See also:
Bible Verses on God’s Revealed Will being his Will, Desire, Pleasure & Wish
.
.
Order of Contents
Distinction from Scripture
Articles 5
Quotes 4
Mixed 1
History 1
.
The Distinction from Scripture
Herman Bavinck
Reformed Dogmatics (Backer Academic, 2004), 2:241
“But though He wills all creatures as means and for his own sake, He wills some more than others to the degree they are more direct and suitable means for his glorification. God is a Father to all his creatures, but He is that especially to his children. His affection for everything He created is not as deep as his affection for his church, and that in turn is not as great as his love for Christ, the Son of his good pleasure. We speak of a general, a special, and a very special providence; in the same way we make as many distinctions in the will of God (as it relates to his creatures) as there are creatures. For the free will of God is as richly variegated as that whole world is. Hence, it must not be conceived as an indifferent power, a blind force, but as a rich and powerful divine energy, the wellspring of the abundant life that creation spreads out before our eyes.
In that world, however, there is one thing that creates a special difficulty for the doctrine of the will of God, and that is the fact of evil, both evil as guilt and evil as punishment, in an ethical as well as a physical sense. Though evil is ever so much under God’s control, it cannot in the same sense and in the same way be the object of his will as the good. Hence, with a view to these two very different, in fact diametrically opposed, objects we must again make a distinction in that will of God, as Scripture itself shows.
There is a big difference between the will of God that prescribes what we must do (Matt. 7:21; 12:50; John 4:34; 7:17; Rom. 12:2), and the will of God that tells us what He does and will do (Ps. 115:3; Dan. 4:17, 25,32,35; Rom. 9:18-19; Eph. 1:5,9,11; Rev. 4:11). The petition that God’s will may be done (Matt. 6:10) is very different in tenor from the childlike and resigned prayer: “Your will be done” (Matt. 26:42; Acts 21:14). Over and over in history we see the will of God assert itself in two ways. God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son, yet he does not let it happen (Gen. 22). He wants Pharaoh to let his people Israel go, yet hardens his heart so that he does not do it (Exod. 4:21). He has the prophet tell Hezekiah that he will die; still He adds fifteen years to his life (Isa. 38:1,5). He prohibits us from condemning the innocent, yet Jesus is delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God (Acts 2:23; 3:18; 4:28). God does not will sin; He is far from iniquity. He forbids it and punishes it severely, yet it exists and is subject to his rule (Ex. 4:21; Josh. 11:20; 1 Sam. 2:25; 2 Sam. 16:10; Acts 2:23; 4:28; Rom. 1:24,26; 2 Thess. 2:11; etc.). He wills the salvation of all (Eze. 18:23,32; 33:11; 1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9), yet has mercy on whom He wills and hardens whom He wills (Rom. 9:18).”
.
Articles
See also ‘Expositions of the Lord’s Prayer’ on the 3rd Petition.
.
1500’s
Ursinus, Zachary – 3rd Sophism: Of Contradictory Wills in The Sum of Christian Religion: Delivered… in his Lectures upon the Catechism… tr. Henrie Parrie (d. 1583; Oxford, 1587), Of God’s Providence, 2. What the Providence of God is
.
1600’s
On Samuel Rutherford
A Summary of Rutherford on the Revealed Will, by Dr. Guy Richard, 4 paragraphs
ch. 2. ‘What is the nature of the permissive will of God, and of the will of good pleasure and sign. The Remonstrants, Arminians are called to the discussion’ in A Scholastic Disputation on Divine Providence, chs. 1-10 tr. by AI by Onku (Edinburgh, 1649), pp. 11-20 Latin
Baxter, Richard – Thesis 1 in Aphorisms of Justification… (Hague, 1655), pp. 1-5
Turretin, Francis – 15. ‘May the will be properly distinguished into the will of decree and of precept, good purpose (eudokias) and good pleasure (euarestias), signified, secret and revealed? We affirm.’ in Institutes of Elenctic Theology, tr. George M. Giger, ed. James Dennison Jr. (1679–1685; P&R, 1992), vol. 1, 3rd Topic, pp. 220-
van Mastricht, Peter – bk. 2, ch. 15, sections 22-26 in Theoretical Practical Theology (RHB), vol. 2, pp. 306-8
“From this we evidently perceive (1) by what reckoning the will of God is always and universally effective: the former, that is, the decretive will, is so according to the event, and the latter legislative will is so according to our duty, while at the same time he wills in earnest by his legislative will many things that never occur, just as also many things occur by his decretive will that he does not will. And so we perceive from this as well (2) that there is nothing in these wills on God’s part that is repugnant, since they do not will the same thing or in the same way.
