De causa Dei: Book III, Chapter 28
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, 715C–725A; Latin from EEBO-TCP A16626 (public domain).
Canonical: https://bradwardine.wrootpress.com/3/28/
Status: draft translation, not yet reviewed.

[715C–715D]
Chapter 28. It recites one erroneous gloss on the authorities.

To this, and above all to the authorities that make mention of necessity in respect of the superior causes, the common reply is that they speak of the necessity of the consequence, not of the consequent, or of conditional, not absolute, necessity, or of the necessity of the dictum, not of the thing, taken conjointly, not separately. Boethius seems to hint at this where he was cited, and the gloss on the Decretum so notes on the cited authority of Boethius.[n1] So too Anselm, On Concord 2: "When I say," he says, "if God foreknows something, it is necessary that it be future, it is the same as if I were to say, if it will be, it will be of necessity; and when I say, If it will be, it will be of necessity, it means the same if it is pronounced thus: what will be, will be of necessity. For this necessity signifies nothing other than that what will be cannot at the same time not be. But this is conditional necessity, of the consequence or of the dictum, and conjoint, not however of the consequent or of the thing, nor divided." He concedes this alone and denies every other, as he also makes plainer below; for he says, "It is not the same for a thing to be past, and for a past thing to be past; or for a thing to be present, and for a present thing to be present; or for a thing to be future, and for a future thing to be future; just as it is not the same for a thing to be white, and for a white thing to be white."

[715E–716B]
"For wood is not always white of necessity, but sometimes, before it became white, it could have failed to become white, and after it is white it can become not white; but white wood is always necessarily white, because neither before it is white nor after it is white can it come about that the white is at the same time not white. Likewise a thing is not present of necessity, since before it was present it could have come about that it would not be present, and after it is present it can become not present; but a present thing is necessarily present always, because neither before it is nor after it is present can it be at the same time not present. In the same way some thing, an action for instance, is not future of necessity, since before it is, it can come about that it is not future; but a future thing is necessarily future, because the future cannot at the same time be not future. Of the past the same is likewise true: a thing is not past of necessity, since before it was it could have come about that it would not be; but it is always necessary that the past be past, since it cannot at the same time not be past; and in a past thing there is something which is not in a present or future thing. For it can never come about that a thing which is past becomes not past, whereas a certain thing that is present can become not present, and something that is not future of necessity can come about as not future. So when the future is said of the future, what is said must be so, because the future is never not future, just as whenever we say the same of the same. For when we say, 'every man is a man,' or 'if he is a man, he is a man,' or 'every white thing is white, and if it is white, it is white,' what is said must be so, because something cannot at the same time be and not be; for if it is not necessary that every future thing be future, some future thing is not future, which is impossible. By necessity, then, every future thing is future, and if it is future, it is future, when the future is said of the future; but this is by a following necessity, which compels nothing to be. When, however, the future is said of a thing, the thing is not always of necessity, though it be future. For if I say, 'Tomorrow there will be a riot among the people,' there will not for all that be a riot of necessity. For it can come about, before it is, that it does not happen, even if it is future."

The same writer, in the second book of Why God Became Man, 27,[n2] teaches the same, and says: "If it is said, 'It was necessary that he die by his own will, because the faith or prophecy that had gone before concerning this was true,' it is nothing other than if you were to say that it was necessary that it be going to be so, since it was going to be so; but a necessity of this kind does not compel a thing to be, but makes the being of the thing be necessary. For there is a preceding necessity, which is the cause that a thing is, and there is a following necessity, which the thing makes. A preceding and effecting necessity is that by which it is said that the heavens revolve because it is necessary that they revolve; a following one, which effects nothing but comes to be, is that by which I say that you speak of necessity because you are speaking. For when I say this, I signify that nothing can bring it about that, while you are speaking, you are not speaking, not that anything compels you to speak: for the violence of a natural condition compels the heavens to revolve, but no necessity makes you speak." And below: "By this following necessity, which effects nothing, since the faith and prophecy about Christ were true, because he was to die by will, not of necessity, it was necessary that it be so; by this the man was made, by this he did, and suffered, whatever he did and suffered,

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by this he willed whatever he willed. For they were of necessity because they were going to be, and they were going to be because they were, and they were because they were."

Saint Thomas also, where he had last been cited, adds immediately after his authority set out above: "Hence the distinction is good, that something is necessary by necessity of the consequence and not of the consequent, or by conditioned, not absolute, necessity"; and below he distinguishes thus: "Everything known by God is necessarily so, because it can be taken of the dictum, and so it is true; or of the thing, and so it is false." In Against the Gentiles 1, 67, 83 and 85, he recites and expounds this distinction much more clearly and at greater length, and according to it he always answers in this matter of futures. Lombard also, in Sentences 1, dist. 38 and 40, answers in this matter according to this distinction, and almost all later Doctors commonly imitate him. But this reply fails in many ways: first because it is false; second because it is incautious; third because it is incomplete. First, I say, it fails because it is false. For it falsely expounds the authorities that posit the necessity of all futures in respect of the superior causes, or the first cause, but not in respect of the inferior, or even secondary, causes, by saying that they speak only of necessity of consequence, or conditional necessity. For this is not the Authors' meaning, but another, which it does not touch, and which the preceding chapter expounded. For if the Authors in such authorities were speaking only of necessity of consequence or conditional necessity, they would have to concede that futures come about necessarily in respect of inferior and secondary causes just as in respect of the superior and first. For the consequence or conditional in such cases is as necessary in respect of secondary causes as in respect of the first. For just as this consequence or conditional is necessary, "God foreknows that this will be, or will make this be, or: if God foreknows or will make this be, this will be," so is this one, "A secondary cause foreknows that this will be, or will make this be, therefore this will be"; and likewise of the conditional. Moreover all teaching ought to concern something doubtful or unknown; but this consequence or conditional was never doubtful or unknown to anyone, "God, or: if God foreknows

