Book I, Chapter 32

Chapter Xxxii

That all things come about from God's providence actually disposing them, and not merely permitting.

But since among the authorities of the Saints that speak of God's providence some make mention of permission, it might perhaps appear that by providence they mean permission alone. It now remains to show that all things come about from actual providence, whether preceptive or even positive, that is, providence which posits an actual will in God. This will be shown by reasons like those by which the preceding chapters were proved. This is especially so because the chapters that speak of God's knowledge and will, by which universal providence is proved, speak of God's actual and positive knowledge and willing, not merely permissive.

Again, otherwise he would not dispose the universe most wisely, nor most perfectly, nor most fittingly. Again, all inanimate and irrational things, which do not depend on voluntary actions, are actually provided for, and so are all their operations, as the twenty-seventh and thirty-first teach. Much more, then, are all voluntary things and all voluntary actions, as is clear from the thirtieth and thirty-first. Nor can those Philosophical testimonies adduced earlier be fittingly understood of permissive providence, nor can the other testimonies of Scripture and of the Saints be understood in this sense. For how would the Saviour in Matthew 6 reasonably remove anxiety from us, if he cared for us merely by permitting, and provided nothing actually? How, again, in Matthew 10, would that drowsy providence arm us against the fear of death for his name? For who would fight more confidently because God merely permits this or that? And what sort of comfort would this be: One of the sparrows does not fall without your Father permitting it, and you are better than they; do not fear, then, because you will not fall without your Father permitting this greater thing, and neglecting it with more indifference? No, it would not be comfort but plain mockery. Again, what good would the numbering of the hairs do us, if he provided us nothing further actually, but permitted all things to run into uncertainty and be tossed about by chance movements? How, again, would God's ineffable affection, and the immensity and diligence of providence, be signified in the numbering of the hairs, as was alleged above? God's speech, moreover, implies an act; but all things are from it, because they are from the saying, that is, the utterance, of the most high God, as the twenty-eighth shows. Otherwise, too, many things would come about by simple chance and fortune; for not everything that is permitted is intended, which the twenty-ninth condemns. Moreover Job, Tobias, and the narrative of Jacob prove actual providence; and so does every adversity

which is the just penalty of sin. Nor does it seem to be the manner of speaking of Scripture, of the Doctors, or of the common people to call bare permission "providence," for on that view any neighbor would provide for any other. And Anselm says in On Truth 8: In respect of what it does, A1 it seems more properly to be called agency and striking; and in respect of what it undergoes, action and a blow 1. For agency and striking are named from the agent and the striker, as providence is from the provider, and containment from the container; and these, that is, the agent and striker, the provider and container, are active. It is clear, therefore, that providence by its signification implies not merely permission but some act, or some agency.

Moreover, if that exposition suited Scripture, then, since Scripture speaks in the same way of predestination, creation, governance, the bestowal of grace and of other good things, the remission of sins, and many like things, all of these could be explained by permission alone. No Christian doubts how far this would detract from the Christian faith, or rather would overturn the whole of it. Again, the holy Fathers, in labouring so earnestly to prove that all things are governed by providence, would labour in vain: for they would be teaching nothing doubtful or unknown, since no one is ignorant that all things happen with the Lord permitting.

Again, all the things that happen here in any way have some causes, and all those causes are traced back to some first cause, as the second Supposition and the second chapter make clear; and the first cause of all these is God, as no one doubts. Therefore God in some way causes all these things, and not by natural necessity, nor by chance, nor in ignorance, improvidently, or rashly; therefore by a will providing with certain knowledge. Again, a loving, prudent, and powerful mother actually provides all things for her children; but God our heavenly Father is incomparably more loving, more prudent, and more powerful than any mother; therefore he provides all things for us by actual providence, not merely by permissive or forgetful providence. Hence also in Isaiah 49: B1 Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the son of her womb? And if she should forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have inscribed you on my hands; the Gloss 2: that I may always see and remember, lest you think yourself utterly forsaken. Yet what would that sight or memory of the Intellect alone avail, unless the providing good will of the will were likewise present? And so below, in the same chapter, he adds: Those who judged you I will judge, your sons I will save; I the Lord, who save you, and your redeemer.

