, adhere to Him, and through this obtain salvation.  He similarly offered grace, when he sent and offered his Son, whose price sufficed for the salvation of all.  He also bestowed and showed the laws and mandates of salvation.  He Himself is also present to all who inquire and is near to all who call upon Him.

Therefore, to will antecedently to save man is to do what is ordered to salvation and not to be lacking to the one who wills to arrive.  Whence, to will antecedently to save does not connote salvation, but orderability to salvation.

To will, however, consequently or absolutely to save is to will to give salvation to him whom he foreknows will arrive at salvation through his help and grace, and it connotes the event of salvation.  And thus it is not to be said that God wills all men to be saved.

The masters agree more with this response, although both are good.  According to this, therefore, it must be answered that God wills all men to be saved, as far as it depends on Him or by his antecedent will, but not by his absolute or consequent will.”

.

dist. 47

Treatment of the Questions

“I answer: For the understanding of the aforesaid, it must be noted that, according to John Damascene, the will of good pleasure is twofold, namely, antecedent and consequent: antecedent or conditional, by which He wills, as far as is in Him, the salvation of all, and absolute, by which He determinately wills something that He knows with certainty will happen.

It must be understood, therefore, that it is not possible for any will of God to be overcome; it is not possible for any to be rendered void; yet it is possible for some, such as the antecedent, not to be fulfilled; and it is necessary for some, such as the consequent, to be fulfilled, and it is impossible for it to be hindered.

None, I say, is possible to be overcome.  For if a man does not do what God wills, as far as is in him, by the antecedent will, God does with him what He wills by the consequent will; and thus it is always fulfilled either of the man or by the man, and thus it is never vanquished or overcome.

Nor is it possible for the will of God to be rendered void.  For something is said to be void when it is deprived of its proper effect, for which it is: but no will is deprived of the effect for which it is properly.  For what is said, that God wills all men to be saved, as far as is in Him, this will does not connote salvation, nor is it properly for the effect of salvation, but it connotes the ordination of nature or a nature ordainable to salvation.

Hence it is nothing more to say: God wills this person to be saved, as far as is in Him, than that it pleased God to give this person a nature through which he could arrive at salvation, and that God was prepared to help, so that salvation does not fail because of a defect on the part of God. Hence it is not rendered void, because it has its proper effect.

But concerning the absolute will, it is plain that it cannot be rendered void, because it posits all its effect and never remains unfulfilled.  Since, therefore, it is true that the will of God can in no way be overcome or rendered void, yet it is necessary that the absolute will be fulfilled, but the conditional will not at all.”

.

quest. 2, ‘Whether anyone can act against the will of the sign’

“Another reason is taken according to another way of distinguishing: because some are signs of the absolute divine will, others of the conditional.  I say, therefore, that because one cannot act against the absolute will, one cannot act against the signs of the absolute will, such as are fulfillment and permission.

But because one can act against the antecedent or conditional will, because man can turn away from the order to which he was created by his institution: hence it is that one can act against the will of the sign which signifies that, namely against prohibition, precept, and counsel.”

.

1600’s

William Estius

Commentary on the Sentences, bk 1  (d. 1613; Paris, 1680 / 1696), dist. 46, ch. 3  tr. Chat-GPT 5.6  Latin

“Ch. 3, In what manner is the antecedent will of the salvation of all in God?

Because of certain testimonies of Scripture by which it seems to be signified that God wills the salvation of all men, such as 1 Tim. 2; 2 Pet. 3; Eze. 18 and others (concerning which below), it is asked whether the antecedent will according to which (as was said above) God is said to will the salvation of all men, is in God:

Formally and properly, just as the consequent will is; that is, whether the act signified by these words, “I would that all men be saved,” is properly and without metaphor in God, just as this act is: “I will Peter to be saved,” in the same way that a merchant in danger at sea properly has both of these acts: “I would that I preserve my merchandise” and “I will to throw it away”;

Or, on the other hand, whether a will of this kind is in God only improperly and eminently. [This is what Estius argues below.]

The same thing can also be asked concerning the antecedent will with respect to other goods which, although God does not will absolutely, are nevertheless proposed to men as they are either commanded by God through precepts or counseled by Him, or as they can be attained through the observance of counsels or the reception of the sacraments, such as the remission of sins, grace, justification, and virtues.  For God also seems antecedently to will these goods for all, while through his goodness He everywhere proposes means to men for attaining them.  Therefore it is asked whether the antecedent will of these things is also properly in God.

For some have thought so, both because of the Scriptures:

which, unless a will or velleity [a wish] and desire of this kind is formally and properly constituted in God will seem to be more simulated expressions than true declarations of divine love and affection toward the human race;

and also because Christ properly had such a will by which He would that all be saved.  Therefore it would not have been absurd to attribute it to God.

They further confirm this by the authority of St. Thomas, who, art. 6, to the 1st, says that God wills antecedently every man to be saved in the same way that a just judge antecedently wills every man to live.  Since, therefore, the judge properly wills this, it seems that God also properly wills that.

But those who deny that there is formally and properly in God an antecedent will to which the voluntas beneplaciti [will of good-pleasure] corresponds [such as Estius] judge much more probably that the will signified by the name ‘velleity’ is not in God in this way.  They say:

That it is sufficient for a will of this kind to be constituted in God eminently, or by some trope, just as anger, repentance, mercy, and whatever good affections are in God are so, which are in human beings in such a way that they include some imperfection, such as change, passion, or defect;

because of these imperfections they must necessarily be attributed to God either through the eminence of causality or through some other trope of speech.

Now it is certain that God works in the hearts of the godly this affection, namely, that they all will that everyone be saved.  Therefore such an affection is in God eminently.

But that this will includes an imperfection, and therefore cannot formally be in God, is argued:

First, from the name ‘velleity’.  For St. Thomas, in the place mentioned above, considers that this will should rather be called by the name ‘velleity’.  But velleity seems to be nothing other than a certain imperfect and suspended will.

Secondly, because this will signifies a desire for some thing which is inefficacious, and such a thing cannot be in God.

Thirdly, because such a will in God would be idle, and therefore in vain, since it would have no effect in things properly corresponding to itself.

Fourthly, because if such a will is in God with respect to men, it will also be with respect to angels, which, nevertheless, the Scriptures nowhere signify.  Indeed, no other reason for this seems to exist than that by such a manner of speaking it is signified not what God properly wills, but what men ought to will, and what godly men, through His working, will.  But the godly do not will, nor ought they to will, the salvation of all angels, but only of men who are living in this life.

Fifthly, because neither is God said to will the salvation of condemned men, namely, for the same reason that we have just mentioned: for He does not work this will in the godly [for the salvation of damned men].

Sixthly, because if that will is formally in God, it will be perpetual, and consequently God will always will the salvation of all men.  This seems absurd, since not even godly men will this after this life.

Hence there also arises a final argument: the holy angels and the spirits of the righteous in heaven do not have such a will because of the perfection of their state, by which it also comes about that they neither pray for the reprobate nor are moved by any compassion concerning the damned, but purely and perfectly praise God’s justice in their punishment, as is taught at the end of the fourth [book].  Therefore, much less ought such a will to be posited formally in God.

Therefore, to the arguments of the opposing side it is answered that:

The Scriptures require nothing else than that we posit in God the will of the salvation of all eminently, or in some other improper manner of willing, as will be explained below.

Nor on this account does Scripture speak simulatorily, but improperly.  For it is very well known that Scripture is full of figurative expressions concerning God, when, after the manner of human speech, it attributes to Him repentance, anger and other human passions, as well as the members of the human body.

To the second [argument] it is answered that, granted that there was such a velleity in Christ, it does not follow that it is in God insofar as He is God.  For Christ assumed human affections together with the truth of human nature.

But what is objected from St. Thomas proves very little:

For he makes the comparison in the general account of antecedent will, without descending to the particular manner in which such a will ought to be understood by us in God.  Therefore no more does this follow than if you were to infer: “Therefore God wills mutably or with passion, since a human judge wills in this way.”  For Scripture also uses such a likeness when it says: “As a mother has compassion on her children, so God will have compassion on you.” [Isa. 66:13]  Yet mercy is not properly in God, but only eminently.

You will object: It is proper to God to have mercy and to spare, as the prayer of the Church has it; but to punish is a work foreign to God, as the prophet says [in Isa. 28:21].  But to will all to be saved pertains to the mercy and goodness of God; therefore it is properly in God.

I answer that the prayer of the Church speaks not of velleity, but of the works of divine mercy and clemency.  These are said to be proper to God because the object of the divine will is true good, and it can be nothing else.  This, however, shines forth more clearly in works of mercy than in vindicative justice.  For the latter brings about evil.  But evil, as such, is not willed by God; rather, it is willed only under the consideration of a certain good, namely, as just.  And therefore this is called a work foreign to God, insofar, namely, as it is concerned with evil.”

.

Latin Article

1600’s

Estius, Willem H. – dist. 46, ch. 3, ‘In what way is the antecedent will for the salvation of all in God’  in Commentary on the Sentences, bk 1  (d. 1613; Paris, 1680 / 1696)

Estius (1542–1613) was a Dutch, Romanist commentator on the Pauline epistles who was Augustinian-minded and was more or less Thomistic.  He was not a Dominican; his theological method was considerably more eclectic and patristic.  He was influenced by Baius and was a professor at Louvain (Belgium) and Douai (France).

He argues that the antecedent will is, not formally, but only improperly in God, namely eminently.

.

.

In Thomism

Order of

Articles  2
Quotes  4
Latin  1

.

Article

1200’s

Aquinas, Thomas – ‘Whether the divine will can be distinguished by antecedent and consequent?’  in Disputed Questions, On Truth, question 23, On the Will of God

“I answer that…  Therefore, that toward which God has ordered the creature with regard to himself is said to be willed by him as by a first intention or by an antecedent will. But when a creature is impeded from this end because of its defect, God still fulfills in it the goodness of which it is capable; and this pertains, as it were, to his second intention and it is called a consequent will.

Thus, since God made all men for blessedness, he is said to will the salvation of all men by an antecedent will; but since some are turned against their own salvation, whom the order of his wisdom does not allow to come to salvation because of their defect, he fulfills in them what pertains to his goodness in another way, namely, condemning them by justice; so that whereas they do not attain to the first order of his will, they fall into the second; and while they do not carry out God’s will, the will of God is fulfilled in them. However, the very defect of sin by which someone is rendered worthy of punishment in the present or else the future is not willed by God either by an antecedent or a consequent will, but it is only permitted by him…

and neither did he order him to salvation according to the order of predestination, which is the order of absolute will; rather, to the extent that this order is from himself, he gave to him a nature ordered to beatitude.

Reply Obj. 1: Neither order nor distinction comes from the act of the will, but only from the things willed.”

.

1900’s

Garrigou-Lagrange, Reginald

ch. 19, ‘The Will of God’, article 6, ‘Whether the will of God is always fulfilled’  in The One God: a Commentary on the First Part of St. Thomas’ Theological Summa  (B. Herder Book Co., 1943), pp. 526-57

Lagrange was a leading Roman Catholic professor and Neo-Thomist.

‘The Antecedent & Consequent Wills’  in ch. 2  in Predestination  (B. Herder Book Co., 1944), pp. 80-84

.

Quotes

Order of

Aquinas
Alvarez
Gonet
Lagrange

.

1200’s

Thomas Aquinas

Summa, pt. 1, quest. 19, article 6, reply to obj. 1

“The words of the apostle, ‘God will have all men to be saved,’ etc. can be understood in three ways.

First, by a restricted application, in which case they would mean, as Augustine says (De praed. sanct. i, 8: Enchiridion 103), God wills all men to be saved that are saved, not because there is no man whom He does not wish saved, but because there is no man saved whose salvation He does not will.

Second, they can be understood as applying to every class of individuals, not to every individual of each class; in which case they mean that God wills some men of every class and condition to be saved, males and females, Jews and Gentiles, great and small, but not all of every condition.

Third, according to Damascene (De Fide Orth. ii, 29), they are understood of the antecedent will of God; not of the consequent will.  This distinction must not be taken as applying to the divine will itself, in which there is nothing antecedent nor consequent, but to the things willed.

To understand this we must consider that everything, in so far as it is good, is willed by God. A thing taken in its primary sense, and absolutely considered, may be good or evil, and yet when some additional circumstances are taken into account, by a consequent consideration may be changed into the contrary.

Thus that a man should live is good; and that a man should be killed is evil, absolutely considered. But if in a particular case we add that a man is a murderer or dangerous to society, to kill him is a good; that he live is an evil. Hence it may be said of a just judge, that antecedently he wills all men to live; but consequently wills the murderer to be hanged. In the same way God antecedently wills all men to be saved, but consequently wills some to be damned, as His justice exacts.

Nor do we will simply, what we will antecedently, but rather we will it in a qualified manner; for the will is directed to things as they are in themselves, and in themselves they exist under particular qualifications. Hence we will a thing simply inasmuch as we will it when all particular circumstances are considered; and this is what is meant by willing consequently. Thus it may be said that a just judge wills simply the hanging of a murderer, but in a qualified manner he would will him to live, to wit, inasmuch as he is a man. Such a qualified will may be called a willingness rather than an absolute will. Thus it is clear that whatever God simply wills takes place; although what He wills antecedently may not take place.”

.

1600’s

On Alvarez

Thomas Bayly, Certamen religiosum, or a Conference between the late King of England [Charles I] and the Late Lord Marquesse of Worcester concerning Religion, together with a vindication of the Protestant cause from the pretenses of the Marquesse his last papers...  (London: 1651), bk. 1, pp. 235-38  Bayly (d. 1657?), initially a royalist divine, was by this time a Roman Catholic.

“The other exposition [of 1 Tim. 2:4] which Alvarez relates, is that the apostle speaks of God’s antecedent will.  Thus (he says) Augustine does expound it in diverse places, and for this exposition he also cites Damascene, Prosper, Theophylaot, Oecumenius, Aquinas, as also Chrysostom and Ambrose, and says that it is common among the doctors.

Now in the next disputation he tells us that God’s antecedent will is that which respects the object simply considered, and by itself: and that this will is called antecedent, not because it goes before the good, or ill use of our will, as some think, but because it goes before that will whereby God respects the object considered with some adjunct, which is the consequent and latter consideration of it.

If (says he) the salvation of the reprobate be considered simply by itself, so God does will it: but if it be considered, as it has adjoined the privation, or want of a greater good, to wit, the universal good of manifesting God’s justice in the reprobate and of causing his mercy the more to shine forth in the elect, so God does not will it.  And in this respect were affirmed, that God by a consequent will does not will that all shall be saved, but only such as are predestinate.¹

¹ Quarta explicatio docet loqui Apostolum de voluntate Dei antecedente, quae est voluntas signi, et voluntas secundum quid, ut dicitur disput: sequenti.  Hanc explicationem etiam tradit S. Aug. lib. ad art. sibi falso impositos, art. 2. et cap. 15, De corrept. et grat. etc. Alvarez ubi supra.

Voluntas Dei antecedens est, quae fertur in objectum ali∣quod absolute consideratum, et secundum se; dicitur autem haec voluntas antecedens, non quia antecedit bonum, vel malum usum nostri arbitrii, ut arbitrantur auctores primae sententiae, sed quia antecedit voluntatem quâ Deus fertur in objectum consideratum cum aliquo adjuncto, quae est consequens, et posterior consideratio ejus.—Si consideretur salus re∣proborum secundum se, et absolute, sic est a Deo volita: si autem consideretur, secundum quod habet adjunctam privationem, aut carentiam majoris boni, viz. boni universi manifestationis justitiae divinae in reprobis, et majoris splendoris misericordiae ejus in electis, sic non est volita a Deo.  Et secundum hoc asserimus, quod voluntate consequente Deus non velit omnes falvos fieri, sed solum praedestinatos. Alvarez, De Auxiliis, disp. 34, num. 3.

Now take any of all these four explications of the apostle’s words, wherein he says that God will have all men to be saved (as for my part I like best either the second, or the last); take any of them, I say, and the apostle’s words are nothing against that which Protestants hold concerning reprobation.

As for that of Peter, that God is not willing that any should perish, 2 Pet. 3:9, Bellarmine himself expounds both it, and the former place, viz. 1 Tim. 2:4. of that Will of God which divines call God’s antecedent will.¹  Now what that antecedent will of God is, we have seen even now out of Alvarez: if Bellarmine did understand it otherwise (as Alvarez notes that some did), he is confuted by Alvarez in the place above cited.  Where he also cites Augustine saying, ‘Many are not saved, not because they will not, but because God will not: which without all controversy is manifested in young children:’ whence he infers that the condition, which is included in God’s antecedent will, whereby he will have all men to be saved, is not this: If they will and if they do not hinder it.²

¹ Verum est, Deum velle omnes salvos fieri voluntate illa, quam recte Theologi antecedentem vocant. Bellarmine, De gratia et lib. arb., bk. 2, ch. 3.

² Multi salvi non fiunt, non quia ipsi nolint, sed quia Deus non vult; quod absque ulla controversia manifestatur in parvulis. Augustinus apud Alvarez, disp. 34, num. 5.  Ergo conditio, quae includitur in voluntate antecedente, qua Deus vult omnes homines salvos fieri, non est ista, si ipsi voluerint, aut per eos non steter it. Alvarez, Ibid.

And Bellarmine himself also, though he say, ‘It is most true that all are not saved because they will not: for if they would, God would not be wanting unto them,’ yet immediately he adds:

‘But none can have a will to be saved except God by preventing and preparing the will, make him to will it.  And why God does not make all to will this, who has known the mind of the Lord? and who has been his Counsellor? (Rom. 11:34)’†

† Verissimum est, non fieri omnes salvos quia ipsi nolunt: nam si vellent, Deus eis utique non deesset.  Caeterùm nemo vult salvus fieri, nisi Deus praeveniendo, et preparando voluntatem faciat eum velle: cur autem Deus non faciat omnes velle, quis novit sensum Domini? et quis consiliarius ejus fuit?  Bellarmine, loco proxime citato.

The last place of Scripture, which the Marquesse objects is Eze. 33:11, ‘As I live, saith the Lord, I delight not in the death of a sinner.’  Now to this also we have Alvarez to answer for us, viz. first that it is meant of spiritual death, which is by sin, which God does only permit, but does not delight in it.  And this explication he says, is confirmed by the words following, ‘but rather that he be converted and live.’  And if it be expounded of the second death, which is eternal damnation, the meaning he says is that God will not inflict this upon any but for sin.¹

¹ Intelligitur de morte spirituali, quae est per peccatum.  Hanc enim non vult Deus sed solum permittit.  Colligitur haec explicatio ex contextu: ait enim, sed magis ut convertatur, et vivat.  Si autem explicetur de morte secunda, scil. de damnatione aeterna, dicendum est, quod Deus non vult hanc mortem alicui inferre, nisi supposito peccato, ut disp. 109 & 110, patebit. Alvarez, De Auxiliis, disp. 33, num. 5.

But though God will not inflict damnation upon the reprobate but for sin, yet this same Alvarez (as I have showed abundantly before) and so other writers of the Church of Rome do tell us that God by his eternal decree of reprobation of his mere will and pleasure, does determine to suffer the reprobate to sin, and so to damn them for it.  And thus now I have made it appear (I hope) sufficiently, that by the consent of the Romanists themselves the Scriptures alleged are not repugnant to the doctrine of Protestants concerning reprobation:
…

It has also been showed before in what sense God would have none to perish, viz. by his antecedent will, with which yet will stand the decree of reprobation, as we hold it, which likewise has been showed, and that from both Bellarmine and from Alvarez also.  And that God desires sinners may come to repentance and so to life, Protestants (that I know) do not deny, though they hold that God does give (and so from all eternity did purpose to give) repentance unto some and not to others, as He pleases; which I have also showed to be acknowledged by Bellarmine, Alvarez, Estius and others of the Church of Rome.  And it is most clear by that of the apostle, ‘If God peradventure will give them repentance,’ 2 Tim. 2:25, and that, ‘He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will, he hardneth.’ Rom. 9:18.”

.

Jean Baptiste Gonet

The Shield of Thomistic Theology, 5 vols.  10th ed.  (1667; Antwerp: Pitteri, 1744), vol. 1, tract 4, On the Will of God & his Providence, disp. 4, Antecedent & Consequent Will of God  tr. AI by The Faith Received

.

“Article 1, What is the antecedent and consequent will, and the will of of good pleasure and of sign?

I. The first part of the question is resolved.

Although all theologians with unanimous consent receive this division [of God’s will] with St. Thomas here, art. 6, reply to obj. 1, they do not, however, explain or understand it in the same way.  For Molina, Vasquez, Lessius and other more recent authors commonly teach that that will in God is called antecedent which precedes our consent and the foresight of merits or demerits; but [that will in God which is called] consequent presupposes the consent of free will and the foreknowledge of merits or demerits.

