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Subsections

Revealed Will has Purpose
Ineffectual Call
Compatibility of Irresistible & Resistible Grace
God can Effect whatever a Creature can do
Common Operations of the Spirit
Antecedent / Consequent Will
Conditional Will

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Order of

Inefficacy  1
Against  8+
For  27+
Ineffectual Grace  8
Ineffectual Sacraments  1
Christ  6+

Lombard
Thomism
Scotism
Jesuits

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On Inefficacy Generally

Quote

1200’s

Thomas Aquinas

Summa, pt. 1, quest. 25, art. 2, reply to obj. 2

“…a thing is ineffectual which is ordained towards an end to which it does not attain.”

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Against an Ineffectual Will of God

Note: Numerous of the writers below qualify what they say and speak with regard to a certain sense: especially of a “proper” sense, of an ineffectual will being “in” God, or only of an ineffectual decree.

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Order of

Articles  2
Quotes  5
Latin  2

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Articles

1600’s

Turretin, Francis – 16. ‘May the will be properly distinguished into antecedent and consequent, efficacious and inefficacious, conditional and absolute?  We deny.’  in Institutes of Elenctic Theology  tr. George M. Giger, ed. James Dennison Jr.  (Geneva, 1679-1686; P&R, 1992), vol. 1, Topic 3, pp. 226-31

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

Controversy 2 – ‘Are there capricious desires or inefficacious desires (optationes) in God, which are called wishes (velleitates)?  We deny against the same.’  40-41

Controversy 3 – ‘Is God’s will always absolute, firm, and efficacious and never conditioned, weak, or inefficacious?  We affirm against the same.’  41

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Quote

Order of

Baynes
Greenhill
Pitcarne
Menzies
S. Van Til

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1600’s

Paul Baynes

A Commentary upon the First Chapter of the Epistle of Saint Paul, written to the Ephesians…  some Principal Controversies about Predestination are handled, and diverse arguments of Arminius are examined  (London, 1618), on Eph. 1:11, pp. 254-55  Note Baynes’s context against Arminius.

“Doctrine 3.  ‘Counsel of his will’.  That is which his will propounded to it, [it] did freely accept.  Observe hence that what God wills once, that He effectually works, see Ps. 115, ‘Our God is in heaven and does whatsoever He wills: Who has refused his will?’ so Isa. 46:10.  We see in beasts that they have an appetite to that [which] they move after; in men that which they will, that they put out their power to effect; so it is in God: if He will anything, He does work it effectually.

That is a frivolous distinction of an effectual and an ineffectual will in God, which stands neither with truth of Scripture, as in this place, nor with the blessedness of God, nor with the nature of things: all that showed Him, which his will accepts, He does effectually work it.  [It is] Against [the] blessedness of God: for might God will a thing and not have it, He were not fully blessed, when to have every good will is more blessed than to want [lack] it.  Against [the] nature of things, for everything which will and ability works, if God almighty have will to anything, the thing must needs follow.  Where there is full power to work anything, applied to the working of it, the thing wrought must needs follow.

Here some distinguish and say that in things which God will do, his power does work them effectually, but the things which God would have on condition from us, those his power does not work: an old Pelagian conceit.  Would not God have us walk in his commandments, and has He not said that He will put his Spirit in us and make us walk in them?  St. Augustine learned that God did promise to work mightily those things He requires from us.

If to have the conditional will be more happy than to want it, then God who has power to work the condition in us will not want it: Not to say that this conditional will is absurdly imagined in God: He must will the having a thing on condition which He will not work, and then it is impossible, unless the creature can do something good which He will not do in him; or on condition which He will work, and then He works all He wills; or on such a condition which He sees the creature cannot perform, nor Himself will not make Him perform; and this were idle and frivolous.”

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William Greenhill

An Exposition continued upon the 20th-29th chapters of the prophet Ezekiel...  (London: Chapman, 1658), on ch. 20, v. 8, p. 43

“Question: Seeing God purposed to destroy them, and did it not, is not his will alterable and inefficacious?

Answer: The counsels, purposes, decrees of God are unalterable and do take place, Ps. 33:11; Isa. 14:27; 43:13; 46:10; Mal. 3:6; Heb. 6:17.  For that said and done here, it’s more humano [by a human custom]: God saw cause-sufficient to move Him to their destruction, but seeing what evil was like to come about, He would not destroy them; had the Lord decreed it before the world, it must have taken place, no change or alteration could have been.”

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Alexander Pitcarne

The Spiritual Sacrifice, or a Treatise wherein several Weighty Questions and Cases concerning the saints’ communion with God in prayer are propounded and practically improved  (Edinburgh: Brown, 1664), pt. 1, pp. 146-47  Pitcarne (1622?–1695) was a partially conforming Scottish minister and academic.

“Thus then the morality of our actions must not be measured by any decree concerning the futurition of events, but by some other rule, in which must concur God’s will and appointment, setting bounds unto us and designing our duty, and discovering what is well-pleasing and acceptable to God, honest and laudable in itself, and profitable and comfortable to us in the issue; and thus we have the Word of God for our direction and have his laws and testimonies to be our rule: Dt. 29:29; Isa. 8:20; Dt. 30:10-12; Dt. 5:29; Ps. 147:19; Rom, 12:2; 1 Thess. 4:2; 1 Pet. 4:2, etc. and we may take notice of these three things as necessarily requisite and concurring in that which is a warrant unto and rule of our actions and petitions:

1. The good-pleasure and decree of God, not concerning what shall come to pass, but concerning the quality and moral goodness of human actions, and which does limit and set bounds to reasonable creatures and prescribes unto them their duty; and this is the fountain and first spring (yea and by many judicious and sober divines is judged to be the supreme adequate and first rule) of moral rectitude.  Hence we may conceive that God’s laws in Scripture are called ‘decrees,’ ‘statutes’ and ‘ordinances’.

2. From this decree and appointment, does (to our apprehension) flow divine approbation, complacency and delight in what is thus appointed to be our work and duty: hence that appointment is called the good, acceptable and perfect will of God, Rom. 12:2, and our actions when conform[ed] to that rule, are said to be well-pleasing in his sight, Heb. 13:2; yea the Lord does not only declare his love of his complacency, and delight in these when they are performed, but also He is said to will and desire (though not according to the Jesuitical and Arminian gloss)¹ those works while He is speaking to the rebellious and disobedient who have slighted his laws and casten all his statutes behind their backs: Eze. 18:23, 32; 33:11; Hos. 6:6; 1 Sam. 15:22; Isa. 61:8; Mt. 9:13; 2 Pet. 3:9, etc.

¹ Arminians, Socinians and Jesuits from thence would collect a frustratable and inefficacious will and desire in God, but this phrase does only import God’s serious approbation of the works of righteousness and detestation of the contrary.

3. There must be an intimation and promulgation of this decree and appointment, and a declaration of those things that would be well pleasing, and acceptable to God.”

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John Menzies

The Church of England Vindicated against her Chief Adversaries of the Church of Rome...  (London: Wilkinson, 1680), ch. 4, p. 190  Menzies (1624–1684) was a Scottish presbyterian minister, Protester, a partial-conformist after the Restoration and a theological professor during that time.

“Do they [Jesuits] not overthrow the omnipotency of God by attributing to Him inefficacious wills?  How is it that all are not saved, if He willed all to be saved?  Does He not in heaven and earth whatever pleases Him, Ps. 135:3.”

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1700’s

Salomon Van Til

Compendium of Both Theologies, even Natural & Revealed…  (1703; 1719), 1. Nature of God, subsection 4, ‘On the Will of God’  tr. AI by Roman Prestarri  Latin

“§12. Those who distinguish the will of God into efficacious and inefficacious, absolute and conditional, antecedent and consequent, etc., in order to free the liberty of the will [libertas arbitrii] from all necessity of the event, labor in vain and ascribe many imperfections to God.  Wherefore we acknowledge no will of decree which is not efficacious, absolute, and antecedent, as in the chapter on the decree of God we shall see that no other is to be admitted.”

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Latin

1600’s

Maccovius, Johannes – in A Theological Collection of all that which is Extant, including Theological Theses through Common Places in the Academy of Franeker  (Franeker, 1641), First Part:  a Collection, 1. Of Predestination

8. No Ineffectual Will of God  22-24

Maccovius (1588-1644)

Spanheim, Frederic – 1. ‘The assertors of a particular and efficacious grace more greatly commend the goodness of God than those of a universal and inefficacious grace’  in Exercitations on Universal Grace  (Leiden, 1646), vol. 2, Additions & Vindications of Them, pp. 1501-9

Spanheim (1600-1649)

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For Ineffectual Divine Willings in Some Regard

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Order of

Quotes  22+
Historical  4
Latin  1

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Quotes

Order of

Zanchi
Arminius
Salkeld
Gryffith
Synopsis
Polyander
Byfield
Davenant & Aquinas
Rutherford
Love
Roberts
Shepard
Baxter
Poole
Fairclough
P. Henry
Mastricht
Howe
M. Henry
Heppe
Shedd
Murray
Berkhof
Finlayson

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1500’s

Jerome Zanchi

On the Nature of God...  (Heidelberg: Wiener Neustadt, 1577), bk. 3  tr. AI by The Faith Received

ch. 3, quest. 3, ‘Whether in the knowledge of truth (which indeed is revealed in the sacred scriptures) our salvation is placed or not placed?’

“But many testimonies of Scripture (you will say) teach that even the reprobate have known the truth.  Leaving aside the Scriptures of the Old Testament: to Romans the apostle concerning the reprobates says that they hold the truth of God in unrighteousness.  And to the Hebrews [6:4-6] he says that some have fallen away from the truth.  And he says they taste the word of God and the powers of the world to come: but after the knowledge of the truth they willfully sin.  And this is sin against the Holy Spirit: namely the opposition to the truth known, made from the heart.

There are twofold cognitions of the truth (as was shown at the outset): one indeed is given and conferred by the gift of the Spirit; but yet inefficacious.  For it is only on the surface of the intellect, and the ray has no root in the heart; and therefore it cannot be durable.  For it is like seed which is born among rocky chinks and has no root; therefore when the sun arises it withers.  Such cognition is common also to the reprobate.
…

Another is efficacious by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit, I say, of regeneration.  For this penetrates into the heart, receives it, reforms and refashions it: there it puts down deep roots, and thrusts itself forth outward in its fruits by charity…

Wherefore the Thesis remains firm: only the elect can come to the true knowledge of the truth, and at last the thing itself attains them.  Thus it happens that this cognition of the truth is purely the work of the Holy Spirit, efficaciously calling and teaching.  What things are demanded of us that we may come to a true and efficacious cognition of the truth?

Thesis: That we be led to the cognition of the truth, besides a certain general hearing of the Word of God, we must pray that God may grant us his Spirit: who, when He excites in us the desire to seek that truth, then leads us to seek, to find, and to retain it.”

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ch. 4, quest. 3, ‘Whether the will of God is one and simple, or rather manifold: and if manifold, how many those wills are?’

“This question is not proposed without cause by us: for on the one hand, if God’s simplicity and immutability are regarded, it will not seem in any way admissible in God that wills be contrary to one another; which also will always be done according to that saying: ‘My will shall be done: and whatsoever He hath willed He hath done.’  Yet if many passages which are handed down in Scripture be considered, we should confess: there is no one who would not say that the will of God is not one only but in a manner manifold: and very often contrary.

For He commands many things which do not happen either because He cannot effect them to be, or because He does not will them to be.  The former cannot be said without denying God’s omnipotence, and thus deity.

Some distinguish between an antecedent will and a consequent will: as [John] Damascus, bk. 2, ch. 46.  Others between the will of good-pleasure and the will of sign: as Lombard and the scholastics: Sentences, bk. 1, dist. 45. Others between a will not revealed and a will revealed.  Others between absolute volition and conditional volition.  Others what God wills to be done respecting us, and into the will which He wills to be from us.  Some distinguish in the will of the Almighty a will efficacious and an inefficacious will, as Augustine in the Enchiridion, chs. 102-3.

These divisions seem various, but if they be weighed diligently and rightly understood, they reduce to the same.
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Efficacious & Inefficacious Will

Thirdly, that former and absolute will is also called by Augustine, just as it is most certain, so also most omnipotent, efficacious and invincible: and this is because it is always fulfilled, as much in heaven as on earth.

But the other, namely the conditional, is called by the same Augustine the inefficacious will: because, clearly, it is not always fulfilled.  For since it depends on conditions which God demands of us, and we do not perform them, it happens that it is not always nor in all things fulfilled, and therefore it is deservedly called inefficacious, namely by itself alone.  Let Augustine be read in volume 3, in the Enchiridion to Laurentius, chs. 102-3.  Some things also in volume 5, On the City of God, bk. 22, chs. 1-2.
…

IV. From those things which I have said, it appears, first, why, although there is only one will of God—that is, one decree concerning all things, as has been demonstrated, and that immutable—it is nevertheless said to be manifold: namely, both on account of the diverse kinds of things which God wills, and on account of the diverse manner of willing, as it seems to us: because, namely, he wills some things simply and absolutely, while other things seem to us to be willed conditionally.  Then it is also clear that, although there seem to be many partitions of the divine will, all are nevertheless reduced to one partition: namely, to the absolute and secret will, which is also called the will of Good Pleasure; and to the revealed and conditional will, which is not undeservedly named the will of the sign.

And thus, in the third place, it appears that, although in reality there is only one will in God, as has been declared and confirmed, it can nevertheless be said to be manifold by different respects.  And conversely, although on account of the diverse reasons by which he seems to will, and by which he explains his will, many wills of his are said to exist: it does not therefore hinder that there is in reality only one will of God, and that constant and eternal: which is the head of this our thesis.  For although He wills many things, and indeed willed some things, for example, in the Old Testament, but wills other things in the New: yet He willed both those and these by the same will and decree.  He willed those at one time, namely, until the time of correction, as the Apostle says: he wills these at another time, until the end of the world. Behold how the diverse kinds of things which he wills do not in the least cause there to be in reality many wills of God: but one and the same will always remains in God.  And although he seems to will many things absolutely, but others conditionally: in reality, however, if one must speak properly, all things whatsoever God wills, He wills absolutely and simply.  And consequently, all things which He wills also come to pass. For the fact that he is said to will certain things conditionally: this is to be referred only to the manifestation of that will.  For there is no conditional will in God, because this fights against his eternal wisdom: but only in the law.

And this also, that He signifies in the law that He wills conditionally: He had decreed by his absolute will to do—namely, not to manifest his will concerning the saving or damning of men without a condition; and this because this would be both useful to us and would conduce to the manifesting of his justice.  For it was and is useful to us the elect to know that God does not will that anyone be saved without living faith in Christ: and consequently, if we wish to be saved, that we must believe in Christ.  Likewise, this conduced to rendering the reprobate inexcusable.  For they know what things are necessary for salvation: and consequently, it served to vindicate the justice of God from all accusations and calumnies. Therefore, because it was expedient, He revealed his will with a condition.

And in this respect, the will of God seems to be twofold: which, however, is in reality only one, and that firm and constant.  For by one and constant will he absolutely wills only the elect to be saved: and consequently He wills only also by true faith, which can be kept, are given: but the reprobate, are absolutely excluded from this salvation: and therefore, are not given the faith by which they can be blessed in heaven.  See how the different modes, by which God seems to will, do not remove the fact that there remains but one, eternal and absolute and immutable will of God, on account of which different modes, different wills also seem to exist.

V. But that He also commands many things to be done, which are not done: it does not follow from this, however, either that He is impotent: as if He could not cause that what He commands, be done: or that there is truly a manifold will in God: one, which He signifies by word, another, which He does not will to be done in His presence, that which He commands.  For there are two kinds of God’s commandments: some are simply absolute: and without any condition at all, either expressed or tacit.

These are the most certain, absolute and simple testimonies of the divine will, which is called good pleasure.  Such was that to Moses, do all things according to the pattern which you saw on the mountain.  Likewise, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: go into Egypt: and other commands of that kind made both to Moses himself and to the prophets.  Because these are the very will of God: therefore He who gives these commands, also brings it about that they are done.  And of these is that in Isaiah 46, ‘My counsel shall stand: and my will shall be done;’ and Pm. 115, ‘Whatsoever He willed, He did.’  Therefore, as far as this kind of God’s commandments is concerned: it appears that there is one and the same will: that, namely, which is revealed in the Word: and that, which was hidden in the secret counsel of God.  Whence does this appear?  From the fact that what God commands happens.

There are other commandments, which He promulgated with a condition, if not expressed, at least tacit: such as those which we have in the law.  Namely, if we wish to enter into life: that this and that is commanded to us, and that these commandments are to be kept, as Christ explained, saying: If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments. All these things indeed, are proposed conditionally both to the elect and to the reprobate: meanwhile, however, these commandments have a far different reason, insofar as they are made to the elect: and another, insofar as they are made to the reprobate.

