Jacobus Arminius · 76 of 81

DISCUSSION OF THE SUBJECT OF PERMISSION · Part 3

Let us proceed to the second objection, which we thus set forth, according to the meaning of its authors. "In sin there are two things, the act and its illegality, or violation of law. As an act, it is positive; as a violation of law, it is privative: the latter has the will of the creature for its cause; the former must necessarily be referred back to the first cause, and, in this relation, God is the cause of that act which, in respect to man, or as it proceeds from man, is sin. Therefore it is wrong to remove the act, which is not performed by a man without sin, from the divine will and efficiency, and attribute it to the divine permission, since that act, as such, belongs to efficiency, but as it violates law, it belongs to the divine permission. I reply, first, that it can not be said truly, and universally of all sin, that in it there are these two things, namely, the act and the violation. For, sometimes, it is the act itself which is prohibited, and sometimes, not the act itself, but some circumstance in reference to the act. Thus the eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was prohibited, not any circumstance connected with it; and, therefore, the act of eating, itself, was undue, unlawful and inordinate; it was, indeed, in itself a deviation from the rule, that is, from the law which forbade the eating. That act, of and in itself, apart from the law, is a natural act and has, in itself, no inordinacy. But after the enactment of a law which prohibits eating, that act, can not be considered as good, agreeably to its natural relations, as there is added to it the fact of inordinacy, on account of which it ought to be omitted; for it is then to be omitted, of itself and on its own account, because it is forbidden by the divine law, and because to eat is to sin, the whole inordinacy consisting in the fact that the act of eating, referred to, has a place in the number and series of human actions, which place it ought not, on any account, to have, and the number of which ought not to increase, but it ought to be wholly omitted, and to be kept under restraint, and to be never carried into effect.

The simile of a lame horse, which very many adduce to illustrate this matter, is not applicable to an act, which is prohibited by law. For in lameness there is the gait, and there is the limping or irregular gait; and a defect is added to the gait or motion on account of weakness or injury of a leg, which defect, though it may not, in fact be separated from the gait itself, can, nevertheless, be readily distinguished from it; and hence it may occur that the same horse, after the cure has been effected, can walk properly, and so lameness will be separated from his gait. But in the eating of the forbidden fruit, it was not the eating and the defect of eating, which was forbidden, but the eating itself, wholly and solely, had the relation of sin, because it was committed contrary to the law. That simile would be applicable in sin, which is committed against a law which prescribes the act itself, but prohibits some circumstance of the act; which sin consists in the fact that an act, good, according to, and prescribed by the law, is performed in a manner, which is not right, as when alms are given to a poor man, from ambition and pride, that he, who bestows them, may appear unto men to be liberal and a lover of the poor, and even religious. That act is good and may be illustrated by the gait, but the defect in it is like the lameness produced by disease or injury, and causes the act to limp, and to be displeasing to God, yet it is not to be omitted, but to be performed, only in a due and right manner, all defectiveness being avoided and omitted, which, rightly and in fact, can and ought to be separated from it. I acknowledge that the question or objection is not satisfied by that answer; for some one may affirm, that, "eating is nevertheless, a positive act, and, therefore, has an existence, though forbidden, and since all existence has God as its cause, God also is the cause of that act of eating; and so, also, of other positive acts, though they may be committed against a prohibitory law; and consequently, sin, as an act can not be removed from the efficiency of God."

I reply, that I, by no means, take from the efficiency of God an act, which is not perpetrated by the creature without sin; indeed, I openly confess that God is the cause of all acts, which are perpetrated by His creatures, but I desire this only that the efficiency of God should be so explained as not to derogate any thing from the freedom of the creature, and not to transfer the fault of his sin to God; that is, to show that God may, indeed, be the effector of the act, but only the permitter of the sin; and that God may be at once the effector and permitter of one and the same act. This subject is of most difficult explanation, yet we may make some effort towards its elucidation.

I remark, then, that God is, either mediately or immediately, the cause of an act which proceeds from a creature. He is the mediate cause, when He exerts an influence upon the cause and moves it to cause the act. He is the immediate cause, when He exerts an influence on the act and, with the creature, is the whole cause of that act. When God moves the creature to cause anything, since the creature, as the second and subordinate cause, is determined by the first moving cause to a particular act, which has its form from the influence and motion of the Deity, that act, whatever may be its character, can not be imputed, as a fault to the creature; but if the act can be called sin, God is necessarily the cause and the author of that sin. But since the latter idea can never be true, it is certain that the explanation can not be found in that mode of the mediate action of the Deity, how God is the cause of the act, which is not performed by man without sin, and the permitter of the sin. When God is the immediate cause of an act, which proceeds from a creature, then the second cause, if it is free, and we are now treating of free agents has it in its own power either to exert its influence in the act, or suspend that influence so that the act may not take place, and to exert its influence so that one act, rather than another, may be performed. Hence it follows, that, when a second cause has freely exerted its influence to produce all act, and when, by its particular influence, it has determined the general influence of God to this particular act, and has disposed the form of the act, the second cause is responsible, and the act may be deservedly called "sin" in respect to the second cause; but God is free from responsibility, and, in respect to Him, the act can not be called sin.