…when you rightly distinguish the efficacy of the one from the other, as we have said, not only will you entirely avoid conflict and ineffectiveness in the divine wills, but you will also most fittingly free him from the idea of pretending, about which our adversaries continuously growl at us, saying that God (in our opinion, that is) indicates that he wills many things that he does not in fact will, and thus he pretends. Without any trouble we will answer back that God always wills in fact what he indicates that he wills. But what he wills by his legislative will, although he wills its goodness, yet he does not immediately will its futurity, nor does he indicate it.”
.
Quotes
Order of
Calvin
Hooker
Perkins
Baxter
.
1500’s
John Calvin
Institutes, 1.18.3
“Still, however, the will of God is not at variance with itself. It undergoes no change. He makes no pretence of not willing what He wills, but while in Himself the will is one and undivided, to us it appears manifold, because, from the feebleness of our intellect, we cannot comprehend how, though after a different manner, He wills and wills not the very same thing.”
.
Richard Hooker
The Works of Mr. Richard Hooker… in Eight Books of Ecclesiastical Polity… (London: Newcomb, 1666), bk. 5, pp. 202-6
“Will, whether it be in God or Man, belongs to the essence or nature of both. The nature therefore of God being one, there are not in God diverse wills, although the Godhead be in diverse Persons, because the power of willing is a natural, not a personal propriety.
Contrariwise, the Person of our Savior Christ being but one, there are in Him two wills, because two natures, the nature of God and the nature of man, which both do imply this faculty and power. So that in Christ there is a divine and there is a human will, otherwise He were not both God and Man. Hereupon the Church has of old condemned Monothelites as hereticks for holding that Christ had but one will. The works and operations of our Savior’s human will were all subject to the will of God and framed according to his Law, ‘I desire to do thy will, O God, and thy Law is within mine heart.’ [Ps. 40]
Now as man’s will, so the will of Christ has two several kinds of operation: the one natural or necessary, whereby it desires simply whatsoever is good in itself and shuns as generally all things which hurt; the other deliberate, when we therefore embrace things as good because the eye of understanding judges them good to that end which we simply desire. Thus in itself we desire health, physic, only for health’s sake. And in this sort, special reason oftentimes causes the will by choice to prefer one good thing before another, to leave one for another’s sake, to forgo meaner for the attainment of higher desires, which our Savior likewise did. These different inclinations of the will considered, the reason is easy how in Christ there might grow desires seeming, but being not indeed opposite, either the one of them unto the other, or either of them to the will of God.
For let the manner of his speech be weighed:
‘My soul is now troubled, and what should I say? Father, save Me out of this hour? But yet for this very cause I am come into this hour.’
His purpose herein was most effectually to propose to the view of the whole world two contrary objects, the like whereunto in force and efficacy were never presented in that manner to any but only to the soul of Christ. There was presented before his eyes in that fearful hour on the one side God’s heavy indignation and wrath towards mankind as yet unappeased, death as yet in full strength, Hell as yet never mastered by any that came within the confines and bounds thereof, somewhat also peradventure more than is either possible or needful for the wit of man to find out; finally, Himself flesh and blood left alone to enter into conflict with all these.
On the other side: a world to be saved by One, a pacification of wrath through the dignity of that sacrifice which should be offered, a conquest over death through the power of that Deity which would not suffer the tabernacle thereof to see corruption, and an utter disappointment of all the forces of infernal powers through the purity of that soul which they should have in their hands and not be able to touch. Let no man marvel that in this case the soul of Christ was much troubled. For what could such apprehensions breed, but (as their nature is) inexplicable passions of mind, desires abhorring what they embrace and embracing what they abhor? In which agony, how should the tongue go about to express what the soul endured?
When the griefs of Job were exceeding great, his words accordingly to open them were many; howbeit, still unto his seeming they were undiscovered: ‘Though my talk’ (says Job) ‘be this day in bitterness, yet my plague is greater than my groaning.’ But here to what purpose should words serve, when nature has more to declare than groans and strong cries, more than streams of bloody sweats, more than his doubled and tripled prayers can express, who thrice putting forth his hand to receive that cup, besides which, there was no other cause of his coming into the world, He thrice pulls it back again and as often even with tears of blood craves, ‘If it be possible, O Father, or if not, even what thine own good pleasure is;’ for whose sake the passion that has in it a bitter and a bloody conflict, even with wrath and death, and Hell, is most welcome.