Thomists, however, with the Holy Doctor, think that the antecedent will is that by which something is loved considered only in itself, and as abstracted from the circumstances with which it is posited in reality.  But [they think] the consequent [will is] that which is terminated at things according to all circumstances in particular, as they are to be posited in execution and in reality.  I say therefore:

First, the will of God is not called antecedent from the fact that it precedes our consent or the foreknowledge of merits or demerits, and consequent from the fact that it presupposes the consent and merits or demerits of the human will as foreseen by God.

The first part is proven: since the consequent will of God is efficacious and the cause of our consent (as we shall show in the following disputation); it precedes it by a priority at least of nature and causality, for every cause is in this way prior to its effect: whence if the will of God is called antecedent from the fact that it precedes our consent and the free determination of our will, the efficacious and consequent will of God ought also to be called antecedent, and thus the members of this division would be confused: But this is not to be said: Therefore neither is that.

It is confirmed effectively: That antecedent will, according to St. Thomas, is a will only in a certain respect and inefficacious, or a certain velleity [wish], as the Holy Doctor speaks: Therefore it cannot be that antecedent will which the adversaries admit, since that is, as far as God is concerned, efficacious and a will simply.

The second part is also persuaded: Predestination includes the will of salvation, not only antecedent, but also consequent, as St. Thomas says in 1 ad Annibal., dist. 46, sole question, art. 2, to 1.  But predestination does not presuppose the foreknowledge of merits, as we shall show with the same Holy Doctor in the following treatise: Therefore the consequent will is not that which presupposes the foreknowledge of merits.  Both parts will be more evident from what is to be said in the following conclusion.

I say second: The antecedent will is that which is concerned with an object as not clothed with all the circumstances with which it is to be sent into execution; but the consequent [is that will] which looks at the object clothed with all its circumstances; e.g., the will which God has for the salvation of the reprobate is an antecedent will of glory, because it is terminated at it in itself, without attending to all circumstances; and because the consideration of a thing in itself is prior and antecedent to the consideration of the same under all circumstances, therefore it is called antecedent will: but that by which God efficaciously wills to exclude the reprobate from glory is called consequent will, because it attends to all circumstances: namely, the beauty of the universe and the manifestation of divine justice and other attributes.  St. Thomas teaches the conclusion explained in this way here, art. 6, ad 1, where he explains what the antecedent and consequent will is, as follows.

Thirdly, according to Damascene, it is understood concerning the antecedent will, not concerning the consequent will: which distinction is indeed not taken from the side of the divine will itself, in which there is nothing prior or posterior, but from the side of the things willed.  For the understanding of which, it must be considered that each thing, according as it is good, is so willed by God: but something can be in its first consideration, according as it is absolutely considered, good or evil, which however, when it is considered with some adjunct (which is its consequent consideration), behaves in the contrary way:

Just as for a man to live is good, and for a man to be killed is evil, according to absolute consideration; but if it be added concerning some man that he is a murderer, or living in danger to the multitude, thus it is good that he be killed and evil that he live: whence it can be said that a just judge antecedently wills a man to live, but consequently wills the murderer to be hanged.

Similarly, God antecedently wills every man to be saved, but consequently wills certain ones to be damned according to the exigency of His justice.  Item 1 Tim. 2, lecture 1, has these things: In another way, however, according to Damascene, so that it [1 Tim. 2:4] may be understood concerning the antecedent will, not the consequent; for in the will of God, although there is not prior and posterior, yet it is called antecedent and consequent will.

Item according to the order of things willed, according to which the will can be considered in two ways: namely, in the universal, or absolutely, and according to some circumstances in particular: and [in the] absolute consideration and in the universal is prior to [the consideration as] in particular and compared; and therefore the absolute will is as it were antecedent: and the will of some thing in particular is as it were consequent.

An example of a merchant, who wills all his goods to be saved absolutely, and this by an antecedent will: but if he considers the safety, he does not will to save all goods by comparison to others: namely, when with the safety follows the sinking of the ship; and this will is consequent.

Thus in God, the salvation of all men considered in itself has the character of being willed, and thus His will is antecedent: but if the good of justice be considered, and that sins be punished, thus He does not will, and this is the consequent will.

Finally in [Commentary on the Sentences] bk. 1, dist. 46, quest. 1, art. 1, to 2, he says:

The antecedent will can be called conditional, nor yet is it an imperfection on the part of the divine will, but on the part of the thing willed, which is not taken with all the circumstances which are required for the right order unto salvation.

From which testimonies it is clear according to St. Thomas (who, as Vasquez admits, understood perfectly the mind of Damascene, from whom theologians received this distinction) that the will of God is called antecedent and consequent, not from the fact that it precedes or presupposes our consent, or the foreknowledge of merits or demerits, as the recent authors assert: but it is called antecedent from the fact that it reaches the thing in itself, and as abstracted from circumstances, under which aspect it is prior to itself in particular and as it has adjunct circumstances: and [the will of God is called] consequent from the fact that it follows the consideration of things as they are in themselves, and as they have all particular circumstances adjoined.

You will say:

Damascene, Orthodox Faith, bk. 2, ch. 29, calls the consequent will permission, or a will having its origin from our vice.  And in the same place he says:

The antecedent will is the acceptance of God existing from Himself, and the consequent is the concession from our cause.

Therefore according to Damascene the antecedent will is that which presupposes nothing on our part, or which precedes our consent and merits or demerits: but the consequent is that which has a cause in us, and which presupposes the foreknowledge of merits or demerits.  Which can be confirmed from St. Thomas in bk. 1, dist. 46, art. 1, where he says: ‘The consequent will presupposes the foreknowledge of works.’

I answer that:

When St. Damascene and St. Thomas say that the consequent will has its origin from our vice and presupposes the foreknowledge of works, they are not speaking of the consequent will taken universally, and according as it extends to good works predefined by God, as to evils permitted by Him; but of the consequent will taken specially, or of the punitive consequent will, which presupposes guilt and takes its origin from our vice.  For in order to explain the consequent will of God they place an example in some particular object which God wills given the foresight of sin, namely the damnation and eternal punishment of the reprobate: although it is not necessary that all that which God wills by consequent will presuppose sin or the foreknowledge of merits or demerits.

For as St. Thomas teaches, cited above, predestination includes the will of salvation, not only antecedent, but also consequent; and yet in his opinion, that does not presuppose the foresight of merits.

Therefore a twofold consequent will is to be distinguished in God: one of justice, another of mercy:

The first always presupposes in those who are damned the merits of their damnation, namely foreseen sins: not for the general reason of the consequent will, but for the reason of the will which is from justice.

The second, which regards the salvation of the elect, does not presuppose in them any foresight of merits; because before grace there are no merits, since it [grace] is the cause and origin of all merits.  Whence St. Prosper, Of the Calling of the Gentiles, bk. 2, ch. 15: God gives to those whom He chooses without merits that by which they are adorned from merits.  Concerning which [see] at length in the Treatise on Predestination, disp. 2, art. 1.

.

II. Corollaries of the preceding doctrine

From the things said you will infer: First, that the distinction of the will of God into antecedent and consequent is not taken from the side of the divine will, in which there is nothing prior and posterior, but from the side of the thing willed, which can be considered either in itself and as abstracted from circumstances, or according as it has adjoined circumstances, with which it is posited in reality.

From which You will infer second that these two wills or volitions are distinguished virtually in God, but only by order to objects or material connotations; and in almost the same way in which the knowledge of God is divided into abstractive and intuitive, according to the diverse mode by which it reaches creatures.

You will infer third, against Vasquez, that this division is adequate.  Because God can only reach created things according to that twofold state: that is, either in itself and with circumstances set aside; or in particular and with the same circumstances added.  Hence, besides the antecedent and consequent will, no other concomitant will should be posited, by which God decrees to concur with us, as Vasquez teaches; but this will is reduced to the consequent and efficacious.

Fourth, you will infer that the antecedent will is a will only in a qualified sense (secundum quid), while the consequent will is a will in an unqualified sense (simpliciter).  For, as St. Thomas says here, art. 6, reply to obj. 1:

“What we will antecedently, we do not will simply, but in a qualified sense; because the will is compared to things as they are in themselves: but in themselves they are in particular, hence we simply will something, according as we will it considering all particular circumstances, which is to will consequently.”

He explains this more broadly in bk. 1, dist. 47, q. 1, art.1, where he notes that this is the difference between will and speculative cognition, that speculative cognition is perfected in abstraction from particulars, but will, and whatever is ordered to action, is perfected in particular around [circa] which the operation takes place: from which he infers that that is simply and perfectly willed which is subject to the will according to all the particular conditions surrounding it; but that which is not willed according to all the conditions surrounding it, does not have the nature of what is willed simply, but in a qualified sense.

Fifthly, you will infer that the antecedent will is common to love and hatred.  For just as in love being terminated in the good and likewise hatred being terminated in evil, we can distinguish the consideration of evil absolutely, and of evil considered with all the circumstances; so also we can divide hatred into antecedent and consequent.  The antecedent hatred in God is the hatred of all men on account of Adam’s sin.  But the consequent [hatred] is the hatred of the reprobate, on account of their sins and demerits.  From which:

Lastly, you will infer that one predestined, existing in mortal sin, is hated by God with an antecedent hatred and loved by Him with an efficacious consequent love.  For God wills eternal damnation to such a man with an antecedent will: Therefore, He hates him with an antecedent hatred.  The consequence is clear, the antecedent is proven:

For a man existing in mortal sin to be eternally damned is a certain good lovable by God: Therefore, it is in fact loved by Him: but not consequently and efficaciously, otherwise he would in fact be damned.  Therefore [it is loved] inefficaciously and antecedently.

The second part of the corollary is proven by the opposite reasoning: God wills, by a consequent will, eternal life to the one predestined existing in mortal sin; Therefore, He loves him with a consequent love.

.

III. What the will of good pleasure (voluntas beneplaciti) and the will of sign (voluntas figni) mean is explained

The Master of the Sentences [Lombard] treats of the will of good pleasure and the will of sign in bk. 1, dist.45, and St. Thomas in the same place, q. 1, art.4, and quest. 25, Of Truth, art.2, and here, art. 11-12.  And both wills have their foundation in Scripture:

For concerning the will of good-pleasure it is said in Rom. 12: “That you may prove what is the good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.”  And Ps. 105: “Remember us, O Lord, in the good pleasure of thy people.”

Similarly, in Scripture, the signs by which God manifests his will externally are called the wills of God: Ps. 15: “He hath made wonderful all my wills in them.”  And Ps. 110: “Great are the works of the Lord, sought out according to all his wills.”  We also pray daily that God’s will be done: that is, that which is commanded and ordained by His will.

The will of good-pleasure, therefore, is that which is truly, properly and formally found in God, or the act of the divine will by which He truly and properly wills something.  The will of sign, however, is some external operation, or some external effect, by which his will is signified and manifested: hence this will is not in God formally and properly, but only metaphorically and analogically: just as urine is said to be healthy, because it signifies health.

There are five signs of the will (as the Holy Doctor teaches here, art. 12), namely: operation, permission, precept, prohibition, and counsel: which are distinguished by the different ways of declaring the will.  For sometimes we declare it by ourselves, sometimes by another:

By ourselves, either by doing something, and thus external operation is a sign of internal will: or by permitting and allowing something to be done, and thus it is permission.

By another we declare our will when we order another to do something: and we order concerning another, either by obliging through command or by persuading through counsel.  By obliging through command, either by commanding that it be done, or by prohibiting that it not be done.

And thus there are five signs of manifesting the will: namely, operation and permission, precept, prohibition, and counsel.  Some concern evils, such as prohibition and permission: some concern goods, such as operation and precept.  Some concern perfect or optimal things, such as counsel.  Some refer to the present, as operation and permission; some things also pertain to the future, such as precept, prohibition, and counsel.

It must also be noted that although these two wills [good-pleasure and sign] differ from each other, they do not always mutually exclude each other, but sometimes both are concerned with the same object considered in different ways, for as St. Thomas says here, art. 12, reply to obj. 2:

“Just as God can be metaphorically signified as willing what He does not will (by will properly understood), so He can be metaphorically signified as willing what He properly wills.”

And in the Disputed Questions, quest. 23, On the Will of God, art. 3, reply to 6, he states:

“It must be known that the will of sign (voluntas signi) relates to the will of good-pleasure (voluntas beneplaciti) in three ways:

For there is a will of sign which never coincides with the will of good pleasure, such as permission, by which He permits evils to occur, since He never wills evils to occur;

Some always coincide, such as operation;

But some sometimes coincide and sometimes not, such as precept, prohibition, and counsel.”

.

Article 2, Is there in God a general and antecedent will to save all men after the fall of Adam, and consequently did Christ die for all men?

Jansenius denies this in books 9-10 of On the Grace of Christ the Savior, where he teaches that before Adam’s sin, God willed to bestow eternal beatitude on all and every man by a general and antecedent will, and from this flowed sufficient aids in the state of innocence for the first parent, subject to their will as to efficacy and use; and consequently such a will was very useful in that state: but there was no general will by which God wills all men, placed in the damnation of original sin, to be saved and by which He prepares general remedies and aids necessary for salvation for all.

Hence, he asserts in the same place that the antecedent will to save men after Adam’s fall (as it exists in God) is nothing other than a bare velleity [wish], such as God has towards already damned creatures, whether men or angels; notwithstanding which, God can will some not to be saved, and in fact does not will them to be saved, namely, those who are in fact damned, whom he therefore says He has deprived of sufficient means for salvation.

And for the same reason, he teaches in bk. 3, ch. 21 that Christ did not die for the redemption and eternal salvation of all men, but only of the elect; and for the salvation of others, He shed no more blood, nor even prayed, than for the salvation of the devil himself.  These are his words:

‘Christ did not die for the salvation of unbelievers who die in unbelief, or of the righteous who do not persevere; nor did he shed his blood, nor give Himself as a redemption [for them], nor pray to the Father for them; indeed, he did not intercede for their eternal deliverance any more than he interceded for that of the devil.’

To this doctrine of Jansenius Gregory of Rimini and Vasquez in some way give favor: for although they acknowledge in God a general and antecedent will to save all after the fall of Adam, they nevertheless will it to comprehend infants dying in their mother’s womb, since God provides them no remedy for the remission of original sin; and thereupon they are held to assert that Christ did not die for those infants.

.

I. The affirmative conclusion is established and strengthened by the testimony of Scripture and the Holy Fathers

I say therefore that God by a general and antecedent will, wills all men to be saved, even after the fall of Adam.  It is proved:

First, from that celebrated testimony of the apostle, 1 Tim. 2: ‘God wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.’  Here:

First, that the speech is about men as they are in the state of fallen nature is clear; then because Paul speaks of men as they now are, for he wills that prayers and supplications be made to God for them: but now all men are in the state of fallen nature.

Then also, because if the apostle were speaking only of the will of saving us in obedience to innocent Adam, he would not have said, ‘God wills all men to be saved,’ but ‘willed them to be saved’: for thus the will of God is expressed in interpretation when the time of its fulfillment has passed: just as we do not now say of the evil angels, ‘God wills,’ but only ‘willed to save them.’

Add that Paul says there that Christ, in order to fulfill this will of God, offered redemption for all [verse 6]: but redemption presupposes the fall into original sin: therefore he speaks of men as they are in the state of fallen nature, corrupted by original sin.

Second, that the apostle is not speaking of a simple velleity and bare complacency, such as God has toward merely possible things, is manifest, since He commands us to pray for the salvation of all men: but it is useless to pray for merely possible things, e.g., for the conversion of demons, or for the creation of another world.

Thirdly, although those words of the apostle, taken of an efficacious and consequent will, may be expounded by a suitable distribution, or by an incomplete universality, as Augustine, Gregory and other holy fathers explain in places cited below; yet, if they be understood of an antecedent and inefficacious will, and are to be taken concerning the individuals of genera and by a complete distribution, it is evident not only by the authority of Damascene—who understands the apostle in this sense—but also from the apostle himself: for his discourse requires that that proposition, ‘God wills that all men should be saved,’ be understood generally and of all and every single man.  For he immediately commands that prayers be made for all: ‘This is good’ (says he) ‘and acceptable before God our Savior, who wills that all men be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth.’  In these words the universal particle omnis is without doubt to be taken in the same sense in both members of the proposition, lest Paul speak ambiguously in so brief a context, and lest his reason be in the least degree inadequate.

So that as it must be prayed for all men generally and without exception (which none denies to have been in the apostle’s mind, and which charity requires), so God wills all men generally and without exception to be saved.  This is more strongly confirmed by the twofold reason immediately subjoined by the apostle, whereby he proves that God wills all men to be saved: ‘For there is one God’ (says he), ‘one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all.’

Expounding these words Cajetan thus speaks: From that there is but one God, it is manifest that the care of all men does rest upon that one God; and since He is essentially good, it follows that He proposes salvation and the knowledge of the truth to all men.  For if there were many gods, one might conceive that one God took care to save some men, and another cared to save others; but where there is but one God, the care of all rests upon him alone.

Likewise, if there were many mediators between God and men, it would be thought that one were mediator for some, and another for others; but since there is one mediator between God and men to reconcile men to God, the duty of mediating between God and all men rests upon him alone.

Finally, the apostle shows from the effect that the mediator also wills that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, because He gave Himself as a price to redeem not some, but all.

The holy Fathers also favor the interpretation that the apostle and God are to be understood as willing the salvation of all men generally and without exception, and so teach everywhere.  For:

Clement of Rome in his Second Constitutions, ch. 59, affirms that he received this from the mouth of Christ Himself; and Dionysius, Of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, ch. 2, says that the chief of sacred things desires salvation to all and the knowledge of truth.

Likewise Ignatius the Martyr, epistle 6 to the Philadelphians, says that our God is the lover of mankind and wills that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth; wherefore He causes the sun to rise on good and evil, and rains upon the just and unjust.

And Origen, in Against Celsus, bk. 4, a little after the beginning, calls Jesus the physician of all things as far as in Him is, for the Savior came unto all men.

The same truth Augustine delivers in his book, Of the Spirit & the Letter, which he wrote against the Pelagians, ch. 33, saying:

‘God wills that men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth; yet not so as to take away from them a free-will, by which, whether using well or ill, they might be most justly judged.’

And Prosper, in answer to Vincentius’s second objection, says:

It must be most sincerely believed and professed that God wills that all men be saved: since the apostle, whose very sentence it is, most absolutely enjoins that in all churches piously it be practiced that prayer be made to God for all men.

And in answer to the objection of the Gallicans, sect. 8, he writes: ‘He that says that God wills not that all be saved, but a certain number of predestined, speaks more harshly than is meet;’ and concerning the inscrutable height of God’s grace: ‘who wills that all be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.’  He teaches the same in his books On the Calling of the Gentiles, for in bk. 2, ch. 25, he writes:

Whether therefore thou shalt lastly contemplate, or before, or in the mean time, thou mayest reasonably and piously believe that God wills that all men be saved, and [that] thou wouldst always have so believed.

And from chapter 28 it is made manifest that [there may be OCR errors here], in diverse and unalterable ways, and in every manner, all men were willing that God’s will was that they should be saved.  But he who judges more truly—that is, he who keeps God’s goodness before his eyes—rightly refers it not so much to the former as to the latter.

Finally, the Church on Good Friday praying for heretics and schismatics, says thus: ‘Almighty and everlasting God, who savest all, and wouldst have none to perish, look upon the souls deceived by diabolical fraud: that all heretical pravity being laid aside, the hearts of those who err may repent, and return to the unity of thy truth.’

.

II. The same truth is made manifest by the universal redemption of Christ

This argument is handled by Cajetan in the words above related, and may shortly be proposed under this form:

God wills to save all for whom Christ suffered and died, or for whom He ordained his death and passion: But Christ died and offered and ordained his death and passion unto salvation, not of a few only, but of all and of every single man: Therefore God wills all and each man, by an antecedent will, to be saved.

The major is evident from the fact that the death and passion of Christ had their origin in a will to save men.  The minor is proved from various places of Scripture wherein this universal redemption by Christ is openly declared.  For it is said:

Rom. 8, ‘He spared not his own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.’  Rom. 5, ‘By the offence of one unto all men unto condemnation, and by the righteousness of one unto all men unto justification.’  2 Cor. 5, ‘If one died for all, then were all dead.’  Finally, 1 Jn. 2, He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.

To which authorities may be added the prayers of the Churches, which in solemn devotions often repeat these words: ‘God the Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful’; and in ecclesiastical hymns: ‘Jesus, Redeemer of all.’

With a twofold caveat Jansenius endeavors to evade these plain testimonies of Scripture:

First he says that in these places is only signified that Christ’s death is a price and value [valore] through itself sufficient for all, but not by the ordination of Christ and God was it a sacrifice for all.

Secondly, he answers that when Christ is said to have died for all, this ought not to be understood of the individuals of genera, but of the genus of individuals; so that he died for some from each sort, state and condition, but not for all and each individually and in particular.

