De causa Dei: Book III, Chapter 36
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, 767B–768B; Latin from EEBO-TCP A16626 (public domain).
Canonical: https://bradwardine.wrootpress.com/3/36/
Status: draft translation, not yet reviewed.

[767B]
CHAPTER XXXVI. He argues against the third.

[767C–767E]
The third response holds that the cause of a past effect, namely a past vision in the Word [n1], could not have been the vision of A as a future thing shown, but was the vision of its opposite. It fails and goes astray in many ways. First, God reveals only voluntarily. So it can be that he did not reveal A, which he did previously reveal. And if that is posited as existing, it is not necessary that he revealed its opposite; indeed it stands well with this that he revealed nothing at all. Let this, then, be posited together with the other, and the response does not answer. Second, it must say in consequence that, just as when something has been seen in the Word it is possible that it was never seen but its opposite was, so too when something has been willed in the Word it is possible that it was never willed but its opposite was. Hence, by such a willing, when something has been done within the one who sees and wills, or outside him, it is possible that it was never done but its opposite was, as 33 of this book proves [n2].

[767D]
But if he insists that the case of vision and of willing is not alike, because what was previously seen can never have been seen, and its opposite, which was never seen, can have been seen, whereas with what is willed it is not so, since what was once willed must always have been willed, and what was not willed, likewise, not willed, he will be refuted by 33 of this third book. Grant, moreover, what he says. Let such a revelation be made to Paul, with a command of willing and acting in conformity, and let Paul obey in all things. Then it is necessary that Paul now will thus, or willed thus in the past; therefore it is necessary that he now see thus, or saw thus in the past, for this willing of his is now caused by this vision of his, or was caused by it in the past. Besides, either Paul by the same act by which he distinctly saw that A would be can have distinctly seen the opposite, or by another. If by the same, then by like reasoning, by the same act by which he distinctly willed that A or anything else would be, he can have distinctly willed the opposite, and hence not have done what he did. If by another, then one other act which never was can possibly have been, and one which was can possibly not have been, against the principal hypothesis.

[767E]
Again, the vision of the opposite would have caused the opposite effect, and not that one. For if Gabriel had seen in the Word that the Son of God was not to be incarnated of the Virgin, that vision would never have caused in him the will to go to the blessed Virgin and to announce what he did, but rather no will at all, or the opposite will. Christ also, if he had not seen in the Word his future passion, but its opposite, would have had no cause for so great a sorrow and bloody sweat. Paul likewise, if he had seen in the Word that he would be saved, would have had a great delight created in its own kind; but if he had seen the opposite, he would have had great sorrow. Again, this response does not avoid the difficulty. For let such a revelation be given to Paul, with a command of willing and acting in conformity, and let him obey fully and, dying thus, be saved. Then according to this response it is now possible that he never saw that vision or command in the Word, but the opposite of both; and it is now necessary that he acted thus outwardly. Hence it is now possible

[768A]
that he acted against the revelation and the vision in the Word, sinned mortally, and was wretched and damned. Of Gabriel likewise, in the interval between the annunciation and the incarnation, it was possible that he was lying. For when he said to the Virgin full of grace, "Behold, you will conceive," it was possible that at that moment he had not seen that in the Word, but had plainly seen its opposite. Hence it was likewise possible that that most blessed Archangel of the Lord was a most wretched angel of Satan, since he lied against so great and so clear a truth and sinned mortally. Let him affirm this who dares. I, however, out of reverence for the truth which shows all these things, out of reverence for him who sends and for her to whom he was sent, and out of reverence for the one sent and for him for whose sake he was sent, do not dare to affirm such things. From this, moreover, it follows that the blessed who are finally confirmed can sin, and so are not finally confirmed, against the fifteenth of the second book. And from this it is further inferred that the blessed are not, and cannot be, certain of their beatitude. For how will a creature capable of sin, in a state capable of sin because not finally confirmed,

[768B]
be certain of never sinning and of perpetual beatitude? Nor can God confer on the blessed any state firmer or more certain. Again, if God could make a blessed person certain of his future beatitude, this would most of all be through some revelation in the Word; but no such revelation makes him certain, because any such revelation, even if it is now of one of two opposites, can now, and for now, not be of that one but of its opposite. Indeed, what seems still more erroneous, God cannot make the blessed person certain of his past or of his present beatitude. For let it be posited in this present instant, in which the blessed Gabriel announces to the Virgin full of grace that she will conceive a son, that it is possible for him now to sin by lying, and to have sinned in the past from the time at which he knowingly willed this. For it is possible that he now sees, and continuously before saw, the opposite of this in the Word. Therefore no blessed person is certain, nor can he be, about his beatitude, whether future, past, or present, against what was shown earlier in the thirty-fourth of this book.

NOTES

1. In verbo, "in the Word": the vision of things in the divine Word (Verbum), the sight the blessed are held to have of all things in God. I keep the phrase throughout as "in the Word."
2. Bradwardine's bare huius ("of this") means this book, Book III, so "33 of this" is ch. 33 of Book III, and "34 of this" below is ch. 34. "The fifteenth of the second" is ch. 15 of Book II. Cross-references are left as he wrote them (Conventions §5.4).

## Errata

767C | posibile | possibile
768A | vltetius | ulterius
768B | cum nunc mentiendo | eum nunc mentiendo
768B | praetetitoque | praeteritoque