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Order of Contents
In the Reformed 2
In Romanism 2
Arminianism 1
Amyrauldianism 1
Historical 7
Latin 3
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Articles
Search also our Metaphysics page for “concur”.
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1500’s
Calvin, John & Theodore Beza – ‘Calvin & Beza on Providence: Translations by Knox’ trans. John Knox (1545, 1558, 1560; 2021)
These two valuable pieces on Providence by Calvin and Beza, though previously available in English, have lain in obscurity, so much so that most people likely do not know that they exist. They originally appeared, translated by John Knox from the French and Latin respectively, in the midst of Knox’s massive treatise on predestination. That treatise remains in old English, which is old enough and difficult enough that to many it is unreadable.
The Libertines, having such a high view of God’s eternal decree, held to what is known in philosophy as a form of Occasionalism, that all events that occur are directly and immediately worked by God. True secondary causation is eliminated. One main problem with this is that it makes God the Author of Sin, something that the Libertines expressly affirmed. Calvin here not only repudiates this blasphemy, but he also lays out three ways (and only three ways) in which God brings all things to pass through his providence, herein establishing true secondary causation.
Beza provides 29 propositions on providence from his work against Sebastian Castellio, touching upon similar themes as Calvin. Both Calvin and Beza’s pieces, while making some basic distinctions, expound the Lord’s providence in a way that is easy to grasp with illustrations from Scripture and human life.
Ursinus, Zachary – 2nd Sophism: ‘Of the Cause of Sin’ in The Sum of Christian Religion: Delivered… in his Lectures upon the Catechism… tr. Henrie Parrie (Oxford, 1587), Of God’s Providence, 2. What the Providence of God is, pp. 409-15
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1600’s
Rutherford, Samuel
Examination of Arminianism tr. by AI by Onku (1639-1642; 1668)
“Does God have sufficient dominion over free acts, because He created the will, [and only] conserves it, gives it power, and cooperates with it; and therefore has dominion over the will, because He gave the will absolute dominion, and the free and absolute power of dominating from the predetermination of God over free acts? [Jesuits affirm; We deny]”, pp. 143-45
“Does God concur to the entitative acts of sin by an indifferent, universal, and determinable concourse by the second cause, so that it is not from God, but from the second cause that the effect of the will is good or evil, forbidden or commanded? [Jesuits and Arminians affirm; We deny]”, pp. 156-57
“Does God predetermine second causes to all their actions? [Jesuits and Arminians deny; We affirm]”, p. 157
“Because God predetermines the will to the material acts of sin, is He therefore the author of sin? [Jesuits and Arminians claim this; We deny]”, pp. 157-58
“Is God therefore not the cause of the thing caused, namely, of the malice, although He is the cause of the cause (namely) of the act, because God concurs to the act by a universal and indifferent concourse, and the concourse of God is not the cause why the act is supernatural and good rather than an act forbidden by the Law of God? [Jesuits and Arminians affirm; We distinguish]”, p. 158
Christ Dying & Drawing Sinners to Himself… (London: 1647)
Assertion 5, ‘The Grace of God and our Free-Will in a fourfold sense may be said to concur in the same works of grace’, pp. 468-71
The first sense is that of Pelagians, the second, of Bellarmine, Jesuits and Arminians, the third, of Antinomians, the fourth of the Reformed.
Assertion 7, pp. 478-92
Ward, Samuel – ‘The Concurrence of God does not take away the Proper Mode of Operating from Things’ in Theological Determinations in Works of Samuel Ward… ed. Seth Ward (d. 1643; Gallibrand, 1658), pp. 153-61
Ward (1572–1643) was an English academic and a master at the University of Cambridge. He served as one of the delegates from the Church of England to the Synod of Dort and was a correspondent of John Davenant.
Ward argues here against the Jesuits and Arminians, and affirms divine, physical, predetermination, without using the term. This is a good discussion.
Simonis, Johann – The Influx of God into Secondary Causes trans. AI by Nosferatu (Frankfurt: Ernest, 1662) 30 pp. Latin
Simonis (1635-1698) is listed at PRDL as Refomed, but with the note that his tradition is “uncertain”. He was a professor of logic, metaphysics and theology at Frankfurt, Germany.
Gale, Theophilus – §9, pp. 26-49 of sect. 2, ‘On Physical Liberty’ tr. by AI by Nosferatu 63 pp. in General Philosophy in Two Parts... (London: 1676), pt. 1, bk. 3, ch. 3, pp. 440-508 Latin
Gale (1628–1678) was an English educationalist, nonconformist and a reformed philosopher in the Platonic tradition.
Le Blanc de Beaulieu, Louis – Theological Theses Published at Various Times in the Academy of Sedan 3rd ed. tr. by AI by Colloquia Scholastica (1675; London, 1683) Latin
Divine Concurrence & Cooperation with the Human Will’s Freedom can be Reconciled 599-611
…
Various Distinctions & Acceptances of ‘Grace’ 695
. pt. 2, Reformed Schools 709
. pt. 3 Roman School: Sufficient & Efficacious; Harmony of human liberty with the efficacy of grace 718
. pt. 4, Protestants: Sufficient & Efficacious; Harmony of human liberty with the efficacy of grace 750-56
Turretin, Francis – Institutes of Elenctic Theology, tr. George M. Giger, ed. James Dennison Jr. (1679–1685; P&R, 1992), vol. 1, 6th Topic
4. ‘Is providence occupied only in the conservation and sustentation of things; or also in their government (through which God Himself acts and efficaciously concurs with them by a concourse not general and indifferent, but particular, specific and immediate)? We deny the former and affirm the latter, against the Jesuits, Socinians and Remonstrants.’ 501
5. ‘Does God concur with second causes not only by a particular and simultaneous, but also by a previous concourse? We affirm.’ 505
6. ‘How can the concourse of God be reconciled with the contingency and liberty of second causes—especially of the will of man.’ 511
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1700’s
Venema, Herman – pp. 403-15 in Translation of Hermann Venema’s inedited Institutes of Theology tr. Alexander W. Brown (d. 1787; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1850), ch. 25, Providence of God
Venema (1697-1787) was a professor at Franeker. Venema “maintained the fundamental line of confessional orthodoxy without drawing heavily on any of the newer philosophies… and maintained a fairly centrist Reformed position. Venema… evidence[s] the inroads of a rationalistic model…” – Richard Muller
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2000’s
Feser, Edward – ‘Conservation & Concurrence’ in Five Proofs of the Existence of God (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2017), ch. 6, ‘God & the World’, pp. 232-38
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Book
1700’s
La Placette, Jean – La Placette vs. Naude on Premotion, Concurrence & Decrees trans. from French by AI (Amsterdam: 1707 ff.) 700 pp.
La Placette (1639-1718) was a French reformed minister who also served in Copenhagen, Denmark (1686-1710) after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. La Placette is very much against Divine Premotion.
Phillippe Naude the Elder (1654-1729) was a mathematician and a member of the Royal Society of Berlin who wrote on theology. Naude briefly and very moderately defends “Predeterminants” (e.g. p. 521).
This document contains five treatises. The first three are by La Placette. They are:
Response to Two Objections which are opposed from Reason to what Faith teaches us about the Origin of Evil and about the Mystery of the Trinity (1707) French 13
Response to an Objection applied to various subjects, and which tends to show that if God has resolved events, one may neglect the cares that appear most necessary, with an Addition, where the Dogma of Physical Premotion is examined (1709) French 154
Appendix: Examination of the Dogma of Physical Premotion 263-318
Clarifications on some Difficulties that arise from the consideration of Freedom Necessary to act Morally, with an Addition, where it is proven against Spinoza that we are Free (1709) French 318
Then follows Naude’s Examination of Two Treatises newly Published by Mr. La Placette (p. 447 ff.). Then follows La Placette’s New Collection of Objections that have still been made against my Treatise on the Sovereign Perfection of God (p. 550 ff.) French. La Placette had an original first volume on this topic, which has not been found.