But both these evasions seem to fight against the definition of the Council of Trent, sess. 6, ch. 3, where it defines Christ to have died for all in that sense in which Calvin was denied: Calvin did not deny that Christ died for all with regard to the sufficiency of the price, nor yet for some of every kind and condition; for in Jn. 17 he uses both evasions to expound the places of Scripture in which it is said that Christ died for all.  Therefore, etc.

Moreover both these resolutions may be efficaciously resisted:

For against the first it may be urged that when it is said that Christ offered Himself for the redemption of any, this must be so understood and expounded as to signify that Christ gave Himself in redemption, and the grace thereof, and to their benefit and salvation; for the particle pro is applied to the final cause, as is manifest when it is said that a physician comes into a house for the health of the sick: it is milder to say that he came for his good and advantage, and to procure his health.  Hence when Scripture in the cited places says that Christ died for all, this must be understood of the salvation and grace of all.

To that which follows, that if those words of Scripture signified only that Christ’s redemption were, on his part, a price of sufficient value, but not defined by the ordination of God and Christ unto the salvation of men, the same property would allow that Christ might be said to have died and been crucified for the demons; since the price of his blood and death, as of infinite worth, would of itself be most sufficient to redeem not only men but even the devils, had He willed to ordain it for their salvation and redemption.

Against the second evasion there is also an efficacious argument from the words of the apostle, 2 Cor. 5 above cited: ‘If one died for all, then were all dead.’:

In that place he proves that all and every man are dead, that is, contracted the debt of dying in Adam, from the fact that Christ died for all: But all indisputably were distributively dead in Adam, and thereby contracted the debt of dying.  Therefore Christ also died for all.  But all and each are dead in Adam: therefore Christ died for all and each.

Which argument St. Augustine uses in Against Julian, bk. 6, ch. 4, where he proves that all and every man contracted original sin from that place of Paul, and infers that all men are truly dead: But all and each are dead in Adam: Therefore Christ died for all and each.

.

III. The testimonies of the Holy Fathers are weighed

Lastly, lest the truth be denied, the holy Fathers, both Greek and Latin, do unanimously agree, some of whose more illustrious testimonies shall suffice to be cited.  From the Greeks therefore:

Nazianzen in Oration 25 says: We are all without any exception restored through the heavenly Adam, in whom we were partakers of the first Adam, and having been deceived by the serpent, fell into sin and death.

And Chrysostom, Homily 4 on ch. 2 of the epistle to the Hebrews: That by the grace of God He might taste death for all: not for the faithful only, but for the whole world, for He Himself died for all.

Similarly From the Latins, indeed, the same is clearly affirmed by:

Ambrose, Sermon on Psalm 118, verse 64, saying thus: That mystical Sun of justice has risen for all, has come for all, has suffered for all, and has risen for all.

And Pope Leo, Sermon 1 on the Passion, where he says thus: ‘Since the Lord died for all the impious, even Judas could have obtained a remedy in Him, had he not hastened to the noose.’  And Sermon 1 on the Nativity of the Lord: ‘Our Lord, the destroyer of deadly sin, just as He finds no one free from guilt, so He came to liberate all.’

Prosper also, in book 2 of the Calling of the Gentiles, ch. 16, delivers the same truth most openly, in these words: There is no reason for doubting that Jesus Christ our Lord died for the ungodly and sinners; if anyone is found to be free from their number, it is not [merely] that Christ died for all, but Christ died for absolutely all.

There are also very many testimonies of Augustine extant in confirmation of the same matter, which, for the sake of avoiding confusion, I shall reduce to four classes:

Of the first kind are those in which the holy doctor most clearly affirms that Christ died for all those whom He will judge at the end of the world:

These golden words, which he has in Ps. 95 towards the end, embrace the sum of all:

‘He will judge the world in equity, not a part, because He did not buy a part: He has to judge the whole, because for the whole He gave the price.’

He explains a little later what he understands by the name of ‘the world’:

‘He will judge the world in equity, and the peoples in his truth.  What is equity and truth?  He will gather his elect with Himself to judge, but the others He will separate from one another.  For He is about to place some on the right, others on the left.’

Therefore, by the name of ‘the world’, he understands all those who will be placed in judgment, both on the right and on the left, that is, all the elect and the reprobate, and thus when he asserts that Christ will judge the whole world, because He bought the whole, he clearly signifies that Christ will judge all the elect and reprobate, because He shed His blood for the elect and the reprobate: He has to judge the whole, because for the whole He gave His blood.

He adds in book 2 of The Symbol to the Catechumens, ch. 8, that:

‘Christ will say to the reprobate, and especially to the Jews who crucified Him on the Day of Judgment: You see the wounds which you inflicted, you recognize that side which you pierced, since it was opened for you and because of you, and yet you did not wish to enter.’

Which Laurentius Justinianus, Book of the Tree of Life, ch. 4, expressed in other words.  ‘The cross,’ he says:

‘will appear in the offense against its justice, so that it may be evident that the reprobate have been condemned by justice, to whom the Lord Jesus speaks in spirit in this manner:

‘I became man for your sake; for your sake I was bound, spat upon, mocked, scourged, and crucified.  Where is the fruit of so many of my injuries?  Behold the price of my blood, which I gave for the redemption of your souls.  Where is my service, which you gave Me for the price of my blood,’ etc.

Caetarius Arelatensis has similar things in homily 27, where he also asserts that Christ will show His wounds to all with reproach, because the first sentence against the guilty will be the presence of the venerable scars.

Testimonies of the second class are those in which Augustine teaches that many in reality perish and are damned, for whom, to be given salvation, Christ died:

For in Ps. 68 towards the end, speaking of Judas the traitor, whom it is certain is reprobate and damned, he asserts that Christ wished to redeem him, and that to confer eternal life upon him, He spent his own blood: ‘Christ had come to suffer,’ he says:

‘and He punished him through whom He suffered: for Judas the traitor was punished.  But He redeemed us with his blood, and punished him with his price.  For he throws away the price of silver, by which the Lord was sold by him, nor did he recognize the price by which he himself had been redeemed by the Lord.’

Nor does the response of Jansenius avail, saying that Christ died for the reprobate so that they might obtain baptism or some temporal grace, but not so that they might arrive at eternal salvation.  For St. Thomas, in chapter 8 of the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, interprets these words of the apostle: ‘The weak brother will perish in your knowledge, for whom Christ died,’ thus: ‘The weak brother will perish in your knowledge, for whom to be saved, Christ died.’

I add that, since the grace which we receive in baptism is by its nature a medium ordained to eternal beatitude, Christ cannot seriously wish to bestow such grace upon anyone, unless from an antecedent intention or will of conferring eternal salvation upon him.

To the third class pertain those testimonies in which the holy doctor clearly affirms that Christ, while dying, was thirsty even for the reprobate:

Even as he thinks in Ps. 68, conclusion 1, after the middle:

‘His thirst it was, when He said to the woman: Give me, give Me to drink; for He was thirsting for her faith.  And when He said on the cross, ‘I thirst,’ He was seeking the faith of those for whom He had said, ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Divine Bernard has similar things in the Treatise on the Passion, ch. 13, saying:

‘It is not sufficiently credible that Christ spoke of bodily thirst: ‘I thirst,’ etc., but rather we believe that He thirsted for the most ardent desire of our salvation.’

Whence Arnoldus Carnotensis, a familiar of Bernard, in the Treatise on the Seven Words, calls this thirst sacramental, because in it is not so much desired drink, as the salvation of men.

Which St. Thomas clearly delivers on Jn. 19, lecture 3, in these words:

‘By this that He says ‘I thirst,’ is shown his ardent desire for the salvation of the human race, 1 Tim. 2: ‘He wills all men to be saved;’ Lk. 16: ‘The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost.’  But we are accustomed to express vehement desire by thirst.

With this agrees that of Laurentius Justinianus in the Book on the Agony, ch. 19:

‘This thirst is born from the ardor of love, from the fountain of love, from the breadth of charity; He was thirsting for us, and He was desiring to give Himself to us,’ etc.

To the fourth class belong those testimonies in which Saint Augustine plainly indicates that the prayer of Christ hanging upon the cross embraces all his enemies without exception whatsoever:

When he asserts that it is an example both of the prayer by which Saint Stephen was asking forgiveness for all those who were stoning him, and also of that prayer which we ought to pour forth for all our enemies.

There are many and excellent testimonies of the holy doctor to that effect: I shall bring forth only one from Sermon 4 on the Saints, by which the rest are summarized.  ‘Attend,’ he says:

‘to Stephen, your fellow servant.  He was a man, just as you are; created from the mass of sin just as you are; redeemed by the same price as you.  When he was being shaken by the hail of stones from the Jews, not only did he not threaten, but moreover he prayed for pardon for his stoners: having placed his knees, he prayed saying, ‘Lord, do not lay this sin to them.’  They were stoning, and he was praying: they were pursuing him with fury, he, pacified, was following Christ.’

Thus he expresses Stephen imitating Christ.  A little later he introduced Christ Himself addressing us all thus:

‘Let me teach you so that you may imitate Me.  Hanging on the cross I said, ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.’  I taught this to my soldiers, I taught this to my martyrs.’

If the prayer of Stephen, if of the martyrs, if of Christians, by which they ask for pardon for enemies, is a certain imperfect imitation of that prayer by which Christ said, ‘Father forgive them:’ it is necessary that these words embraced all the torturers of Christ, among whom were many reprobate: for it is certain that Stephen and the martyrs prayed for all their executioners absolutely, and that other Christians ought to pray for all their enemies, without exception.

Whence the same holy doctor says in the same place:

‘When Christ was praying, hanging on the cross, He saw and foresaw all His enemies, but He foresaw many of them as future friends, and therefore for all He asked for pardon.  They were raging, and He was praying: they were saying to Pilate, ‘Crucify’; He was crying out, ‘Father forgive.”

I omit many other testimonies of the holy Fathers, asserting that Christ worked the salvation of men in the middle of the earth for this reason, that He might make all saved.  For this reason He suffered outside the gate, that He might shed his blood for all.  For this reason He was suspended on the cross, that He might draw all to Himself.  For this reason finally He was affixed to the cross, that the cross of Christ might not be the altar of a temple, but of the world, as Pope Leo speaks in Sermon 8 on the Passion.

.

IV. The opinion of Jansenius is refuted by absurdities and inconveniences

There are almost innumerable absurdities and inconveniences which seem to follow from the opinion of Jansenius, we shall collect here only the principal and more manifest ones.

In the first place, therefore, this opinion makes the charity of Christ towards men narrow, for according to it Christ closes the bowels of his mercy to innumerable men and excludes them from the effect of his charity; and it makes it stricter and narrower than the charity of any faithful person ought to be, which ought to extend itself to all men, and say what Paul was saying to the Philippians: ‘God is my witness how I long for you in the bowels of Jesus Christ.’  Whence Augustine, Sermon 60 on the Time:

‘If only the good are to be loved, what do we say about our God, of whom it is written: ‘God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son.’  For what good had the world done that God so loved it?  For Christ found all men not only evil, but even impious and dead in original sin in their soul, and yet when we were such He loved us.’

Secondly, Jansenius makes the charity of Christ feigned: for if Christ had not wished (at least by an antecedent will) the salvation of the Jews, nor had intended to offer to the Father the price of His blood for them, without doubt his charity would have been feigned and fictitious, when with tears He was saying:

‘Jerusalem Jerusalem who killest the prophets, how often have I wished to gather thy children,’ etc.

Thirdly, if Christ did not die for the salvation of all and each, one of the principal foundations of our faith totters: for according to the doctrine and institution of the Church, every faithful person is bound to believe that Christ is his Redeemer, not no less than that God is his own Creator, and that we invoke Him as such: But this one cannot believe, if Christ is the Redeemer of only some; much more if it is said that He is the Redeemer only of the elect, of whose number no one can believe without a special revelation, as the Council of Trent defines (session 6, ch. 13).  Therefore etc.

Whence, against Jansenius we may renew the argument as regards the Calvinist adversaries, such as by Malderus, bishop of Antwerp:

‘[The Calvinists say:] All, absolutely, and therefore even the reprobate, are bound to believe that God wills all men to be saved, and nowhere that the Son of God died for their salvation, as appears from that of the Nicene Creed: “Who for us men, and for our salvation came down from heaven,” etc.

[Malderus:] Yet they are not bound to believe anything false or doubtful, since theological faith which is required of us cannot be concerned with the false or the doubtful.  Therefore not only is it true, but also certain and undoubted, that the Son of God died for the salvation of all, and consequently even for that of the reprobate.’

Whence in the Council of Carifaciano, celebrated in 846, ch. 4, it is thus said:

‘Christ Jesus our Lord, just as there is no man, nor was, nor will be, whose nature was not assumed in Him; so there is no man, nor was, nor will be, for whom He did not suffer, although not all are redeemed by the mystery of his passion.’

The same truth is expressly handed down by Trent, sess. 6, ch. 3, in these words:

‘And if He died for all, yet not all receive the benefit of his death, but only those to whom the merit of his passion is communicated.’

Fourth, theology itself collapses unless Christ offered his death to the Father for the salvation of all and each; for the hope of Christians rests on this foundation, that Christ shed his blood that they might attain not only to baptism, but also to salvation.  Whence Augustine, bk. 2, On Correction and Grace, ch. 14:

‘All my hope and the certainty of all my confidence is in the precious blood of Christ, which was shed for us and for our salvation.’

And in the Exposition on Ps. 148 he brings forward that there is no one who ought not to hope for eternal salvation, because Christ, as a pledge of heavenly glory, has given us his blood.  ‘We receive such pledges;’ he says:

‘We hold the death of Christ; we hold the blood of Christ.  Therefore let human frailty be raised up, let it not despair, let it not dash itself, let it not turn away, let it not say, “I will not be blessed.”  What do you see in eternity?  That you will live in eternity.  Do you not believe?  Believe, believe: more than what He did than what He promised.  What did he do?  He died for you.  What did He promise?  That you will live with Him.

It is more incredible that the Eternal One died, than that a mortal should live forever.  Now we hold what is more incredible.  If for the sake of men God died, will not man live with God?  Will not the mortal live in eternity, for whom He died who lives in eternity?’

Finally, in Sermon 5 to the Brethren he has these golden words:

‘The Son of God died for us; be secure that you will receive his life, you who have the pledge of his death.  How certain, how firm a promise preserves the just life, who gave his death to the unjust?  First He sought you to redeem you; will He desert the redeemed to destroy him?  I have borne your evils, shall I not return my goods?  The fountain of life died for us; will He deny his life who for us paid out his death?’

Augustine therefore judges that the death and passion of Christ are the principal support of our hope, and consequently it cannot be denied that Christ’s blood was shed for the salvation of all those who conceive such hope.

Finally, the opinion of Jansenius not only mutilates faith and weakens hope, but also chills charity, which is the chief of the theological virtues, and the most excellent of all charisms [gifts]; for although there are many incentives of that divine love, yet it is especially fostered and inflamed by certain faith and the recollection of the love of Christ toward us, which he showed especially by dying for us on the cross.  Whence the apostle in 2 Cor. 5:

‘The love of Christ urges us, judging this, that if one died for all, then all died, that they no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them.’

And Bernard, Sermon 20 on the Canticle:

‘The work of our redemption easily claims all of us wholly for itself; this draws our devotion more gently and demands it more justly, and binds it more tightly, affects it more vehemently.’

Similarly Augustine, Tract 2 on 1 John: ‘We are all his,’ he says, ‘who died for us, who was crucified for us.’  And in the Book on Holy Virginity:

‘with inner lights behold the wounds of the hanging one, the scar of the rising one, the blood of the dying one.  Consider how much these are worth: weigh these in the balance of your heart, etc.  Let him be wholly fixed in your heart, who for you was fixed on the cross.’

This therefore is the chief incentive of divine charity, which Jansenius snatches from us, when he affirms that Christ died for the salvation of the elect only; for then, apart from a special revelation, no one can be certain of his own predestination if Christ underwent death for the salvation of the elect only: it is uncertain whether all have been granted so great a benefit, and consequently from the remembrance of it, their charity toward Christ cannot be kindled or fostered.

.

V. The principal foundations of Jansenius are refuted

Jansenius objects in the first place:

St. Augustine in many places, explaining the aforementioned passage of the apostle 1 Tim. 2, “God wills all men to be saved,” never understood it universally and according to a complete distribution, but always applied some restriction and limitation to it.  For in bk 4, Against Julian, ch. 8; On Correction & Grace, ch. 14; On the Predestination of the Saints, ch. 8, he teaches that these words of the apostle are to be understood according to an accommodated distribution and not universally, so that God does not will to save all absolutely, but that He wills to save all those who are saved, just as a schoolmaster is said to teach all the boys of the city, not because all learn, but because no one learns except from him.

The second restriction of the same passage is that the word “all” indeed is universal in a summary way, but with a certain incomplete universality, and for the kinds of individuals, not for the individuals of the kinds, just as every animal is said to have been in Noah’s ark because some of every kind of animal was there.  And as in Lk. 11, the Pharisees are said to tithe every herb because they paid tithes from every kind of herb.

Thus the same Augustine expounds this passage of the apostle in the Enchiridion, ch. 105, where he says:

‘Or certainly it was said thus, ‘who wills all men to be saved,’ not that there was no man whom He did not will to be saved, who was unwilling to do the works of miracles among those whom he says would have repented if they had been done.

But that by ‘all men’ we should understand the whole human race, distributed through whatever differences: kings, private persons, nobles, ignobles, sublime, humble, learned, unlearned; sound of body, weak, talented, slow of heart, foolish, rich, poor, middling, males, females, infants, children, adolescents, youths, elders, old men, in all languages, in all customs, in all arts, in all professions, constituted in an innumerable variety of wills and consciences, and whatever other differences there are among men.’

The same explanation St. Gregory applies in 1 Kings, bk. 5, where he says:

‘For he wills all men to be saved, because from every kind of men he chooses those whom he draws to the joy of eternal salvation.’

The third exposition of Augustine is that God wills all men to be saved, not formally, but causally, because he makes the saints will and procure the salvation of all: for he said to the apostles, “Preach the Gospel to every creature, teach all nations, baptizing them,” etc., just as the Holy Spirit is said to intercede for us, insofar as He makes us intercede.  Thus the same holy doctor, On Correction & Grace, ch. 15.

Since therefore Augustine so often fell into the explanation of the words of Paul, and never understood them universally of all men, from that passage of the apostle it is not lawful to infer that there is in God an antecedent will for the salvation of all men.

Vasquez responds here, disp. 83, ch. 2, num. 12, that Augustine did not rightly expound that passage of Paul in any of those three ways.  Petavius says the same, tome 1, bk. 10, ch. 3, where he has thus:

‘I know in how many ways this passage has been troubled by those who think the contrary; three or four from Augustine have been cited by us when we expounded his opinion, which indeed seem to me to be devised more for evasion than certain and solid.’

But this response [of Petavius] cannot be excused from rashness:

First, because the doctrine of Augustine in the matter of grace and predestination is not the doctrine of some particular doctor, but of the whole Church, as Bellarmine said and Petavius himself admits, tome 1, bk. 9, ch. 6, in these words:

‘Of all the Latins whose authority in this controversy of grace, or election, and predestination, I have said is greater, the chief is Augustine, by the consensus of theologians, whose opinion on grace all the Fathers and doctors who followed, and then the bishops of the Roman Church and the Councils of other bishops, judged to be ratified and Catholic, so that they thought this a sufficiently great argument of truth, that it was established and decreed by Augustine.’

I add that Pope Hormisdas, in the Epistle to Bishop Possessor, sends all the faithful back to the books of Augustine so that there they may see what the Roman Church thinks about grace and predestination.

Secondly, the rashness of the same response is evident from this, that not only St. Thomas here, art. 6, reply 1, and on 1 Tim. 2, lecture 1, but also many other holy Fathers and doctors of the Church, in the same way expound and understand the aforementioned words of the apostle.  Among whom the most notable are:

D. Gregory related above, St. Prosper in the epistle to Rufinus, St. Fulgentius, On the Incarnation & Grace, ch. 31, the author of the Hypognosticon Books, bk. 6, near the end, Lupus Servatus, On the Three Questions, quest. 2, On Predestination, and finally the Synodal Letter of the African Bishops exiled in Sardinia, and the acts of the Church of Lyons under blessed Remigius its Archbishop.

From all of these it is sufficiently clear how greatly those two authors went beyond the mark, when they called those interpretations of Augustine not correct and, moreover, devised more for the purpose of evading [the difficulty] than [being] certain and solid.  This response therefore is rejected.

It may easily be answered with John of St. Thomas (Disputed Question 5, art. 8) that Augustine’s expositions do not contradict the Damascene, but each exposition proceeds in a different sense: for when speaking of the antecedent and inefficacious will, it is true that He wills all, without exception, to be saved.  But when speaking of the efficacious and consequent will, it is also true that He does not will that all be in fact saved, yet He wills some out of all; and that no one is saved except by His will.  Behold how the truths agree, nor does the Damascene contradict Augustine, nor Augustine the Damascene.

