PART make such a decree. Again, though T. H. his opinion were III. true that all events are necessary, and that the whole Chris tian world are deceived, who believe that some events are free from necessity, yet he will not deny, but if it had been the good pleasure of God, He might have made some causes free from necessity, seeing that it neither argues any imperfection, nor implies any contradiction. Supposing, therefore, that God had made some second causes free from any such antecedent determination to one, yet the former disjunction would be necessarily true:-either this free undetermined cause will act after this manner, or it will not act after this manner. Wherefore the necessary truth of such a disjunctive proposition doth not prove, that either of the members of the disjunction, singly considered, is determinately true in present, but only that the one of them will be determinately true to-morrow. [A free agent im possible, be NUMBER XXXV. T. H.-The last thing, in which also consisteth the whole controversy, namely, that there is no such thing as an agent, cause a suf which when all things requisite to action are present, can ficient must be a neces- nevertheless forbear to produce it, or (which is all one) that sary cause.] there is no such thing as freedom from necessity, is easily 726 inferred from that which hath been before alleged. For if it be an agent, it can work; and if it work, there is nothing wanting of what is requisite to produce the action; and consequently the cause of the action is sufficient; and if sufficient, then also necessary, as hath been proved before. [Reply.] J. D.-I wonder that T. H. should confess, that the whole weight of this controversy doth rest upon this proposition,"That there is no such thing as an agent, which, when all things requisite to action are present, can nevertheless forbear to act,"—and yet bring nothing but such poor bulrushes to support it. "If it be an agent," saith he, "it can work." What of this?" A posse ad esse non valet argumentum ;”—from can work" to "will work," is a weak inference: and from "will work" to "doth work upon absolute necessity," is another gross inconsequence. He proceeds thus :-" If it I. work, there is nothing wanting of what is requisite to pro- DISCOURSE duce the action." True, there wants nothing to produce that which is produced, but there may want much to produce that which was intended. One horse may pull his heart out, and yet not draw the coach whither it should be, if he want the help or concurrence of his fellows. "And consequently," saith he, "the cause of the action is sufficient." Yes, sufficient to do what it doth, though perhaps with much prejudice to itself, but not always sufficient to do what it should do, or what it would do: as he that begets a monster should beget a man, and would beget a man if he could. The last link of his argument follows:-" And if sufficient, then also necessary." Stay there. By his leave there is no necessary connexion between sufficiency and efficiency, otherwise God Himself should not be all-sufficient. Thus his argument is vanished. But I will deal more favourably with him, and grant him all that which he labours so much in vain to prove, -that every effect in the world hath sufficient causes. Yea more, that supposing the determination of the free and contingent causes every effect in the world is necessary. But all this will not advantage his cause the black of a bean, for still it amounts but to a hypothetical necessity, and differs as much from that absolute necessity which he maintains, as a gentleman who travels for his pleasure differs from a banished man, or a free subject from a slave. NUMBER XXXVI. conveniency T. H.-And thus you see, how the inconveniences, which [Of the inhe objecteth must follow upon the holding of necessity, are of denying avoided, and the necessity itself demonstratively proved. To necessity.] which I could add, if I thought it good logic, the inconveniency of denying necessity: as, that it destroys both the decrees and prescience of God Almighty; for whatsoever God hath purposed to bring to pass by man as an instrument, or foreseeth shall come to pass, a man, if he have liberty such as he affirmeth from necessitation, might frustrate and make not to come to pass; and God should either not foreknow it and not decree it, or He should foreknow such things shall be as shall never be, and decree that which shall never come to pass. PART [Reply.] [Freedom inconsis tent with God's eternal de crees.] J. D. Thus he hath laboured in vain, to satisfy my reasons and to prove his own assertion; but for 'demonstration,' there is nothing like it among his arguments. Now he saith, he "could add" other arguments if he "thought it good logic." There is no impediment in logic, why a man may not press his adversary with those absurdities which flow from his opinion. Argumentum ducens ad impossibile,' or 'ad absurdum,' is a good form of reasoning. But there is another reason of his forbearance, though he be loth to express it. "Hæret lateri lethalis arundo'." The arguments drawn from the attributes of God do stick so close in the sides of his cause, that he hath no mind to treat of that subject. By the