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Quotes
Order of
Rutherford
Gillespie
Spanheim
Nethenus
Baxter
Feser
Carini
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1600’s
Samuel Rutherford
Examination of Arminianism tr. by AI by Onku (1639-1642; 1668)
ch. 2, On God, Title 5, Will of God, on Lk. 21:18, “But not a hair of your head will perish.”, pp. 140-41
“It is asked: Does fortune reign, according to the Arminians? They deny it; we prove that
fortune dominates in everything, according to them.
…
5. Because Prov. 16:33: “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from Jehovah.” But that is false, for the decision of the lot, and its determination, so that it be white rather than black, is either from the hand apprehending the lot, or from the lots themselves, or from God, or from fortune.
Not from the hand, because the bare contact is of itself blind, nor is it directed by any light or instinct, so that it apprehends this lot rather than that one. Not from the lots themselves, because the whole question is about the lots; for they are of themselves determinable and indifferent.
Nor is the decision from God, because the adversaries deny that God determines second contingent causes; and they teach that He concurs with them by a universal concourse indifferent and determinable, from which neither is the apprehension of the white lot, rather than the black. Therefore, it is from fortune alone, or from mere and absolute contingency, by which contingent causes, loosed from all predetermining action of God, and notwithstanding all action of God, can act or not act; and this certainly is a cause superior to God, which is not ruled by God, and is blind fortune itself. Because if it is fortune, it is not providence; and if it is providence, it is not fortune.”
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ch. 5, State of the First Man.
“Is not God made the author of the first sin, if man sinned for this reason, because God denied him, apart from his own fault, the grace necessary for avoiding the first sin?”, pp. 199-200
“[We say no:] 3. Because God denied this effectual influence to Adam not willing to have it; and therefore there was here a virtual and interpretative demerit of Adam, although not formal–because in the same instant of time in which God denied this actual influence, Adam freely willed to lack it, and by this very fact, that he sinned the first sin, he interpretatively willed to lack that predetermining grace, which if he had had, he would have devoutly avoided the first sin.
Nor do we deem it absurd for the lack of predetermining grace, and the culpable demerit of that lack, to coexist at the same time, although the lack is prior in the order of nature to the demerit–which I acknowledge to be a mystery of our theology not to be scrutinized.”
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ch. 7, State of Fallen Man, p. 222
“7. Because the opponents deny predetermining grace to good acts, and subject habitual grace to the nod and motion of the created will, so that the will by nature influences the good work prior to divine grace. Hence, if God is moved to give grace on account of previous dispositions, then conversion will begin from the endeavor, influence and natural motion of free will. But on the contrary, God begins the good work in us, Phil. 1:6. Neither man, nor angel, first gives something to God, Rom. 11:33-34.”
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ch. 11, On the Mode of Conversion, pp. 303-4
“It is asked: Whether because God indeclinably determines the will to one thing, He therefore overturns liberty? The Remonstrants affirm. We deny.
1. Because God infinitely wise and omnipotent does not overturn the nature of second
causes, except in the case of the miraculous transmutation of substances; as when He
converted water into wine and the staff of Moses into a serpent. But conversion is not such a miraculous transmutation of substances; But of qualities of the same substance remaining in its nature.
2. Because God so moves the free will that it most freely moves itself to the same thing to which it is premoved by God.
3. Because if certain created infallibilizing motives infallibly bend the will, with liberty remaining unharmed, much more can the Creator of wills Himself accomplish this.”
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ch. 13, on Rom. 7:17, p. 380
“It is asked, do the Remonstrants rightly ascribe to us that God forsakes us before we forsake Him? I respond: Calumniously. For if the discussion is about desertion by way of merit, we forsake God first:
1. Because the merit of sin precedes punishment.
2. Because God, punishing antecedent sins by subsequent ones, punishes by forsaking sinners.
But if the discussion is about desertion purely negative and not culpable, by which God denies predetermining grace, which he owes to no one; then God forsakes us before we forsake Him:
1. Because God withdrew from Adam predetermining grace (or as Calvin calls it in his Response to the Calumnies of a Certain Worthless Fellow, p. 1016, ‘fortitude and constancy’), which, if given, he would have stood.
2. Because grace would not be grace, if it depended on the nod of free will.”
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Lex Rex... (1644; Edinburgh: Ogle, 1843)
“All the acts necessary for war-making are, in an eminent manner, ascribed to God, as (1) The Lord fights for his own people. (2) The Lord scattered the enemies. (3) The Lord slew Og, king of Bashan. (4) The battle is the Lord’s. (5) The victory [is] the Lord’s; therefore Israel never fought a battle. So Deut. 32[:10], The Lord alone led his people — the Lord led them in the wilderness — their bow and their sword gave them not the land. God wrought all their works for them (Isa. 26:12), therefore Moses led them not; therefore the people went not on their own legs through the wilderness; therefore the people never shot an arrow, never drew a sword. It follows not.
God did all these as the first, eminent, principal and efficacious pre-determinator of the creature (though this Arminian and popish prelate [John Maxwell] mind not so to honour God).”
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“…for as no power given to man to murder his brother is of God, so no power to suffer his brother to be murdered is of God; and no power to suffer himself, a fortiori, far less can be from God. Here I speak not of physical power, for if free will be the creature of God, a physical power to acts which, in relation to God’s law, are sinful, must be from God.”
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George Gillespie
Works, vol. 2, Treatise of Miscellany Questions, ch. 12, p. 64
“…and what is that scientia media [middle knowledge] which the Jesuits glory of as a new light, but the very old error of natural men, which looks upon things contingent as not decreed and determined by the will of God?”
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Friedrich Spanheim the Elder
‘Miscellaneous Theological Disputation exhibiting a Theological Compendium’ in Disputationum Theologicarum Miscellaneorum Pars Prima (d. 1649; Geneva: Chouët, 1652), trans. AI by Roman Prestarri at Confessionally Reformed Theology
“23. To imagine God either without providence, or with general only, not special, indeed also singular, concerning any entities whatsoever and any acts of entities, is impious and hurls God from his throne.
24. But this providence is either effective of all good, or permissive and directive of evil, nor idle concerning evil but efficacious, although not efficient.
25. Whence those who strive to ascribe to God the efficiency of evil reduplicatively as such to orthodox [Reformed] Churches, do what they do from mere either ignorance or malice, since they constantly teach that God can be neither the physical nor the ethical cause of ethical evil as such.
26. To imagine God also without predestination is both to detract the eternal direction of all things from God, and to establish an uncertain end of the creation of men, and to make primary causes from secondary, and to constitute man the craftsman and architect of his own salvation.
27. Yet the orthodox doctrine of the Reformed Churches concerning predestination neither removes the guilt of the fall from man, nor imputes it to God, nor establishes a necessity of the fall incompossible with the freedom of the one falling or fallen. Nor have those who oppose necessity in every way to freedom well-perceived the nature either of necessity or of freedom.”
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Disputationum Theologicarum Miscellaneorum Pars Prima (d. 1649; Geneva: Chouët, 1652), ‘Miscellaneous Theological Disputation’, trans. AI by Roman Prestarri at Confessionally Reformed Theology Latin
“16. God’s providence extensively is occupied concerning all both entities and acts of entities, and intensively is partly effective, partly permissive, partly directive.”