Whereas therefore we find in God a will resolved that Christ shall suffer; and in the human will of Christ two actual desires, the one avoiding and the other accepting death: Is that desire which first declares itself by prayer against that wherewith He concludes prayer, or either of them, against his mind to whom prayer in this case seeks?
We may judge of these diversities in the will by the like in the understanding. For as the intellectual part does not cross itself by conceiving man to be just and unjust, when it means not the same man, nor by imagining the same man learned and unlearned, if learned in one skill and in another kind of learning unskilful, because the parts of every true opposition do always both concern the same subject and have reference to the same thing, since otherwise they are but in show opposite and not in truth: So the will about one and the same thing may in contrary respects have contrary inclinations and that without contrariety.
The minister of justice may, for public example to others, virtuously will the execution of that party whose pardon another for consanguinity’s sake as virtuously may desire. Consider death in itself and nature teaches Christ to shun it. Consider death as a mean to procure the salvation of the world and mercy works in Christ all willingness of mind towards it. Therefore in these two desires there can be no repugnant opposition.
Again, compare them with the will of God, and if any opposition be, it must be only between his appointment of Christ’s death and the former desire which wishes deliverance from death. But neither is this desire opposite to the will of God. The will of God was that Christ should suffer the pains of death. Not so his will, as if the torment of innocency did in itself please and delight God; but such was his will in regard of the end whereunto it was necessary that Christ should suffer. The death of Christ in itself therefore, God wills not, which to the end we might thereby obtain life, He both allows and appoints. In like manner, the Son of Man endures willingly to that purpose those grievous pains which simply not to have shunned had been against nature, and by consequent against God.
I take it therefore to be an error that Christ either knew not what Himself was to suffer, or else had forgotten the things He knew. The root of which error was an over-restrained consideration of prayer, as though it had no other lawful use but only to serve for a chosen mean whereby the will resolves to seek that which the understanding certainly knows it shall obtain: Whereas prayers, in truth, both unto are, and his were, as well sometime a presentation of mere desires as a mean of procuring desired effects at the hands of God.
We are therefore taught by his example that the presence of dolorous and dreadful objects, even in minds most perfect, may as clouds overcast all sensible joy; that no assurance touching future victories can make present conflicts so sweet and easy, but nature will shun and shrink from them; nature will desire ease and deliverance from oppressive burdens that the contrary determination of God is oftentimes against the effect of this desire, yet not against the affection itself, because it is naturally in us; that in such case our prayers cannot serve us as means to obtain the thing we desire; that notwithstanding, they are unto God most acceptable sacrifices because they testify we desire nothing but at his hands, and our desires we submit with contentment to be overruled by his will; and in general they are not repugnant unto the natural will of God which wishes to the works of his own hands, in that they are his own handiwork, all happiness, although perhaps for some special cause in our own particular, a contrary determination have seemed more convenient.
Finally, that thus to propose our desires which cannot take such effects as we specify shall notwithstanding otherwise procure us his heavenly grace, even as this very prayer of Christ obtained angels to be sent Him as comforters in his agony. And according to this example, we are not afraid to present unto God our prayers for those things, which that He will perform unto us, we have no sure, nor certain knowledge…
Such prayers of the Church to be delivered from all adversity are no more repugnant to any reasonable disposition of men’s minds towards death, much less to that blessed patience and meek contentment which saints by heavenly inspiration have to endure (what cross or calamity soever it pleases God to lay upon them) than our Lord and Savior’s own prayer before his passion was repugnant unto his most gracious resolution to die for the sins of the whole world.
49. In praying for deliverance from all adversity we seek that which nature does wish to itself; but by entreating for mercy towards all we declare that affection wherewith Christian charity thirsts after the good of the whole world: we discharge that duty which the apostle himself does impose on the Church of Christ as a commendable office, a sacrifice acceptable in God’s sight, a service according to his heart whose desire is to have all men saved: a work most suitable with his purpose who gave Himself to be the price of redemption for all and a forcible mean to procure the conversion of all such as are not yet acquainted with the mysteries of that truth which must save their souls.