Hence St. Thomas in bk. 1, dist. 46, quest. 1, art. 1, reply 1: ‘According to the Damascene,’ he says:

‘the apostle’s word is understood of the antecedent will and not of the consequent; but according to Augustine it is understood of the consequent.’

Whence he expounds it twofold: in one way a distribution adapted to all who are saved: in another way a distribution for the genera of particulars, etc.  And in 1 Tim. 2, lecture 1, it is shown that there is no discord between those expositions, and the Augustinian views fit well with what St Damascene teaches.  And Augustine himself favors this in the Enchiridion, ch. 123, where, after he had delivered the two former expositions, he subjoins:

‘In whatever other way that may be capable of being understood, we are not forced to suppose that the omnipotent wished something to be done, and yet it was not done.’

But you will ask why the same doctor in the cited places interprets the apostle’s words as concerning the consequent rather than the conditioned and antecedent will.  I answer:

Augustine’s meaning in the cited passages is so interpreted because there he was arguing about the predestination and vocation of the saints according to God’s purpose against the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians, who, as Prosper reports in his epistle to Augustine, affirmed that God wills the salvation of men only generally, indirectly and insignificantly, so that the predestined rather than the reprobate would be saved, not by a special providence of God, particular as to His will, but rather by an influence diffused into human nature.  Wherefore Prosper in that epistle writes to Augustine:

‘They think otherwise than the Fathers, and in the ecclesiastical sense, concerning what you have disputed about the vocation of the elect according to God’s purpose.’

Therefore the doctor, in order to establish firmly that efficacious divine will which promotes the predestined to salvation, and to defend it against the arguments of the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians, explained the apostle’s words, ‘God wills that all men be saved,’ as concerning the efficacious will in which divine predestination is contained; and he maintained that they are to be understood not universally, but by a distribution adapted — either for genera of persons, not for each particular of the genera.

.

VI. Other arguments of Jansenius are dispersed.

Secondly, Jansenius objects many testimonies of Scripture, by which it seems to be insinuated that Christ was not dead for all, nor ordered His passion and redemption for the salvation of all.  The principal place is that in Mt. 26, where it is said: ‘This is the blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto the remission of sins.’  If ‘for many,’ he says:

‘therefore not for all.  Moreover, Scripture in various places affirms that Christ is not dead for the wicked, that God does not will to save infidels nor sinners, etc.’

I answer:

To the first place: many explanations are applied to it.

First, some say it is not foreign to Scripture that sometimes by the term ‘many,’ all are designated: for this foundation lies in the apostle, who uses the same term to prove that original sin is poured into all and each of Adam’s sons; for he says in Rom. 5: ‘As by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so also by the obedience of one the righteous were made many.’

Secondly, they say that sometimes in Scripture the event of a future thing is expressed in the mode of intention: just as when it is said, ‘This was done that the prophecy might be fulfilled,’ that ought to be understood: ‘as it was fitting,’ and to include all to whom he wished well; and by way of proof one should say that when Christ said Jn. 17, ‘I pray not for the world,’ He intended only to declare that He did not pray in that special prayer for the world, or for the lovers of the world, as St. Thomas interprets, that particular prayer which then Christ after the last supper poured out for the apostles alone; not, however, that in no way whatsoever he intended to pray for the world and its lovers; for there in verse 21 he prays that the world may believe.

Third, this place is commonly explained by others in this way: that Christ’s blood is said to be shed for many as to efficacy and for all as to sufficiency.  Hence St. Thomas on that place of Matthew says:

‘The blood of Christ is shed ‘for many’ and for all, because, if sufficiency be considered, and his prayer on the cross for his crucifiers, and those words, ‘Father, forgive them,’ are extended to all his torturers, as above we have seen out of Augustine.’

Hence when St. Thomas in the cited passage asserts in the outer part that Christ did not pray for all, He nevertheless is a propitiation for our sins, not for all indiscriminately; that is, not for all in the generic sense in which the world is understood, but for all those to whom the redemption of Christ is applied so that its fruit may be.

Concerning other places of Scripture in which it is said that Christ was not dead for the wicked, and that God does not will to save infidels and sinners: one must say that Scripture in those places does not exclude from Christ’s redemption or from God’s benevolence those persons substantially who happen to be under sin or in infidelity; but the propositions there express only a condition, with which, in a twofold sense God does not will the salvation in them: that is, to signify that God does not will to save sinners or infidels remaining in sin or in infidelity.

From which you may understand the words of the Council of Vienne (Valentini?) III, ch. 4, where it is said: ‘Christ died not for those which died in impiety before his passion.’  For the sense is that He was not dead for them in such a way that, once they were already placed in the state of damnation, his redemption should afterwards be applied to them — hence in that Council a prophetic oracle is cited — and yet it is not said in that Council that to those whom Christ found already damned in hell his redemptive remedy was not offered in the time of their life, nor the aids to salvation sufficient.

Third, Jansenius objects certain testimonies of Augustine which seem to favor him.  For in Epistle 2 to Evodius he says: ‘Not one of those for whom Christ died perishes.’  And in the sermon on the Nativity of St. Vincent, ‘Christ does not lose those whom he bought with his blood.’  Again he often repeats that those are only redeemed by Christ who are actually saved: Therefore, from Augustine, Christ was not dead for the reprobate, but only for the predestined.

I answer that when St. Augustine says, ‘Not one of those for whom Christ died perishes,’ or that He loses none of those whom He redeemed with his blood, He intends this only in the context of establishing the purpose against the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians, who, as Prosper reports, maintained that God wills the salvation of men only generally, with an indiscriminate and indifferent will, so that the predestined rather than the reprobate would be saved, not by a particular providence of God as to his will, but by a general influence poured into human nature.

The doctor, in order to establish firmly that efficacious will of God by which He advances to salvation those predestined by God, and to defend it against the arguments of the Pelagians and Semipelagians, expounded the words of the apostle, “God wills all men to be saved,” as referring to the efficacious will contained within divine predestination; and he asserted that these words are thereafter to be understood not universally, but according to an appropriate distribution, or with respect to the kinds of each individual, not with respect to the individuals of each kind.

To the other point that is added, it must be said that this word, ‘to redeem,’ has two senses.

For, first, ‘to redeem’ signifies to offer a sufficient price for the freedom of a captive, with a sincere will that such price be applied to him.

Secondly, ‘to redeem’ signifies the same thing as actually to liberate a captive from servitude.

Therefore, when St. Augustine says that only those are redeemed by Christ who are actually saved, he is speaking of redemption not in the first, but in the second sense, as St. Prosper explains in his response to the first Vincentian objection, in these words:

‘Since, on account of the one nature common to all, etc., [and] the one cause common to all, truly assumed by our Lord, all are rightly said to have been redeemed, etc.; nevertheless, not all have been liberated from captivity; the property/right of redemption belongs to those who are no longer vessels of the devil, but are members of Christ.’

That is, only those are called ‘redeemed’ who have been justified and liberated from the power of the devil.

Jansenius further objects: Christ did not pray for the reprobate, but only for the predestined: therefore, he did not die for them, but only for these.  The consequence appears legitimate by parity of reasoning.  But the antecedent is proved from those words of Christ in Jn. 17: ‘I pray not for the world, but for those whom you have given me,’ which St. Augustine interprets in such a way that he excludes the reprobate from that prayer.

Likewise, St. Thomas, in his commentary on Jn. 17, lecture 2, explains these words, ‘I pray not for the world,’ thus: ‘That is, for the lovers of the world.’  Hence the same holy Doctor, Summa, pt. 3, q. 21, a. 4, reply 2, says that Christ did not pray for all those who crucified Him, nor even for all those who were going to believe in Him.  Therefore Christ did not pray for the reprobate, but only for the predestined.

I answer first to the first antecedent, by denying the consequence, for as Cardinal Toletus rightly observed on ch. 17 of John, the prayer and death of Christ are compared so that Christ, offering his soul, offered his blood for those for whom He had sometimes uttered prayers; not however that he always prayed for all for whom He was to die; for Christ’s sacrifice could be general, and that sacrifice by its excellence and sufficiency might embrace many things, and yet also be particular in order that its effect might be applied by the will of others.

I answer secondly by denying the antecedent itself, and for its proof one must say that when Christ said in Jn. 17, ‘I pray not for the world,’ He intended only to declare that in that prayer He did not pray for the world, or for lovers of the world, as St. Thomas interprets that peculiar prayer which Christ poured forth after the last supper for the apostles alone; not that in no way at all He intended to pray for the world and its lovers; for there in verse 21 He prays that the world may believe; and on the cross, hanging for his crucifiers, He prayed and said that word ‘Father, forgive them,’ which extends to all his torturers, as we have seen above from Augustine.

Hence, when St. Thomas, in the third part cited above, says, ‘Christ did not pray for all his crucifiers,’ nor even for all those who were going to believe in Him, etc., he does not intend that Christ in no way prayed for them, but only that He did not pray for them with an absolute prayer, proceeding from the consequent will, and [with the intention] that He should obtain from the Father for them eternal life and the means efficaciously conducive to it; for in this way He prayed only for the predestined.

Whence the holy doctor immediately adds: ‘But only for those who were predestined, that through Him they might obtain eternal life.’  By which words he clearly declares that he only denied to Christ that kind of prayer for his crucifiers (among whom were many reprobates) which He had for the elect, for whom He prayed that they might infallibly obtain eternal life.

.

Article 3, Whether the antecedent will of saving all men exists in God formally and properly [Yes], or only eminently and metaphorically?

We raise this question against some recent theologians, who, although they teach against Jansen that God wills all men to be saved by an antecedent will, yet they assert that this will is not found in God properly and formally, but only metaphorically or eminently, and that it is not a will of good pleasure, but only of a sign:

Thus William Estius in bk. 1, dist. 36, §3 and Basil of Leon in pt. 1, quest. 6, Scholastic, ch. 12, citing for this opinion Alexander [of Hales], Bonaventure and Scotus.  To this also, as more probable, adhere from the Thomists: Bannez, Navarreta and Zumel.

Others, however, such as Alvarez, Nazarius, Gonzalez, John of St. Thomas and the Salmanticenses, absolutely reject this opinion, and judge that the antecedent will of saving all men exists in God properly and formally, and not only eminently or metaphorically.  Whence it follows:

.

I. The affirmative conclusion is established.

I say therefore, that the antecedent will, by which God wills all men to be saved, is found in God properly and formally, and not only metaphorically or eminently.  It is proved:

First: If the antecedent will, by which God wills all men to be saved, were not in God formally and properly, but only metaphorically or eminently, it would not be a will of good pleasure, but only of a sign; but this cannot be said.  Therefore neither the former.

The consequence of the major is clear, for as St. Thomas says here, art. 11, the will properly so called is called the will of good pleasure, but the will metaphorically so called is the will of a sign.

The minor, however, is persuaded from the same holy doctor on 1 Tim. 2, lect. 1, where, explaining those words of the apostle, ‘He wills all men to be saved,’ he reduces this will to the will of good pleasure; he also expressly teaches this in Of the Truth, quest. 23, art. 3, [I answer that] in these words:

‘Will is spoken of God properly, and this is the will of good pleasure, which is distinguished by antecedent and consequent.’

And in [Commentary on the Sentences,] bk. 1, dist. 47, quest. 1, art. 2: ‘We can,’ he says, ‘speak of the will of good-pleasure, or of a sign; of the will of good pleasure, either consequent or antecedent.’

Therefore, according to St. Thomas, the antecedent will concerning the salvation of all men is referred to the will of good pleasure, and consequently is found in God properly and formally, and not only metaphorically and eminently.

And the examples of the judge and the merchant, which the same holy doctor uses to explain the antecedent will concerning the salvation of all men in the places cited above in art. 1, clearly declare this.  For not only metaphorically and improperly, but truly and really, a pious and just judge wills a murderer to live, unless other more serious considerations stood in the way: namely, the peace and tranquility of the republic, the preservation of justice, etc.  Similarly, let anyone say that a merchant, with a storm impending, does not will properly and formally, but only metaphorically and improperly, to preserve his goods, although with a conditional will, namely, if a shipwreck were not impending, and there were no danger to life.

It is proved secondly by the reason which the same holy doctor indicates on 1 Tim. 2, lecture 3, explaining that passage of the apostle, ‘Who wills all men to be saved’:

Where he teaches that just as the preservation of goods, considered in itself, is good and willable by the merchant, although if it were considered as the cause of shipwreck, and as from it follows the submersion of the ship, it would not become good, nor willable by him: so in God the salvation of all men, considered in itself or absolutely, has the character of the willable, although if it were considered as the good of divine justice, and that sins are punished, it would not become good, nor willable.

Whence one may thus argue: That which terminates the act of the divine will and is formally willed by it, and not merely metaphorically, is good and willable in itself: But the salvation of all men, considered in itself, is good and willable; since as such it is not considered as impeding a greater good, namely the beauty of the universe, and the manifestation of divine justice toward the reprobate and mercy toward the elect: Gonet, Theol., tome 1.  Therefore it is willed by God properly and formally, and not only metaphorically or eminently.

Thirdly the conclusion is persuaded: God wills formally, by an antecedent will, the conversion of all sinners, since He invites them in Scripture and exhorts them to penance, and since He asserts in 2 Pet. 3 that He does not will anyone to perish, but all to return to penance.  Therefore similarly He wills by the same antecedent will their salvation.

The consequence is evident, for he who wills a means ordered to some end, is considered a fortiori [from the greater] to will the end itself, at least in the same way in which He wills the means leading to it: whence since penance and the conversion of the sinner is a means leading to eternal salvation, if God has a true and sincere will concerning the conversion of all sinners, he also truly and sincerely wills by an antecedent will their salvation.

Fourthly the conclusion is proved: A free volition which is never fulfilled, not from the impotence of the agent, but from his own will and from the merits of the object, involves no imperfection repugnant to God.  Therefore although the antecedent will, by which God wills all men to be saved, is inefficacious from the disposition of the willer himself, and from the merits of the object itself considered in itself, and as it prescinds from individual circumstances and conditions, it must nevertheless be admitted as formally and properly existing in God, and not only metaphorically or eminently.

Which is urged more: In God there are free volitions, subjectively absolute, and objectively conditional, concerning a condition never to be fulfilled, as we showed in the preceding tract, disp. 5, art. 1; and it is evident from those words, Mt. 11:

‘Woe to thee Corozain, woe to thee Bethsaida, for if in Tyre and Sidon had been done the virtues which have been done in thee, they would have done penance long ago in sackcloth and ashes.’

Where the penance of the Tyrians is foretold as future, and consequently willed by God, under the condition of the signs and miracles of Christ, which condition was not fulfilled among the Tyrians, since the aforesaid signs were never performed among them.  But those volitions are never fulfilled, from the defect of the condition.  Therefore there are given without imperfection, formally in God, free volitions, inefficacious, and never to be fulfilled: wherefore although the antecedent will concerning the salvation of all men is inefficacious, from the free disposition of the willer himself, and is never fulfilled, it should not therefore be denied that it is found in God formally.  Whence D. Thomas in [Commentary on the Sentences,] bk. 1, dist. 46, quest. 1, art. 1, reply 2:

‘The antecedent will can be called conditional, nor yet is it an imperfection on the part of the divine will, but on the part of the willed which is not accepted with all the circumstances which are required for the right order unto salvation.’

Finally the conclusion can be persuaded by this reason: [Major:] Just as the efficacious volition of efficacious means necessarily presupposes an efficacious intention of the end, so the volition of means only sufficient, necessarily presupposes at least an inefficacious volition of the end.  [Minor:] But the antecedent will is terminated at aids sufficient for salvation, and at least prepares and disposes them.  Therefore it necessarily presupposes, or includes a volition at least inefficacious of our salvation, existing in God formally.  The minor is evident from what is to be said in art. 5.  The major, however, is easily persuaded:

Both because to will means, and not out of love of the end [of those means], is beside the intention [of providing those means], and as it were to act by chance, which is repugnant to a most perfect agent.

And also, because election and intention are compared in the order of the appetible, just as the assent of the conclusion and the assent of the premises in the order of the speculable.  But the assent of the conclusion necessarily arises from the assent of the premises.  Therefore the election of a means necessarily presupposes the intention.

You will say, it suffices that the volition of the means proceeds from a virtual volition of the end, and not that it requires that it presuppose a formal volition of the end; and thus the volition of means and of sufficient aids, indeed presupposes the antecedent will of the salvation of men, virtually or eminently, yet not formally existing in God.  But against this:

First, the virtual volition of the end is the volition of it insofar as it is contained in the means.  But from that, as such, the volition of sufficient means cannot arise.  Therefore it cannot proceed from a virtual volition of the end.  The major is evident; the minor is proved:

The volition of the end as contained in the means, is the volition of it as terminated at the means.  But the volition of the means cannot arise from the volition of the same, otherwise it would proceed from itself, and be caused by itself, and would presuppose itself.  Therefore it cannot arise from a virtual volition of the end.

Secondly, the efficacious volition of an efficacious means cannot arise from an efficacious, virtual volition of the end, but necessarily presupposes an efficacious formal volition of the end, as the Thomists demonstrate in the Tract on Predestination; and from this they prove that predestination does not presuppose the foreknowledge of merits, as we shall show in the same place.  Therefore neither can the volition of sufficient means arise from a virtual volition of the end, but necessarily presupposes a formal one.

.

II. The objections are answered

Objection the first: St. Chrysostom, homily 1 on the Epistle to the Ephesians, says that God very much desires [cupit] and very much desires [desiderat] our salvation: But desire is not in God properly and formally, but only improperly and metaphorically, as we shall show below in disp. 6, art. 2: Therefore neither is the antecedent will about the salvation of all men.

But it is easily answered that Chrysostom there uses the name “desire” broadly, and in a certain wide signification, insofar as the most ardent love toward some thing, even present and possessed, is sometimes called its desire.  Whence of the blessed angels, who continually contemplate and see the Holy Spirit, it is said (1 Pet. 1) “into whom the angels desire to look” (in quem desiderant Angeli prospicere).  Therefore, insofar as Chrysostom meant to signify in God the most ardent love of our salvation, and a true and sincere will of saving men, he called that a “desire.”

Objection the second: No inefficacious will can be properly and formally in God.  But the antecedent will of saving all men is inefficacious with respect to the reprobate, as is clear.  Therefore it is not formally in God, but only metaphorically; nor is it the will of beneplacitum, but of signification.  The minor is evident.  The major is proven:

First: because every will of God according to Scripture is efficacious and is always fulfilled: for Isa. 46 says, “All my will shall be done.”  And Ps. 134, “All things whatsoever the Lord pleased, He has done.”

Second it is proved: every inefficacious will, and one lacking an effect, indicates imperfection.  Therefore it is not formally in God.

I answer, denying the major:

To whose first proof it must be said that those testimonies of Scripture and the like are to be understood of the will of God simply, such as is the sole consequent will, as St. Thomas teaches here, ([Summa, pt. 1, quest. 19] art. 6, reply 1, not of every will of God, whatever it be: for from the same Scripture it is collected that there is given in God some will which is not fulfilled, according to that passage Mt. 23:

“O Jerusalem, which killest the prophets…  How often would I have gathered thy children, and ye would not” (quoties volui congregare filios tuos, et noluistis);

and secondly one may say that every will of God will be, because it is hindered by none, nor can any resist it; but if sometimes it is not fulfilled, this is because that very thing is willed by Him, and thus whether something happens or not, all is from his will.  Nevertheless it stands that, with respect to the order toward an effect which sometimes is not put in the thing, it is called inefficacious.

Hence, to the second proof of the same major it must be said that a will may be called inefficacious in two ways:

First from some extrinsic impediment, conquering or retarding its efficacy;

Secondly from the proper ordination and providence of the will itself.

A will inefficacious in the first manner is imperfect, and cannot be in God; yet not if it is inefficacious only in the second manner: In what way, then, is the antecedent will which God has concerning the salvation of all men inefficacious?  Because, by His own ordinance and providence, God wills that it lack its effect, and that it be inefficacious.

For this pertains to the universal provider: to order all things to their ends in such a way that He permits some things to be frustrated of their effect, and not to attain such an end; because, unless they were frustrated of their effect and did not attain such an end, greater inconveniences would follow: As is evident in the natural order, in which God ordains the corruption and destruction of certain individuals for the preservation of some species: for example, that the lion devour the lamb, in order to preserve the species of the lion, etc.

So likewise in the supernatural order, God, as universal provider, ought by His antecedent will to provide that all men be capable of blessedness, that, insofar as depends upon them, they tend toward it, and He ought by such a will to prepare for them sufficient means and helps for attaining it.  Nevertheless, in order that room may be given to the mutability of contingency and the infirmity of free will, and in order that the beauty of His justice toward some and the splendor of His mercy toward others may be manifested, He ought by His consequent will not to will efficaciously the salvation of some, and to deny them efficacious means for attaining it.  Of this [I treat] more fully in the tract on predestination.