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Matthias Nethenus
Preface in Samuel Rutherford, Examination of Arminianism tr. by AI by Onku (1639-1642; 1668), p. 33
“Because God works in them both to will and to do, according to his good pleasure, Phil. 2:12,13, not only by some moral persuasion, as those Pelagianizing here attribute an equal operation in man to the Devil with God; but also by the real and hyper-physical power of his Spirit, and the concourse of grace determining; indeed also predetermining, and thus also leading the gifts granted to us into act. But will not the eternal and such great grace, condescension, love, and mercy of God towards us miserable sinners excite us in turn to love, revere, worship and observe him, in whose communion all our happiness consists?”
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Richard Baxter
Catholic Theology (London: White, 1675), sect. 10, ‘Of Natural & Moral Power as Foreseen’, pp. 37-38
“206. Human (and all created) power is dependent, and is not properly a power to do anything, but on supposition of God’s emanant support and concurse, as He is the first Cause of Nature.
…
212. It is no true power ad hoc [to this], which is put to overcome a greater opposing power. We never had power to overcome God, or to act against his pre-moving pre-determination (as Bradwardine truly says).”
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2000’s
Edward Feser
Neo-Scholastic Essays (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2015), ch. 4, ‘Natural Theology Must Be Grounded in the Philosophy of Nature, Not in Natural Science’, pp. 76-77
“…consider the three main approaches in the history of theology to understanding God’s causal relationship to the world, as Alfred Freddoso has usefully classified them.
Occasionalism holds that God alone is the cause of everything that happens, so that there are no true secondary causes in nature. For example, on this view, one billiard ball which makes contact with another during a game of pool does not in any way cause the other to move. Rather, God causes the second ball to move on the occasion when the first makes contact with it.
Mere conservationism holds that while God maintains natural objects and their causal powers in existence at every moment, they alone are the immediate causes of their effects. On this view, the one billiard ball really does cause the other one to move, and God has nothing to do with it other than keeping the ball and its causal powers in being. He is not in any direct way the cause of the second ball’s motion.
Finally, concurrentism is a middle ground position which holds on the one hand (and contrary to occasionalism) that natural objects are true causes, but on the other hand (and contrary to mere conservationism) that God not only maintains natural objects and their causal powers in being, but also cooperates with them in immediately causing their effects. On this view, the one billiard ball really does cause the other ball to move, but only together with God, Who acts as a concurrent cause.
Concurrentism became the standard view within the Scholastic tradition, because the other views are philosophically and theologically problematic. For example, occasionalism veers in the direction of pantheism, while mere conservationism veers in the direction of deism. We can understand how if we recall the Scholastic dictum that “a thing operates according as it is” If, as occasionalism holds, only God alone ever operates or brings about effects, and natural objects operate not at all, then it is difficult to see how they exist at all, at least in any robust way. God alone would seem to be real; natural objects would be like mere fictional characters in the mind of a divine Author.
By contrast, if, as mere conservationism holds, natural objects can at least operate or bring about effects apart from God’s immediate causal action, then it seems that they could also exist apart from his immediate causal action. The world would in that case not depend for its continued existence on God’s conserving action.”
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Joel Carini
“Consider causality. Here are four philosophical positions you could hold:
Only God has causal power. (Occasionalism)
Nothing has causal power, things just happen to move in certain ways onto which the mind projects generalizations. (Humeanism)
Secondary causality exists; things other than God have causal power. (Thomism)
Finite things have causal power; drop the bit about God. (Secular Aristotelianism)
From a presuppositionalist perspective, one will think that, while the wisdom of this age led modern philosophers to these four positions, the Christian thinker can find a fifth. But the problem is there aren’t any other options.
And, I’ve watched presuppositionalists try to solve this one. They almost always cite favorably David Hume’s skepticism about causality. Then they proceed to occasionalism, joining arms together with Medieval Islamic philosopher Al-Ghazali, and modern (Christian) philosophers Malebranche, Berkeley, and Leibniz.
However, in my view, the idea that things have causal power (3 & 4) is the superior view of causality, for a number of reasons… This position is simply better able to explain the world around us. The other positions are worse, or even absurd. (Imagine thinking that fire does not have the power to burn wood. God just jigs it up to look that way.)
Presuppositionalism does not result in avoiding philosophy. It results in unstudied, tendentious philosophical conclusions.”
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On Divine Concursus with Secondary Causation in the Reformed
Quotes
Order of
Le Blanc
La Placette
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1600’s
Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu
Theological Theses published at Various Times in the Academy of Sedan, vol. 1 3rd ed. tr. by AI by Colloquia Scholastica at Discord (1675; London, 1683), ‘How Divine Concurrence can be Reconciled with Free Will’, pp. 344-50 Latin Le Blanc (1614-1675) was a French reformed professor of theology at Sedan.
“XXXIII. As for the Reformed theologians known as Remonstrants or Arminians in Belgium, they recognize no other divine concurrence with secondary causes than that general and indifferent one, which is determined by the concurrence of the secondary cause…
XXXIV. Some of the Reformed theologians who subscribed to the Synod of Dordrecht [1618-1619] also seem to share the same view with the Molinists and Remonstrants in this matter. They acknowledge no other divine concurrence with secondary causes than a simultaneous and indifferent one, whereby God does not influence the cause itself but acts together with it in its effects and actions, which do not determine the secondary cause to this or that specific kind of action but are variably modified by the nature or even the liberty of the secondary cause.
XXXV. This is certainly the opinion of Robert Baron, a Scotsman who, during his lifetime, was a professor of theology at the University of Aberdeen. This can be seen in his Metaphysics adapted to the use of Theology, where he discusses the divine concurrence and its harmony with our free will. He professes to hold the same view as Fonseca and Suarez, namely, that this concurrence is indifferent in itself and is determined by the secondary cause to a specific type of action. He asserts that there is no need for God to premove secondary causes but that it suffices for Him to influence their effects and actions simultaneously with them. Therefore, the divine concurrence and influence are really nothing other than the action of the secondary cause insofar as it receives its being from the first cause and depends on it (sect. 8, disp. 3, “On the Concurrence or Cooperation of God”).
XXXVI. John Strangius, also a Scotsman and professor at the University of Glasgow, seems to be not far from this opinion. Although he considers that the action to which God and the creature simultaneously concur is by nature prior from God than from the creature, and that God’s influence on that action is by nature prior to the creature’s influence, he denies that God concurs only with a general influence, as He concurs in the same way with the generation of a human and a horse. He asserts that God’s influence is special for special effects, not morally but physically. He contends and proves, with many arguments, that for all and each of the actions of creatures, the pre-motion and pre-determination of God, as defended by the Thomistic school, are not necessary (Of the Will and Actions of God around Sin, bk. 2, ch. 3).
XXXVII. By pre-motion and pre-determination, he means the action of God by which He excites and applies the secondary cause to act. Hence, prior in nature and reason to the creature’s operation, He moves it really and effectively to all its actions, making the creature
act and do whatever it does. Thus, without this pre-motion of God, the creature can do nothing at all, and once it is given, it is impossible in a composite sense for the secondary cause not to do what it is pre-moved to by the first cause. He acknowledges this pre-motion
and pre-determination of God for the works of grace and many other operations of the will whenever it pleases and is necessary. However, he denies that it pertains to the general concurrence of God or is universally applied to all actions of creatures, especially those necessarily accompanied by sin (bk. 1, ch. 4, sub finem).
XXXVIII. He testifies that he is mainly moved to this view because he considers that if God necessarily determines devils and wicked humans to all sinful actions, it follows that our sins could justly be imputed to God. This is also the reason Robert Baron mentioned above felt greatly compelled.