The concurrence and influence of the Deity bestows nothing upon the free will of the creature, by which he may be either inclined, or assisted, or strengthened to act, and it does not in the first act, but in the second, dispose the will, and therefore it presupposes, in the will, whatever is necessary for acting, even without the exception of the concurrence of the Deity itself. Though the will of the free creature may not, in reality, have that concurrence, except when he puts forth activity, yet he has it in his own power before he performs that which is prepared for, and imposed upon him. If this is not so, the will can not be said to have the act in its own power, or in its proximate capability; nor can the cause of that act be called moral but natural only, and therefore necessary, to which sin can, by no means, be attributed.

In this way that difficulty is solved, and it is shown how God can be the cause of an act, which can not be performed by the creature without sin, so that neither He may be the author of sin, nor the creature be free from sin; that He, indeed, may be only the permitter of sin, but the creature may be the proper cause of sin. For God leaves to the choice of a free second cause the disposition of its own influence to effect any act, and when the second cause is in the very movement and instant of exerting its influence, God, freely and of His own choice, joins His influence and universal concurrence to the influence of the creature, knowing that, without His influence, the act neither could nor would be produced. Nor is it right that God should deny His concurrence and influence to the creature, even if He sees that the influence of the creature, exerted to effect an act, which he is just ready to perform, is joined to sin, and is committed contrary to His law. For it is right that the act, which He left to the freedom of man, when the law had not yet been enacted by which that act was afterwards forbidden, should be left to the freedom of the same creature, after the enactment of the law. A law would be imposed, in vain, on an act, for the performance of which God should determine to deny His own concurrence. In that case, it could not be performed by the creature, and therefore no necessity would exist that its performance should be forbidden to the creature by a law. Besides God, in His legislation, designed to test the obedience of His creature; but this He could not do, if He determined to deny, to the creature, His concurrence to an act, forbidden by law; for apart from that concurrence, the creature can not perform that act. Why should God, in reference to an act, to which, as naturally good, determined not to deny His concurrence, deny that same concurrence, when the act has been made morally evil by the enactment of law; when He declares and testifies in His own legislation, that He wills that the creatures should abstain from that act, in that it is morally evil, and not in that it is an act, in its natural relations. But He wills that the creature should abstain from the act, as evil, when He imposes upon him a prohibitory law, to which he is bound to yield obedience. When, however, He determines to deny His concurrence, He wills that, in its natural relations, it shall not be performed by the creature. For the former is a kind of moral hindrance, the latter is a natural hindrance; the former, by the enactment of law; the latter, by the denial of concurrence; -- by the enactment of law, in view of which that act can not be committed without sin, and by denial of concurrence, in view of which the act can not be committed at all. If the latter impediment, that of the denial of concurrence, exists, there is no necessity that the other, that of the enactment of law, should be interposed.

It is apparent, from this explanation, that the creature, committing sin, commits it in the full freedom of his will, both as to its exercise, and as to the form of the action, to which two things the whole freedom of the will is limited. Freedom, as to its exercise, is that by which the will can put forth, and suspend volition and action. Freedom, as to the form of action is that, by which, it wills and performs this rather than that action. We will show that freedom, in both respects, exists, in another manner, in the act of sin, which the creature performs with the general concurrence of God. In the act of sin, its existence and its essence are to be considered. The existence of the act depends on the freedom of the will, as to its exercise. That its essence should be of this rather than of that character—that it should be rather a forbidden act than one not forbidden, against this precept rather than against that, depends on the freedom of the will as to the form of action. That the act should exist, the creature effects by its own free influence, by which it wills to do rather than not to do, though not without the influence of the divine concurrence, uniting itself freely to the influence of the creature at its very first moment and instant. But that the act should be of one character rather than of another, the second cause effects, freely determining its own act to a certain direction, to this rather—than to that—that it should be one thing rather than another. If any one says that, on this supposition, the divine concurrence is suspended on the influence of the creature, I reply, that this does not follow from my statements. Though God may not concur unless the creature wills to exert his influence, yet the exertion of that influence depends purely, on his own freedom; for he can omit that exertion.

It may be clear from this, how God is both the permitter of sin, and the effector of an act, without which the creature can not commit sin; the permitter of sin, in that He leaves to the creature the free disposition of His own influence; the effector of an act, in that He joins His own concurrence to the effort of the creature, without which the act could not be, at all, performed by the creature.

If any one takes exception to this distinction, on account either of the difficulty of the subject or of the defect of my explanation, and so contends that efficiency in sin is in some respect to be ascribed to God, because He is the effector of that act, I wish that he would consider that God can, on the same principle, be called the permitter of the act, because He is the permitter of the sin, and, indeed, far more justly, since, in His own prohibition, He declares that He is unwilling that the act—already permitted, not only to the freedom and the ability of the creature, but also to its right and power—should be performed by the creature; by which prohibition, that act is removed from the divine efficiency, only so far as that ought to avail to deter the will of the creature from performing that act; and, on the other hand, the efficiency of that act is, so much the more, to be ascribed to the freedom of the will, as it can be understood to have, more vehemently willed that which is forbidden by the divine law. But, in whatever way that subject may be explained, it is carefully to be observed, both that God be not made the author of sin, and that the act itself be not taken away from the efficiency of God; that is, that the whole act, both as an act merely, and as sin, may be rightly made subject to the providence of God—as an act to efficient providence, as a sin to permissive providence. If, however, there shall still be an inclination in the other direction, there will be less error, if the act is taken away from the divine efficiency, as an act, than if sin is attributed to the efficiency of God, as a sin. For it is better to take away an act from the Deity, which belongs to Him, than to attribute to Him an evil act, which does not belong to Him; so that a greater injury is charged on God, if He is said to be the cause of sin, than if He is regarded as an unconcerned spectator of an act.