You will object thirdly: If there were in God an antecedent will of saving all men, would that will be terminated upon their salvation as future, or only as merely possible?  The first cannot be said, since the salvation of the reprobate is not in fact future; for it will never be verified of them that it actually is [future].  Nor can the second be said, because, as we showed above, Disputation 2, article 4, God neither wills nor loves those things which are in a state of mere possibility.  Therefore such a will does not exist in God.

I answer: That will is terminated upon the glory and salvation of the reprobate, not as purely possible, but as future—not indeed with a complete and perfect futurition, but with an imperfect and inchoate futurition.  For the understanding of this:

First, it should be noted: The futurition of things is derived from causes, not precisely as they are considered in first act, from which, insofar as they are considered in this way, possibility is derived, but as they are determined to give existence to those things.

Second, it should be noted: There can be a twofold determination of causes: one perfect and complete, the other imperfect and inchoate.

The former is found in secondary causes, as they are prevented or are to be prevented by an efficacious help, infallibly connected with the futurition of the effect: and in the first cause, namely, the divine will, determined by an efficacious decree.

The latter, however, is found in secondary causes as they are furnished with sufficient helps, and in the first cause insofar as it loves the object by an inefficacious free act.

Therefore, since this determination toward the salvation of all men is not from the first and second causes while they are altogether indifferent, but while they are already in some manner determined, it follows that from them, insofar as they are thus situated, there can be derived a denomination not of mere possibility, but of some degree of futurition of the thing willed.  Nevertheless, because such determination is not efficacious and complete, perfect futurition of things cannot be derived from them insofar as they are in this state.

Therefore, the glory of the reprobate, by virtue of God’s antecedent will, is imperfectly and inchoatively future, because by such an act the divine will is in some manner inclined toward its existence, and from such an intention arise sufficient means, by which the will of men remains in some manner determined toward it.  Yet, because this determination, both in the first cause and in the second, is not efficacious and perfect, it is not perfectly and completely future.  Hence glory terminates the aforesaid will as inchoatively future.

From this it is not permissible to infer that the reprobate are in fact to be glorified; for although concerning that which is perfectly and completely future it is sometimes true that it actually will be, nevertheless, concerning that which is only imperfectly and inchoatively future, it is not necessary that it ever be verified as being present, according to that statement of Aristotle, On Generation, bk. 2, text 64: ‘That which is future to fall out, will not fall out [Futurus quis incedere, non incedet]’

You will object: The sufficient helps arising from that will of saving all men leave the human will indifferent, so that it may attain salvation or fail to attain salvation.  Therefore although by the power of those [means], and consequently by the power of the antecedent will from which they originate, glory may be rendered proximately possible, nevertheless no future necessity is constituted.  The consequence is clear: for the futurition of a thing is taken from causes wholly indifferent as to whether it happens or not.

I reply by distinguishing the antecedent: That sufficient helps leave the will indifferent—I grant the antecedent—[but] indifferent with respect to the elicitation of the perfect act and the attainment of the effect.  For although a sufficient aid does not apply the will to the perfect act, to which by its nature it is ordered, yet it applies it to imperfect acts, which prepare, dispose, and incline the will to more perfect ones: as the Thomists commonly teach in the Treatise on Aids [Auxiliis].  Hence although by reason of that [aid] the perfect act and eternal salvation are not rendered perfectly and completely future, yet they are rendered inchoatively and imperfectly.

Objection the fourth: The antecedent will about the salvation of all men is not a true and sincere will, but feigned and simulatory: Therefore it is not in God properly but only metaphorically.  The consequence is evident.  The antecedent is proved [by the adversary] from:

St. Thomas who here, art. 6, reply 1, speaking of that antecedent will, says that it ought rather to be called a “volition” (velleitas) than an absolute will.

Secondly, God antecedently, with foresight of demerits, wishes to frustrate some, to reprobate, by negative reprobation, that is to deny them glory as an undue gift; and after the foresight of demerits he reproves them by positive reprobation, which not only implies denial of glory, but also the infliction of punishment, as we shall show in the treatise on predestination.  But this will, or negative reprobation, does not seem able to cohere with a true and sincere will of saving all, but is opposed to it and contrary: Therefore the same as before.

Thirdly, if it were in the hand and power of a merchant to avoid or overcome a storm and preserve his merchandise, who would say that he had a true and sincere will concerning the preservation of his merchandise, if afterward, when the storm was threatening, he did not avoid or overcome it?  Since, therefore, God has in the treasures of his omnipotence efficacious means by which He can save all men, He does not seem to have a true and sincere will to save the reprobate, to whom He denies such means and confers or offers only sufficient ones.

Since therefore God has in the theory of his omnipotence efficacious means by which He can make all men saved, He does not seem to have a true and sincere will of saving the reprobate, to whom He denies such means, and confers or offers only sufficient ones.

I answer denying the antecedent [of the fourth objection]:

To its first proof it must be said that, although St. Thomas sometimes calls the antecedent will concerning the salvation of all men a velleity, nevertheless by this he does not intend to teach that it is not a will in fact, or that it is not formally in God, but only that it is not a will simply speaking, but in a qualified sense, insofar as it attains its object according to itself, and abstracted from the circumstances.  For thus he clearly explains himself here, [Summa, pt. 1, quest. 19,] art. 6, reply 1, in these words:

‘Yet neither do we simply will that which we will antecedently, but in a qualified sense; because the will is compared to things according as they are in themselves; but in themselves they exist in particular.  Hence we simply will something according as we will that thing, all the particular circumstances having been considered, which is to will consequently.

Hence it can be said that a just judge simply wills a murderer to be hanged, but in a qualified sense he would will him to live, namely, insofar as he is a man; hence it can more properly be called a velleity than an absolute will.

I add that the antecedent will of God concerning the salvation of all men is conditional: but a conditional will, compared to an absolute one, is accustomed to be called a velleity, as Saint Thomas teaches in bk. 4, dist. 17, quest. 2, art. 1, reply 3 , in these words:

‘Although a complete will cannot be about an impossible thing, yet a conditional will, which is also called a velleity, can be about impossible things.’

[Quamvis voluntas completa non possit esse de impossibili, tamen voluntas conditionata, quae et velleitas dicitur, potest esse de impossibilibus.]

By which words he openly declares that an inefficacious and conditional will, although it is a true and sincere will, can nevertheless be called a velleity to distinguish it from an absolute and efficacious will.

To the second proof of the same antecedent, I answer that the antecedent will which God has of saving all men is not contrary to negative reprobation, nor to positive (or to the will which God has of excluding some from glory as an undue benefit, or of deputing those to eternal punishments as a penalty for sins), because the first will is born from Himself and from the precise reason of divine goodness.  But the second (at least as regards positive reprobation) is born from us, and from the manifestation of divine justice.  For as Tertullian elegantly says in bk. 1, Against Marcion [unable to find the reference]:

‘God is good of Himself, [but] just from us: the former is goodness according to nature, the latter is severity according to cause, etc.’

To the third proof, I concede the antecedent, the consequence, and the parity must be denied.  The reason for the distinction is that a merchant is some particular person, who only intends a particular and useful good, but not the common and general good of the whole universe; whence if he could employ efficacious means for the preservation of goods, with a storm impending, and yet he were to reject or neglect them, he would not be considered to have a true and sincere will for their preservation.

But God is a general cause and a universal provider, who not only ought to intend and procure the particular good of some men, but also the general good of the whole universe, and to permit that some creatures should fail and be frustrated of their end: wherefore although He does not confer efficacious means for salvation upon all, He nevertheless has a true and sincere will to save them, although it is inefficacious and conditional in the manner to be explained in the following article.

You will object finally: The will of the sign is not formally in God, but only metaphorically.  But the antecedent will of saving all men is a will of the sign.  Therefore it is not in God formally.  The major is evident from what was said above.  The minor is proved from the opusculum of St. Thomas, On Foreknowledge & Predestination, ch. 6 [This is not in Thomas’s Works], where he says:

‘God is said to will something in two ways: in one way properly, and thus He is said to will something whose will is truly in it, which is pleasing to Himself; and this is called the will of good pleasure, which is always infallibly fulfilled in all things; and of this Scripture speaks in Isa. 46, ‘All my will shall be done.’

In another way He is said to will something metaphorically, that is by similarity, in that He behaves in the manner of one willing, insofar as He commands, counsels, forbids, or permits something; and this is called the will of the sign, by which it is not always fulfilled, of which the apostle speaks in 1 Tim. 2, ‘Who wills all men to be saved,’ when nevertheless not all are saved, but many are damned.’

I answer, conceding the major, I deny the minor.

To the proof of which, in the first place I say that that opusculum is not by St. Thomas: which three things persuade me:

The first is that it is not found among other opuscula.

The second, that in the Roman edition, which is to be preferred to others, such an opusculum is not held in his works.

The third, because St. Thomas would manifestly contradict himself, since he most openly teaches in the places related above that the will concerning the salvation of all men is not a will of the sign, but of good pleasure.

Secondly, it can be answered that such a will can be referred either to the will of the sign or to the will of good pleasure according to diverse considerations.  For insofar as it denotes an act of the divine will formally existing in God, it is called the will of good pleasure: but insofar as it is manifested by some exterior sign, it is called the will of the sign, as the holy doctor explains on 1 Tim. 1, lecture 1, in these words:

‘To will is sometimes put for the will of good pleasure, sometimes for the will of the sign.  For the will of the sign, He wills to save all, because He has proposed to all [persons] the precepts, counsels and remedies of salvation.  For the will of good pleasure, it can be explained in four ways, etc.’

Whence when St. Thomas in the aforementioned opusculum, On Foreknowledge & Predestination [if he should be the author thereof] asserts that that will by which God wills all men to be saved is a will of the sign, by this he does not exclude that it is also a will of good pleasure: for nothing prevents (as we showed above from the same holy doctor) that concerning the same thing, according to diverse considerations, there should be a will of good pleasure and of the sign.

.

Article 4, Whether the antecedent will of saving all men is conditional and awaiting the consent and determination of the human will? [No]

The affirmative part is commonly held by the moderns with Molina, asserting that the antecedent will of God is called conditional, in that it depends on the consent of free will, as on a condition which He awaits, and from whose defect it is rendered inefficacious and is frustrated of its effect.  Some add that if God with an absolute and perfectly efficacious will were to will to save men, their liberty would be destroyed, because from that an antecedent necessity would be induced contrary to liberty.  Whence Petavius, tome 1, bk. 10, ch. 3, teaches that:

God is borne towards all men with a certain propensity of will, so that He would will them to be saved and blessed; and indeed [it is] efficacious as far as it is from Himself, but not with an absolute will devoid of condition, but [it is] implicated to such a condition, that they themselves should have willed to consent.

This opinion, however, and this manner of explaining the antecedent will, displeases all the disciples of Divine Augustine and St. Thomas; and with both holy doctors they most constantly assert that the will of God is of itself efficacious and that it does not await, but causes the consent and determination of the created free will, as we shall show fully in the following disputation where we shall treat of the efficacy and causality of divine decrees.  Whence:

.

I. A negative conclusion is established and is persuaded by various authorities and reasons

I say therefore, that the antecedent will of saving all men is not called conditional from the fact that it depends on the consent of the human will as on a condition which it supposes or awaits from free will, but because it imports a conditional act, by which God would will the salvation of all men, unless this were to be repugnant to the order of his providence, and unless from this the universal good of his justice and the manifestation of his attributes were to be hindered.

The conclusion thus explained is proved first from St. Thomas related above in bk. 1, dist. 46, q. 1, art. 1, reply 2, where he says:

‘The antecedent will can be called conditional, yet it is not an imperfection on the part of the divine will, but on the part of the thing willed; which is not taken with all the circumstances which are required for the right order unto salvation.’

By which words he openly teaches that the antecedent will is not called conditional because it depends as on a condition from the consent and determination of free will, as the moderns assert, but because it reaches its object, namely the salvation of men, as abstracted from particular circumstances: namely the manifestation of his justice, the beauty of the universe, etc. or because He would will it unless such considerations were to stand in the way.  He teaches the same on 1 Tim. 2, lecture 1.

Secondly, the conclusion is proved from Augustine, bk. 4, Against Julian, ch. 8 and in Enchiridion, ch. 25 & 27 where he says:

‘If many are not saved, it is not because they themselves do not will it, but because God does not will it; which without any controversy is manifested in infants.’

By which words he not only clearly teaches our conclusion, but also insinuates an efficacious reason to demonstrate it.  For the antecedent will (as theologians commonly teach against Vasquez) comprehends not only adults, but also infants dying without baptism.  But such a will, as it extends to infants, cannot be called conditional, if they themselves will it, as is evident, since they do not have the use of reason and free will: nor even if their parents will them to be baptized or do not place an impediment to their baptism.

Also because baptism, to infants dying in the maternal womb, cannot be applied by human diligence, since in such a state they cannot be subjected to the operation of the ministers of the Church, as St. Thomas teaches: pt. 3, q. 68, art. 11.

Also because, as Augustine says in On the Gift of Perseverance, ch. 12:

‘What shall I say, that an infant sometimes expires before it can be helped by the ministry of the baptizer: for often when parents are hastening and ministers are prepared, so that baptism may be given to the infant, yet God not willing it, it is not given.’

And bk. 6, Against Julian, ch. 5: ‘Sometimes,’ he says:

‘He adopts as a son whom He forms in the womb of a most filthy woman; and sometimes He does not will to be His son whom He forms in the womb of his daughter.  He indeed arrives at baptism by I know not what provision; [yet] this one by sudden death does not arrive.  And thus God, in whose power are all things, makes one to be in the fellowship of Christ whom He formed in the dwelling of the devil; and He does not will to be in his kingdom whom He formed in his temple.

He has similar things in Epist. 105 & 107, On Grace & Free Will, ch. 28; On Nature & Grace, ch. 27 and elsewhere.  Therefore, etc.

Thirdly, the conclusion is proved: because Pelagius in the commentary on these words of the apostle, ‘God wills all men to be saved,’ in the same way that the more recent [writers] explain it: for he says, namely, that ‘God wills all men to be saved, if they themselves, when called by God, will consent.’  The same interpretation was applied by Julian his disciple, as St. Augustine relates, bk. 4, Against that same Julian, ch. 8 [reference verified], in these words:

‘But you put forward the apostolic testimony, and from it you say it should be opened to those knocking, whom [only] God wills all [such] men to be saved and to come into the knowledge of the truth: namely that we should understand you teaching them that not all men are to be saved, to come into the knowledge of the truth, because they themselves will not ask, when God wishes to give; they do not seek, when God wishes to show; they do not knock, when God wishes to open.’

The same teaching was held by the Semipelagians, as is gathered from the epistles of Prosper and Hilary to Augustine, and as Petavius confesses in Theological Dogmatics, tome 1, bk. 9, ch. 16, in these words:

‘Petrus the Deacon [an Augustinian], in a letter to Fulgentius [an Augustinian] on the Incarnation and the grace of Christ, refutes the reasoning of the Semipelagians asserting that God wills all men to be saved, but that they are to be saved by their will, so that they [unbelievers] do not in fact obtain salvation.’

Whence blessed Remigius, archbishop of Lyons, in the Book of Three Epistles, after he had recounted the three expositions which Augustine adduces of the apostle’s words, speaking of the fourth, which is of Damascene, thus says:

‘But in the fourth way that thing must without doubt be guarded against, because it gives occasion to Pelagian depravity, which ascribes to God the waiting for human wills that He may save men.  The same Paul says that He who wills all men to be saved is not to be taken in such a way as though God generally wills all to be saved, while some most impotent ones obstruct, so that the almighty is not able to accomplish what He wills; but rather thus: that those, whether willing or unwilling (for many baptized in infancy, not having the distinction of these, after a short life pass away, are transferred to glory), all are saved, whichever those it pleases Him to will to save.’

Fourth the conclusion is proved: God, as supreme Lord of glory, before the foreseen merits and demerits of men, efficaciously elects some to glory (and willed efficaciously to exclude others from it), so that by undue favor (as we shall show in the treatise on predestination, and it is evident from those words of Paul in Rom. 9, ‘Not by works, but by calling it is said: ‘I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau’).  But since an efficacious will of excluding the reprobate from glory before the foreseen demerits of them is not compatible with a will conditioned on conferring glory on them on the condition that it will not stand through themselves, as is manifest.  Therefore the antecedent will does not have for its object glory as future under the condition that they themselves should will (by natural will and preceding grace).

Fifth, the conclusion is suggested: a conditioned decree produces its effect by itself, insofar as the condition is precisely fulfilled: but an antecedent will of saving all men, even if a condition were posited, namely human volition or non-resistance of free will, would not have effect; therefore it is not ordered to glory as future under the foresaid condition.  The major is clear; the minor, however, in which the difficulty lies, is proved:

First: because, as St. Thomas expressly teaches in his 1st to Annibald, dist. 46, sole question, art. 2, an antecedent will has no effect unless a consequent will be joined.

Secondly, because otherwise the whole business of predestination would consist in the purification of that condition, and would await application and determination, so that it come forth into a determined act.

But on the other hand.

First: Pelagius, at least in the third stage of his heresy, admitted an internal illuminating grace and morally exciting, as is plainly gathered from Augustine in the Book on the Grace of Christ, ch. 7, where he introduces Pelagius speaking thus: ‘For God helps us, when He opens the eyes of our heart.’  And Pelagius himself says:

‘God works in us, by which very thing precisely that men by free consent might understand to determine to will what is good, to will what is holy, while we, given over to earthly desires, like animals that are dumb, only caring for present things, succeeding to the promise of future glory and of rewards, when by revelation of God’s sentence, desire is excited, God rouses the will.  And to us’ (which nevertheless elsewhere he does not fear to deny) ‘he sweetens all that is good.’

Therefore, when Pelagius and Julian said that God wills all men to be saved, if they themselves will or consent, they were not speaking of a volition or consent that was to be brought about by divine [grace], but of the will of their own nature, in no way prepared by grace; nevertheless, the holy Fathers not only reproved this in them, but especially condemned this in them, that they said God so wills all men to be saved that the divine [will] could be frustrated and hindered by the created will.  But the adversaries assert this same thing.  Therefore they do not wholly depart from them.

.

II. The principal foundation of the adversaries is undermined

Against that conclusion the adversaries object:

God does not save men unless they will and freely consent to his grace and vocation, according to that of Augustine: ‘He created you without you; He did not save you without you.’  Therefore the will of saving all men depends on the volition of free choice as upon a condition which God expects from human will.

That is able to be confirmed from the words of Ambrose who, explaining the place of the apostle, “God wills all men to be saved,” says:

‘God wills all to be saved, if they come to Him; for He does not will to save in such a way that those who are unwilling should be saved, but He wills to save if they themselves are willing.’

I respond conceding the antecedent, denying the consequence:

For although God does not save men unless they are willing and freely consenting to his calling, yet He does not expect or await that free volition and consent from human will, nor, so to speak, beg for it from human will; but He operates it inwardly in the heart of man by his grace in the infallible way of predestination, applying their wills to the grace which calls and morally excites the freely consenting.

Therefore it must be carefully observed that when we say that the will which God has of saving men does not depend as on a condition on the consent or volition of man, by this we do not intend to deny that human free arbitrium (free choice) consents to God and cooperates freely to its justification and salvation

(for this is certain in faith, and is defined in the Council of Trent against the impious Lutheran who says in justification that free will does not cooperate with God moving and exciting, but remains merely passive, receiving a motion produced by God alone);

but we only contend that God does not expect or suppose such a consent from the human will, but by his grace prepared and applying it, causes it to be effected inwardly in the heart of man, as Augustine clearly explains and teaches in Epistle 107, where he says thus:

‘Wherefore, that we may believe in God and live piously, not willing nor running, but by the mercy of God; not because we ought not to take care concerning ourselves, but because He Himself works in us both to will and to run.’

And On the Gift of Perseverance, ch. 13:

‘We therefore will, but God in us works and wills: we therefore work, but God in us works by [our] will for good.  This is expedient for us to believe and say.  This is pious and true; so it is a humble and submissive confession, and the whole is given to God.’

Fulgentius teaches the same elegantly, On the Incarnation & Grace, ch. 29, the words of which we quoted in the preceding treatise, disp. 6, art. 6, where it may be seen.  From which the answer to the place of Ambrose is evident: for there he intends only to explain the consent and cooperation of the free choice concurrent to justification and the salvation of men, and only to declare how God saves men, not contradicting them, nor as coerced; as is plain from those words: ‘Not that He wills to save, that the not-willing are saved.’  Hence when he adds that God wills to save men, if they themselves will, he does not intend that God waits [or expects] for the wills of men, as some Semipelagians speak, but that He wills those to be saved if they will, not from coercion, but freely and spontaneously: for so even Augustine says, bk. 1 to Boniface, ch. 10:

‘God knows to work inwardly in the hearts of men, not that men should believe unwillingly (which is not possible to be), but that willing ones be made out of unwilling ones.’