Insofar as they are made to the elect: although they are proposed with a condition: yet the will of God in them is absolute.  For God simply wills: that they be kept by the elect, if not always, at least at length sometime.  And for this reason, because they cannot perform these things by their own strength: He gives them the strength of the Spirit, by which they can; just as He promises through Ezekiel: I will cause that you walk in my commandments.  And because even with the strength which the Lord supplies, they cannot perfectly keep the commandments in themselves: He brings it about that they keep them perfectly in Christ: insofar as namely: And through Christ their transgressions are not imputed to them: and on account of Christ, their begun obedience, serving as most perfect, is accepted: and on the contrary, Christ’s justice and obedience are imputed to them: and because finally, at the end in heaven most perfectly, even in themselves, they will complete the sum of the law.

In this way also it appears, that the will of God, which is revealed in the commandments: is one and the same in reality with the secret will and will of good pleasure.  Therefore, neither here are there two different wills, but one.  God acts in giving the law to the elect, as a parent in prescribing laws to his children.  He not only teaches what He requires of them: but also signifies that He altogether wills that they keep them, whether they want to or not.

But towards the reprobate, He acts as a Lord towards his servants.  He will promulgate merely conditional laws: if they want to be with Him, [He wills] altogether that they conduct themselves thus: if not, let them depart.  Thus God.  Therefore, insofar as these commandments are given to the reprobate, and likewise promises are added to them: all are truly conditional.  For the will of God is not absolute, that the reprobate keep them: or attain the promises.  This is clear, both from the one example of ‘Pharaoh, I will harden, lest he let the people go:’ and from the fact that they do not keep them, neither in themselves, nor in Christ: in whom they are not: nor ever will keep them.

But those things which God properly wills: He brings it about that all of them be accomplished: according to that, All things, whatsoever He willed, He did: And that in Isa. 46, ‘My counsel shall stand, and my will shall be done.’

Wherefore there is not here a double will of God in reality: one in the law, another in the mind and essence of God: for it is not the will of God that the impious should keep the law, as has been said.  No one, therefore, will be able to infer in any way from the precepts of God that there is a double will in reality.

I will speak more briefly and clearly.  The Law can be considered in two ways: either insofar as it is Torah (doctrine), by which it is taught what is pleasing to God, and what must be done by us, or not done, if we wish to be saved: in this way the Law is taught as pertaining to all, both the reprobate and the elect.  And because it reveals and teaches what is right and pleasing to God: that is therefore said to be the will of God, because it reflects the nature of God, and what God loves and approves.

Or it is considered insofar as it is Torah (commandment): that is, the true testimony of the secret will, or what He wills to be done by us at all.  In this way it pertains only to the elect.  This will of God, revealed in the law, is fulfilled by the elect: in the way that was mentioned above: and as God wills it to be done by them.

The impious, however, the reprobate, while they act against the doctrine of the law, and thereby against their own duty: they do not act against the absolute, true, and properly so-called will of God: but they are said to act against the will of God for this reason, because they act against that which they know to be pleasing to God, and to be approved by God.

But if you object that they therefore do not properly sin, because they do not act against the will of God, which is properly the will of God: that exception is easily refuted.  For sin is defined, not as what is a transgression of the secret will and divine good pleasure: but as what is a transgression of the divine law: and what is 1 Jn. 3:4, lawlessness (anomia).  For we sin for this reason, because we do not perform the things that are good and pleasing to God, and commanded and owed by us, but the contrary.  In the law, however, are manifested: what all men owe to God by duty, and what they do not owe.  Therefore, they sin more gravely who act against these things, and are therefore said to sin against the will of God: because they sin against that doctrine by which we are taught what is consistent with the nature of God, and what we owe Him by duty: and what is in itself pleasing and acceptable to God.

But if you object again: but God therefore mocks the reprobate: when He commands that they do this or that: if this is not His certain and definite will.  He does not mock them at all: because by His law, although He does not reveal what He absolutely wills to be done by them (for this is properly the will of God), yet He clearly teaches what is the duty of Him and of every man.  Therefore, the law is deservedly called by Moses, Torah (doctrine): because it teaches everyone what his duty is: adding moreover, that whoever has acted against this duty of his, sins gravely and becomes liable to death.  On the contrary, he who has done his duty: him [He rewards].

Lest this seem insufficient to you?  Or is this mocking?  Tell me, I pray: In the parable of the Gospel, those who were first invited to the wedding, and did not come: was it therefore a mockery to them by the king: because he only signified to them what would be pleasing to him, and what was their duty: and did not command them to be compelled, as the second ones, to come to the wedding?  Not at all.  Yet meanwhile, the will of the king in inviting the first was not that which it was in the second.  For in calling these latter, the will of the king was absolute: that they should come at all, and therefore he also brought it about that they should come at all.  To the former, however, he only signified: and that candidly and ingenuously: what would be pleasing to Him.  As therefore it cannot be said that He called the first to the wedding with an invitation: although the will of the King was not absolute and simple that they come, as it was in calling the second: so neither can it be said that God mocks the reprobate when He gives them the law and calls them: although it is not His will that they come and obey the law.  For it is enough to render them inexcusable: that they understand what things are pleasing to God, and what is their duty what things are pleasing to God, and what is their duty: they would have taken and thought that they were doing it by their own virtue, from God, who has absolute right over them and over all, to be commanded.

To that point, that God commanded Abraham to kill his son, when nevertheless He did not want him killed: and to Pharaoh, to let the people go, when nevertheless He did not want them to be let go: and from this many try to gather that there were two, and those contrary, wills in God: one expressed by word, the other hidden in His own mind: We answer that this does not follow at all.

For there was only one, and that a constant will: namely, that Abraham’s son was not to be killed: nor was the people to be let go by Pharaoh: and thus both were fulfilled.  But as for the command given to Pharaoh, it was a doctrine by which He signified what was to be done by Pharaoh if he did not want to be afflicted by so many plagues: and what was his duty, and in itself just and owed: but it was not a testimony of His absolute will.  Wherefore it does not follow from that that there were two wills of God.

In the command also given to Abraham, it was not a simple will of God that he should kill his son: but only that he should take the sword, with the intention of killing and sacrificing, and that for the sake of God: and thus show his piety towards God, and his promptness in obeying: which was also entirely done: because this was the will of God.  But the will of God did not extend as far as the killing.  Therefore, when Abraham, having finished all other things, had extended the sword with which he might slaughter his son: the Lord forbade him to do it.  To which will also Abraham complied. Thus neither here was there a double will of God: but one.

And the Lord said: offer your son as a burnt offering: this therefore was the will of God: and yet afterwards, He signified another will. It was not another: for He did not first want that it should come to the actual slaughter.  Therefore Moses premises, The Lord tempted Abraham: but He only wanted that, with other things actually performed, he should also slaughter him with the promptness of his mind, not with the sword.  For this is that which, first and properly, the Lord requires in His precepts: that is, that we should be prompt in mind for His obedience, and by this promptness of our mind of ours, the commandments are properly fulfilled before God.

The sum in almost all these arguments is admitted as a parable: for the will of God, properly accepted, is the absolute, certain, and firm decree of God, concerning things to be done, either by Himself or by others: and that this is always fulfilled, and is immutable, we do not doubt to affirm.  But the Law and all commandments are called the will of God: because by them it is signified and taught what is in itself just, and pleasing to God: and what is required of us, if we wish to be saved.  But alone, it is not properly the will of God: but the Torah, the doctrine of the just: and the command of doing it.  But if with this doctrine and command there is joined the decree of God, by which He absolutely wills that what He requires be performed: then it will be said to be properly the will of God: as it is, in so far as it is given to the elect.

Wherefore not undeservedly they have distinguished in the schools, not indeed the will of God itself: but the signification of the name of the will of God: in so far as it sometimes signifies the decree of God itself, and the good-pleasure: which is properly called will: whence it is also called the will of good-pleasure, and absolute will, because it is without condition: and most omnipotent, because it is always done.

But sometimes it signifies that which is in itself pleasing to God, and just: and which the nature of the divine genius refers to: and which is required of us, if we wish to be saved: which is properly called law, and Torah: whence also will is signified: because by this doctrine it is signified what is pleasing to God, and what is of our duty: And conditional will, because these things are required of us, if we wish to obtain eternal salvation.  In truth, however, the will of God, properly accepted, is only one, and that perpetual, and firm: as has now been sufficiently and abundantly declared.”

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ch. 4, quest. 10, ‘Whether the will of God sometimes contends with itself, while it commands certain things which it nevertheless does not wish to happen: and therefore, whether there are in God contradictory wills?  Or rather, whether there is only one [will], and that one always consistent with itself.

The explanation of this question is extremely necessary for a true understanding of the sacred scriptures.  For on the one hand we read that nothing in the world, not even sins, are admitted without God’s will: On the other hand, we see that sins are forbidden by God’s Law.  Therefore, there seem to be contradictory wills in God: one that wills evil to happen: another that forbids and does not wish the same to happen.

He also commands Abraham to kill his son: and yet He did not wish him to be killed, as the outcome declared.  He also commands Pharaoh to let the people go: and yet He did not wish the people to be let go by Pharaoh: as the outcome also revealed, and God Himself taught in explicit words, saying, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he will not let the people go.”  Behold another will, contending with the former.  But it is most absurd to posit contradictory wills in God.  Therefore, we answer the question thus:

Thesis: In God there are by no means many contradictory wills, but only one, and that always the same and constant.

All pious doctors agree on this thesis: but how this is consistent with those passages which we mentioned a little earlier, and which seem to conclude contradictory wills in God, they do not explain.  A certain great man offers no other answer, except that the one will in God, that it appears manifold to us, he confirms this with a similar example: Just as God’s wisdom is one, and yet it is called πολυπλοί (Eph. 3:10), by Paul: and that not with respect to Himself, but with respect to us.  He concludes that this is certain, that in the scriptures God decrees and wills many things by His eternal counsel which He nevertheless forbids by His law.  How, however, the same things are not willed by us in a diverse way, and are willed by us, is not able to be grasped.  However, I will try, if I can, by God’s grace, to explain this.

First, what we said above must be recalled in the third question concerning the arcane and revealed will.  We said the arcane will is the free, eternal, wise and immutable decree of God: Then concerning all and individual things, which He created, to be led to their certain uses and ends, through certain means: Then concerning evils, which He did not make, nor does He Himself make, namely concerning the permission of sins: and that for His glory.

This decree, however, is properly called and is the will of God.  We have shown above that this will is only one.  How it can nevertheless also be called manifold: has been explained by us.  We have also shown a little earlier that the same will is firm, constant and immutable, so that it always happens.  Therefore, no other confirmation is needed here to demonstrate that God’s arcane will is unique and constant: and in no way contends with itself.

As for the other will: we said that the revealed will is that which has been made manifest by the law or Word of God: whether they are precepts, or promises, or threats.  Both of these wills are clearly seen in the examples cited above: Abraham and Pharaoh. Likewise in what was said in general: namely that nothing happens without God’s arcane will: and yet many things are, all evils are forbidden to happen by divine law.

Since, therefore, this revealed will causes two wills of God to appear to us, and often even contradictory: therefore, in order that the truth may appear clear, namely that the arcane and revealed will are not two, nor ever contradictory, but one and the same, and always consistent with itself, is the will of God: we must diligently note this distinction concerning this will, which we call revealed.

This revealed will is able to be considered in two ways: Either insofar as it is fulfilled, and comes to pass: or insofar as it is not fulfilled, and does not come to pass: If that which is commanded to us in the word (to take one example), or is permitted, is actually performed and accomplished: this revealed will is not different from the secret will: but is one and clearly the same.  The reason is: because, just as whatever God wills (by his secret will and good pleasure: which is properly called will), He does in heaven and on earth: so also only those things come to pass which the Lord wills to come to pass by that secret will.

If therefore (to bring an example concerning the commandments), those things which God commands in the law, He Himself also performs in us, and brings it about that we keep his commandments (which He certainly brings about at length in all the elect, as has been demonstrated above), it clearly appears from this that the will revealed in the law, insofar as it pertains to the elect: is the same as the secret will.  For by his law God not only teaches us, the elect, what our duty is, and commands that we perform it: but also signifies and reveals what He has altogether decreed, and simply and absolutely wills to be done by us: Nay rather, what He Himself wills to work in us.  For in us He works both to will and to perform, and brings it about that we walk in his commandments: as has been explained abundantly above.  See therefore how the will revealed in the law, insofar as it is performed in the elect, is one and the same with the secret will: and therefore it is truly called revealed, because it is the same as that secret one, and there is no difference between them: except that the same will, before was hidden, but now is revealed.

But if that which God commands, is never performed: it is manifest, that this whole thing is not that will of God, which is properly called will.  The reason is because whatever God wills, that He also performs in heaven and on earth.  And through Isaiah He says, ‘And my counsel shall stand and all my will shall come to pass.’  Those things therefore which do not come to pass: even if they are commanded by God, they certainly cannot properly be called the will of God: as for example, in the case of Abraham who is commanded to kill his son: This was not properly the will of God.  But the will of God properly was: that Isaac should not be killed.  So what He commands Pharaoh; that he should let the people go, was not properly the will of God.  But on the contrary, it appears, that there were not two, and those contrary, wills of God there, but one only, and that firm and constant: which was also commanded to be executed: because all my will shall come to pass, He says through Isaiah.  Nothing is clearer than these: nothing more certain.

III. But, what then was it which He commanded Abraham and Pharaoh, and so all the reprobate, in whom this will, which we call revealed, is not performed?  As far as the example of Abraham is concerned, on the part of God it was a temptation: by which God wished to test the true faith of Abraham.  Therefore Scripture premises: God tempted Abraham.  On the part of Abraham: there was a commandment to him, which had to be obeyed entirely: and which he would have obeyed in reality, had not God, soon made manifest what his secret and simple will was.

And hence we gather, as often as we hear something commanded to us by God: we ought to judge that this is the true and absolute will of God: just as Abraham also thought: although the absolute will of God was far different than what he had heard at the beginning.  But this is not to be inquired into by us, while it remains secret.  But we must always look into that, which God commands by his Word.  For by this word as by a Lydian stone, are tested, which are good and which are evil works: Who are obedient to God, and who are disobedient: what is pleasing to God, and what is displeasing.  Now we discern, what that commandment made to Abraham was.

But as far as the example of Pharaoh is concerned: that commandment of God, although it was not properly the will of God, as has now been declared: it was nevertheless a doctrine by which Pharaoh was taught what his duty was: and it was that commandment, which he ought to have obeyed entirely.

I say the same concerning all the commandments insofar as these things happen to the reprobate themselves, and indeed even to the elect, during that time in which they do not fulfill them.  It is, however, our duty, and that of all men, to obey the commands of God simply, and not to inquire into his secret will.  And therefore, just as Pharaoh sinned by not obeying that command of God concerning the releasing of the people, so all others who do not obey the law of God sin.  For sin is not the transgression of the secret will, but of the revealed will, or the commands of God; which commands are called the will of God for this reason, because by them we are taught what is pleasing to God and what is displeasing.

Therefore (to conclude), if that alone is properly the will of God which comes to pass according to that saying, “He hath done all things whatsoever He would,” and also according to that saying, “My counsel shall stand, and all my will shall be done,” and if also those things which are revealed in the Word are then the same as the secret will when they come to pass, and are therefore properly called the will of God even then, while no other will of God is found besides, it follows that there is only one will of God properly so called, which was first secret, but then revealed and made manifest, and it is always constant.

I explain this whole matter with a simile:

A certain king has two kinds of men in his court who are evil by their own nature: first, indeed, his sons, kinsmen, relatives, and friends; and then certain base servants.  The former he determines, out of his mercy and goodness, to retain with him, to make them obedient to himself, and to bestow benefits upon them.  The latter, however, he determines to cast out of the court and to set an example of his justice upon them.  This is the simple, secret will and firm decree of the king.

Therefore, so that both may be done with the praise of his justice, he gives laws of honest living to all, and primarily (for example) that no one should blaspheme the name of God.  This is a precept common to all.  To this he adds threats and promises for those who act otherwise: just as those who do so are punished with death and cast out of the court, while these remain in the court and are endowed with honor and benefits.  This command is both doctrine and precept to all. Doctrine, indeed, by which each one is taught what his duty is; but a precept, which individuals are bound to obey.

Furthermore, the king gives that command with a different intent to each of these two kinds of men, because that first decree which he made concerning both kinds of men is also different.  For because he foresees that neither by their own nature will keep this precept, therefore to the former, whom he has determined to retain with himself and to fulfill the promise made in them, he gives the precept with this intent, that they may altogether perform it; and he simply wills that they should eventually obey, so that they may become partakers of the promise added to the command, and therefore he determines to bring it about by all means that they keep it.  Thus it happens that this precept, with respect to them, is not only doctrine and command, but also the simple and absolute revealed will of the king; for by this command it is declared what the king has altogether determined concerning them, namely, that they should obey and thus remain in the court.