Again, in Isaiah 10 it is said of Sennacherib, King of Assyria: C1 Woe to Assyria, the rod of my fury; and the staff itself is my indignation in their hand; I will send him against a deceitful nation, against the people of my fury; I will command him to take away spoils, and divide the prey, and put it down to be trampled. In such cases, therefore, the Lord is the principal agent, and any tyrant only instrumental. Thus it follows: And it shall be, when the Lord has accomplished all his works on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, I will visit upon the fruit of the haughty heart of the King of Assyria, and upon the glory of the loftiness of his eyes; for he said, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom I have understood, etc. And it follows: Shall the axe boast against him who cuts with it, or the saw be exalted against him who draws it? As if the rod should be lifted up against him who lifts it, or the staff, which is surely wood, be exalted; therefore, etc. His punishment follows, where the Gloss says: just as these inanimate things are instruments doing nothing by themselves, but only through him who moves them, so Sennacherib also did not work by himself but in God's power; hence his boasting is foolish and worthy of vengeance. D1 On this Jerome also says, in book 4 on Isaiah: "O most foolish of mortals, you think God's wrath is your own wisdom, and you attribute his command to your own strength! It is as if the axe should boast against him who holds the axe, and the saw against him who draws it, and as if they should say that all the works done by axe and saw were finished by their own skill. And if someone should lift a rod and raise a staff with power to strike whomever he wished, and the rod or staff itself should glory and say that the one struck was struck by it, so you also, when you were an instrument of God's will, were lifted up into pride, and boast that all that is done was done by your own power." This same opinion appears much more fully in the fourth chapter.

Again, in Isaiah 13: D2 The burden of Babylon, etc. I have commanded my sanctified ones, and have called my strong ones in my anger, who exult in my glory. The Lord of hosts has commanded the soldiery of war, coming from a far land, from the summit of Heaven; the Lord and the vessels of his fury, to destroy the whole land. E1 On this Jerome says, in book 5 on Isaiah: "Following the order of the history, we say that these sanctified and strong ones are the Medes, of whom Scripture testifies more openly in what follows, saying, that is 3, Behold, I will stir up the Medes against you, who do not seek silver, nor desire gold." And he adds: "It is no wonder if he calls the Medes sanctified for the overthrow of Babylon, since through Jeremiah he called Nebuchadnezzar himself, who served at his command, when he destroyed the faithless Jerusalem, his servant and his dove. Moreover, when he says, my strong ones in my anger, who exult in my glory, he shows that they overthrew the power of so exalted a kingdom not by their own strength but by God's anger." Hence also Daniel 1: The Lord delivered into his hand, that is, Nebuchadnezzar's, Jehoiachin King of Judah, etc. The Gloss: by whose,

that is, the Lord's, A1 will it was done, not by the strength of the enemies. Again, Jeremiah 31: He who scattered Israel will gather it; the Gloss: Not, then, by the power of enemies, but by the will of the Lord. And above, in chapter 10: I know, Lord, says the Prophet, that a man's way is not his own, nor is it for a man to walk and direct his steps; where the Gloss says: Let them blush who say that each is ruled by his own choice. For a man's way is not his own, etc. A2 Hence David: A man's steps are directed by the Lord. Nor can anyone expound this authority as meaning only the good ways and good steps of a man, on account of God's grace, which is necessarily required and is not wholly in man's power. For Jeremiah is speaking there literally of the way of the man of Babylon, that is, of Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon, whose coming he names many times below, as the scourge and hammer of God's wrath, to lay waste Judea as the punishment of sin, as the preceding and following text shows. For the voice of hearing (the Gloss: of Babylon coming) says: Behold, it comes, and a great commotion from the land of the North, to make the cities of Judah a desolation and a dwelling of dragons. For Babylon lay to the north of Judea, as Jerome says on that passage of Daniel 11, His kingdom shall be crushed, and shall be divided toward the four winds of Heaven: that Egypt is to the south, Macedonia to the west, Syria and Babylonia to the north, and Asia to the east, in relation to Judea. Hence also in Jeremiah the Lord spoke thus to Jeremiah: From the North evil shall be opened out upon all the inhabitants of the land (Gloss: of Judea); for behold, I will summon all the assemblies of the kingdoms of the North (Gloss: subject to the King of Babylon); and they shall come, and each shall set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and upon all its walls round about, and upon all the cities of Judah; and I will speak my judgments with them, concerning all their wickedness, who have forsaken me and have poured libations to strange gods. Therefore below, in 27, the Lord calls Nebuchadnezzar his servant: Now, he says, I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, my servant. And it follows in Jeremiah 10, immediately after the text recited above: I know, Lord, that a man's way is not his own (Gloss: the man of Babylon's way, but it is of our merit and of your indignation). And it follows: nor is it for a man to walk and direct his steps. Correct me, Lord, but in judgment and not in your fury, lest perhaps you bring me to nothing.

