De causa Dei: Book III, Chapter 2
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, 646B–649C; Latin from EEBO-TCP A16626 (public domain).
Canonical: https://bradwardine.wrootpress.com/3/2/
Status: draft translation, not yet reviewed.

[646B–646C]
CHAPTER II. That God in a certain way necessitates every created will to each of its free acts, and to every free cessation and abstention from an act, and does so by a necessity naturally preceding.

[646C–646D]
Next, I think, it must be shown here that God in a certain way necessitates every created will to each of its free acts, and also to every free cessation of and abstention from an act, and does so by a necessity naturally preceding. For there is, as Anselm teaches in Cur Deus homo 1, 17 [n1] and in De concordia 2, a twofold necessity, namely the preceding and the following, or concomitant. The preceding necessity makes a thing be, and it is found in all irrational agents. When the active has approached the passive with the due circumstances, the effect will follow necessarily, as the Philosopher teaches in Metaphysics 9, 10 [n2]. The same holds for the necessity of not-being, in the case of things which are prevented from being by irrational agents. The following or concomitant necessity, on the other hand, is that which in a way comes about from the existing thing, and from any being takes its rise and descends, as it were; not-being likewise follows it inseparably and accompanies it individually. And this, according to the Philosopher, Peri hermeneias 1, last chapter [n3], holds universally in all beings and non-beings whatever. Hence he says: "It is necessary that what is, be, when it is; and that what is not, not be, when it is not." Anselm means the same in the places cited.

[646D–646E]
Nor is this preceding necessity found only in irrational agents and their acts. It is found also in rational agents, from the freedom of their choice and from their free acts. For when the power and the will to do any free external thing are posited in a rational and free active agent, it follows necessarily that this be done: nothing required is lacking. And the Philosopher says in Metaphysics 9, where before [that is, 10]: "Everything that is capable according to reason must, when it desires, do that of which it has the power, and in the way it has it." He teaches the same opinion often elsewhere as well, as is recited in what precedes. From this a certain general rule seems plainly to be gathered, namely that universally every effect, produced by whatever agent, rational or irrational and free, is produced in this manner. When its agent is posited with all its sufficient dispositions naturally prior, by which it produces the effect, it follows necessarily and unfailingly that the effect is produced; and it is produced from a naturally preceding necessity. This is also sufficiently apparent from the meanings of the terms. Hence a definition of naturally preceding necessity can be drawn: that it is the active cause which, once posited with all its sufficient dispositions naturally prior, by which it causes what it causes, necessarily and unfailingly has it follow that this be caused.

[646E–647A]
And from this the definition of an effect that is necessary by naturally preceding necessity can clearly be known: namely, that it is what is caused by a cause which, once fully posited, necessarily has it follow that the effect be caused.

[647A–647B]
But someone will perhaps object here, denying the rule and the definitions premised. He will say that they are true only of inferior and secondary causes, but not of the supreme and first cause. For every secondary cause, whenever and however it is disposed or affected, must then be so affected or disposed with respect to whatever is causable or caused. The first cause, the respondent says, is not so: although God now wills something to be future, say the Antichrist, it is not necessary for now that he so will, but he can for now not so will. But according to this responsive instance there would be no antecedent necessity at all with respect to any effect, nor any effect necessary with respect to its cause by naturally preceding necessity. For no secondary cause can do anything without the co-efficiency and pre-efficiency of the first cause, namely the divine will, as the twentieth and thirtieth of the second showed [n4]. If, therefore, there is no antecedent necessity in this cause or in that, there cannot be in any other either.

[647B]
Moreover, this effect, now made or created immediately by God, necessarily is now; so too, therefore, must its efficient or creating cause be now, namely the divine will. Or, if that cause can for now not be, so can this effect also, against what was premised. In the same way it can be argued about any past effect: for by the fourteenth of the first, the will of God is the cause of anything past, on account of which it is past. And if he says that the divine will is an antecedent necessity with respect to present and past things, but by no means with respect to future things, he makes the divine will mutable, against the fifth and the twenty-third of the first book. For he makes the divine will, with respect to future things, free with respect to contradiction, to the point that for the very instant in which it is, with respect to some future thing, it can not be; and when that future thing becomes present, or passes into the past, he makes it necessary by the opposite necessity.

