Do even your rhetoricians not teach you that when a man is going to speak on any matter, he must first speak to whether there is such a thing or not; then what it is; what its parts are; what its contraries are, its affinities, and the question of its similitudes. But you strip poor Freewill, wretched as she is in herself, of all these appendages, and define 107 none of the questions which pertain to her, save the first: Whether there is such a thing as Freewill? We shall see shortly by what sort of arguments you do this. I never beheld a more foolish book on Freewill, if eloquence of style is excepted. The Sophists, truly, who know nothing of rhetoric, have at least proved better logicians here, than you. For in their essays on Freewill, they define all its questions, such as ‘whether it exists;’ ‘what it is;’ ‘what it does;’ ‘how it is,’ etc. However, they do not even complete 108 what they attempt. Therefore, in this treatise of mine I will goad 109 both you and all the Sophists, until you define for me the powers and the performances of Freewill 110— yes, I will so goad you, with Christ’s help, that I hope I will make you repent of having published your Diatribe.
SECT. 10. God’s absolute foreknowledge, flows from Erasmus’ confession.
It is most necessary and most salutary, then, for a Christian to know this also: that God foreknows nothing contingently. Rather, He foresees, and purposes, and accomplishes everything by an unchangeable, eternal, and infallible will. And by this thunderbolt, Freewill is struck to the earth and completely ground to powder. Those who would assert Freewill, therefore, must either deny, or disguise, or by some other means, repel this thunderbolt from them. However, before I establish it by my own argumentation and the authority of Scripture, I will first of all engage you personally with your own words. Are you not that Erasmus who just now asserted that it is God’s nature to be just, and that it is God’s nature to be most merciful? If this is true, does it not follow that he is UNCHANGEABLY just and merciful — that just as his nature does not change unto eternity, so neither does his justice or his mercy change? But what is said of his justice and mercy, must also be said of his knowledge, wisdom, goodness, will, and other divine properties. If these things, then, are asserted religiously, piously, and profitably concerning God — as you write — then what has happened to you that, in disagreement with yourself, you now assert it to be irreligious, curious, and vain to affirm that God foreknows necessarily? Is it that you think, ‘he either foreknows what he does not will, or wills what he does not foreknow?’ If he wills what he foreknows, his will is eternal and immutable, for it is part of his nature. If he foreknows what he wills, his knowledge is eternal and immutable, for it is part of his nature. 111
Hence, it irresistibly follows that all which we do, and all which happens, though it seems to happen mutably and contingently, in reality it happens necessarily and unalterably, insofar as it respects the will of God. For the will of God is efficacious, and such as cannot be thwarted. And since the power of God is itself a part of his nature, it is also wise, so that it cannot be misled. And since his will is not thwarted, the work which he wills cannot be prevented, but must be produced in the very time, place, and measure which he himself both foresees and wills. If the will of God were such as to cease after he has made a work which remains the same — as is the case with man’s will, when after having built a house as he willed, his will concerning it ceases (as it does in death), then it might be truly said that some events are brought to pass contingently and mutably. But here, on the contrary, so far is it from being the case, that the work itself either comes into existence, or continues in existence contingently — by being made and remaining in being when the will to have it so, has ceased — that the work itself ceases, but the will remains. Now, if we would use words so as not to abuse them, in Latin, a work is said to be done contingently, but it is never said to be itself contingent.
The meaning is that a work has been performed by a contingent and mutable will; but such is not the case in God. Besides, a work cannot be called a contingent work, unless it is done by us contingently, and as it were, by accident — without any forethought on our part. It is so called, because our will or hand seizes hold of it as a thing thrown in our way by accident, and we have neither thought nor willed anything about it before.
SECT. 11. Objection to the term ‘necessity’ admitted: absurdity of the distinction between necessity of a consequence and of a consequent.
I could have wished indeed, that another and a better word had been introduced into our disputation than this usual one, ‘Necessity’ — which is not rightly applied to the will of either God or man. It has too harsh and incongruous a meaning for this occasion. It suggests to the mind the notion of something like compulsion, and what is at least the opposite of willingness. Our question, meanwhile, implies no such thing. For both the will of God and of man, does what it does, whether good or bad, without compulsion, by means of mere good pleasure or desire, as with perfect freedom. The will of God, nevertheless, is immutable and infallible, and governs our mutable will — as Boethius sings, ‘and standing fixed, mov’st all the rest’ — and our will, wicked in the extreme, can do nothing good of itself. Let the understanding of my reader, then, supply what the word ‘necessity’ does not express. Apprehend by it, what you might choose to call the immutability of God’s will, and the impotency of our evil will: what some have called ‘a necessity of immutability’ — though not very grammatically or theologically. 112
The Sophists, who had laboured this point for years, have at length been mastered, and are compelled to admit that all events are necessary; but it is by the necessity of a consequence, as they put it, and not by the necessity of a consequent.
Thus they have eluded the violence of this question, but it is by much more illuding 113 themselves. 114 I will take the trouble of showing you what a mere nothing this distinction of theirs is. By necessity of a consequence (to speak as these thick-headed people do) they mean that, if God wills a thing, the thing itself must be. But it is not necessary that the very thing which is, should be. For only God exists necessarily; all other things may cease to be, if God pleases. Thus, they say that the act of God is necessary if he wills a thing, but the very thing produced is not necessary. Now what do they get by this play on words? Why, I suppose this: the thing produced is not necessary; that is, it does not have a necessary existence. This is no more than saying that the thing produced is not God himself. Still, the truth remains, that every event is necessary if it is a necessary act of God, or a necessary consequence. However, it may not exist necessarily, now that it is effected; that is, it may not be God, or may not have a necessary existence. For, if I am made of necessity, then it is of little moment to me that my being or making is mutable. Still, I — this contingent and mutable thing, who am not the necessary God — am made. So that their foolery (that all events are necessary through a necessity of the consequence, but not through a necessity of the consequent) has no more in it than this: all events are necessary, it is true; but though necessary, they are not God himself. Now what need was there to tell us this, as if there was any danger of our asserting that the things made are God, or have a divine and necessary nature?
So sure and