XXXIX. Moreover, both believe that this pre-determination should be rejected because it offends the freedom of the will and seems irreconcilable with it. Strangius, however, distinguishes between liberty broadly accepted, which is essential to the will and found in every act that is spontaneous and rational, and liberty in a stricter sense, which consists in a certain indifference of the agent and pertains to the will concerning most of its acts. According to him, the former liberty is not overturned by divine pre-motion and predetermination, by which God gently moves humans as is fitting for an intelligent creature. However, it cannot coexist with the latter liberty, which is based on indifference and with which any preceding determination, not in the will’s power, conflicts. How the simultaneous concurrence of God, which is always available to the created will, does not harm that liberty has been explained above. These theologians do not reconcile it with the strictly defined liberty of the will any differently than the doctors of the Roman school (Strangius, On the Will of God around Sin, bk. 2, ch. 8).
XL. However, many Reformed theologians agree with the Thomistic school that God not only concurs and cooperates with each act of creatures simultaneously but also pre-moves and pre-determines creatures to these and those acts effectively. This applies to both necessary and free causes and to both good and evil acts, although God does not move or pre-determine to the malice and wickedness of the act but only to what is positive and naturally good in it. Just as, according to their view, the secondary cause can do nothing and act without such pre-determination, so also, once it is given, it is impossible for it not to act and operate.
XLI. William Ames acknowledges that such pre-motion and pre-determination of secondary causes, especially human will, must be admitted. Otherwise, in his judgment, the subordination of the first cause and secondary causes in their operations would be abolished. All operations of the human will would be removed from the dominion, providence and effective governance of God. Man would be not a subject but a partner of God. Indeed, God would depend on the nod of man even in matters of the greatest importance in the administration of the entire world. Man would not say, “If God wills, I will do this or that,” but rather God would have to say, “If man wills, I will do this or that” (in Bellarmine Enervated, vol. 4, bk. 4, ch. 2).
XLII. Samuel Rutherford, a Scot, and professor of theology at St. Andrews University a few years ago, holds the same view. He refutes with many arguments the concept of God’s general and indifferent concurrence, which is determined by the concurrence of the secondary cause, as a fabrication and impious. In his view, such concurrence is injurious to God because it takes away God’s freedom in deciding and introduces an abhorrent dependence of God on the fickle will of His creature. It presupposes that God is determined by the creature and not vice versa. Furthermore, it nullifies the use of prayers in which we ask God to bend our hearts and those of others as our salvation requires, since this cannot be done without an operation by which God determines human wills. For the same reason, it would be pointless to give thanks to God for goods procured through free agents. Nor would the riches that come to humans through free acts of commerce be from God. Finally, it would deny the particular providence of God, which Scripture often commends (Of Divine Providence, ch. 25).
XLIII. In his Apologetic Exercises on Divine Grace, he asserts that God, in all acts of both nature and grace, determines the will through a truly real impulse in the manner of a physical cause. He adds that the main question is not whether this pre-determination should be called physical but whether God determines free acts in such a way that the will cannot be moved without being moved by it. He argues from Scripture that the necessity of the will is caused by God’s motion, by which it is inevitably moved. If someone concedes this, he says he is ready to abandon the term “physical pre-determination,” even though God determines the will in the manner of a physical cause (Exercit. 3, ch. 1).
XLIV. The English theologian [Ames] distinguished God’s concurrence from his predetermination, although he considers both necessary for all actions of the creature. He acknowledges that concurrence is simultaneous in nature and time with the creature’s operation but insists that a prior motion in the will itself is also necessary. “We admit,” he says:
“a simultaneous concurrence in nature and time with the act; but we say that this concurrence includes a prior motion in the will itself, not in time but in nature” (Vindication, bk. 2, pt. 3).
In the same book, he rejects the Jesuit’s concept of indifferent and undetermined concurrence with these words: “I indeed consider that concurrence is as evidently wrongly established as the noonday sun shines.”
XLV. From the reasons given by Ames and Rutherford, it is clear that they primarily want to deny and abhor as a major error the idea that God’s operation and efficacy concerning the creature is merely a concurrence that is indifferent and indefinite in itself. Certainly, not all who assert a general concurrence of God necessary for each act of creatures intend to affirm that it is indifferent in itself and variously determined by secondary causes. Besides this general concurrence of God, they acknowledge a great force and efficacy of divine providence in procuring, promoting, moderating, and directing various events, especially concerning human wills and the acts freely elicited by them, as Strangius diligently notes in many places.
XLVI. As for reconciling this pre-determining concurrence with the liberty of the will, according to Ames, it must be said with Diego Alvarez that the pre-determination of God does not prevent the will from acting freely, since it indeed ensures that the will acts certainly and infallibly, but it does not take away the power to act otherwise. Similarly, Twisse says that God moves the human wills to act in such a way that whatever is done is done in accordance with their free condition. Hence, at the very moment they act, they can choose not to act, namely in a divided sense. For in a composite sense, it is utterly impossible.
XLVII. According to Rutherford, liberty involves a twofold indifference: one objective, when the intellect proposes to the will something eligible as a means to the supreme good that is not absolutely necessary, and another internal, vital, elective, whereby the will can choose to will or not will, preserving both the essence of liberty and its natural mode of action. Neither indifference is prejudiced by God’s pre-determination:
Not the objective, because it does not prevent the intellect from proposing an eligible object to the will as suitable for achieving an end but not necessarily connected to it.
Nor the internal, because even when God determines the will to choose this or that, He does not prevent it from having the natural power to choose otherwise.
Finally, all these theologians agree that God’s pre-motion and pre-determination indeed impose a certain necessity on the acts of the will, but only a hypothetical necessity, which does not conflict with liberty, as only necessity from external force or natural determination does.
XLVIII. There are also some Reformed theologians who appear to share the same view with Durandus and Ludovicus à Dola of the Roman School concerning God’s general concurrence necessary for all acts of creatures. The distinguished Moses Amyraldus does not seem to acknowledge any other general concurrence of God…
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LIV. Pareus’ view is not much different [than that of Joshua Placeus]. He condemns the temerity of scholastic doctors who raise and determine various questions about God’s concurrence. “Because,” he says:
“they have dared to investigate and define with reckless curiosity what cannot be known and explained sufficiently.”
He judges the opinion of [the Romanist] Cajetan, who seems to find the concord of free will with divine providence inexplicable and unintelligible in this life, to be the safest because the judgments of God are inscrutable, and His ways unsearchable. In general, he wants this to be held as certain: the human will is governed by the nod of God and inclined where He wills. To reconcile this with our liberty, he says that something is not free if it is governed by another without its own deliberation and choice. But that which God governs by presenting an object to the intellect and effectively moving and influencing the will to choose this or that spontaneously is nonetheless freely chosen, even if inclined by the nod of God to where He wills. He compares it to a beginner learning to write letters freely, though his hand is guided by a tutor. He adds and often repeats that God indeed determines the human will by His concurrence but not by a physical, brute, or violent determination, but by a spontaneous one, joined with its own judgment and choice (Animadversions on the 4th Book of Bellarmine on Free Choice, ch. 14).
LV. As for me, I greatly commend the modesty of these learned men. It seems to me reckless and overly bold to definitively determine the mode of divine concurrence by which the first cause cooperates with secondary causes when our limited understanding cannot penetrate and scrutinize the abyss of divine power and wisdom. Nor is this matter sufficiently grasped by reason or clearly revealed in Holy Scripture.
LVI. Above all, I cannot perceive how it can be stated that God physically pre-moves and pre-determines free causes to acts that are intrinsically evil without making God the author of sin. For who can grasp, for example, that God, by some prior influence on every movement of the human will, imposed a necessity on the first man to desire the forbidden fruit and to eat it, or that He daily pre-determines men to blaspheme and hate Him, yet the guilt inseparably connected with these acts is not to be attributed to God Himself?
LVII. But as long as God is not considered the author of sin, I agree with the very learned Placeus that the dependence of secondary causes on the first cause in their actions cannot be stated to be too great. And it seems most probable to me, according to the common opinion of the schools, that God immediately concurs in all and each act of creatures.
