De causa Dei: Book I, Chapter 34
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, 294B–307C; Latin from EEBO-TCP A16626 (public domain).
Canonical: https://bradwardine.wrootpress.com/1/34/
Status: draft translation, not yet reviewed.

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CHAPTER 34. Whether, and how, God wills and does not will sin.

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It remains here, in due sequence, to inquire whether God wills sin. And it seems that he does in some way. For God permits sin; hence it seems, by the preceding chapter, that in some way he wills it. Again, by the twenty-second chapter, God has willing or nilling with respect to sin,[n1] and does not nill it; for otherwise it would not come about, by chapter 10; therefore he wills it. Again, God voluntarily foresees and does all voluntary works, bad as well as good, together with all their positive circumstances, as is plain from what came before; and these necessarily involve sin. Again, that sin exists is true, and is not the first truth, as is evident from the twelfth of this book. It is therefore true from the first truth, as is clear from the same twelfth and the thirteenth. Now the first truth is in God, as is evident in the same place; God, therefore, is the cause of this truth, and only voluntarily. God therefore wills this to be true, "Sin exists"; hence he wills it also to be so on the side of the thing, as that proposition signifies; therefore he wills sin to exist. Lombard, in the first book of the Sentences, distinction forty-six, regards this argument as sophistical and unworthy of a reply. Yet he seems to answer it more unworthily still, and to confirm his answer by a most unworthy instance. For according to the Philosopher, Topics 2, an instance is an argument directed to opposition; but this instance opposes nothing against the earlier position. For he says the argument does not hold, just as in a similar case it does not follow: "God prohibits theft to be done, and theft's being done is true, therefore he prohibits what is true." It is true that this does not follow; but that is not an instance, as he believes. For to prohibit implies a negation, namely, to will or command that something not be done or not be. Hence it also confounds the following term confusedly and distributively,[n2] so that, by the dictum de nullo, it is possible to descend negatively to any supposit, as is clear from the first book of the Prior Analytics. Now this does not follow: "God prohibits stealing, and all stealing is some doing, therefore God prohibits some doing." For the term "some doing" in the minor supposits or signifies only confusedly, so that one cannot there descend to any of its supposits; but in the conclusion it is taken confusedly and distributively, as has been said, and from this change of supposition arises the fallacy of figure of speech. Nor is there any doubt that this conclusion does not follow: for if God prohibits some doing, he wills or commands that nothing be done, and so it is not lawful to do anything. If, however, one argues in this way, "God prohibits stealing, and stealing is some doing, therefore some doing, and some operation, is prohibited by God," it follows well, and that conclusion is true. And it seems to be the same with the true and its prohibition. For truth follows the being or not-being of the thing. If, then, one argues in this way, "God prohibits this truth, or prohibits this proposition from being true, 'The thief steals,' and this is true, 'The thief steals,' therefore God prohibits a truth," it does not follow. But it does follow well that some truth, or that some proposition be true,

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God prohibits. For each person is bound to guard against such a truth about himself, "This man steals"; and this is by reason of some divine prohibition. For God could reasonably prohibit, and so he seems effectively and in reality to have prohibited to each person, concerning himself, that such a proposition ever be true, "This man steals," "This man commits adultery," and so for all similar evils. Hence also, "Blessed are those against whom they have said every evil, lying." But further, "Sin exists" is true; there is therefore some cause of that truth. God is the first cause of all causes, and every second cause causes in the power of the first cause, as the preceding chapters taught. Again, there is some cause of that truth, and it is not the term alone, nor sin alone, since sin is nothing, as is evident from the twenty-sixth of this book. There is therefore some positive cause ; and God is the first cause of all such. Again, sin is a certain privation, as is evident from the twenty-sixth of this book; and prior to every negation and privation is affirmation and habit, and its cause, as is clear from the thirteenth of this book; and of every affirmation and habit God is the first cause, as is evident in the same place. Again, God is the first cause of the being and not-being of anything whatever, as the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth proved: therefore also of the non-being of due justice, and of the being of sin. Again, otherwise God would not best dispose the universe, nor order it most perfectly. For it is better and more perfect to order and dispose, indeed to predispose and preordain, as was said in the preceding chapter, concerning all things, bad as well as good, privative as well as positive, than concerning good and positive things only. Otherwise, evil and privative things would be left unordered, no such ordering preceding them; and there would be something simply unjust and unseemly, which would disfigure no little the most just and most beautiful order of the universe; and this seems contrary to what was laid down in the preceding chapter. Again, whatever is good to be, is good to be from the first good, and God wills it to be; but it is good for sin to be, as is evident from the authority of Augustine cited in the preceding chapter. Hugh also, in On the Sacraments 1, part 4, chapter 14, shows that God wills evils to be, because this is good.[n3] And above, at 13, he says thus: "If it is said, 'God wills evil,' it is grievous to the ear, and the pious mind does not accept this about the Good One,[n4] that he wills evil. And so the pious mind rejects it, not because what is said is not well said, but because what is well said is not well understood: for it has zeal for God, but not according to knowledge." Again, everything that benefits human beings is from the first good, useful to all, and God wills it to benefit and to be; but sins benefit human beings: not only those of others, as was shown above, but even their own. Hence Romans 8: "To those who love God all things work together for good, to those who are called according to his purpose, saints." For of such, as Augustine says in On Rebuke and Grace 35, God so far works all things together for good that if any of them stray and go astray, even this he makes them advance toward good, since they become more humble and more learned, as Peter did; and in Psalm 82:[n5] "Fill their faces with shame, and they will seek your name, O Lord." Augustine also, City of God 14.13: "I dare to say that it is useful to the proud to fall into some open and manifest sin, whereby they may displease themselves who had fallen by pleasing themselves. For Peter displeased himself more wholesomely when he wept than he pleased himself when he presumed." The holy Psalm says this too: "Fill their faces with shame," etc. Again, everything that contributes to the beauty of the universe, God, the beautiful Author of all beauty, wills to be; sin is of this kind. For according to that prophetic and famous saying, in On the Heavens 2, 40, and Meteorology 3, and Sophistical Refutations 1: contraries, or opposites set beside each other, appear the more. Whence also in On the World, 10,[n6] he speaks thus: "One man marveled how the world, consisting of contrary principles, I mean dry and moist, cold and hot, was not long since destroyed; as if one were to marvel how a city endures, consisting of contrary peoples, I mean poor and rich, young, old, weak, strong, out of the wicked and the upright" (in another translation, "out of bad and good); "but they do not know what was the most wondrous thing of civic unanimity" (in another translation, "of concord), "I mean that out of many, one and alike is taken up, every nature and fortune. Perhaps nature yearns for contraries, and from these to produce harmony, not from likes. As, then, it joined male to female, and neither to its own sex, so it joined the first union through contraries, not through likes, as appears. Art too, imitating nature, does this. For painting, mixing the natures of white, black, yellow and red colors, produced images in accord with their models; music, mixing high and low, long and short sounds together, achieved one harmony in different voices; grammar, making a mixture of vowel and consonant letters, constituted its whole art from them. And the same as this was what was said by the obscure Heraclitus: 'It joins things turned about and not turned about, agreeing and differing, harmonious and discordant, and from all things one, and from one all things.' So, then, one harmony of chiefly contrary principles adorned the constitution of all things, I mean of heaven and earth, wholly intermingled throughout: it adorned the dry with the moist, the hot with the cold, the heavy with the light, the straight with the circular:

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the whole earth and the sea, the aether, and the Sun and Moon and the whole heaven, one power that passes through all things has adorned, creating the whole world from unmixed and diverse things, from air, earth, fire and water, and disposing it within the surface of a single sphere; and above all compelling the contrary natures in it to agree with one another, and from these contriving safety for the universe." And below, in the same: concerning all these things, as contraries, he speaks thus: "All these things seem to have been made for the sake of good, and to afford safety through the ages." Alhazen too, in the second book of his Perspective,[n7] shows that not only light and likeness but also shadow, obscurity and diversity sometimes make beauty; where by way of example he says that the beauty of the stars does not appear except in the blackness of night, and that stars on dark nights are more beautiful than on moonlit nights. With him agrees the wise man of Ecclesiasticus 33,[n8] who says: "Why does day surpass day, and light light, and year year, and Sun Sun?" and he answers: "By the knowledge of the Lord they were separated, the Sun being made, and keeping his command; by the wisdom of God they are divided; and he changed, or otherwise will change, their times and feast days, and out of them he set some in the number of days; and all men from the earth, in the multitude of the discipline of the Lord, he separated them, and changed their ways; and out of them he blessed and exalted, sanctified, and drew to himself; out of them he cursed and humbled, and turned them to their separation, as the clay of the potter in his hand, to mold it and dispose it, all his ways according to his disposition; so is man in the hand of him who made him. Against evil is good, and against life death; so also against the just man the sinner; and so look upon all the works of the Most High: two against two, and one against one." And Augustine says in City of God 11.18: "God would not have created any angel or man whom he foreknew would be evil, unless he likewise knew for what good uses he would employ them, and so adorn the order of the ages like a most beautiful poem with certain, as it were, antitheses. For the antitheses, as they are called among the ornaments of speech, are most seemly; in Latin they are called opposita or contraposita. Just as, then, these contraries set against contraries give beauty to speech, so, by a certain eloquence not of words but of things, the beauty of the age is composed by the opposition of contraries." This is laid down most clearly in the book of Ecclesiasticus in this manner: "Against evil, good; and against death, life; so against the pious, the sinner." And below, in the same, 23: "As a painting with black color set in its place, so the whole order of things, if one could behold it, is beautiful even with sinners, though, considered in themselves, their deformity disfigures them." And the same, in On True Religion 73, says that the beauty of the universe is not to be considered in one part only, but in all, and in the whole. Our own error, too, clinging to a part of the world, is foul in itself; but as black color in a painting is beautiful with the whole, so the unchangeable divine providence brings forth this whole contest seemly from contraries. The same, Enchiridion 7: "In the universe, even that which is called evil, well ordered and set in its place, commends the good more eminently, so that they please the more, and are the more laudable, when compared with evils." The same, moreover, in On the Nature of the Good 16, says thus: "Privations are so ordered in the universe of nature that they have their turns not unseemly. For God too, by not illuminating certain places and times, makes darkness seemly. For if we, by holding back the voice, fittingly interpose silence in speaking, how much more does he, the perfect Artisan of all things, fittingly make the privations of certain things." Whence also in the hymn of the Three Boys,[n9] even Light and darkness praise God, that is, they bring forth his praise in the hearts of those who trust well. Again, everything just is just from the first just, namely God; and God wills it to be just and to be. Every punishment of sin is just, as is evident from the thirty-first of this book, and one sin is the punishment of another. For the Prophet says, "Let not the foot of pride come to me, etc. There they have fallen who work iniquity; they are cast out, and could not stand," Psalm 35. Wherefore Solomon also: "A deep pit," he says, "is the mouth of a strange woman;[n10] he with whom the Lord is angry will fall into it," Proverbs 22. This too is evident in Romans 1, about those who, though they knew God, did not glorify him as God, or give thanks. "Therefore God handed them over to the desires of their heart, to uncleanness." Whence also Augustine, on that verse of Psalm 35 quoted before, says: "Hear the foot of pride: they who, though they knew God, did not glorify him as God. The foot of pride therefore came to them, whence they came into the depth. God handed them over to the desires of their heart, to do what is not fitting." The same, on that verse of Psalm 57, "As wax melted they shall be taken away," speaks thus: "Few see these punishments; therefore the Spirit of God recalls them most of all. Hear the Apostle saying, 'God handed them over,'" etc. And he enumerates many things that are sins, and says that they are the punishments of sinners. "For the first sin is pride, the last punishment fire or Hell. But the sins of the damned, between that first sin and this last punishment, are both sins and punishments: that one is an adulterer is already a punishment; that one is a liar, covetous, fraudulent, a murderer, these are already punishments. Punishments of what sin? Of the earlier apostasy, of that pride,

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by which they said they were wise, because they claimed to have of themselves what they had received from God." He teaches this likewise in Against Julian 5.3, and afterward at length and similarly in the sixth book. Gregory also says, on Ezekiel, homily 11: "A sin that is not quickly blotted out by penance is either a sin and the cause of sin, or a sin and the punishment of sin, or a sin at once both the cause and the punishment of sin." Hence Moses: "The sins of the Amorites are not yet complete"; and David: "Add iniquity upon their iniquity"; and another Prophet: "Blood has touched blood," that is, sin has been repaid with sin. Paul also says: "Therefore he handed them over," etc. And to John it is said through the Angel: "He who is in filth, let him be filthy still." Isidore follows him, in On the Highest Good 2.19,[n11] saying: "That the preceding sin is the cause of the following sin, and the following sin is the punishment of the preceding offense; and not while any are just are they driven by God to become evil, but while they are already evil they are hardened, so that they become worse, as the Apostle says, 'Because they did not receive the truth of God, that they might be saved, God sent them a spirit of error.'" God therefore makes some sin, but those in whom such sins have already gone before, so that by his just judgment they deserve to go after their desires. It will perhaps be replied that one sin is the punishment of another, but according to the pure substance of the act, not according to its deformity. But how is this true of the act of sin, with which great delight, and no sadness at all, is mingled? Since moreover no act is essentially evil per se, by the twenty-sixth of this book. And if anyone says that such an act of sin is harmful to man and penal, inasmuch as it takes from him the due justice he had and brings in the opposite privation, he must say consequently that such passive removal and privation is rather its punishment, and that this [privation] is per se and properly sin, as the twenty-sixth of this book and very many Doctors attest; otherwise even after the sinning sin would not remain. Wherefore Peter too,[n12] Sentences 2, distinction 35, last, says that the privation and corruption of good is called punishment according to the effect, that is, according to the passion, which is the effect of sin, that is, of sinning, causing it and it;[n13] and he says that this punishment is God's. Whence also Augustine, On True Religion 24: "This defect," he says, "which is called sin, if it seized a person unwilling, like a fever, the punishment that follows the sinner, and which is called damnation, would rightly seem unjust." The same, in Against Julian 5.14, speaking of the evil man who acts ill, says: "Which assuredly is sin for him because he does evil, and the punishment of sin because he suffers evil in himself." And if anyone should still reply to the Apostle's saying and the like by glossing thus, "God handed them over," etc., that is, by deserting them he permitted them to be so handed over, as some Doctors also seem to gloss, it can be argued from the preceding chapter that if he permitted them to be so handed over, he willed them to be so handed over. Again, Augustine says, and two other saints agree, that being an adulterer, and a liar, etc., are punishments of a prior sin. They are therefore in some way just, and willed by God. Again, the second sin is in some way the punishment of the prior sin, as is evident from the testimonies of Scripture and the aforesaid Doctors; and if this were not by the intention and will of God, nor by the intention or willing of the sinner, nor of anyone else, it would happen purely by chance, against the twenty-ninth of this book; and even then it[n14] would not punish that in order, nor justly: for nothing punishes another in order or justly unless it is ordained by some just Judge for the punishment of that other. Again, God would then not hand over the wicked to desires or sins otherwise than the good; for he would hand over both merely by permitting, which is against Scripture and the Doctors cited above. For it was on account of the foot of pride preceding that "they have fallen who work iniquity; they are cast out, and could not stand." Wherefore Isidore also says: "Nor, while any are just, are they driven by God to become evil," etc., hinting that some, while they are unjust, are so driven by God that they become worse; and therefore he says expressly that God makes such men sin, not others. The Apostle's words cited above suggest this as well: "Because they did not receive the truth of God, God sent them a spirit of error"; where Jerome's translation says more expressly: "Therefore God will send them the working of error, that they believe a lie," 2 Thessalonians 2. And Scripture everywhere, speaking of such men, says "On account of which," "Therefore," "Because," or something similar, which signifies a cause, showing by this that the preceding sin is the cause of the following. Again,

