Book II, Chapter 33

CHAPTER 33. He objects and replies.

D1 Here, however, some object: God does everything rationally and from some just cause; otherwise he would seem to act rashly. And Job 5 says: Nothing on earth happens without a cause. There is, therefore, some reason and some just cause why God gives grace or perseverance to this man and does not give it to that one; and since it is not on God's side, it is on theirs. Likewise, then no one would sin simply by omitting; for it is not the one who omits who is the cause, but God. Likewise, God deserts no one unless he is first deserted by him. For how does he who seeks those who have turned away desert those already turned to him? Or how does he who draws his enemy to him E1 drive away a friend? Hence John 6: Whoever comes to me I will not cast out; and Judith 13: He did not desert those who hope in him. He also said, on the Apostle's testimony, I will not desert you or forsake you (Hebrews 13); and through the Prophet he says: Because you have rejected knowledge, I too will reject you (Hosea 4). And Augustine, in City of God 13, 15, says that the sinning soul was not deserted by its life, which is God, so that it might desert, but deserted so that it might be deserted. He also says, in the seventh reply of On the Refutation of the 16 Chapters falsely ‖E2 imputed to him 1, that God deserts no one before he is deserted, and often converts many deserters; and further on, in the 14th reply: God does not desert one who is about to leave before he is deserted, and he often brings it about that he does not desert, and, even if he has departed, that he returns. Very many canonical authorities, and others, attest this. Likewise the Wise Man warns every wise man, saying: A1 Do not say, "It is lacking through God" (that is, the wisdom of God) 2. Likewise Anselm says in On the Fall of the Devil 1 that God alone has of himself whatever he has, and all other things have only from him; and as they have of themselves nothing but nothing, so from him they have only something. There he goes on to show that nothing, and non-being, is not from God, but was in anything else from itself. Further on, in chapter 2, he raises the question: Just as the good angel received perseverance because God gave it, does the evil angel, then, not receive perseverance because God did not give it? And further on, in chapter 3, he answers that in the good angel, giving was the cause of receiving; but in the evil angel, not giving was not the cause of not receiving perseverance, but the reverse. The first of these objections is resolved by what was set out in the immediately preceding chapter here and in the twenty-first of the first book; nor does the objection about omitting good proceed; for in the same way you can argue that no one merits by omitting

evil, or by turning away from evil. In the same way you can also argue about commission: that no one sins or merits by doing something, since God goes before him there by working. Hence also Augustine, in the Gloss on that passage of Deuteronomy 29, He did not give you an understanding heart, etc., cited immediately above, B1 says: How does he say earlier, You saw the temptations, etc., if the Lord did not give eyes to see? But they saw with the body, not with the heart; hence he prefaced: The Lord did not give *B2 you to know. The two things that follow pertain to this: eyes to see and ears to hear, that is, to understand and to obey. And when he says The Lord did not give you, rebuking and reproving, he would not say it unless it pertained to their fault, lest anyone think himself excusable on this account. For at the same time he shows that without help they cannot understand and obey with the eyes and ears of the heart; and yet, if God's help is lacking, man's fault is not therefore excusable, since God's judgments, though hidden, are just. As for what is argued, that God deserts no one before he is deserted, what is truer? For God does not impose a penalty unless he has first been offended through fault; and so he deserts no one by taking away grace except one who has first deserted him by sinning. But what does this hinder? For it is not because God does not give grace and perseverance to someone that he is therefore deserted by God, nor, because someone does not receive grace or perseverance from God, is he therefore deserted by him. This is clear from the angels and the first parents, who, according to the opinion of some, lacked grace for a short while, and after they received grace, the apostate angels and the first parents lacked perseverance for another short while, as the subsequent fall shows; yet neither in this short while nor in that were they deserted by God, because they had no fault at all. And if it was not so in fact, it could have been so; and what, I ask, was then the cause of not receiving grace? Was it not the not-giving? And why should we not judge in the same way about not receiving perseverance? As for what the Wise Man says, that the wisdom of God is not lacking through God, through whom, then, is prophetic wisdom lacking to many holy men without any preceding demerit of theirs? And it is present to many evil men despite their manifold demerit, as it was to the evil angels and the first parents before sin; and to the confirmed holy angels the manifold wisdom was lacking, as is clear from the sixteenth of this book; and through whom, if not through God, who did not give it? It is true, however, that the wisdom of God necessary for salvation, once given, is not lacking to anyone through God's wholly voluntary withdrawing it without any preceding fault, because he deserts no one unless he is first deserted by him, as was shown above. But that saying of Anselm, that non-beings do not have non-being from God, needs deeper examination: for the opposite seems to follow from the second part, the fifth, the ninth, and the following parts of the 13th, and chapter 14 of the first book 3. Likewise, that Antichrist does not exist is true, just, and rational, and is not naturally prior to the divine will, because then it would be necessary, as is clear from the eighteenth and twenty-first of the first book; therefore it is posterior and caused, and dependent on that will, as is clear there, and from the demonstration of the twelfth part of the thirteenth chapter of the first book. Likewise, Antichrist's not existing is not naturally prior to the divine will, because then it would be necessary, by what has been set out, and because then it would not ‖D1 be subject to the divine will; it is