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that this will be,[n3] therefore this is future, or will be"; what wise man, then, would write this in order to teach it, since it is not teachable but knowable per se by anyone, the meaning of the terms being supposed? Again, if the Authors understood only this, they would in no way resolve the question proposed. For with the necessity of consequence and conditional of this kind supposed and conceded, how is the perplexity of the question resolved by it? For who, with only this necessity shown to him, will not be as much in doubt as before about free choice, merit and demerit, the certainty, fallibility or mutability of divine knowledge, and the other matters touching this problem, and especially since no one of sound mind ever doubted that necessity of consequence? Why also have so many Authors written so much, and so ambiguous and so difficult, on this matter and this necessity, if they wished to understand nothing else, when they could have disposed of it in one very short and very light word, saying that in all such cases there is only a necessity of consequence or of the conditional? By the same understanding of necessity they would have to concede that the Chimera, and all things that are not future, will come about of necessity: for the consequence and conditional laid down about them is as necessary as about the rest. For it follows necessarily, "God foreknows, or: if God foreknows, that the Chimera and all non-futures will come about, therefore they will come about." Nor can anyone reply that in past and future things the antecedent is posited as being the case, but not in these, and that therefore the necessity is not alike here and there, because the consequence or conditional itself, per se, does not posit the antecedent as being the case in truly foreknown and future things, any more than in any other matter or any other terms whatever, but posits only the necessity of the following-from, and so does any other consequence or conditional that is laid down. Speaking, then, precisely of the necessity just mentioned alone, one must concede the like of the Chimera, and of all things neither future nor foreknown, as of future and truly foreknown things. For a consequence and conditional of this kind is confirmed by a like necessity, as is any other whatever. Moreover, in this consequence, "God foreknows that the Chimera will be, therefore the Chimera will necessarily be," the antecedent is supposed and posited, just as in this one, "God foreknows that Antichrist will be, therefore Antichrist will necessarily be"; and the necessity of the consequence is equal; therefore the necessity in both is simply equal and alike. Nor does it suffice to say that the antecedent in the second is true and in the first false, and that therefore the necessity is not alike here and there. For falsity of the antecedent in no way diminishes the necessity of the consequence, nor does truth increase it, as no dialectician is ignorant. Since, therefore, the necessity of the consequence in no way includes the truth of the antecedent, so far as the necessity of the consequence alone is concerned the necessity is alike in both; and this alone in such cases

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this reply posits; so it must hold consistently that just as it is necessary that Antichrist will be, so it is also of the Chimera. The text, too, and the course of argument of the Authors who speak of this necessity refute and convict this gloss as a viper-like one,[n4] that is, one destructive of its own text and not expository. For the cause which Boethius assigns where he spoke earlier, why future contingents are necessary in respect of divine cognition or will, and not in respect of inferior causes, is this: that with divine cognition they are present, and what is, when it is, is necessary; but with inferior causes they are not present but future, and therefore with them, before they are, they can fail to be. For Boethius says in Consolation of Philosophy 5, last prose: "Since every judgment comprehends the things subject to it according to its own nature, and God has always an eternal and present state, his knowledge also, surpassing all movement of time, abides in the simplicity of its presence, and, embracing the infinite spaces of past and future, considers all things in its simple cognition as if now being done. And so if you wish to weigh the presence by which he discerns all things, you will rightly judge that it is not foreknowledge as of a future thing, but knowledge of a never-failing instant; hence it is called not praevidentia but rather providentia." And below: "No necessity compels the man who walks by his will to walk, though it is necessary that he walk when he walks. In the same way, then, if providence sees anything as present, it must be, though it has no necessity of nature, and God beholds as present those futures which proceed from the freedom of choice. These things, then, referred to the divine view, become necessary through the condition or disposition of the divine notion." And further down, to someone who objects and asks him, "What difference does it make, then, that they are not necessary, since by reason of the condition of divine knowledge they come about in every way in the manner of necessity?" (as if he said, "If it is so, it makes no difference whether they are not necessary or necessary"), Boethius replies: "This is the difference: those things which I put forward a little earlier, the rising Sun and the walking man, which while they happen cannot fail to happen, yet of these one, before it happened, was necessary to exist, the other

[717E–718A]
not at all: so also the things which God has as present will without doubt exist, but of these the one descends from the necessity of things, the other from the power of those who do them. We have, then, not unjustly said that these, if referred to the divine notice, are necessary; if considered in themselves, are free from the bonds of necessity." Saint Thomas follows him in this assignment of the cause, on Sentences 1, dist. 38, q. 5.[n5] "God," he says, "from eternity not only saw the order of himself to the thing, from whose power the thing was to be, but beheld the very being of the thing; how this is, Boethius clearly teaches in the book On Consolation. For all cognition is according to the mode of the knower; since, therefore, God is from eternity, his cognition must have the mode of eternity, which is the whole being at once without succession. Hence, just as, though time is successive, eternity is nevertheless present to all times, one and the same and indivisible, like a standing now, so his cognition beholds all temporal things, though they come in succession, as present to itself, nor is any of them future in respect of it, but only one in respect of another. Hence, according to Boethius, it is better called providence than foresight, because it does not provide as for something future, but provides for all things as present in a single view, as from the watchtower of eternity; yet it can be called foresight insofar as it knows that which is future to us, not to itself." And below: "The act of divine cognition passes over the contingent, even if it is future to us, as our sight passes over it while it is; and because what is, when it is, is necessary, which however is not absolutely necessary, it is therefore said that what, considered in itself, is contingent, is necessary when related to God's cognition, because it is referred to that cognition as it is in actual being; and so it is altogether like this: if I were to see Socrates running in the present, that is in itself contingent, but related to my sight is necessary." And below: "What is known by God can be taken according to the condition under which it lies under divine knowledge, that is, insofar as it has determinate being,