But to the others, whom he has determined to cast out and to take vengeance upon, he does not give the precept with the same intent as to the former, but the observation of it is left to them.  There he leaves those whom he certainly knows will not obey, and therefore he gives the precept with this intent, namely, that by their voluntary transgression of it, he may be able to make manifest to the whole world that the punishment which he determined to take upon them was just.  With respect to these, therefore, the same command of the king, as to that which is commanded, is not the simple will of the king; for he has not decreed that this precept should be altogether fulfilled by them, but it is only doctrine and command.  But the simple will of the king is that which he wills to be done altogether, and which therefore also comes to pass altogether. Thus it appears that this precept, with respect to the former, is both doctrine, and command, and the absolute will of the King; but with respect to the rest, it is only doctrine and command.

Yet, improperly, doctrine alone and command are called the will of the king, because thus the king declares what he wills, or what he approves, and what he commands.  The example is so accommodated to the matter in question that there is no one who does not understand it.

But often, far otherwise is the command and the will other.  For God commands something to Pharaoh and other wicked ones which He properly does not will: for if He willed, it would be done.  Sometimes He wills what He does not command: as that by Judas Christ might be betrayed, and that by Pilate and Herod He might be condemned: which nevertheless He commanded to no one.

Therefore it appears from those things which He commands, and which yet God does not will, that it does not follow that there are two contrary wills in God.  The reason is that such precepts are not properly the will of God: although improperly the revealed will is wont to be called will, inasmuch as it declares what is approved or disapproved.  For the will of God is always done: according to the sayings, ‘Whatsoever God pleased, He did;’ and ‘All my will shall be done:’ and ‘Who shall resist his will?’  But precepts are not always fulfilled, nor by all, as is manifest.  When however they are fulfilled, as in the elect in their time: then indeed it is made manifest that they are the will of God: because nothing happens except by the will of God.  Wherefore the firm judgment stands: that there is only one will of God, and that the same and always constant.

These things I have had to say for the reconciliation of the places alleged above: by which it seemed to be concluded that there are two in God, and those contrary wills.  If however this explanation perhaps does not please anyone: let him accept this other and shorter one:

VI. It is not absurd that one and the same Deity should have concerning some decree that same thing eternal, and yet have many and even contrary parts: but to be committed to execution at different times; one of which is revealed in word, the other afterwards also in the very thing.  Concerning Abraham in the affair of Isaac, the decree was one, standing of these two parts:

First, that Abraham should be commanded to sacrifice his son, and thus that his faith and obedience should be tested, and become manifest to all: which also was done.

Then that, his faith and obedience being proved, care should be taken that he not kill the son: which indeed also in fact came to pass.

That prior part was revealed in the prior place: when the other part was prior, the prior place was revealed.  When one part was secret, afterwards proved by Abraham’s faith: the other also part of the divine will was made manifest, both by words and by the event of the thing itself.  Shall it therefore be truly said that there were two wills in God, and those contrary?  There was one and the same decree concerning the same thing, and the eternal will of God: but consisting of two parts, of which when one was revealed, the other remained hidden.

The same is to be said of Pharaoh and others.  The decree of God, and his certain will existed.  First indeed, that Pharaoh should be commanded to dismiss the people: and that his own infidelity might be brought to light.  Then however, that, his heart being hardened, he would not let them go: and thus God would have the most just ground to punish that tyrant severely.  When both were fulfilled and effected: it follows that there was one decree, and one will: but which had two parts, one to be revealed sooner, the other later.”

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1600’s

James Arminius

The Works of James Arminius, tr. James Nichols (Auburn: Derby, Miller, Orton, 1853), vol. 1, Public Disputations, Disputation 4, ‘On the Nature of God’, pp. 453-54  Arminius was a theological professor at Leiden.  He tended not to go into controversial things in his Public Disputations.

“LVIII. 3. The will of God is also distinguished into that by which He wills to do or to prevent something, and which is called “the will of his good pleasure,” or rather “of his pleasure” (Ps. 115:3), and into that by which He wills something to be done, or to be omitted, by creatures endued with understanding, and which is called “the will [signi] which is signified.” The latter is revealed; the former is partly revealed, and partly hidden. (Mk. 3:35; 1 Thess. 4:3; Dt. 29:29; 1 Cor. 2:11-12)

The former is efficacious, for it uses power, either [tanta] so much as cannot be resisted, or [tali] such a kind as He certainly knows nothing will withstand: (Ps. 33:9; Rom. 9::19) The latter is called “inefficacious,” and resistance is frequently made to it; yet so that, when the creature [excedit ordinem] transgresses the order of this revealed Will, the creature by it may be reduced to order, and that the Will of God may be done [de] on those by whom his Will has not been performed. (2 Sam. 17:14; Isa. 5:4-5; Mt. 21:39-41; Acts 5:4; 1 Cor. 7:28) To this twofold Will is opposed the remission of the Will, which is called “Permission,” and which is also two-fold. The one, which permits something to the power of a rational creature, by not circumscribing its act with a law; and this is opposed to “the revealed Will.” The other is that by which God permits something [potentiae] to the capability and will of the creature, by not interposing an efficacious hindrance; and this is opposed to “the Will of God’s pleasure” that is efficacious. (Acts 14:16; Ps. 81:13)”

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John Salkeld

A Treatise of Paradise…  (London: Griffin, 1617), ch. 64, pp. 319-21  Salkeld (1576–1660) was born in England, studied with Jesuits in the university of Coimbra and in Portugal, but had become a protestant again living in England by the time of this work.

“But God (says Simon Magus) would not that Adam should have eaten of the forbidden fruit, who nevertheless did eat of that fruit; it follows therefore that he remained not as his Creator would have had him to have remained; how then can God be omnipotent, or his will always fulfilled?

It were necessary, if we should fully satisfy this argument, to entreat more largely of the will of God than were convenient for this place: wherefore, that we may briefly answer this objection, we must presuppose with the school-divines a threefold distinction of the will of God, according to the diversity of their proper objects:¹ the first they call his efficient, effectual, or working will, by which God does so effectually intend anything that He performs it actually by some external operation and work, either actually produced or to be produced.

¹ Aquinas, [Summa] pt. 1, quest. 19; the same: Molina, Vasquez, Suarez, Sumel, Bannez and many others.

The other kind of will which the divines distinguish in God, in regard of some objects which He does not really produce, is called inefficax voluntas, a kind of propension or inclination of his divine will to the effectuating of any good effect, which might redound to the felicity of man: yet for the attaining of the end, which out of his unsearchable wisdom He has prefixed, He oftentimes permits the contrary to this his divine inclination and will; the which therefore is called God’s permissive will.

As for example, God would that all men should be saved, according to that of the apostle [1 Tim. 2:4], Deus vult omnes homines saluos fieri; to wit, in his universal grace, calling and inspirations and other general means, offered to all, so that out of his infinite goodness He wishes and wills in this sort all to be saved; and that He might the more manifest his infinite mercy by the efficacy of his working will, He actually saves some; even so, to manifest his justice by his other permissive decree, He permits others to work their own ruin and eternal damnation.”

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William Gryffith

The Delights of the Saints…  (London: Butter, 1622), pt. 1, pp. 11-13  Gryffith (c.1589–1672) was an Anglican bishop, opposed to the puritans.

“But against this it may be objected what St. Peter [and Timothy] says: that He would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of his will. (2 Pet. 3 [v. 9]; 1 Tim. 2:4)  And therefore either there are diverse and contrary wills in God, or it is his will that all should be saved, but yet are not, because they will not believe.

I answer: That the will of God is diversely distinguished by the doctors, as [John] Damascene (The will of God is not diverse, Damascene, bk. 2, ch. 46), into an:

1. Antecedent will
2. Consequent will

Lombard and the Schoolmen (bk. 1, ch. 45) into his:

1. Signified will
2. Well-pleasing will

Tertullian (Lib. Exhort. ad castitatem.), into his:

1. Efficient will
2. Permissive will

Whereof he calls the first voluntas pura and the other voluntas indulgentiae.

St. Augustine (Enchiridion, ch. 102 & 103), into his:

1. Effectual working and omnipotent will
2. Not working, or not efficient will

Others into his:

Absolute will
Conditional will

Others into his

Secret will
Revealed will

All which, and all such like distinctions of God’s will, if they be diligently observed and well understood, do fall into the same end and do no ways prove either diverse wills to be in God or any contradiction to be in the will of God.

For it is most certain that as the essence of God is most simple, without composition or division, so the will of God, which is nothing else but his eternal decree concerning all things, is one and the selfsame immutable and unresistible: in so much that the wicked, who as much as in them lies, do resist the will of God revealed and commanded unto us in his Word, yet notwithstanding, will they, nill they, they fulfill the will of God decreed in Himself from all eternity; as you may see most plainly in the example of Pilate, Herod and the wicked Jews, who in crucifying Christ, rebelled and resisted the will of God revealed in his word, yet herein they did perform the secret will of God, which before all worlds He had determined should be done, as St. Peter shows (Acts 2:23; Augustine in Enchiridion, ch. 98), Et sic in hoc ipso quod contra voluntatem Dei fecerunt, de ipsis facta est voluntas eius: And so in this very thing wherein they did against God’s will, God effected his own will. (Idem, de cor. et gratia)  Et de his qui faciunt quod non vult, facit ipse, quae vult: And touching these men which do against his will, He does whatsoever He will.”

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On The Synopsis of Pure Theology (1625)

Van den Belt, ‘The Vocatio in the Leiden Disputations (1597—1631): The Influence of the Arminian Controversy on the Concept of the Divine Call to Salvation’  in Church History and Religious Culture, Vol. 92, No. 4 (2012), p. 552-54

“To explain the efficacious call, Polyander (1622) refers to the parable of the seed.  The inefficacious concurrence of the internal and external modes of the call has three distinct forms.  Some are illumined by the light of the gospel, but not affected to embrace it.  Others permit the light of the truth conceived in the soul to be suffocated by the cares of this world, and to others the Holy Spirit gives some taste of his grace by which their heart is affected with a sense of joy for a moment.  These three forms correspond with the seed that falls along the path, among thorns, and on rocky places…

Polyander does not equate the internal call with the efficacious call for two reasons: 1) Because the universal call through nature also has an internal side, and 2) because the external and the internal call can concur in the hypocrit [Heb. 6:4-6].
…

When the call is divided into internal and external…  with respect to the reprobate however, they can be distinguished as species.  Following Polyander (1622) and Polyander (1627), Walaeus (1631) also distinguishes certain grades of the internal operation of the Spirit in the reprobate…  In short, all the disputations held on the vocatio after the synod [of Dort] differentiate the internal work of the Spirit.”

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Andreas Polyander

Synopsis of Pure Theology (Brill), Disputation 30, ‘On the Calling of People to Salvation’  in Synopsis of a Purer Theology, vol. 2 (Brill, 2016), pp. 222-27

“32. The way of calling, when we examine it from opposing perspectives, is divided into external and internal.  The former is achieved outwardly through the administration of Word and sacraments, the latter inwardly through the working of the Holy Spirit.
…

34, Nor does God always link the two ways of calling equally or in the same way, but the concurrence of both of them is effective in some people and ineffective in others.†

† [Editor: …’concurrence’ refers to the external and the internal callings that mostly, but not necessarily, concur. Even if they do concur that is not always efficacious.  According to Arminius the concurrence of the outward and inward call was efficacious, be it that the effect ultimately depended on the consent of the believer.  After the Synod of Dort, Reformed theologians felt a need to specify when and how the internal call had effect and did no longer teach that the concurrence of the outward and inward calls was always salvific.  Cf. Van den Belt, ‘Vocatio in the Leiden Disputations,’ 552.]

35. The ineffective concurrence of the two ways is observed in three kinds of people.  For some people are not moved to embrace it, even though the light of the evangelical truth has shone fully upon them.  These are the people who receive the seed of the Gospel that is sown along the trodden path (Mt. 13:19).
…

37. To other people the Holy Spirit offers a little taste of his grace so that their hearts are touched by a momentary feeling of happiness.  These receive the Gospel like seed sown among thorns (Mt. 13:22).
…

40. Although some gifts flow forth from the concurrence of the two callings and are shared by hypocrites along with the elect (i.e., the gift of knowing and tasting God’s good Word, and the virtues of the coming age [Heb. 6:4-6]), they are not sufficient for the salvation of the hypocrites.  But in the elect they prepare the way for their salvation and–by God’s good pleasure towards them–these gifts do lead the way to more abundant grace, of which others are rightly, deservedly deprived because they do not employ those first gifts in the right way.
…

45. The form of the effective calling by which it is distinguished from the ineffective one, consists in the saving application of this benefit which takes some sinners from their natural communion to that particular grace…
…

46. The highest goal of both callings (shared by both the ineffective and the effective one) is the manifestation of God’s mercy towards those whom He calls.  The subordinate goal of the effective calling, and [the goal] proper to it, is the saving imparting of God’s grace; but the accidental goal of the ineffective calling is the conviction of stubborn disobedience and complete inexcusableness in the hearts of those who impudently withstand and interrupt the Holy Spirit as He speaks through the mouths of the preachers.†

† [Editor: …The finis accidens is not essential to the goal but as it were a side effect of it.]”

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Nicholas Byfield

A Commentary upon the Three First Chapters of the First Epistle General of St. Peter…  (London: Miles, 1637), on 1 Pet. 1:12, p. 86

“Again, revelation is either uncreated or created.

There is an uncreated revelation which is infinite, and such is that which the Father reveals to the Son from all eternity.

The created revelation hath three degrees, 1. Imperfect, 2. Perfect, 3. And most perfect.  The most perfect revelation is in Christ-man, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.  The perfect revelation is in angels and blessed souls in heaven: the imperfect is in men on earth.

The revelation vouchsafed to men on earth is either ineffectual or effectual.

The ineffectual is a revelation not available to salvation, such is that revelation which may befall wicked men.  For they may prophesy, as is granted, Mt. 7.  But I call this revelation ineffectual because they may be castaways for all this.

But properly, revelation is the heritage of the saints.  For in them only it is effectual, and thus the Lord does grant revelation in two degrees:

1. Sometimes it is such an illumination as works a full assurance: sometimes it is an illumination that works only a persuasion.  In weak Christians the work of the Spirit of revelation is persuasion, but in strong Christians it is full assurance.”

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John Davenant

Animadversions upon a Treatise entitled, God’s Love to Mankind…  (Cambridge, 1641), ‘Answer: Whether absolute reprobation oppugne the truth and sincerity of God’, pp. 357-58

“It is the height and riches of God’s mercy which from everlasting has prepared for the elect only, and in time bestows upon them only that special and effectual grace which infallibly brings them unto glory.  It is a lower degree of mercy (and yet true mercy too) which is showed to the non-elect or reprobate, in preparing for them and bestowing upon them such means of grace as by their own default are made ineffectual.”

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On John Davenant & Aquinas

Michael Lynch, John Davenant’s Hypothetical Universalism: a Defense of Catholic & Reformed Orthodoxy  (Oxford Univ. Press, 2021)

p. 138

“Davenant recognized that if God wills the means of salvation to be procured for the reprobate, then God’s intention to save appears thwarted.  Does this not imply that God’s will is ineffectual because of God’s universal desire to save all?

Davenant responds to God’s apparent impotence by noting that God oftentimes obtains (and sometimes actually grants) the means to an end wherein the end is never attained.  Davenant appeals to the scholastic distinction between providence and predestination employed by Aquinas. (Davenant, De Morte Christi, in DD, 23 (370); Davenant, Sententia de Gallicana controversia, in DD, fol. Ii4v. Cf. Aquinas, [Disputed Questions,] De Veritate, in CT, q. 6 [on Predestination] a. 2 co. [actually art. 3, body])  Providence is a general appointment of a thing toward an end (universaliter ordinationem in finem), whereas predestination represents the outcome or result of an ordering (exitum vel eventum ordinis).  Predestination differs from providence in that “not everything that is ordained to an end [as in providence] reaches that end.” (Aquinas, De Veritate, in CT, q. 6 a. 2 co. [actually art. 3, body])

Like providence, then, the evangelical covenant is grounded upon an ordination to an end that does not infallibly obtain.  God has ordained that Christ make a universal satisfaction on condition of belief, which condition being not always fulfilled, necessitates that not all are forgiven.  This evangelical covenant, which displays the “freedom, mercy, and justice of God,” is made, consonant with God’s general love for mankind, between humanity and God promising the saving benefits of Christ to those who repent and believe.”

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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.  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.”

.

pp. 152-53

“In accordance with God’s love of simple complacency and his signified will is the divine will toward the good whereby God has given to his creatures fitting means for the obtaining of such good.  Hence Davenant writes,

“God is said to will, desire, aim-at that good for the obteining whereof he affordeth fitting means, though withall he willeth that it shall be within the liberty of the creature to hinder & frustrate those means, & though he have absolutely decreed to permit the creature to abuse them unto his own destruction.”

Davenant notes that theologians often call this sort of divine willing “voluntas antecedens, voluntas conditionata, voluntas simplicis complacentiae.”