Yet this man of Babylon did not do this out of charity but out of cruelty, nor out of zeal for justice or obedience to the divine will, but rather out of pride and lust for dominion. Hence he did not merit but sinned, as was also the case with Sennacherib, King of Assyria, as was shown above. For this is expressly clear in Jeremiah 25, where the Lord says: Because you have not heard my words, behold, I will send and take all the assemblies of the North, and Nebuchadnezzar my servant, King of Babylon, and I will bring them upon this land and upon its inhabitants, and I will kill them, and all the other evils. And it follows next: And they shall serve the King, or the Kings, of Babylon, seventy years; and when seventy years are completed, I will visit upon the King of Babylon and upon that nation their iniquity, and upon the land of the Chaldeans, and I will make it everlasting solitudes. This is stated more expressly below, in 50, where both his sin and his punishment are set out more clearly: Depart, he says, from the midst of Babylon, and go out of the land of the Chaldeans, for behold, I will stir up and bring against Babylon an assembly of great nations, and they shall be prepared against her, and in that day she shall be taken, and Chaldea shall be a prey; all who lay it waste shall be filled, says the Lord, because you exult and speak great things, plundering my inheritance. Your mother is greatly confounded, and she who bore you is made level with the dust. Behold, she shall be the last among the nations, desolate, pathless 4 and parched; because of the anger of the Lord she shall not be inhabited, but shall be reduced wholly to a wilderness. Hasten against Babylon, make war on her round about, for she has sinned against the Lord. Her foundations have fallen, and her walls are destroyed, for it is the vengeance of the Lord: take vengeance on her. As she has done, do to her; scatter the sower from Babylon, and him that holds the sickle, from the face of the sword of the dove. The Gloss: He calls Nebuchadnezzar a dove, not for simplicity but for the folly of pride. And it follows in the Prophet: Israel is a scattered flock; lions have driven it out. The first who devoured it was the King of Assyria; this last has gnawed its bones, Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I will visit the King of Babylon and his land, as I visited the King of Assyria. And the manner of the visitation follows: scatter and kill, a voice of war in the land, and a great commotion. How is the hammer of the whole earth broken and crushed? How has Babylon become a desert? And it follows: Behold, I am against you, O proud one, says the Lord, for the time of your visitation will come, and the proud one shall fall; and not a few similar things before and after. The burden of Babylon, no light one, prophesied in Isaiah 13, also clearly attests all this. Again, in Jeremiah 47 Nebuchadnezzar himself is addressed under the name of a blade, in the person of the afflicted: O blade of the Lord, how long will you not be quiet? Go into your scabbard, cool down and be still; and the Prophet answers for it: How shall it be quiet

when the Lord has commanded it against Ashkelon, etc.? Where the Gloss says: as if to say, The sword cannot be quiet unless the Lord commands, whose vengeance it executes. Again, Lamentations 3: Who is this who said that something should come about, the Lord not commanding? Where the Gloss says: Who is this—how foolish, how bold—who said that something should come about, the Lord *A1 not commanding, by whose just disposing all things happen? And this is shown at great length, in evils as in goods. All this signifies divine providence, not merely permissive but actually preceptive.

