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Subsections
Revealed Will has Purpose
Revealed Will: Improperly God’s Will
Revealed Will: Founded in God
Divine Disposition, Inclination & Willingness
Antecedent / Consequent Will
Will of Providence
Resistible Grace
What Respects Covenant is Conditional
Faith: Condition of Justification
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Order of Contents
Articles 3
Quotes 35+
Thomism 1
Between Thomists & Scotists 1
Historical 4
Latin & French 5
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Articles
1500’s
Zanchi, Jerome – ‘Girolamo Zanchi (1516–1590) the Conditional Will of God’ at Calvin & Calvinism
This work is not exactly Zanchi’s: it was edited and translated by a Robert Hill “out of the best modern divines”. Worldcat and Wing identify this work as: “Largely a translation and abridgement of Zanchi, Girolamo, De natura Dei.” See the further contextual elements pointing to Zanchi in David Ponter’s notes at the bottom of the article.
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1600’s
Rutherford, Samuel –
ch. 2, heading 5, sect. 21. ‘Whether the conditional decree of the Arminians suffices to save God’s providence of future contingencies? We deny against them.’ in Examination of Arminianism
ch. 3
sect. 11. Whether the promise of some conditional good can be subordinated by an immutable decree in such a way that that good which is promised is destined absolutely? We affirm against the Remonstrants.
sect. 12. Whether or not faith may at once be a required condition in a formal way and the thing which is promised and indeclinably brought about in us by God? We affirm against the Remonstrants.
Fenner, William – 145. ‘Has God such a will in Him as He calls a conditional will? as for example, to will all men’s salvation if they repent?’ in ‘Of the Lord’s Prayer’ in The Spiritual Man’s Directory, Guiding a Christian in the Path that leads to True Blessedness in his Three Main Duties towards God: How to Believe, to Obey & to Pray; Unfolding the Creed, the Ten Commandments & the Lord’s Prayer (d. 1640), pp. 108-9
Polhill, Edward – ‘Edward Polhill on ‘Conditional Decree’ as Will Revealed’ in “The Divine Will Considered in its Eternal Decrees” in The Works of Edward Polhill (Morgan, PA.: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1998), pp. 131-32, 164 & 208-10
Turretin, Francis – Institutes of Elenctic Theology, tr. George M. Giger, ed. James Dennison Jr. (1679–1685; P&R, 1992), vol. 1
3rd Topic, 16. ‘May the will be properly distinguished into antecedent and consequent, efficacious and inefficacious, conditional and absolute? We deny.’ p. 226 ff.
4th Topic
3. ‘Are there conditional decrees? We deny against the Socinians, Remonstrants and Jesuits.’
17. ‘Can there be attributed to God any conditional will, or universal purpose of pitying the whole human race fallen in sin, of destinating Christ as Mediator to each and all, and of calling them all to a saving participation of his benefits? We deny.’ 395-417
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1700’s
Holtzfus, Barthold
Venema, Herman – ‘Conditional Decrees Refuted’ in Translation of Hermann Venema’s inedited Institutes of Theology tr. Alexander W. Brown (d. 1787; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1850), ch. 16, ‘The Decrees of God’, pp. 289-93
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Quotes
Collection of
ed. Ponter, David – ‘Conditional Decree / Will’ 38 quotes at Calvin & Calvinism
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Individual Quotes
Order of
Polanus
Wolleb
Davenant
Twisse
Fenner
Norton
Leigh
Baxter
Turretin
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1600’s
Amandus Polanus
The Substance of the Christian Religion (London, 1600), pp. 11-16
“And this much touching the wisdom of God. Now follows concerning his will.
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2. Again the will of God is either absolute or conditional.
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The conditional will of God is that by which God wills certain things, with a condition adjoined thereunto.
And this is called the will of sign, because God does declare and manifest the same, both in precepts and prohibition, and also in promises, and threatenings, as it were by signs.
It is also called the antecedent [that which comes before] will, because it goes before the reward or the punishment, that is propounded in the promises, or in the threatenings.
By this, God will have all men to be saved and to come to the acknowledgment of truth [1 Tim. 2:4]: to with, if they believe the promises and preaching of the Gospel, and also obey the same. And therefore He calls and invites all men of all sorts and degrees (and therefore magistrates also) to the fellowship of salvation, and to the confession of the truth: yet he commands all to work their own salvation, and to come to the acknowledging of his truth, though all do it not. 1 Tim. 2:4.
By this will Christ would have gathered together the Israelites, as a hen does her chickens, Lk. 13:34 to wit, unless they that were called had refused to come.
This will is manifested, not by our conjectures, but only out of his word.
And it is the square of all our works, and the perfect rule of all righteousness and holiness.