This granting of various gifts and graces to creatures is understood by Davenant with Aquinas’s doctrine of God’s providence in view.  Davenant illustrates this order of providence by observing from the natural world that God has provided for us many bodily remedies that are applicable to heal us, though not infallibly ordained to heal us. In the realm of theology, Davenant explains God’s providential will in furnishing the angels, both elect and nonelect, with many gifts ordained by God to the end of the angels’ felicity, even though not every angel obtained such felicity.  According to this will, God may be said to have

“willed and intended the obedience and salvation of the angels who apostatised, inasmuch as he furnished them with gifts, fit in themselves and suitable, to perform obedience and obtain salvation.”

According to Davenant, these gifts can be either external or internal, with respect to human beings.  One such external gift of God’s providence is the death of Christ, which has been ordained as a universal remedy for the sins of all human beings.  Moreover, Davenant argues that within the scope of the church community, God has provided many graces (including the preaching of the word, and even internal graces such as knowledge of one’s own sin and the fear of punishment); these graces, although they all are generally ordered to the salvation of those to whom such graces come, do not infallibly obtain that end.  In order to avoid confusion, Davenant emphasizes that when one speaks of “the end of such an action of God or of such a gift of God,” we are not to understand such an end as that which causes the divine volition but rather that God gave to such actions and gifts a “fitness or aptnesse to produce such an end.”  All such gifts reveal to us, according to Davenant, an antecedent and conditional will or decree in God for the good of all human beings:

“We cannot but acknowledge in [“the blessings and means which God has afforded to the angels, to Adam, and which he continually affordeth unto wicked men”] an antecedent and gracious will [in God] to do them good.””

.

Samuel Rutherford

Christ Dying & Drawing Sinners to Himself…  (London: 1647), pp. 272-318

“A second question is, How far the Law can draw a sinner to Christ?  Antinomians tell us of a legal drawing and conversion, and of an evangelic drawing; the legal drawing they say is ours [that of the reformed]; the latter theirs.

Assertion 1.  The difference between the letter of the Law and the Gospel is not in the manner of working, for the letter of either Law or Gospel is alike ineffectual and fruitless to draw any to Christ.  Christ preached the Gospel to hard-hearted Pharisees; it moved them not.  Moses preached the Law and the curses thereof to the stiffnecked Jews and they were as little humbled.  Sounds and syllables of ten hells, of twenty heavens and Gospels, without the Spirit’s working, are alike fruitless.  And we grant the Law is a sleepy keeper of a captive sinner; he may either steal away from his keeper or if he be awed with his keeper, he is not kept from any spiritual, internal breach of the Law, nor moved thereby to sincere and spiritual walking.

But the difference between Law and Gospel is not in the internal manner of working, but in two other things:

1. In the matter contained in Law and Gospel: because nature is refractory to violence and the Law can do nothing but curse sinners; therefore it can draw no man to Christ.  The Gospel again contains sweet and glorious promises of giving a new heart to the elect, of admitting to the Prince of peace laden and broken-hearted mourners in Zion and in conferring on them a free imputed righteousness; and this is in itself a taking-way, but without the Gospel-spirit [it is] utterly ineffectual.

2. To the Gospel there is a Spirit added, which works as God does with an omnipotent pull; and this Spirit does also use the Law to prepare and humble; though this be by a higher power than goes along with the Law as the Law.”

.

Christopher Love

The Mortified Christian…  (London: Eglesfield, 1654),
‘A Sermon preached by Mr. Christopher Love at Anne Aldersgate, being by way of preparation for the morning exercise…’, p. 99

“(3) You must take heed how you hear, because if you do not, the Word will not only be ineffectual to you, but do you a great deal of hurt.”

.

Francis Roberts

Mysterium & Medulla Bibliorum: the Mystery & Marrow of the Bible, viz. God’s Covenant with Man…  (London: R.W., 1657)

bk. 3, ch. 4, p. 865

“(2) In this Sinai-Covenant Jesus Christ is frequently tendered unto Israel, and that in variety of notions and considerations as has been abundantly manifested: The Tabernacle, the veil, the ark, the mercy-seat over the ark, the high priest with his consecration, garments, office, etc. the sacrifices of all sorts, the altar of incense, the altar of burnt-offering, etc.  they all typed out and tendered Christ to Israel.  Consequently true faith in Christ must herein be necessarily implied and required of Israel for discerning Christ in these mysteries, for apprehending and applying Him unto themselves for righteousness and salvation accordingly.  For without such faith to apprehend and apply Christ, all these manifestations of Christ to Israel had been vain, useless and ineffectual.”

.

bk. 4, p. 1341

“1…  This First Covenant becoming so weak, unprofitable and ineffectual to them, Heb. 7:18-19.

2. Gods just displeasure and judgement upon them for this Breach of Covenant: ‘And I regarded them not, saith the Lord.'”

.

Thomas Shepard

Subjection to Christ in all his Ordinances & Appointments the best means to preserve our Liberty: together with a Treatise of Ineffectual Hearing the Word...  (d. 1649; London: S.G., 1657), ‘Of Ineffectual Hearing’, pp. 89-90

“There is a twofold Word, or rather a double declaration of the same Word: 1. There is God’s external or outward Word, containing letters and syllables, and this is his external voice.  2. There is God’s internal Word and voice, which secretly speaks to the heart, even by the external Word, when that only speaks to the ear.

The first the Jews did hear at Christs Baptism, in Christs ministry, and in reading the Scriptures, and when they did hear it, it was God’s Word they heard, full of glory, and so they heard the Word spoken, but only man speaking it: the other comes to few, who hear not only the Word spoken, but God speaking the Word, Rom. 10:18-19.  Israel did hear, but Israel did not know. Christ speaks in parables; Hence in seeing they did not see, Lk. 8:10.  And this is one way, how ’tis true that Christ says, They never heard his voice.  As ’tis with a painted sun on the wall, you see the sun and stars, but there is a difference between seeing this and the sun and stars themselves, wherein is an admirable glory: go to a painted sun, it gives you no heat, nor cherishes you not; so it is here, etc.

2. This inward Word is double: 1. ineffectual (though inward); 2. effectual.

1. Ineffectual, is that which has some inward operation upon the heart, but it attains not God’s end to bring a man into a state of life; and thus, Heb. 6:2, 5.  Many tasted of the good Word of God, yet fell away.  And such a heart is compared to a field which a man plows and sows, and rain falls on it, and yet the end is not attained: it brings forth thistles; and this many Jews did hear, and hence had some kind of faith in Christ.

2. Effectual, is that which has such an inward efficacy upon men’s hearts, as that God attains his end thereby, Isa. 55:11, and brings men to a state of life, of which Christ speaks, Jn. 6:45, and this voice none but the elect hear; and of this Christ speaks here, as appears, v. 38, ‘Him whom He sent, ye believe not.’  Hence it is you have heard God at no time.  Hence He speaks of such a hearing and knowing, such a hearing outwardly as is accompanied with such a hearing inwardly, Jn. 14:17, so that many men may hear the word spoken outwardly, but never inwardly: they may hear it inwardly, but never effectually, translating them from state to state, from death to life, from life to life and glory.  No sense of the majesty of God speaking, nor effectual hearing of the Word spoken.  When the sun is down the moon may arise, but yet a man is cold and dark; but when the sun arises, oh it warms, nourishes and cherishes, etc. nothing is hid from it; so it is here, when the Lord speaks inwardly and effectually to the heart.”

.

George Swinnock

The Christian Man’s Calling…  (London: T.P., 1662), ch. 15, ‘How a Christian may exercise himself to godliness in hearing and reading the Word, and of preparation for hearing’, pp. 216-17

“Thirdly, if thou wouldst prepare thyself for the Word, entreat God to bless it to thee: The operations of the Spirit must accompany the administration of the Word, or it will be ineffectual: It is the Spirit that quickeneth, Jn. 6.63.  The fire burns naturally, and the water cools naturally; but if the fire of the Word ever burn up thy corruptions, or the water of the Word refresh thee with real consolations, it must not be by its own nature, but by a divine power.”

.

Gisbert Voet

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

“Question 9. Whether every will of God is fulfilled?  Denied with a distinction.

Answer: Concerning the will properly taken, or of good-pleasure [beneplaciti]: affirmed, Isa. 46:10.  Concerning the will taken metonymically, or of command [mandati]: denied.

And this opinion is insinuated by Thomas, in [Summa] pt. 1, question 19, article 6, where he disputes that every will of God is always fulfilled, together with article 11, where he distinguishes the will into [the will] of the sign and [the will] of good-pleasure.

…
Question 11. By what will can anyone justly will that which God does not will?  Explained.

Answer: We thus explain it: by a right will, which is conformable to the law and general command of God, one can will that which God does not will by the will of good-pleasure, or the hidden [will].  See Gen. 22, compared with Heb. 11:17 and 2 Sam. 7:2-3, 13.

Question 12, Whether the precepts of God sometimes differ from his will?  Affirmed with a distinction.

Answer: In the proximate object they differ: for of the precept, or command, there can be another object—and indeed an opposite one—than [that] of the will or good-pleasure.  As is manifest, Gen. 22, where the proximate object of the divine command given to Abraham was the slaying [mactatio] of Isaac; and the object of the good-pleasure, or of the divine will properly so called, was the non-slaying of the same.

But although the objects of the will of command and of good-pleasure are opposed among themselves, yet the acts of command and of will are not opposed, but the former is subordinated to the latter.  For God, by the will of good-pleasure, willed the command, or to command Abraham; but He did not will the thing commanded to Abraham, or the fulfillment of the commanded thing.”

.

Richard Baxter

Richard Baxter’s Catholic Theology...  (London: White, 1675), pt. 1, sect. 14, Of Several Distinctions of God’s Will, p. 56

“359. XI. The next distinction of God’s will is into effectual and uneffectual.  And here he that would see a great deal said on the question, Whether God have any uneffectual will, and whether man’s will can frustrate it, may see too much in a multitude of Schoolmen on [Lombard] Sentences, dist. 1, quest. 45 & 46.¹

¹ Aquinas, art. 1; Scotus, quest. unica; Durandus, quest. 1; Bonaventura, art. 1; Gregory Ariminiensis, quest. unica, art. 3; Pennot. bk. 4, ch. 22; Alvarez, De Auxiliis, disp. 32; Ruiz, De Voluntate, disp. 18; Granada, Of the Will of God, tract. 4, disp. 3; Suarez, bk. 4, Of Predestination, ch. 8; Gregory Valencia, disp. 1, quest. 19, p. 6; Cajetan; Nazar. Ban. Zum. Navar. Gonzal. Molina; Vasquez, etc. in [Aquinas, Summa] pt. 1, quest. 19, art. 6; Ripa. Arrub. Fasol. ibid.; Nic. D’Orbel., pt. 1, dist. 46 and many other Scotists, etc.

Some answer (as D’Orbellis, etc.) that the voluntas beneplaciti [will of good-pleasure] is ever effectual, but not the voluntas signi; which yet seeing he well explains to be only the making of duty, he might well have said is still effectual to its proper primary effect.  Gregory Ariminiensis (and many others) distinguish of the will of complacency and displicency, and that prosecutionis et fugae; and say the latter is effectual and not the former: which others say of the absolute will as distinct from the conditional.

The plain truth I have oft opened before: God’s will is the first efficient, the chief dirigent and the final cause (in which the three principles, power, wisdom and goodness are eminent).

1. His efficient will is ever effectual and never frustrated.  ‘Whatsoever pleased the Lord (to do) that He did in heaven and in earth, in the sea and in the depths.’ Ps. 135:6.  ‘And who has resisted (this) his will?’ Rom. 9:19.

2. His directing will is ever effectual as to the making of the Law or rule, and of due or right thereby: For so far it is efficient of that effect: But it is too oft violated by our sin.

3. His final will or complacency, is God’s being pleased with the being, or action, or relation of the creature, and supposing it, [it] is not efficient [because it is an end, final goal], and therefore [it is] not effectual.

And I know no need of more upon this question.”

.

Matthew Poole

Annotations upon the Holy Bible…  (London: Parkhurst, 1685), on Acts 26, verse 30, margin note

“…although they [King Agrippa, etc.] had heard this excellent discourse from the most learned apostle [Paul], like the blackmore or leopard they cannot change their spots, Jer. 13:23, or skin, having sinned against former manifestations of God’s will; this, for ought we read, became ineffectual unto them.”

.

Richard Fairclough

Puritan Sermons, vol. 6, ‘The Papal Doctrine In Denying The Possibility Of Assurance Is False, And Has A Dangerous Tendency To Destroy The True Place And Comfort Of Souls In The Certain Hopes Of Everlasting Happiness. – 2 Peter 1:10’, p. 377-78

“God’s call sometimes is ineffectual, and sometimes effectual.  So the same apostle plainly declares in 1 Thess. 2:13: “For this cause also thank we God, which effectually works also in you that believe.”  Observe that it is the work of God’s Spirit in the heart, superadded to the Word of the Gospel, as spoken by men, that makes any call effectual.  Without this inward work, God may call, and the soul will never answer…

It is this effectual work of God’s Spirit, in regenerating the soul by infusing of habits of grace, which distinguishes an internal effectual call of God form a mere external and ineffectual one… The text makes sure that it might be known whether or not God has so called you by His Word, as that also He has worked in you by His Spirit; whether God has illuminated your understanding, and inclined your will, so that you have complied with God’s will, and have answered His call.  Whether, when God drew you, you ran after Him (Cant. 1:4); whether, when God entreated and persuaded you to be reconciled to Him you consented (2 Cor. 5:20); whether, when He wooed you, He also won you; whether, when He invited you to the wedding supper of His Son, you made no excuse or delay, but accepted, and welcomed the offer of the Gospel with faith and love (Luke 14:18).  All which if you did do, it arose from the power of an inward call, being superadded to the outward call of the Word…”

.

Philip Henry

An Exposition upon the First 11 Chapters of Genesis  (d. 1696; London: Nisbet & Co., 1839), pp. 166-67  on Gen. 6:3, “And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh.”

“Three things are to be observed in this speech:

1. God’s resolution not always to strive with man by his Spirit. My Spirit has striven a great while; it shall strive yet a little longer; but it shall not strive always.  The Holy Spirit is a striving Spirit with the children of men; striving them away from sin, and to bring them to God; striving by the checks of their own consciences, but the ministry of the Word, by the rebukes of Providence; striving by one fair warning after another to reclaim the sinner.  Have not we ourselves experienced these strivings?—something within us that has whispered in an hour of temptation, “Do not this abominable thing which the Lord hates?”  ‘Twill be our wisdom to hearken to such whispers, and to close with them, striving against sin.  Heb 12:4.  If the Spirit of God be resisted in its strivings, and quenched in its motions, though it may strive long, yet it will not strive always.  ‘Tis a principle with men not to be always persuading those with whom they cannot prevail; neither will the blessed Spirit do so.  If Ephraim be joined to idols, is it not a righteous thing with God to say, Strive no more with him, let him alone?  Hosea 4:17.  What guest will stay long there where he is not welcome?  Is it not wisdom then to improve these strivings while we have them?

 2. The reason of that resolution: For that he also is flesh; carnal, earthly, sensual, corrupted, depraved, defiled; and therefore ‘tis to no purpose to strive with him; ‘tis but labor lost. It is as good to go about to change the Ethiopian’s skin or the leopard’s spots, as to reclaim and reform these impenitent sinners.  Flesh, in scripture, is frequently opposed to spirit.  It is the corrupt nature that renders the strivings of the blessed Spirit ineffectual.  ‘Tis the law in the members that wars against the law of the mind.  Rom. 7:23.  The flesh and the spirit are sworn enemies one to another, and between them there is a constant conflict.  Gal. 5:17.  Now where the flesh, the carnal part, is so far suffered to prevail, as that the man may be denominated flesh, there the Spirit will not always, will not long strive.  Those therefore that would enjoy the Spirit’s strivings, must curb and restrain, and not gratify and encourage, the corrupt motions and carnal desires of the flesh and of the mind.  Eph. 2:3.”

.

Peter van Mastricht

Theoretical Practical Theology (RHB), vol. 3, bk. 3, ch. 11, sect. 13

“3. In the moral providence of God, is there a place for an ineffective wish?

XIII. It is asked, third, whether in the moral providence of God, there is a place for some ineffective wish or desire of God. The Pelagians and Pelagianizers—Socinians, Jesuits, Arminians, and others—because they argue for a self-determined free choice that God cannot determine, and because likewise they argue for a conditioned antecedent will in God, by which God wills if a person wills, and likewise by which he wills that each and every person be saved, if only they will it, say that there is in God a wish properly so-called, by which God desires that this or that duty be done by man, but he desires it in vain.

The Reformed acknowledge no sort of wish and desire in God, except that which coincides with his commandment, different from it in this alone, that whereas a commandment urges a duty only by the authority of the lawgiver, a wish urges it by a motive drawn from a certain eminent advantage which is certainly set to fall from that duty upon him who obeys.  We examined the reasons on both sides in book 2, chapter 15, §XXXII.”

.

1700’s

John Howe

See Howe’s remarks on common grace. Oracles, II. ii.

.