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Lombard, Sentences 2, distinction 30, shows that one sin is the punishment of another, and says that sin, inasmuch as it is the punishment of a prior sin, is from God, but not inasmuch as it is sin. Either, then, he means that, as it is the punishment of sin, it is from God merely permitting, and so it is, as it is sin, and then there is no difference; or that it is from God willing and ordaining, and then God wills sin to occur and to be, at least inasmuch as it is the punishment of a prior sin. Again, that reply seems dangerous, unless by "permission" he understands the will of God in a qualified sense (secundum quid), as the preceding chapter explained it, just as the Doctors, who at times so gloss the Apostle's saying and the like, can be explained. For this is the reply and exposition of Julian the heretic, thoroughly refuted by Augustine in the fifth book against him. For Julian, as Augustine recites there in the fourth chapter, expounded the Apostle's saying, "God handed them over," etc., thus: that is, he handed them over by deserting them, and not by power but by patience. Against him Augustine inveighs thus: "You ask in vain how 'God hands over' is to be understood, laboring much to show that he hands over by deserting. And below, in the same: The Apostle said what evils they had done before, and added, 'Wherefore God handed them over to the desires of their heart.' Therefore this, of the preceding sin, is the punishment of sin, and yet it too is itself sin. But you, arguing against this, think you have solved this question in this way, because the Apostle said they were handed over to their own desires. For already, you say, they were seething with the wicked desires of shameful deeds, and you add how,[n15] through the power of the God who hands over, they are to be thought to have fallen into such deeds." And Augustine against him: "What more, then, was done, I beg you? Or to what end would the Apostle say, 'God handed them over to the desires of their heart,' if they were already in some way possessed by the evil desires of their heart? Is it a consequence that if someone has evil desires, he already consents to them to commit the same evils? And therefore it is one thing to have evil desires, another to be handed over to them, that by consenting to them one may be possessed by them, which happens when one is handed over to them by divine judgment." And below, in 5, he recites many things from Scripture,[n16] by which he shows that one sin is the punishment of another. "The Lord," he says, "mingled for them a spirit of error, and they led Egypt astray." Again: "Why have you made us err, Lord, from your way, and hardened our hearts so that we should not fear you?" Again: "Behold, you were angry, and we sinned; therefore we have erred." Again: "By the Lord the heart of the nations was strengthened, that they might go to meet Israel, to be exterminated." Again: "King Rehoboam did not listen," etc., "that the Lord might confirm the word of the Prophet." Again: "Amaziah did not listen, for it was from the Lord that he be handed over." Again: "Because they did not receive the love of the truth," etc., "God will send them the working of error, that they may believe a lie." Again: "If the prophet errs, I the Lord have deceived the prophet," etc. And again: "He sent wrath and indignation through evil Angels." And after the testimony about Amaziah, he says he could recall many other things in which it plainly appears that by the hidden judgment of God the perversity of the heart comes to be, so that what is truly said is not heard, and thereby sin is committed, and that very sin is itself also the punishment of a preceding sin. For to believe a lie, and not to believe the truth, is certainly sin; yet it comes from that blindness of heart which by the hidden judgment of God, yet just, is also shown to be the punishment of sin. And below, in the same, he addresses Julian thus: "What is it that you say, that when they are said to be handed over to desires, they are to be understood as left by divine patience, and not driven into sins by power? As though the same Apostle had not set these two together, both patience and power! For he says, 'But if God, willing to show his wrath and to make known his power, endured with much patience vessels of wrath, which were made for destruction.' And below, 6: Who would say that Ahab did not sin in believing a lying spirit? Who would say that this sin was not a punishment of sin, coming from the judgment of God, to whom, as one reads, a lying spirit was sent or permitted? Who says any of these things, unless one who says what he wishes, and does not wish to hear what is true? Who indeed would be so senseless that, when he hears what is sung in the Psalm, 'Do not hand me over, Lord, from my desire to the sinner,' he would say that the man prayed that God not be patient toward him, if God does not hand over that evils may come about, except by offering patient goodness when they come about? And what is it that we say daily, 'Lead us not into temptation,' except that we not be handed over to our own concupiscences? For each one is tempted, drawn away and enticed by his own concupiscence. Or do we perhaps ask this of God, that his goodness not be patient toward us? Then we do not invoke his mercy but rather provoke his wrath. Who in his right mind would think this, or rather what madman would say it? God therefore hands over to passions of ignominy, so that what is not fitting may come about; but he himself hands over fittingly, and the same things come about, both sins and punishments of past sins, and merits of future punishments." But if anyone should say, with Lombard, that God wills sin under the aspect in which it is punishment, not under the aspect in which it is sin, he can be argued against thus. That punishment and sin per se, that is, under the aspect in which it is sin, are necessarily and inseparably joined; and that necessity and inseparability is from God, as is sufficiently clear from what precedes: for he himself is the first necessity, and the first necessary being. He therefore wills them to be so joined, and to be joined, and to be; therefore he wills sin to be. Again, whoever knows that any two things are necessarily and inseparably

joined, and wills them so to be joined, and knowingly and reasonably wills one, wills the other, especially if he has some act of will about each, as the twenty-second shows of God. But God knows and wills these two to be so joined, and knowingly and reasonably wills one, namely the punishment of sin; therefore also sin. This can be seen at once: if A and B are so joined, and God wills A to occur and is able, A occurs, and B necessarily occurs with it; and God does nothing by chance, but everything from a most wise intention that sweetly disposes all things, as the twenty-ninth teaches. God therefore wills B, and in a certain way does it. Further, in a necessary consequence, whoever wills the antecedent wills the consequent, as it seems, at least universally, though not in particular and under its own proper form

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as such. For whoever wills some whole wills in some way all its necessary parts. The Philosopher also teaches, Prior Analytics 2, that whoever opines some antecedent opines likewise each of its consequents, at least universally, though perhaps at times he may opine in particular, and under its proper form, the opposite of some consequent. Why then should we by no means judge likewise about willing? But God forbid that God should will anything universally and confusedly and nill it particularly and distinctly, or will its opposite thus, as the foregoing clearly show. For God knows most distinctly whatever is contained in any antecedent; for he knows every good consequence, and wills every good consequence to be good. How, then, does God, supremely and reasonably willing each thing that he wills, will some antecedent and not will some consequent of it, not only privatively but also positively, namely by a positive act contrary to the willing?[n17] For if he does not will anything, why can he not reasonably nill it thus? But who suspects such contrariety and irrationality in God, even slightly? Is it not so, that if God wills anything to be done, in any manner, by anyone, and many things are necessarily attached to it, it will be done by him thus together with all such attached things, the tenth of this book being witness? And if God does not will some such attached thing, he can reasonably nill it, namely by positive nilling; but if this is posited, then by the same tenth chapter that thing does not occur. At once, then, it occurs and does not occur, and likewise the whole. Is it not also so that if God wills some antecedent, it is just at least with respect to the will and justice of God? Hence any consequent of it is likewise just. Therefore it is also willed and loved by God, the Author of all justice, as the earlier chapters attest and Psalm 10 bears witness, saying, "The Lord is just, and has loved justices." Otherwise God could at once will some antecedent and nill some consequent of it, indeed even will the opposite of the consequent, and hence nill something just and will the opposite of the just. Is it not also so that, according to every reason and law, logical, philosophical, human and divine, whoever concedes, affirms, gives or states some antecedent does the same with all and each of the things that necessarily follow, and ought not to be admitted, nor allowed, in the opposite of any such consequent? For who will reasonably admit opposites, incompatibles, or contradictories from the same man, since truth itself does not admit them? How then does God, by his most reasonable will, order, give, or say something, and in no way order, or give, or say something that necessarily follows from it; indeed, how does he will and say the opposite of this consequent? And although these things seem sufficiently clear of themselves, behold the testimony of the Philosopher, Topics 2, who says: "Everyone who has said anything has in a way said many things, because many things follow of necessity from each thing: as, if he said 'man,' he said also that he is an animal, and that he is animate, and that he is a biped, and that he is receptive of mind and discipline. Hence when any one of the consequents is destroyed, what was at the beginning is destroyed also." Whence Thomas too, Against the Gentiles 1.81, says thus:[n18] "The will of the wise man, in that it concerns the cause, concerns the effect, which from the cause of

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necessity. For it would be foolish to wish the Sun to exist above the earth and yet not to wish there to be the brightness of day. And below, 83: Whoever wills something necessarily wills what is necessarily required for it, unless the defect lies on his side, either through ignorance, or because he is drawn away by some passion from the right choice of what serves the intended end, which things cannot be said of God. If, then, God, in willing himself, wills something other than himself, he necessarily wills all that is of necessity required for what is willed by him, just as God necessarily wills the rational soul to exist, supposing that he wills man to exist. And below, 84: If therefore God necessarily wills the things that are required for what is supposed to be willed, it is impossible that he will the things that conflict with them. The Philosopher also bears witness to this, Ethics 3, 12 [n19], in these words: It is irrational that one who does unjust things should not wish to be unjust, or one who commits debauchery to be incontinent. But if someone, not in ignorance, does things from which he will be unjust, he will surely be unjust willingly. Again, in another way, by like reasoning someone could take two things so joined (say, one spiritual and the other temporal) and buy the one, namely the temporal, without buying the other, but receiving it as if for nothing, without any simony. The contrary of this seems to have been decided by the Lord Pope Paschal, as is recorded in the Canon, Cause 1, question 3, in these words: If anyone objects, not the consecrations, indeed, but the things that come from the consecration [n20], he is proved to be utterly foolish. For whoever has sold one of them, without which the other does not come about either, has left neither unsold. And Lombard recites this, Sentences 4, distinction 25. Augustine, Eighty-Three Questions 15, also contributes to this, arguing in this way: The intellect understands itself; therefore it is finite to itself, and it does not wish to be infinite, though it could, because it wishes to be known to itself. Furthermore, one can argue similarly about acts of homicide, theft and the like, [with which], when all their circumstances are posited, sin is necessarily joined. Now if God so wills them, indeed even makes them, just as the preceding arguments