Neither is this will of God dissembled or counterfeit, as though God commanded many things, which he would not: for example, when Gen. 22, He commanded Abraham to offer his son, and yet afterwards forbade it. Whatsoever God commands that He wills. So He commanded that Abraham should offer up his son, to wit, in will, in mind, and in appointing him for a burnt offering, for so God tried his faith and readiness to obey his commandments, and not that Abraham should indeed kill and slay his son Isaac, though Abraham did so understand the word of offering: and this the Lord Himself does sufficiently declare when in verse 12. He says, ‘Now I know and have tried that thou fearest God, seeing that thou hast not spared or withheld thy son even thy only son from me.’”
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Johannes Wollebius
Compendium of Christian Doctrine, pt. 1 in ed. John Beardslee, Reformed Dogmatics: J. Wollebius, G. Voetius & F. Turretin (Oxford Univ. Press, 1965), ch. 3, (3), proposition 2, p. 48
“Just as the edicts of a magistrate are called his will, so the designation of will may be given to precepts, prohibitions, promises, and even deeds and events. Thus the divine will is also called that which God wants done [voluntas signi], because it signifies what is acceptable to God; what he wants done by us. It is called “consequent” because it follows that eternal antecedent; “conditional” because the commandments, prohibitions, warnings, and promises of God all have a condition of obedience or disobedience attached to them. Finally, it is called “revealed,” because it is always explained in the word of God. It must be observed that this sort of distinction does not postulate either really diverse, or contradictory, wills in God.”
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John Davenant
Animadversions upon a Treatise entitled, God’s Love to Mankind... (Cambridge: Daniel, 1641), ‘Answer to his Five Reasons against Absolute Reprobation’, pp. 225-27
“But to answer more clearly to the point in hand: We must first consider that mere or purely conditional decrees, or conditional volitions, agree not with the perfection of the divine nature.
Volitiones pure conditionales sunt alienae a sapientia et prudentia Dei. (Ruiz, De Voluntate, disp. 20, §1) [Volitions that are purely conditional are incompatible with the wisdom and prudence of God.]
Voluntas Dei conditionata dici potest, non quia actu feratur in objectum sub conditione, sed quia ex illa voluntate quae praesens est alia oriretur si conditio in objecto poneretur. (Vasqez, in 1st part, disp. 83, p. 511) [The will of God may be called conditional, not because it is actually directed toward its object under a condition, but because from that will which is presently existing another would arise if the condition were to be posited in the object.]
The speeches therefore above-cited out of Scripture do not imply a conditional will in God suspended for any moment of time, and then post purificatam conditionem [after the condition has been fulfilled], becoming an absolute and effectual will (see Ruiz, De Scientia, disp. 71, §7), as the like conditional propositions do in us, who have neither knowledge whether the condition will be certainly performed or no, nor yet power in ourselves to work the condition whereupon the future act of our will was suspended. (Ruiz, De Voluntate, disp. 8, §7)
But in God, who knows eternally what every man will do or not do, and who in Himself has an absolute power and freedom to make men do any good whereunto He makes promise of reward, and to leave them to their own defective freewill in doing those things for which He has threatened desertion and destruction, these conditional decrees or volitions must be far otherwise conceived: namely, not purely but mixedly conditionalia [conditionals], that is, grounded in some absolute revealed decree of God to the performance whereof He has tied Himself.
For example; It is an absolute decree of the divine will published in the gospel that whosoever repents, believes, perseveres, shall be saved: From hence is derived that mixed conditional decree: If Cain, if Judas, if any other repent and believe, they shall be saved.
Now such mixed conditional decrees carry no contradiction to the absolute decrees of election and non-election or reprobation. For who sees not that these two propositions may well stand together: I will that if Judas repent and believe he shall have remission and salvation; I will not give unto Judas the gift of repentance, of faith, and of eternal life? The former conditional proposition contains all which this author [Davenant is writing against] can truly collect from the testimonies alleged; and the latter does as truly infer that absolute reprobation for which we contend. For the absolute decree of God resolving not to give faith, repentance and eternal life unto Judas, is that which we understand by the word ‘reprobation’: and this is never abrogated by any conditional promise founded in any universal absolute decree of God.”
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William Twisse
A Treatise of Mr. Cotton’s clearing certain doubts concerning Predestination, together with an Examination thereof (London: J.D., 1646)
3rd Doubt, p. 63
“Both Piscator of late, by evidence of Scripture, and Bradwardine long before, by demonstration of reason, have proved that no will in God is conditionate, quoad actum volentis [as to the act of the one willing]; all the conditions are found, quoad res volitas [with respect to the things willed].
And indeed, though the purposes of God are absolute, yet his promises are therefore conditionate, because they are conformed to the manner of God’s operation with man: For, as God works in all things agreeable to their natures, so in man He uses to work agreeable to his nature. And therefore, albeit his purpose be absolute to bring them to grace and glory, to faith, repentance and salvation; yet He allures them to faith and repentance by promises and threatnings.”