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and so it has necessity; or it can be taken without that condition, that is, as it is in its causes before it is in act, and so it has no necessity." The venerable Anselm also, On Concord 3 and 4, gives a like cause for a like saying. For he says that all futures are necessary and immutable in eternity, but not necessary, rather mutable, in time before they come to be; because in eternity, he says, there is neither past nor future, but only an immutable present. This, then, is the Authors' cause why all futures in respect of superior causes, namely divine cognition and will, are necessary: because what is, when it is, is necessary, and all futures are there in presence and in act; and why in respect of inferior causes they are not necessary: because there they are not actually present but future. In what way, then, do they speak of necessity when they say that what is, when it is, is necessary: of necessity of the consequence or dictum, or of the thing? Or do they understand the whole proposition in the conjoined sense, or in the divided? If in the second way, then, since from that cause they infer in consequence that all futures in respect of the superior causes will come about of necessity, they understand a like necessity; not, therefore, the necessity of consequence or conditional alone, as this reply imagines. But if they understand it in the first way, by the same understanding they would have to concede that for what will be to be going to be (fore, that is, futurum esse), when it will be, will be necessary. For this consequence, "If something will be, it will be," is as necessary as this, "If something is, it is"; and according to them this one is as necessary of the dictum, or in the composite sense, as that one. For it is as impossible that something be at once future and not future as that something be at once present and not be; which they do not concede but deny, imitating the doctrine of the Philosopher, On Interpretation 1, last,[n6] saying that what is, when it is, is necessary; but that future things, before they come, that is, when and while they are future, will not come about necessarily, but can in no way come about.[n7] Moreover, when Boethius, assigning the difference between the necessary and the non-necessary in the authority set out above, says that the rising Sun and the walking man, while they happen, cannot fail to happen, yet that of them one, namely the first, before it happened, was necessary to exist,

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but the other not at all (that is, that a man become a walker), implying that before the man walked it was possible for him not to walk: how does he understand this about the necessary and the possible? Simply and altogether, that is, in respect of any superior causes whatever, and likewise of inferior ones, or in a certain respect, namely in respect of inferior and natural causes? He does not understand it in the first way, because according to his view, before and after that difference is laid down, just as the one of them was necessary in respect of the first cause before it happened, so is the remaining one; and because God works outward any effect whatever equally freely, as the 9th and 20th of the first, the 30th of the second, and the first supposition teach. Hence it is not more necessary, in respect of the divine will willing and making both of these, that the Sun rise than that a man walk, as the tenth of the first also proves. And because he says likewise that the other of those two, before it happened, was by no means necessary to exist, this cannot be understood in respect of the first cause, namely divine providence and cognition, since according to his view recited above all things are present there. It must therefore be that he understands the necessity and possibility of those things in the second of the aforesaid ways, namely in respect of natural and inferior causes only, in respect of which alone such things are called future, as his following words also make plain; for he immediately adds, "Those things also which God has as present will without doubt exist, but of these the one indeed descends from the necessity of things." Of which things, if not of natural and inferior ones? And he adds, "the other from the power of those who do them": from a power, that is, opposed to the necessity just mentioned, which is to say free from the necessity of inferior causes; for the differences of opposites must be opposite. This, then, according to him, is the difference between necessary things (the rising of the Sun, say) and non-necessary but free things (a man's walking, say): that the former are necessary in respect of inferior causes, the latter by no means so, but free; so that according to him

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acts of free choice are not called wholly and simply free, because they are not free in respect of any causes whatever, since in respect of the superior causes they are called necessary, but are called free in a certain respect only, namely in respect of inferior causes, as the fifth and ninth of this book show. Therefore, right after his words set out above, he adds, "We have, then, not unjustly said that these, if referred to the divine notice, are necessary; if considered in themselves, are free from the bonds of necessity." Boethius therefore understands in the authorities alleged that all futures will come about of the necessity of the superior causes, as the preceding chapter expounded, and not of necessity of consequence or conditional only, as this reply has dreamed; which yet another word of his shows. For, about to concede this necessity in respect of superior causes and to deny another, he prefaced it with: "I shall confess," he says, "a matter of the most solid truth, but one which scarcely anyone but a contemplator of divine wit has approached. For I shall answer that the same future thing, when it is referred to the divine notion, appears necessary; but when it is weighed in its own nature, appears wholly free and absolute." But if he were speaking only of necessity of consequence or conditional, who would be so asinine of wit as not to approach the contemplation of it very easily? Who ever, the terms being known, did not know this consequence or conditional, "God foreknows that this will be, or: if God foreknows that this will be, it will be"? And who, advanced at least to the threshold of philosophical or theological letters, or even an unlettered man believing in almighty God, was ignorant of this consequence, "God provides for this and wills it to be, therefore it will be"? Or who would not at least approach very readily the contemplation of this consequence? He is not, then, speaking of necessity of consequence or conditional only, but of another, declared in the next chapter. And if anyone has in no way approached the contemplation of this necessity, let him not impute it to me, I beg, but to the slowness of his own human wit, asking humbly and attentively that he may deserve to receive some participation in the divine wit, by which he may be able to contemplate it:

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and let no one suppose the authority of Boethius to be despicable, since Saint Augustine, Anselm, Thomas, and very many other Catholic Doctors imitate him in this matter. For he was a great Philosopher and a Catholic Doctor, as his philosophical and theological books show, and was at length crowned with a happy martyrdom and enrolled in the catalogue of the Saints under the name of Severinus;[n8] for he had many names, after the manner of the Roman nobles, which are commonly written at the head of his books. Second, this reply fails as incautious: for it has not guarded against the necessity which it wished, and believed it had guarded against, nor has it granted us the free power which it wished, and believed it had granted. For if this consequence is necessary, "God foreknows or prewills[n9] whatever it is, therefore it will be," and the antecedent is not in our power, as the fifteenth of the first and the eighth of this book show, then neither is the consequent in our power as simply free and excluding every preceding necessity whatever. Third, this reply fails because it is very much incomplete; for although it answers somehow, in appearance, to a few authorities,