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have taught, that he also wills sin. This opinion John Scotus too seems to hold (on Sentences 1, distinction 41), already cited in the 18th of this book [n21]. The opposite of this is argued in many ways. If God wills sin, God is the Author of sin, according to Augustine, Eighty-Three Questions 3, who says: When it is said "with God as author," it is said "with him willing it." And then, with God as author, man would become worse, against Augustine above, in the same place, who argues thus: With no wise man as author does man become worse; but God is more excellent than every wise man, and much less, then, with him. Therefore with God as author man does not become worse. And below, Question 21, he proves that God is not the author of evil, because he is not the cause of failing, nor of tending toward the non-being that comes about by sinning, since he himself is the highest good and the cause of being. Again, if God willed sin, then since by the tenth his will cannot fail to be effective, he would himself be some cause of sin; and since in every causation of his with a creature he is the first cause, it would seem to follow that God would be the first cause of sin. This is against Augustine, On Free Choice 3, 28, who in disputation investigates the first cause of sin and so finally concludes: Either, then, will is the first cause of sinning, or no sin is a cause of sinning, nor is there anyone to whom sin may rightly be imputed except the sinner. There is therefore no one to whom it may rightly be imputed except one who wills. And below, 35: Sins, as we have long since discussed, are to be attributed to the will of souls themselves alone, and no further cause of sins is to be sought. Again, if God wills sin, and by the tenth his will is efficacious, God makes sin; and he who makes sin is a slave of sin, John 8. God therefore is a slave of sin, and sins. Again, Augustine, in the Refutation of Heretics, 16, of those who impose false chapters on him [n22], in response 5, says: That sin is wholly not from God, nor is he the author of any sin, but the Creator of nature; and almost in every response he says expressly that no one falls into sin by God's will, nor has he predestined any to sin. Again, then anyone could licitly rejoice over his own sin, and similarly over anyone else's: for he knows that God wills it. Again, then everyone who wills ill has rectitude of will; for this is to will just as God wills him to will, as is clear from Anselm, On Free Choice 8, and On Concord 5; and every such person wills just as God wills him to will. Again, then anyone who knew this part [of the matter] ought, or at least could licitly, will to sin; for that is the just will of God, to which, once known, a man ought, as far as he can, licitly to conform himself. Wherefore he who does so would not sin; therefore he would at once sin and also not sin. Hence also Augustine, On Free Choice 3, 26: If each one owes what he has received, and man was so made that he necessarily sins, he owes it that he sin. When he sins, therefore, he does what he owes; but if it is a crime to say this, then nature compels no one to sin, neither his own nature nor another's. And below, 28, speaking of the first cause of an evil will, he says: Whatever that cause of the will is, it is surely either just, or unjust; if just, whoever obeys it will not sin. And Anselm, On Truth 12: Whatever ought to be is right and just, and nothing is right and just except what ought to be. Again, no one is justly the accuser or avenger of a deed of which he is the author; but God is justly the accuser and avenger of sin. Again, Psalm 5: You are not a God who wills iniquity; and Psalm 44 [45]: You have loved justice and hated iniquity; and Proverbs 6: There are six things that God hates, and the seventh his soul detests, etc. And Habakkuk 1: Lord, your eyes are pure, that you may not see evil, and you cannot look upon iniquity; and John 1: Without him was made nothing, that is, sin, according to Augustine, homily 1. Indeed, this very opinion is what all canonical Scripture, and all the saints and doctors, seem to profess with one accord and to uphold unanimously.

[300D–300E]
Now this apparent discord, if it is brought to the mean through the distinction on the will laid down in the immediately preceding chapter, is perhaps harmonized. For God by no means wills sin simply, but only in a qualified sense, as has been said. For to will something done simply, as it sounds in the common way of speaking, is to love it, to approve it as good, and finally to reward it; and because Scripture and the Saints speak in this way, they deny that God wills sin. The common people also understand it so and not otherwise, and for that reason the other [meaning] is not to be spoken before them, because they abhor it exceedingly; and rightly, given the understanding they have. For they understand God to will only according to the first member of the distinction laid down. Hence Hugh says, On the Sacraments 1, part 4, 13: When it is said "God wills the good," it sounds well; but if it is said "God wills evil," it is grievous to the ear, and the pious mind does not accept this concerning the Good One, that he wills evil. For this alone seems to be said when it is said "God wills evil": that the good one loves evil, and approves what is depraved, and counts iniquity his friend, and rejoices in what is like himself, and thinks that good which is evil; and therefore the pious mind rejects this, not because what is said is not well said, but because what is well said is not well understood. Could it not also be said that in the whole universe there is no disorder, deformity or sin simply, but only in a qualified sense? Not simply, because not in respect of the first and highest cause, which disposes all things, positive and privative, beings and non-beings, sweetly with the highest wisdom, beauty,

[301A–301B]
and justice, as the premises argued in the thirteenth of this book, and in the 14th and the 33rd. Does not the 33rd of this book also show that no act is unjust simply, but rather that every act is just with respect to the divine will, although some act may be unjust with respect to a created will that deviates from the divine will (so far as concerns that will itself, though it cannot do so simply)? And the twenty-sixth of this book teaches that every act, in respect of the very substance of the act, is not evil but good, and made by God, which the ninth of this book also confirms. Every act, therefore, with respect to God the author is just; hence so too is everything that necessarily follows any act whatever. For if the antecedent is just, anything necessarily following it will also be just, as also true. And some such act, and something necessarily following it, is sin. It seems, therefore, that there is no disorder, deformity or sin simply in the whole universe, but only in a qualified sense, namely with respect to inferior causes, which will, though they are unable, to disturb the ordering of the superior cause. Hence also, as far as lies in them, they violate and disturb it, as is clear from the twenty-sixth and the next of this book. Therefore it can also be reckoned, not improbably, that God wills sin at least in a qualified sense, though not simply, because not in respect of himself, as the thirty-third explained this word "simply." For he wills sin only, perhaps, as a physician in his medicines wills poison, insofar, that is, as it avails for the exercise of the good, for the punishment of the wicked, for the contemplation of the beauty of the universe by antiperistasis [n23], and for like purposes recited above. Hence Ammonius, cited above, also says that the gods have knowledge of all things, even of contingents, as producing all things that are in the world, not only substances but also their operations, both those that are according to nature and those that are beyond nature. And he adds: What is beyond nature entered at the same time with the necessary order underlying the course of beings, in those that are by nature fitted to share in this, not principally but according to the mode called parypostasis, that is, side-existence [n24]. Algazel also, in Metaphysics 5, the last [part], treating of the providence of God and evil, says: The good is provided for through itself, but evil is provided for accidentally. Each thing, therefore, is ordered; and this is likewise the opinion of Avicenna.

[301C]
Do not Scripture and the Church also speak thus, often saying that God does not will the death of the sinner or of the impious, nor rejoice in the destruction of men? Does not the Lord himself say: Is the death of the wicked a matter of my will? Ezekiel 18. Is it not also written in Wisdom 1: God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living; and many like things occur in Scripture. Does not the Church too often sing like things?

But how are these to be soundly understood? For it is certain that the Lord will damn the impious, the accursed, and the sons of perdition, to death and eternal perdition, and that by willing this, not by a new willing but by an eternal one, nor by a willing sad to himself, but glad, indeed supremely glad, as the thirty-ninth part of the first corollary of this book, the ninth of this, and the twenty-third, together with the third part of the first corollary of this, canonical Scripture, and the faith of the Church clearly teach. Does not Scripture also attest that famine and death were created for vengeance, Ecclesiasticus 39 [n25]? And does not Moses in Deuteronomy 28 speak thus:

[301D–301E]
But if you refuse to hear the voice of your Lord, etc., all these curses shall come upon you, etc. And as before the Lord rejoiced over you, doing you good, so he will rejoice destroying you and overturning you. Does not the Wisdom of God also say to the rebellious: I will laugh at your destruction? Proverbs 1. Nor is it surprising: for the Lord will rejoice in all his works, Psalm 103 [104]. And how will this contrariety, as it seems, be brought to concord, or be shown to be nothing, except with the support of the distinction laid down? Hence also Augustine, Against Julian 5, 15: "You assert," he says to Julian, "that these are contrary, as though it could not happen that one and the same evil be inflicted on sinners both by the iniquity of the Devil and by the equity of God; nor do the divine utterances conflict with one another here, because it is written, God did not make death, and likewise it is written, Life and death are from the Lord God, since the deceiver of man, the Devil, is the cause of death, which God inflicted not as its first author but as the avenger of sin." With this manner of speaking about willing and not willing, some philosophical and theological things written in the immediately preceding chapter of this book also agree. According to the two branches of the distinction already touched on, then, [the texts] run, as it seems, and the objections already raised no longer stand in the way. That saying of Augustine, "with God as author man does not become worse," seems capable of being understood in the manner stated, namely with God as author principally, that is, willing this principally. And if this does not please anyone, let him tell me how, with God as author, man does every act of sin, as to the whole substance of the act, as the third of this book, and the 4th, 26th and 27th, and the following, make plain; and how that befits God and not this; and, if with God as author man does these things, how with God as author does man not become worse? And surely by this one [answer] one can respond in some way to almost all the objections raised. Yet it is also true, in another way, and can truthfully be said, that God is not the author of sin as he is of a rightly done deed. For he is the author of the latter in this way: that he alone supernaturally creates, and gives to the one acting rightly, faith, hope and charity, and perhaps other habits inclining to merit and making all merit; not so, however, on the side of sin. So that, however, the intention of Augustine and of the other Saints may more