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6th Doubt, pp. 247-49
That no will of God is conditional, we have the concurrent consent both of our, and Popish divines. For both Piscator maintains it against Vorstius, and Bradwardine demonstrates it: And this condition which you speak of, can be no less than some motive cause: and Aquinas has professed that never any was so made, as to affirm that there was any cause of predestination, quoad actum praedestinantis [as to the act of the one predestinating], as touching the act of God predestinating; and that for no other reason than because there can be no cause of the will of God, quoad actum volentis [as to the act of the one willing], as touching the act of God willing. Whence it follows manifestly that in like sort there can be no cause of reprobation, neither quoad actum reprobantis [as to the act of the one reprobating], as touching the act of God reprobating: and consequently no condition.
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But what do you infer here hence? only this; Therefore surely He decreed to carry such works of his providence upon the same conditions. Now this conclusion we embrace as readily as yourself; but this is far from justifying the decree of God to be conditional. Nay, yourself do plainly express that the carriage of such works of his providence is upon such conditions: Not that God’s decree is upon such conditions: which is as much as to say in plain terms that the execution of his decree proceeds upon condition, not the decree itself.
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Therefore Aquinas fairly distinguishes of the cause or condition of Gods will, either quoad actum volentis, as touching the act of God willing, or quoad res volitas, as touching the things willed; no cause or condition thereof, quoad actum volentis; there may be quoad res volitas.
As for example, to give instance in predestination, no cause thereof at all, quod actum praedestinantis, as touching the act of God predestinating; there may be a cause thereof quoad res praedestinatione praeparatas, ‘as touching the things prepared by predestination’. As for example: Grace may be, and is the cause of glory, and Christ’s merits may be, and are the cause of grace. So of reprobation [there is] no cause thereof at all, quoad actum reprobantis, as touching the act of God reprobating, no more than of the will of God, quoad actum volentis, as touching the act of God willing: But there is a came thereof, quoad res reprobatione praeparatas, as touching the things prepared by reprobation, as sin is the cause of condemnation.
And indeed many confound these, and thereupon profess the will of God in some cases to be conditional; the issue whereof is no more than this: That some things which God will have to come to pass shall not come to pass but upon on condition.”
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William Fenner
The Spiritual Man’s Directory… (London: T.F., 1648), Of Catechizing, Of Thoughts, pp. 108-9
“Q. 145. Has God such a will in Him, as He calls a conditional will? as for example, to will all men’s salvation if they repent?
Answer: Properly there cannot be a conditional will in God:
First, because such a will supposes a superior that may hinder, Acts 18:21.
Secondly, it supposes ignorance how things may fall out, as Abraham willed his servant to fetch a wife for Isaac out of the land of his kindred, Gen. 24:4, if she were willing, verse 8.
Nevertheless, improperly it may be given to God, not as though his will can have a condition, for that’s the property of a created will, to have a condition of it, Jam. 4:15, but because the thing willed of God may have a condition, Isa. 7:9. Now, that the Lord may be said to have a conditional will in some sense is plain:
First, because He is said to will the connection of things when He does not will the things asunder; and therefore He wills them only upon the condition of a connection: God would have all men to repent and come to the knowledge of the truth, 1 Tim. 2:4.
Secondly, because He is said to will the salvation of all believers and true penitent persons, and therefore if a reprobate do believe, He wills his salvation, 1 Kn. 11:38. This is true of God towards a reprobate: “If thou wilt obey Me, I will bless thee,” Dt. 7:12-13.”
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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.
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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.”
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Edward Leigh
A System or Body of Divinity… (London, 1654), bk. 2, ch. 7, ‘Of God’s Understanding that He is Omniscient, and of his Will’
“The will of God is one and the same, but it is distinguished:¹
¹ Every distinction of God’s will must be framed ex parte volitorum, non ex parte volentis [on the part of the things willed, not on the part of the one willing], Dr. Jackson. See Dr. Prideaux’s Sermon on 2 Chron. 32:24, p. 17.
2. In respect of application to the creature, into:
1. Absolute, when God wills and concludes anything concerning us without any condition in us.²
² Piscator negat ullam Dei voluntatem esse conditionatam. Negat etiam Bradwardinus, demonstratque omnem Dei vo∣luntatem esse absolutam. Est ista meo judicio sententia accuratior. Sed voluntas Dei potest distingui in voluntatem absolutam et conditionatam; nimirum non quoad actum Dei volentis, sic omnis Dei voluntas est absoluta, sed quoad res hoc Dei actu volitas. Vult enim Deus ut alia absolutè eveniant, alia verò non sine conditione, sic fidem hominis et regenerationem et resipiscentiam vult Deus absolutè elect is suis, hoc est, vult ut ista iis contingant absolutè, at ut salus eis absolutè contingat non vult, sed duntaxat sub conditione fidei et resipiscentiae, sinalisque in iisdem perseverantiae. Twisse contra Corvinus, ch. 8, sect. 4. Vide plura ibid. et ch. 14, sect. 8.
