De causa Dei: Book I
Thomas Bradwardine, De causa Dei contra Pelagium (1344). English translation: Wroot Press, CC BY-NC 4.0; machine-learning use permitted with attribution (https://bradwardine.wrootpress.com/rights/).
Source: Henry Savile's edition, London 1618, 1B–441C; Latin from EEBO-TCP A16626 (public domain).
Canonical: https://bradwardine.wrootpress.com/1/
Status: draft translation, not yet reviewed.

[1B]
Thomas Bradwardine, On the Cause of God, Book I.[n1]

[441C]
Here ends the first book.

[prelims]
CHAPTERS OF THE FIRST BOOK. [n2]

[prelims]
CHAP. I. First he sets down two suppositions. The first is: God is supremely perfect and supremely good, to such a degree that nothing more perfect or better can exist. The second is: There is no infinite regress among beings; but in every genus there is one first. COROLLARY. Part I. It has a moral Corollary containing 40 parts, against 40 errors. The first is against Protagoras, who doubts that God exists. II. Against Diagoras and the fool, who deny that God exists. III. Against those who doubt or deny that God has really, equivalently, or eminently every power and every goodness, and universally whatever it is better to have than not to have. They also doubt or deny that he is good in every way and in every mode, and has every goodness that it is better to be and to have than not to be and not to have. They doubt or deny that he lacks every vice and malice, and universally lacks everything that it is better not to have than to have. They doubt or deny that he has nothing that he holds in some other way, when not having it would be better than having it, and nothing in vain or superfluous. Finally, they doubt or deny that he is always supremely happy, blessed, actual, or act, so that nothing could be happier, more blessed, or more actual. IV. Against those who deny that God is of virtue and goodness [of any kind] simply infinite. V. Against those who say that God is not fully sufficient to himself but needs another. VI. Against those who believe that God is supremely perfect, and God, not necessarily but contingently, and that he is mutable, irascible, placable, capable of sadness or of joy, or capable of being newly affected by any other passion. Also against those who think that "God" is an accidental name and not simply an essential one. VII. Against those who deny that God is omnipotent actively and nullipotent passively, that is, unable to suffer anything from another. VIII. Against those who hold that God is not a substance and a rational power, having intellect and free will, actually knowing and willing. They also think the divine will is not universally efficacious, that is, not unhindrable, not unfrustrable, not in any way liable to fail [n3]. IX. Against those who believe that God is ignorant of anything. X. Against those who imagine that God is composed of human members, or of other or any diverse parts. They deny that he is a most simple and most indivisible substance, having no composition, divisibility, or magnitude, that is, no bodily magnitude. XI. Against the Sabians [n4] and their wise men, who worship the Heaven as God. XII. Against worshippers of the Sun or Moon, Mars or Jupiter, of any heavenly sign or any signs whatever, and universally of any part of heaven. XIII. Against those who fashion for themselves temporal gods: men, animals, trees, fire, or any such thing. XIV. Against triflers and prattlers who worship an onerous multitude of equal gods of the same species or nature. XV. Against those who imagine many equal gods differing in nature or species. XVI. Against those who posit a confusion of many gods of unequal power and unequal dignity, whether of the same species or of different species. XVII. Against those who deny that God is one and not many, or who affirm that it is possible for there to be many. They also deny that it is simply necessary that he be one and not many, and affirm that it is possible for there to be many. XVIII. Against those who posit many first principles, simply contrary to one another, none of which is reduced to another, nor all to any one. One thing is common to them: namely good and evil [n5]. And so they go on to dream of two such gods, or more. XIX. Against the Poets, who lie that God envies studious men or others. XX. Against those who fashion shameful and base gods, who eat and drink, who lie with women, who take delight in disgraceful, base, and theatrical affairs and sports. XXI. Against Idolaters. XXII. Against the Arians. XXIII. Against the Donatists. XXIV. Against the Sabellians. XXV. Against those who do not distinguish but concede simply that God is of infinite power and infinite potency, even intensively. XXVI. Against the Painters of God, who depict him with various qualities, attributes, habits, or accidental acts really different from him, or with