[302A–302B]
clearly appear, one must attend to their manner of speaking and understanding when they deny that God wills sin, and the cause of this denial must be weighed. The cause of this denial seems to be this: because the Apostle, and Augustine, and other Saints laid down predestination, foreknowledge and the like on God's part, the Pelagians and other heretics wanted to excuse sinners from their sins and to throw the cause and blame back on God, who thus predestined or foreknew. The Saints therefore mean to say that God by his predestination, foreknowledge or anything of the kind does not force them, against their will, to sin, but that they sin freely and of their own will; and that God, by predestining, foreknowing or willing sins, neither sins nor acts unjustly, nor is the first imputable or blameworthy cause of sins, but that the first imputable and blameworthy cause is the will of the sinner himself. Hence Anselm, On Concord 5, says: Many complain because they think that free choice avails nothing toward salvation or damnation, but necessity alone, on account of God's foreknowledge. And below, 7: Some cry out, saying, "So it was foreknown and predestined by God, and therefore it was done by necessity and could not have been done otherwise"; these he consequently refutes. And below, the last: he says that evils come about through man's fault alone, which works them, not through the fault of God. Hence also Augustine, On Free Choice 3, 4, and in the Sentences of Prosper 381: God, he says, compelling no one to sin, nevertheless foresees those who will sin by their own will. Why then should he, being just, not judge what he foreknows without compelling it to be done? For just as by your memory you do not compel things to have been done that are past, so God by his foreknowledge does not compel the things to be done that are future. And as you remember some things that you have done, yet have not done everything you remember, so God foreknows all things of which he is author, yet is not himself the author of all he foreknows; but of those of which he is not an evil author, he is a just avenger. Observe that he denies that God, foreknowing sins, compels to sin; and what he first said simply, that God is not the author of all that he foreknows, because he is not the author of evils, he at once qualifies and explains, saying "of which," he says, "he is not an evil author"; and he adds, "he is a just avenger"; and so he excuses God from

[302C–302D]
sin and accuses the sinner. Again, the Apostle, in Romans 9, treating of the predestination of Jacob and the reprobation of Esau, not from works but according to the election of God who calls, says: What then shall we say? Is there iniquity with God? Far from it. And above, 3: What if some of them did not believe? Will their unbelief make void the faith of God? But God is true, and every man a liar, as it is written: that you may be justified in your words, and may prevail when you are judged. But if our iniquity commends the justice of God, what shall we say? Is God unjust, who inflicts wrath? Far from it. For if the truth of God has abounded in my lie to his glory, why am I still judged as a sinner? Here he removes from God iniquity, unfaithfulness and injustice. Here the Gloss recites [n26] some who were wise in a carnal way, who from that prophetic saying, I have sinned, that you may be justified in your words, and may prevail when you are judged, argued that God wished us to sin, so that by comparison with us he might appear just, and merciful when he forgave us our sins; and that our sins profit and benefit him; and the more we sin, the more it pleases him, and the more his justice and holiness grow. Here Ambrose also says, as the Gloss there recites: It is manifest that if the lie of men contributes to the glory of God, so that he alone may appear true, then those who sin are not to be called sinners, because they would seem to sin not by their will but by his impulse, which be far from us; and the sense is: If God appears truthful by my lie, that is, by my sin, why does he judge me as a sinner? Again, Augustine, Enchiridion 78: When the Apostle had replied "Far from it," he says, that is, far be it that there be iniquity with God, then, to prove it, he says that this is done by no iniquity of God: for he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I shall have had mercy, and I will show mercy to whom I shall have been merciful. The same, On the Predestination, against the Pelagians 9, says thus: Those who are without the grace of predestination, that is, alien from the purpose of God, and persevere in evil works, even if they have departed from this life, as you think, we do not say were so ordained by God, the maker of men, that they should perish, as though he himself had created in them the habits of an evil life, and had himself hurled them, unwilling, into every work of death. Far be this from the

[302E]
divine purpose: for God is not one who wills iniquity, nor has he commanded anyone to act impiously. Behold the understanding and gloss of such authorities in Scripture. And below, the last: Since here, on either side, we are unable to say anything clearly [n27], let us believe only that the one guilty of death depends on the will of the Judge, lest anyone think that it comes about through a divine fault that not all are saved; the Apostle said: Who wills all to be saved. Therefore all men who are saved are saved by God's willing: for our God is the God of saving, and of the Lord are the issues of death, and because wrath is in his fury, and life in his will. And in On the Predestination of the Saints 12: By predestination God foreknew what he himself was going to do. But he foreknows what he does not do, such as any sins; for even if there are some things which are both sins and punishments of sins, whence it is said, God handed them

[303A–303B]
over to a reprobate mind, to do what is not fitting, the sin there is not God's, but judgment. And in Against Julian 5, 5, speaking of Ahab deceived through false prophets, he says: The king himself sinned, by believing false prophets; but this very thing was also the punishment of sin, with God judging and sending an evil Angel, that we might understand more openly how it is said in the Psalm that he sent the wrath of his indignation through evil Angels. But was it by erring? Did he judge or do anything unjustly or rashly? Far from it. But not for nothing was it said, Your judgments are like a great abyss, and O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, etc. The same, Retractations 1, 21, says: I said, "God seeks the death of no one," which is to be understood thus: that man acquired death for himself by abandoning God, or not returning to God, according to what is written, God did not make death. Behold: in a certain respect, that is, not in that respect or mode which involves sin, death is from God; in a certain respect , or in what is from man [n28]; and he adds: But this also is no less true: Life and death are from the Lord God. And below, 26: Lest what I said be misunderstood, "God is not the author of evil, because he is the author of all things that are, because insofar as all things are, they are good," and lest it be thought from this that the punishment of the evil is not from him, which is certainly an evil to those who are punished; I said it as it was said, God did not make death, though elsewhere it is written, Death and life are from the Lord God. Evil is indeed evil, but it is in the good works of God, since it is just that the wicked be punished; and surely everything just is good. Again, Gregory, Moralia 25, 15, on that of Job 34, He makes the hypocrite reign, etc.: That Antichrist will then reign over the impious, therefore, is not from the injustice of the one judging, but from the fault of the one suffering. And below: He who suffers a bad ruler should accuse the fault of his own work rather than the injustice of the one governing. Lombard also understands such authorities in the manner stated, for which, in Sentences 1, distinction 38, he adduces Augustine On John, saying: God, foreknowing the future, foretold through the Prophet the unbelief of the Jews, but did not cause it: for he does not compel anyone to sin because he foreknew the future sins of men; for the sins of those men

[303C]
he foreknew, not his own. And the same, On Grace and Free Choice 3, against those who excuse sinners and accuse God, says thus: There are men who try to excuse themselves even by God himself, to whom James the Apostle says: Let no one, when he is tempted, say that he is tempted by God; for God is not a tempter of evils [n29]. Again, the book of Proverbs of Solomon answers those who wish to excuse themselves: The folly of a man spoils his way, and he blames God in his heart; and the book of Ecclesiasticus says: Do not say, "It is because of God that I departed"; do not say, "He himself led me into it." And below, 5: Let no one blame God in his heart, but let each impute it to himself when he sins, nor, when he does something savage, disown it as not from his own will. And if anyone argues that by the same reasoning it should be said that God neither wills nor makes our good merits, because he compels no one to merit unwillingly, it must be said that merits are attributed to God otherwise than sins, namely on account of habits created by God alone and infused into us, exciting to merits and making all merits; and because God in the merit of anyone whatever is the first imputable and praiseworthy cause, on account of that and the merit he loves and approves,

[303D]
and prepares a reward for it; not so on the side of sin. Hence Anselm, On Concord 6: God, he says, acts in all good wills and works, both that they are essentially, and that they are good; but in evil ones, not that they are evil, but only that they are by essence. How, moreover, God makes good things by his goodness alone, and evil things by the fault alone of man or the devil; and how man does good things through free choice, grace furnishing it, and evil by his own will alone operating; and what God has in evil things without fault of his own, and man in good things with praise to himself, yet so that man's good things may be seen plainly to be imputable to God, and his evil things to man: this will, as I think, be made clearer when we treat of grace and free choice, God granting. Similarly one must understand what Sacred Scripture and the Doctors say very often, namely that the punishment is from God, not the fault. For punishment is from God alone, without man's co-operating, not so the fault; and punishment is similarly from God punishing, indeed as first and principal cause punishing; but fault or sin is not so from God, as from a first blameworthy or sinning cause. And if it is still said that it always tastes bad