[647B–647D]
Moreover, why can the omnipotent will of God not be as necessary, and with as great a necessity, with respect to a future effect as with respect to a present and a past one? For if it is necessary from itself alone, and is an antecedent necessity with respect to present and past, it can likewise be so with respect to the future. It always stands intrinsically in every respect in the same way [n5] with respect to the same thing: first as future, second as present, third as past. But suppose the antecedent necessity with respect to present and past is posited as arising not sufficiently nor wholly from itself alone, but with the help of something else, say the present or past thing. Then the divine will does not seem fully sufficient to itself, nor fully omnipotent, against the first supposition, the third part, the fifth and the seventh of the first corollary of the first. Again, if the present thing in some way helped toward the necessity in the divine will with respect to that present thing, it would seem to be some cause of that necessity, and in some way to cause it. Hence it would be naturally prior for the present thing to be, and of necessity to be for now, than for the divine will now to have that intrinsic necessity of its own; and this can be disproved by the twentieth of the first and the thirtieth of the second. Moreover, if the necessity in the divine will were so, it would be a subsequent necessity, and the necessity of the present thing would be an antecedent necessity, contrary to the hypothesis.

[647D]
And if some extrinsic help can supply the divine will with an intrinsic necessity with respect to all present and past things, why not likewise with respect to all future things, or to some future thing? Further, suppose the divine will, which now exists with respect to some future thing, could for now not be with respect to it, as the response says. Still, this is not in the power of that future thing, nor of any inferior cause, nor of any causes whatever, but only in the free power of the divine will; and that will is universally efficacious and unfailing in causing, and hence there is antecedent necessity with respect to that future thing.

[647D–647E]
See how this way of speaking about antecedent necessity accords naturally with reason. It accords also with the manner of speaking of the older Philosophers and Theologians and of our Fathers; indeed it is their manner of speaking, as what is premised here and in the preceding chapter teaches. Hence Augustine also, in On Free Choice 3, 3: "His will," he says, "that is, God's, is for me necessity" [n6]. Although this is said under the name of the disciple, Augustine does not reject it but approves it, showing that will and necessity do not conflict. The words and opinion of Augustine in City of God 5, 9 and 10 also accord with this, after what is premised in this chapter. In On Genesis, Literal Commentary 6, 22, he also shows that the necessity of future things is in God, in the divine will, where he says: "That is necessarily future which he wills." This also accords with the words and mind of Anselm, touched on in the chapter immediately preceding. Hence also in Cur Deus homo 2, 17: "All," he says, [n7] "necessity and impossibility is subject to his will; but his will is subject to no necessity or impossibility: for nothing is necessary or impossible except because he so wills." And below, speaking of Christ, he says: "If you wish to know the true necessity of all that he did and suffered, know that all of it was from necessity, because he himself willed it." And in a certain meditation of his on human redemption he says: "All necessity and impossibility is subject to his will, since what he wills necessarily is, and what he does not will is impossible to be."

[647E–648A]
The same again in De concordia 2, after the distinction on the necessity premised and its extended exposition, he says: "The work of the will, to which it has been granted that what it wills be, and what it does not will not be, is voluntary or spontaneous, since it comes about by spontaneous will. And it is necessary in two ways, because it is compelled by the will to come about, and what comes about cannot at the same time not come about." The work of the will, he says, that is, the operation or the thing wrought externally, proceeding from the willing will, is compelled, that is, is necessitated, as his procedure and words plainly show.

[648A–648B]
Hence also in Metaphysics 5, 16 [n8], where one translation says: "That is prior and more powerful, according to whose prior will it is necessary that the other follow." Another translation says that what is stronger and before is that which compels another to follow its will. Averroes, expounding this text, says: "Universally 'before' is said of that which is stronger and worthier, and it is that which compels what is after, so that the will of the latter follows the will of the former, since the will of the weaker follows the will of the stronger." The first of this book recited this more fully.