Miro et ineffabili modo non fit praeter ejus voluntatem quod etiam contra ejus fit voluntatem, quia non fieret si non si∣neret, nec utique nolens sinit, sed volens. Nec sineret bonus fieri male, nisi omnipotens etiam de malo facere possit bene. Augustine, Enchiridion ad Laurentium, ch. 100.
[Piscator denies that any will of God is conditional. Bradwardine likewise denies it, and demonstrates that every will of God is absolute. In my judgment this opinion is the more accurate.
Nevertheless, the will of God may be distinguished into absolute and conditional—not with respect to the act of God willing, for in this respect every will of God is absolute, but with respect to the things willed by this act of God. For God wills that some things come to pass absolutely, while others do not come to pass apart from a condition. Thus God absolutely wills faith, regeneration and repentance for His elect; that is, He wills that these things absolutely befall them. But He does not will that salvation should absolutely befall them; rather, He wills it only under the condition of faith, repentance, and final perseverance in the same. Twisse contra Corvinus, ch. 8, sect. 4. See many places in the same, and ch. 14, sect. 8.
“In a wonderful and ineffable manner, that which is done even contrary to His will is not done apart from His will; for it would not happen if He did not permit it. Nor does He permit it unwillingly, but willingly. Nor would He, being good, permit evil to be done unless, being omnipotent, He were also able to bring good out of evil.” Augustine, Handbook on Faith, Hope & Love, ch. 100]
2. Conditional, when He wills, some condition being put in us; so God would have all men saved on this condition, if they can believe. The first of these is by another name called Voluntas beneplaciti, the last Voluntas signi.
God’s will is:
1. Secret, Voluntas propositi, that whereby He has absolutely and freely determined with Himself what He will do, permit or hinder. Ps. 115:3; Eph. 1:11; Rom. 9:18, called the will of God concerning us.
2. Revealed, Voluntas praecepti, that whereby God has manifested what He would have believed, done or left undone by his reasonable creatures, Mk. 3:35; 1 Thess. 4:3. That distinction of God’s will into beneplaciti et signi, differs little from this. Signi is the same with revealed. Beneplacitum is the decree properly so called, which may be either hidden or manifest.”
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Richard Baxter
Richard Baxter’s Catholic Theology... (London: White, 1675), pt. 1, sect. 14, Of Several Distinctions of God’s Will, p. 56
“355. The next distinction of Gods will is into absolute and conditional (of which see Amyraldus against Spanheim, On Universal Grace), which some divines use and others condemn and say that God has no conditional will. The common answer which most Schoolmen and other Papists agree with the Protestants in, is, that there are conditions rei volitae [of the willed thing], of the event of the thing willed, but no conditions of the act of volition in God.¹ As Aquinas says of causes, Deus vult hoc esse propter hoc; non autem propter hoc vult hoc.
1. There are both causes and conditions of the event willed of God.
2. Denominatione extrinseca ex connotatione objecti his will is hence called conditional; meaning but a volition of conditionals.
¹ De Vol. Conditionali, & authoritatibus & rationi∣bus pro eadem Vide Ruiz. de Vol. Dei, disp. 20. But his assertion that [Una creatura est Ratio mo∣vens tanquam objectum materiale (secundario) ut Deus velit aliam produce∣re] is a fiction, though he lay his stress on it about the ordo decreto∣rum. For movere is cau∣sare, and nothing doth cause or move God to act. There are Rationes effectuum & eorum ordi∣nis: but none of the ef∣ficient Acts of God in him: If you say, It is absurd to say, that God had no Reason to will the creation of this world rather than another: I answer, That is an Act of efficient Wisdom, above all Reason: But to fetch Reasons from the object, and thereby to be moved to Act, is the part of the imperfect creature. Rea∣soning properly is be∣low God: much more to be moved by extrinsick objective reasons: Yet on this Ruiz disp. 24. lay∣eth a great fabrick; and so men may draw twenty Schemes of Gods Reason∣ings as they variously fancy.
356. That God wills conditions, and conditional propositions and grants is past all controversies. For He wills his own Word which is his work: But his word has conditional promises and threats: and as his Word also may be called his will, He has a conditional will, because a conditional Word.
357. God’s eternal omniscience proves that at no instant He had a will properly conditional quoad actum: Because He that at the same instant foreknows whether the condition would be done or not, must needs have his will to be thereby absolute. But yet if it had pleased God to suspend the act of his own volition, upon a human condition, it would not have exposed Him at all to the charge either of mutability or dependence, which is very clear, for:
1. It is presupposed his Will as Voluntas & Essentia is unalterable, and is not that of which we speak.
2. But only his Volition as terminated on this or that object, and so as haec volitio ab objecto denominata.
3. And his efficient Volition, and Power is terminated on objects in time, without mutation in God.
4. And note well that God does suspend his own Possible Volitions in many cases; As he doth Not will to make more Worlds, more Men, more Suns, more Laws, etc. than de facto He will make.
