Jacobus Arminius · 73 of 81

ALLEGATION 3 · Part 3

In the second place, you distinguish necessity into that of coaction, and that of certainty. This is not well, for these are not opposed, as one and the same thing can be produced, by the necessity of coaction, and can be certainly foreknown. Again, they are not of the same genus. For the former belongs to the will, effecting something, and is prior, in nature, to the thing effected, while the latter is by prescience, and is subsequent, in nature, to the thing. The former coincides with the necessity of consequent, the latter, with that of the conclusion. Thirdly, there is a necessity which is nearer, as to relation, cause and genus to the necessity of coaction, and is the opposite of coaction, and from which, as its contrary, the necessity of coaction ought to have been distinguished. It is the necessity of inevitability, which term, also, indeed, comprehends the idea of coaction, but an unnamed species may be called by the name of its genus.

That this may be more clearly understood, I explain myself thus: The necessity of inevitability is two-fold, one introducing force, in things purely natural, when it is called violence, and in things voluntary, when it is called coaction; the other, inwardly moving a thing, whether it be nature or will, so smoothly and gently, that it cannot but be inclined in that direction, and will that to which it is moved. Yet I admit that the will is not carried or moved, according to the mode of the will, but according to the mode of nature, as, by the act of moving, freedom is taken away, but not spontaneous assent, while both are taken away by the act of impelling. I pass over your definition of coaction. That of certainty does not please me; for, in that definition, you conjoin things, which do not belong together. For a thing is said to happen certainly in respect to prescience, but immutably in respect to the thing itself; and immutability does not correspond with certainty. For certainty is attributed to prescience, which can not be deceived on account of the infinity of the divine nature and wisdom. You should, then, expunge that word "immutably" from your argument. For that which can either happen or not happen, can not be done immutably, yet it can surely be foreknown by Him who foreknows with certainty, all things even those which are contingent. But you rightly add an axiom to the certainty of necessity; "Every thing which is, so far as it is, is necessary." Thus far, the distinctions of necessity. You will now show how they mutually correspond. "All relations of effects are to their own causes," but either to separate causes, or to concurrent causes, and to joint causes, and to causes which act at the same time. If they are to separate causes, the effects are named from the mode, in which those effects exist from their causes. If necessarily, they are called necessary effects, if contingently, they are called contingent. But if many causes concur to produce one effect, that effect has relation to, and connection with, each of its causes, but does not receive its name, except from the mode, in which it exists and is produced from those united causes; if that mode is necessary, the effect is called necessary; if that mode is contingent, it is called contingent. It can not, however, be that one and the same effect should exist in part contingently, and in part necessarily, in any respect whatever. It is, indeed, true that, if that which is called a second cause, operates alone and of its own will, the thing might be called contingent; but, since the first cause moves the second, so that it can not but be moved, the whole effect is said to be necessary, since it can not be that the effect should not be produced, when those first and second causes are in operation.

The position that "the freedom of second causes is not taken away by that necessity," is, here, of no importance; as also your opinion that "an effect can be called free and contingent in respect to a certain cause, which is said to be necessary in respect to the first cause." For it is absurd to wish to harmonize freedom with necessity, and the latter with the former. All necessity, indeed, is at variance with freedom, and not the necessity of coaction alone. This is so true, that even any degree of vehemence can not be successful in weakening its truth. I grant that it is true, that "the decree of God ordains second causes, and, among them, the freedom of human will," but, in such a manner that freedom is not taken away by that "ordination:" but freedom is taken away, when God, either by coaction (which cannot be, both on account of the divine omnipotence, and on account of the nature of the will), or, by an easy and gentle influence, so moves the will, that it can not but be moved.