therefore posterior to it and dependent on it. Likewise, by the corollary of the twenty-second of the first book, God wills that Antichrist not exist; and by the twenty-first of the first, it is not because Antichrist does not exist that God therefore wills him not to exist, since his not existing is posterior to the divine will and subject to it; and by the same twenty-first, contingent beings are not the cause of the divine will; much less fittingly, then, are contingent non-beings. It is therefore the reverse: namely, because God wills that Antichrist not exist, therefore he does not exist. Likewise, God knows that Antichrist does not exist, and not because Antichrist does not exist, as is clear from the fifteenth of the first, but by the eighteenth of the first, because he wills him not to exist. This knowing and willing, then, is the cause of his non-entity. Likewise, Antichrist has non-being and is a non-being; therefore either through himself or through another. If through himself, as Anselm seems to assert there, and Augustine in On the Immortality of the Soul 13, as the second of the first book cites, then E1 always and necessarily, as is clear from the second and twenty-sixth of the first. And how, moreover, does he have non-being through

se habet non esse — [the block continues:] himself, when he has neither himself nor anything of himself, since he has neither matter nor form? And if Antichrist has non-being from himself or through himself, then either his non-being is necessary, so that it is impossible for him to be, or his non-being is possible and contingent. Neither the first nor the second holds, as appears from the fourteenth of the first, also through Anselm. If through another, then through another that is a being, or a non-being. If through another that is a non-being, the same question must be asked about that one, and since there is no infinite regress in such things, a stopping point must be given in something, etc., as above. If through another that is a being, that is either God or dependent on him; and so in the end the whole procession will be traced back to him. Many things, moreover, are non-beings whose being or non-being depends on nothing but God alone: namely those that come about immediately, and solely from him. Likewise, Antichrist has neither being nor non-being through himself, because then, by what has been set out, he would always have one of them of necessity; but of himself he is indifferent, that is, of himself he has no difference toward being or toward non-being; if, therefore, he has now one of these, now the other, that must be through something else determining him, now to this, now to that.

Likewise, according to that position it seems that the non-being of beings, or of non-beings, is their being, indeed their necessary being, and that they have it from themselves, not from God; that God also could not destroy that being; and that the being they receive from God is accidental to them, and comes and goes while they remain essentially, like a garment on a man who persists. For Anselm says there that all things other than God have of themselves nothing but nothing. And further on: when God, as if angry, takes away being by destroying something, the non-being is not from him; rather, when he takes away what he had lent as its being, which was kept in being by being made by him, it returns to non-being, which it had, not from him, but from itself, before it was made; just as if you take back from someone a tunic which you had willingly lent him for a time when he was naked, he does not have his nakedness from you, but, you taking away what was yours, he returns to what he was before he was clothed by you. But it is doubtful to no one who has seen Anselm's other subtle works that this is not Anselm's meaning: for God truly creates from nothing the whole being of a thing, bestowing it on it anew, or rather perhaps not properly bestowing it on it (for what is bestowed on seems to exist before it is bestowed on it), but making and producing the whole thing anew. Nor should it disturb us that, according to the Doctors, all things were from eternity in God: for they were not there really and truly different from him, as can be shown from the first supposition, and by many reasons and very many authorities. But because I reckon this as nearly known to Philosophers and Theologians alike, I confirm it very briefly. C1 For Augustine says, in On the Joys of the Just and the Punishments of the Wicked, that the world was in God before it was in itself; it was not the world, but God. William, too, Bishop of Paris, condemned an article asserting that many truths were from eternity which are not God himself 4. Anselm can, however, be explained as saying that non-being is not from God efficiently, properly speaking, but defectively; not as an effect, but as a defect, as he said in the passage next to this one 5; which the words quoted there above, and others, seem to attest. For he says that when God, angry, takes away being by destroying something, non-being is not from him, but, he taking away

what he had lent as its being, which was kept in being by being made by him, it returns to non-being. And further on: Surely, as from the highest good there is nothing but good, so from the highest essence there is nothing but essence; hence, since the highest good is the highest essence, it follows that every good is essence, and every essence good: so nothing, and non-being, as it is not essence, so it is not good: for nothing, and non-being, is not from him from whom there is nothing but good and essence. But that Anselm and Augustine both seem to assert that things are not through themselves or of themselves, or have non-being, can be explained by putting the negation first: namely, that things are not through themselves, nor have being, or that no things are through themselves, etc., but through God. And if someone objects that even if God did not exist, non-beings, for example the Chimaera and Antichrist, would still not exist, the last part of the 13th and corollary 14 of the first book, with their demonstrations, will answer. Anselm's second saying, too, namely that not receiving perseverance was the cause of not giving it, likewise needs fuller examination: for this seems to conflict with his earlier saying. For if no being, since not even God, is the cause of non-being, or of a non-being, but any non-being, or non-being, is such through itself, how will one non-being or non-entity be the cause of another? How, then, can not receiving be the cause of not giving? And if not receiving is the cause of not giving, then it is either a positive cause or a privative one. It is clear it is not positive; nor privative: for that would be because it would deprive the cause of giving, and since it would not deprive per se unless receiving were the cause of giving, this would be against Anselm's position. Again, if not receiving is the cause of not giving, in what genus of cause? It is clearly not material, nor formal, nor final; for then not giving would be the efficient cause of not receiving, and one not giving would intend not receiving as an end, and would cause it, against Anselm there. Nor can it be said that not receiving is an efficient cause of not giving, since it is clearly not an efficient cause positively; nor an efficient cause privatively: for this would be because it would deprive the efficient, or effective, cause