any accidents whatever accidental to something [n6]. XXVII. Against despair, whether from the greatness or from the multitude of sins. XXVIII. Against the Cainites [n7], who believe that God admits no sinner to the grace of reconciliation unless he has first made satisfaction by meriting as much or more, and has merited by satisfying as much as he has transgressed. XXIX. Against the Pelagians or Cainites, who imagine that God gives no benefit freely, but only on account of the preceding merit of the recipient. XXX. Against the unlearned in the art of loving [n8], who do not know that God is to be loved for his own sake, and everything else for God's. They do not know that all human acts are to be ordered finally to him for his own sake, and that he is to be loved above all things. They also think that a man, for however great goods to be gained or kept, or however great penal evils already incurred to be removed or not yet incurred to be forestalled, being able not to do these things, ought, by not sinning, to refrain from knowingly doing anything at all, even the least, against God, against the divine command and prohibition, offending him even in the slightest way, against the rule of conscience divinely instituted; or in any way, however slightly, knowingly to sin [n9]. XXXI. Against the unbridled, who say that all things befall the good and the wicked alike, and that some evil remains unpunished or some good unrewarded. They lie that God punishes anyone abundantly, that is, beyond the condign or even to the condign, and rewards anyone sparingly, that is, short of the condign or not beyond the condign. They also imagine that it is nowhere fitting to the divine piety and infinite mercy to punish any offence whatever, but that he always remits everything mercifully, unpunished. XXXII. Against the Philosophers who presume that they can know God fully, and his every action. They therefore deride Christians who believe some things about God and about his wondrous actions, and also about the actions of creatures by divine power, which they do not know how to demonstrate by the way of human reason. XXXIII. Against the Philosophers who deny the possibility of creation, annihilation, and recreation. XXXIV. Against the Philosophers who deny the possibility of the creation of the world. XXXV. Against Philosophers and heretics who deny the possibility of the Conception and Birth of the Virgin, and who say that Christ was by no means born of holy Mary, ever Virgin. XXXVI. Against the Epicureans and Sadducees, who say that there is no spirit and irrationally deny the immortality of the rational soul; and against Averroes, who asserts that all men have one single rational soul. XXXVII. Against the Philosophers who deny that the motion of the heavens and the generation of men can cease, that the dead can rise again with their bodies, that the good can ascend to the heavens and the wicked descend to hell, and that both can thus live for ever. XXXVIII. Against Philosophers and Heretics who deny that temporal merit can reasonably be rewarded with an everlasting reward, or that temporal sin can justly be punished with eternal punishment. XXXIX. Against Philosophers and Heretics who deny the future resurrection of the dead to a blessed or a wretched life according to the difference of merits. Some concede that it will happen, whether immediately after death or after the span of the great year, in bestial or human bodies, alien or their own, to the temporal worldly life customary for beasts or men, to last through the accustomed period. Some believe universally that there will be a resurrection of all the dead, good and wicked alike, to everlasting life and blessedness, and of none to everlasting punishment and misery. Some think that the good will possess eternal blessedness, though not in Heaven, and that the wicked will have eternal misery, though not in hell, but that both will remain together on earth. They say, moreover, that the bodies of the good will by no means be transformed in future blessedness to a better, purer, and more heavenly condition, or be immortal then, but will remain in their former state, and that the bodies of the wicked, living in eternal torments, will by no means last eternally. They even shamelessly imagine that the future eternal happiness of the good must consist in the accustomed pleasures of the flesh, or in something else, or in anything else whatever apart from God. XL. Against Aristotle, who asserts that the world did not have a temporal beginning and was not created, that the generation of men is not to be brought to an end, and that the world, or the present state of the world, will never at any time be finished. Also against Anaximander, Plato, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and the idle talkers of the Moors on the same matter.