Nor can anyone say that God provides for those great things but does not care for some small ones. For if he provided for the deeds of Popes and Emperors or Kings, why not of Cardinals and Dukes? And if of these, why not of Archbishops and Counts? And if of these, why not of Bishops and Barons, Rectors and knights? And so, descending from the greatest to the least, from the proud to the humble, and from the rich to the poor, as the preceding chapter argued: all the more because he hides his mysteries from the wise and prudent, and reveals them to the little ones. Do not the Angels of the little ones also always see the face of the Father in heaven, who looks on lowly things from near at hand and knows lofty things from afar, who himself, though poor, chose the poor in this world?

Again, the Apostle, Augustine, Jerome, Gregory, and other holy Doctors, supposing that all things happened to them in figure, and that these things were written for our teaching and correction, draw greater things of this kind down to lesser ones, and to all other similar things. Jerome also says in book four on Isaiah, where earlier: Whatever is said to the Assyrian, that is, to Sennacherib King of the Assyrians, can be referred to the pride of heretics and to the Devil, who are called axe, saw, and rod in the Scriptures, because through him unfruitful trees are cut down, and the hardness of unbelievers is divided and sawn through, and those who do not receive discipline are struck with the rod. And the same burden of Babylon, which in book five he expounded historically, as was said, in book six he expounds anagogically, and says: Babylon, which is interpreted "confusion," signifies this world, which is set in the evil one, and confounds not only tongues but the works and minds of individuals; and Nebuchadnezzar its King signifies the Devil; and his sanctified ones, the strong men and leaders 5, signify the Apostles and apostolic men and the leaders of the Church. And all the Doctors understand and expound the whole sacred Scripture in similar places in a similar way.

Again, the greatest and most horrible evils that were ever done, namely the persecution and killing of Christ and the Apostles and the rest of his members, came forth from God's actual providence. For it is not probable that God the Father negligently exposed to chance, or fortune, or the greatest misfortunes his only Son, so beloved, concerning whom he commanded his Angels to guard him in all his ways, and whom he himself never left, since they are one. Nor did he permit anyone to touch his Christ, or anything to befall him in any way, except from the wisest counsel of his most provident will. For so a wise, good, and powerful parent would, if he could, provide in all things for his tender, specially beloved son. For this most befits and is fitting, and nothing else is fitting, as chapter 27 and those following taught. C1 And Isaiah 53 seems to attest this when he says: He was offered because he himself willed it. Nor is there doubt that Father and Son are of inseparable will; wherefore many of the faithful also testify this with one accord, saying: Lord, you who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of our father David your servant said: Why did the nations rage, and the peoples devise empty things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ. For truly there gathered in this city, against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your counsel decreed to be done (Acts 4). And similar is what the Apostle says in Romans 11: As regards the Gospel, indeed, they are enemies for your sake. And 1 Corinthians 11: There must be heresies, so that those who are approved may be made manifest among you. Of these three authorities Augustine treats the first two, in On the Predestination of the Saints, 21, in the sense stated, and adds: So much of the hand and counsel of God did he predestine to be done by the enemy Jews *D1 as the Gospels required for our sake 6. And the same Augustine says in On Rebuke and Grace, 22, that God chose Judas to shed his blood, and so that through Judas's damnable work the venerable work of Christ might be fulfilled.

Again, Lombard, Sentences 3, dist. 20, says thus: It is read of Christ that he was handed over by the Father, and that he handed himself over, and that Judas handed him over, and the Jews. He handed himself over, because he went to the passion of his own accord; and the Father handed him over, because he suffered by the will of the Father, indeed of the whole Trinity. Judas handed him over by betraying, and the Jews by inciting. The act of Judas and of the Jews was evil, and the act of Christ and of the Father good; the work of Christ and of the Father was good, because the will of the Father and of the Son was good. The work of Judas and of the Jews was evil, because their intention was evil. Different deeds or works were done there, that is, different acts, and one thing, or deed, namely that passion. Therefore the Doctors sometimes unite the Father, the Son, Judas, and the Jew in that deed, and sometimes distinguish them. For looking to the passion, they say there is one work of them; attending to intentions and acts,