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yet to the reasons set out and to very many other authorities it does not answer, nor will it be able to. For how will it be able to answer the reasons set out there, and especially the syllogistic reason? How also will it answer Ecclesiasticus, Augustine, the Sibyl, our Lord Christ, Chrysostom, Paul, Job, Gregory, Tobias, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the Gloss? Or how could it answer concerning the necessity of divine fate, and all the authorities and Parisian articles that prove it? For no one who posits fatal necessity posits it to be a necessity of consequence, or conditional only.[n10] And by what pretext will it be able to answer the authorities of Augustine, City of God 5, 9 and 10? For there never was any of the Stoics so stupid, indeed no layman so lay, as to believe that every necessity of consequence or conditional is repugnant to freedom of choice. For who is so crude or foolish as to be ignorant that the necessity of this consequence and conditional, "If you will freely, you will freely," is compatible with freedom of choice? Why, then, would Augustine refute the Stoics who posit this, if he himself there posits this very one and no other? Why also does he teach in vain that this necessity does not take away freedom, since no man ever failed to know it? Therefore, without doubt, he did not wish that necessity to be understood there, but another, made plain in the next chapter, as the words of that discourse also show. For speaking there of the necessity of divine fate, that is, of fate as named from speaking (fando), he expounds that verse of the Psalm, "God has spoken once,"[n11] that is, immovably, that is, unchangeably has he spoken, as he unchangeably knows all things that will be and that he is going to do. Then he rebukes the Stoics, because they did not wish to subject our wills to a necessity of this kind, lest they then not be free; and by distinguishing concerning necessity, he removes their motive, showing that one necessity, namely the unwilling one, which befalls us against our will (the necessity of dying, for instance), is repugnant to freedom of choice, and that another necessity is defined, according to which we say that it is necessary that something be so, or come to be so, and this is not repugnant to freedom of choice. See how plainly he expresses this necessity, and defines it by reference to an active cause, as the next chapter expounded;

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and this is twofold, conservative namely and factive, as is taught in the second of the first. For the conservative he says, "the necessity according to which we say it is necessary that something be so"; and for the factive he adds, "or come to be so," making no mention whatever of necessity of consequence or conditional. Hence it does not seem that he wishes to speak of necessity of consequence or conditional only; and the exemplary reasoning by which he shows his purpose also teaches this plainly. For he shows that the aforesaid necessity, according to which we say that it is necessary that something be so or come to be so, is not to be feared lest it take freedom of will from us, because we do not put God's life and foreknowledge under necessity in the first manner, the manner that takes away or diminishes freedom, if we say that it is necessary that God always live and foreknow all things, just as his power is not diminished when it is said that he cannot die or be deceived. But in this reasoning he says and understands nothing whatever about necessity of consequence or any conditional. How, moreover, can other authorities of his, on correction and grace, mentioned in the next chapter, be expounded by this necessity? And that authority of his, On the Faith, to Peter, how will it be expounded by this subtle and logical gloss, recognized only by such as these? Rather it will be perverted, especially since he himself wishes all his sayings in that little book to be understood according to the common and customary way of speaking of simple believers or unbelievers, the rude and the unlearned, so that no sense of heretical falsehood could creep in on them. Hence at the head of the book he says: "I have received the letter of your charity, my son Peter, in which you indicated that you wished to go to Jerusalem, and asked to be instructed by our letters how you should hold the rule of the true faith in those parts, so that no sense of heretical falsehood could creep in on you."[n12] And at the heel of the book he says: "These forty chapters for now, which most firmly pertain to the rule of the true faith, believe faithfully, hold strongly, defend truthfully and patiently; and if you learn that anyone teaches doctrines contrary to these, flee him as a plague, and cast him out as a heretic." For these things which we have set down so agree with the Catholic faith that if anyone should wish to contradict not only all of them but even single ones, in that he stubbornly resists each single one of these,

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and these points, he who does not hesitate to teach the contrary[n13] would appear a heretic and an enemy of the Christian faith, and on this account one to be anathematized by all Catholics. Hence, affirming most plainly and asserting most certainly, he says, "Hold most firmly, and by no means doubt, that it is so." Again, how will Anselm be expounded by this reply, and especially in On Concord 3, where he says, "Things that are past in time are, in likeness to the eternal present, altogether immutable"? For this cannot be expounded of the immutability of a consequence, a conditional, or a dictum, but of the thing, since it is one pure categorical. Also when he says immediately afterwards that things present in eternity can never fail to be present there, but things present in time can fail to be present there, he understands it either in the sense of composition and of the dictum, or in the sense of division and of the thing. Not in the first way, because then the second part is false; for just as this is not possible, "things present in eternity are not present in eternity," so neither is this, "things present in time are not present in time": he understands it, therefore, in the second way, as does the preceding chapter, which both his words and his course of argument plainly indicate. As for the motives of this reply, it must be known that that distinction concerning necessity of the consequence or of the consequent, conditional or absolute, of the dictum or of the thing, is good in its own cases, as in this one and its like, "If I am going to read tomorrow, it is necessary that I read tomorrow." Nevertheless, the reasons and authorities set out in the preceding chapter cannot be expounded reasonably by it, nor [brought] to their meaning through it alone,[n14] as was shown above. First, however, for the saying of Boethius, it must be noted that he could very fittingly have said this by way of example. For, seeing that it would be very difficult to understand how something could be necessary in respect of the divine will and cognition and yet free in its own nature, he wished to show this somehow by a manifest example, so that by easier and better-known things he might lead the slower to the more difficult and the unknown, as in every philosophical and theological discipline a frequent and useful way of teaching is by examples; for which reason an example is, not undeservedly, counted by logicians among the species of argument. Boethius, therefore, wishing to show

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that some future things were necessary with respect to the first cause, and free in their own nature, he said advisedly: "There are two necessities, one simple, as that it is necessary that all men be mortal; the other conditional, as, if you know that someone is walking, it is necessary that he is walking." In this way he might deny pure necessity of future contingents. By the second necessity, in which the consequent is necessary with respect to the antecedent and yet free in its own nature, he might show in some fashion, though with great dissimilarity and remoteness, that the same can hold of freely future things with respect to the first cause. For that cause is the naturally antecedent cause, from which all free things follow necessarily: necessarily, I say, with respect to it, not in their own nature, as the preceding chapter explained. Wherefore in the whole course that follows he always denies of free acts the necessity of nature and of coercion, but the other

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(namely the necessity according to superior causes) never. As it seems, he would have done this at some point, had he not posited that necessity at all. Indeed both here and in Book 4, prose 6, he always proves it, expressly maintains and defends it,[n15] as his whole argument attests, and especially the authorities cited in the preceding chapter.

Second, I say, for the understanding of Boethius and of all the others who say expressly that in such matters there is conditional necessity, of the consequence, of the dictum, or taken jointly, but not of the consequent, of the thing, or taken severally,[n16] that this is true on a twofold understanding. First, because according to them, in every such conditional, consequence, dictum, and composite proposition there is absolute necessity, but in the consequent, or the thing, or the divided proposition, by no means. Second, according to the common and usual way of speaking: for in that way the consequence is necessary for all, but the consequent is not. For the necessity and freedom of such consequences, according to the more common and usual way of speaking, is considered only with respect to inferior causes. About these both the common people and the professors of almost all the sciences think and speak the most, as 5 and the one next to this teach.