Matthew Henry

Commentary on the Bible, on Gen. 6:3

“This comes in here as a token of God’s displeasure at those who married strange wives; He threatens to withdraw from them his Spirit, whom they had grieved by such marriages, contrary to their convictions: fleshly lusts are often punished with spiritual judgments, the sorest of all judgments.  Or as another occasion of the great wickedness of the old world; the Spirit of the Lord, being provoked by their resistance of his motions, ceased to strive with them, and then all religion was soon lost among them.  This He warns them of before, that they might not further vex his Holy Spirit, but by their prayers might stay Him with them. Observe in this verse,

I. God’s resolution not always to strive with man by his Spirit.  The Spirit then strove by Noah’s preaching (1 Pt. 3:19–20) and by inward checks, but it was in vain with the most of men; therefore, says God, He shall not always strive.

Note, 1. The blessed Spirit strives with sinners, by the convictions and admonitions of conscience, to turn them from sin to God.  If the Spirit be resisted, quenched, and striven against, though He strive long, he will not strive always, Hos. 4:17.  Those are ripening apace for ruin whom the Spirit of grace has left off striving with.

II. The reason of this resolution: For that he also is flesh, that is, incurably corrupt, and carnal, and sensual, so that it is labor lost to strive with him. Can the Ethiopian change his skin? He also, that is, All, one as well as another, they have all sunk into the mire of flesh.

Note, 1. It is the corrupt nature, and the inclination of the soul towards the flesh, that oppose the Spirit’s strivings and render them ineffectual.  When a sinner has long adhered to that interest, and sided with the flesh against the Spirit, the Spirit justly withdraws his agency, and strives no more.  None lose the Spirit’s strivings but those that have first forfeited them.”

.

1800’s

Heinrich Heppe

Reformed Dogmatics  rev. Ernst Bizer, tr. G.T. Thompson  (1861; 1950; Wipf & Stock, 2007), p. 517

“13. In the same way too it cannot be concluded that because the outward calling of the rejected is ineffectual it is therefore not seriously meant by God. Outward calling is always per se [of itself, in principle] a real calling to salvation, since everyone who follows it up thereby gains righteousness in Christ and eternal life: only, in the case of the godless, it is ineffectual because of their hardness of heart.  Similarly, the calling from God’s side is always seriously intended, since God promises grace even to the rejected upon condition of faith, and makes faith for them a duty.  But of course God omits to give faith to the rejected, because He is not bound to do so in the case of any man… From this it follows that even the calling of the godless is on God’s side ‘sincere and serious’.”

.

William G.T. Shedd

Calvinism: Pure & Mixed  (NY: 1893)

ch. 3, pp. 19-20

“When God ‘foreordains’ a sinner ‘to everlasting death,’ He decides to leave him in the sin which deserves everlasting death and results in it.  The non-elect sinner has experienced the operation of common grace.  It is an error to say that God shows no kind or degree of mercy to the non-elect.  But he has resisted and defeated it.  God decides to proceed no further with him by the bestowment of that special grace which regenerates, and ‘makes willing in the day of God’s power.’

The elect sinner has also experienced, resisted, and defeated common grace.  God decides to proceed further with him, by effectual calling and regeneration.”

.

ch. 5, pp. 48-51

“Common grace is great and undeserved mercy to a sinner, and would save him if he did not resist and frustrate it.  In and by it, ‘God commandeth all men everywhere to repent,’ and whoever repents will find mercy…

Scripture denies that God is under obligation to follow up his defeated common grace with his irresistible special grace.  It asserts his just liberty to do as He pleases in regard to imparting that measure of grace which produces the new birth, and makes the sinner ‘willing in the day of God’s power.’…

God sincerely desires that the sinner would hear his outward call, and that his common grace might succeed with him.”

.

Dogmatic Theology  (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1888), vol. 2, pp. 482–89

.

1900’s

John Murray

‘Report of the Committee on the Free Offer of the Gospel, Presented to the Fifteenth (1948) General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, ‘The Report’, Conclusions 2-3

“(2) We have found that God Himself expresses an ardent desire for the fulfilment of certain things which He has not decreed in his inscrutable counsel to come to pass.  This means that there is a will to the realization of what He has not decretively willed, a pleasure towards that which He has not been pleased to decree.  This is indeed mysterious, and why He has not brought to pass, in the exercise of his omnipotent power and grace, what is his ardent pleasure lies hid in the sovereign counsel of his will.  We should not entertain, however, any prejudice against the notion that God desires or has pleasure in the accomplishment of what he does not decretively will.

(3) Our Lord Himself in the exercise of his messianic prerogative provides us with an example of the foregoing as it applies to the matter of salvation.  He says expressly [in Mt. 23:37] that He willed the bestowal of his saving and protecting grace upon those whom neither the Father nor he decreed thus to save and protect.”

.

Louis Berkhof

Systematic Theology  (1951), III. Common Grace, B. Name & Concept of Common Grace

“c. Special grace is irresistible.  This does not mean that it is a deterministic force which compels man to believe against his will, but that by changing the heart it makes man perfectly willing to accept Jesus Christ unto salvation and to yield obedience to the will of God.  Common grace is resistible, and as a matter of fact is always more or less resisted.  Paul shows in Rom. 1 and 2 that neither the Gentiles nor the Jews were living up to the light which they had.  Says [W.G.T.] Shedd: “In common grace the call to believe and repent is invariably ineffectual, because man is averse to faith and repentance and in bondage to sin.” [Calvinism Pure & Mixed, p. 99.]  It is ineffectual unto salvation because it leaves the heart unchanged.

d. Special grace works in a spiritual and re-creative way, renewing the whole nature of man, and thus making man able and willing to accept the offer of salvation in Jesus Christ, and to produce spiritual fruits.  Common grace, to the contrary, operates only in a rational and moral way by making man in a general way receptive for the truth, by presenting motives to the will, and by appealing to the natural desires of man.  This is equivalent to saying that special (saving) grace is immediate and supernatural, since it is wrought directly in the soul by the immediate energy of the Holy Spirit, while common grace is mediate, since it is the product of the mediate operation of the Holy Spirit through the truth of general or special revelation and by moral persuasion.”

.

R.A. Finlayson

Reformed Theological Writings of R.A. Finlayson  (Christian Focus Publications, 1996), ch. 5, “The Benefits of the Covenant – Efficacious Grace in the Westminster Confession of Faith”, p. 253  Finlayson was a professor in the Free Church of Scotland.

“1. What is meant by Efficacious Grace?

The [Westminster] Confession makes a distinction between ‘common grace’ and ‘efficacious grace’.  We are not justified, however, in making this a distinction in kind as if common grace was different in quality from saving grace.  Both are the free unmerited favor of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Any distinction that we know of is the result of its operations.  The ministry of the Spirit of God in common grace is often ineffective and fruitless insofar as actual salvation is concerned, whereas effectual grace is an operation of the Spirit which invariably without fail results in salvation.”

.

.

Historical

On the Post-Reformation

Muller, Richard

Dictionary, ed. 1

“permissio efficax

Effective permission or willing permission; especially, the providential concursus (q.v.) underlying evil acts of human beings; a concept typical of Reformed theology, which will not allow a bare or ineffectual permission on the part of God and which will acknowledge no realm of activity outside of the will of God.  God therefore is viewed as positively willing to permit the free agency of human beings and as supporting their acts with his providential concursus even when those acts go against his revealed will.”

.

“vocatio, ‘calling’

specifically, the call of God to be his children, which occurs by the grace of the Holy Spirit…
…
Against the Reformed distinction between an effective (efficax) and ineffective (inefficax) vocatio [calling], the Lutherans hold the sufficiency of Scripture and the efficacious character of God’s call in all cases.  Failure to heed the call indicates no fault in the Word but rather in the hearer.  The Reformed, by contrast, distinguish vocatio specialis [an individual or particular calling] in vocatio externa [the external call], which is the universal call of the gospel to all men without distinction, and vocatio interna, which is the inward calling of the Spirit that creates the communion between man and God necessary for the vocatio externa [external calling] also to be vocatio efficax [an effectual calling].  Only the elect are therefore effectively called.”

.

“voluntas Dei, ‘the will of God’

…
The Reformed further argue the distinction of the voluntas decreti vel beneplaciti [will of decree or good-pleasure] or voluntas decernens [decreeing will] into the categories of voluntas efficiens, effecting will, and voluntas permittens, permitting will.  Under the former category, God is viewed as directly or indirectly through instrumental causes effecting his positive will, whereas under the latter category God is understood as permitting both contingent events and acts of free will even when such events and acts go against his revealed will.”

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PRRD, vol. 3, p. 470

“3.  Voluntas efficax and voluntas inefficax….  But what of the possibility that God’s will can be distinguished into voluntas efficax [an effective will] and voluntas inefficax [an ineffective will]?  This latter distinction is ill chosen, but will stand if it refers to the effectual will of God to the decree and the ineffectual will to the divine precepts, the former being incapable of resistance and the latter resisted successfully by all evildoers.  If a distinction between effective and ineffective will is sought in the voluntas decreti [will of decree] itself, this is repugnant and deeply in error…”

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Latin

1700’s

Holtzfus, Barthold – Thesis 12  on Effectual & Ineffectual  in ch. 8, ‘Of the Will of God & of the Distinctions of the Divine Will’  in A Theological Tract on God, Attributes and the Divine Decrees, Three Academic Dissertations  (1707), pp. 109-122

Holtzfus (1659-1717) was a professor of philosophy and theology in the reformed tradition at Frankfurt.

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On Ineffectual Grace

Quotes

Order of

Davenant
Jenkyn
Younge
Sherlock
Ball
Robinson
Lobb
Bates

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1600’s

John Davenant

Animadversions upon a Treatise entitled, God’s Love to Mankind…  (Cambridge, 1641), ‘Whether absolute reprobation oppugn the truth and sincerity of God’, pp. 357-58

“As for the divine commiseration of sinners, it shows that their death and damnation are not things primarily well-pleasing unto God: but it shows not that God must become an hypocrite and a dissembler if He have eternally decreed to permit them to incur death and damnation by their own default.  For God’s mercy being actio sublevantis [an act of taking away] and not passio condolentis [a passion of suffering with], it ties Him not to do all He can for redeeming any man out of his misery; but his action is ordered and limited by his own free-will.

It is the height and riches of God’s mercy which from everlasting has prepared for the elect only, and in time bestows upon them only that special and effectual grace which infallibly brings them unto glory.  It is a lower degree of mercy (and yet true mercy too) which is showed to the non-elect or reprobate, in preparing for them and bestowing upon them such means of grace as by their own default are made ineffectual.”

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William Jenkyn

An Exposition of the Epistle of Jude…  (London: Maxey, 1652), on v. 4, pp. 333-34

“4. This turning the grace of God into lasciviousness argues the grossest folly; it is a forsaking of our own mercy, a receiving the grace of God in vain.  What is, if this be not to neglect great salvation; to be prodigal of blessedness; to ravel out and to wanton away the offers of Christ Himself?  Who would not heartily chide himself that by toying, trifling, or unnecessary lingering in the way to the exchange, misses of a bargain by which he might have gained a thousand pounds?…

4. Grace turned into lasciviousness is the top of all ingratitude.  What greater unkindness than to be evil because God is good?…  To be lascivious because God is gracious is to fight against God with his own weapons, to wound God with that arm which He has cured (Hos. 7:15), to kill and crucify Him who has freed us from death: In a word, to make that a pillow for presumption which God appointed for an antidote against despair.”

.

An Exposition of the Epistle of Jude…  (London: Maxey, 1654), on vv. 17-19, pp. 569-70

“These sensual atheists, then turning the grace of God into wantoness and giving over themselves to the following of their lusts, securely derided and scoffed at any directions of holiness or denunciations of judgments which opposed them in their ungodly courses as vain and contemptible fables:

…
4. It makes all the means of grace ineffectual; scorners will not be bettered:  ‘Rebuke a scorner, and he will hate thee;’ the strength of this sin makes all the helps of holiness to be but weak; they all slide off, as water from an oiled post.  A scorner, is (as it were) a brazen wall, which beats back all the arrows of reprehension.  Mocking argues obduratenesse in sin; It extinguishes light natural and opposes light spiritual.”

.

Richard Younge

The Whole Duty of a Christian...  (London: Leybourn, 1653), ch. 29, p. 57  Younge (fl. 1640–1670) was a puritan tract writer.

“…but this is the misery and a just plague upon our so much formality and profaneness under our so much means of grace, there be very few men that make not the whole Bible and all the sermons they hear, yea the checks of their own consciences and the motions of God’s Spirit utterly ineffectual for want of wit and grace to apply the same to themselves…”

.

Richard Sherlock

The Quakers’ Wild Questions Objected against the Ministers of the Gospel…  with Brief Answers Thereunto...  (London: Cotes, 1654)  Sherlock (1612–1689) was an Anglican clergyman.

pp. 152-53

“§ 53. But how comes it to pass then, that these blessed means of grace, these conveyances of the Spirit are so often ineffectual?  Many men do daily pray, often hear and read the Word of God, have been engraffed into the body of Christ by baptism, and many times receive the blessed eucharist, and yet little or no news do they hear of the Spirit, very little stirrings of the heart, few good motions do they feel within, they are never the better, nor a whit the more enriched, either with spiritual gifts or graces for the use of these means: The cause whereof is the hardness of man’s heart, which receives not the impressions of the Spirit; the corruption of man’s nature, which quenches the sacred fires of piety and charity, before they be well enkindled in the soul; the exorbitant and unruly lusts of the flesh, and of the world, which resist the good motions, lustings, and strivings of the Spirit of God.  Intus existens prohibet alienum; when the fruits of the flesh have overgrown the soul, there’s no room for the fruits of the Spirit to take rooting there: These two kinds of fruits cannot grow both in one heart, but the one will choak, overgrow, and destroy the other.

To this outward means of grace then, and of the Spirit, the inward qualifications, the infitting of the soul to receive the impressions of the Spirit must be added…”

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p. 155

“In vain [it is] to participate of those mysteries of our salvation, the body and blood of our Lord, till first by self-examination we have cast out the venom of our sinful doings by repentance and steadfast purposes of amendment.  In a word, it is our sins unrepented that make void and ineffectual all the blessed means of grace and of the Spirit; by those it is we quench the Spirit, we grieve the Spirit, we resist the Spirit, we provoke the Spirit (1 Thess. 5:19; Eph. 4:30), and poison the blessed nature of life; so that all the conveyances of the Spirit are barren and unfruitful whilst they reflect upon hardened and impenitent hearts.”

.

An Answer to a Late Scandalous Pamphlet entiuled “A Friendly debate between Satan & Sherlock”…  (London: A.C., 1677), p. 17

“…which is a very powerful argument against the delays of our repentance, and should make us very cautious of contracting such habits of vice as may make the grace of God ineffectual to us.”

.

John Ball

The Power of Godliness both Doctrinally & Practically handled…  (London: Miller, 1657), ch. 3, p. 299

“Q. What difference is there betwixt the combat which is to be found in the temporary [believer], and that which is proper to the regenerate?

A. Besides the remainders of God’s image, the temporary believer is endued with the common graces of the Spirit, for substance not counterfeit, though ineffectual to sanctification.  He is illightened with the knowledge of divine mysteries grounded upon the Scripture, which is not altogether idle and ineffectual: He is drawn to believe in some sort and with confidence to receive the Word of the Kingdom both as true and good.  He may reform himself in such sort, that it may be said Satan is cast out of him: and all this not in hypocrisy or for fear of punishment, but freely and according to the Word of grace, whereby he is moved to affect things that are above.

From whence follows a combat in him far greater and of another nature than that betwixt reason and appetite, conscience and affection, or the relics of God’s image with the power of sin; even of the common graces of the Spirit with the power of corruption repressed, not mortified or killed.  But the graces of the Spirit are not soundly planted, the Word of the Kingdom is not kindly received into the heart so as to rule with universal sovereignty, and to season throughout the powers of the soul.

Temporary Christians make some account of God’s favor and the joys of heaven in an inferior place: but their desire of happiness is subordinate to the things of this world; in particular estimation, which is joined with choice of heart, they prefer their special delights before Christ, and will rather leave Him than leave the world, if the one of necessity must be parted with.  Wherefore the will of the best unregenerate man, is still in captivity under the dominion of sin, and his heart of an earthly temper, though it be somewhat changed by the superficial receipt of the Word of Life, which it tastes, but digests not.

In which respect the motions of the unregenerate in the ways of godliness may be said to be dead and accidental; because the soul is not enlivened by the Spirit of grace: but the motion of the regenerate is lively and natural, proceeding from the Spirit of grace that dwells in them, whereby they are quickened in the inner man.”

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Ralph Robinson

Christ the Perfect Pattern of a Christian’s Practice…  (London: J.S., 1658), ‘Mary Wolnoth, April the 29th 1649’ on Mk. 3:5, pp. 186-87

“1st Use. This shows the reason why the preaching of the Word and all the dispensations of grace are so ineffectual and do so little good upon the hearts of most men: why there are so few converted and brought home to God: the heart is hard, hard by nature, hardened more by custom in sinning…

2nd Use. The ministers of God should from hence learn to use all their might and skill in dispensing the Word of God’s grace to the sons of men.”