5. And it is no more defectiveness in God to suspend a Volition for a time, than thus to do it for ever.
6. And it is no more Dependence on the Creature to Terminate his Volition only on a qualified subject (performing the Condition) than to terminate his Efficient Power and will on such or such a qualified subject. As for example, He terminates his omnipotent concurse for generation only on the materia seminalis recte disposita; He concurs to burn by fire, etc. And if his acts effectively transient may be terminated only and temporarily on disposed objects, If he did so in acts objectively transient, and did freely not-will the damnation of man till he had actually sinned, but suspended his will freely till then, and then de novo terminated it on the said qualified object, I see no show of dependence or mutability. For I oft cleared it before, that the termination of God’s knowledge, will or power on any particular object, is in him no addition to its estence; And doing it de novo, is no change in him but in the creature only; no more than it would be a change in the sun or its active emanations, if a thousand new creatures newly receive its influx and are moved by it variously according to their several conditions. Yet I have before given reasons why incipere jam praedestinare is more incongruous language.
358. I put in this only to deprecate the blind, uncharitable censures of dissenters in this point, who think that God’s volitions are new and conditional and suspended quoad actum hunc ad hoc objectum, and cry out, ‘It is blasphemy and makes God mutable and dependent.’ I am against their opinion as well as you as to conditional acts, but false charges prove you not to have more truth, but less love and sobriety than others.”
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Universal Redemption of Mankind by the Lord Jesus Christ (London: Salusbury, 1694), pp. 305-8
“5. In so doing God does all that belongs to Him to do as Legislator: For it must be understood that here He speaks those words ‘that the world by Him might be saved’ not as absolute-Lord merely or properly, but as Rector per Leges [a Governor through laws]; And it belongs to Him as Legislator only to propound salvation to man as his end: and to promise it on his conditions, and prescribe those conditions and command man to perform them: and to threaten him with the loss of that end (of salvation) if he perform them not.
But to give faith, which is the condition itself, does not belong so God as Legislator. (No man living can claim the first act of faith, or effectual grace thereto, from God by any promise that He has made): But He gives it as Dominus absolutus [an absolute Lord], and as one that may do with his own as he list. So that it is Finis prescriptus et conditionaliter datus [the end prescribed and conditionally given], that is here spoken of; and not Finis Decretus [the end decreed] to be by God eventually infallibly accomplished. It is the end of God’s Law and Legislative Will, and so of God as mere Legislator or Rector per Leges: and not of his decretive will de eventu [of the event], and of God as absolute Lord above Laws, without them disposing of his own. (The prediction of events does collaterally and secundum quid [according to that] belong to his Law: but not per se and directly.)
And 6. Consider that if it be never so much denied that God has properly a conditional will de rerum eventu [respecting the event of things], yet it is beyond all question true that He has a conditional will de debito [of debt or obligation] (officii, Præmii et Pænæ [of office or duty, reward and punishment]) and so his Law is conditional most commonly. He has constituted the Debitum pramii [debt of reward], the dueness of salvation on condition of believing, loving and sincerely obeying Christ. And therefore they must nor deny conditional promises and threatnings, though they deny conditional, decrees.
This I add, because I know they here usually answer that God intends no end conditionally, but where He intends also the condition itself, that so it may be equivalent to absolute: But He intends as Legislator that faith shall be the prescribed means to glory, and glory the end promised to all that perform that condition; and so conditionally gives it.”
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Francis Turretin
Institutes (P&R), vol. 1
3rd Topic, ‘The Will of God’, 15th Question, ‘May the will be properly distinguished into the will of decree and of precept, good purpose (eudokias) and good pleasure (euarestias), signified, secret and revealed? We affirm.’, pp. 222, 224
“X. We may sometimes interchange the eudokian [good-purpose of decree] for the euarestia [good-pleasure or complacency of the revealed will], when it is spoken of those things with which God is pleased because there is in them some quality or condition which agrees with the nature of God and therefore conciliates his favor…
XI. Eurestia contradistinguished from eudokian in this connection means nothing else than the mere complacency by which God approves anything as just and holy and delights in it (and besides wills to prescribe it to the creature as his most just duty). Hence it does not properly include any decree or volition in God, but implies only the agreement of the thing with the nature of God (according to which He cannot but love what is agreeable to his holiness)…
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XX. The will of sign which is set forth as extrinsic ought to correspond with some internal will in God that it may not be false and deceptive; but that internal will is not the decree concerning the gift of salvation to this or that one, but the decree concerning the command of faith and promise of salvation if the man does believe (which is founded both upon the connection established by God between faith and salvation and the internal disposition of God by which, as He loves Himself, He cannot but love his image wherever He sees it shining and is so much pleased with the faith and repentance of the creature as to grant it salvation).”