Third, for the understanding of Boethius: since Philosophers are accustomed to load few words with many meanings, as Ovid says in De vetula 3,[n17] "Speaking few words, they wished many weights to lie beneath their words," I believe that by "necessity of condition," besides the aforesaid conditional necessity, he meant to include, with Anselm, the concomitant or following necessity. This arises in a way from the positing of a present thing in being, necessarily accompanies it, and follows it while it is present. It is the necessity which, according to the Philosophers and Theologians and according to all commonly, is expressed in the saying that everything that is, when it is, necessarily is, as was taught more fully in 2 of this work.[n18] He could therefore reasonably be understood in this way. For just as in a conditional the consequent follows necessarily from the antecedent, so also in things, from any thing posited as already present in being, as from an antecedent cause according to nature, or at least one including the antecedent cause according to nature, there follows necessarily and really, as an inseparable, the consequent according to nature, since a certain necessity of this kind is naturally posterior.[n19] About this, however, as about everything else

[721C]
Sophists can wrangle sophistically, asking what that following necessity is, which necessarily follows every thing and, what seems more wonderful, every non-thing. For just as it is necessary that what is, when it is, be, so also that what is not, when it is not, not be . But this necessity cannot be caused, nor descend from a non-being. To these and similar points I shall reply in 13 and 14 of Book 1. Now if he meant the first necessity, namely the conditional, well and good. But the second, namely the consequent or following necessity, I firmly believe he meant, as both his thought and his words show clearly. For the cause of this necessity, according to him, is this: future things are present to the divine knowledge or providence, and everything that presently is, while it presently is, necessarily is, as was shown above. Wherefore also, showing evidently that by "condition" he by no means understands a conditional, but a disposition, or a presential or immediate state or mode of the divine knowledge, he says thus: "No necessity compels the man who walks of his own will to go on, although when he walks it is necessary that he go on. In the same way, then,

[721D–721E]
if providence sees something as present, it is necessary that it be, even if it has no necessity of nature. But God beholds as present those future things which arise from the freedom of choice; therefore these, related to the divine gaze, become necessary through the condition of the divine knowledge."

Hence Robert of Lincoln,[n20] in On Free Choice 3, "understanding above the elders," and investigating this matter most profoundly, even to its foundation, says: "Necessity is twofold, as Anselm distinguishes in Cur Deus homo 2, ch. 17. One he calls preceding necessity, which is the cause that a thing be, and compels a thing to be. The other he calls following necessity, which is not the cause of the thing and does not compel the thing to be. And this, as he himself says, is that necessity which Aristotle treats in On Propositions, concerning singulars and futures. It seems to destroy contingency to either side[n21] and to establish that all things are from necessity, and by this following and nothing-effecting necessity it is necessary that God know my sitting tomorrow, and the like. No absurdity results from [calling things] necessary by this following necessity; indeed it rather seems necessary that a contingent follow:[n22] for while I sit, it is necessary that I sit, and after I have sat, it is necessary that I have sat. But the relation which these sayings, 'that I sit' and 'that I have sat,' have to my sitting while I sit and after I have sat, the same relation God's knowledge has to my future sitting before I sit; for he knows future things as present. And below:[n23] these two necessities, from one of which only the necessary follows, whereas from the other, as has been said, a contingent seems to follow, I think Boethius called simple necessity and necessity of condition. Some, however, understand 'necessity of condition' not as that which was called above the following necessity, but as necessity of consecution of the consequent to the antecedent, as when it is said, 'If a man runs, he moves his feet'; this is the necessity of the consecution of the consequent to the antecedent, although both, namely the consequent as well as the antecedent, are contingent." And he adds: "From the words of Boethius himself, considered more deeply, it can be better perceived that he called 'necessity of condition' what we above called the following necessity. For he says that the same future thing, when referred to the divine knowledge, is necessary, but when weighed in its own nature, is seen to be altogether free and absolute." And after a few lines: "But God beholds as present those future things which arise from the freedom of choice; these, therefore, related to the gaze

[722A–722B]
divine, become necessary through the condition of the divine knowledge, but considered in themselves, being absolute, they do not abandon the freedom of their nature." And again: "If these things are referred to the divine knowledge, they are necessary; if they are considered in themselves, they are released from the bonds of necessity." What else do these words mean, but that those things which in their own nature are contingent to either alternative, flexible and changeable, are invariable in God's knowledge, not on account of the invariability of things, but on account of the immutability of God's knowledge?

Moreover, for the understanding of Boethius it must be known that by "necessity of condition," that is, "conditional necessity," he could reasonably have meant the consecutive necessity between an unimpedible cause and its effect. For as in a verbal conditional, from a verbal antecedent its verbal consequent follows necessarily and verbally, so also in the real condition or connection of an unimpedible cause and its effect, from the cause which naturally precedes, as from a real antecedent, there follows necessarily and really its effect, because that is naturally posterior; and the effect is its real consequent. And this is a respective necessity, that is, with respect to superior and inferior causes, of which the first is conceded in free acts and the second denied, as was shown above. I therefore judge this likely to be the meaning of the authors who say that whatever, or if anything, God wills, foreknows or provides, will come to pass of necessity. For according to them God's will, foreknowledge (or knowledge) and providence are causes of things, and causes not impedible but altogether efficacious and necessary in causing, as 9 and 15.27 and what follows, with 10.1, teach. The Gloss of the Decretum could be understood according to the second meaning of Boethius given above. Yet the Gloss could also have expounded its text more closely by means of the following necessity, or by the consecutive necessity of superior causes, as the surface of the letter suggests, and as the premises also expound. But perhaps that exposition would have been too difficult and far too lengthy, and so it passed over it in silence and chose the easier and shorter one, without prejudice to the better. Yet if anyone leans stubbornly on this Gloss, let him beware, I beg, lest he lean on a reed staff, which will enter and pierce

[722C]
his hand. For see what it says at the end: "This," it says, "is twofold: It is necessary that this happen which God foresaw: as to the dictum it is true, as to the thing it is false. For that which God foresaw, it is not necessary that it happen." And note that this argument is not valid: "If God foresaw something, it will necessarily happen; therefore, if God foresaw something, it is necessary that it happen." The reason is that here the word "necessary" cannot qualify that consequence, but only the consequent. This Gloss therefore wishes to deny all such statements as these: that which God foreknows or has foreknown, provides or has provided, or anything he wills or has willed, it is of necessity, or necessary, that it happen. For according to the Gloss the necessity in all such cases refers not to the consequence but to the consequent, not to the dictum but to the thing alone.