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Stephen Lobb

The Glory of Free Grace Displayed...  (London, 1680), ch. 7, p. 72

“‘You will not come unto Me that ye may have life,’ you will have none of my counsel, you will not return, you are a stiff-necked people, obstinate and rebellious, whence the common assistances of Gods Spirit proves ineffectual and if God did not glorify free-grace any further, none, not the elect would return unto God, for although common grace given unto all is sufficient to leave all men without excuse, their non-improvement being their sin, yet none are thereby effectually engaged to turn unto God in faith, no not the elect, who, while unregenerate, are as sinfully obstinate as any;”

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William Bates

The Danger of Prosperity Discovered in Several Sermons upon Prov. 1:27  (London: Aylmer, 1685)

p. 57

“4. The prosperity of sinners usually renders the means of grace ineffectual, that should reclaim and reform them, and consequently their destruction is remediless.  The means of grace are internal or external: Internal, the motions of the Holy Spirit and the convictions and excitations of conscience: External, the ministry of the Word and the counsels of faithful friends; all which are usually made frustrated and inefficacious by the vices and lusts of the prosperous.”

.

p. 67

“2. The convictions and excitations of conscience are prevented, or made ineffectual by the prosperity of sinners.”

.

p. 88

“2. Infidelity, that is occasioned and confirmed by prosperity in sin renders the gospel ineffectual to the salvation of men.  The Word preached did not profit the Jews, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. (Heb. 4:2)”

.

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On Sacraments being Ineffectual

Quote

1600’s

Richard Baxter

Certain Disputations of Right to Sacraments...  (London: Simmons, 1658), 2nd Disputation, pp. 200-201

“4. The Fathers erred not so much as many suppose in their ascribing [salvific effects] to baptism.  For:

1. Sometime by baptism they mean not only the external ordinance, but the whole work therein to be done; viz. the accepting Christ solemnly in Covenant, and giving up ourselves as a sanctified people to Him, renouncing the flesh, the world and the Devil, and so becoming fully Christians.  This is baptism with them, and not the outward sign alone.  And what says Peter less, when he says, ‘Baptism saves us,’ and thus expounds himself when he has done?  And what say the Fathers more?

2. When they speak of these effects of baptism, they suppose a due recipient or subject, that is, a true believer, or the seed of such: and therefore they oft speak of the inefficacy of the outward baptism to hypocrites.

3. When they speak of the outward ordinance only, the collation which they ascribe to it and all the great effects, are to be understood but by way of obsignation and solemnization, and not solely excluding the internal faith and the Covenant: as actual solemnized marriage gives a woman right to her husband and all that he has, when yet she had a right by secret covenant and contract before.

Now common reason and the nature of the thing and many of the contexts showing that the Fathers and Councils must be thus expounded according to these rules, I would fain know how they deserve that heavy accusation that we commonly lay upon them for their judgement in this, or what ground the Papists have to plead them generally for their efficacy ex opere operato?  And yet I will not excuse each particular person of them thus.”

.

.

On Ineffectual Willings of Christ’s Human Will

Note that, per Scripture, the 6th Ecumenical Council of the Early Church and Reformed Orthodoxy, Christ has two wills, one human, one divine, with his finite human will subordinated to his divine will.  See ‘Christ has Two Harmonious Wills, Divine & Human’.

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Order of

Articles  3
Quotes  4

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Articles

1600’s

Jeanes, Henry – pp. 251-62  in A Vindication of Dr. Twisse from the Exceptions of Mr. John Goodwin in his Redemption Redeemed  (Oxford: Robinson, 1653)  appended to William Twisse, The Riches of God’s Love…  (Oxford: L.L., 1653)

Jeanes (1611–1662) was a reformed, English clergyman and puritan controversialist who had a knack for scholastic theology.

Part of this section is quoted below in the quotes.

Creed, William – paragraphs 61-73, pp. 236-43   in sect. 13  in The Refuter Refuted, or Dr. [Henry] Hammond’s Ektenesteron Defended, against the impertinent cavils of Mr. Henry Jeanes...  (London: Royston, 1660)

Creed (1614?-1663) was an English, Arminian clergyman, academic and Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford from 1660.

Jeanes’s pertinent section is the article above.  Creed’s treatment is detailed, learned and scholastic; he quotes Suarez numerous times.

“It cannot be denied but that there were in Christ during the state of his humiliation, those acts of the will that the Schools call efficaces and inefficaces; such acts of holy love that were complete and perfect in themselves and in the issue and accomplishment, and such other acts of holy love that were imperfect in themselves and also ineffectual in the event.” – p. 236

“From these [Mt. 23:27; Lk. 13:34; Mk. 7:24; 14:35-36; Mt. 26:39] and other like passages, the Fathers in the Sixth General Council concluded against the heresy of the Monothelites [that Christ has only one will], and established the true doctrine of a twofold will in Christ, not contrary to themselves, but still subordinate the one unto the other, at least in the final issue.” – p. 237

“I shall not now enquire whether these acts of Christ’s will and holy love did issue and proceed from Him per modum naturae [through the mode of nature, as Rutherford held; see below], or per modum rationis [through the mode of reason], as they speak in the Schools, or both; that is, whether they were only the natural weights and inclinations, and desires of the will and habit of charity to his own self-preservation, without any deliberation, such as is to be found in children before the use of reason; or whether they proceeded from Him out of a deliberate consideration and pondering, not so much of the now-impending evils and the fury of his Father’s wrath, as the love He bore to his own people the Jews, whose destruction and casting off He foresaw would be the consequents of his death: though Suarez seems to me to have proved the latter as well as the former.” – pp. 237-38

Pitcarne, Alexander – pp. 69-76  in pt. 1  in The Spiritual Sacrifice, or a Treatise wherein several Weighty Questions and Cases concerning the saints’ communion with God in prayer are propounded and practically improved  (Edinburgh: Brown, 1664)

Pitcarne (1622?–1695) was a partially conforming Scottish minister and academic.

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Quotes

Order of

Cajetan
Rutherford
Jeanes
Turretin

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1500’s

Thomas Cajetan

Commentaries on the Four Gospels & Acts (Lugdun: Prost, 1639), vol. 4, p. 120  tr. AI by The Faith Received

“[Mt. 26] Verse 39…

‘My Father.’  This prayer presents the natural affection of man (by which we do not want evils almost contrary to us) with the added moderation of the higher reason to God.

‘If it is possible.’  The moderation first regards power, not absolute, but ordered.  The conditional mode, however, is added because of the lower reason.  For He does not say it conditionally because Jesus Himself is ignorant of whether it is possible (for He knows all things), but because the lower reason in Him does not know the order defined by divine wisdom.  It does not know, however, because it is not its place to know the supreme reasons, but to consider the lower reasons: that is, those which, according to created things, are congruent or dissonant.

‘Let this cup pass from Me.  Nevertheless, not as I will.’  Not by a deliberate will, but by a natural velleity of affection.

‘But as you will,’ by the will of good pleasure.  Behold the moderation, referring everything to the divine will.  Hence, against the [Monothelite] heretics, you have two wills in Christ: the one human, “not as I will”; the other divine, common to Him and the Father, “but as you will.””

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1600’s

Samuel Rutherford

Christ Dying & Drawing Sinners to Himself  (London: 1647), pp. 138-41

“‘But for this cause came I to this hour.’

Here is the fifth article in this prayer: a sort of correction, in which Christ does resign his will, as man, to the will of God; as Mt. 26:39; Lk. 22:42.  ‘Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.’

In this there is offered to us a question, Whether or no there be in this prayer any repugnancy in the human will of Christ to the will of God?  For:

1. A correction of the human will seems to import a jarring and a discord;
2. Christ desired that, the contrary whereof He knew was from eternity decreed of God.
3. The Law of God is so spiritual, straight and holy that it requires not only a conformity to it, and our will, actions, words and purposes, but also in all our affections, desires, first-motions and inclinations of our heart, that no unperfect and half-formed lustings arise in us even before the complete consent of the will that may thwart or cross the known Law and command of God; and by this, ‘Thou shalt not lust,’ Rom. 7, and the duty of the highest love we owe to God, to love him with all the heart, soul, mind, and whole strength, Mt. 22:37; Mk. 12:33; Lk. 10:27.

Some Arians and Arminians, John Geysteranus at the Synod of Dort, have said blasphemously that there was concupiscence and a will repugnant to God’s will in the second Adam, as in the first.  But this they spoke against the consubstantiality and deity of the Son of God.  To which we say:

Assertion 1.  Jesus Christ that holy thing, Lk. 1:35, was a fit high priest, holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners, Heb. 7:26.  Which of you (says Christ to the Jews) convinces me of sin, Jn. 8:46.  There could not be a spot in this Lamb sacrificed for the sins of the world, no prick in this Rose, no cloud in this fair Sun, no blemish in this beautiful Well-beloved.

Assertion 2.  An absolute, resolved will or desire of heart to lust after that which God forbids in his Law must be a sinful jarring between the creature’s and the Creator’s will.  Now, Christ‘s will was conditional and clearly submissive; it lay ever level with his Father’s holy will.

Assertion 3.  I shall not with some affirm that which in the general is true, a will contrary to God’s revealed command and will, called voluntas signi, which is our moral rule to oblige us, is a sin [see Assertion 4 below]; but a will contrary to God’s decree, called voluntas beneplaciti, which is not our rule obliging, except the Lord be pleased to impose it on us as a moral Law, is not a sin.

Peter and the apostles, after they heard that prophecy of their denying of Christ and their being sinfully scandalized, and their forsaking of Christ when the Shepherd was smitten, were obliged to have a will contrary to that decree and to pray that they might not be led into temptation, but might have grace to confess their Savior before men and not flee, nor be scattered: Here is a resolute will of men lawfully contrary to the revealed decree of God, yet not sinful.  But the Lord’s will that Christ should die for man, as it was a decree of the wise and most gracious Lord pitying lost man, so was it also a revealed commandment to Christ, that He should be willing to die and be obedient to the death, even the death of the cross, Phil. 2:8; yea, a rule of such humble obedience as we are obliged to follow, as is said, verse 5, ‘Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,’ etc.  If the Lord’s will that Christ should die be nothing but his mere decree, it could not oblige us in the like case to be willing, as John says to lay down our life for the brethren.  Yea, Jn. 10:18, Christ has a commandment of God and the revealed will of God to die for us:

‘No man takes it from Me, but I lay it down of myself: I have power to lay it down; I have power to take it again: this commandment have I received of my Father.’

Here is an express commandment given to Christ to die for sinners; and the Father loves Christ for obedience to this commandment.

Assertion 4.  A conditional and a submissive desire, though not agreeable to a positive law and commandment of God, is no sin, nor does the Law require a conformity in all our inclinations and the first motions of our desires to every command of God, though most contrary to nature and our natural and sinless inclinations.

1. If God command Abraham to kill his only begotten son and offer him in a sacrifice to God, which was a mere positive commandment, for it’s not a command of the law of nature (nor any other than positive) for the father to kill the son, if yet Abraham retain a natural inclination and love commanded also in the law of nature to save his son’s life and to desire that he may live, this desire and inclination, though contradictory to a positive command of God, is no sin; because the Fifth Command, grounded on the law of nature, does command it.  Nor did God’s precept (‘Abraham, kill now thy son, even Isaac thine only begotten son’) ever include this, ‘Abraham, root out of thine heart all desire and inclination natural in a father to preserve the life of the child.’  So the positive command of the Father that the Son of God should lay down his life for his sheep, did never root out of the sinless nature of the man-Christ a natural desire to preserve his own being and life, especially He desiring it with special reservation of the will of God commanding that He should die.

2. A martyr dying for the truth of Christ may have a natural and conditional desire and inclination to live, though his living be contrary to the Lord’s revealed will commanding him to seal the Gospel with his blood and to confess Christ before men.

3. If the brother, son, daughter, wife or friend that is as a man’s own soul, Dt. 13:6, blaspheme God, yea if father or mother do it, Dt. 33:8-9, yet is a father obliged to stone the son or daughter, the son being a magistrate or a Levite and priest, to judge according to law (the priests’ lips should preserve knowledge, Mal. 2:8) that his father or mother ought to be stoned to death; yet ought not father or son to lay aside that natural desire of being and life to son, father, brother which the law of nature in the Fifth Command does require, especially the desire being conditional, with submission to God’s will, as the desire of Christ is here; and the command to stone the blasphemer, that the father stone the son, the son the father, being positive, and though founded on the law of nature, that a man prefer his Lord Creator and God before son or father and mother, yet are they not precepts of the law of nature such as is the precept of nature that a man desire his own life and being, the father the life and being of the son.

Assertion 5.  The apparent opposition (for it is not real) is rather between Christ‘s sensitive and his sinless mere natural desire and affection, and his reasonable will, than his [human] will and the will of God:¹ Nor can any say there is a fight or jarring between the conditional desire of Christ subjected in the same act of praying, to the Lord’s decree and the resolute and immutable will of God.  The Law of God, because holy and spiritual, does require a conformity between all the inclinations and motions of our soul and the law of nature; but an absolute conformity between all our inclinations and every positive command of God, such as was the Lord’s command that Christ should die for sinners, is not required in the Law of God.  If Adam submit his natural hunger or desire to eat of the forbidden tree, to God’s Law, and eat not, there is no sinful jarring between his will and God’s positive Law, ‘Thou shalt not eat of the tree of Knowledge of good and evil.’”

¹ [Rutherford here solves the issue contrary to Suarez, per Creed’s article above.]

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Henry Jeanes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And again afterwards in the same page:

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

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

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

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

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Francis Turretin

Disputations on the Satisfaction of Christ…  (Geneva, 1666), 6th Disputation, which is the Fourth on the Truth of Christ’s Satisfaction, Asserted from his Agony and Desertion  tr. AI by The Received Faith

sect. 25-29

“XXV. Thirdly, it is asked how Christ could offer such prayers to God as openly appear to be repugnant to the divine counsel and will, and thus to the piety and obedience which he most constantly exhibited to the Father?  For what?  Was he not born and made mediator for this very reason, that he might drink this cup for our salvation?  Did he not know that this was the decree of the Father, as he himself testified more than once, that he must suffer many things and be killed? Mt. 16:21.  Indeed, when he was being seized by the soldiers, he rebukes Peter for resisting them: “Shall I not drink the cup which my Father hath given me?”  How, therefore, is he contrary to himself and to the Father, by requesting with such effort that the cup be transferred from him?  Here, indeed, there are many things that can be replied.

1st, We suppose, against the Monothelites, that there was a twofold will in Christ, just as there was a divine and a human nature; these were not indeed adverse and repugnant to one another, but were nevertheless diverse insofar as they were directed toward diverse objects.  The divine [will] willed death because it had been so ordained by the Father for our redemption; the human, however, shuddered and prayed against it, because it viewed it as the destruction of nature and the most dire of all evils that could exist; yet the human will is not rightly said to have been repugnant to the divine, because it petitioned not absolutely, but conditionally; not with a deliberate and elective will, but rather with an inefficacious and natural velleity.  Therefore, it is to be observed

2nd, that the will can be divided in many ways; for one is called efficacious, another inefficacious; that is called efficacious which is the principle of acting, and which moves and impels a man to execute those things which it wills and to remove, as much as it can, any impediments to operation; [Ineffectual] which is not brought into effect, whether because of impediments arriving from elsewhere, or because it is a simple complacency in the good, or displeasure at evil, and does not proceed further so as to be a principle of operating, nor does it in reality impel one to the execution of the thing, which deserves to be called velleity rather than will.

Therefore, when Christ is said to have willed that the cup might pass, this ought not to be understood of an efficacious will which produced in Him any attempt at escaping and extricating Himself from those snares; indeed, we see Him led as a sheep to the slaughter, Isa. LIII:8, so that He in no way resisted, nor attempted to flee from death, but of an ineffectual will which signifies nothing other than a simple displeasure arising from a natural inclination by which the will abhors that which destroys nature.

XXVI. The will is either natural and indeliberate, or deliberate and elective.  The former is called will by way of nature, the latter by way of reason, thus Thomas, pt. 3, quest. 18, art. 5.  Will as nature, or by way of nature, is a physical faculty having a natural inclination toward the preservation of the whole composite, or it is a desire for advantage; it is called indeliberate will because it is borne toward an object considered absolutely without any consideration of circumstances.

But will by way of reason is a rational faculty for pursuing the general good of the whole man as he is man, or for following the dictate of the practical intellect advising what is right and just; it is called elective will because it is a desire and affection for justice rather than for one’s own utility; it is also called deliberate will because it regards an object clothed in all its circumstances, and this will is referred to rational cognition as to its cause, because it follows not the instinct of nature but the dictate of reason.

The will of nature naturally flees those things which are contrary to nature, such as death, torments, etc.  The will by way of reason can be borne even toward those things which are adverse to nature, provided they are just and honorable or necessary; thus, for example, he who by natural will flees and is averse to a bitter potion, nevertheless receives the same by rational will, because he knows there is no other way of recovering health.  In the same way, martyrs by nature cannot but shudder at death, but the same persons, nevertheless, approach it eagerly out of reason as the most glorious testimony of the benevolence of God, and glory in it.