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4th Topic, 17th Question, ‘Can there be attributed to God any conditional will, or universal purpose of pitying the whole human race fallen in sin, of destinating Christ as Mediator to each and all, and of calling them all to a saving participation of his benefits? We deny.’, p. 412
“XXXVIII. Although God can be said to will men to be saved who yet are not saved (when it treats of the will of complacency [eurestias] which commands man’s duty and declares what is pleasing to God), yet this cannot be said equally of the will of decree. As many as God wills to be saved, He also wills to save and actually saves at the appointed time, that his will may not be rendered vain and frustrated.
But in this question (as was just said), it is not treated simply of that which He holds dear and wills to be done by men, but of that which He Himself wills to do towards men by destinating to them salvation under the condition of faith, and determining to send Christ for this end that He might acquire it for them. Therefore they are mistaken who discover a hiding place in this distinction, as if in this affair the question were only whether God wills all men to be saved and not whether He wills to save them.”
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In Thomism
Quotes
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.”
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pt. 5, Redemptive Incarnation, ch. 32, “Introduction”, pp. 204-5
“Divine decrees are of two kinds: one efficacious and absolute, the other inefficacious and conditional. The latter is concerned with the thing to be realized taken in itself, abstracting from all actual circumstance. Thus, for example, God wills the salvation of all men. But, in fact, God permits final impenitence in a sinner (e.g. Judas) as manifestation of infinite justice.
Efficacious decrees on the contrary are concerned with the thing to be realized taken with all its concrete circumstances of place and time. Hence these decrees are immutable and infallible. (Ia, q. 19, a. 6 [Whether the Will of God is always fulfilled?], ad 1)”
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pt. 8, Developments & Confirmations, ch. 59, Efficacious Grace, pp. 400-402
“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.
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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.
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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)”
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On Paradigms of Conditional Decrees between Thomists & Scotists
Historical
Quote
Robert Pomplun, “Predestined a Passible Redeemer: Scientia Media in Early Modern Christologies” in eds. Ballor, Gaetano & Sytsma, Beyond Dordt & De Auxiliis: the Dynamics of Protestant & Catholic Soteriology in the Sixteenth & Seventeenth Centuries (Brill, 2019), pp. 95-98
“Many Jesuits attempted to reconcile Thomas Aquinas [who held Christ only came in order to save from sin] and Duns Scotus [who held Christ would have come apart from sin]. The most famous of these “third way” approaches, of course, is that of Francisco Suárez (1548– 1617). Many include Diego Granado (1571– 1632) and Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza (1578– 1641) in the category. Some Jesuits, such as Bernardo Aldrete (1596– 1647), Vicente Ramírez (1652– 1721), Juan de Ulloa (1639– 1723), Domenico Viva (1684– 1726), and Juan Campoverde (1658– 1737), are difficult to classify. One can find some genuinely exotic arrangements of the signa rationis in these thinkers.
Most “third way” approaches share an appeal to virtual or conditional decrees. Consider Suárez’s famous argumentum in optimo: for Suárez, the only determination of the incarnation is that God share his love in a maximally perfect way. Had Adam not fallen, the Jesuit reasoned, it is fitting to think that the Word would have become incarnate as the impassible and glorified head of his mystical body. Since Adam did fall, however, God simply shares his love in the most perfect way possible in a fallen world: he lays down his life for his friends. After Suárez, in fact, we see a great number of theologians posit conditional or virtual decrees of this kind. In them, broadly speaking, Christ is predestined before the prevision of sin as passible should the need for redemption arise.
Luis de Molina [who popularized a Middle Knowledge for God] is generally considered a “third way” theologian on this issue…
in 1613 the Jesuit general Claudio Acquaviva (1543– 1615) enjoined theologians of the Society of Jesus to follow Suárez and Robert Bellarmine (1542– 1621) rather than Molina, and the “congruism” of these two doctors became the official teaching of the Society under the direction of Muzio Vitelleschi (1563– 1645)…
After the grace controversies, however, several theologians wary of the strict Thomist position (which appeared to them to make the predestination of Christ posterior to the predestination of Adam, and so make Christ decreed only after the prevision of sin) and equally wary of the strict Scotist position (which appeared to them to emphasize the impassible glory of Christ at the expense of his redemption, and so to require a second divine decree to permit his suffering), employed the scientia media to argue that God decreed the incarnation of the Word as a passible redeemer prior to the prevision of sin. This long- forgotten Catholic position is, I think, closer to John Calvin’s motivation as Muller understands it than any strict “Thomist” or “Scotist” interpretation…
One no longer had to declare that Christ was absolutely decreed to be a passible redeemer, but rather that he was decreed in view of the scientia media. On this interpretation, sin and death are simply one possible outcome known in God’s scientia rerum liberarum creaturis futurarum sub hy pothesi. God can thus decree Christ as the primum volitum ad extra (as Scotists claimed) and the very redeemer who will die for our sins should we succumb to temptation (as Thomists claimed), thereby securing both his absolute primacy over creation and his eternal determination as redeemer without denying the efficacy of God as the primary cause and without proposing a “third” knowledge between God’s scientia simplicis intelligentiae and scientia visionis.