.

Article 5, Whether by the antecedent will there are prepared for man, in the state of fallen nature, means or aids sufficient for salvation?

I. The state of the question is proposed and the affirmative part is chosen

98. The present inquiry is only about the preparation of sufficient aids, not about the actual bestowal and intrinsic restoration of them (for of this we will speak in the treatise on predestination, disp. 5, art. 5) and we only inquire whether, if a physician who opens the apothecary-shop containing every kind of remedy for infirmities, and places it open to all, is said to will as far as in him lies, to heal all, although he does not apply such remedies to all; indeed perhaps some of them, by accident, are not applicable to some or to certain persons: thus also God by that general and antecedent will, whereby he wills that all men be saved, prepares for all some means and remedies, or aids sufficient for salvation, although by such will He does not confer nor apply all those things to us; indeed sometimes some of those things are not proximately applicable, as happens with infants dying in the maternal womb, to whom baptism, although prepared for them and instituted by Christ, is not proximately applicable; because in such a state they could not be subjected to the operation of the ministers of the Church, as the theologians teach with the Master in bk. 2, dist. 6 and with St. Thomas,  pt. 4 [Supplement?], quest. 68, art. 2.  For resolution:

99. I say by the antecedent will God prepares means or aids by which men are sufficiently ordered and promoted to eternal life.  Thus commonly the theologians teach against Jansenius cited above, who asserts that that antecedent will of saving all men in the state of fallen nature is altogether sterile and fruitless, and that by it no aid sufficient for salvation is prepared or conferred, although he admits in the state of innocence it was very useful to the first parents, and from it sufficient grace, subject to their will, proceeded with respect to use and efficacy.

100. The first conclusion is proved from St. Thomas on bk. 1, dist. 46, quest. 1, art. 1 [I answer that], where, speaking of the antecedent will, he says:

‘The effect of this will is the very ordering toward the end of salvation, and the means promoting toward the end, commonly proposed to all, both natural and gratuitous.’

And ch. 12 on the Epistle to the Hebrews, lect. 3, ‘God,’ he says:

‘wills all men to be saved, and therefore grace is lacking to no one, but He communicates Himself to all, as far as in Him lies.’

Similarly bk. 3, Contra Gentiles, ch. 159:

‘God, as far as in Him lies, is ready to give grace to all: for He wills all men to be saved.  But this causal statement would not hold if God by the antecedent will did not prepare aids sufficient for salvation: Therefore by such a will he prepares such aids.’

101. It is confirmed by the example of the merchant which St. Thomas above relates, to explain that antecedent will whereby God wills that all men be saved.  For who would say that a merchant wills to save the wares, unless as far as in him lies he applies all sufficient diligence, by which they may be preserved, however much he is compelled on account of other consequent causes to neglect their preservation, namely lest the ship be submerged, etc.

Similarly also, how can it stand that God has a true and sincere will of saving all men, if by such a will he does not prepare for them merits and aids by which they may be saved: although on account of the manifestation of his justice, and on account of other causes, He wills to permit sins, and to deny to many the efficacious aids by which they are in fact saved.

Secondly, it is proven from St. Prosper, ch. 25, On the Calling of the Gentiles, where he says:

‘Whether therefore we contemplate the last ages, or the first, or the middle: it is reasonably and piously believed that God wills all men to be saved, and always has willed; and this is shown from nothing other than from those benefits and the providence of God which He bestows upon all generations commonly and indifferently.’

Therefore St. Prosper thinks that God by the general and antecedent will, whereby He desires the salvation of men, wills to give or prepare for all aids sufficient for salvation.

103. Thirdly, the conclusion is proven by a fundamental reason, which St. Thomas suggests in the place cited from bk. 1 of the Sentences.  God by the antecedent will orders all men to the end of salvation; for the effect of this will is the very order to the end of salvation, says St. Doctor there.  Therefore by that will he prepares for men aids sufficient for salvation.

The consequence is clear, since the end is not attainable except through means (it implies that men, by the antecedent will, are sufficiently ordered to the end of salvation) unless by such a will means and aids sufficient for salvation are prepared.

104. It is confirmed: To will the end without means is to will something impossible: hence if God by the antecedent will willed that all men be saved, and to order them to the end of salvation, and yet did not provide for them the means and aids sufficient for attaining it, such a will would be of something altogether impossible: which is absurd and injurious to divine wisdom.

105. It is further confirmed: By the antecedent will the salvation of men, even of the reprobate, becomes not only possible, but also in some way future (namely inchoatively and incompletely), as we declared in article 3, because the divine will is not borne, even by an act of simple complacency, toward things as they are in a state of mere possibility, as we showed above: disp. 2, art. 4.  But the salvation of the reprobate cannot be incomplete and inchoative in nature, with sufficient aids set aside, as is evident from what was said in the preceding article.  Therefore by the antecedent will there are prepared means and aids sufficient for salvation.

106. From these the response and doctrine of Jansenius remains refuted, who brings forward that God by the antecedent will indeed prepared for men aids sufficient for salvation in the state of innocence; but not in the state of fallen nature, in which such aids are withheld in punishment of original sin.

For as we showed above, men in the state of fallen nature are no less elevated to the supernatural order and end than in the state of innocence; hence if such elevation and ordering cannot stand without sufficient aids, it is manifest that by the antecedent will sufficient aids are prepared, not only for the state of innocence, but also for the state of fallen nature.

Moreover, Christ the Lord was predestined as the universal Redeemer, with original sin foreseen, as we showed above.  Therefore after such sin, there was in God a will of saving all men, and of preparing for them means and aids sufficient for salvation.

108. Thirdly, if when St. Thomas says that God is ready to give grace to all, He wills that all men be saved, He would not be speaking of men as they now are, but only of the will of saving them in the obedience of innocent Adam; he would not have said: as God wills that all men be saved, and was ready to give them grace because, as we argued above against Jansenius, in the past and not in the past the will of God ought to be expressed, since the past tense is that of the fulfillment of it.

Furthermore, God in the state of fallen nature obliges men to supernatural precepts.  But, with sufficient aid excluded, such an obligation cannot subsist, as we shall immediately demonstrate.  Therefore, even in the state of fallen nature, God, by the antecedent will, prepares sufficient aids for men.

110. The conclusion is therefore proven lastly by another fundamental reason.  By the very fact that God, through an antecedent will, ordains men to salvation and a supernatural end, He obliges them to observe the supernatural precepts, which are the necessary means for its attainment: according to that saying of Christ, “If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.”  But man cannot be obliged to the observance of supernatural precepts without sufficient aids: Therefore, God, through an antecedent will, prepares sufficient aids for men.  The major premise is evident; the minor is proven:

Man cannot be obliged to the impossible: But the observance of supernatural precepts, without supernatural aid, at least sufficient, is impossible: Therefore, such aid being excluded, he cannot be obliged to it: The major premise is established from the Council of Trent (sess. 6, chap. 11), where it is said that God does not command impossibilities; and from Augustine (de natura & gratia, chap. 69), saying: “It is most firmly believed that God, being just and good, could not have commanded impossibilities.” And in Sermon 16 de tempore: “We execrate the blasphemy of those who say that anything impossible has been commanded by God.” And in Sermon 6:

“He who is just could not have commanded anything impossible, nor is a man condemned for that which he could not avoid, for He is pious.”

The same is taught by St. Thomas in 2, dist. 28, quest. 1, art. 3, in these words: “God is not more cruel than man; but it is imputed to man as cruelty if he obliges someone by a command to that which he cannot fulfill: therefore, this is in no way to be thought of God.” The minor premise is also no less certain: for since man, from the powers of free will alone, cannot elicit supernatural acts, as has been defined in most Councils against the Pelagians, the observance of supernatural precepts, without the aid of grace, is no less impossible for man than it is impossible for an eagle to fly without wings or a horse to run without feet.

111. This argument torments Jansenius greatly, whence, to extricate himself from it, he turns in every direction and employs various responses.

In the first place, he says that supernatural precepts can be fulfilled without sufficient aid, as he says, sought from the principles of philosophy; by the just man, indeed, through grace and charity; by the faithful, through faith; and by the infidel, through free will, by reason of which he is capable of receiving grace and supernatural gifts from God. 112 But on the contrary: The habits of grace and charity, as St. Thomas teaches (1. 2. quaest. 109. art. 9), do not have the nature of an aid fully sufficient for avoiding sins and observing supernatural precepts; because since those habits are participated in imperfectly by man as a wayfarer, and are not here in their perfect and connatural state, they cannot operate perfectly, nor render man completely powerful to elicit supernatural acts, unless they are aided by actual grace. Just as (says Augustine, de natura & gratia, chap. 26 ) the eye of the body, although most fully healthy, cannot see unless it is aided by the brightness of light. Likewise, faith, when it does not have [charity] in the intellect, cannot elevate the will and render it intrinsically powerful to elicit the supernatural acts of charity and contrition: Therefore, it cannot have the nature of a sufficient aid in the faithful sinner for observing supernatural precepts.

Finally, in the infidel, destitute of every supernatural habit, the mere capacity and obediential potency, which he has to be elevated by God to supernatural works, cannot have the nature of a sufficient aid for observing the precepts of the supernatural order; otherwise, man could also be called powerful to fly, to raise the dead, and to perform other miraculous works; because he can receive from God wings and the faculty of performing miracles, and he has the capacity and obediential potency for them. 113

Jansenius responds secondly that just as one who kills a man with concomitant ignorance is not excused from sin, because ignorance is not the cause of such an occasion; so also the impotence which is in man, by the defect of sufficient aid to observe the precepts, does not excuse him from the sin of transgression or omission of the precept; because such impotence is not antecedent, but concomitant: for (he says) he does not transgress the precept because he cannot observe it, but because he does not want to: which is evident from the fact that he does not know he cannot fulfill the precept, nay, he thinks he can, and yet he does not want to fulfill it; and he is so affected that even if he could, he would still not want to observe it. Whence, just as if someone were ignorant that the door of the house was closed, and therefore that he could not go to church, yet he wanted not to go to it, when the precept of hearing Mass urges, he would sin, even though he could not enter the church; because such impotence would be concomitant and accidental, and would not influence such a volition. So similarly, although man, by the defect of sufficient aid, is impotent to observe the precept, he nevertheless sins by not observing it; because such impotence is not antecedent; nor does it influence such a transgression, but is concomitant and accidental. Truly, this response is more subtle than solid: for although it is true that concomitant impotence, which pertains to the executive power, does not excuse from sin, as is evident in the example adduced; yet that cannot be said of the impotence which pertains to the will, which is never so concomitant that it is not also antecedent. The reason is because the impotence of the will, from wherever it proceeds, hinders liberty, for which a proximate and complete power to act is required: but the defect of liberty excuses from sin. Whence the difference is evident, which is found between him who, ignorant that the door is closed, does not want to go to church, and him who, by the defect of sufficient aid, does not observe the precept: for the first sins, even though he is impotent to hear Mass; because although he cannot go to it, he still remains free, and can have the will to hear it, if that impediment which he ignores were not present. But the second, by the defect of sufficient aid, not only cannot observe the precept, but cannot even want to observe it, since not only is supernatural aid required for man to actually observe supernatural precepts, but also for him to want to observe them: for the reason that such a volition, as having a supernatural object, is no less supernatural than the observance of the precept itself.

Jansenius responds thirdly that although man in the state of fallen nature, by the defect of sufficient aid, is impotent to observe supernatural precepts, he is nevertheless not excused from the sin of transgression or omission of the precept; because such impotence, and the lack of sufficient aid, arises from a preceding fault, namely from original sin, by whose intuition God denies to men in the state of fallen nature that sufficient aid which He had conferred upon Adam in the state of innocence. Wherefore, just as that priest who, by throwing his breviary into the sea, would render himself impotent to recite the office, would not be excused from fault; so neither are men in the state of fallen nature excused from sin, although they are impotent to observe the precepts, because they contracted such impotence by sinning in Adam, in whom, as in the head, the wills of all men were contained.

But on the contrary:

First: Men do not always sin in that which they cannot avoid, even if such impotence proceeds from a preceding sin, as St. § Thomas teaches (bk. 3, Contra Gentes, chap. 159), and it is evident in him who, because of his own fault, falls into a disease from which he becomes impotent to fast or to hear Mass: for such a one, as theologians commonly teach, does not sin by not fasting or not hearing Mass, even if he has become impotent from a preceding sin: Therefore, similarly, if men were impotent to fulfill supernatural precepts, and lacked the sufficient aids to observe them, they would not sin by transgressing or omitting them, even though such impotence and lack of aids proceeded from the sin of Adam and was voluntary in the head. Just as they do not sin in first-first movements, proceeding from the rebellion of the appetite and the disease of concupiscence, left over from original sin and the fault of the first parent, because they cannot hinder such inordinate movements.

Secondly, although it were granted that by this response the inexcusability of sins could be saved in some way, yet the possibility of supernatural precepts in the state of fallen nature is not saved: for this, as we showed above, without sufficient aid, cannot subsist: But in the state of fallen nature, not only the inexcusability of sins must be saved, but also the possibility of supernatural precepts, as is evident from the definition of the Council of Trent related above, and from the new Constitution of Innocent X; therefore such a response is not valid.

Thirdly, God in the new law imposed certain precepts anew upon all men: but it would be very harsh that He should oblige to new things and not grant the powers sufficient to fulfill them: for this would be to cast anew inevitable snares for sinning: since the law, without the life-giving spirit of grace, is a killing letter, as Augustine pursues further in the book de spiritu & littera. Jansenius responds lastly that a twofold impotence can be given in man. One which proceeds from the defect of something that cannot, with however great a will, that is, however strongly willing, be supplied. In these straits is he who, for example, has lost his breviary; he cannot, by the defect of it, although he ardently wishes, recite the canonical hours; and such impotence, he says, excuses the one not fulfilling the precepts, because on account of it, either the precept is extinguished, or its omission is not imputed. The other impotence is that which arises from the defect of the will itself, or volition, which if it were present, as great as it ought to be, the precept would be fulfilled most easily; and this impotence of doing in no way excuses him who does not fulfill what is commanded, because he could fulfill it if he wanted to. Since, therefore, men in the state of fallen nature are impotent to observe supernatural precepts in this second way. And if they could fulfil those things, if they were willing, their transgression or omission is imputed to them as fault. But against: When it is said that a man in the state of fallen nature could fulfil the precepts, if he were willing — this is understood either of an inefficacious and conditioned will, which is called a volition (velleitas), or of an absolute and efficacious will, which is the will simply and properly so called. The first cannot be affirmed, since an inefficacious and conditioned will is attributed even to impossibilities. But if the latter be affirmed, the principal difficulty of the argument recurs; for a man in the state of fallen nature, without the aid of grace, is as impotent to have an absolute and efficacious volition for loving God above all things as he is to have the actual supernatural act of love elicited.

Whence, just as it would be ridiculous to say that a man would fly or raise the dead if he willed, so it does not seem less absurd to assert that a man, deprived of every supernatural aid, if he willed, would love God above all things; for that man, without the aid of grace, is no less impotent to love God with a supernatural love than a dove without wings is impotent to fly. Therefore the Prophet sought from God those spiritual wings to fly, that is supernatural helps to love God, when he said: Quis dabit mihi pennas sicut columbae, ut volabo, et requiescam? (Who will give me wings like a dove, that I may fly and rest?)

I add that, in the well-ordered sequence of things, power is presupposed to volition, not volition to power: for it is prior that we be able to perform something than that we should will to effect it; otherwise we would will impossibilities. Nor must it be omitted that St. Augustine seems often to impugn this reply against the Pelagians, especially in book 2 De peccatorum meritis, ch. 3, where speaking of the Pelagians he says: They seem to themselves to say shrewdly (as if any of ours were ignorant of this) that if we were not willing we do not sin, nor would God command a thing of man that were humanly impossible to the will. And in the book De gestis Pelagii ch. 6 he says: A man could, if he willed, be without sin, etc., keep the commands of God: for God gave him that possibility, with the help of God and grace. From which in Plato; because human nature, under such a state and precision, can determine no act of the divine will; for thus made precise it is in a state of mere possibility: God however does not will mere possibles, nor love them, even by the love of simple complacency, as we showed above.

Finally, that antecedent will embraces not only adults but even infants dying in their mother’s womb without baptism; yet for those infants no means or remedies sufficient for salvation are given — since baptism is called among the sacraments — or if one takes the will to be absolute and efficacious, which would avail sufficiently for salvation, we see few preparations by Christ for the salvation of infants, which cannot be applied to them; for in such a state they cannot be subjected to the action of the ministers of the Church, as we have noted above with D. Thomas: therefore by the antecedent will not all media or aids sufficient for salvation are granted to all.

To the first I answer by denying the major: when St. Thomas teaches that the antecedent will is that which regards human nature according to the general notion of nature, he does not intend that it regard it as so, and as precisely defined from all singulars, as was once conceived by Plato; for human nature, under such a state and precision, can terminate no act of the divine will; for thus made precise it is in a state of mere possibility: God however does not will mere possibles, nor love them, even by a love of simple complacency, as we showed above. Therefore the antecedent will is said to regard human nature according to itself and according to the general notion of nature, insofar as it regards all men in the individual and in particular, as they agree and communicate in the same nature founded for salvation and elevated to a supernatural end: whence, since such an elevation cannot subsist without sufficient helps (as we showed in Disputation 2), by the antecedent will God prepares to all men helps sufficient for salvation. To the second, with the major granted, I distinguish the minor: By the antecedent will, God wills nothing simply of those things which conduce to the salvation of men efficaciously, I concede: inefficaciously, I deny.

Similarly I distinguish the consequent: Therefore by the antecedent will he effects nothing of those things which conduce to the salvation of men efficaciously, I concede: inefficaciously, I deny. Thus although God may will and prepare by the consequent will and by predestination those means which efficaciously conduce to salvation, which is the special providence of the supernatural order and which Augustine defines as the preparation of benefits by which those who are certainly delivered are delivered, yet the media and aids whereby a man is sufficiently advanced and ordered to eternal life are referred to the antecedent will of God and to the general providence of the supernatural order, by which human nature is ordered and elevated to the supernatural end; as St. Thomas says above: the effect of this will is the order itself unto the end of salvation and the promotion unto the end, common to all, both natural and gratuitous. To what is added, namely that God does not will those things by the antecedent will simply but only qua and in an ordered principal manner, that he prepares no means to men in this state for salvation, and decrees to give them no graces, and that he utterly works nothing concerning their salvation, one answers: first, the Doctor speaks of the principal operation and effect, not of the less principal operation and effect which is the preparation of sufficient aids. Therefore that antecedent will, in the state of fallen nature, is not altogether idle and barren; nor is it a mere complacency about the salvation of men (such as Scotus and others invent in God concerning mere possibles); for by it God proposed to all precepts, counsels and remedies, and ordered all men to the supernatural end, as St. Thomas teaches above. And by that will the false hope of all men, even of the reprobate, becomes an incomplete and initiatory salvation, future, as we showed above.

This is confirmed from St. Thomas in 1, Distinction 47, Q. 1, Art. 2, where he teaches that operation does not correspond to the antecedent will but to the consequent: hence from St. Thomas one should not conclude that God operates about men’s salvation by nothing but the consequent will, and therefore that he confers the aids of grace only by that will and not by the antecedent will.

Third, the same Doctor compares God’s antecedent will about men’s salvation to the will of a judge who simply wishes that a murderer be suspended, but qua would wish him to live, namely insofar as he is a man: just as from that will of the judge by which he would have the murderer live no means are prepared for him whereby he might escape the capital penalty, so God, from the will by which he wishes all men to be saved, insofar as by his part he has given them nature for beatitude, would not therefore prepare it.

Secondly I shall answer the example of the judge which the Doctor adduces. Fourth Disputation, Holy Doctor, not rashly regarding all things, but only regarding something. The parity stands in this, that just as a judge wishes a murderer to live, insofar as he is a man, so also God wishes all men to be saved, insofar as they agree and communicate in the same nature ordered toward a supernatural end. The disparity, however, consists in this, that a judge is not a general provider, as God is, and therefore, although the judge, by the will with which he wishes the murderer to live insofar as he is a man, prepares no means for him by which he might evade the death penalty; God, however, as a general provider, through an antecedent will, by which He wishes all men to be saved, ought to prepare for them some means sufficient for salvation. To the last, the Major being granted, I distinguish the Minor. To them no means sufficient for salvation is given; if “to give” is taken as a correlative to “to receive,” I grant the Minor. If “to give” signifies the same as “to offer” or “to prepare,” I deny the Minor and the consequence. Therefore, although for infants dying in the maternal womb, baptism is not provided through the antecedent will as applied to them, or as applicable by any human diligence, it is nevertheless provided for them, as instituted for them insofar as it is on the part of God, and offered or prepared for them, and obtained through the merits of Christ as to sufficiency. Whence, although it be granted that by the force of the antecedent will, aids sufficient for salvation are not conferred upon nor applied to all, it still stands that they are offered or prepared for all absolutely without any exception through such a will. Whether they are intrinsically received in all, we shall say in the Treatise on Predestination, art. 5.