Against it there is but the bare show of this one impediment: that all men’s salvation and many men’s eternal condemnation or death are things the one repugnant to the other: that both cannot be brought to pass: that we know there are vessels of wrath to whom God will never extend mercy and therefore that wittingly we ask an impossible thing to be had. The truth is, that as life and death, mercy and wrath are matters of mere understanding or knowledge, all men’s salvation and some men’s endless perdition are things so opposite that whosoever does affirm the one must necessarily deny the other. God Himself cannot effect both or determine that both shall be.
There is in the knowledge both of God and man this certainty, that life and death have divided between them the whole body of mankind. What portion either of the two has, God Himself knows; for us He has left no sufficient means to comprehend, and for that cause neither given any leave to search in particular who are infallibly the heirs of the Kingdom of God, who cast-aways. Howbeit, concerning the state of all men with whom we live (for only of them our prayers are meant), we may till the world’s end, for the present, always presume that as far as in us there is power to discern what others are, and as far as any duty of ours depends upon the notice of their condition in respect of God, the safest axioms for charity to rest itself upon are these:
He which believes already is, and he which believes not as yet, may be the child of God. It becomes not us during life altogether to condemn any man, seeing that (for anything we know) there is hope of every man’s forgiveness, the possibility of whose repentance is not yet cut off by death. And therefore charity which hopes all things, prays also for all men. Wherefore to let go personal knowledge touching vessels of wrath and mercy, what they are inwardly in the sight of God, it skills not; for us there is cause sufficient in all men whereupon to ground our prayers unto God in their behalf. For whatsoever the mind of man apprehends as good, the will of charity and love is to have it enlarged in the very uttermost extent, that all may enjoy it to whom it can any way add perfection.
Because therefore the farther a good thing does reach, the nobler and worthier we reckon it, our prayers for all men’s good, no less than for our own, the apostle with very fit terms commends as being [Greek], a work commendable for the largeness of the affection from whence it springs, even as theirs which have requested at God’s hands the salvation of many, with the loss of their own souls drowning as it were and overwhelming themselves in the abundance of their love towards others, is proposed as being in regard of the rareness of such affections [Greek], more than excellent. But this extraordinary height of desire after other men’s salvation is no common mark. The other is a duty which belongs unto all and prevails with God daily. For as it is in itself good, so God accepts and takes it in very good part at the hands of faithful men. Our prayers for all men do include both them that shall find mercy and them also that shall find none. For them that shall, no man will doubt but our prayers are both accepted and granted.
Touching them for whom we crave that mercy which is not to be obtained, let us not think that our Savior did mis-instruct his disciples, willing them to pray for the peace even of such as should be incapable of so great a blessing, or that the prayers of the prophet Jeremiah offended God because the answer of God was a resolute denial of favor to them for whom supplication was made.
And if any man doubt how God should accept such prayers in case they be opposite to his will, or not grant them, if they be according unto that which Himself wills, our answer is that such suits God accepts in that they are conformable unto his general inclination, which is that all men might be saved; yet always He grants them not for as much as there is in God sometimes a more private occasioned will which determines the contrary. So that the other being the rule of our actions, and not this, our requests for things opposite to this will of God are not therefore the less gracious in his sight. There is no doubt but we ought in all things to frame our wills to the will of God and that otherwise in whatsoever we do, we sin. For of ourselves, being so apt to err, the only way which we have to straighten our paths is by following the rule of his will whose footsteps naturally are right.
If the eye, the hand or the foot do that which the will commands, though they serve as instruments to sin, yet is sin the commander’s fault and not theirs, because nature has absolutely and without exception made them subjects to the will of man, which is lord over them. As the body is subject to the will of man, so man’s will to the will of God; for so it behoves that the better should guide and command the worse. But because the subjection of the body to the will is by natural necessity, the subjection of the will unto God voluntary, we therefore stand in need of direction, after what sort our wills and desires may be rightly conformed to his. Which is not done by willing always the self-same thing that God intends. For it may chance that his purpose is sometime the speedy death of them whose long continuance in life, if we should not wish, we were unnatural.
