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Order of Contents

Historical Theology  2

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Historical Theology

Order of

Book
Antecedent Will & Atonement

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Book

1600’s

de Saint-Amour, Louis-Gorin – The Journal of Monsieur de Saint Amour, Doctor of Sorbonne, containing a Full Account of all the Transactions both in France and at Rome concerning the Five Famous propositions controverted between the Jansenists and the Molinists, from the beginning of that affair till the Pope’s decision  (London: Ratcliff, 1664)  248 pp.  ToC

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On a Divine Antecedent Will & Atonement

Quote

1600’s

Louis-Gorin de Saint-Amour

The Journal of Monsieur de Saint Amour, Doctor of Sorbonne, containing a Full Account of all the Transactions both in France and at Rome concerning the Five Famous propositions controverted between the Jansenists and the Molinists, from the beginning of that affair till the Pope’s decision  (London: Ratcliff, 1664), Disquisition 6 of Paul Irenaeus, or the true method for inquiring, Whether the five propositions were condemned in Jansen, Article 8, Notes for the fuller understanding of Jansenian doctrine about Christ’s death, pp. 233-34  tr. ChatGPT 5.6

“Again, that these same men admit in God a certain antecedent will of the salvation of all, he himself also acknowledges. From which it follows that, with much greater right, it is admitted in Christ.

Moreover, this antecedent will does not pertain only to this: that God, abstracting from the fall of man, is said to desire the salvation of all, insofar as they are men; but, generally, the antecedent will of God is directed toward that which is right, that which is just, that which is good in itself. Thus, because it is right for man to be converted, to do penance, not to despise the goodness of God, not to reject his graces, to approach the Sacraments—God is considered to will all these things by an antecedent will, although, when the individual circumstances are considered, he has not decreed to confer upon each individual efficacious graces by which they certainly arrive at salvation, without which they certainly fall away from salvation.

Therefore God does not desire, by an antecedent will, the salvation of all men merely on this account, that he made all rational creatures for blessedness; but also because, since he diffuses very many graces, both external and internal, among the reprobate, which it is unjust for them to abuse, and since he wills that an entrance into his Church should likewise be open to them, he is considered, by an antecedent will, to will that all arrive at salvation, because he would will that they not remain obstinate in wickedness, and that they make good use of the helps offered to them; although, on the other hand, by a will of justice, when all the circumstances are considered, he judged it better to leave them to their wickedness, and not to grant efficacious aids, by which alone the depravity of the human heart is overcome.

Hence it is evident that God wills, by an antecedent will, the salvation both of the demons and of reprobate men; nevertheless, in a very different way in the case of men than in that of demons. For since he now offers no helps of grace to demons, nor wills that an entrance into the Church, or the aid of the sacraments, be open to them, consequently neither does he will them to make good use of his grace, which he now grants none to them. But, on the contrary, since men are still on the way, he must be thought, by an antecedent will, to desire for them conversion and a sincere return to himself and a good use of his graces, from which he by no means bars them—none of which he provides toward demons.

That antecedent will, moreover, often seems to have been in Christ, as when he wept over Jerusalem and lamented its coming calamities in these words: “Luke says, ‘He wept over it, saying, If you also had known, and indeed in this your day, the things which are for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes, because days will come upon you, and your enemies will surround you with a rampart,’ etc.”

Thus Christ laments the ruin of his own nation, and in it of all the reprobate, whose image it bore, and nevertheless he plainly consented to the absolute will of the divine decree of predestination, by which they had been separated from that lot of the saints. Nor, indeed, do some inconveniently understand Christ’s words in the garden, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me,” of that human velleity by which he deprecated the damnation of the reprobate set before his mind.

3. From these things it is evident in what sense a conditioned will of the salvation of the reprobate ought to be removed, and in what sense it can be admitted in God and Christ.

For that condition which is customarily brought forward by the Molinists, by which it is said that God desires the salvation of all if they themselves also will it, with some sufficient grace supplied to them which requires nothing in order to act, ought to be entirely cast out, as being wholly unworthy of the efficacy of divine aid, and completely alien from that state in which, as Augustine says, “if the will of man were left to him, so that grace does not work the very willing, amid so many weaknesses of this life the will itself would succumb.”

But a conditioned will of another kind—by which it would be said that God wills all men to be saved if they themselves also will it, not because some versatile grace is supplied to them, but because he would will them to recover from their depravity and hardness and to return to repentance, from which they are hindered not by some external inability, but by their own and culpable perversity—this, I say, account of conditioned will, since it is nothing other than an antecedent will, and, as I think, than the eternal law commanding all things just and forbidding all things unjust, does nothing contrary to divine predestination, nor can it be said to have been denied by Jansenius.

It is also evident from the things said above that Christ can in many ways be said to have died for the salvation of the reprobate, even according to Jansenius.

For it must be noted that “to die for someone” is understood in two ways. Either it signifies to will the salvation of someone, or it signifies to will the means to be conferred for obtaining salvation.

Again, God is said to will someone’s salvation either by an antecedent will or by a consequent, that is, absolute, will. The antecedent will, again, is understood either Molinistically, so that it is the same as that conditioned will which we reject; or Thomistically, so that it is nothing other than that will of God by which God wills whatever is just and equitable to be done, whatever is good in itself and absolutely. We have said that this agrees with that other kind of conditioned will.

These things being established, it is clear that Christ can in many ways be said to have died for the salvation of all men altogether, and especially of the faithful reprobate.

First, he offered a sufficient price for all.

Secondly, in the New Law, God sets forth the sacraments of divine grace, fountains, and, as Prosper says, a certain cup of immortality, for all; and in the Old [Law] he nowhere withheld his aid from those imploring the aid flowing from the future merits of Christ.

Thirdly, by that antecedent will he would will all to aspire to his Church, to depart from sins, and to flee to his mercy.

Fourthly, he has nowhere failed to grant to men certain helps of salvation, sometimes external, sometimes internal, by which, if men make bad use of them, they make bad use of them through their own depravity, and against that antecedent will of God. For because it is unjust for men thus to abuse the benefits of God, therefore God is said not to will this, because he does not will evil. On the other hand, because it is equitable for men to make good use of them, therefore God is said to will this.

Fifthly, and still more properly, [Christ died] for the faithful reprobate, because he gave them a right to eternal salvation through baptism, from which they fall away only through their own fault and guilt.

This one thing, therefore, he granted to none of the reprobate who die in unbelief: that he should turn their wills toward himself by that efficacious grace, without which, on account of the obstinate will of men in evil, nothing is ever done well by them.

This one thing likewise he grants to none of the faithful reprobate: that the efficacious gift of perseverance should be bestowed upon them. And yet he would not deny this very thing to those asking for it; but that they should ask, and should ask in such a way that such a great thing ought to be asked, by a certain hidden judgment he did not will to work in all, although the fact that they do not ask does not arise from a defect of grace, but from their depravity.”

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