The doctrine enjoyed something of a vogue in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. When Diego Quadros (fl. 1734) summarized the debate, he identified Albertini, Amico, Arriaga, Ruiz, Aranda, Muniesa, and Campoverde (among the Jesuits), and Godoy and Gonet (among the Dominicans), as defenders of the position. In fact, Quadros outlines no fewer than five solutions to the problem that are neither “Thomist” nor “Scotist,” with Aldrete being unique, and Suárez, Granado, Molina, Viva, and Ulloa all occupying a category that is broadly “Scoto-Molinist” without having recourse to a passible redeemer. At any rate, the doctrine was not universally accepted.”
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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 – 5. ‘Voluntas absoluta and voluntas conditionata’ in 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, pp. 463-65
“5. Voluntatas absoluta and voluntas conditionata. The distinction between decretive and perceptive will, voluntas beneplaciti and voluntas signi, relates also to a distinction between absolute will and conditioned will (voluntas absoluta et voluntas conditionata). According to the former, God wills and determines that something should occur ‘without any condition’ in the object of God’s willing—but the latter, the conditional will, rests upon the fulfillment of a condition in or by the object of the divine will, for example, the will of God to save men upon condition of faith.
Maccovius notes, against the Arminians, that the distinction is ‘utterly vain.’ Wendelin indicates that this distinction causes some difficulty, but makes perfectly good sense if it is understood solely in terms of the voluntas signi [will of sign, or revealed will]—granting that most of the divine precepts, promises, and condemnations are stated conditionally. The distinction is, however, extended improperly to the eternal decree, inasmuch as the decree cannot be ‘suspended on conditions’…” – p. 463
“As in the previous controversies, the rectitude of the distinction depends upon its definition: ‘it is possible to allow a voluntas conditionata [conditional will]’ in God ‘but not in an a priori and antecedent sense, as if dependent on a condition, rather in an a posteriori and consequent sense, given that some condition in the creature intervenes between the will and its execution’; and then ‘only to the extent that the condition does not belong to the internal divine act (a parte actus interni) or volition (volitionis), but to the external object (a parte obiecti externi) or thing willed (rei volitae).’
In this sense, the distinction can legitimately be applied to the promises associated with God’s covenants… the covenants of law and gospel, where God’s promises are extended conditionally to sinners… In other words, the conditional will remains an immutable will, willed eternally by God, but it is understood as being directed toward a contingent or conditional event: the condition, strictly understood, obtains, not in the divine will, but in the temporal event.” – p. 464
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Quotes
Richard Muller
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, 1. Voluntas beneplaciti and voluntas signi, p. 458
“In the particular sense of a distinction between the voluntas beneplaciti as the decree and the voluntas signi as the divine command, the distinction is little different than the correctly understood distinction between the absolute and the conditional will of God. (Leigh, Body of Divinity, II.vii (p. 198); Cocceius, Summa theol., III.x47.)”
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On John Davenant & Gabriel Vasquez
Quote
Michael Lynch, John Davenant’s Hypothetical Universalism: a Defense of Catholic & Reformed Orthodoxy (Oxford Univ. Press, 2021), 7.2.2 Voluntas Providentialis, pp. 151-52
“Davenant also often distinguishes between conditional and absolute decrees with respect to the voluntas simplicis complacentiae. Absolute decrees properly fall under God’s voluntas beneplaciti, whereas God’s voluntas simplicis complacentiae is often expressed conditionally in Scripture. Thus, when Scripture says God wills the salvation of all, it is on the condition of believing in Christ— an act “so agreeable unto Gods will that wheresoever it is found it shall be rewarded.” Consider, for example, God’s voluntas simplicis complacentiae by which God is said to desire or will the salvation of all. This will can be understood as an effectual will (virtually, in itself) with a condition. That is, it is a mixed conditional, as opposed to a mere conditional.¹
¹ On the distinction between a mixed conditional and a mere conditional decree, see Ruiz de Montoya, Commentaria ac Disputationes de Scientia, de Ideis, de Veritate, ac de Vita Dei… (Paris: Sebastian Cramoisy, 1629), VI.2 [pp. 38– 40] LXXI.7 [p. 744]. It is called a mixed conditional because, as Ruiz says, this antecedent will is “necessarily and essentially conjoined with [God’s will of] simple complacency, and partly with an efficacious will, as far as it pertains to God’s part” (Commentaria . . . De Voluntate Dei, XX.1 [p. 215]). Cf. Davenant, Animadversions, 225– 27).