When the object or matter therefore of our desires is (as in this case) a thing both good of it self and not forbidden of God, when the end for which we desire it is virtuous and apparently most holy, when the root from which our affection towards it proceeds is charity, piety, that which we do in declaring our desire by prayer, yea, over and besides all this, since we know that to pray for all men living is but to show the same affection which towards every of them our Lord Jesus Christ has borne, who knowing only as God who are his, did as man taste death for the good of all men: surely to that will of God which ought to be and is the known rule of all our actions, we do not herein oppose ourselves, although his secret determination haply be against us; which if we did understand, as we do not, yet to rest contented with that which God will have done is as much as He requires at the hands of men. And concerning ourselves, what we earnestly crave in this case, the same, as all things else that are of like condition, we meekly submit unto his most gracious will and pleasure.
Finally, as we have cause sufficient why to think the practice of our [Anglican] Church [in the Book of Common Prayer] allowable in this behalf, so neither is ours the first which has been of that mind. For to end with the words of Prosper [d. c. 455]: ‘This law of supplication for all men’ (says he):
‘the devout zeal of all priests and of all faithful men does hold with such full agreement that there is not any part of all the world where Christian people do not use to pray in the same manner. The Church everywhere makes prayers unto God, not only for saints, and such as already in Christ are regenerate, but for all infidels and enemies of the cross of Jesus Christ, for all idolaters, for all that persecute Christ in his followers, for Jews to whose blindness the light of the Gospel does not yet shine, for heretics and schismatics, who from the unity of Faith and charity are estranged.
And for such, what does the Church ask of God but this, that leaving their errors they may be converted unto Him, that faith and charity may be given them and that out of the darkness of ignorance they may come to the knowledge of his truth? Which because they cannot themselves do in their own behalf, as long as the sway of evil custom ever-bears them and the chains of Satan detain them bound, neither are they able to break through those errors wherein they are so determinately settled that they pay unto falsity, the whole sum of whatsoever love is owing unto God’s truth.
Our Lord merciful and just requires to have all men prayed for; that when we behold innumerable multitudes drawn up from the depth of so bottomless evils, we may not doubt but (in part) God has done the thing we requested, nor despair, but that being thankful for them, towards whom already He has showed mercy, the rest which are not as yet enlightened shall before they pass out of life be made partakers of the like grace. Or if the grace of Him which saves [for so we set is falls out] overpass some, so that the prayer of the Church for them be not received, this we may leave to the hidden judgments of God’s righteousness and acknowledge that in this secret there is a gulf, which, while we live we shall never sound.’ (Of the Calling of the Gentiles, bk. 1, ch. 4, amongst Ambrose’s Works)”
.
1600’s
William Perkins
A Treatise of God’s Free Grace & Man’s Free Will (Cambridge, 1601), p. 44
“If we compare this text [Matt 23:37, Christ lamenting over Jerusalem] with Isa. 6:10 they seem to be contrary. For here Christ says, ‘I would have gathered you’: there He says, ‘Harden them that they be not gathered and converted.’ God therefore seems to will and not to will one and the same thing.
Answer: There is but one will in God: yet does it not equally will all things, but in diverse respects it does will and nil the same thing. He wills the conversion of Jerusalem, in that He approves it as a good thing in itself: in that He commands it, and exhorts men to it: in that He gives them all outward means of their conversion. He wills it not, in that He did not decree effectually to work their conversion. For God does approve, and He may require many things, which nevertheless for just causes known to Himself, He will not do. The confirmation of the angels that fell, God approved as a thing good in itself, yet did not He will to confirm them. A judge in compassion approves and will[s] the life of a malefactor: and yet withal he wills the execution of justice in his death. Even so God sometimes wills that in his signifying will, which He wills not in the will of his good pleasure.”
.
Richard Baxter
Universal Redemption of Mankind by the Lord Jesus Christ Stated & Cleared… (London: Salusbury, 1694), ch. 2, pp. 27-33
“11. We must as is said before distinguish between Christ (and the Father in Him) as Rector per Leges [Legislator through laws] or Legislator, and as Dominus Absolutus [Absolute Lord]. And so we must distinguish between those benefits which Christ as Rector gives by his laws and those which as mere Benefactor and Absolute Proprietary He gives, though not contrary to his laws or Covenant, yet over and above what by Covenant or Law He gives.
Also we must distinguish between the event and nature of things as such, and the right to and dueness of things as such. And consequently we must most carefully distinguish between God’s will de rerum eventu [concerning the event of things] and his will de debito [concerning debt], as such. The clear distinguishing of these two is a singular key to the opening of the sense of Scripture, and in particular of this controversy.