positively; and therefore receiving would be the efficient cause of positively giving, against Anselm's position. But the venerable Father Anselm means, as I think, that all the angels received a good will from God; and if they had stood in it until a fixed term set by God, they would deservedly, by the merit of that standing, have been confirmed in beatitude, as those who stood firm were, as is clear below in On the Fall of the Devil, 6; and in this good will the apostate angel also stood for a time, but did not persist, did not will it through to the end 6, did not persevere finally in so willing, and did not have this persevering will; not because God, wholly voluntarily and by pure motion without any preceding demerit, took it away or did not give it (as if God now, by his absolute power, were to take from Gabriel his beatific will, purely voluntarily, without any preceding fault); but because the evil angel first willed something else culpably, and by that culpable will lost the earlier, just one. He means, then, briefly, that God did not take away from him the just will, or cease to give or preserve it, without the evil angel's preceding fault; but he did this on account of his preceding sin, as is plainly clear in that third chapter, where after a long disputation he says at the end: I say that he did not fail to will when he ought, and what he ought, B1 because the will failed, God not giving to it as it failed 7, but because he himself, by willing what he ought not, drove out the good will, while the evil always came in. Therefore he did not fail to have a persevering good will, or fail to receive it, because God did not give it; rather God did not give it because he, by willing what he ought not, both deserted it and, by deserting it, did not hold it. He shows this consequently in chapters 4 and 6, and it accords with much written in the chapter immediately before this. B2 Hence Augustine too, in On Rebuke and Grace, 48, says 8: Then, namely in the state of innocence before sin, God had given man a good will; for he who had made him upright had made him in it; he had given him help, without which he could not remain in it if he willed; but whether he would will it he left to his free choice. He could therefore remain if he willed, because the help was not lacking by which he could perseveringly hold the good that he willed; but because he did not will to remain, the fault is surely his, whose merit it would have been if he had willed to remain, as the holy angels did, who, when the others fell through free choice, stood themselves through the same free choice, and merited to receive the due reward of this staying, namely so great a fullness of beatitude that it is most certain to them that they will always remain in it.

(The text of this unit is included in the block above: from "culpa, cuius meritum fuisset" through "esse permansuros".)

Correction: the preceding block ends with the sentence "…but because he did not will to remain, the fault is surely his,"; the remainder follows here in its own unit. The fault is surely his, "whose merit it would have been if he had willed to remain, as the holy angels did, who, when the others fell through free choice, stood themselves through the same free choice, and merited to receive the due reward of this staying, namely so great a fullness of beatitude that it is most certain to them that they will always remain in it."

Corollary

Corollary: not only do beings truly need God necessarily for their being, and non-beings for their non-being, but God also holds the most worthy sovereignty not only over beings but also over non-beings.

From these things, then, I reckon it manifest that not only do beings truly need God necessarily for their being, and non-beings for their non-being, but God also holds the most worthy sovereignty not only over beings but also over non-beings. This corollary follows evidently from what has been set out here and from the 14th corollary of the first book. Hence also the three young men of Daniel, as if with one voice, invite nights and days, light and darkness, to bless the Lord, to praise him, and to exalt him above all for ever (Daniel 3) 9. Blessed Dionysius also says, in On the Divine Names 4 10: D1 Every power, every operation, every habit, every sense, every word, every deed, every touch, every knowledge, every union, and simply everything that exists, is from the beautiful and good, and is in the beautiful and good, and is turned back to the beautiful and good; and all things whatsoever that are and come to be, and all things look to him, and are moved and contained by him, and in his grace, and for his sake, and in him is every principle as exemplar, namely material, efficient, formal, elemental, and simply every principle, all containing, every end; or, to speak comprehensively, all existing things are from the beautiful and good, and all non-existing things are supersubstantially in the beautiful and good; and he is the principle and end of all, supra-principal and superperfect, since from him, and in him, and through him, and to him are all things, as the holy word says 11. And further on, in chapter 5: All things whatsoever that are and come to be, are and come to be through the good and the best; and to this all things look 12, and are moved and contained by him, and for his sake, and through him, and in him is every exemplary, consummative, intellectual, specific, formal principle, and simply every principle, all containing, every summit; or, to speak comprehensively, all things that are, are from the good and the best, and all things that are not are superessentially in the good and the best; and he is the principle and end of all, supra-principal and supra-final, because from him, and through him, and in him, and to him are all things, as the sacred word says.