De causa Dei: Book II, Chapter 22
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, 556D–559D; Latin from EEBO-TCP A16626 (public domain).
Canonical: https://bradwardine.wrootpress.com/2/22/
Status: draft translation, not yet reviewed.

[556D–556E]
CHAPTER XXII. He corrects the first of these in particular.

Again, in particular against the first: No thing made by God can exist of itself, nor preserve another thing in being without him, as the second [n1] showed beforehand. Therefore neither can it act or produce another thing in being, as the preceding chapter argued. Again, the third and fourth Corollaries of the first book, with the reasons and authorities that prove them, refute these men in particular. Again, in that case God would have no knowledge of present things, nor even of future ones. Not all things would be governed by his providence, and many things would happen by chance and by fortune. Nor would there be any valid route, taken from motion, for proving the common First Mover, for a second cause could move while the first cause was wholly at rest. And there would be many other impossibilities and absurdities, as the preceding chapter shows more fully

[557A–557B]
Again, in that case a man could by himself alone open the door of his heart to the one who knocks, contrary to the 38th of the first. Again, this is against the authorities of Anselm, On the Fall of the Devil 20 and On Concord 6 and 7, where he shows that God brings about every act of a created will in three ways, as the preceding chapter cited. Furthermore, by a similar reasoning God would be called, and would be, the maker and author of sin, contrary to the Doctors. Hence Augustine too, in On the Spirit and the Letter 29, says: "We believe, of course, by the will; about this will the question is whence it is in us [n2]. If from nature, why not in everyone, since the same God is Creator of all? If from the gift of God, why again not in everyone, since he wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth? Let us therefore first say this, and see whether it satisfies this question: that free choice, naturally attributed by the Creator to the rational soul, is that middle power which can either be stretched toward faith or inclined toward unbelief. And therefore it cannot be said to have, as the will by which it believes God, one that it has not received, since indeed, when God calls, that will rises out of free choice, which it received naturally when it was created." And in chapter 31: "But if the answer is given that one must beware lest anyone think that sin committed through free choice is to be attributed to God, if, in what is said, 'What do you have that you did not receive?', the will by which we believe is also therefore attributed to God's gift, because it comes from free choice, which we received when we were created: let him attend and see that this will is to be attributed to the divine gift not only because it comes from free choice, which was naturally implanted in us, but also because God acts through persuasions by things seen so that we may will and believe. He does so either from outside, through angelic exhortations, or from within, where no one has it in his power what comes into his mind, but to consent or dissent belongs to one's own will. In these ways, therefore, when God acts upon the rational soul so that it may believe him (for no one can believe just anything by free choice if there is no persuasion or calling to which he may assent), surely God works even the very willing to believe in man, and in all things his mercy goes before us. And lest it perhaps trouble anyone that he says that to consent or dissent belongs to one's own will, as if it were only

[557C–557D]
a matter of one's own will and not of God's: let everyone take care, I beg you, let him take care; for that was the error of Pelagius, as is clear from chapters 37 and 38 of the first book, and Augustine strives to root it out throughout the whole book On the Predestination of the Saints. Hence in chapter 4 too, speaking of the authority of the Apostle mentioned above in On the Spirit and the Letter, namely, "What do you have that you did not receive?", he says: "By which chief testimony I myself too was struck and convinced, when I was likewise in error, thinking that faith, by which we believe in God, is not a gift of God but is from ourselves in us, and that through it we obtain the gifts of God." And he takes faith there not as a habit but as an act. He adds: "For I did not think that faith was anticipated by the grace of God, except in that we could not believe if the proclamation of the truth did not come first. But that, when the Gospel was preached to us, we should consent, I supposed to be our own doing. Several of my little works show this error of mine well enough, among them the one you mention in your books, where there is an exposition of certain propositions from the Epistle to the Romans. Finally, when I was reviewing all my little works, of which work I had already finished two books,