LVIII. Above all, I am most certain of this, which I think all theologians would agree with: the power and efficacy of divine providence, even concerning evil acts, should not be restricted to a general and indifferent concurrence. Instead, God, in His infinite wisdom, procures, promotes, directs, and moderates various events, even those involving human wickedness, in many ways known to Him.
LIX. It is equally certain to me that, however God acts and operates in free causes, He always acts in accordance with their nature and does not prejudice their liberty in any way. Therefore, when He effectively moves human wills to this or that act, He does not take away their power to act otherwise.”
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1700’s
Jean La Placette
La Placette vs. Naude on Premotion, Concurrence & Decrees trans. from French by AI (Amsterdam: 1707 ff.), pp. 265-66 La Placette (1639-1718) was a French reformed minister who was against divine premotion.
“It would be to be wished that this contestation had not gone out of the schools of the Roman Communion, where it [the teaching of divine premotion] took birth. But by a misfortune that one could not deplore enough, it has passed even into ours, although with some difference. In effect in the Roman Church there is no one who has not taken sides on this, while in ours few writers have paid attention to this dispute, of which the matter is in effect quite metaphysical. When one reads the works of most of our theologians one has much difficulty perceiving that they have even heard speaking of it.
The others [of the Reformed], to whom this contestation has not been unknown, have divided themselves on this. Most have declared themselves for premotion. This is what have done among the supralapsarians Piscator, Maccovius, Voet, Twisse, Rutherford and others, and among the infralapsarians Rivet, Maresius, Turrettin, etc.
Several have said things quite opposed to this sentiment, like Junius, Pareus, the theologians of England deputies to the Synod of Dort, H. Alting, P. Ferri, M. Amyraut, M. Morus, etc.
Some have explained themselves more clearly, and have positively rejected this dogma, like four of our philosophers, Gockenius, Rutgersius, Jacchæus and Burgersdijk. Some even have refuted it amply and solidly, like Robert Baron, Strangius, Baxter, Heidegger and M. Holsius.
That alone makes it clear that it is more or less the same with the Roman Church as with ours, at least in this regard, that in one and in the other premotion has adversaries and partisans, from which one can conclude what is the injustice of the reproaches that the missionaries make to us on this in such an insulting manner. For finally if it is wrong for us to suffer the Predeterminants in our communion, by what right do the Pope and his councils suffer them in theirs?”
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On Divine Concursus with Secondary Causation in Romanism
Order of
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In Romanism Generally
Books
Stucco, Guido –
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Quote
1600’s
Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu
Theological Theses published at Various Times in the Academy of Sedan, vol. 1 3rd ed. tr. by AI by Colloquia Scholastica at Discord (1675; London, 1683), ‘How Divine Concurrence can be Reconciled with Free Will’, pp. 338-39 Latin Le Blanc (1614-1675) was a French reformed professor of theology at Sedan.
“I. Durandus [d.1334], a celebrated figure among ancient Scholastic theologians, believed and taught that God concurs with secondary causes remotely and mediately only; namely, because He gave all things their own nature and essence and conferred upon them the power to act, and continuously preserves both by his power: with the condition that each creature, having once received its power from God and continuously preserved, performs its own motions independently without God immediately and directly influencing their acts and effects. From this follows that God is only a remote cause of the acts of creatures, while the creature itself is the proximate and immediate cause.
II. Among more recent theologians, a certain Louis of Dole from the Capuchin order, whose book was published with many approvals from doctors, aligns with Durandus’ view. He says that for God to concur with man in action is nothing other than creating free will for natural acts or giving the power or habit of acting in supernatural ones, by which the will itself does everything in every supernatural act without any other immediate divine concurrence promoting the action, as reported by Samuel Rutherford, professor of theology at the University of St. Andrews, in his Scholastic Disputation on Divine Providence, ch. 25.
III. According to these doctors, there is no difficulty in reconciling divine concurrence with the freedom of human acts since God does not immediately concur with them but mediately only through the free will that He created once and continuously preserves.
IV. However, this opinion is generally rejected in the Roman School. Except for very few, the doctors of the Roman Church, both ancient and recent, agree that God cooperates with secondary causes in such a way that there is no action of a secondary cause that does not proceed directly from God as well as from the secondary cause, and that no action can be exercised by a creature unless God confers being on that action directly and immediately.
V. They derive this from certain Scripture passages. The principal one is found in Acts 17:28: “In Him we live and move and have our being.” For when the apostle says that we live in God, that is, by Him, and have our being, he sufficiently teaches that God is the one who gave us our nature and all faculties initially and continuously preserves them; therefore, when he adds that we also move in God, he seems to clearly teach that all our movements and actions, like nature itself, proceed immediately from God and are done by His power.
VI. They also refer to what Christ says in Jn. 5:17: “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” For that continuous operation attributed to God there cannot be more conveniently explained than by the continuous influence by which God concurs in all actions of created things and produces them together with them; especially since it is clear that Christ understands there an operation similar to what He had just performed in healing the lame man.
VII. They also infer this from all those places where Scripture singularly attributes to God things that are done daily in nature through secondary causes. For example, when it is said in Ps. 104 that God waters the mountains from His upper chambers, makes grass grow for the cattle and plants for people to use, and in Ps. 135 that He brings forth the wind from His storehouses, and in the New Testament that He clothes the grass of the field and gives each seed its own body, Mt. 6:30, 1 Cor. 15:38. It seems that Scripture would not have used such language if in these matters no singular and immediate action of God intervened and they had no other proximate and immediate cause than nature itself created by God.
VIII. To these testimonies from sacred Scripture, they also add an argument derived from natural reason. For they reason that no created substance can remain in nature unless God preserves them immediately by His influence; much more, therefore, similar influence is needed for the motions and actions of substances: for how could it be true that accidents depend less on God for their preservation than substances themselves? Since what is necessary for the preservation of a thing is more reasonably necessary for its first production, it follows that nothing at all can be produced by secondary causes unless the actual and immediate influence of the primary cause intervenes simultaneously.
IX. From these and similar reasons, the doctors of the Roman Church conclude almost unanimously that God concurs and cooperates with all secondary causes, whether necessary, free, or contingent, in each of their actions, and indeed directly and immediately. However, when asked what this cooperation of the primary cause with the secondary cause is and in what it consists, there is great variety of opinions among scholastic doctors.
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XXVI. But the majority of the doctors of the Roman Church today reject that opinion [of physical predetermination of the Thomists] and assert that the pre-moving and predetermining influence of God on the human will to its individual acts completely undermines the freedom of human choice. Furthermore, they argue that it follows that God is the author of sin since, according to this view, He predetermines people even to intrinsically evil acts and imposes a certain necessity of doing evil upon them.
XXVII. Therefore, they philosophize very differently about the concurrence of God. First, they establish that when God concurs and cooperates with secondary causes, He does not do anything or imprint on the faculty itself that acts, for example, on our will. Instead, He only immediately influences and acts on the action and effect of the secondary cause, producing it at the very moment it is produced by the secondary cause.
XXVIII. Then they consequently teach that the action of the first cause concurring with the secondary cause is not an action really distinct from the action of the secondary cause but the same action insofar as it receives its being from the first cause. Thus, when God, for example, concurs with the will in the act of willing or not willing, He does not exert an action in the will distinct from the action of the will itself but only confers being on the action of the will together with the will and preserves that action. Consequently, divine cooperation in this respect is not something different from our volition but our very volition insofar as it immediately depends on God for its production and preservation.
