De causa Dei: Book III, Chapter 39
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, 769B–769E; Latin from EEBO-TCP A16626 (public domain).
Canonical: https://bradwardine.wrootpress.com/3/39/
Status: draft translation, not yet reviewed.

[769B–769C]
CHAPTER XXXIX.

He argues against the sixth.

[769C–769E]
The sixth reply also is not true. It maintains that God through himself alone can be, or could have been, the total cause of the often-mentioned effect, whether present or past. It is false because, according to that reply, it would be possible that a man who, from a vision and command in the Word,[n1] prayed, ran, preached, built houses and begot sons did none of these things, and that God did each of them through himself alone. Consequently it would also be possible for those who have been deflowered to become virgins again, by their own action or inaction, which would be future freely and contingently. According to that reply there would then be as much contingency with respect to present and past things as with respect to future ones. For suppose a revelation in the Word is made to a wayfarer about some effect, which let be A, future by him freely and contingently. Suppose that he, from that revelation, brings about another effect before A, say B, in the intervening time, after B and before A, or while B is being done. Just as it is contingent that he do or not do A, which is future, so also it is contingent that he did or did not do B, which is past, or that he is now doing and not doing B, which is present, as is plain from the thirty-third of this.

Again, according to that reply it is possible that a man who, from such a revelation, merited, or sinned against it, and was just or unjust, saved or damned, rewarded or punished, blessed or wretched, above in heaven or below in hell, never so acted and never received such things. Again, by the same reasoning by which it is possible that God alone did what he did with a rational secondary cause, it will likewise be possible that he alone did whatever he did with an irrational secondary cause. Therefore whatever God did with any secondary cause, it is possible that he alone did it, and that no secondary cause ever did or moved anything. Again, if he can have done alone what God did not do alone, then by like reasoning he can have done what he did neither with another nor alone, since he has no need of another's help. Hence he can likewise have not done what he did do. All this is flatly contrary to the principal hypothesis.

NOTES

1. in verbo: "in the Word," the divine Word in which, on the hypothesis of the preceding chapters, the vision, command and revelation are given. The "principal hypothesis" at the end is the one on which the whole argument rests: that such a revelation is made and an effect follows from it.