when I had come to the revising of this book in the first volume, I spoke of it thus" (and it is Retractations 1, 23). Again, as to what he says in his disputation, "What did he choose in one not yet born, namely Jacob?", "I carried the reasoning to the point of saying: God therefore did not choose anyone's works in foreknowledge, works he himself would give, but faith, that is, the act" [n3]. Whence he adds that he chose the man he foreknew would believe in him, to whom he would give the Holy Spirit so that by working good he might also attain eternal life. "Then, as to what I said immediately after: 'For the same Apostle says, "the same God who works all things in all"; nowhere is it said, "God who believes all things in all."' And then I added: 'What we believe is ours; but what good we work is of him who gives the Holy Spirit to those who believe.' Surely I would not have said this if I already knew that faith itself is also found among the gifts of God, which are given in the same Spirit. Both, therefore, are ours on account of the choice of the will, and yet both are given through the spirit of faith and charity. For it is not charity alone, but, as it is written, charity with faith

[557E–558A]
from God.' And what I said a little later, 'It is ours to believe and to will'": behold, he speaks of the act of faith. "'It is ours,' he says, 'to believe and to will; but it is his to give to believers the ability to work well through the Holy Spirit, through whom charity is poured out in our hearts.' It is true indeed, but by the same rule both are his, because he himself prepares the will, and both are ours, because it is done only when we are willing." Behold what Augustine retracts in these two places, namely what he said on the Epistle to the Romans, that believing and willing are ours. It is certain that he was by no means of so insane a mind at that time, namely when, after his conversion, he expounded those propositions of the aforementioned epistle, as to believe that believing and willing are ours in such a way that the rational soul, the intellect and the will would be ours, and ours from ourselves, so as not to be from God. Rather, as both the course of that exposition and that of the retraction attest, he believed then that intellect and will are ours from God as creator, but that their acts are ours from ourselves alone acting, without God further co-acting. And this is what he later retracted. His later opinion, therefore, is that God co-effects with man, properly, the acts of those powers, and not merely improperly, namely because he made those powers. Hence below, in the same author, 18, On the Predestination of the Saints, 6 [n4], treating that saying of the Apostle, "For who distinguishes you? And what do you have that you did not receive?", he says: "To suppose the natural gifts of God in this intention of the Apostle, whether the whole perfect nature itself, such as was given in the first creation, or whatever remnants of a vitiated nature, is, I judge, exceedingly absurd. For is it by these gifts, which are common to all men, that men are distinguished from men? For here he first said, 'Who distinguishes you?' and then added, 'What do you have that you did not receive?' A man puffed up against another might indeed say, 'My faith distinguishes me, my justice, or whatever else.' Meeting such thoughts, the good Teacher says: 'What do you have that you did not receive?' From whom, if not from him who distinguishes you from another, to whom he did not give what he gave you? And hence

[558B–558C]
does anyone dare to say, 'I have faith from myself; therefore I did not receive it'? Surely he contradicts the plainest truth. This is not because believing or not believing is not in the choice of the human will, but because in the elect the will is prepared by God, and so it pertains also to faith itself, which is in the will: 'For who distinguishes you? And what do you have that you did not receive?'" And it follows in chapter 7: "Many hear the word of truth, but some believe and others contradict: these therefore will to believe, those do not will. But since in some the will is prepared by the Lord and in others it is not prepared, it must be discerned what comes of his mercy, what of his judgment." Again, Augustine on that verse of Psalm 118 [119], "Your hands have made me," etc., distinguishing a twofold manner of man's being made by God, says: "Was this said in respect of Adam? Since all men have been propagated from him, which of men, when that one was made, cannot say that he too was made, by reason of origin and seed? Or could it rightly be said also in this respect, 'Your hands have made me and fashioned me', that each one comes to be even from his parents not without the work of God, he creating while they beget? For if the operative power of God is withdrawn from things, they perish, and nothing at all is born, whether from the elements of the world, or from parents, or from seeds, if God does not work in them." Again, in that case one who had his natural endowments intact could by himself alone, or through another teacher, without God properly co-acting, acquire for himself moral and intellectual virtues. Augustine teaches the opposite of this in Against Julian 4, in many chapters, and Bede against the same Julian, 13, as was cited above. Hence Bede too says quite expressly against this response: "As to what Julian says, that many of the philosophers had patience, chastity, modesty, and other virtues from the good of nature: it is clear that whichever of the philosophers did not know Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, these could have no true virtue and no true wisdom. But insofar as they had any taste of wisdom or image of virtue, they received it all from above, not only by the gift of the first creation, but also by the daily grace of him who does not forsake even a creature that forsakes him [n5],