XXIX. Furthermore, as also clearly follows from what has been said, they deny that the secondary cause is moved by the first cause to act or determined by the same in acting to produce such an action. Therefore, according to their opinion, the secondary cause, and consequently the will, does not act because God moves it and applies it to action. Rather, God cooperates with it because it disposes itself to act. The divine concurrence and influence is something indifferent in itself, which is determined by secondary causes to various kinds of actions. [The section on Molinism, below, then follows]”
In Thomism
Quote
1600’s
Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu
Theological Theses published at Various Times in the Academy of Sedan, vol. 1 3rd ed. tr. by AI by Colloquia Scholastica at Discord (1675; London, 1683), ‘How Divine Concurrence can be Reconciled with Free Will’, pp. 339-42 Latin Le Blanc (1614-1675) was a French reformed professor of theology at Sedan.
“X. Thomas and most of his followers, especially Dominicans, teach that to explain divine concurrence, it is not enough to simply say that God influences various acts and effects of secondary causes and grants and preserves their being as He created and preserves the secondary causes and their powers: but they also contend that it is required that God moves and applies the secondary causes to work, without which they would do nothing at all. This, they say, is required by the dependence of secondary causes on God as the first mover. For according to them, God is called the first mover because He moves and applies all other causes to their operations antecedently, and therefore produces all the effects of secondary causes first in nature, though not in time, as Estius expresses it in the bk. 2 of the Sentences, distinction 24, paragraph 14.
XI. This seems to be the doctrine of the Roman Catechism itself, published by the order of the Council of Trent, whose words at the end of the explanation of the first article of the Creed are:
“God not only sustains and governs all things by His providence but also impels to motion and action with His intimate power those things that move and act, in such a way that while He does not hinder the efficiency of secondary causes, He nevertheless prevents it; since His most hidden power extends to each thing and, as the wise man testifies, reaches from one end to the other mightily.”
XII. Therefore, they assert that God excites and applies the secondary cause to act, and that before the creature operates, it is effectively moved by God in all its actions, and that God is the one who acts and makes the creature act and do whatever it does and acts: so that without this divine pre-motion, the creature can do nothing at all, and given this premotion, it is impossible in the composite sense for the secondary cause not to do and act what it is pre-moved by the first cause to do.
XIII. However, according to their view, this divine pre-motion applies no less to free agents than to necessary ones, which raises a considerable difficulty regarding how this can be consistent with the freedom of creatures. If our will cannot act without being first moved and applied to action by God, how can it be considered the master of its own act and indifferent to acting or not acting, since it does not have in its power that divine motion and application required for each of its acts? And again, when God moves and applies the will to action, how can it be said that the will acts freely when it cannot help but act and cannot resist the divine motion?
XIV. To solve this difficulty, [Robert] Bellarmine says that the influence or power of God, by which the will is moved and applied to action, is received in secondary causes according to their disposition. That disposition, according to which the motion of God is received in the will, is, for Bellarmine, nothing other than a certain preceding negative determination, both of God’s influence and of the elicited act of the will. Specifically, in his view, this consists in whether the will allows itself to be moved by the object presented by reason, or does not allow itself to be moved. He calls this determination negative because it does not consist of a positive act but in the negation of an act; yet the will is no less free to act than not to act. Thus, he believes that the will is truly free and determines itself even if God moves and applies it to action because the divine motion itself is in its power. For, he says, if the will allows itself to be moved by the proposed object, God applies and moves it to elicit the act; if it does not allow itself, God does not apply or move it, since God freely bound Himself when He created the free will. (On Free Will, bk. 4, ch. 16).
XV. Therefore, according to Bellarmine’s view, although the will requires a preceding divine motion and application to act, it always remains the master of its act because it somewhat has that motion in its power, as previously explained. And although, given God’s motion, it is impossible for the will not to be moved, the will is always free in acting because it was in its power not to be moved by God by not disposing itself through that negative determination to receive God’s motion, which was within the power of the will.
XVI. However, this solution of Bellarmine does not please many who agree with Thomas, that the will, like all other secondary causes, requires a certain previous divine motion and application to act. They assert that God moves the will according to His will, without any consideration of such a preceding negative determination in the created will. And they assert that He not only moves it simply but effectively impels it to act in a certain way, so that the will is determined by God to act or will this and not another, prior to its own determination.
XVII. And this is what they call predetermination, which they also call physical, not as physical opposed to supernatural but as physical opposed to moral. They mean that God predetermines created wills to act not merely by proposing, persuading, or attracting, which are proper to a moral cause, but by immediately moving the will itself and exerting a true, real, and properly said action on it, which is proper to what is called a physical cause.
XVIII. They assert that such predetermination applies not only to the good acts of free causes but also to the evil ones. For since they believe it is the dependence of the secondary cause on the first so that it can do nothing at all unless moved and applied to act by the first as its instrument, they teach consistently with this doctrine that even for those acts accompanied by some malice and wickedness, the created will is so pre-moved and predetermined by God that given God’s motion, it must act and do this or that.
XIX. Nevertheless, they deny that this results in making God the author of sin, because God does nothing more in the act of sin than what is positive in it and thus good; and consequently, He moves and determines to nothing else. The wickedness and moral fault attached to such an act are not something positive requiring a properly efficient cause but only a privation of the due rectitude that arises from the defect of the created will.
XX. This doctrine is accurately and distinctly presented by Diego Alvares in his comprehensive work On the Aids of Divine Grace [1610], bk. 2. Indeed, in the seventh chapter of that book, he titles:
“That God by a previous motion inherent in the created will moves, applies, or predetermines it to all its particular good acts, while preserving its liberty.”
And in that chapter, these are his words, “By this motion and application, God truly transforms the will from one state to another and makes it willing from unwilling.” He further states:
“God, by this actual efficacious motion in the manner of a physical cause, that is, truly efficiently, predetermines the will of man to good free acts so that the will moved by God through such aid freely and infallibly determines itself to produce a second free act.”
XXI. The ninth chapter bears the title, “That God by a previous motion truly efficiently moves free will to the act of sin, as far as it is an act and as it is a being.” The chapter begins with these words:
“What has been said about the predetermination of the will to good acts must be extended to the act of sin, as far as it is an act and a being. Hence, whatever entity is found in any act of sin, even if otherwise it is intrinsically evil, must be traced back to God as the first cause pre-moving and predetermining the created will to such an act as it is an act and as it is a being.”
He then shows how it does not follow from this that God is the cause of moral evil present in such acts, stating that the deformity of sin or moral evil does not follow intrinsically and by nature from the act of blasphemy or hatred of God as an act, nor as a being in the general nature, even in the individual, but as it proceeds from the defective will of the creature. Therefore, the moral evil and defect of sin should be referred to the deficient will, not to God.
XXII. And these points are consistent with what is read in Estius in the above-cited passage, where he expounds the same doctrine and brings many confirmations to it. He concludes thus and objects to the freedom of human will:
“Since, therefore, it is clear from what has been said that our will is effectively moved and determined by God as the first cause, the first mover, and therefore is preceded and predetermined by Him, it remains to be explained how this effective motion and determination, or rather divine pre-motion and predetermination, is consistent with the freedom of our will. For it does not seem that what is effectively moved and determined in one direction by a prior cause can be free to do otherwise.”
XXIII. To this, he responds:
“Regarding the nature of free will; it suffices that from the previous judgment of the practical intellect, it chooses one of the opposites, while still being able to choose the other from a different judgment of the same intellect; because, namely, the root and foundation of free will lie in the intellect, insofar as it can consider various aspects of good in opposites and propose them to the will. But the nature of free will does not include that while the free agent chooses from previous judgment, it is not moved by a superior cause to judge and choose so. Therefore, since the divine motion predetermining the will does not hinder a person from having full and perfect judgment of reason and judging that one means is contingent and the other is necessarily connected to the end, and could also choose otherwise from a different judgment, it follows that such a motion does not harm the freedom of our will. For it is proper to the uncreated will to have its choice from no prior cause.”