they distinguish different deeds. A1 Hence Augustine says: "The handing-over was done by the Father, the handing-over was done by the Son, and the handing-over was done by Judas. One thing was done, that is, the passion. What, then, distinguishes them? That the Father and the Son did this in charity, Judas in betrayal. You see that what is to be considered is not what a man does, but with what intention. In the same deed, that is, the same operation, we find God and we find Judas. We bless God, we detest Judas, because God thought of our salvation, Judas thought of the price for which he sold his Lord, and the Son thought of the price which he gave for us. Different intention, therefore, makes different deeds, although one thing comes about from different ones." Behold, he says that there was one thing there and different deeds, because there was one passion there, but different acts. The acts of Judas and of the Jews were evil, and by them they brought about the passion of Christ, which is a good and is a work of God. The passion of Christ, then, is called also the work of the Jews, because it comes from their acts; and the work of God, because it was by him as Author, that is, by his willing. Hence Augustine: "No one takes Christ's life from him, for he has power to lay it down and to take it up. Behold, you have the Author of the work. He will lay down his life: behold, you have the work of the Author. And, to conclude generally, as often as Christ suffers anything in the flesh, it is the work of the Author: for since he suffers by his own will, with no one else compelling him, he himself is the Author of the work."

Again, Augustine on that verse of Psalm 103 [104]: At your rebuke they shall flee, at the voice of your thunder they shall fear; the mountains rise and the fields descend, etc.; you have set a boundary, etc.: "The Emperor commanded; but who would have commanded, unless God had thundered? Because God willed, they commanded, and it was done. Therefore let no man arrogate anything to himself. The waters will fear, but at the voice of your thunder." And below, in the same: "The mountains rise, that is, the powers, by raging, and the fields descend, by being appeased. Why do they not rage now, why do they not endeavor, if they cannot overturn our earth, at least to cover it? Hear: you have set a boundary which they shall not pass, nor shall they return to cover the earth."

Moreover, if not all things came about from actual providence, some act could be simply evil, unjust, and disordered 7, namely in the preceding ordering. For there is a twofold ordering, namely preceding and subsequent. The preceding ordering is that which preordains a thing to being, as God preordained to create the world. The subsequent ordering is that which, once the thing has been placed in being, orders it in a definite order through something fitting to it, as an evil act through misery and through penalty. Such an evil act, therefore, if it did not proceed from preceptive providence but only from permissive, would be simply unjust and disordered, namely in the preceding ordering. For nothing in such matters is just except what conforms to the first rule of justice, which is God's actual will, as the twenty-first teaches; nor is anything simply preordained that is not preordained by that which is the principle of this order and its primary orderer. But no act, however evil, is simply unjust or disordered in the preceding ordering, since then the whole universe would not be disposed in the best way, the contrary of which the twenty-seventh chapter alleged. But the universe is disposed better and more wisely if such acts are disposed by both preceding and subsequent ordering than by the subsequent alone.

Any such act, therefore, is just with respect to God who wills it, and with respect to the one who suffers it, who suffers it for his sins or for some other cause approved by the divine will. But with respect to the particular agent, such as a devil or a man, it is unjust, for he does it with a malevolent mind and intent on harming, not with the mind of exercising divine justice. It is as if an executioner were to hang someone justly handed over to him by a Judge to be hanged, not from love of carrying out justice but from lust for vengeance; and as if a servant ordered to beat the Lord's son were to beat him with the mind of taking revenge, not with the mind of chastising at the Lord's command. So it is said in Isaiah 10 of Sennacherib, King of the Assyrians, D1 who was the rod of God's fury against a sinning people; but since he did not know this, nor acted with such a mind, he sinned: Woe, he says, to Assyria, the rod of my fury; I will send him against a deceitful nation, I will command him against the people of my fury to put it down to be trampled. But he will not think so, and his heart will not so reckon; but it will be in his heart to crush, not to correct. For he says, Are not my princes together kings? etc., attributing the whole to his own strength, in pride. And therefore a threat of punishment follows against him: And it shall be, he says, when the Lord has accomplished all his works (not Sennacherib's) on Mount Zion, I will visit upon the fruit of the haughty heart of the King of Assyria, and upon the glory of the loftiness of his eyes. For he said, By the strength of my hand I have done it, etc. And his punishment follows: Therefore the Lord will send leanness among his fat ones, etc. That trampling of the people was therefore just with respect to God, who willed it and did it through that rod of his; it was likewise just with respect to the people who suffered it; but not with respect to Sennacherib, who inflicted it cruelly and proudly as though by his own strength. The same is clear of Nebuchadnezzar, as was shown above, and of many other scourgings of the people of God, very often in Scripture. But lest