You seem to me not to discriminate between a free movement and one which is spontaneous. A spontaneous movement is so different from one that is free, that the former may coincide with a natural and internal necessity, but the latter can by no means do so. For a man spontaneously wishes to be happy, and not freely. Beasts are spontaneously borne towards those things, which are good for them, by natural instinct, but no liberty can be attributed to them. From these considerations, it is apparent that it can, in no manner, be said that "Adam fell necessarily and at the same time freely," unless you introduce the necessity of certainty, which belongs, not to the fall, but to the prescience of God, on account of His infinity. But freedom is taken away, if a decree of God is supposed, since "Adam could not resist the will, that is, the decree of God." Your answer that "as he could not, so he also would not," is refuted by the consideration that he could not will otherwise. This you confess to be true "as to the event," but not true "as to his power." But it is not the subject of disputation, whether the will of Adam was deprived of the power, which is called freedom, which was not necessary to induce the necessity of the fall, but whether the event itself, that is, the fall, occurred necessarily. When you admit this, you must admit also that he did not fall freely. For that power was limited and determined as to the act and event, so that, in the act, he could not will otherwise; else the decree of God was made in vain. Here, also, you unskillfully use spontaneous motion for free motion..

To elucidate the subject, you "distinguish three periods, -- previous, present, and future to the fall." But the present and the future are of no importance to this discussion. For the fall can not have any necessity from present and future time. Previous time only serves our purpose. You say that a at the present moment, the fall was necessary, in a two-fold respect." First, -- "on account of the prescience of God." But prescience is not a cause of necessity, nor can anything be said to be done infallibly, on account of prescience, but prescience is the cause, that a thing "which will occur, contingently, at its own time," is certainly foreknown by God. Secondly; -- "on account of the permissive decree of God." But permission can not be a cause of immutability or of necessity. For it is a negative act, not a prohibition; and from it an affirmative necessity can not exist.

The words of honourius, and Hugo do not aid you, for they treat of something wholly different, and they are not reliable authorities. But the reason, which you present, is partly fallacious, partly of no force. The fallacy, a petitio principii, consists in this sentence, "because an evil, which is permitted, can not but happen." The reason is of no force, when you say "because it can not happen otherwise than God decreed." It does not follow, from this, that it therefore happens necessarily; since, though evil can not happen otherwise than God permits it, yet that permission does not impose a necessity upon the event or sin. For the divine determination is not in reference to sin, that is, shall be committed, but in reference to the same thing, which is about to take place of its own causes, that is, shall not extend further than seems good to God. I do not accede to your definition of "permission" that "it is a negative of that grace, -- which is sufficient for the avoidance of sin." For, as has often been said, this is not to permit a man to sin freely, but to effect that he should sin necessarily. I wish also that you had explained, in what way "the necessity of the divine decree, by which He determined that Adam should sin, was evitable in respect to the freedom of the human will, when it was inevitable in respect to the event." I pass over the inconsistency of calling necessity evitable.

You do not wish that any one should think that "that necessity arose from the decree of God." But you have said so many things, in proof of it, that you now express your unwillingness in vain. Explain how that necessity follows the decree, and yet the decree has not the relation of cause, in respect to that necessity. For the decree is the cause of necessity, in the relation of consequent, not in that of consequence. Those are words and phrases, designed to avoid the force of truth, in which there is no truth, and not even the semblance of truth. For it will always remain true that whatever is necessary "of decree" has the cause of its necessity in and from the decree of God. Is not that labourious investigation and use of many distinctions a sign of falsity, when the statement of truth is simple and open? The assertion that "the predestinate are saved necessarily, and the reprobate are damned necessarily," is to be correctly understood. The fact, that any one is predestinate, is at variance with the fact of damnation, and the fact, that any one is reprobate, is at variance with the fact of salvation. But the ability to be saved or damned, is at variance with neither. For the decree is not in respect to the ability, but in respect to the fact of salvation or damnation. But those two acts, which you mention, namely, that of not showing mercy and that of damning, are subsequent to sin. For mercy is necessary, only, to the miserable and the sinner, and it is truly said that "the purpose of damning does not make any necessity of damnation unless by the intervention of sin," but by its intervention, in such a sense, that it is possible that it should not intervene. If, however, God has decreed to make and govern men, that he can not but sin, indeed, in order that He may declare His own righteousness in his destruction, that purpose introduces a necessity of sin and of damnation.

It is an absurd assertion that "from prescience that necessity follows in the same way." For what God foreknows, He foreknows because it is to take place in the future. But what He decrees, purposes, and determines in Himself to do, takes place thus because He decrees it. Also, from prescience is concluded the certainty of an event, which is a necessity of the consequence, and from the decree immutability of the same thing is concluded, which is a necessity of the consequent.