XXIV. Alvares attempts to reconcile the physical predetermination of the human will to its acts by the impulse of the moving God with the free choice of the same will in another way. After proposing this objection to himself, “If the prior divine influence is necessary for the cause so that the will may act, it follows that without it, the will cannot act, thus its freedom will perish,” he responds:
“This prior motion or immediate influence on the cause is not necessary for the will to be able to act if it wishes; for it has that by its own power or through supernatural habits; but it is necessary only for it to act actually. Hence, from the fact that the will is not moved by God with that prior motion, it does not follow that it cannot will or act; but it only follows that it will not actually act.”
XXV. In the same book, ch. 6, in response to the second argument, from the fact that God predetermines someone to will this or that, he denies that it follows, absolutely speaking, that it is not in their power to will otherwise. Although given the divine predetermination, it is impossible in a composite sense for them to will a different object. In one word, he distinguishes between willing and acting, and the ability to will and act; and he concedes that without that predetermining influence, the will never acts, but with it, the will never does not act. Yet, he maintains that with that influence, the will has the power not to act, and conversely, without it, the will has the power to act, namely in a divided sense. In his view, with that predetermining influence, the will’s power to not act or act differently remains, but the opposite act or cessation of the act does not. Conversely, without that influence, the power to act remains in the will, although it is never brought into action. He concludes that someone omitting an act that is commanded does so freely and sins because they could have fulfilled the command with sufficient aid from God. However, due to their own fault, they impeded themselves from receiving that necessary motion from God.
On Molinism
Quote
1600’s
Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu
Theological Theses published at Various Times in the Academy of Sedan, vol. 1 3rd ed. tr. by AI by Colloquia Scholastica at Discord (1675; London, 1683), ‘How Divine Concurrence can be Reconciled with Free Will’, pp. 343-44 Latin Le Blanc (1614-1675) was a French reformed professor of theology at Sedan.
“XXX. These and many similar points [discussed above on Romanism generally] are elaborated at length by Louis de Molina in his Concord of Free Will with the Gifts of Grace, quest. 14, disp. 26.
He first asserts that God concurs with secondary causes in their operations and effects in such a way that just as the secondary cause immediately elicits its operation and produces its term or effect, so God immediately influences with it in the same operation and produces the term or effect through that operation or action.
Secondly, he asserts that when God concurs with secondary causes, He influences as a universal cause with an indifferent influence towards various actions and effects. This general influence is determined to specific kinds of actions and effects by the particular influence of the secondary causes, which varies according to the nature of each in acting. Just as the influence of the sun, which is also universal, is determined by the influence of a man to produce a human being, and by the influence of a horse to produce a horse. If the cause is free, it is in its power to influence in such a way that this action rather than that one is produced, such as willing rather than not willing or walking rather than sitting, and this effect rather than that one, namely this artifact rather than another. Or it may even suspend its influence entirely so that there is no action at all.
Thirdly, he asserts that the influence of God through universal concurrence is not sufficient for the production of any effect without the particular influence of the secondary cause by which it is determined, nor is the particular influence of the secondary cause sufficient without the influence of God through universal concurrence by which it is assisted, which, according to the ordinary law, He never denies. These two influences mutually depend on each other to exist in nature. Indeed, there are not two actions but one numerically, which as it comes from God influencing in this way is called universal concurrence, but as it comes from the secondary cause, for example from fire causing heat, is called the concurrence or influence of the fire. This action is specified not because it is from God through universal concurrence but because it is from the fire with God cooperating through its particular power.
XXXI. The doctors who hold this explanation of divine concurrence think they can easily show how such concurrence can be reconciled with the freedom of human actions. For since two kinds of freedom are usually attributed to the will—one concerning the exercise of the act and the other concerning its specification—this divine concurrence, as explained, prejudices neither. Not the former, which concerns the exercise, since this concurrence does not impose the necessity of acting on the will. For the will does not act because God acts but rather conversely, God acts because the will acts, although they both begin to act at the same moment in time and nature. Scholastic terms express this by saying that the will acts prior in nature to God, not by priority of the instant in which but of the order from which.
XXXII. Although the will can do nothing at all without God concurring, according to the law established by God when He created it free, that concurrence is always available to it because God willed and decreed from eternity to concur with every work of the free will when it determines itself to act. Nevertheless, the will is equally free concerning the specification of its act. For that the will acts well or badly, avoids or seeks this rather than that, does not proceed from any power of divine concurrence but from the proper determination of the will, which freely uses the divine concurrence, indifferent in itself, to produce an action of this rather than that kind.”
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On Divine Concursus with Secondary Causation in Arminianism
Quote
1600’s
Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu
Theological Theses published at Various Times in the Academy of Sedan, vol. 1 3rd ed. tr. by AI by Colloquia Scholastica at Discord (1675; London, 1683), ‘How Divine Concurrence can be Reconciled with Free Will’, p. 344 Latin Le Blanc (1614-1675) was a French reformed professor of theology at Sedan.
“XXXIII. As for the Reformed theologians known as Remonstrants or Arminians in Belgium, they recognize no other divine concurrence with secondary causes than that general and indifferent one [such as described under Molinism above], which is determined by the concurrence of the secondary cause. This can be seen in Jacob Arminius, from whom all others derive their name. In his dispute against Perkins, he not only affirms that this divine concurrence is indifferent in itself but also that it contributes nothing to the will of the creature by which it might be inclined, helped, or strengthened to act. He asserts that the created will has God’s concurrence in its power, ready and available, before it acts (in Anti-Perkins, p. 733). Similar teachings are found in Grevinchovius against Amesius (sect. 32, p. 368) and Corvinus against Tilenus (ch. 9, p. 354).”
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On Divine Concursus with Secondary Causation in the Amyrauldian Trajectory
Quote
1600’s
Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu
Theological Theses published at Various Times in the Academy of Sedan, vol. 1 3rd ed. tr. by AI by Colloquia Scholastica at Discord (1675; London, 1683), ‘How Divine Concurrence can be Reconciled with Free Will’, pp. 347-49 Latin Le Blanc (1614-1675) was a French reformed professor of theology at Sedan.
“XLVIII. There are also some Reformed theologians who appear to share the same view with Durandus and Ludovicus à Dola of the Roman School concerning God’s general concurrence necessary for all acts of creatures. The distinguished Moses Amyraldus does not seem to acknowledge any other general concurrence of God, whereby He concurs with all secondary causes, except for the continuous efficacy by which He sustains and maintains the nature of each thing and the powers given to it by nature. From this, he concludes that this concurrence has nothing to do with liberty. “For,” he says:
“let nature and its powers remain without the help of such concurrence; they will certainly operate freely. Therefore, let the concurrence come, which does nothing other than maintaining their natural state and preserving them from falling away. Liberty will suffer no detriment from this” (Of Free Choice, ch. 4, sub finem).
These words sufficiently indicate that in this matter, the distinguished man shares the same opinion with Durandus, the old scholastic.
XLIX. However, besides this general concurrence, he acknowledges the great efficacy of divine providence, whereby the acts of our will, whether good, evil, or indifferent, are determined in time according to his eternal decree. But he reduces all the efficacy of divine providence, which exerts itself in good, to two actions: the proposal of the object, which manifestly does not violate liberty, and the internal disposition of the subject, which consists in liberating the faculties from impediments that have been added to their natural constitution or even elevating them in some way above their natural state. In this, it is equally evident that nothing prejudices human liberty.