In clearly the same manner, Christ willed and did not will death, in a different respect.  The will by way of nature did not will it, but the same by way of reason willed it; it did not will it insofar as natural appetite was a desire that He might live, and it viewed death absolutely and in itself as the destruction of nature.  But insofar as He viewed the same with its circumstances, that is, as decreed by God and necessary for the salvation of the elect, He was borne toward it with a most propense affection, just as He testified elsewhere that this was His food, that He might do the will of His Father. Jn. IV:34; XXVII:4.

Will is distinguished into simple and absolute, and hypothetical or conditional.

The former is that by which one wills something absolutely and efficaciously, so that he leaves nothing undone so that that will may be brought into effect.

The latter in which one wills something under a condition, and which is contained within certain limits.

Thus, with an absolute will, the faithful seek the remission of their sins, and whatever things are necessary for their salvation.  But with a conditional will, they seek those things which do not pertain to salvation in themselves, nor, whether granted, promote it, or, if denied, remove it—for instance, wealth, health, strength, external peace—in the seeking of which they must always add that condition, expressly or implicitly: “if the will of God so carries it.”

Scripture provides us with a twofold example of this conditional will: one in Moses, Ex. XXXII:32, while he wishes to be blotted out of the book of God; the other in Paul, Rom. IX:3, while he desires to be anathema for his brethren.  For both of these vows are to be understood not absolutely, but only conditionally: “if it were possible and lawful,” “if it so pleased God,” such that not the possibility of the thing itself, but only the zeal and ardor of those petitioning is indicated.

The same can be observed in Christ; for with an absolute and simply stated will, Christ willed to die, just as He had predicted He would die, Mt. XVIII:11 and XX:18-19; Jn. XIII:21.  Thus, He exposed Himself to death willingly and most gladly: “Shall I not,” He says, “drink the cup?” etc.  Therefore, that He recoiled from death is to be referred to a conditional and hypothetical will.  Concerning which, so that no one might doubt, Christ Himself willed to append a condition, and a twofold one at that.  The first is the condition of the possibility of the thing: “Father, if it be possible”—not indeed through the absolute power of God, because He was not ignorant that all things are possible to God, as He confesses in Mark—but through the decree of the eternal Father, which, although He did not ignore that it could not be rent, He nevertheless would have gladly wished, through natural affection [ψυχικὴν στοργὴν], to be ordained otherwise.  The second is the condition of the divine will, to which Christ immediately submits Himself: “nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt,” so that we may acknowledge that all these motions finally ceased in an absolute will to die.

XXVIII. Although, therefore, some diversity occurs between this twofold will of Christ, there is nevertheless no conflict or contradiction properly so called, because they are neither toward the same thing, nor in the same respect.  The one is simple and absolute, the other only conditional; the one respects the good of nature, the other the glory and counsel of the Father; the one behaves by way of nature and inefficacious velleity, the other by way of reason and full will.

Here, therefore, two things willed by Christ are to be noted, or two objects toward which the diverse volitions of Christ were borne:

First, the good of nature and immunity from all evil; for nature, through an inclination implanted in all creatures and thus also in man himself, Eph. V:29, cannot but recoil from evil and be inclined toward its own good and preservation, since, as Aristotle witnesses, the good is that which all things desire.

Secondly, the glory and will of the Father together with our salvation; He willed both objects shown by the intellect, but in a manner and respect far different.

The former, considered simply and precisely in itself without circumstances, He willed with a natural, conditional will, and rather with velleity or an imperfect will; according to this, He sought conditionally a thing impossible by hypothesis and wished for what was to be denied Him, so that in this way He might testify what miserable and needy nature might feel, suffer, and desire, and from what it might most recoil.  But indeed the latter, with all its circumstances, causes, and effects, considered by an absolute will by way of reason toward an end, which is accustomed to reconcile lovableness to means that are in themselves evil, just as a bitter potion is desired for the sake of health; which will Christ declares by that limitation and conjunction, πλην αλλα [nevertheless, but], which He immediately appended.  Thus, even if He had conceived the first wish as being to some extent contrary to the will of the Father, yet because He conceived it under such a condition that He immediately placed a bridle upon this velleity of His, and subjected it to the judgment of God, no culpable diversity can occur here.

XXIX. Someone will nevertheless insist: If some correction was added by Christ in the latter part of the prayer, it must have altogether exceeded the proper measure, and thus was not sufficiently composed.  Hence Calvin, in his commentary on Matthew, said that Christ was correcting and revoking that wish which had suddenly slipped from Him—a statement which Bellarmine, in his usual manner, attacks most insolently, as if he were accusing Christ of some sin and viciousness for having poured forth a wish that stood in need of correction.

But to speak first of Calvin: the Jesuit, in his customary fashion, sufficiently reveals the gadfly of calumny by which he is driven, while he attributes to that most upright man things that are most alien to his mind; which even that same commentary clearly teaches, where in various places and by many arguments it solidly proves these agonies, complaints, prayers, and affections of Christ to have been most pure and devoid of all vice.  But the point he makes regarding the word “correction” is groundless; for no one can deny that the particles ἀλλα [but] and πλην [nevertheless], which Christ uses, are formulas of correction.  However, the Adversary hallucinates in this: that he thinks every correction presupposes a preceding error.  While this may be true of logical and ethical correction, it is false of rhetorical correction.

Logical correction replaces the true for the false, and ethical replaces the good for the evil; but rhetorical Epanorthosis (correction) is not always the amendment of something that was said badly, but the limitation of a conditional matter into an absolute one, or the substitution of that which seems more suitable for that which had been said before—not badly, but either indifferently or conditionally.  Thus, Cicero, in his speech to the Quirites against Verres, exclaims: “O your supreme clemency, or rather patience”; and the author of Ad Herennium: “But if he had asked his hosts, nay, had merely hinted at it, this could easily have been accomplished,” etc. Paul, in 1 Cor. 15:10, “I labored more abundantly than all the apostles, yet not I, but the grace of God which is with me,” is a correction setting forth truth for truth without error; for he himself had indeed labored, but under grace as the primary and principal cause.

Thus, this correction of Christ is not the amendment of an error, but the removal of a condition previously posited, or the conversion of a conditional prayer into a simple one. Therefore, He does not replace the true for the false, but a categorical good will in place of a hypothetical one, which was likewise good in its own kind.  He does not correct the prior utterance as if it were ill-composed, but explains what He had said, lest any of us should suppose it to have been ill-thought or ill-spoken; and He subjects that conditioned will, which out of a right love of self shrank from death, to the will of the Father, and therefore, by keeping the right order, submits the love of self to the love of God as the first and greatest commandment.”

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sect. 32

“XXXII. Finally, it is asked here how Christ can be said to have been heard in that prayer from fear, as the apostle testifies, Heb. V:7 [“Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;”], and elsewhere Christ professes that he is always heard by the Father, Jn. XI:42, when nevertheless death had necessarily to be undergone by him.

That which Christ willed simply and absolutely, in that he never suffered a refusal; but that which he willed only under a condition, it is no wonder if he did not obtain it, since that was not so much a will as it was velleity, and that was not so much to be reckoned a rational desire, which ought always to hold the primary place, as a natural inclination and sensitive appetite, which never has the principal role in prayer.

2. Christ was heard from the fear of death, not indeed absolutely, as if He had been freed from the necessity of undergoing death, but in a certain respect, namely, insofar as God, who heard Him, so shook off that fear that He received death most steadfastly and submitted Himself wholly to the divine will, and was thus strengthened so that He laid aside all dread of death.  For Christ feared two things above all:

1. Lest He should succumb, overwhelmed by the evils which He saw to be most grievous.
2. Lest He should be swallowed up by death, so that no exit from it would be open.

But God heard Him, that is, freed Him from both those fears:

1. Because He so corroborated Him by the power of His Spirit in the midst of the struggle that He most steadfastly and invincibly sustained that most grievous contest.

2. Because He freed Him from death, having loosed the pains of hell by His glorious resurrection; and thus, most truly, in this respect He was heard—not, indeed, that He might not pay the penalty of death, but that He might not be swallowed up by it; not that He might not taste it, but that He might not perish in it; not in the subterfuge of punishments, but in the constant toleration of the same and in a strong and invincible liberation and victory.”

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Lombard, Medievals & Commentators on Lombard

Articles

1100’s

Lombard, Peter – The Sentences, book 1, The Mystery of the Trinity  tr. Giulio Silano  (d. 1160; Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2007), pp. 243-62

45. God’s Will

…
5. In what manners is (the term) God’s “will” accepted
6. That God’s preception, prohibition, permission, counsel, and operation are sometimes understood by the name of “will”
7. Whether God wills from all persons that to be done those things which He commands, and/or not to be done those things which He prohibits

46. Evil & the Efficacy of the Divine Will

1. That God’s will, which He Himself is, can be cancelled in nothing
2. In what manner is this to be understood: “I willed to gather thy children together, and thou wouldst not”, and this: “He who wills all men to come to be saved”
3. Whether evils come to be done by God willing and/or nilling
4. In what manner is this saying of St. Augustine to be understood: “It is good that evils come to be”
5. On the multiple acceptation of the term “good”
6. That evils have value for the university of things
7. That the cause that man is worse, is not in God

47. Efficacy of the Divine Will

1. That the will of God regarding a man is fulfilled whithersoever he turns himself
2. In what sense certain things are said to be done “against” God’s will
3. For what reason did God command to all to do good and avoid evil, but does not will that this be fulfilled by all

48. Conformity of our Will to the Divine Will

1. That man sometimes with goodwill wills something other than God wills, and with bad-will sometimes wills the same which God wills
2. That God’s will is fulfilled through the evil wills of men
3. Whether it pleased holy men that Christ would suffer and die
4. Whether we ought to will the sufferings of the saints

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1200’s

Alexander of Hales – bk. 1, pt. 1, inquiry 1, tract 6, questions 3-4  in Sum of Universal Theology  tr. AI by Stiven Peter  (Paris, 1230-1245; Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1924-1948), pp. 491-546

Alexander (c. 1185–1245) was a Franciscan friar, theologian and philosopher.  This is the first comprehensive Franciscan systematic theology, compiled under Alexander’s direction with William of Melitona, John of la Rochelle and the Halensis collaborators.

Albert the Great – bk. 1, dist. 45, art. 9 to dist. 48  in Commentaries on the Four Books of Sentences  tr. AI by Stiven Peter  (Paris: Vives & Bornet, 1894), 1,026-83

Albert (c. 1200 –1280) was a German Dominican friar, philosopher, scientist, and bishop and was known as Doctor Universalis.  He was a teacher of Aquinas.

Aquinas, Thomas – Commentary on the Sentences  (d. 1274), bk. 1, dist. 47, Certain things that seem to show the inefficacy of the divine will

art. 1, ‘Whether God wills that all men be saved? [No, with a distinction]’

art. 4, ‘Whether God wills that evils occur? [No]’

Bonaventure – bk. 1, dist. 45-48  in Commentary on the Four Books of Sentences  in Complete Works of St. Bonaventure, vol. 16, Philosophy of God  Buy  (Franciscan Institute Publications)

Bonaventure (1221–1274) was an Italian Franciscan bishop, cardinal, scholastic theologian and philosopher.

Dist. 45, On God’s will, according to its quiddity

…
Article 3, On the divine will, as much as regards its reckoning of being signified

Quest. 1, Whether the divine will is fittingly divided into the will of a sign and the will of good pleasure?

Quest. 2, On the number and sufficiency of the signs of the divine will

Doubts on the text of Master Peter’s 45th distinction

Dist. 46, On the fulfilling of the divine will

Article sole: On the will of God in respect of the salvation of all, and in respect of evil

Quest. 1, Whether God wills that all men come to be saved by the will of his good pleasure?
Quest. 2, Whether God wills evils to come to be?
Quest. 3, Whether it is good that evils come to be?
Quest. 4, Whether it is true that evils come to be?
Quest. 5, Whether evil is ordainable by the will of God?
Quest. 6, Whether evil concerns the complement of the universe?

Doubts on the text of Master Peter’s 46th Distinction

Dist. 47, On the divine will in regard to its efficacy

Article sole: On the efficacy of the divine will

Quest. 1: Whether the will of God’s good pleasure can be impeded?
Quest. 2: Whether anyone can work against the will of a sign?
Quest. 3: Whether God ought to permit evils?
Quest. 4: Whether God can precept evils?

Doubts on the text of Master Peter’s 47th distinction

Dist. 48, On the conformity of our will to the divine will

Article 1, On the conformity of our will in regard to its quiddity

Quest. 1, Whether it is possible, that our will be conformed to the divine will?

Quest. 2, Whether the conformity of our will to the divine will makes it just?

Article 2, On the conformity of our will as much as regards obligation

Quest. 1, Whether we are bound to conform our will to the divine will in the reason for willing?

Quest. 2, Whether we are bound to conform our will to the divine will in the (thing) willed?

Doubts on the text of Master Peter’s 48th distinction

.

Duns Scotus, John – bk. 1, dist. 46-48  in Ordinatio, bk. 1, dist. 26-48  tr. Peter L.P. Simpson (2013 / 2023)

46th Distinction

Whether God’s will of being well-pleased is always fulfilled  196

47th Distinction

Whether divine permission is some act of the divine will  198

48th Distinction

Whether a created will is morally good whenever it conforms to the uncreated will  199-200

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1300’s

Durandus of St. Pourcain – bk. 1, dist. 45, quest. 3 to dist. 48  in Commentary on the Sentences  tr. AI  (d. 1334; Lugduni, 1587), pp. 606-31

Durandus (c. 1275 – 1332 / 1334) was a French Dominican, philosopher, theologian, and bishop.

Rimini, Gregory of – Dist. 46-47, ‘Whether the will of God is always fulfilled? [Distinguished]’  in On the Sentences, bk. 1  tr. AI  Buy  (d. 1358), pp. 1155-66

Gregory (c. 1300–1358) was one of the great scholastic philosophers and theologians of the Middle Ages.  He was the first scholastic writer to unite the Oxonian and Parisian traditions in 14th-century philosophy, and his work had a lasting influence in the Late Middle Ages and Reformation.  His scholastic nicknames were Doctor acutus and Doctor authenticus.  His views strongly influenced some of the Protestant Reformers.

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1600’s

Estius, Willem H. – dist. 45, sect. 7 to dist. 48  in Commentary on the Sentences, bk 1  tr. AI  (d. 1613; Paris, 1680 / 1696), pp. 487-523

Estius (1542–1613) was a Dutch, Romanist commentator on the Pauline epistles.

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Latin

1500’s

Luther, Martin – Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard  in D. Martin Luthers Werke  (1510-1511; Weimar: Hermann Bohlau, 1893), vol. 9

Luther (1483-1546), a German, composed this commentary in becoming a doctor, as was the standard requirement at the time.

Bk. 1

dist. 45.  60
dist. 46.  60
dist. 47.  61
dist. 48.  61

Daneau, Lambert – A Threefold Commentary on the First Book of the Sentences of Peter Lombard, which is on the True God…  (Geneva: Eustathius Vignon, 1580)

Daneau (c. 1530 – c. 1590) was a French jurist and reformed theologian, who taught for a time in Leiden and other places.

Bk. 1

dist. 45. God’s Will

Lombard  702
4.  709
5.  711
6. 713
7.  714
Censure  715

dist. 46. Evil & the Efficacy of the Divine Will

Lombard  720
2.  731
3.  732
5.  733
6.  733
7.  735
9.  736
10.  737
12.  737
14.  738
Censure  738

dist. 47. Efficacy of the Divine Will

Lombard  741
1.  745
2.  746
Censure  747

dist. 48. Conformity of our Will to the Divine Will

Lombard  748
2.  753
3.  754
5.  754
Censure  755-57

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.

Thomism

Order of

Articles  6
Quotes  2

 

Articles

1200’s

Aquinas, Thomas

Commentary on the Sentences, bk. 1, dist. 47, Certain things that seem to show the inefficacy of the divine will

art. 1, ‘Whether God wills that all men be saved? [No, with a distinction]’

art. 4, ‘Whether God wills that evils occur? [No]’

art. 6, ‘Whether the will of God is always fulfilled? [Yes, with a distinction]’  in Summa, pt. 1, quest. 19

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1500’s

Vasquez, Gabriel – Commentaries & Disputations on the First Part of St. Thomas, vol. 1  tr. AI by Stiven Peter  (Gratianus, 1598)

question 19

art. 6, ‘Whether the will of God is always fulfilled?’  1,034

disputation 83, ‘Whether there is in God some will of good-pleasure which is not always fulfilled?’  1,036-50
…

art. 11, ‘Whether in God the will of sign ought to be distinguished?’  1,060
art. 12, ‘Whether the five signs are fittingly posited concerning the divine will?’  1,061-63

Vasquez (1549 or 1551 – 1604) was a Spanish, Jesuit theologian.  His foremost academic rival was his fellow Jesuit Francisco Suárez, whose philosophical views he often and openly criticized (such as in this work).