.

III. The objections which another recent author raises against sufficient aid, such as is admitted by the Thomists, are briefly proposed and diluted

Against sufficient aid, both distinct from efficacious aid and separable from it (such as the Thomistic School admits), another recent author rises up in many ways, in a book written in the French idiom, which he inscribes as a defense of the Constitution of Innocent X, and proposes many arguments against it. He objects, therefore, first: St. Thomas never acknowledged more than a twofold aid of grace, one which he calls the habitual gift, and another which he calls the aid of God moving, as is evident from the First Part of the Second Part, q. 109, arts. 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, and 10. But sufficient grace is not comprehended under the habitual gift, since it is some actual and transient aid; nor under the aid of God moving, since such aid is efficacious grace itself, and physically predetermining, which the Thomists admit: Therefore, St. Thomas, in the state of fallen nature, acknowledged no sufficient aid distinct from and separable from efficacious aid.

Secondly, the same author contends that such sufficient aid was entirely unknown to the ancient Thomists, and was devised by Alvarez and other more recent Thomists to save the possibility of supernatural precepts and the inexcusability of sins.

Thirdly, he says that the aid which is admitted by recent Thomists is not, and ought not to be called, sufficient. For by the name of a means or of sufficient aid, it is commonly understood by all to be that which suffices by itself, and beyond which nothing further is required to act: But in the opinion of the Thomists, besides that aid which they call sufficient, another is required, through which the power is applied to act and is reduced from first act to second: Therefore, that should not be considered, nor called, sufficient.

Fourthly, he proves by various testimonies of Scripture, Councils, and Holy Fathers, that the proximate power to act and to elicit supernatural acts is from efficacious grace; and therefore, sufficient aid is not required for this. The principal testimonies he brings forward are these: “No one can come to me, unless the Father who sent me draws him,” John 6. “No one can come to me, unless it has been given to him by the Father,” John 6. In which places that word “draws” or “has been given” denotes efficacious grace, without which no one can come to the Father, nor consequently choose acts of Faith, Hope, and Charity, through which we approach God. He proves the same from the definitions of Councils: for it is said in the general African Council under Pope Zosimus, at which 216 Bishops were present: “That the grace of God through Jesus Christ helps us in individual acts: so that without it, we are able to have, think, and do nothing of true and holy piety.”

And in the Second Council of Orange it is said: “The help of God must always be implored, even by the reborn and the Saints, so that they may arrive at a good end and be able to persevere in good.” Likewise, Augustine in the book On the Deeds of Pelagius says: “Without the grace of God no one lives rightly; without the grace of God that to which one is helped cannot be done.” And in On the Merits of Sins , book 2, ch. 4: “Let us pray for divine help: lest we be infallibly [overcome by] temptation, so that we may be able to conquer in it.” And in the book On the Perfection of Justice , ch. 1: “Let us pray that the will may also obtain the gift of faculty.”

Finally, St. Thomas, 1-2, q. 109, frequently repeats that man can do nothing unless he is moved by God. That he cannot be converted to God unless God converts him to Himself, that no creature, however perfect, can produce any act unless by the virtue of divine motion. By which testimonies that Recent author thinks he clearly shows that the power to act is from efficacious grace. Fifthly, he argues from the definition of “necessary,” which the same Holy Doctor offers in various places, in which he teaches that that is called necessary without which the end cannot be had: whence, since efficacious grace, according to the Thomists, is necessary for this, that man may observe supernatural precepts and be converted; from this he concludes that without it man cannot be converted, nor observe the precepts. Just as (he says) because a ship is necessary for sailing, food for preserving life, colors and a brush for painting: no one will say that a man can sail without a ship, can preserve life without food, and can paint without colors and a brush. Sixthly, the same author proves this by an argument ad hominem against recent Thomists, who teach that the same aid which is purely sufficient in comparison to one effect is simultaneously efficacious with respect to another less perfect one. And that sufficient aid simultaneously completes and elevates the power in first act in order to perfect acts, and applies it to imperfect acts, which dispose and prepare the will for more perfect ones. For if (he says) sufficient grace could provide in this way, namely, to complete the power in first act in order to a perfect act, and apply it to an imperfect one: why will efficacious grace, which is much more perfect and excellent than sufficient, not also be able to perform these two duties; and complete or elevate the powers of the soul, and simultaneously apply them to perfect acts?

Finally, the same author in the same book argues against recent Thomists as follows. They admit sufficient aid distinct from efficacious for this reason, that the power of the soul may be elevated and completed in first act to elicit supernatural acts, because (they say) every second act must presuppose a completed first: But this reason, which is the principal foundation of the Thomists, cannot cohere with their principles: Therefore, it corrupts their principal foundation.

He proves the minor, because according to the principles of the Thomists, sufficient aid is some motion, predetermination, and application to imperfect acts; and yet it does not presuppose the power completed and elevated to the supernatural order by another aid, but elevates and completes it first; otherwise there would be a process to infinity, as is evident to one contending: Therefore, it is not always required that the second act presuppose a completed first act, and thus the principal foundation of our opinion collapses.

These are the principal arguments of this Recent author, by which he thinks he clearly demonstrates that there is no sufficient aid in the state of fallen nature, distinct from efficacious, prepared by the antecedent will of God. These, however, can be easily diluted from the principles of Thomistic doctrine well understood. Whence To the first I answer first, that St. Thomas clearly admitted and acknowledged that grace which the Thomists call sufficient, although he did not call it by that name. For 1-2, q. 11, art. 2, ad 1, he says thus:

“It happens, however, sometimes that God moves a man to some good, yet does not perfect him, so that such preparation precedes grace. But sometimes He moves him immediately and perfectly to good, and the man receives grace suddenly: according to that of John 6: ‘Everyone who has heard from the Father and has learned, comes to me.'”

By which words the Holy Doctor manifestly acknowledges, in the state of fallen nature, a certain grace moving and applied to imperfect acts, and preparing for more perfect ones: this grace, however, the Thomists call sufficient, as will be evident from what is to be said below: Therefore, what has been said about the name and the mode of speaking (about which little care should be taken, because as Augustine says against Cresconius, book 1, ch. 13: “When the thing itself is there, it is a lesser matter whether one calls it by words more or less”) cannot be doubted, that St. Thomas admitted in the state of fallen nature the same grace which his Disciples teach and call sufficient. I answer second, that even if it were granted that St. Thomas did not make express mention of sufficient aid; it is nevertheless gathered quite evidently from the principles of his doctrine.

First, because the Holy Doctor, in the places related above, acknowledges in God an antecedent will of saving all men, which he says is a will of good pleasure, and not only of sign, and teaches that its effect is the order toward the end of salvation, to promote them into it, both natural things and grace, and grace by supernatural aids, as we showed above: Therefore, etc. Second, St. Thomas in 1 Thessalonians, ch. 5, lect. 2, 142, says: That someone is said to extinguish the Holy Spirit in… faith; or in another, when another wishes to do something from the fervor of the Holy Spirit, or even when some good motion arises in him, and he himself hinders it; Acts 7, you always resist the Holy Spirit. By which words the holy Doctor openly acknowledges that, in the state of fallen nature, there is some interior moving grace, since it is sometimes resisted: But this cannot be other than sufficient grace, because with efficacious aid, according to the principles of St. Thomas, one is never in fact resisted, as will be clear from what is to be said in the frequent disputation:

Therefore St. Thomas acknowledged some sufficient aid distinct from efficacious aid in the state of fallen nature.

143. Thirdly, the same holy Doctor manifestly overturns the chief foundation by which Jansenius and other Recent authors are led to deny such aid in the state of fallen nature: Therefore they differ very greatly from St. Thomas. The consequence is clear, the antecedent is proven. The chief foundation of Jansenius, and of other Recent authors, is sought from the distinction of the twofold state of integral nature and fallen nature: in the first of which they teach that there was bestowed upon Adam aid only sufficient, subject to his will, as regards efficacy and use: but in the second they admit that fallen man needs efficacious grace, which may fully dominate the will, and move and apply it to act. But St. Thomas most openly destroys this foundation, and acknowledges the necessity of efficacious aid in both states: Therefore he overturns the chief foundation of the Adversaries. The major is clear, the minor is proven:

For St. Thomas 1. 2. q. 109. art. 2. in the body and in the reply to 1. teaches that the necessity of God’s moving aid (which, as Jansenius admits, is efficacious) is sought from a triple head, namely from the infirmity and corruption of nature, from the elevation of the object and supernatural act above the powers of the soul, and from the general subordination to the first mover. Man (he says) needs the aid of God moving him in the state of integral nature, as regards one thing: namely to operate and to will the supernatural good; but in the state of corrupted nature, as regards two things: namely that he may be healed, and further that he may operate the good of supernatural virtue, which is meritorious. Furthermore, in both states man needs the aid of God, so that he may be moved by Him to act well. And in the reply to 1. he says that the mind of man, even when healthy, does not have such dominion over its act that it does not need to be moved by God. And in the preceding article in the body: However much (he says) some corporeal or spiritual nature is posited as perfect, it cannot proceed to its own act, unless it be moved by God. In which places the holy Doctor most openly teaches that man in both states of integrity and innocence needs the aid of God moving him to operate and to will the supernatural good: But such aid, as the Adversaries admit, is efficacious, and predetermines the will: Therefore according to the principles of St. Thomas, man in both states needs efficacious and predetermining aid, and thus their chief foundation collapses.

144. It is confirmed first: St. Thomas in the same place teaches that the necessity of moving grace, in both states of nature, integral and corrupt, is sought from the general subordination to the first mover, for he says: Furthermore, in both states man needs divine aid, so that he may be moved by Him to act well. And art. 9 of the frequent disputation: Man (he says) needs the aid of grace so that he may be moved by God to act rightly, and this for two reasons.

First indeed for a general reason, because of this, that, as was said above, no created thing can proceed to any act, unless by the virtue of divine motion.

Secondly for a special reason, because of the condition of the state of human nature, which indeed although it is healed by grace as regards the mind, yet there remains in it corruption and infection as regards the flesh & c. But this foundation Jansenius expressly denies, Tome 3. book 8. chapter 2. where he thus speaks of the Thomists. By them physical predetermination is posited for all agents, by force of second cause, which essentially, both in operating and in its being, has subordination to the first: by which it must be promoted to act. The aid of Christ is by no means necessary to the fallen will on account of the sole wound which the audacity of the sinning will fixed in it. Therefore the doctrine of Jansenius directly fights with the doctrine of St. Thomas. 145

It is confirmed secondly by the argument ad hominem, drawn from the principles of Antoine Arnauld, Doctor of the Sorbonne, in the little work which he entitled: The true doctrine of St. Thomas on sufficient and efficacious grace, itatutis. For there he teaches and proves in many ways that D. Thomas, in question 109 cited above, whose almost all articles he runs through, acknowledged no other grace than sanctifying, which he calls habitual gift; and efficacious, or predetermining, which he calls the aid of God moving: Therefore when the same holy Doctor there art. 2. in reply to 1. adduces that the mind of man even when healthy needs to be moved by God: he intends to teach that healthy man, or man constituted in the state of innocence and integrity, needs efficacious aid, and physically predetermining: and thus collapses the chief foundation of this Doctor, by which he is moved with Jansenius to deny that in the state of fallen nature a sufficient aid distinct from efficacious is given.

It is confirmed and urged further. When D. Thomas says, that in both states man needs divine aid, so that he may be moved by Him, does he mean by that moving aid either sufficient aid, or efficacious aid, or does he comprehend both under the name of moving aid? Whatever be answered, I have my point. For if the first be said, it is had that D. Thomas acknowledges not only in the state of innocence, but also in the state of fallen nature, a sufficient aid distinct from efficacious. If the second: Therefore D. Thomas in both states admits the necessity of efficacious aid for operating, and thus collapses the chief foundation of the Adversaries. If the third: Therefore that Doctor of the Sorbonne does not rightly infer, in that whole little work which he entitled, The true doctrine of D. Thomas on sufficient and efficacious grace, that D. Thomas admitted no sufficient aid in the state of fallen nature, from the fact that he acknowledges only a twofold aid of grace: one which he calls habitual gift, and another which he calls the aid of God moving: since indeed, according to this response, under the name of moving aid, the holy Doctor comprehends both aids, as well sufficient as efficacious. Whence Whence To the first argument I answer, having granted the Major, 147 by denying the Minor: for under the name of the aid of God moving him, both aids, as much sufficient as efficacious, are contained; because both consist in a certain supernatural motion, applying the powers of the soul to supernatural acts: with this difference, however, that sufficient aid moves only, and applies to imperfect acts, which dispose and prepare the soul for perfections: but efficacious aid moves and applies to perfect acts of contrition and charity, which ultimately prepare and dispose the soul for sanctifying grace, which is the last and most perfect form of the supernatural order.

Whence the Thomists commonly teach with Alvarez, book 3, on aids, disp. 80, that every aid which is sufficient with respect to one act, is at the same time also efficacious in order to another, to the effecting of which it is ordained by the absolute decree of divine providence: so that it is simply sufficient, but efficacious in a certain respect.

To the second I answer, that the Recent Thomists, but also the older ones, did not wrongly acknowledge in the state of fallen nature sufficient aid distinct from efficacious, and separable from it; for Cajetan, expounding these words of the Apostle 1 Cor. 10, God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able, but will make also with temptation issue, that you may be able to bear it, adds: The Apostle said, that you may be able to bear it, and did not say, that you may bear it: for it is of divine fidelity to grant the ability to bear it. But to will to bear it, and to bear it itself, is of another grace, which is conferred upon the elect and is not common to all. By which words that most learned Cardinal expressed both sufficient and efficacious aid so clearly that it cannot be seen only by the blind. For there he distinguishes a twofold grace: one special, the other common, one which is given to all, the other which is given especially to the elect: one which gives the ability to bear temptations, the other which gives that we may actually bear them.

Ferrariensis, a contemporary of Cajetan, teaches the same sufficient aid distinct from efficacious in 3 Contra Gentes, cap. 159, where he writes this: Since there is a twofold aid of God by which we need for the attainment of beatitude, namely habitual grace, and divine motion, both intrinsically and extrinsically, by which we are directed to good, and are excited to the preparation for grace: God does not give the first aid to all speaking absolutely after they have sinned, but He grants it well to all preparing themselves for it by divine motion. But He bestows the second aid upon all, and God is absent to no one as regards this, since there is no one who is not moved by Him to good, and to the preparation for grace, according to that of Apocalypse 3, I stand at the door, and knock. Likewise Dominic Soto, who attended the Council of Trent, and wrote many years before Alvarez, in 4 dist. 14 q. 1 art. 10 says, It never stands by God that any sinner is not able to be reconciled with Him: for He denies to no one the special aid which suffices for reconciliation. Medina 1. 2. q. 109. art. 10 clearly teaches the same sufficient aid distinct from efficacious, where he has it thus: Know that God is accustomed to confer two kinds of grace: upon sinners. One by which they can repent, and be saved; and this gift He confers upon all men, of which it is said, Behold I stand at the door, and knock.

The other is efficacious aid, by which man is efficaciously converted and saved; and this He does not confer upon all men who perish; for certainly if He conferred efficacious aid, they would be converted, for no one can resist the efficacious motion of God. Navarrete 1 part q. 19 art. 8, Bañez in the same q. 23 art. 3, Ledesma on aids, unique question art. 16, and others commonly hold the same.

To the third I deny the Major, to the proof of which it must be said, that although among Grammarians, by the name of sufficient aid, is understood that which suffices in all ways, and besides which nothing further is required for operating, among Theologians however and learned men, by the name of sufficient aid, is understood that which suffices for the whole of the power complement, and the whole power, or sufficiency required for operating from the part of the first act, and of the habitual principle; although it does not give actuality or the complement, yet it may be determined by the part of the second act, and constituting the will in the regard of the actual principle of its operations.

Whence although there is given the aid which the Thomists admit in the state of fallen nature, and which they call “sufficient,” it is not sufficient grammatically, yet it will be sufficient theologically. And this in a twofold title: first, because it sufficiently excites the will to will and to operate the supernatural good. Secondly, because it gives to it all sufficiency, and the whole complement, holding itself from the part of the first act, and of the antecedent power (as I suppose from the Tract on Auxiliis), although it does not grant to it actuality, motion, and application, by which it is constituted in the regard of the actual principle of its operations, and becomes potent to act, not only as an antecedent power, separable from the second act, but also as a consequent power, with the operation indissolubly joined and coupled. But of this at greater length in the Manual of the Thomists, Tract on Grace, ch. 10, where, from St. Augustine and St. Thomas we shall demonstrate that the aid which completes in the first act the power to act, even if it does not give application to the second act, could be called “sufficient”; and we shall show that Lodovico Montalto, in those famous Letters to the Provincial, deriding the Thomists because they call that aid “sufficient,” besides that something else is required for acting, ought with good reason to be ridiculed by them. 156 To the fourth I respond, that when Scripture, Councils, and the Holy Fathers teach that man without grace cannot come to Christ, cannot believe, cannot be converted, etc., if in those places speech is of efficacious grace, these things are to be understood of the consequent power and of infallibility, not of the antecedent power and mere possibility. And thus Augustine explains himself sufficiently clearly in De natura et gratia, cap. 42, where he says: “Sanata adjuta hominis voluntate, possibilitas ipsa simul cum effectu in Sanctis provenit”: by which words he teaches that the possibility conjoined with effect — which is the consequent power and of infallibility — is from efficacious grace; yet he does not deny that the antecedent possibility, and separable from the act, is from sufficient grace.

The same explanation is plainly collected from the places of St. Thomas cited by the Adversary, where he says that no created thing can come into act, unless by the virtue of divine motion: for this proposition taken in this universality, and understood of all secondary causes, even natural ones, cannot be true, unless it be explained and understood of the consequent power; for it is certain that natural causes, independently of divine motion, have an antecedent power to operate, by reason of the natural virtue which they received from God in first production, and need only his motion and application, so that such a virtue may be reduced from the first act to the second.

154 To the fifth, which is taken from the definition of necessary advanced from St. Thomas, it must be said that it is legitimate, but to be understood with a grain of salt. For when it is said that that is necessary without which the end cannot be had, this must be understood by abstracting from antecedent and consequent power; so that if something is necessary on the part of the power and of the first act, the end cannot be had without it, even the antecedent power. But if that is necessary only on the part of the second, or as a reductive from the first act to the second, the end cannot be had without it, the consequent power and infallibly conjoined with the act. And so since sufficient grace holds itself from the part of the first act, as its complement, and as an elevating virtue of the power, without it man cannot be converted, nor observe the supernatural precepts, in the antecedent power. On the contrary, it is to be noted first: effects which proceed from God are of three kinds.

I answer to the text that although sufficient aid can at the same time complete the power for perfect acts, and apply it to imperfect ones, as the Thomists teach in the Treatise on Aids: yet efficacious aid cannot perform both, and discharge those two offices at once. The reason for the distinction is that since sufficient aid is the first form of the supernatural order (first, I say, in the order of generation, not of perfection) and therefore presupposes nothing in that order, it must first elevate the powers of the soul, and complete them in the first act for eliciting supernatural acts: and since on the other hand it is a certain motion and predetermination, it must apply them to some acts, at least imperfect ones. But efficacious aid is the second form of the supernatural order, and a certain bond indissolubly joining the power with the act: whence it must presuppose the power already elevated and completed in the first act through sufficient aid, and merely apply it to acting, or reduce it from the first act to the second. From this the answer to the last point is clear, for though the Major is granted, the Minor must be denied.

For the proof of this it must be said that although sufficient aid is a certain motion and predetermination to will imperfectly and to elicit imperfect acts, which prepare and dispose one to more perfect acts, nevertheless, because it is the first form of the supernatural order, it ought not to presuppose a power already completed and elevated to the natural order, but ought first to complete and elevate it. As we see in natural things, the first disposition does not presuppose another in the matter, but first prepares and disposes it, otherwise there would be a process to infinity. But efficacious aid is the second form of the supernatural order, and consequently it ought not first to complete the power and elevate it to that order, but rather ought to presuppose it completed and elevated by another prior form, namely by sufficient aid, and only to move and apply it to perfect acts.”

.