But see how carefully it has looked at the text of Boethius and of the Decretum, which it expounds by glossing: "If providence sees something as present," says the text of both, "it is necessary that it be, or: that it be, is necessary."[n24] See likewise how carefully it has looked at the words of canonical Scripture and of the Doctors. For in Luke, last chapter, the Truth himself says, "It is necessary that all things be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning me";

[722D–722E]
and in Matthew 18, "It is necessary that scandals come"; and Luke 17, expounding the same in equivalent terms, says, "It is impossible that scandals not come." Augustine too, On Free Choice 3, 11: "So far is it from the truth that the sins of the creature are to be thought imputable to the Creator, though they come about necessarily, which he himself foreknew as future, that, when you say you do not find how whatever must happen in his creature is not imputed to him, I on the contrary shall not find a way, and shall affirm that none at all can be found, by which whatever must happen in his creature, in such a way that it happens by the will of those who sin, could be imputed to him." Very many of his authorities, cited in the preceding chapter, express a similar thought in a similar manner of speaking. And Anselm says in On Concord 2: "That God foreknows a future thing, it is necessary that it be future"; and below: "If God foreknows something, it is necessary that it be future." In Cur Deus homo 2, 17, he says: "Nothing is necessary or impossible, except that she herself wills."[n25] In his Meditation on human redemption too he says thus: "Christian soul, soul raised from grievous death; all necessity and impossibility of his is subject to his will, since what he wills, it is necessary that it be, and what he does not will, it is impossible that it be." Many learned men also express a similar thought similarly.

For the understanding of Anselm, however, it must be known that according to his view necessity is twofold, namely preceding and following, and each of these is threefold. Preceding necessity, according to him, is an active cause unfailing in acting, upon the positing of which its effect necessarily follows. This is twofold, because one kind is compatible with freedom, another destroys freedom; and the latter is twofold, for one kind is natural necessity of this sort, another violent necessity of this sort. These three modes are well enough known from the second and tenth of this work. They can also be clearly drawn out of On Concord 2, where he concedes the first of them even in matters of free choice, as the preceding chapter recited, and denies the other two. Following necessity too is twofold: one dictional or consequential and complex, the other real and incomplex. Following necessity, dictional or consequential and complex, is the necessity of some dictum and composite proposition, or taken jointly, that is, in the sense

[723A–723B]
of composition, or conditional necessity or necessity of consequence. According to Anselm's logic in On Concord 2 this is such a necessity that its opposite formally implies and involves contradiction, as his cited authority clearly shows. Consequently he must grant that such necessity is wholly absolute, but in the thing and in the consequent there is no absolute necessity, as was said in the second exposition of Boethius. However, according to the probable logic of the Moderns of Oxford, not all those propositions are reputed necessary in which the same is said of the same, as Anselm and the older Doctors suppose. For "A man is a man" would be neither necessary nor true, but false, if no man existed. For it follows: a man is a man, therefore a man is a rational animal (for this belongs to the per se understanding of that); therefore a man is an animal; therefore an animal is a man. Yet when no man exists, but other animals, as was the case before the creation of Adam, every animal would be irrational and not a man, and no animal would be rational or a man.

To the objection they commonly raise, "therefore a man is not a man," a twofold answer is given. Some concede this simply, and if it is argued further, "therefore something is a man and that is not a man," they deny that consequence, because the antecedent is simply negative and posits or implies nothing, as they say, just as neither does this: "A chimaera is not an animal," or "is not a man." Others, denying this ("A man is a man"), concede its contradictory in this form: "Not a man, or no man, is a man,"[n26] and so, always prefixing the negation, they say the contradictory is to be given. The Philosophers say that equipollences always hold, unless something special prevents and opposes. But since these matters pertain more to Logicians than to Theologians, let it suffice to have touched on them briefly in this place. Real and incomplex following necessity, however, is twofold. One kind is presential, another causal or effectual, for I shall give them names as closely as I can, though somewhat metaphorically. Following necessity,

[723C]
real and presential, may be called so from the present thing, or from presence. For it follows every present thing necessarily in this way: that everything which is, when it is, by this necessity necessarily is, as was said in the third exposition of Boethius. For this view Anselm says in On Concord 2, in this way: because a thing is posited to be, it is said to be from necessity; or because it is posited not to be, it is affirmed not to be from necessity. And below: "What the free will wills, it both can not-will and cannot not-will, and it is necessary that it will it. For it can not will before it wills, because it is free; but when it already wills, it cannot not will, and it is necessary that it will it, since it is impossible for it at the same time both to will and not to will the same thing." And it goes on: "But the work of the will, to which it has been given that what it wills be done, is necessary in two ways: because it is compelled to come about by the will, and because what is cannot at the same time not come to be." He also says below, in 3, that future things are necessary in eternity and with God, and assigns as the cause that there

[723D–723E]
they are present and not future, as was shown above. And the same author in Cur Deus homo 2, 17: "The being of a thing," he says, "makes the necessity of being. For there is a preceding necessity, which is the cause that a thing be, and there is a following necessity, which the thing makes. Preceding and efficient necessity is when it is said, 'The heaven revolves,' because it is necessary that it revolve. Following necessity, which effects nothing but comes to be, is when I say that you speak of necessity, because you are speaking."