[648B]
The most divine Isaiah seems also to have had by divine gift this same manner of speaking, predicting of Christ that he would come "like a violent river, which the spirit of the Lord drives" [n9]. "Violent," he says, that is, not unwilling but full of force, the force of the Spirit of the Lord, who rested fully upon him, and drove him in all things and led him, and whom he himself in all things followed necessarily, as the thirtieth of the second and the first of the third declared more fully. Hence Matthew also says that Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert; and Luke, that he was driven by the Spirit into the desert; and Mark, that the Spirit cast him out or, by another reading, compelled him into the desert. It is most certain that all these things were said of the Holy Spirit, as the thirtieth of the second briefly recalled.

[648B–648C]
For this reason Stephen, Bishop of Paris [n10], also condemned a certain error which said that, for all effects to be necessary with respect to the first cause, it is not enough that the first cause itself not be impedible; it is required also that the intermediate causes not be impedible. "An error," says the Bishop, "because then God could not make any effect necessary without posterior causes." All effects, therefore, even free ones, are necessary with respect to the first cause, because they proceed from his will, which cannot in any way be impeded.

[648C]
And if anyone should think to object, saying that the Parisian article does not say "all effects" universally, but only "effects" particularly or indefinitely, I confess that I do not know how it was written in the original article. I know, however, that among the heavily corrected articles I found it written universally; and it does not matter. For from that particular or indefinite statement, together with other truths, the universal one follows evidently. For suppose that, for some effects to be necessary with respect to the first cause, it suffices that the first cause not be impedible with respect to them. Since universally all effects come about from it, and it is universally non-impedible with respect to some effects, or even to any one, as what has been had before has demonstrated, all effects are necessary with respect to it.

[648C–648D]
With these things supposed, then, the principal conclusion will be easily shown. For according to the preceding chapter, God can so necessitate every created will, and this by a necessity naturally preceding, since the whole chapter proceeds according to such necessity. And he could not do this by doing anything other than only willing, since in no other way does he act outwardly, as 9 and 10 of the first teach; nor by willing otherwise than he naturally willed before. By the twentieth of the second joined to the thirtieth, he always so wills, as was also argued more fully in the preceding chapter. Likewise, by the same twentieth, God through his will is properly the efficient cause of every act of the created will; by the same thirtieth, he is naturally prior to the created will; and by the tenth of the first, the divine will cannot be frustrated. Therefore, by the general rule and the definitions premised, every act of the created will is produced from a naturally preceding necessity. Indeed, by the same reasoning, every created will doing anything does it from a naturally preceding necessity.

[648D–648E]
To the same end it is argued, not improbably, in this way. In a created will now willing there is a certain necessity to will, at least a subsequent necessity; and likewise in the divine will, which wills and makes the created will now to will, since according to the Philosopher and Anselm, where before, "What is, when it is, necessarily is." These two necessities, then, in these two wills, the divine and the human, either are coeval and disparate in causality and unrelated to each other, or they are not so. If they are such, then, according to what was had in the twenty-fifth of the second, both are reduced to a third, as to a common cause prior to both. Therefore the divine will is necessitated by some prior cause to will something outside God; and no one doubts this to be false, since that cause is either rational and free, or irrational and necessary in acting. If the first is granted, then the divine will is not the first of all free causes, nor is God the first of free agents. The opposite of this the first supposition of the first, and chapter 9 with 20 and what follows, and the thirtieth of this second, show. If the second is granted, then God wills and does something outside himself by a wholly absolute necessity, and this is destroyed by what was premised.

[648E–649B]
Moreover, every necessity in any creature, as also anything else, is produced by the divine will as by a prior efficient cause, as the ninth of the first taught. Every necessity of willing in the created will, therefore, is brought about by the divine will. Hence it cannot be said that those two aforesaid necessities are disparate and coeval with each other. Nor is anyone so foolish or mad as to say that the necessity in the human will is the naturally preceding and efficient cause with respect to the necessity in the divine will. For that would derogate far too much from the divine will's supreme freedom, and this is convicted as false also by what was premised. That necessity in the divine will, therefore, is naturally prior to the necessity in the human will, and is its efficient cause. Likewise, no created will is freer in its acts than the human will of Christ, and his divine will necessitated it to each of its acts, as has been shown above here and in the preceding chapter. Therefore he in a certain way necessitates every other will too. The divine will also antecedently necessitates the blessed, confirmed in Heaven, to their beatific act and to not sinning, and in the contrary way the damned, as the fifteenth of the second, with the sixteenth and seventeenth, have urged. Why, then, not the other agents, by like reasoning?