1900’s

Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange

Reality: a Synthesis of Thomistic Thought  (Herder Book Co., 1950)

ch. 10, God’s Will & God’s Love, pp. 104-5

“Now we understand that God’s efficacious will is always infallibly fulfilled…

In what sense, then, do we speak of God’s inefficacious will?  This will, says Thomas (Ia, q. 19, a. 6 [Whether the Will of God is always fulfilled?], ad 1), is a conditioned will, an antecedent will, which wills all that is good in itself, independently of circumstances.  Now this conditional, antecedent will remain[s] inefficacious because, in view of a higher good of which He alone is judge, God permits that this or that good thing does not come to pass.  Thus, in view of that higher good , God permits to illustrate, that harvests do not reach maturity, that the gazelle becomes the prey of the lion, that the just suffer persecution, that this or that sinner dies in final impenitence.  Sometimes we see the higher good in question, sometimes we cannot.  In permitting final impenitence, for example, God may be manifesting infinite justice against obstinacy in evil.

Such is the Thomistic distinction of antecedent (inefficacious) will from consequent (efficacious) will…

To illustrate.  God willed, by consequent will, the conversion of St. Paul.  This conversion comes to be, infallibly but freely, because God’s will, strong and sweet, causes Paul’s will to consent freely, spontaneously, without violence, to his own conversion.  God did not on the other hand will, efficaciously, the conversion of Judas, though He, conditionally, inefficaciously, antecedently, certainly willed it, and He permitted Judas to remain, freely, in final impenitence.  What higher good had God in mind?  This, at least: the manifestation of infinite justice. (For more extended exposition, see our work, De Deo uno, 1938, pp. 410-34; also Rev. thom., May, 1937, “Le fondement supreme de la distinction des deux graces, suffisante et efficace.”)

We must add this remark: Resisting sufficient grace is an evil which comes solely from ourselves.  But non-resistance is a good, which, in last analysis, comes from God, source of all good.”

.

ch. 59, Efficacious Grace

“The Divine Will, Antecedent and Consequent

‘The will.’ says St. Thomas (Ia, q. 19, a. 6, ad 1), ‘is related to things as they are in themselves, with all their particular circumstances.  Hence we will a thing simply (simpliciter) when we will it with all its concrete circumstances.  This will we call the consequent will…  Thus it is clear that everything which God wills simpliciter comes to pass.

If, on the contrary, we will a thing in itself good, but independently of its circumstances, this will is called the antecedent will, or conditional will, since the good in question is not realized here and now.  That man should live, says St. Thomas (Ibid.), is good.  But if the man is a murderer, it is good that he be executed.  Antecedently, God wills that harvests come to maturity, but He allows for some higher good, that not all harvests do in fact mature.  Similarly, He wills antecedently the salvation of all men, tough for some higher good, of which He alone is judge, He permits some to sin and perish…

It is thus that St. Thomas harmonizes God’s antecedent will, of which St. John Damascene speaks, with God’s omnipotence.

.

The Supreme Principles

Nothing comes to pass, either in heaven or on earth, unless God either brings it to pass in mercy, or then in justice permits it.  This principle, taught in the universal Church, shows that there is in God a conditional and antecedent will, relative to a good which does not come to pass, the privation of which He permits in view of some higher good.
…

All that God wills, He does.  This principle has no exception.  All that God wills (purely, simply, unconditionally) comes to pass without our freedom being thereby in any way forced, because God moves that freedom sweetly and strongly, actualizing it, not destroying.  He wills efficaciously that we freely consent and we do free consent. The supreme efficacy of divine causality, says St. Thomas (Ia, q. 19, a. 6), extends to the free mode of our acts…

Hence we find that in the ninth century, to terminate the long controversy with Gottschalk, the Council of Thuzey (860), at the instance of the Augustinian bishops, harmonized God’s will of universal salvation with the sinner’s responsibility.  That Council’s synodal letter (OL, CXXVI, 123; Denz., 17th ed., p. 145, no. 320, note 2.) contains this sentence: Whatever He has willed in heaven or on earth, God has done.  For nothing comes to pass in heaven or on earth that He does not in mercy bring to pass or permits to come to pass in justice.

Since God’s love is the cause of created goodness, says St. Thomas (Ia, q. 20, a. 3), no created thing would be better than another, if God did not give one a great[er] good than He gives to another.  This is equivalent to St. Paul’s word: What has thou that thou hast not received? (1 Cor. 4:7)”

.

Latin

1600’s

Gonet, Jean Baptiste – The Shield of Thomistic Theology, 5 vols.  new ed.  (1667; Coloniae Agrippinae: Friessem, 1671), vol. 1, tract 4, On the Will of God & his Providence

disp. 4, Antecedent & Consequent Will of God  411

art. 1, What is the antecedent and consequent will, and that of good-pleasure and of sign?  411

art. 2, Whether a general will, and antecedent to save all men, after Adam’s Fall, be in God, and hence whether Christ died for for all men? [Yes]  414

art. 3, Whether the antecedent will to save all men is in God formally and properly [Yes], or only eminently and metaphorically?  420

art. 4, Whether the antecedent will to save all men is conditioned and expects consent and determination of the human will? [No]  424

art. 5, Whether, by the antecedent will, there are prepared for man, in the state of fallen nature, means, or sufficient helps, unto salvation? [Yes]  427

Gonet (c. 1616 – 1681) was a French Dominican theologian.

.

.

In Scotism

Quote

1200’s

John Duns Scotus

Ordinatio, bk. 1, dist. 26-48  tr. Peter Simpson  (2013 / 2023), dist. 46, Whether God’s Will of Good-Pleasure is always fulfilled?  II. To the Principal Arguments, p. 197

“The will of God,¹ as to all things, must always be fulfilled, – because as the Almighty can do everything possible, so, when the divine will is determined for positing something in being with final determination, it will be; but to will that with will of being well-pleased is to will it with the last determination that can be posited on the part of the omnipotent will willing the effect into being; therefore, in respect of whatever effect God is thus willing, it will be.

¹ The Vatican editors say this is against Scotus’ doctrine, and they refer to Rep. IA d. 46 nn. 17-18, 12-14, and to nn. 7-8 here below.

…
7. To the first argument [n.1] I say that although the saying of the apostle [1 Tim. 2:4] could be expounded with a distribution accommodated for all those who will be saved – yet it could much better be expounded of antecedent will, thus: ‘he wills to save all men and that all are saved’, namely as far as concerns his own part and by his antecedent will, forasmuch as he has given them natural gifts and right laws and common aids sufficient for salvation.

8. Just as of a king, establishing good laws and prefixing ministers to guard those laws, it could be said that he wills all his subjects to live peaceably and quietly, as far as in him, and yet, if he see someone being unjustly oppressed, it would not be necessary that the king at once involve himself, to make him live quietly, unless he were turned over to him by a complaint of fact (he does indeed antecedently will everyone to live peaceably and quietly, but he does not will everyone immediately so to live), – so I say in the matter at hand, that although God [does] not have a will of being well-pleased to save this person, yet he wills for him the common aids to salvation, by which he too can live sufficiently well and be saved; on account of which it can be said that, as far as is on his part, he wills all to be saved.”

.

.

On the Teaching of Thomas Aquinas vs. John Duns Scotus

Article

1600’s

Macedo, Francisco – 2. ‘General will of God concerning the salvation of all men, 1 Tim. 2:4’  in Collations of the Teachings of St. Thomas & Scotus, with the Differences between the Two…  vol. 1  tr. AI by Vertias  (Padua: Frambotti, 1671), bk. 1, Collation 12, pp. 841-73  A more detailed ToC is given at the beginning of the volume.

Macedo (1596-1681), known as S. Augustino, was a Portuguese Franciscan theologian.  While exercising independent judgment, he tends to lean original-Scotus.  He had a very good knowledge of Aquinas’s works (and of Thomists and their works) through his life (vol. 2, p. 424).

Thomas, while allowing for other interpretations, preferred taking 1 Tim. 2:4, about God willing all men to be saved, to refer to an antecedent will of God, in contrast to a consequent will of God.  He also speaks of it as a conditional and imperfect will, and a velleity (disposition or willingness) in contrast to the absolute will of God. (Summa, pt. 1, q. 19, art. 6, ‘Whether the will of God is always fulfilled’ [Aquinas distinguishes])  Macedo adds:

“Hence it is commonly called a will of sign and opposed to the will of good pleasure, which is always fulfilled — as several weighty Thomists here expound: Cajetan, Bañez, Zumel, cited by González (disp. 56, sect.1)…”

It appears correct that Thomas did understand the antecedent will as a part of the will of sign (or revealed will), as Thomas says in the same place that such a will refers to things as good in themselves, and (Reply to Objection 1):

“This distinction [between antecedent and consequent] must not be taken as applying to the divine will itself, in which there is nothing antecedent nor consequent, but to the things willed.”

Macedo goes on regarding Scotus:

These difficulties [between other Thomists] are not found in Scotus, who places the antecedent will as inefficacious and insofar as it depends on God bestowing by it the common aids, which is likewise a will of sign (as Lychetus expounds there), and calls the consequent will one of good pleasure and the ultimate determination, which produces its effect and is therefore efficacious…

that passage of Scotus in the same place (1st dist., q. 46, sole question, respondeo enim secundo): ‘When the divine will determines itself to placing something in being in the ultimate determination, it will exist.'” p. 844

.

.

In Jansenism

Quote

1600’s

Louis-Gorin de Saint-Amour

The Journal of Monsieur de Saint Amour, Doctor of Sorbonne, containing a Full Account of all the Transactions both in France and at Rome concerning the Five Famous propositions controverted between the Jansenists and the Molinists, from the beginning of that affair till the Pope’s decision  (London: Ratcliff, 1664), Disquisition 6 of Paul Irenaeus, or the true method for inquiring, Whether the five propositions were condemned in Jansen, Article 8, Notes for the fuller understanding of Jansenian doctrine about Christ’s death, pp. 233-34  tr. ChatGPT 5.6

“Again, that these same men admit in God a certain antecedent will of the salvation of all, he himself also acknowledges. From which it follows that, with much greater right, it is admitted in Christ.

Moreover, this antecedent will does not pertain only to this: that God, abstracting from the fall of man, is said to desire the salvation of all, insofar as they are men; but, generally, the antecedent will of God is directed toward that which is right, that which is just, that which is good in itself. Thus, because it is right for man to be converted, to do penance, not to despise the goodness of God, not to reject his graces, to approach the Sacraments—God is considered to will all these things by an antecedent will, although, when the individual circumstances are considered, he has not decreed to confer upon each individual efficacious graces by which they certainly arrive at salvation, without which they certainly fall away from salvation.

Therefore God does not desire, by an antecedent will, the salvation of all men merely on this account, that he made all rational creatures for blessedness; but also because, since he diffuses very many graces, both external and internal, among the reprobate, which it is unjust for them to abuse, and since he wills that an entrance into his Church should likewise be open to them, he is considered, by an antecedent will, to will that all arrive at salvation, because he would will that they not remain obstinate in wickedness, and that they make good use of the helps offered to them; although, on the other hand, by a will of justice, when all the circumstances are considered, he judged it better to leave them to their wickedness, and not to grant efficacious aids, by which alone the depravity of the human heart is overcome.

Hence it is evident that God wills, by an antecedent will, the salvation both of the demons and of reprobate men; nevertheless, in a very different way in the case of men than in that of demons. For since he now offers no helps of grace to demons, nor wills that an entrance into the Church, or the aid of the sacraments, be open to them, consequently neither does he will them to make good use of his grace, which he now grants none to them. But, on the contrary, since men are still on the way, he must be thought, by an antecedent will, to desire for them conversion and a sincere return to himself and a good use of his graces, from which he by no means bars them—none of which he provides toward demons.

That antecedent will, moreover, often seems to have been in Christ, as when he wept over Jerusalem and lamented its coming calamities in these words: “Luke says, ‘He wept over it, saying, If you also had known, and indeed in this your day, the things which are for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes, because days will come upon you, and your enemies will surround you with a rampart,’ etc.”

Thus Christ laments the ruin of his own nation, and in it of all the reprobate, whose image it bore, and nevertheless he plainly consented to the absolute will of the divine decree of predestination, by which they had been separated from that lot of the saints. Nor, indeed, do some inconveniently understand Christ’s words in the garden, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me,” of that human velleity by which he deprecated the damnation of the reprobate set before his mind.

3. From these things it is evident in what sense a conditioned will of the salvation of the reprobate ought to be removed, and in what sense it can be admitted in God and Christ.

For that condition which is customarily brought forward by the Molinists, by which it is said that God desires the salvation of all if they themselves also will it, with some sufficient grace supplied to them which requires nothing in order to act, ought to be entirely cast out, as being wholly unworthy of the efficacy of divine aid, and completely alien from that state in which, as Augustine says, “if the will of man were left to him, so that grace does not work the very willing, amid so many weaknesses of this life the will itself would succumb.”

But a conditioned will of another kind—by which it would be said that God wills all men to be saved if they themselves also will it, not because some versatile grace is supplied to them, but because he would will them to recover from their depravity and hardness and to return to repentance, from which they are hindered not by some external inability, but by their own and culpable perversity—this, I say, account of conditioned will, since it is nothing other than an antecedent will, and, as I think, than the eternal law commanding all things just and forbidding all things unjust, does nothing contrary to divine predestination, nor can it be said to have been denied by Jansenius.

It is also evident from the things said above that Christ can in many ways be said to have died for the salvation of the reprobate, even according to Jansenius.

For it must be noted that “to die for someone” is understood in two ways. Either it signifies to will the salvation of someone, or it signifies to will the means to be conferred for obtaining salvation.

Again, God is said to will someone’s salvation either by an antecedent will or by a consequent, that is, absolute, will. The antecedent will, again, is understood either Molinistically, so that it is the same as that conditioned will which we reject; or Thomistically, so that it is nothing other than that will of God by which God wills whatever is just and equitable to be done, whatever is good in itself and absolutely. We have said that this agrees with that other kind of conditioned will.

These things being established, it is clear that Christ can in many ways be said to have died for the salvation of all men altogether, and especially of the faithful reprobate.

First, he offered a sufficient price for all.

Secondly, in the New Law, God sets forth the sacraments of divine grace, fountains, and, as Prosper says, a certain cup of immortality, for all; and in the Old [Law] he nowhere withheld his aid from those imploring the aid flowing from the future merits of Christ.

Thirdly, by that antecedent will he would will all to aspire to his Church, to depart from sins, and to flee to his mercy.

Fourthly, he has nowhere failed to grant to men certain helps of salvation, sometimes external, sometimes internal, by which, if men make bad use of them, they make bad use of them through their own depravity, and against that antecedent will of God. For because it is unjust for men thus to abuse the benefits of God, therefore God is said not to will this, because he does not will evil. On the other hand, because it is equitable for men to make good use of them, therefore God is said to will this.

Fifthly, and still more properly, [Christ died] for the faithful reprobate, because he gave them a right to eternal salvation through baptism, from which they fall away only through their own fault and guilt.

This one thing, therefore, he granted to none of the reprobate who die in unbelief: that he should turn their wills toward himself by that efficacious grace, without which, on account of the obstinate will of men in evil, nothing is ever done well by them.

This one thing likewise he grants to none of the faithful reprobate: that the efficacious gift of perseverance should be bestowed upon them. And yet he would not deny this very thing to those asking for it; but that they should ask, and should ask in such a way that such a great thing ought to be asked, by a certain hidden judgment he did not will to work in all, although the fact that they do not ask does not arise from a defect of grace, but from their depravity.”

.

.

Historical

On the Post-Reformation

Articles

Heppe, Heinrich – ch. 5, “The Attributes of God”, sect. 28  in Reformed Dogmatics  ed. Ernst Bizer, tr. G.T. Thomson  (1861; repr. Wipf & Stock, 2007), pp. 90-92

Heppe (1820–1879) references or quotes on the topic: Hyperius, Polanus, Voet, Heidegger, Mastricht, Riissen, Maresius and Wendelin.

Muller, Richard – Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: the Rise & Development of Reformed Theology, ca. 1520 – ca. 1725  2nd ed.  (Baker Books, 2003), vol. 3, ch. 5.4

E. The Ad Intra–Ad Extra Distinctions

5. Voluntas absoluta and voluntas conditionata  463
6. Voluntas antecedens and voluntas consequens  465

F. The Ad Extra Distinctions

3. Voluntas efficax and voluntas inefficax  470

.

Quote

Richard Muller

Dictionary of Latin & Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology  1st ed.  (Baker, 1985), voluntas Dei, pp. 332-33

“A second set of distinctions can be made between the voluntas Dei absoluta et antecedens, the absolute and antecedent will, of God and the voluntas Dei ordinata et consequens.  The Lutheran orthodox argue this distinction as a description of the effective will of God ad extra and juxtapose it with the previous distinction between the revelative will of God and the hidden will.

The voluntas absoluta et antecedens, sometimes called voluntas prima, first or primary will, is the eternal divine will in and of itself, according to which the ultimate end or final good is willed by God apart from consideration of conditions, circumstances, and means to be encountered or used proximately in the achievement of the divine purpose.

The voluntas ordinata et consequens, sometimes called voluntas secunda, second or secondary will, is the will of God according to which he orders proximate causes and effects both in terms of the universal order and its laws and in terms of the circumstances that arise out of the contingent events and the creaturely free wills resident in the order.

The voluntas ordinata, therefore, corresponds with the potentia ordinata (q.v.), or ordained power of God, whereas the voluntas consequens is a distinct willing that rests on the divine foreknowledge.

In the systems of Lutheran orthodoxy, the voluntas consequens is the will of God that elects intuitu fidei (q.v.), in view of faith.  The Reformed deny the distinction between voluntas antecedens and voluntas consequens on the ground that it amounts to a denial of the freedom and independence of the divine will and implies contingency in God himself.  They accept, however, the distinction between voluntas absoluta and voluntas ordinata in conjunction with that between potentia absoluta and potentia ordinata, and subsume both voluntas absoluta and voluntas ordinata under the voluntas decreti vel beneplaciti considered as the ultimate voluntas Dei decernens, the deciding will of God.
…

Finally, the Protestant scholastics argue a series of distinctions in the voluntas signi vel praecepti.  The voluntas signi vel praecepti is, first, synonymous with voluntas revelata and voluntas moralis.  As such, several of the Lutheran orthodox argue that the voluntas signi is not truly the will of God but an effect of his will or a subsidiary willing resting on the voluntas antecedens and, formally, on the voluntas consequens.  In other words, it is an effect or object of the divine will that provides a sign of what is willed in and by God.

The voluntas revelata can be distinguished into a voluntas legalis, according to which God demands obedience to his will, and a voluntas evangelica, according to which God wills to save through grace in Christ.  The Reformed occasionally allow here a distinction between voluntas antecedens and voluntas consequens.  The former refers to the commands of God, the voluntas legalis, which ordains the conditions of human life absolutely; the latter refers to the voluntas evangelica, which establishes the conditions under which fallen mankind can be saved.”

.

.

Latin

1600’s

Suarez, Francis – bk. 3, ch. 8, ‘Of the will of sign and good-pleasure, and antecedent and consequent’  in Commentaries & Disputations on the First Part of Thomas the Divine, on God One & Three  (Moguntia: Balthasar, Lippi, 1607), pp. 148-49

Suarez (1548-1617) was a Spanish Jesuit priest, philosopher and theologian, one of the leading figures of the School of Salamanca movement.

Rutherford, Samuel – 14. ‘Whether in God there is an antecedent and consequent will, according to the Arminian sense?  We deny against the Arminians’  in An Examination of Arminianism  (1639-1643; Utrecht, 1668), ch. 2, ‘On God’, Heading 5:  On God’s Will & its Execution, pp. 70-74

Maccovius, Johannes – in A Theological Collection of all that which is Extant, including Theological Theses through Common Places in the Academy of Franeker  (Franeker, 1641), First Part:  a Collection, 1. Of Predestination

4. Whether there may be granted in God to be an antecedent & consequent will?  11
…
8. No Ineffectual Will of God  22

Maccovius (1588-1644)

Hottinger, Johann Jacob – Theological Exercise on an Antecedent & Consequent Will of God (in 2 parts)  in On Predestination & the Saving Grace of God…  to which is added Two Historical-Dogmatic Exercises are appended on 1. the Antecedent & Consequent Will of God, & 2. the Sufficient & Efficacious Grace of God  (Zurich, 1727), pt. 2, pp. 423-66

Hottinger (1652-1735) was a reformed, Swiss theologian, a professor of theology at Zurich, and the son of J. H. Hottinger (1620-1667).

.

1700’s

Holtzfus, Barthold – Theses 8-9, ‘On Antecedent & Consequent’  in ch. 8, ‘Of the Will of God & of the Distinctions of the Divine Will’  in A Theological Tract on God, Attributes and the Divine Decrees, Three Academic Dissertations  (1707), pp. 109-122

.

.

.

Related Pages

On the Will of God

On Predestination & the Decrees of God

Revealed Will vs. Will of Decree

On God’s Signified Will, or Will of Sign

Gospel Call as God’s Desire, Wish & Pleasure

Revealed Will Being God’s Will, Desire, Pleasure & Wish

Affections of God

Reformed vs. Aquinas on Revelation

On Calling

Is an Aspect of God’s Will Ineffectual?

Compatibility of Irresistible & Resistible Grace

On Revealed or Supernatural Theology