For indeed, it is to distinguish between our physics and our ethics. God’s will about natural beings as such stands at the top of physics as the first cause. God’s will de debito, as such, stands at the top of our ethics as the first cause. And you may easily conceive how the confounding of our physics and ethics must needs blind us and lose us in our divinity, as it would do in philosophy.
I join all these distinctions together, for in some they all come to one or are of necessary consideration jointly that any one of them may be understood. Our divines, usually with the Schoolmen, distinguish between voluntatem signi and beneplaciti [will of sign and of good-pleasure]. But in the ordinary school-sense, that is not the same distinction with that which I here intend. Dr. [William] Twisse oft uses the distinction between voluntatem propositi et praecepti [will of putting forth and of precept], and means in effect the same that I do: But he oft speaks of it as being but metonymically God’s will and not properly. By which I must conclude that he meant quoad eventum [as to the event], and not quoad debitum [as to debt]; for God properly wills that this shall be man’s due or duty.
I shall therefore a little further explain this distinction and then show you the soundness of it, and then the exceeding usefulness and necessity of it, both in this and many other controversies:
1. For the title I choose rather to denominate it from the object than the act, because the diversity is in the object, but none in the species of the act naturally considered: Debitum and natural being are two distinct things; but ‘to will’ one and ‘to will’ the other is all one as to the nature of willing. God does as properly will duty as He wills natural beings. Yet if I must denominate it from the acts, I would distinguish between God’s Directive Will and his Legislative.
For to call it voluntas praecepti is too narrow a term, for the precept is but one part of God’s Law and determines only of one sort of right, that is, of the dueness of obediential actions or forbearance of forbidden actions. But there is also a debitum praemii et beneficii–pure vel absolute–dati, et debitum poenae [debt of reward and benefit, whether purely or absolutely given, and a debt of punishment], which the rest of the Law, Testament or Covenant of God determines of, which must all be here included as well as the former. In sum, the Law determines:
1. What shall be due from us;
2. and what shall be due to us, and on what terms.
I call it therefore, The will of God de eventu, et de debito [of event, and of debt], as such. I say ‘as such,’ for else they are coincident: For God’s will de rerum natura, vel existentia determines de debito quatenus evenit esse debitum [determines the nature or existence of things, and debt so far as debt comes about], but not qua debitum [as debt]. And his will de debito determines of the dueness of some events, not as eventual [as to the event], but as due. Or to avoid all ambiguity: call it God’s will de ente mere naturali [concerning merely natural being] and his will de debito morali [concerning moral debt], or Legislative or Governing.
2. And for the nature of the distinction, understand further that there are two acts which I call God’s will de debito:
The first is that immanent act of his will by which He strictly and properly wills what shall be due. This also is twofold:
1. Productive, or instituting dueness;
2. and approbative, or taking complacency in duty.
The former of these I principally intend, but exclude not the latter. God does eternally will every due, but it is not therefore eternally or from eternity due. For He wills from eternity (to speak vulgarly) only that this shall be due at such a time and by such a means. I say by such means: For though God’s will produce all dueness, yet only by means does He produce it. That means is the revelation of his will.
2. This revelation of God’s will de debito we call his Law. This therefore is the second thing which I call God’s will de debito, or his Legislative will, that is, the Law as it is signum voluntatis divinae [a sign of the divine will], that is, formally as a law. This I call God’s will de debito, only metonymically, as it is the sign of his will before expressed.
If the proper will of God were separated from this, it would then be no producer of dueness or right at all, for it would be no law, no signum; it would lose its nature as abrogated laws do.
Also observe that you must here carefully distinguish between God’s act in making a law and the moral act of that law, or of his will by that law when it is made.
I call not legislation itself, ‘God’s will de debito‘ or ‘his legislative will’. His ordaining the sign itself, or making the law which is his instrument, is an act of his will de rerum eventu vel naturae [concerning the event of things, or of their nature]. For it only makes that instrument or sign by which right [of debt] shall be after[wards] produced, but [it] does not directly thereby produce that right. But it is the signification and moral act of that law, which flows from its nature, which does produce right, and which we here intend.
The scribe that writes a statute, and the sovereign himself, in composing the matter, order and terms, does but make that signum or instrument which, being made, does therefore institute right, because it signifies the sovereign’s will to institute it. So much for the explication of my meaning in this distinction.