[558D–558E]
and who bestows his gifts as he himself has judged, great ones to the great and small ones to the small." To what is adduced for this opinion, it can easily be answered that that is one good and true way of speaking among those with whom it was customary. But this does not prove that elemental forms do not move the elements. For it is certain that when the generator has been destroyed and the impediment removed, the elements are moved. Therefore they are moved by some mover, and not by the generator or by the one removing the preventer, because neither of these exists, and consequently does nothing, causes nothing, and moves nothing. So there is a moving form. Again, in every motion the mover and the moved are together, as is taught in Physics 7, 8 and following, and in On the Soul 2, 74. But neither of the aforesaid is together with the moved element, because it does not exist at all. Then also, the elements are moved naturally, therefore by nature. For nature, as is taught in Physics 2, 3, is the principle and cause of moving and being at rest in that in which it is primarily, and this is twofold, namely matter and form, as is shown there in what follows. But prime matter is not a principle of motion with respect to place, as is unknown to no Philosopher. Therefore the form of the element naturally moves it. By the same token, an element that rests in its natural place is moved to it, but it rests there through its form. Again, the larger the earth or fire, the faster it descends or ascends. Therefore it is moved not only from something extrinsic but from a form intrinsic to it. Mixed bodies also are moved to the motion of the dominant element, so the dominant element itself has motion naturally through itself. The same Philosopher too, in Physics 4, treating the void, 71 and following, supposes most plainly that the elements are moved naturally from themselves, and similarly in On the Heavens 1, where he refutes the infinite. Averroes too on the aforesaid passages wants the same; and on On the Heavens 3, 28, and on 4, 22, he shows at length that in simple bodies mover and moved are not distinguished in act from each other, and that their forms are

[559A–559B]
their movers. And he glosses there the procedure of the Philosopher in Physics 7, who proves that nothing moves itself but that everything that is moved is moved by another, in this way: "Aristotle," he says, "did not intend by this discourse which he wrote in Physics 7 anything except to declare that nothing moves itself, namely such that the mover is the same as the moved and in the same respect. And therefore he laid down that whatever is at rest through the rest of another, its motion must be only from another. That is, the mover in it must differ in essence and definition from the moved, though it need not differ in subject." The similar procedure of the Philosopher in Physics 8 and On the Heavens 4, mentioned above, can be glossed in the same way. Again, if the elements did not have local motion or movement from themselves but only from the generator or from the one removing the impediment, then by the same reasoning they would have no other action either. So fire would neither burn nor shine of itself, with both of them destroyed or very far removed. It also seems a wondrous way of speaking, and much too foreign to the truth, to say that the lamp or candle of my colleague, which lit my lamp or candle that lights my study, lights my study

my study even though his room is perhaps too far off and shut in by stone walls, or that lamp of his is perhaps put out [n6]. By a similar reasoning also, whatever I now write at Oxford, my father would write at Chichester [n7], because he begot me writing; indeed my grandfather and great-grandfather and the other progenitors, and even the first parents themselves, would now do all our deeds. But that saying of Anselm does not move us, because he does not say that God brings about our acts only in that way, but in that way figuratively, and in another, proper way, as the preceding chapter recited. To the argument it must be said that although God is omnipotent, he nevertheless can do nothing that includes a contradiction. [n8] But just as it includes a contradiction that some nature exist without God per se and properly conserving it actually and specially, as the second of the first taught, so, or even more, it includes a contradiction that some nature act or move without God per se and properly co-acting and likewise co-moving it, actually and specially, as the third and fourth of the first showed more fully. And so St Thomas answers in On the Power of God,