As the sixteenth-century Jesuit Gabriel Vásquez explains,
“God, by way of an agreement [pacto], willed our salvation by a simple love [affectu] and that salvation is pleasing to him, so that unless sins hinder it, he effectually wills it… therefore because of this mixed [implicitae] will under a condition, we say that God has a conditional will, or as they say, willingness [velleitatem].”
So God may be said to approbatively love the salvation of all, insofar as the objects of faith and repentance are well-pleasing to him, while also permitting the failing of the event, viz., the salvation of any particular person, on account of their failure to perform the condition.
Because of God’s foreknowledge of all future actions of all human beings, as well as his absolute power to cause them to do any good which would lead to blessedness or leave them in their sin leading to destruction, all of God’s decrees are either absolute or mixed conditionals. Moreover, all decrees are either revealed or hidden. The decree regarding a person’s election is hidden; on the other hand, the decree that God will save any person that believes is revealed. Decrees that come in the form of a condition— such as “If Esau believes, he will be saved”— are not pure conditionals, as noted above, but are said to be mixed because they are grounded upon God’s absolute, effectual, and revealed will that he has bound himself to, namely, that he will save any who repent and believe. According to an eternal and inviolable divine ordination, there is an indissoluble connection between faith and salvation. Davenant explains:
“It is an absolute decree of the Divine will published in the Gospel, That whosoever repenteth, believeth, persevereth, shall be saved: From hence is derived that mixt conditionall decree, If Cain, if Judas, if any other repent and believe, they shall be saved.”
In short, when Davenant speaks of a conditional decree, he understands such decrees as founded upon God’s absolute will by which he has decreed that the apodosis follow (infallibly) from the fulfillment of the protasis.”
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Latin
1600’s
Rutherford, Samuel – Apologetic Exercises for Divine Grace (Amsterdam, 1636; 1651)
Exercise 1 – Of the Divine Decrees and the Agreeable Union of Divine Will with Human Liberty
3 – Whether Contingencies are Subject to God’s Absolute Decree, and in what way Conditional, Disjunctive and Congruent Decrees of God are Overthrown 68
Maccovius, Johannes – disp. 3. ‘Of the Conditional Will of God’ 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, pp. 8-11
Maccovius (1588-1644)
Trigland, Jacob – ‘Of an Absolute Will & Conditional Will’ in Meditations on Various Opinions on the Will of God & Universal Grace, where yet is Something on Middle-Knowledge (Leiden, 1642), pp. 165-74
Trigland was one of the professors of theology at Leiden and an author of the Synopsis of Pure Theology.
Maresius, Samuel – A New Synopsis of Elenctic Theology, or an Index of the Controversies of Faith out of the Sacred Scriptures (1646-1647), vol. 2
Maresius (1599-1673)
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1700’s
Vitringa, Sr., Campegius – sect. 30 with footnote (n), ‘Divisions of the divine decree (antecedent, consequent, conditional, absolute)’ in The Doctrine of the Christian Religion, Summarily Described through Aphorisms 6th ed. Martin Vitringa & Theodore Schelting (d. 1722; Arnheim: Moelemann, 1761), vol. 2, 5. Counsel of the Divine Will, Decrees of God, pp. 27-28
13. On the Free Choice of Man & of the Eternal Foreknowledge, Predestination & Reprobation of God
8. Whether eternal predestination to glory was made from the fore-vision of merits or faith? or truly… The first is denied and the latter affirmed, contra the Jesuits, Remonstrants, Socinians and other remaining Pelagians; further, where is discussed the name of ‘predestination’; it is shown in what way, in respect of election rather than reprobation, it is able to be called absolute and efficacious; conditional decrees are refuted; and man fallen is demonstrated to be the object of predestination, according to the judgment of the Synod of Dort, from Scripture and reason, contra Supralapsarians; and our churches are cleared from the calumnies of Tirinus. 62-137
Vitringa, Sr. (1659-1722) was a professor in Franeker and a Hebraist.
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French
1600’s
Du Moulin, Pierre – A Clarification on the Controversies of Salmur, or a Defense of the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches on the Immutability of the Decrees of God, the Efficacy of the Death of Christ, the Universal Grace, the inability to Convert Oneself & on other matters (Leiden, 1648)
2nd Section, Of the Conditional Decrees of God
1. What is that condition. That God did not appoint conditional decrees. 15
2. Response to a subterfuge which he used 19
3. Of the word ‘presuppose’ 23
4. That the condition which Mr. [Moses] Amyraut brings to the counsel of God is impossible 25
5. Reasons and excuses which color this new doctrine 28
6. The response to two examples which we objected 36-37
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