2. Next I shall say somewhat to prove the soundness of it, which is therefore necessary because some ignorant persons laugh at it, as if we feigned two wills in God, and one of them contrary to the other. Otherwise, to men of understanding, it is not very needful; and therefore I shall say but this briefly:
It is not two wills in God as two distinct essences or faculties that I assert, but only two distinct acts: Distinct, I say, in regard of their distinct products or effects, and so to man’s apprehension, though in God we say there is no diversity or distinction.
Yet as we cannot handsomely conceive of his will to save Peter, and his will to damn Judas, as one act, having such different effects: so it is here. Who knows not that naturality and morality, physics and ethics, event and right are different things, and consequently we may and must distinguish of God’s willing them accordingly.
When a man says, ‘You shall do this,’ preceptively, he does only say, ‘It shall be your duty to do it,’ but says not that eventually you shall do it. Nor are his words false if you never do it. He that says prophetically or by prognostication, ‘you shall do this,’ means that it shall so come to pass; and if it do not, his words are false; but he does not say, ‘It is or shall be your duty.’
12. Accordingly we must distinguish between the antecedent and consequent acts and will of Christ as Ruler of mankind. For the understanding of which and avoiding mistakes, observe:
1. That we speak not now of eternal decrees, but of the will of Christ in this relation as He is the Ruler of the world and Church, and as He is the conveyer of his mercies according to and by his Covenant, and as He judges the world according thereunto.
2. That by his antecedent will and acts, we mean only that which in his government is antecedent to man’s obedience or disobedience, which is principally legislation and making his new Covenant, and also the giving of preachers and other acts, which are the first part of his administration. And by his consequent acts and will, we mean only that second part of government which finds man obedient or disobedient, and is commonly called judgment and execution.
And when we say that by his antecedent acts and will Christ gives pardon, justification and right to glory equally to all, we mean that as Legislator and Promiser He has antecedently made an universal act of oblivion, or deed of gift, conditionally pardoning, etc. all, and no farther than conditionally pardoning any. And when we say that He consequently justifies and saves none but true Christians, and in that sense died for no other according to his consequent will, we mean that as Judge of mankind, He will give justification and salvation to believers and to no others; nor [did He] ever intended to do otherwise.
(Let the reader know that the foresaid scheme of the effects of Christ’s death is more accurately, and yet more briefly, done in my Methodus Theologiae: and therefore let him that dislikes the number or order of distributions pass it by: But I have not time to reform it here.”
.
On a Mixed Divine Willing involving both the Will of Sign & Decree
On John Davenant & Gabriel Vasquez
Quote
Michael Lynch, John Davenant’s Hypothetical Universalism: a Defense of Catholic & Reformed Orthodoxy (Oxford Univ. Press, 2021), 7.2.2 Voluntas Providentialis, pp. 151-52
“Davenant also often distinguishes between conditional and absolute decrees with respect to the voluntas simplicis complacentiae. Absolute decrees properly fall under God’s voluntas beneplaciti, whereas God’s voluntas simplicis complacentiae is often expressed conditionally in Scripture. Thus, when Scripture says God wills the salvation of all, it is on the condition of believing in Christ— an act “so agreeable unto Gods will that wheresoever it is found it shall be rewarded.” Consider, for example, God’s voluntas simplicis complacentiae by which God is said to desire or will the salvation of all. This will can be understood as an effectual will (virtually, in itself) with a condition. That is, it is a mixed conditional, as opposed to a mere conditional.¹
¹ On the distinction between a mixed conditional and a mere conditional decree, see Ruiz de Montoya, Commentaria ac Disputationes de Scientia, de Ideis, de Veritate, ac de Vita Dei… (Paris: Sebastian Cramoisy, 1629), VI.2 [pp. 38– 40] LXXI.7 [p. 744]. It is called a mixed conditional because, as Ruiz says, this antecedent will is “necessarily and essentially conjoined with [God’s will of] simple complacency, and partly with an efficacious will, as far as it pertains to God’s part” (Commentaria . . . De Voluntate Dei, XX.1 [p. 215]). Cf. Davenant, Animadversions, 225– 27).
As the sixteenth-century Jesuit Gabriel Vásquez explains,
“God, by way of an agreement [pacto], willed our salvation by a simple love [affectu] and that salvation is pleasing to him, so that unless sins hinder it, he effectually wills it… therefore because of this mixed [implicitae] will under a condition, we say that God has a conditional will, or as they say, willingness [velleitatem].” (Commentariorum, ac Disputationum in Primam Partem S. Thomae, Tomus Primus (Ingolstadt: Andreas Angermarius, 1609), Disp. LXXXIII.4 [p. 511])
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.”