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1600’s

Suarez, Francis – ch. 8, ‘On the will of sign and good-pleasure, antecedent and consequent’  in On Thomas, pt. 1, On the Divine Substance & its Attributes, bk. 3, pp. 514-21  tr. AI  in All the Works (d. 1617; Paris: Vives, 1855), vol. 1  Latin

Gonet, Jean Baptiste – Thomistic Manual of Theology: a Brief Course of the Whole of Thomistic Theology, vol. 1  tr. AI by Osvaldo R.  (d. 1681; Antwerp: Associates, 1726)

ch. 3, On God’s antecedent will for the salvation of all  167

ch. 4, On the efficacy of the divine will  181-240

Gonet (c. 1616 – 1681) was a French Dominican theologian.

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1700’s

Billuart, Charles-René – The Summa of Thomas accommodated to the modern norms of Academies, or a Course of Theology according to the mind…  of the Divine Thomas in his Summa, with digressions in Ecclesiastical History inserted for necessary things, for the use of Thomistic Scholars  (1747), pt. 1, quest. 19-23, quest. 19

art. 5, ‘Whether God’s will is always fulfilled? Where concerning the divisions of divine will’  21

art. 6, ‘Concerning the will of God regarding the salvation of all’  28

art. 7, ‘Whether Christ died for all men without exception’  42-67

Billuart (1685-1757) was a Dominican preacher, controversialist and theologian born in Belgium.

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1900’s

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

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Quotes

Order of

Aquinas
Garrigou-Lagrange

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1200’s

Thomas Aquinas

Summa, pt. 1, q. 19, art. 12, reply to obj. 2

“As God may by metaphor be said to will what by His will, properly speaking, He wills not; so He may by metaphor be said to will what He does will, properly speaking.  Hence there is nothing to prevent the same thing being the object of the will of good pleasure and of the will of expression [sign].

But operation is always the same as the will of good pleasure; while precept and counsel are not; both because the former regards the present, and the two latter the future; and because the former is of itself the effect of the will; the latter its effect as fulfilled by means of another.”

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1900’s

Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange

Reality: a Synthesis of Thomistic Thought  (Herder Book Co., 1950)

ch. 10, God’s Will & God’s Love, pp. 104-5

“Now we understand that God’s efficacious will is always infallibly fulfilled…

In what sense, then, do we speak of God’s inefficacious will?  This will, says Thomas (Ia, q. 19, a. 6 [Whether the Will of God is always fulfilled?], ad 1), is a conditioned will, an antecedent will, which wills all that is good in itself, independently of circumstances.  Now this conditional, antecedent will remain[s] inefficacious because, in view of a higher good of which He alone is judge, God permits that this or that good thing does not come to pass.  Thus, in view of that higher good , God permits to illustrate, that harvests do not reach maturity, that the gazelle becomes the prey of the lion, that the just suffer persecution, that this or that sinner dies in final impenitence.  Sometimes we see the higher good in question, sometimes we cannot.  In permitting final impenitence, for example, God may be manifesting infinite justice against obstinacy in evil.

Such is the Thomistic distinction of antecedent (inefficacious) will from consequent (efficacious) will…

To illustrate.  God willed, by consequent will, the conversion of St. Paul.  This conversion comes to be, infallibly but freely, because God’s will, strong and sweet, causes Paul’s will to consent freely, spontaneously, without violence, to his own conversion.  God did not on the other hand will, efficaciously, the conversion of Judas, though He, conditionally, inefficaciously, antecedently, certainly willed it, and He permitted Judas to remain, freely, in final impenitence.  What higher good had God in mind?  This, at least: the manifestation of infinite justice. (For more extended exposition, see our work, De Deo uno, 1938, pp. 410-34; also Rev. thom., May, 1937, “Le fondement supreme de la distinction des deux graces, suffisante et efficace.”)

We must add this remark: Resisting sufficient grace is an evil which comes solely from ourselves.  But non-resistance is a good, which, in last analysis, comes from God, source of all good.”

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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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Scotism

Articles

1200’s

Duns Scotus, John – bk. 1, dist. 46-48  in Ordinatio, bk. 1, dist. 26-48  tr. Peter L.P. Simpson (2013 / 2023)

46th Distinction

Whether God’s will of being well-pleased is always fulfilled  196

47th Distinction

Whether divine permission is some act of the divine will  198

48th Distinction

Whether a created will is morally good whenever it conforms to the uncreated will  199-200

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1600’s

Macedo, Francisco – 2. ‘General will of God concerning the salvation of all men, 1 Tim. 2:4’  in Collations of the Teachings of St. Thomas & Scotus, with the Differences between the Two…  vol. 1  tr. AI by Vertias  (Padua: Frambotti, 1671), bk. 1, Collation 12, pp. 841-73  A more detailed ToC is given at the beginning of the volume.

Macedo (1596-1681), known as S. Augustino, was a Portuguese Franciscan theologian.  While exercising independent judgment, he tends to lean original-Scotus.  He had a very good knowledge of Aquinas’s works (and of Thomists and their works) through his life (vol. 2, p. 424).

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Jesuits

Quote

1600’s

Diego Ruiz de Montoya

Commentaries & Disputations on the First Part of St. Thomas, on the Will of God & its Proper Acts  (Lugduni: Prost, 1630), Quest. 19, On the Will of God, Disputation 20, ‘It is explained whether the antecedent will is conditional, and whether it is formally concerned with the means, insofar as they are means’  tr. AI by The Faith Received  Ruiz (1562-1632) was a Spanish Jesuit theologian who fundamentally was on the side of those affirming Middle Knowledge in the De Auxiliis controversy, who yet sought to bridge the difference with a formulation which came to be critiqued by both Jesuits and Dominicans.  Ruiz was a favorite of John Davenant.

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“Section 4, ‘On the imperfections which an inefficacious will and a will suspended from a condition seem to display: objections are dissolved.’

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1. Certain arguments of the contrary opinion have been solved elsewhere, or will have to be solved below; for certain arguments are directed immediately to proving that the divine will totally precedes our wills, so that in no way does it wait for them.  But these have been solved elsewhere.  Other arguments, however, contend immediately and directly that the application of God to concur with free choice would be confused, blind, and fortuitous, if it were to depend on a condition, provided that free choice should will.  Nevertheless we shall show this inference to be null below in disputation 45 and the following.

2. But the following objections seem to be proper to the present undertaking.  The first is:

Inefficacy of will is an imperfection; therefore no will of God is inefficacious.

It is confirmed, because the desire of a thing not to be obtained by its nature is apt to sadden and afflict the one desiring.

It is answered:

Inefficacy is an imperfection when it proceeds from impotence of the will.  But when the will could, if it willed, effectively obtain any object whatsoever, and yet does not will to obtain it effectively, but only to desire it ineffectively; then rather it is a perfection of the will, and a dominion over itself and over its power.

It is confirmed, since to will not to produce other worlds is not an imperfection, but rather a perfection; therefore likewise to will not to produce effectively free actions, but only to supply to them a sufficient concurrence, will not be an imperfection.

To the confirmation it is answered: if the desired thing is not obtained on account of a defect of power, or if the desired thing increases in some way the happiness of the desiring will; then not to obtain that thing can of itself sadden and afflict.  But to God neither is there lacking power to obtain, nor is the happiness of God increased in anyway by the obtaining of the desired thing.

3. The second objection is, that:

A conditional volition is proper to a will which cannot obtain that good without the condition appended: just as a conditional will of retaining wares in a storm [on the sea] is proper to a will which cannot avoid shipwreck unless a jettison of the wares be made.

It is confirmed, because that will of the merchant would effectively preserve the wares, if he could without danger, or inconvenience, and difficulty.  But God, without danger, inconvenience, and difficulty, could have saved all men, if He willed.  Therefore neither by a conditional will does He will their salvation.

4. It is answered:

By denying the first antecedent.

For although the will be omnipotent, and can without an appended condition obtain such a good, nonetheless most wisely and most powerfully it uses a conditioned volition, when another greater good, incompatible, is loved by an efficacious volition, which depends on the aforesaid condition.

But the [proposed] greater good is a better administration of the universe, and a more illustrious manifestation of divine justice together with mercy requires that the salvation of all be loved, as much as regards God, efficaciously; nor does it allow that, by the antecedent will of God, impediments of salvation be decreed and procured; yet at the same time it requires that many men be so left to their own choice that they be permitted, if they will, to resist the aforesaid will of God.

Since therefore this greater good efficaciously willed by God implies a contradiction with the salvation of those same men efficaciously willed, for that reason God most wisely and most powerfully appends a condition to His will, depending upon the choice of men.  For this volition satisfies the natural propensity and benevolence, which He professes toward men, even the reprobate, without dissimulation.

It is confirmed:

By the example of the human will of Christ the Lord, to whom there was not lacking the power of avoiding death, according to that of Mt. 26: “Do you think that I cannot ask my Father, and He will provide for Me now more than twelve legions of angels?” and Jn. 10: “I lay down my life, that I may take it again.  No one takes it from Me; but I lay it down of Myself.”

Yet He did not efficaciously will to avoid death, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled, because thus it must be done, namely, for the glory of God and the redemption of men.  He had therefore an inefficacious volition without defect of power, to such a degree that, even if the eternal Father were to revoke the precept, the human will would choose death efficaciously, for the greater glory of God and the benefit of men.

From this the solution of the confirmation is clear.  For God would not save all men efficaciously without loss of the aforesaid greater good.

6. The third objection is:

Taken from the preceding solution, since repugnance of volitions is an imperfection.  But this repugnance is given, if God by an inefficacious and conditioned volition wills the salvation of those men whom by an efficacious will He reprobates and damns.  Therefore God does not have this inefficacious and conditioned volition.

It is answered:

Repugnance of volitions, which simply and absolutely is repugnance, is an imperfection.  But between the aforesaid volitions of God there does not intervene repugnance, except in a qualified sense: since the salvation of the reprobate is not willed simply, but only in a qualified sense, that is, by abstracting [it] from the free resistance of the reprobate.  Damnation, however, is willed simply, the free resistance of the reprobate being supposed.

7. The fourth objection is:

Because from what has been said it follows that there is mixed into the divine volition an involuntary element in a qualified sense.  The sequence is proved, for the volition of punishing this man is, in a qualified sense, involuntary for God: since God at the same time has an antecedent volition, by which in a qualified sense He wills that the same man not be punished.

It is confirmed first, since that is involuntary which is from without, against an innate inclination.  But the sins of the same man, which God wills not to be committed, compel God to punish, since God from Himself desires not to punish.  Therefore He has this admixture of something involuntary.

8. It is confirmed second, since there is some incompossibility between these objects willed by God: and this incompossibility is, as it were, a certain force brought to bear upon the divine will, which in a qualified sense compels.

It is confirmed third, since sin truly is involuntary for God, not only negatively, but also positively, inasmuch as He pursues it with positive hatred.  Therefore things which are not good, unless sin be presupposed, have mixed in an involuntary element, whereby God prefers that sin not be given, which would compel to those goods.

It is confirmed fourth, for this involuntary [thing] in a qualified sense seem the testimonies of Scripture to signify, which attribute sorrow and groaning to God when He punishes.

9. But that the consequent is false is proved:

Because an involuntary [thing] is not mixed into the divine will, neither on account of ignorance, nor on account of imperfect actual consideration; nor on account of passion, nor on account of extrinsic coercion or fear, nor on account of malice, as it happens to created wills.  Therefore neither in a qualified sense can an involuntary be mixed into the divine volition.

10. I answer:

And I say first, the involuntary in a qualified sense is mixed into the divine volition, when something evil in a qualified sense is mixed into its object.

For then it is not from a defect of the will, but from the exigency of the object, and from the precept of right reason, that something involuntary in a qualified sense comes to be mixed in.  For just as good ought to be voluntary, so the evil mixed in ought to be involuntary.

Wherefore to the divine volition of punishing the reprobate there is mixed an involuntary element in a qualified sense, since with the punishment of the reprobate is mixed malice in a qualified sense, which is the privation of grace and glory, which God pursues from Himself with hatred, as He loves the opposite good.  This admixture of the involuntary commends the divine will especially for goodness and clemency, and it is most worthy of God.  And the preceding arguments prove this excellently, and we shall prove it in the following disputation 21, section 2.

11. I say second: Concerning the proper object of the divine will, which is good abstracted from all malice, the involuntary can by no means be mixed in.

It is proved, because neither on account of the objective mixture of evil with good, nor by reason of ignorance, inconsiderateness, passion, coercion, fear, or a contrary volition of evil or of good, nor any other reason that could be plausibly devised, can the involuntary be mixed in.

12. The fifth objection is proposed thus by some: Since Agatho in his decretal letter, which is reported in the Sixth Synod of Constantinople, action 4, says that Christ the Lord had two wills, namely, divine and human, between which this difference is assigned: that the divine will of Christ is always fulfilled, but not the human, as is clear when Mk 7: “He willed to pass unnoticed and could not.”  From this an argument is drawn:

If there were formally in God velleity, or conditional volition, the difference assigned between the divine and human will of Christ the Lord would be none.  For indeed the absolute human will of Christ was always fulfilled; but not the conditional volition, as when He said: “Father, if it is possible, let this chalice pass from Me.”  But if velleity, or conditional volition, is found formally in the divine will: in the same way the divine will of Christ, when it is absolute, is always fulfilled, but not when conditional.

13. It is answered:

Agatho does not constitute the precise discrimination of each will in this, that the human will of Christ the Lord is not always fulfilled, but chiefly in the reason on account of which it is not fulfilled, and the human will itself did not will to be fulfilled, namely, on account of subordination to the divine will, which, even if by an impossibility it had willed, it could not resist.

But there is a contrary reason why the conditional will of God is not fulfilled, namely, precisely because it itself wills not to be fulfilled, unless the condition be posited.  Whence, when that which it wills is not done, it is better fulfilled than if it were done without the required condition: as we saw in the preceding disputation 19, section 13.

14. But that this subordination of the human will to the divine was the [true] reason of the discrimination given by Agatho, is clear from the whole context of that epistle, especially in the words which are touched in the argument, of which this is the context: And as man, He says: “My food is to do the will of Him that sent Me.”  And “He would not walk in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill Him.”  Again: “Rising, He came into the parts of Tyre, and entering into a house, He would not have any man know it, and He could not be hid.”  Therefore, [this will is] not [properly] that [of the] Maker and Redeemer of all, of whom it is said: “All that the Lord willed, he did in heaven and on earth,” whose willing is this, that He is able, etc.

Let there be a sixth objection:

Since a conditioned willing is that which we are wont to call velleity, but velleity would be imperfect, for by its force God would not say: ‘I will the salvation of all,’ even of the reprobate, but only would say within Himself: ‘I would will the salvation of those men, if they did not resist Me.’

It is confirmed, for velleity seems to be proper to a lazy will, which would wish some good to befall itself without labor and expenses.

16. I answer:

And I say first, that in God the antecedent will is a velleity is granted by:

St. Thomas, art. 6, ad 1;
St. Bonaventure, bk. 1, dist. 46, art. 1, quest. 1, and dist. 47, art. 1, quest. 1;
Richard, bk. 1, dist. 46, art. 1, quest. 1;
Soto on Romans 9, in the digression on predestination, page 277 ff.;
Corduba, bk. 1 of the Quaestionarium, quest. 56, note b. 1;
Molina in the present question 19, art. 6, disp. 1, fol. 2 & 3;
Suarez in the little work On the Freedom of God, disp. 1, l., lect. 2, num. 10.

It is proved because velleity is called the volition, by which we will an object not totally and absolutely, but in a qualified sense and under a condition.  But such is the antecedent will.

17. I say second: From the above it follows that velleity is not in God in such a way as if now in fact God could not affirm: ‘I will the salvation of men,’ even of those whom He foreknows will resist, but He could only affirm: ‘I would will the salvation of those men, even of the foreknown, if they themselves did not resist Me.’

For this second proposition does not signify the will which actually exists in God, but which would exist in such a case.  But in God there actually exists the aforesaid volition of the salvation of the reprobate.  Whence most excellently and most truly God affirms: ‘I will the salvation of all.’

18. I say third: A velleity which does not will on its own part to furnish what that good requires to be furnished which is willed through it–that seems to be proper to a lazy will, as is said in the confirmation.  But the velleity of God stands otherwise: as is clear from what has been said.

19. But a seventh objection presses from Gregory, bk. 1, dist. 47, only question after the middle:

Since velleity is not signified by the indicative mood, but by the subjunctive, by saying: ‘God would will all men to be saved;’ but by the indicative mood Paul says: ‘God wills all men to be saved.’  Therefore this antecedent volition of the salvation of all is not a velleity.

It is answered from what has been said:

The present velleity is much better signified by the indicative, by saying: ‘God wills,’ for also the will of avoiding death in the human will of Christ the Lord was not an efficacious will, but a conditioned velleity, and yet it is signified by the indicative verb in Mt. 26: “Not as I will but as thou [wilt].”

And then velleity is most of all signified by the indicative when on the part of the one willing nothing is lacking whereby the willed effect might be obtained, for such a volition is partially efficacious and absolute, as was proved above.”

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