CHAP. II. That God is the necessary conserver of all other things. It has a Corollary having three parts. COROLLARY. I. That no created thing suffices to conserve another. II. That it is necessary for God to preserve every creature by himself and immediately. III. That it is necessary for God to preserve every creature more immediately than any created cause.

CHAP. III. That God is the necessary efficient cause of every thing made. It has a Corollary having three parts. COROLLARY. I. That no thing can make anything without God. II. That no thing can make anything unless God by himself and immediately makes that same thing. III. That no thing can make anything unless God makes that same thing more immediately than any other maker.

CHAP. IV. That whenever any creature moves, God necessarily moves together with it. It has a Corollary of 4 parts. COROLLARY. I. That nothing can move anything without God moving that same thing together with it, by himself and properly. II. That nothing can move anything without God immediately moving that same thing. III. That nothing can move anything without God moving that same thing more immediately than any other mover whatever. IV. That no proposition attributing any created thing to any second cause is simply immediate.

CHAP. V. That God is not mutable in any way. It has a Corollary of 5 parts. COROLLARY. I. That God is essentially and presentially, of necessity, everywhere, not only in the world and in all its parts. II. But also outside the world, in the infinite imaginary place or void. III. Whence he can truly be called immense and uncircumscribed. IV. Whence the answer also seems to be evident to the old questions of the Gentiles and heretics, "Where is your God?" and "Where had God been before the world?" V. Whence it is likewise clearly evident that a void of body can exist, but a void of God in no way.

CHAP. VI. That God has distinct knowledge of all things. It has a Corollary: That God has distinct knowledge of all things, not only present, past, and future, but also of all things possible and impossible, imaginable and knowable in any way. Whence he can truly be called omniscient, as also omnipotent.

CHAP. VII. He objects against the sixth, and resolves the objection.

CHAP. VIII. That God has willing and love, in general and specially, towards all things whatever.

CHAP. IX. That the divine will is the efficient cause of everything made, moving or mover of every motion, and universally the most loving begetter, nurse, and life-giving conserver of all things. It has a Corollary: That all things which were made were made by the divine will, and those which will be made will be made by it.

CHAP. X. That the divine will is universally efficacious, insuperable, and necessary in causing, and not in any way hindrable or frustrable. It has a Corollary: That from God's willing to do something, or to have it done, by himself or through anything else in any way whatever, it necessarily follows that it is done in that way [n10]. He does not, by striving as we do, apply other powers; nor is any other executive power to be posited in him beyond the dictating intellect and the consenting will. He is no different when working than when at rest. And the divine will is the first free principle.

CHAP. XI. That the first necessary and true incomplex principle is God; and that the first complex principle simply is about God: namely, God is, God knows all things, God wills all things, or something similar.

CHAP. XII. He shows what kind of principle that first principle is: namely, that it is affirmative, and that it is that which God is, or God is God.

CHAP. XIII. From these he infers, as if by corollary, 12 parts. I. That act is simply prior to potency. II. That being is simply prior to non-being. III. That the necessary is prior to the possible of contradiction [n11]. IV. That the necessary is prior to the impossible. V. That purely necessary being, or pure necessity, is simply prior to anything else, and is the first root and primary foundation of all other things. VI. That the first complex principle is supremely and purely necessary and firm. VII. That the necessary is by no means rightly defined through the possible or through the impossible. VIII. That necessary being cannot be simply defined. IX. That the affirmative is prior to any negative, and that any true negative is reduced to another, prior, affirmative, which is the cause of its truth. X. That the first cause of any true negation is in God. XI. That God is the first cause of any non-being whatever. XII. That the first cause of any impossibility and repugnance is in God.

CHAP. XIV. That the divine will is the cause of everything future and past, why it is such as it is. It has a Corollary: If God were to cease to be, nothing would be past or future, true or false, possible or impossible, necessary or contingent, nor even could it be. From this the opposite also follows evidently, namely God himself, and thus that something has been, is, and will be. O how necessary it is that he exist, whom it is so impossible ever to cease to be! For God in any way not to be most necessarily contains and implies a contradiction, and "necessary being" seems the most proper name of God.

CHAP. XV. That known things are not the causes of divine knowledge.

CHAP. XVI. Against some who say that known things are a cause sine qua non of divine knowledge, but not a cause.

CHAP. XVII. He distinguishes the things known by God, because some in a way precede his knowledge, and some follow it. He shows that these are in some way or other a cause of divine knowledge, those in no way. And it has a Corollary: that divine knowledge, which is his simple awareness, is truly the cause of every thing made, not only a cause sine qua non.

CHAP. XVIII. He distinguishes divine knowledge into the in a way incomplex and the complex. He likewise distinguishes complex knowables into those in a way prior and those posterior to the divine will. He shows that the prior are a cause in some way or other of complex divine knowledge, the posterior by no means; but that God knows those by his will.

CHAP. XIX. He objects and replies.

CHAP. XX. He likewise distinguishes things willed into prior and posterior to the divine will. He shows that things willed that are posterior are not the cause of the divine willing, nor a cause sine qua non, and that things willed that are prior are some cause of it.

