Book III, Chapter 23

Chapter Xxiii

He argues against the 16th opinion, which holds that God does not will a free act of the creature by an antecedent will but only by a consequent will, and that God co-effects with the creature every free act of the creature, but later in natural order; and against the 17th, which judges that although God always in fact acts and accomplishes any act of any creature whatever, it is nevertheless absolutely possible for some creature to act by itself alone.

The sixteenth believes that God does not will a free act of the creature by an antecedent will but only by a consequent will, that is, not before the creature but later in nature, and that in this way he brings about every free act of the creature. The seventeenth, however, imagines that God always in fact acts immediately and properly, and prior in nature, every act of any creature whatever, but that it is absolutely possible for some creature to act by itself alone, without God co-acting in that way.

But the sixteenth errs in two ways. First, because it supposes something false, as 30 of the second shows.1 Second, because even if this is granted, the difficulty is not removed. For after God has co-operated with a man in anything, it is necessary that he has so co-operated, just as it is necessary that that thing has been. And since he works nothing externally except by willing, as corollary 10 of the first teaches, it is necessary that he willed this. And since by 23 of the first his will is immutable in every respect, it is necessary that he always wills so for the future and always willed so in the past. And since the divine will is no less free, nor more necessary, in the production of a thing, or after it, than before, as 5 and 23 of the first show, and since otherwise the thing willed would take away the freedom of the divine will and impose on it a necessity of willing (which, however, it does not do to the human will), and so the divine will would be less free and more servile than the human: since, I say, these things are so, God necessarily wills of any future thing whatever that it will be. Therefore, by 10 of the first, it is necessary of any future thing whatever that it will be.

The seventeenth errs in three ways: first, because it asserts something false; second, because it contradicts itself; third, because it does not avoid the difficulty. That it asserts something false is shown plainly from 3 and 4 of the first, and from 20 and 22 of the second. Again, to touch briefly, by some brief arguments, on this petty opinion: if this were possible, it would consequently be possible for a creature to produce something without God properly co-acting, and therefore also to conserve what was produced without God properly conserving it, against 2 of the first. It would further be possible that something should come to be now or in the future that God did not will, against 22 of the first, and against its corollary also.2 And if this were possible, as 18 of the first attests, it would furthermore be possible that something should be present or future that God did not know, against 6 of the first. Hence it would also be possible that something should happen by chance3 with respect to God and the divine will, against 29 of the first. Hence Stephen too,E1 the Bishop of Paris, condemned the article asserting that some things can happen by chance with respect to the first cause.4 This opinion also contradicts itself. For let A be, according to it, a creature able to move and act without God

by itself alone. Then either creature A is by that very fact necessarily virtually infinite, or it can be finite along with this. If it is said that it is necessarily infinite, this cannot be, as was demonstrated in the first of the first. Moreover, since every creature, present or future, is or will be only finite, no such creature can or will be able to do anything through itself. This position, therefore, does nothing to help those who hold the opinion, but contradicts them, since they speak only of present or future creatures, just as the problem too concerns only such creatures. But if it is said that creature A can be finite, let it then be posited that A exceeds any other active creature only in a finite proportion, and so action exceeds action, as natural science demonstrates.5 If, then, the power of A by itself alone can bring about motion or act in B, then any other active power can now in fact bring about a proportional motion or act. Whence, then, does the opiner know that it is not so in fact? Why, then, does he affirm the opposite of this?

Third, it errs because it does not avoid the difficulty of the question. For if it is so, and always will be so in fact, that the divine will precedes in every motion and action, and is efficacious and necessary in causing, by 10 of the first, and is not in the power of anything else, by the eighth of this, and is wholly immutable in itself, by 23 of the first, then it seems that in fact all things that happen happen of necessity in the present, and all things that will happen will likewise happen in the future. How, then, can the difficulty of the problem be avoided by this?