This following necessity cannot be explained merely by dictional or consequential necessity. For, whether the thing is or is not, whether you speak or do not speak, according to his view in On Concord 2, recited above, this dictum is always necessary of any thing whatever: "such a thing is such a thing," and "you, speaking, speak"; and likewise this consequence, "If such a thing is, such a thing is," and "if you speak, you speak." This, then, is not that following necessity which he says is made by things, but that real necessity spoken of above, which follows necessarily from every thing. His following words also seem to bear witness to this: "This," he says, "is that necessity which, where Aristotle treats of singular propositions and futures,

seems to destroy contingency to either side, and to establish that all things are from necessity." But in Peri hermenias 1, last chapter, where Aristotle treats these matters,[n27] no such necessity appears to be posited that could seem to destroy contingency to either side and establish that all things are from necessity, except the aforesaid real and presential necessity, which affirms that everything that is, when it is, necessarily is; and likewise of what is not. Hence he says thus: "That what is, when it is, be, and that what is not, when it is not, not be, is necessary." This understanding of Anselm concerning following necessity is also attested by the authority of Robert of Lincoln recited above. In it he first alleges a twofold necessity from Anselm, namely preceding and following; and below he shows that the necessity of condition, which Boethius asserts, is not the necessity of consecution, but the following necessity which he mentioned before, namely presential necessity, as was shown in the third exposition of Boethius. But following necessity, causal or effectual, can be named from the cause or from the effect; and it seems to be that consecutive necessity between an unimpedible cause and its effect, mentioned in the fourth exposition of Boethius above, for the reason and cause likewise

[724A–724B]
assigned there. The Authorities of Anselm cited in the preceding chapter seem also sufficiently to attest this understanding.

And if anyone objects that then the same necessity would be both antecedent and consequent, it must be said that this is quite possible, indeed even necessary, under diverse respects and for diverse reasons. Preceding necessity, properly and strictly taken, is only the cause, or [necessity] in the cause unfailing in causing, of which it was spoken in 2 of this work, and this corresponds to the logical antecedent in a logical consequence. Following necessity, real, causal or effectual, can be taken in two ways. In one way, it is only the effect, or [necessity] in the effect of such a cause unimpedible in causing; and it corresponds to the aforesaid preceding necessity, as effect to efficient cause and patient to agent; and this is likened to the logical consequent in a logical consequence. In the other way, it somehow embraces both: namely as consecutive necessity, or consecution, or the real consequence itself between such a cause and its effect. Just as the logical consecution or consequence is not in the antecedent alone or the consequent alone, but embraces each of them, and is a kind of relation midway between them, so this real following necessity corresponds to the whole necessary logical consequence.

It must nevertheless be known that antecedent or preceding necessity has a twofold meaning. In one way it is taken as has been said here, and as the second part of this work defines it;[n28] in the other way it is taken for necessity simply and wholly absolute (for this naturally precedes every other necessity), or for natural necessity preceding naturally necessary effects. Robert of Lincoln also seems to hint at this in On Free Choice 3, where he says: "From the necessary, according to the view of Boethius, a contingent seems to follow, but not from the absolute or antecedent necessary, which compels a thing to be, but from the necessary of condition and following, which permits a thing to be free." Below, in 10, he reckons antecedent and simple necessity to be the same. In one of his questions

[724C–724D]
on God's knowledge, asking how God knows those things which happen by chance or from free will, he distinguishes a twofold cause, namely antecedent and conjoined, and in defining the antecedent cause says: "The antecedent cause is the preordaining one, so that according to the course of nature some thing comes about of necessity, as an eclipse of Sun and Moon." Below, having answered that God is not the antecedent cause of such effects but the conjoined cause, and removing one possible objection that could be raised, he adds: "God's doing and his knowing are the same; and it does not follow, 'God's knowledge, which is the cause of the thing, is eternal, therefore it is antecedent'; for antecedence, of which this discourse speaks, is the necessary preordination of a future event according to the course of nature."

This also seems to accord with the words and mind of Anselm in On Concord and Cur Deus homo 2, where he had been cited. For in On Concord 2, denying antecedent necessity in free acts, he grants it in the rising of the Sun. And in Cur Deus homo 2, 17, denying likewise antecedent necessity from things of free choice, he grants it in the revolving motion of the Heaven. For the violence, as he says, of natural condition compels the heaven to revolve.

The understanding of St Thomas also can be clearly elicited from what has been said:

he concedes the necessity of the dictum, not of the thing, necessity of consequence, of condition, and ex suppositione, but the other he denies. For necessity of condition and ex suppositione, in his manner of speaking, and in the common manner of speaking of the Parisian Doctors, can be explained in two ways. For one is dictional and complex, the other real and incomplex; and this latter is twofold, one presential, the other consecutive, causal or effectual, as was distinguished above concerning Anselm's following necessity. For consequence and consecution too is twofold, dictional or logical, and real; and the real is twofold, presential and causal or effectual, for the reason and cause assigned above in the expositions of Boethius and Anselm. St Thomas therefore concedes the necessity of the dictum and of consequence as necessity simply absolute, according to the logic of Anselm and of the older Doctors, recited above. The necessity of the thing and of the consequent he denies, in the same sense; and his own words indicate this plainly: "The distinction is good: that something is necessary by necessity of the consequence and not by necessity of the consequent"; or by conditioned necessity, not absolute, as was alleged above.

[724E]
He also, in Against the Gentiles 1, 67,[n29] speaking of such a necessary thing, says: "This is not necessary absolutely, but under a condition, and by necessity of the consequence." And below, 83: "Although God wills nothing absolutely and necessarily concerning caused things, yet he wills something necessarily from a condition, or from a supposition." And below, 85: "Necessity from supposition in the cause cannot conclude absolute necessity in the effect. But God wills something in a creature not by absolute necessity, but only by the necessity which is from supposition; therefore from the divine will absolute necessity cannot be concluded in created things; yet this alone excludes contingency." St Thomas therefore wishes only to deny the absolute necessity that excludes contingency. But necessity of consequence, of condition and of supposition, real and presential, he concedes, as is clearly evident in his assignment of the cause of the necessity which he posits,

[725A]
recited above. He also hints at and affirms necessity of consequence, of condition and of supposition, real, causal or effectual, if his thought and words are searched closely, which the cause assigned above in the fourth exposition of Boethius also evidently shows. It can be said otherwise, and more briefly, that necessity according to him is not spoken of according to superior causes, but only according to inferior ones, as the preceding chapter recited. When he denies necessity from free acts, therefore, he means necessity with respect to inferior causes, as the preceding chapter also alleged. According to these expositions given above too, or any one of them, Lombard and the other Doctors who make distinctions of this kind can be understood.