in so weighty an opinion I should seem to say anything senselessly from my own sense, behold the sensible Doctors, who plainly hold this. Blessed Augustine, then, says in the Eighty-Three Questions, question 27, in this way: A1 "It can happen that through a wicked man divine providence both punishes and brings help. For the impiety of the Jews both tripped up Judas 8 and was salvation for the Gentiles. It can also happen that divine providence through a good man both condemns and helps, as the Apostle says: A2 To some we are the odor of life unto life, to others the odor of death unto death. But since every tribulation is either the penalty of the impious or the exercise of the just (because the same threshing-sledge cuts up the straw and strips the grain from the chaff, whence tribulation also took its name 9), and since, again, peace and quiet from bodily troubles both benefit the good and corrupt the wicked, divine providence moderates all this according to the merits of souls. Yet the good do not choose for themselves the ministry of tribulation, nor do the wicked love peace. So those too through whom what they do not know is done receive the reward not of justice, which is referred to God, but of their own ill will; just as it is not imputed to the good, if when they wish to help, someone is harmed, but the reward of benevolence is granted to their good mind.

"For since God most high administers well all that he has made, nothing in the universe is disordered, and nothing unjust, whether we know it or not. But when a sinning soul offends in a part, then, because according to its merits it is where such a soul ought to be, and suffers what it is fair for such a soul to suffer, it deforms the whole kingdom of God by no ugliness of its own. Wherefore, since we do not know all that the divine order does well concerning us, in good will alone we act according to the law; in all else, however, we are acted upon according to the law, since the law itself remains unchangeable, and governs all changeable things with a most beautiful governance." The same, On the Nature of the Good 11: "God's nature cannot be harmed at all, nor can any nature under God be unjustly harmed; for even when some by sinning harm unjustly, an unjust will is imputed to them. But the power by which they are permitted to harm is only from God, who, even without their knowing it, knows what those should suffer whom he permits them to harm." And below, in the same, 32: "since the power of those who harm is only from

God, as it is written: Through me Kings reign, and Tyrants hold the land through me; the Apostle also says, There is no power but from God. And Job: C1 Who makes a hypocrite reign because of the perversity of the people; and of the people of Israel he says, I gave them a King in my wrath. It is not unjust that, when the wicked receive the power of harming, the patience of the good is tested and the iniquity of the wicked is punished. For by the power given to the devil Job was tested, that he might appear just; and Peter was tempted, lest he presume on himself; and Paul was buffeted, lest he exalt himself; and Judas was damned, that he might hang himself. Since, then, God himself did all things justly through the power he gave the devil, yet it would not be a reward for these justly done things, but punishment for the unjust will to harm, which was the devil's own, that would be rendered to him." C2 Again, Blessed Gregory, Moralia 2, 12, on that passage of Job 1, Naked I came forth from my mother's womb, etc., says thus: "Since consolation is to be applied not only from the consideration of condition but also from the justice of the creator, he rightly adds, The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so it has been done."