[649B]
COROLLARY.

Corollary: that some kind of antecedent necessity and freedom and merit do not conflict; and that no inferior cause, but only a superior one, namely the will of God, is antecedent necessity with respect to its effect; and that all things that are, come about and happen, are, come about and happen from some necessity naturally preceding them [n11].

[649B–649C]
Hence it follows evidently that some kind of antecedent necessity and freedom and merit do not conflict; that no inferior cause, but only a superior one, namely the will of God, is antecedent necessity; and that all things that are, come about and happen, are, come about and happen from some necessity naturally preceding them. For the first part of this the principal conclusion shows most clearly, and that conclusion can also be shown simply, just as that one can [n12]; and the second follows from this first. This corollary can also be demonstrated, as to these parts, as the preceding one has been demonstrated. The second part of it follows manifestly, since no inferior cause, however disposed, can do anything if the divine will resists, or even if it does not act, as the tenth and ninth of the first, with the twentieth of the second, lucidly show. There remains, therefore, the divine will alone as antecedent necessity; whence also, with the ninth of the first, the last part of this follows.

NOTES

1. The passage on the twofold necessity, preceding and subsequent, is Anselm, Cur Deus homo II.17. Bradwardine himself cites it below as "Cur Deus homo 2, 17". The "1." in the first citation is therefore probably a slip for "2.", but the print reads "1." and I have kept it.
2. Metaphysics 9 is Θ; the passage is Θ.5, 1048a5–21. The second number ("10") is probably the text number in the Latin Aristotle with Averroes's commentary. Savile's numbers are kept as printed (Conventions §5.4).
3. "Peri hermeneias 1, last chapter" is De interpretatione 9, 19a23–27, the last chapter of the first book in the medieval Latin division.
4. Bradwardine's cross-references are to chapters of this work: "20 of the second" is II.20, and "the first of the first" is I.1, whose suppositions and corollary parts are cited by number. "The preceding chapter" and "the next chapter" (proximum capitulum) are the chapter immediately before this one, III.1. "The first of this book" is III.1 also. All are left as Savile gives them (Conventions §5.4).
5. The print reads cum omni eodem modo intrinsece semper se habeat. I construe omni eodem modo as "in every respect in the same way", the sense of omnino eodem modo. The Latin is awkward but not corrupt.
6. The speaker in De libero arbitrio III.3 is the disciple Evodius, Augustine's interlocutor. Bradwardine's point is that the master lets the statement stand.
7. Savile's margin reads Augustinus, but the passage beside it (Cur Deus homo II.17 and the Meditatio de redemptione humana) is Anselm's. The margin evidently refers to the Augustine citations just before, or is a slip for Anselmus. I give it as printed.
8. Metaphysics 5, 16 is Δ.11, 1019a2–4, with Averroes's comment 16 (the number follows the Latin edition with the Commentary). The first translation's praeuoluntatem renders the Greek literally ("prior will" or "prior choice"). The Latin versions of Aristotle that Bradwardine quotes are not identified here.
9. Is 59:19 in the Vulgate: cum venerit quasi fluvius violentus, quem spiritus Domini cogit. Both violentus and cogit are the Vulgate's. Bradwardine's gloss turns "violent" into "full of force, not unwilling".
10. Stephen Tempier, whose condemnation of 219 propositions at Paris (1277) is meant. I have not checked Bradwardine's wording of the article against the Chartularium, and the text itself treats the article's wording as uncertain.
11. The heading has necessitate ipsam naturaliter praecedente, and the body has necessitate ipsa naturaliter praecedente. Neither form agrees grammatically with necessitate. I read both as "preceding the thing itself", that is, preceding the things that come about, and translated "preceding them".
12. Simpliciter sicut illa is ambiguous: illa may be the first part of the corollary, or the previous conclusion. I translated it literally ("just as that one can") rather than choosing.