[559C–559D]
question 20 [n9], where it is asked whether God works in every operation of nature, to a similar argument on the negative side, adduced in fifth place. "Whenever," says the objector, "God institutes some nature, by that very fact he gives it all the things that belong to the notion of that nature. Likewise, by the very fact that he makes a man, he gives him a rational soul. But it belongs to the notion of a power that it be a principle of acting, since a power is the limit of the potency that is a principle of acting upon another, insofar as it is other, as is said in Metaphysics 5. Therefore, by the very fact that he implanted natural powers in things, he gave them to complete their operations. Therefore it is not necessary that he work further in natural things." And later, in seventh place, he adduces another argument similar to this fifth, to the first of which he answers thus: "To the fifth it must be said that it belongs to the notion of a lower power that it be in some way a principle of operation in its own order, that is, that it act as an instrument of the higher power. Hence, with the higher power excluded, the lower power has no operation." And consequently he answers the other thus: "To the seventh it must be said that natural power, which is conferred on natural things in their institution, is in them as a kind of form, having firm and settled being in nature. But what is made by God in a natural thing, by which it actually acts, is as a mere intention [n10], having a kind of incomplete being, in the way colors are in the air and the power of art in the artisan's instrument. Just as, therefore, an axe could be given sharpness through art, so as to be a form remaining in it, but could not be given that the force of the art should be in it as a kind of form remaining in it, unless it had intellect: so a natural thing could be given its proper power as a form remaining in it, but not the force by which it acts toward being, as an instrument of the first cause, unless it were given that it be the universal principle of being. Nor again could a natural power be given that it move itself, or that it conserve itself in being. Hence, just as it is clear that to the artisan's instrument it could not be conferred that it operate without the motion of the art, so to a natural thing it could not be conferred that it operate without divine operation."

NOTES

1. secundum has no noun in the main text. Later in this chapter Bradwardine cites "the second of the first" (559B), so he means the second Corollary of Book I. Savile's variant primi in the margin supplies "of the first". I translate the main text and give the variant in the margin line.
2. The print has no punctuation or sed between credimus and de hac quaeritur. I have supplied the break the sense requires: "by the will we believe; about this will the question is whence it is in us."
3. Bradwardine splices Augustine's Retractations 1, 23 with comments of his own. inquit and scilicet actum are his interpolations, and the shift between "he" and "I" is his. In the quoted sentence the print has sed fidem with no verb. The verb (elegit) is understood from the preceding clause, and I have carried it over.
4. The citation eiusdem 18. de praedest. sanct. 6. is obscure in Savile. The quotation is from Augustine's De praedestinatione sanctorum (the passage on "Who distinguishes you?"); the "18" and "6" cannot be reconciled with the modern chapter numbers. I keep the citation as printed.
5. creaturam suam nec deserentem deserens is compressed. I take nec as "not even": God does not forsake even a creature that forsakes him.
6. The keyed text has dister, but the print reads distet. The sentence is construed with cum as concessive: the lamp "lights my study although his room is perhaps too far off, and shut in by stone walls, or his lamp perhaps put out." The subjunctives distet, includatur, extinguatur all depend on cum.
7. Bradwardine speaks of himself here: Oxford, where he writes, and Chichester, which tradition gives as his birthplace and his father's home. I have not expanded the names.
8. The margin beside "To the argument…" is only partly legible in the facsimile. It reads "Respons… argumen…", which I restore as Responsio ad argumentum. The variant demonstrabant and the separate source note Thomas are keyed together in the TCP text; in the print they are two margin entries.
9. The passage is Aquinas, De potentia q. 3, a. 7, "Whether God works in every operation of nature" (objections 5 and 7). Savile's quaestione 20 does not match the modern numbering. I keep it as printed.
10. intentio is used in the sense of Aquinas's "intentional" being, a transient, incomplete being such as colours have in air. It is not "intention" as purpose. I keep the English word for the technical term so that the analogies of colour and of the art in the instrument stay recognizable.