way, take notice of his own confession, that he "could add other reasons if" he "thought it good logic." If it were predetermined in the outward causes that he must make this very defence and no other, how could it be in his power to add or substract any thing? Just as if a blind man should say in earnest, I could see if I had my eyes. Truth often breaks out whilst men seek to smother it. But let us view his argu ment. If a man have liberty from necessitation, he may frustrate the decrees of God and make His prescience false. First, for the decrees of God; this is His decree, that man of man not should be a free agent. If he did consider God as a most simple act without priority or posteriority of time, or any composition, he would not conceive of His decrees as of the laws of the Medes and Persians, long since enacted, and passed before we were born, but as co-existent with our-727 selves, and with the acts which we do by virtue of those decrees. Decrees and attributes are but notions to help the weakness of our understanding to conceive of God. The decrees of God are God Himself, and therefore justly said to be before the foundation of the world was laid; and yet coexistent with ourselves, because of the infinite and eternal being of God. The sum is this :-the decree of God, or God Himself, eternally constitutes or ordains all effects which come to pass in time, according to the distinct natures or capacities of His creatures. An eternal ordination is neither past nor to come, but always present. So free actions do pro1 [Virg. Æn., iv. 73.] ceed as well from the eternal decree of God as necessary, DISCOURSE and from that order which He hath set in the world. I. His eter As the decree of God is eternal, so is His knowledge; and, [Nor with therefore, to speak truly and properly, there is neither fore- nal preknowledge nor after-knowledge in Him. The knowledge of science.] God comprehends all times in a point, by reason of the eminence and virtue of its infinite perfection. And yet I confess, that this is called foreknowledge in respect of us. But this foreknowledge doth produce no absolute necessity. Things are not therefore because they are foreknown, but therefore they are foreknown because they shall come to pass. If anything should come to pass otherwise than it doth, yet God's knowledge could not be irritated by it; for then He did not know that it should come to pass as now it doth, because every knowledge of vision necessarily presupposeth its object. God did know, that Judas should betray Christ; but Judas was not necessitated to be a traitor by God's knowledge. If Judas had not betrayed Christ, then God had not foreknown that Judas should betray Him. The case is this::--a watchman standing on the steeple's top, as it is the use in Germany, gives notice to them below (who see no such things), that company are coming, and how many. His prediction is most certain, for he sees them. What a vain collection were it for one below to say, what if they do not come, then a certain prediction may fail. It may be urged, that there is a difference between these two cases. In this case the coming is present to the watchman, but that which God foreknows is future. God knows what shall be; the watchman only knows what is. I answer, that this makes no difference at all in the case, by reason of that disparity which is between God's knowledge and ours: as that coming is present to the watchman which is future to them who are below, so all those things which are future to us are present to God, because His infinite and eternal knowledge doth reach to the future being of all agents and events. Thus much is plainly acknowledged by T.H. (Numb. xi."),—that "foreknowledge is knowledge, and knowledge depends on the existence of the things known, and not they on it." To conclude: the prescience of God doth not make things more necessary than the production of [Above p. 59.] PART III. the things themselves; but if the agents were free agents, the production of the things doth not make the events to be absolutely necessary, but only upon supposition that the causes were so determined. God's prescience proveth a necessity of infallibility, but not of antecedent extrinsecal determination to one. If any event should not come to pass, God did never foreknow that it would come to pass; for every knowledge necessarily presupposeth its object". [Reply.Of T. H.'s desire of NUMBER XXXVII. T. H.-This is all that hath come into my mind touching this question, since I last considered it: and I humbly beseech your Lordship to communicate it only to J. D. And so, praying God to prosper your Lordship in all your designs, I take leave, and am, my most noble and obliging Lord, J.D. He is very careful to have this discourse kept secret, as appears in this section, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth secsecrecy.] tions. If his answer had been kept private, I had saved the labour of a reply; but hearing that it was communicated, I [See the passages from the Fathers collected in Bellarmine, De Grat. et Lib. Arb., lib. iv. cc. 9, 13; Op. tom. iii. pp. 726-729, 738.] [Above pp. 85, 102. And see also T. H. Numb. xi, above p. 60.] P [Above p. 85.] [Above p. 102.] |