You make an objection against yourself, -- "They who are predestinated to death can not, if they will, be freed by repentance." That objection is not appropriate to this time and place. But I present you with an objection, that they, who are predestinated to death, are, also, according to your doctrine, predestinated to sin; that what God has decreed to bring upon them, namely, death, He may be able to bring upon them justly, that is, on account of sin. But indeed, if God can predestinate to sin, that He may be able to bring death upon the sinner; He is able also to bring death upon one, who is not a sinner, because he, who is a sinner in consequence of the divine predestination, is in fact not a sinner. It is far worse to predestinate a just man to sin than to predestinate an innocent man to death. Of this we have also, previously, spoken.

Your effort to charge the same necessity on the opinion "which supposes a permission of evil" is futile. I refer, here, to "permission," when rightly explained, and understood according to its own nature. But you describe permission in such a manner, as really to amount to an act of efficiency. For if "to permit is to will not to hinder," which it is in fact, and "the will not to hinder is such, that, without that hindrance, sin can not be avoided," as you assert, then, "to will not to hinder sin" is to effect sin, by a negation of the necessary hindrance.

Thus evil also necessarily exists from that permission, but by no means freely on the part of man. From which, it is clearly evident that the decree of God is not more evitable than a permission of the kind, which you have described. But, unless the distinction of the decree of God into energetic or efficacious and permissive is without foundation, -- as it certainly is not—then it is necessary that permission should be described so as not to coincide with energetic decree.

The charge of holding the Stoic and Manichean doctrine, which is made by some against you, is not made by them with the idea that your opinions entirely agree with that doctrine, but that you agree with it in this, that you say that all things are done necessarily. You ought to remove this charge from yourself, and free your doctrine from this accusation. You unite contrary things together when you say that "a man can not abstain from sinning, and yet he sins not necessarily, but freely." Nor is it sufficient to constitute freedom of the will, that it "be capable of being turned in opposite directions, and to choose spontaneously," if it shall be "determined to one directions only, by the Deity:" For that determination takes away the freedom of the will, or rather the liberty of volition. For though the will, in other things not determined by Gods may remain capable of change in any directions and free, yet the volition is not free, since it is determined precisely to one of two contraries.

The remark of Anselm presents the same idea as we have, often, presented, that a distinction is to be made between the necessity of the consequent, and that of the consequence: the former precedes, the latter follows the action. But your necessity of decree precedes the act and does not follow, while that of Anselm follows it, therefore, they are not the same. In the remark of Gaudentius there is not even a trace of the doctrine which you defend.

In your brief recapitulation, you fail, as greatly, of untying the knot. For it will always remain true that a denial of grace, necessary to the avoidance of sin, is a cause of sin, by the mode of the non-bestowment of the necessary hindrance; and it will, always be false, that he sins freely and voluntarily, who can not but sin, and that the will acts freely in that direction, to which it is determined by the certain and inflexible decree of God. It is false in the sense that freedom and determination are mutually opposed in the limits of their action. For the former has respect to two contraries, the latter to one only.

You present the example of the "angels who obey God both necessarily and freely," on your own authority, and do not at all prove what you assert. I assert that these two things are mutually inconsistent, so that, if you affirm that the angels obey God freely, I shall say, with confidence, that it is possible that the angels should not obey God. If, on the other hand, you affirm that they can not but obey God, I shall thence boldly infer that they do not obey God freely.

For necessity and freedom differ from each other in their entire essence, and in genus. And I would dare say, without blasphemy, that not even God Himself, with all His omnipotence, can not effect that what is necessary may be contingent or free, and that what is done necessarily, may be done freely. It implies a contradiction, that a thing should not be possible not to be done, and yet be possible not to be done, and it is a contradiction, opposed to the first and most general idea, divinely infused into our minds, in reference to whatever subject the truth is affirmed or denied. And a thing can not, at the same time, be and not be, at the same time, be and not be of a given character. For the fact, that God can not do this, is a mark not of impotence but of invariable power. The fact that a thing exists, depends on the actual power of God. If it should happen, at once and at the same time with the previous fact, that the same thing should not be, then the actual power of God would be either overcome, or have an equal power opposed to itself, so that it would happen that a thing, which is by the power of God, at the same time, is not. Which is the greatest of all absurdities.