CHAP. XXI. He objects and replies, and distinguishes the reasonable and the just as prior to the divine will, as posterior to it, and as mixed.

CHAP. XXII. That God has an actual willing or willing-against distinct in regard to any object of the will [n12]. And it has a Corollary: That God wills every truth, and does not positively will, but rejects, every falsehood. 2. That if God wills some antecedent, he wills each of its consequents, and does not positively will everything repugnant to it. 3. That of any repugnant pair he wills the one but wills against the other. That from God's willing anything there follows his willing against its opposite; and conversely, that from God's not willing anything, affirmatively or negatively signified, there follows his willing its opposite. That from God's not willing against anything there follows his willing against its opposite. That from God's positively willing against anything there follows his willing against the same also privatively; and likewise conversely, that whatever is, in whatever way, God wills it to be so, and whatever is not, in whatever way, God does not will it to be so.

CHAP. XXIII. That both God's knowledge and his will are altogether immutable. And it has a Corollary: That God loves or hates no one anew, nor more or less at one time than at another. Neither prayers nor any merits, good or bad, bend or change the divine will in the least, hither or thither. Everyone to be saved or damned, rewarded or punished in any degree, he willed from eternity to be saved or damned, likewise rewarded or punished, in precisely that same degree. And this is so not only by a conditional or undetermined will, but by a will as absolute and determined as he wills in the present or in the final judgment, or will will afterwards.

CHAP. XXIV. He objects against the immutability of the divine knowledge and replies.

CHAP. XXV. He objects against the immutability of the divine will and resolves the objection.

CHAP. XXVI. That the whole universe of things is good, and no thing is evil per se. And it has a Corollary: that good and per se evil, or goodness and pure malice, are not contraries but are opposed privatively.

CHAP. XXVII. That all things come about by divine providence.

CHAP. XXVIII. On Fate.

CHAP. XXIX. On chance and fortune.

CHAP. XXX. That voluntary things are governed by the laws of divine providence.

CHAP. XXXI. That voluntary actions are presupposed by divine providence.

CHAP. XXXII. That all things proceed from God's providence actually disposing, not merely permitting.

CHAP. XXXIII. That in respect of anything whatever, wherever there is God's permission there is also his actual willing.

CHAP. XXXIV. Whether, and how, God wills and does not will sin.

CHAP. XXXV. Against Pelagius: that grace is given freely by God and is not procured by preceding merits. And it has a Corollary against Cassian, who takes a middle way [n13], saying that God gives his grace freely to some, without preceding merit, but to others only if they first merit to receive it. Whence also: that no slave of mortal sin can be freed by his own powers alone.

CHAP. XXXVI. Against the Procurators of Pelagius, who assert that although merits are not the cause of the conferral of principal grace, they are nevertheless a cause sine qua non of its being conferred.

CHAP. XXXVII. Against certain Pelagians who say that man can, from himself alone, prepare himself duly, and that if he does so, God will give him his grace freely.

CHAP. XXXVIII. Against certain Pelagians who say that God anticipates man in the conferral of grace by knocking, and that man, by opening and consenting to the reception of grace, though from himself and to the one who knocks, in a way merits it.

CHAP. XXXIX. Against certain men who think that man can from himself alone merit first grace congruously, though not condignly. And it has a Corollary against certain other, most recent defenders of Pelagius, who imagine that although man can in no way merit first grace, he can nevertheless obtain it by petition through his own powers alone.

CHAP. XL. That grace, which is a habit freely given by God, together with the human will is the efficient cause, properly, of every good and meritorious act of that will.

CHAP. XLI. That grace produces good acts naturally prior to the human will. And it has a Corollary: that both God and his created grace properly produce any good act of a rational creature naturally prior to that creature itself. And that the Authors who say that God does our good works do not exclude but include God's grace doing the same likewise; and those who say that God's grace does our good works do not exclude but include God working the same likewise.

CHAP. XLII. That God produces any good act of the created will naturally prior to grace. And it has a Corollary: that God, and the Holy Spirit, is called in some way charity and grace, by which dearly and freely not only God loves himself and man, but by which man likewise loves God and neighbour.