[303E]
to many [n30] to say that God in any way wills sin, it is certainly true, and this perhaps, according to Hugh in the place cited, not because what is said is not well said, but because what is well said is not well understood. Would that they would take the salt of wisdom, would have savor and understand the truth, savory to a healthy palate, and would know that there is no evil in the world which is not for the sake of some great good, and perhaps for the sake of some greater good. Why then should this marvelous and great mode of doing good, or of beneficence, be withheld from the world and from God, the author of the whole world? Indeed it seems more miraculous and greater to make good things from evils than from goods, or to make good things alone. And doubtless it tastes just as bad to many if it is said that God wills and does the act of incest of a father with his daughter, of a son with his mother, of one professed in continence with a woman professed, of parricide, sedition, blasphemy and the like; and yet the Saints, no less than the Philosophers, say so, as what has gone before makes plain. For who in such

[304A]
incest prepares and moves the seed, creates and infuses the soul into the fetus, if not God? And however it may sound, so the Saints of God speak, indeed the Spirit of God who speaks in them, as was recited above. And Isaiah 26: Lord, you have worked all our works in us; and below, 45: I, the Lord, forming light and creating darkness, making peace and creating evil; and Amos 3: Shall there be evil in a city which the Lord has not done? And the Apostle says in 2 Corinthians 5 that God made Christ sin for us, which would sound far more horrible to the ears of not a few simple people who judge according to the surface of the letter; and therefore our most just Judge so forbade, and taught us to judge otherwise: Do not, he says, judge according to appearance, but judge a just judgment, John 7. By these things the objections are answered that argue about God's authorizing of the sinner [n31], and how God is not the first cause of sin, because he is not the first cause imputable to blame; and the authority of Augustine there speaks plainly of such a cause, and that manner of speaking is perhaps taken from that of Psalm 31 [32]: Blessed is the man to whom the Lord has not imputed

[304B]
sin. As to the other [argument], which argues that God makes sin, the rebuttal is likewise to be made from the real act of sin; yet one must reply by a distinction, according to the second mode of amphiboly [n32]. For that [statement] can be taken properly or figuratively [n33], according to the usual manner of speaking, and as the Philosopher says in Sophistical Refutations 1, when we are accustomed to speak so. In the first way it is not true, because sin properly is nothing, nor can it be, by the twenty-sixth of this book; hence it is not makeable by anyone. Wherefore, as the same twenty-sixth recites from Augustine, sin thus has no efficient cause, but only a deficient one. Taken figuratively, it can further be understood in two ways. First, as is the more usual way of speaking, according to which we say that to make sin is to sin, and he who makes sin sins; and so the Evangelist speaks, and so God does not make sin. Second, in that God makes some positive act in a rational creature, from which follows, or with which is conjoined, the sin of that creature, not of God; and so God makes sin: for he himself makes all our works, as was shown above. To the other [argument] from Augustine's Refutation of

[304C]
Heretics, the answer is likewise given by way of instance, through the positive act of sin; yet another answer is plain from the course of the argument there and elsewhere, as had already been alleged. For when he says that sin is not from God and the like, he understands it in the manner stated, namely that sin is not by God compelling or impelling anyone unwillingly, and so as to render the man excused and God accused. Hence in response 16 he says thus: Those who are not to persevere, when they fall away from piety, fall away not from the work of God, but from their own will. Behold: not from the work of God, in the sense that it would exclude or oppose their will, but adversatively [n34] and contrariwise they fall away from their own will. And it follows: Nor are they pushed that they may fall, nor driven out that they may abandon. Behold: by this he denies that coercion or violence is applied by God to such persons toward sinning. Again, above, this eleventh objection is raised against him: that when fathers defile daughters with incest, and sons their mothers, it happens because God so predestined that it should. Augustine replies: If it were objected to the Devil that he is the author and instigator of such crimes, I think that by some reason he could exonerate himself

[304D–304E]
of this odium, and would convict another as the perpetrator of the crimes, prevailing from their own will; for even if he took delight in the frenzy of those who sin, he would still prove that he had not inflicted the force of the crimes. By what folly, then, or by what madness, is it laid down that this must be referred to the counsel of God, when it cannot be ascribed wholly even to the Devil? Behold: on Augustine's understanding, even the Devil is not the author of human sin, in the sense that man could excuse himself wholly through him. For the Devil does not inflict the force of crimes, and the sin cannot be ascribed wholly to the Devil, because man consents and cooperates freely and by his own will.

Another objection, that anyone could lawfully rejoice, goes through equally for the very essence of the evil act, and nonetheless does not go through. Suppose that God wills you to be sad and not to rejoice, and you do this knowingly: therefore you ought to rejoice in it. How does that follow? A good and grateful son, perhaps, ought not to rejoice at the temporal or eternal death of his father, though he knows that it is inflicted on him by God. Nor, probably, did the blessed Mary or the Disciples rejoice at the killing of Christ; rather they grieved, as did the other devout Christians, though they knew that nothing had befallen Christ by chance or fortuitously, but that everything came from the divine will and was ordered by providence. And if you should perhaps still reply: "If God wills sin, you ought, or at least you can, lawfully will it likewise, and therefore likewise rejoice in it, since Scripture says, Desire fulfilled delights the soul, Proverbs 13" [n35]: the answer, according to the view of Anselm, Augustine, and the other Fathers, can be that rectitude of will is not always a man's willing what God wills, but his willing what God wills him to will, with the requisite circumstances; and so likewise with rejoicing. Or perhaps it could be said that sin, insofar as it is punishment and from God, is nevertheless in some way his, as appears from the premisses here and from the thirty-second of this book,

[305A–305E]
and so perhaps a man can rejoice in it, though not insofar as it is a sin of free will. On this Gregory says, in the twenty-second, Moral. 10 [n36], on that text of Job 31, If I rejoiced at the ruin of him who hated me: "When almighty God strikes some perverse person, one must grieve with the misery of the one who perishes, and rejoice with the justice of the Judge." Anselm's statement, that rectitude of will is a man's willing what God wills him to will, goes through equally for the very substance of the evil act. It is also evident that this definition, taken precisely according to those words, is not convertible with rectitude of will, that rectitude, I mean, which renders those who will upright of heart and just in a moral sense. For on that reading a horse, children, fools, and the like, willing whatever it might be, would be morally upright of heart and just, as is plain from the ninth of this, 27, and what follows. Nor, if God wills something to be done through John, and John himself does it voluntarily but ignorantly and without intending it (that is, not knowing that God wills this to be done through him, and having no intention directed to God, but one beside him or against him, as frequently happens, as the premisses in 32 of this book attest) is he to be said to will rightly in a moral sense, or justly, as is clear enough to the moral philosophers and to the theologians. For who does not know that works are to be judged by the intention of those who do them, as the whole sect of the Stoics unanimously attests? The Philosopher too, in Politics 7, 15 [n37], says: There are two things in which all do well; the one, that the intention and end of actions be rightly set; the other, to find the actions that lead to the end. And in Ethics 6, 10 [n38]: The work is perfected both by prudence and by moral virtue: for virtue makes the intention right, but prudence does so with regard to it. And below: We say that some who do just things are by no means just: for example, those who do what is ordained by the laws, either unwillingly, or through ignorance, or on account of something else and not for the sake of the things themselves, although they do what ought to be done, and whatever the virtuous man ought to do; but as thus it seems, and in the manner of one in a certain condition doing each thing, as if he were good. I mean, for example, on account of choice and for the sake of the very things done. In Ethics 2, 4 [n39], the same author