.
John Davenant
Animadversions upon a Treatise entitled, God’s Love to Mankind... (Cambridge: Daniel, 1641), ‘Answer to his Five Reasons against Absolute Reprobation’, pp. 225-27
“But to answer more clearly to the point in hand: We must first consider that mere or purely conditional decrees, or conditional volitions, agree not with the perfection of the divine nature.
Volitiones pure conditionales sunt alienae a sapientia et prudentia Dei. (Ruiz, De Voluntate, disp. 20, §1) [Volitions that are purely conditional are incompatible with the wisdom and prudence of God.]
Voluntas Dei conditionata dici potest, non quia actu feratur in objectum sub conditione, sed quia ex illa voluntate quae praesens est alia oriretur si conditio in objecto poneretur. (Vasqez, in 1st part, disp. 83, p. 511) [The will of God may be called conditional, not because it is actually directed toward its object under a condition, but because from that will which is presently existing another would arise if the condition were to be posited in the object.]
The speeches therefore above-cited out of Scripture do not imply a conditional will in God suspended for any moment of time, and then post purificatam conditionem [after the condition has been fulfilled], becoming an absolute and effectual will (see Ruiz, De Scientia, disp. 71, §7), as the like conditional propositions do in us, who have neither knowledge whether the condition will be certainly performed or no, nor yet power in ourselves to work the condition whereupon the future act of our will was suspended. (Ruiz, De Voluntate, disp. 8, §7)
But in God, who knows eternally what every man will do or not do, and who in Himself has an absolute power and freedom to make men do any good whereunto He makes promise of reward, and to leave them to their own defective freewill in doing those things for which He has threatened desertion and destruction, these conditional decrees or volitions must be far otherwise conceived: namely, not purely but mixedly conditionalia [conditionals], that is, grounded in some absolute revealed decree of God to the performance whereof He has tied Himself.
For example; It is an absolute decree of the divine will published in the gospel that whosoever repents, believes, perseveres, shall be saved: From hence is derived that mixed conditional decree: If Cain, if Judas, if any other repent and believe, they shall be saved.
Now such mixed conditional decrees carry no contradiction to the absolute decrees of election and non-election or reprobation. For who sees not that these two propositions may well stand together: I will that if Judas repent and believe he shall have remission and salvation; I will not give unto Judas the gift of repentance, of faith, and of eternal life? The former conditional proposition contains all which this author [Davenant is writing against] can truly collect from the testimonies alleged; and the latter does as truly infer that absolute reprobation for which we contend. For the absolute decree of God resolving not to give faith, repentance and eternal life unto Judas, is that which we understand by the word ‘reprobation’: and this is never abrogated by any conditional promise founded in any universal absolute decree of God.”
.
History
On the Medieval Church & Post-Reformation
Quote
Michael Lynch, John Davenant’s Hypothetical Universalism: a Defense of Catholic & Reformed Orthodoxy (Oxford Univ. Press, 2021), 7.2.2 Voluntas Providentialis, pp. 150-51
“It is worth noting at this point that Davenant clearly accepted the standard scholastic distinction between God’s signified will (voluntas signi) and will of good pleasure (voluntas beneplaciti). This distinction, having its roots in Hugh of St. Victor and taken up by Peter Lombard and Lombard’s own commentators, was nearly universally accepted by the Reformed orthodox in the early modern period. There is a logical relationship between God’s voluntas signi and God’s voluntas simplicis complacentiae. God’s voluntas signi is an act of his voluntas simplicis complacentiae respecting the simple love of a thing, whether that thing is brought about or not. Thus, this will of simple complacency, sometimes called God’s approbative will or will of affection (as Aquinas termed it), was contradistinguished with God’s will of good pleasure.
This relationship between God’s signified will and his will of simple complacency— where the former is an expression of the latter— explains why Davenant interprets God’s will in 1 Tim. 2:4, and texts like it, as approbative, revealed, and signified as well as de voluntate simplicis complacentiae, because the former is in fact grounded upon and make known to us the latter.”
.
.
.
Related Pages
The Sincere Free Offer of the Gospel
Historic Reformed Quotes on the Sincere Free Offer of the Gospel
Bible Verses on God’s Revealed Will Being His Will, Desire, Pleasure & Wish