CHAP. XLIII. On salutary penance according to diverse opinions, and on the power of the keys. And it has a Corollary: that that is prior according to nature, or naturally prior to another, which is the cause of that other; and that something from which the consequence of subsisting holds to another, and not conversely, is prior to it according to nature. Whence also: that not everything from which the consequence of subsisting is not convertible is prior according to nature. It is prior rather according to superiority or universality according to consequence, or according to some other such mode. Not whatever is prior to another according to nature can be without it; nor is whatever can be without another, and not conversely, prior to that other according to nature, but rather according to some other mode already stated, unless perhaps "prior according to nature" is said equivocally in three ways.

CHAP. XLIV. On Predestination according to what the name means.

CHAP. XLV. That Predestination must really be posited; what it is; in how many ways it is spoken of; and that it is not on account of works but according to God's gratuitous will. And it has a Corollary: that no one is predestined or reprobated on account of works which he would do if he lived longer, nor is anyone saved on account of works, or damned.

CHAP. XLVI. Against certain men who concede predestination and reprobation to glory and to punishment, but deny that these are to any certain degrees. And it has a Corollary: that all degrees of graces, merits, prosperities, adversities, glory or punishment, in the present and in the future alike, are predestined by God eternally and distinctly.

CHAP. XLVII. He objects and replies.

NOTES

1. De causa Dei: "cause" is meant both forensically (the case God has at law, which the preface argues before judges, advocates and proctors) and causally (the work is also de virtute causarum, on the power of causes). Savile's title gives only De causa Dei. The addition contra Pelagium appears in the Latin of the Praefatio and in the conventional title, not here. The same unaltered title appears in the running head of p. 441 ("De causa Dei"). I keep "cause" throughout and do not substitute "case". The print gives the book number as "LIBER I." in widely spaced capitals, which on the page looks like "LIBERI."
2. No page image of the prelims was available for this stretch, so it is translated from the keyed L2 text alone. The image check required by §5.2 has not been done, and "NONE" under Errata means only that no divergence has been confirmed. Where the keyed text shows an evident keying slip, I read as follows without affecting the sense: irascibilem,, (double comma); huinsmodi = huiusmodi (I.18); Auerrcis = Auerrois or Auerroem (I.36); accidentanbus = accidentalibus (I.26); pictati = pietati (I.31); perviam = per viam (I.32); habnisse = habuisse (I.40); grattam = gratiam (ch. 35); sibigratiam = sibi gratiam (ch. 37); liret = licet (ch. 39); Corellarium = Corollarium (chs. 10, 17); aictantem = dictantem (ch. 10); operae = opera (ch. 45); mentiente(que = mentientesque (I.31). Each should be checked against the print.
3. Keyed defecti•ilem, a gap in the TCP text. I read defectibilem; the sense is certain, but the gap is not yet image-checked.
4. Zabios: the Sabians (Ṣābi'a), the star-worshippers of the Arabic and Jewish philosophical tradition, whom Maimonides discusses. Hence the "wise men" who worship the heavens in this item.
5. Vnum illis commune: puta bonum et malum. The sentence is elliptical. I translate it literally. It seems to say that the dualists posit a single thing, good and evil, as their shared subject, and so go on to two opposed gods. The construction is not secure.
6. accidentibus accidentene aliquo: the last word is as keyed and is not a clear Latin form. I take it to be a participle or adjective of accidere, with aliquo ("accidental to something"). The sense is "accidents of any kind attaching to anything".
7. Cainitas: named from Cain. The item says that this error is the same as the Pelagian one, and the next item, XXIX, equates them.
8. indoctos artis amandi: a play on Ovid's Ars amandi. The "art of loving" here is the right ordering of love (ordo caritatis).
9. As keyed, the sentence reads literally "ought, by not sinning, knowingly to do anything, even the least, against God". The sense the chapter requires is "ought not to do". The negation of the infinitive is not expressed in the Latin. I translate the evident sense ("ought … to refrain from knowingly doing") and flag the problem here rather than emend.
10. Keyed illud fieri ill• modo: a gap. I read illo modo, the sense being plain.
11. possibili contradictionis: the possible that admits contradictory alternatives, that is, the contingently possible. The phrase is kept literal.
12. volutio / nolutio: nolle is rendered "to will against" and nolutio "willing-against", to keep it distinct from non velle, "not to will". Both are Bradwardine's own technical contrast.
13. Cassianum mediantem: John Cassian, whose position in the Collationes (conf. 13) is taken as a middle way between Pelagius and Augustine. mediantem = "taking a middle course".