posits an agreement of art and virtue in this: that for someone to be a master of an art, a grammarian, say, it is not enough that he produce the work of the art, a grammatical work; it is also required that he do it artfully, that is, grammatically, according to the grammar existing in him. For he says: It happens that someone produces something grammatical both by chance and at the prompting of another. Then, therefore, he is a grammarian, if he produces something grammatical and does so grammatically, that is, according to the grammar that is in him; implying that the same happens in virtue. Where he at once sets down the difference between art and virtue, saying: Moreover, it is not alike in the arts and in the virtues. For what is produced by the arts has its goodness in itself; it is enough, then, that these come to be in a certain condition. But what is done according to the virtues is not done justly or temperately merely if these are in a certain condition; the one doing them must also act in a certain condition: first, if knowing; next, if choosing, and choosing for the sake of this. Who, moreover, does not know that moral operations are by no means to be discerned from the substance of the work alone, but far more from the circumstances, of which one is, and not the least, with what intention, for the attainment of what end, for whose sake finally the work is done? Hence the Philosopher too, in Ethics 3, 3 [n40], enumerates seven moral circumstances: who, what, concerning what, and in what, by what, for whose sake, and how. Many Catholic authorities, reviewed in the demonstration of the thirty-second part of the first corollary of this, show this view plainly; and so does the supreme Author of the whole Catholic faith, under the metaphor of the eye, simple and wicked [n41]. For who anywhere doubts that this is to be referred to the intention of the interior eye? Therefore Anselm himself also, who in On Truth 12 teaches that truth, rectitude and justice are the same in reality, and indeed that they define one another, defines justice, in On Free Choice 3 and 8 and in On Concord 5 and 8 [n42], as rectitude of will kept for its own sake, that is, for the sake of rectitude or justice itself, which can never come about except through an intention directed finally to rectitude or justice for its own sake. Hence in On Concord 8 he also says this: "But lest anyone suppose that he is called just or upright by divine authority who keeps rectitude of will only for the sake of something else, we say that justice is rectitude of will kept for its own sake. For he who keeps it only for the sake of something else does not love it, but that for the sake of which he keeps it; and therefore he is not to be called just, nor is such rectitude to be named justice." The same in On Truth 12, cited above: that whatever ought to be is rightly and justly, and nothing is rightly and justly unless it ought to be. He asks whether a falling stone ought to be called just because it does what it ought; and answers no, because it does not will what it does. Again, whether a horse that wills to graze can be called just because it willingly does what it ought; and he answers no, because it does not recognize justice or rectitude. Further, whether any man who wills what he ought wills rightly and has rectitude of will; and he answers no, because he can do this without knowing it, as when someone wants to shut the door against a man who, unknown to him, wants to kill another in the house. Further, whether one who knows that he ought to will what he wills always wills rightly and has rectitude of will; and he answers

[306A–306E]
that no, because it can happen that someone, understanding, wills what he ought and does not will that he ought, as when a robber is forced to give back stolen money. Further: whether everyone who knows and wills that he ought to will what he wills has rectitude of will; and he answers no, as in the case of the man who feeds a starving poor man in order to gain empty glory. And he adds: Every will, just as it wills something, so wills for the sake of something. For just as one must consider what it wills, so one must see why it wills; for it ought to be no more right in willing what it ought than in willing for the sake of that for which it ought. Therefore every will has both a why and a what. For we will nothing at all unless there is a reason why we will it. But when the just man wills what he ought, he keeps rectitude of will for the sake of nothing other, insofar as he is to be called just, than rectitude itself. From all this, then, it is clearly evident that not everyone who wills what God wills him to will therefore always wills rightly, necessarily and simply. He does so only if he wills it knowingly (with at least the knowledge required in moral matters) and intentionally: that is, if he believes that God so wills, and therefore wills it finally, according to his intention and purpose, so as to fulfil the divine will and not his own. Someone who wished could expound Anselm much more briefly, when he says that rectitude of will is a man's willing what God wills him to will: the "wills" there is taken for "wills simply, loves, and approves," not in a qualified sense, as has been said; and not everyone who wills something wills as God wills, simply loving and approving his willing it. And if you still reply against this, supposing that someone knows that God wills him to commit the sin of adultery, so that he commits it knowingly and intentionally in the aforesaid manner, and therefore at once sins and does not sin (he sins by committing the sin of adultery, and does not sin since in doing this he wills and acts rightly and has rectitude of will and of operation, as appears from the premisses): if by the sin of adultery you understand the act that is usually adultery and sin, it seems that someone could commit it by divine dispensation or command without sinning, as seems to have been literally the case with Hosea [n43], who at the Lord's command

took a wife of fornications and begot children of fornication by her, as appears in Hosea 1, as some Doctors also understand, though others seem to think the contrary. For it is evident from the premisses in the twenty-sixth of this book that such an act is not in itself a sin. And if you still try to resist, supposing that someone knows that God wills him to commit some sin that is a sin, an act of sin wrapped up with malice; and that he therefore commits it knowingly and intentionally in the aforesaid manner, then he sins, as the hypothesis clearly proves, and does not sin, according to the response given above: your supposition plainly contains an inconsistency and a contradiction, namely that he sins and likewise does not sin. For anyone who knows the divine will, and does something solely for its sake and in all things according to it, seems to act well and not to sin. But from this perhaps you will argue that God has some will concerning man and his free act, to which man cannot conform himself meritoriously, however much God reveals it to him as something to be known and tries to reveal it: namely the will by which he wills man to sin, or to commit a sin that is a sin. Will you not also admit that God has some will concerning angel and man confirmed in grace, to which they cannot knowingly conform themselves meritoriously? For it is evident that those confirmed in consummate beatitude cannot progress further in merit; and even if you should suppose that they can do so meritoriously [n44], rightly or justly, it is still evident that God can will that someone not conform himself justly and rightly to the divine will; and to that will how could he knowingly, justly and rightly conform himself? God can also will that someone do something in ignorance; and to that will how could anyone knowingly fit himself? God can also will that a man err, believing this or that false thing; and how can anyone knowingly conform himself to this will? For how can anyone knowingly err, believing in the particular case, and under its own proper form, something distinctly false, whatever it be? For who, thus knowing something to be false, equally believes it to be true? Moreover God can will that someone will and pray meritoriously, holily,

and justly (justly, I say, as regards the one who himself wills something to be done), believing, in ignorance and error, that this being done pleases God, or that God wills it, while God wills the contrary and not that; and how could anyone knowingly conform himself to that will? And perhaps you will still not cease to object, supposing that someone knows that God wills him to sin: then such a man ought, or can lawfully, to sin. For he ought, or at least can lawfully, submit himself to the divine will and conform himself to it fully, especially when he knows it. But this goes through equally for the essence of the shameful act, and nonetheless is resolved by the premisses. Nor perhaps will you cease even then, but will say: "You know well, or believe, that you will sometime sin; therefore you know or believe, according to the premisses, that God wills this. So you yourself also ought, or can lawfully, will the same."

[307A–307C]
But this goes through equally for the substance of the evil act, and is also resolved by the premisses. To another point the answer is plain through the same thing, namely the substance of the shameful act, and through the other things already premised. Moreover the consequence limps and does not go through. Suppose you know that God wills you to will nothing, or that he wills you to will himself alone: therefore you ought to will this; how does that follow? That saying of Augustine and Anselm about ought, adduced in confirmation of this, is resolved by the premisses; for it goes through equally for the very essence of the evil act. Nor does everyone who does what he ought thereby at once act justly or rightly, unless he does it knowingly and intentionally in the manner stated, as the preceding arguments make plain, and as Anselm, cited above, also testifies. Nevertheless, the owed-to-be-done can be considered in two ways: with respect to the divine will, and with respect to the created rational will. With respect to the divine will, all things ought to be done as they are done, and it is just and right that all be done as they are done, as the foregoing clearly shows. With respect to the created rational will, however, that alone in its actions is owed to be done, just and right, which it does knowingly

and with intention toward God, and from love of him finally, for his sake, as is plain from the premisses here, and from the thirtieth part of the first Corollary. To that saying of Augustine also, If the will is just, whoever obeys it will not sin, the answer must be likewise. On the other side, moreover [n45], it is evident that someone can justly and reasonably accuse and avenge some deed of which he is in some way the author: for instance, if the doer does not do it knowingly and intentionally, and with the purpose of carrying out the authority or will of his author, but in the contrary manner and with the purpose of doing harm, as the earlier arguments taught. As to the authorities of Scripture, the answer is plain from what has been said. Yet it may be objected thus: "God wills sin, therefore in some way he loves sin, and he hates every sin; therefore he loves and hates the same thing." The answer is that, speaking of loving and hating in a qualified sense, the conclusion is true of God, as of man. For one can love someone as a father, and hate him as a punisher; and for God to love someone is to will good to him, and to hate him is to will evil to him, as is evident from the twenty-fifth, and so he wills for his elect eternal good and temporal evil,

and for the reprobate the contrary; and for the devil himself he wills a great good of nature, and a great evil of punishment and everlasting misery. Or it can be said in all these cases, as is said by some, that just as sin and every privation is not understood in itself but by comparison with its opposite state, and not properly positively, but in a way privatively, as the twenty-sixth teaches, so too sin is willed by God privatively; but any act, according to what it is, since as such it is good, is willed by God properly positively. This response, if it fully suffices and pleases my betters, pleases me. For in a question of such magnitude I should rather hear my betters than answer myself, the least of men.