NOTES

1. "The gloss of the Decretum" is the Ordinary Gloss on Gratian. The "authority of Boethius" is the Consolation 5, prose 6 passage that Bradwardine quotes in full below (717C–D). Gratian's use of it was cited at the end of ch. 27 (715A–B), together with Aquinas, Sent. I, d. 38.
2. Savile prints "27". The passage (necessitas praecedens / sequens) is Anselm, Cur Deus homo II, 17. I translate the print's number unchanged (rule 4).
3. The print gives "Deus, vel si Deus praescit hoc esse futurum, ergo hoc est futurum seu erit". Deus is left without a verb. I take it as an abbreviated form of the conditional itself ("God [foreknows], or: if God foreknows…") and translate it as printed.
4. The viper was thought to be killed by its own offspring, which gnaw their way out of the mother. Bradwardine's gloss is therefore "viper-like" because it destroys the very text it claims to explain (peremtoriam … sui textus, non expositoriam).
5. Savile's "quaest. 5" is Aquinas, Super Sent. I, d. 38, q. 1, a. 5. The "Boethius" he cites is Consolation 5, prose 6.
6. "1. peri hermenias vlt." is Aristotle, On Interpretation 9 (19a23 ff.), the last chapter of Savile's book 1. Per rule 4 the number stays as Savile has it.
7. posse nullatenus evenire is literally "to be able in no way to come about". The sense required is "to be able not to come about at all". Nullatenus does the work of a negation on the infinitive, and I translate accordingly.
8. Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, venerated in medieval Pavia as St Severinus. The "many names" are those prefixed to his works.
9. praeuult, "prewills" (praevolo): the volitional counterpart to praescit, "foreknows". English has no ready equivalent, so I keep the compound.
10. The print reads "ponit eam esse necessitatem consequentiae, sed conditionalem tantummodo". Taken literally this would assert the opposite of what the sentence is arguing, since the Stoic fatalists are being said not to mean a merely logical necessity. The evident sense requires seu ("or"), as everywhere else in this chapter ("consequentiae seu conditionalis"). I translate that sense and leave the print as it is.
11. Ps 61:12 [62:11], "Semel locutus est Deus". The derivation of fatum from fari ("to speak") is Augustine's, City of God 5.9. Bradwardine's "next chapter" is ch. 27, so the reference points back to what he has already shown.
12. The work is Fulgentius of Ruspe's De fide ad Petrum, which medieval writers commonly ascribed to Augustine. Bradwardine's wording of the opening differs slightly from the printed Fulgentius, and I translate his Latin as given.
13. The Latin is "et his qui contraria docere non dubitat". It does not construe smoothly. I take his as a second object of repugnat ("resists each of these, and these [points]") and qui … non dubitat as the subject's relative clause. The variant testimonijs (margin) would make the object "these testimonies". The main reading can be construed, so I do not adopt the variant (rule 2). The sense is not in doubt.
14. nec ad intellectum tantum per ipsam: the Latin is elliptical. I read "nor can they be brought, through it alone, to their meaning". The point is that the distinction between necessity of consequence and of the consequent cannot by itself yield the sense of the authorities.
15. "Both here and in Book 4, prose 6": Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, IV pr. 6 (on providence and fate), and "here" is V pr. 6, the passage Bradwardine has been quoting. Boethius is cited by book and prose.
16. Dictum (the proposition as a whole, "that Socrates runs") against res (the thing). Dictionalis means "of the dictum." Coniunctim/diuisim are the composite and divided senses. The necessity attaches to the whole conditional (de dicto, "jointly") and not to its consequent taken by itself (de re, "severally"). I keep dictum as a term (§5.8).
17. De vetula is the medieval pseudo-Ovidian poem. Bradwardine, like his contemporaries, cites it as Ovid's.
18. The print reads qua (ablative), which gives no construction with dicitur quod. I read the relative as quae ("which," that is, the following necessity) and translate the evident sense.
19. quia posterior naturaliter necessitas quaedam talis: the Latin is elliptical (posterior naturaliter [est] necessitas quaedam talis). I take it that this following necessity is naturally posterior to the thing posited in being, and that this is why the consequent follows inseparably.
20. Robert of Lincoln is Robert Grosseteste, here quoted from his De libero arbitrio. "Understanding above the elders" (super senes intelligens) is Ps 118:100 [119:100], super senes intellexi.
21. vtrumlibet (ad utrumlibet, "to either alternative") is the contingent's openness to go either way. I render it "contingency to either side" or "contingent to either alternative," according to the context. At 723D, "embraces each of them" is a different use of the same word.
22. magis necessarium videtur sequi contingens can be read two ways. Either "it rather seems necessary that a contingent follow [from them]" (as I translate), or "the necessary seems rather to follow the contingent." Grosseteste's later formula (724B: ex necessario … sequi videtur contingens) supports the first reading.
23. Et infra has duas necessitates … The infra is Bradwardine's "and below," and he quotes Grosseteste further on. The object is fronted: "these two necessities … I think Boethius called …"
24. The two orders, id necesse est esse and id esse necesse est, have the same sense. Bradwardine's point against the Gloss is that the text puts "necessary" over the whole clause (the dictum), not over the consequent alone.
25. ipsa is feminine, and no antecedent appears in the words as quoted. Anselm presumably has the divine will or nature in view. I render "she herself" because the pronoun cannot be left open in English. Anselm's sense is that necessity and impossibility are what God's will makes them.
26. Non homo, vel nullus homo est homo: "always prefixing the negation" means the negation is set before the whole proposition ("Not: man is man"), as in "no man is a man." It is not the predicate "non-man."
27. Peri hermenias 1, last chapter, is On Interpretation 9, 19a23–24. Savile's "1" is the first book of the Latin division.
28. The print reads secundum huius eam definit. The parallel secundo huius ("in 2 of this work," used a few lines before) is evidently meant, and I translate accordingly.
29. Savile's "1. contra Gentiles 67" is Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles I, ch. 67. The following "83" and "85" are chapters of the same book (I.83, I.85).