The holy man, with the adversary tempting him, had lost everything. Yet he knew that Satan had no power of tempting him unless the Lord permitted it, and so he did not say, "The Lord gave, the devil took away," but, "The Lord gave, the Lord took away." For perhaps there would have been cause for grief if the enemy had taken away what the Creator had given; but since none took away except the one who had given, he took back what was his own and did not take away what was ours. Here too the addition is well made: "As it pleased the Lord, so it was done." For when in this life we suffer what we do not wish, we must needs incline the desires of our will toward the one who can will nothing unjust. Great indeed is our consolation in what displeases us, that it is done to us by the ordering of one who is pleased by nothing but the just. If therefore we know that just things please the Lord, and that we can suffer nothing except what has pleased the Lord, then all that we suffer is just; and it is very unjust if we murmur at a just suffering. Anselm also bears witness to this, On Truth 7, saying: "If all these things are what they are in the highest truth, D1 without doubt they are what they ought to be. But whatever is what it ought to be is right. Therefore everything that is, is right."10

And further on, in chapter 8, he raises ‖287E·1 a doubt about sin, how it can be right when it ought not to be. About the act of an evil will in particular he asks: "Do you think that the disposition of an evil will ought to be?" And he answers that it ought to be and ought not to be. It ought to be, because it is permitted, well and wisely, by him without whose permission it could not come to be; and it ought not to be, as far as concerns the one by whose iniquitous will it is conceived. Take a case where someone who is sinning is struck by a person to whom it does not belong to strike him: the one ought to be struck and the other ought not to strike, so the blow ought to be and ought not to be, and therefore it cannot be denied to be right and not right. But if you consider the judgment of supernal wisdom and goodness, whether the blow ought not to be on one side only or on both, that is, on the side of the agent and of the patient, who would dare to deny that what is permitted by so great a wisdom and goodness ought to be? Let him deny it who dares; I do not dare. 288E·1

Likewise Titus, as he is cited11 in the Gloss on Luke 13, "There were some present who told him about the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices," says this: "Here too he shows that whatever happens by judgments for the punishment of the guilty happens not only by the power of those who judge but also by the nod of God. Hence, whether the judge punishes with a just conscience or condemns with some other intention, the business is to be commended to the divine judgment." A1 And Chrysostom, on the text below in the same chapter, 18,12 "That tower fell in Siloam and killed them," says this: "He does not punish all, giving others time for repentance, yet he does not reserve all for future punishment, lest more people deny providence." Even if they did so,13 none would deny a permissive providence; therefore all such things come from a preceptive providence. And the whole of Scripture, of the Old Testament as well as the New, attributes to God almost all active verbs: to bring in enemies, to send fear and terror, to put to flight, to humble, to depose, to uproot, to scatter, to disperse, to destroy, to scourge, to strike, to wound, to kill; and the contrary of these, with many similar nouns, of which sort are savior, helper, protector, defender, salvation, strength, protection, defense, fortitude, with their infinite likes. This would not be so unless God did this in some way and did not merely permit it, as it seems. Wherefore all these things too are contained under his providence, not merely permissive but actually positive, and in a certain way preceptive. This seems to be the Apostle's argument in Romans 11. B1 For when he cites the divine response, "I have left myself seven thousand men who have not bent their knee to Baal," he argues that this came about by the working and election of God, concluding thus: "So then, at this present time also, a remnant has been saved according to the election of grace." B2 The Gloss argues in the same way on Jeremiah 31, "He who scattered Israel will gather him," saying: "It is therefore not the power of the enemies but the will of the Lord. The Lord therefore truly does all these things." B3 Hence also Isaiah 45: "I am the Lord, and there is no other; I form light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil; I the Lord do all these things." Let no one contradict the prophetic truth, lest he incur the woe of malediction; for there it follows: "Woe to him who contradicts his maker, a potsherd among the Samian wares."

Whoever, moreover, try with a lying gloss to restrict this universal multitude of the works of God's power are counted among the Lord's enemies, as the Psalmist says in C1 Psalm 65 [66]: "Shout joyfully to God, all the earth," etc.; "Say to God, How terrible are your works; in the multitude of your power your enemies shall lie to you";14 and to the end of the Psalm he goes on to speak of the works of the Lord in prosperity and adversity alike. Otherwise, besides, the beginning and the end of the Christian religion, namely fear and love, would be taken away from men. For "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," and the end of the commandment, indeed the fullness of the whole law, is love and charity. Through fear a man departs from evil, and through love he perseveres in good: fear is conceived from adversity, love is generated from prosperity. Whoever therefore takes prosperity and adversity away from God, except according to that improvident providence which is merely permissive and not actually positive, takes from him15 fear and love alike. C2 And so Augustine says in Eighty-Three Questions,16 question 36: "Nothing is truer than what has been said, 'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.'