NOTES

1. Nolle is rendered "nill" (a positive willing-against), distinct from non velle, "not to will" (a mere absence of willing). Bradwardine's argument in this chapter turns on exactly this distinction (see 299A, "not only privatively but also positively"). Volutio is "willing" and nolutio "nilling", following the Conventions.
2. Technical terms of the doctrine of supposition. A term has "confused and distributive" supposition when one may "descend" to each of its supposits (for example, from "theft" to this theft and that); it has "merely confused" supposition when one may not so descend. The print reads pro dici de nullo, where one would expect per; I take it as "by the dictum de nullo". The figura dictionis is the fallacy arising from a shift in the mode of signifying.
3. Hugh of Saint Victor, De sacramentis christianae fidei. Savile's margin gives only "Hugo", and Bradwardine's reference is "1. de Sacramentis 4. part. 14."
4. Pia mens de bono: I take bono as "the Good", God, since the sentence turns on what is said of God. The Latin could also be read "from a good [disposition]", but Bradwardine's "Et ideo refutat hoc pia mens" supports the first reading.
5. Psalm numbers in this chapter are Vulgate. The verse "Imple facies eorum ignominia" is Ps 82 [83]:17; Ps 35 is 35 [36]:12–13; Ps 57 is 57 [58]:9; Ps 10 is 10 [11]:7. Only the Vulgate numbers appear in the English text.
6. Pseudo-Aristotle, De mundo 5 (396a–b), in the Latin version Bradwardine uses, with the "other translation" variants he cites. Gliscit … contrariorum natura translates the Greek γλίχεται: gliscere takes the genitive here, "yearns for contraries". The sentence on "unanimity" is condensed, and I have kept it literal.
7. "Alacen" is Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), whose Perspectiva (De aspectibus) circulated in Latin.
8. Ecclesiasticus is Sirach; the passage is Sir 33:7–15 (Vulgate). Bradwardine's text is a loose abridgment of the Vulgate, with his own "vel alias immutabit" (or: "otherwise will change"); I translate his Latin.
9. The Song of the Three Children (Dan 3:72 Vulgate, Benedicite: "Benedicite, lux et tenebrae, Domino"). The marginal variant considerantium would give "in the hearts of those who consider well". I translate the main text confidentium.
10. Prov 22:14 (Vulgate): fovea profunda os alienae, "the mouth of a strange woman", that is, a woman not one's own.
11. Isidore of Seville, Sententiae (Savile: "De summo bono") 2.
12. "Peter" here is Peter Lombard (Sentences 2, d. 35), not the Apostle mentioned at 295C.
13. ipsum et ipsam causantis: the Latin is loose. I take ipsum as the act of sinning (peccare) and ipsam as the passio, the privation; the sinning then "causes it and it", the act and the resulting privation. I do not emend.
14. The subject of puniret is not expressed. I take it as the second sin, which would not punish the first "in order or justly" unless a just Judge had so ordained.
15. Augustine here quotes Julian. The sense seems to require a denial ("and you add that they are not to be thought to have fallen… through the power of God who hands over"). The print has quomodo; I translate it literally and do not emend.
16. The Scripture references, in order: Isa 19:14; Isa 63:17; Isa 64:5; Josh 11:20; 3 Kgs [1 Kgs] 12:15 (cf. 2 Chr 10:15); 2 Chr 25:20; 2 Thess 2:10–11; Ezek 14:9; Ps 77 [78]:49. Bradwardine's wording is Augustine's (Contra Iulianum 5).
17. Savile has a full stop at positiuum. I read the sentence as a rhetorical question, which fits "For if he does not will anything, why can he not…" that follows.
18. The stretch ends mid-sentence at the page's last unit: qui ex causa de (continued in 299D with necessitate sequitur, "which follows from the cause of necessity"). The English breaks at the same place.
19. "Ethics 3, 12" (Savile's numbering of the Latin translation, in chapters) is Nicomachean Ethics III.5, 1114a11–13. The Latin renders the Greek closely: it is irrational to suppose that the man who acts unjustly does not wish to be unjust, or the licentious man to be self-indulgent.
20. Savile's text repeats "Si quis obiecerit" (once to introduce the quotation, once as the quotation's own opening), and the quotation is elliptical: the thing said to be sold or bought is missing after "res quae ex consecratione proveniunt". Savile's enim is hard to place. I have translated what is printed, with the sense that the objector's point is that what is sold is not the consecrations but their results. The passage is Paschal II as cited in Gratian, C. 1 q. 3.
21. praescriptus is masculine and so agrees with Scotus ("the Scotus already cited"). I take "18. huius" as the place of that earlier citation.
22. The Confutatio haereticorum with numbered "responses" to false "chapters" laid on Augustine is evidently Prosper of Aquitaine's Responsiones to the Gallic or Vincentian objections, which circulated under Augustine's name; the "16" after the title would then be the sixteen objections. Savile gives only "Augustinus".
23. Antiperistasis: the heightening of a quality by the surrounding presence of its contrary (heat intensified by cold, and so on). Here evil serves to set off the good, so that the beauty of the universe is "contemplated" by contrast.
24. Parypostasis (Greek parhypostasis): a by-product, something that has existence "alongside" or incidentally to the principal reality. Savile glosses it as secus existentiae, "of side-existence."
25. Ecclesiasticus is the book of Sirach; chapter 39 (vv. 35–36) is meant. Likewise "Ecclesiastici" in the margin and text at 303C. Parabolae is Proverbs.
26. The Gloss is the Glossa ordinaria on Romans 3:5–7. The "Ambrose" it cites just below is, in modern terms, almost certainly Ambrosiaster's commentary on Romans, which the Middle Ages ascribed to Ambrose.
27. Savile prints utraque pars … dicere nihil valemus (nominative, "each side … we are unable"). The construction wants utramque partem or an ablative ("on either side"). I translate the evident sense, "on either side."
28. A crux in Savile's own text. Main text: secundum quid, vel quod est ab homine, with margin variants quod (for quid) and quem (for quod). The evident sense is that death is from God under one aspect (as punishment), not under the aspect (sin) that involves man. I translate the main text literally and have adopted neither variant.
29. intentator malorum is the Vulgate's rare word at James 1:13. It may be read "not a tempter to evils" or "untempted by evils"; the context (Augustine against those who blame God) requires the first, which is how I render it.
30. male sapit … sal sapientiae … saperent … sapidam sano gustui: Bradwardine plays on sapere, both "to taste" and "to be wise." English keeps the "tastes bad … savor … savory" strand and only partly the "wise" one.
31. autorizatio is a rare, scholastic word; the sense is God's "making author" or authorizing. Savile's peccatoris ("of the sinner") may be an error for peccati, but I translate what is printed.
32. Savile has penes secundum modum amphiboliae, "according to the second mode of amphiboly." Amphiboly is the fallacy of ambiguous construction treated in Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations (Savile: "1. Elench."). I have not tried to verify which mode Bradwardine counts as the "second."
33. Savile prints transmutive here (evidently a misprint for transumptive, as in the next sentence, "Transumptive potest adhuc intelligi"). Transumptive means by transference, that is, figuratively. I translate "figuratively."
34. adversative: Bradwardine reads Prosper's "non … sed" as an adversative contrast. "Not from God's work, but (adversatively) from their own will" is the point; he is not saying they fall away against their will.
35. Prov 13:19 (Vulgate Parabolae = Proverbs).
36. Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob 22, on Job 31:29 (Vulg. 31:29, "Si gavisus sum ad ruinam eius qui me oderat"). Savile's "Moral. 10" is the chapter number; the keyed text prints the participle with a gap (see Errata).
37. Aristotle, Politics VII.13 (1331b26–30), as in Savile's division. The print repeats vnum quidem in both clauses; the sense of the second is "the other," and I render it so.
38. Aristotle, Ethics VI.12 (1144a6–20). The second quotation ("sed vt sic videtur, et qualiter habentem operari singula, velut sit bonus") is awkward in the Latin version; I give it literally. The sense seems to be that these men do the right things, but not as the settled state of the good man would have them done.
39. Aristotle, Ethics II.4 (1105a17–33). Savile's "quarto" is the chapter. Alio supposito is rendered "at the prompting of another," since the Latin version is literal and the Greek means being taught by or prompted by another.
40. Aristotle, Ethics III.1 (1111a3–6), the list of circumstances. Savile's "3. 3" is the medieval book and chapter.
41. Mt 6:22–23 and Lk 11:34 (the "single" and the "evil" eye). "Simplex" and "nequam" are the Vulgate's words.
42. Anselm, De veritate 12; De libero arbitrio 3; De concordia (the quotation that follows is from the third question, ch. 1). Savile's "5. et 8." and "8." are his own references, kept as printed.
43. Hos 1:2–3. The "wife of fornications" is Gomer; "literally" (ad literam) opposes the allegorical reading, which is the one the Doctors named in the next clause hold.
44. promeritorie is a rare word, and the clause lacks an expressed object. I read it as "by way of merit," with "that they can conform themselves" understood from the question just before. The sense is that even granting such conformity, it would not be done knowingly, justly and rightly.
45. The print reads Pro alio autem constat. I take pro alio as "on the other side" and translate it so; it introduces the reply to Augustine's saying about obedience to a just will.