L. Similarly, concerning evil acts, he teaches that there is a twofold providence: one external and the other internal. The external, he says, is occupied with two things. Either, he says, it deals with the proposal of objects that are suitable to move the faculties, or it consists in God’s action of allowing and permitting the devil to exert his power, so that the effectiveness of the objects is aided. The internal act of God, which intervenes in the evil deeds of humans, consists, according to him, in God either obscuring or completely removing from the mind one of the many objects inducing to evil that the man meditates upon or procuring that one object is presented in such a way that it is most apt and suitable to move. In all these, nothing can hinder human liberty.
LI. Finally, concerning indifferent acts, he similarly attributes God’s efficacy to the proposal of objects, the administration of causes that can aid the objects, and the internal operation that makes one object prevail over another and presents itself to the mind in a way suitable to move it. Yet, through these operations, which everyone confesses do not harm liberty, he wishes all human acts to be effectively determined by God, and the eternal decrees of God concerning them to be certainly fulfilled. This is because the human faculties, namely the mind and will, are determined to certain actions by the objects presented to them, which are congruent and suitable to their affection and disposition. Hence arises a certain necessity in their operations, which agrees perfectly with liberty and suffices to ensure that whatever God has most certainly determined and ordained in His eternal counsel will also certainly and inevitably be carried out by humans.
LII. The learned and subtle theologian Joshua Placeus agrees with other theologians that the will in its actions depends on God as the first cause, as do all secondary causes in their actions. However, he modestly refrains from defining the extent and degree of that dependence, nor does he want to impose his judgment on the various questions about God’s concurrence and cooperation with all secondary causes that are commonly debated in the schools. His words are:
“The will depends on God as the first cause, upon whom all secondary causes depend in their actions. But the extent of this dependence of secondary causes on the first cause is hotly disputed among the Pontificians. It is agreed by all that God concurs with every cause so that it operates according to its faculties. But most contend that this concurrence is immediate, proximate, and identical with the very action of secondary causes, while some disagree. The Dominicans and Jesuits fight vehemently over this immediate concurrence, the former for what they call physical pre-determination, the latter strongly against it.
As for me, moved by reverence for the infinite majesty of God, I do not dare to define the extent of the dependence of the secondary cause on the first. It suffices for me, as long as it does not attribute any stain of our sins, however slight, to God, that it cannot be too great” (Tract on Free Choice, p. 174).
LIII. He then reconciles this dependence of the will on the first cause with its liberty after a few intervening points:
“However the will depends on God, and whatever God works in it, it always retains the liberty which we said consists in immunity from the threefold necessity of coercion, determination by matter, and determination by sense.”
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Historical
On the Post-Reformation
On the Reformed
Articles
Ruler, J.A. Han van – ‘New Philosophy to Old Standards. Voetius’ Vindication of Divine Concurrence & Secondary Causality’ NAK/DRCH 71 (1991), pp. 58–91
Goudriaan, Aza – ch. 3, ‘The Providence of God, Secondary Causality, & Related Topics’ in Reformed Orthodoxy and Philosophy, 1625-1750 : Gisbertus Voetius, Petrus Van Mastricht & Anthonius Driessen Pre (Boston: Brill, 2006), pp. 143-242
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Books
Ruler, J.A. Han van – The Crisis of Causality. Voetius & Descartes on God, Nature & Change (Brill, 1995) 340 pp. ToC
Sturdy, Robert C. – Freedom from Fatalism: Samuel Rutherford’s (1600–1661) Doctrine of Divine Providence Pre (V&R, 2021) 357 pp. ToC
Blurb: “Through a close examination of Rutherford’s Latin works of scholastic theology, as well as many of his English works, a portrait emerges of the absolutely free and independent Creator, who does not utilize his sovereignty to dominate his subordinate creatures, but rather to guarantee their freedom.”
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In Romanism
Articles
Tupikowski, Jerzy – ‘Banezianism’ in Universal Encyclopedia of Philosophy (PEF) 2 pp.
Manzo, Silvia – ‘Efficient Causality & Divine Concurrence in the Disputationes Metaphysicae of Francisco Suárez & in the Colombricense’s Commentary to Aristotle’s Physics’ Patristica et Mediævalia, 31 (2010), pp. 29-42 Ref
Abstract: “In Francisco Suárez’ Disputationes Metaphysicae and the Coimbran commentaries on Aristotle’s works are to be found critical and innovative stances toward Aristotle and Aquinas. As transitional exponents of late Scholasticism at the turn of seventeenth century, their works are relevant case studies to understanding early-modern natural philosophy. Efficient causation is a central issue to such understanding. A particularly controversial point of the views on efficient causation in this background was the exact meaning of divine concurrence with secondary causes. This paper aims to explore Suarez’ (part 1) and the Coimbrans’ (part 2) accounts of efficient causation and divine concurrence in the context of Thomist concurrentism.”
Sangiacomo, Andrea – ‘Divine Action & God’s Immutability: a Historical Case Study on how to Resist Occasionalism’ European Journal of Philosophy of Religion, 7/4 (Summer 2015), pp. 115-135
Sangiacomo is an associate professor at the faculty of philosophy at the University of Groningen (NL).
Abstract: “Today’s debates present ‘occasionalism’ as the position that any satisfying account of divine action must avoid. In this paper I discuss how a leading [French] Cartesian author of the end of the seventeenth century, Pierre-Sylvain Régis [1632–1707], attempted to avoid occasionalism. Régis’s case is illuminating because it stresses both the difficulties connected with the traditional alternatives to occasionalism (so-called ‘concurrentism’ and ‘mere-conservationism’) and also those aspects embedded in the occasionalist position that should be taken into due account. The paper focuses on Régis’s own account of secondary causation in order to show how the challenge of avoiding occasionalism can lead to the development of new accounts of divine action.”
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Quote
Andreas Beck, ch. 13, ‘God, Creation, and Providence in Post-Reformation Reformed Theology’, p. 206 in eds. Lehner, Muller, Roeber, The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theology, 1600-1800 (Oxford, 2016)
“Another issue concerned substantial forms. Here, Voetius and others defended a neo-Aristotelian concept because they found it to be more compatible with the Physica Mosaica [Mosaic physics] than early modern alternatives.
The substantial forms could not only explain the classification of ‘kinds’ in the biblical creation account, but also constituted the internal principles of activity in secondary causes. In contrast, the Cartesian mechanistic worldview with its rejection of substantial form seemed to create more difficulties than it might solve. In particular, it implied a denial of genuine secondary causality, leading either to occasionalism or Spinozistic pantheism, as Voetius noted with remarkable foresight (Van Ruler 1995; Goudriaan 2006, 113-33; Beck 2007, 65-69).”
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Latin Articles
1500’s
Calvin, John – An Instruction Against the Fanatical & Furious Sect of the Libertines, which Call Themselves ‘The Spiritual Ones’ in The Smaller Works of John Calvin… (1563)
ch. 13, pp. 184-188
ch. 14, pp. 189-200
ch. 15, pp. 200-205
ch. 16, pp. 205-212
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1600’s
Voet, Gisbert – Syllabus of Theological Problems (Utrecht, 1643), pt. 1, section 1, tract 3 Abbr.
Acts of Providence: of Premotion & Concursus
The Mode of Operating
About Rational Creatures
About Man (Animal & Civil Life, Eternal Life, Marriage,
. Public Things, Wars)
Physical Acts Before & After Conversion
Moral Acts around Salvation
About Irrational Creatures
An Indirect Act, or of Permission
Further are these
Grebenitz, Elias – On the Concurrent Being of Beings, a Metaphysical Disputation on the Concursus of the First Cause with a Second Cause (Frankfurt, 1669)
Grebenitz (1627-1689) was a reformed professor of logic, metaphysics and theology at Frankfurt.
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Related Pages
Which Philosophy Should be Used?
Relation of Theology & Philosophy
Reformed vs. Aquinas: Providence
Reformed Freedom of Choice vs. Determinism
Medieval Theology & Philosophy