For there is no one who does not flee pain more than he seeks pleasure. Hence it is that men whom the beauty of virtue does not yet delight are deterred from sinning by punishments, which are most truly proclaimed by holy and divine men. So that God may be feared, therefore, men must be persuaded that all things are ruled by divine providence, not so much by arguments (for whoever can discover them can also perceive the beauty of virtue) as by examples, either recent ones, if any occur, or especially from the History of the Old Testament and the New."

Whoever also takes away this providence of God takes away also from every afflicted person the greatest part of patience, hope, consolation, and joy.17 For who will bear adversity so patiently, especially, comfortingly, and joyfully if he believes that it befalls him only from an enemy or from chance, and that sins are not purged through it, virtues exercised, or rewards heaped up, as he will if he believes that these things are sent to him by God actually providing, for some such good? Nay, to believe so firmly eased what was harsh for all God's saints, blunted what was sharp, softened every hardship, and sweetly tempered each bitter and contrary thing; and in all sorrows it was a singular solace, which is also for me, a sinner, the chief remedy in any adversities whatever. O how easily he bears hardships who fears or loves God, believing that God wills him to bear such things, God who can will nothing but most wisely and most justly. This, as I suppose, makes the yoke of the Lord sweet and his burden light, and gives rest to the souls of those who labor; and the authority of blessed Gregory, Moralia 2, 12, cited above, plainly attests it.

Whoever posits it so also takes away from men their hope in God, and gives them hope in princes, in men, and in flesh. For these, truly freeing a man from adversities and truly settling him in prosperity, with God as it were asleep in a way and merely permitting, are men "into whose counsel my soul shall not come"; nay, "may their counsel be far from me," because it is far from the counsel of truth, since it is itself the counsel of vanity.

For God commanded our ancient Fathers to make known to their sons all things, as it were, whether adverse or prosperous, "that another generation may know, the sons who shall be born and shall rise up, and tell them to their sons," specially to this end, A1 "that they may place their hope in God and not forget the works of God," Psalm 77 [78]. "But for me it is good to cling to God, to place my hope in the Lord God"; for this hope does not confound. Likewise, one who posits it so not only takes the aforesaid things away from men in adversity but in prosperity too takes away from God love, honor, and the manifold giving of thanks, as the preceding chapter argued. For who will love his God, and honor him, and give him thanks, because he merely permits prosperity to befall him, as a robber or a tyrant also does at times, to the degree that he would if God, out of special love, positively gave him that prosperity, actually and truly providing it? Likewise, to posit it so places men with the ungrateful and the fool in the denial of God, and renders them more prone to every evil. Hence in Job 21, after the manifold prosperity of the wicked has been recounted, A2 as is clear in the preceding chapter, the wicked said to God: "Depart from us," as if to say, "We are quite well off without you"; and, as if with the fool, denying God, they said: "Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him?" So too in Psalm 72 [73], when the prosperity of the wicked is likewise recounted, as is clear in the preceding chapter, B1 they said: "How does God know?" etc. "Behold, these sinners have obtained riches," as if they argued: therefore God does not know, or does not care, nor does he justly distribute human affairs; and, as if they went on to say at least in their heart: therefore there is no God. And behold the proneness to sin that springs up: "And I said, Then it was in vain that I justified my heart," etc.; and earlier in the same Psalm: "But as for me, my feet had almost slipped, my steps had almost been poured out, because I was zealous over the wicked, seeing the peace of sinners," etc. B2 And Ecclesiastes 9: "All things happen alike to the just and the impious, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices victims and to him who despises sacrifices; as the good man, so the sinner; hence also the hearts of the sons of men are filled with malice and contempt in their life, and after this they will be led down to the dead." And earlier in the same book, chapter 8: "Because sentence is not quickly passed against the wicked, the sons of men commit evils without any fear." Against these dangers, therefore, and against others of the kind, God's actual providence must be preached in all things.