Book III, Chapter 49

CHAPTER 49. He recounts a twofold opinion which holds that in revealed future things there is an ordained or an absolute necessity, but in other things none.

Some, however, weighing more carefully the reasons and authorities set out above, and seeing that they cannot flee from necessity of every kind in future things, are drawn in a certain way by the truth itself toward necessity and approach it more closely. They confess that in some future things there is a certain necessity: namely, in those future things that are divinely revealed, divinely prophesied and divinely promised. And these in turn are divided into two sects. The one party posits in such future things only an ordained1 necessity, and holds that they cannot fail to occur by ordained power, but that they can fail by absolute power. The others posit an unfailing, absolute necessity, which cannot fail to come about by any power. And because sayings of this sort have an ambiguous and obscure sense, namely "It is necessary that Antichrist will be," by ordained necessity, and "It is impossible that Antichrist will not be," by ordained power, some of the first sect clarify them thus, and explain: "It is ordained that Antichrist will be." But these men go astray and rave in three ways.

First, because they explain badly. For how is one proposition de necessario2 adequately explained by one such simple proposition de inesse, since "to be necessarily" includes "to be simply," and adds to it, as an antecedent [over]3 its non-convertible consequent; or, if "it is necessary" adds nothing there beyond simple being, it loses its hitherto accustomed signification and is posited there in vain, and such a proposition is not modal, which seems to belong neither to the old logic nor to the new, but rather to a bastard logic or to none?

Second, because they do not avoid the difficulty. For let "necessary" and "possible" and their opposites be taken as they are commonly taken among logicians as well as among theologians, as I too took them in the foregoing, and the difficulty returns.

Third, because they contradict themselves. For if it is necessary that Antichrist will be because it is ordained that he will be, then, since it has been ordained by the divine will of all future things that they will be (as the corollary of the ninth, the fourteenth and the twenty-third of the first teach4), it is necessary, in the same sense, of all future things that they will be; and yet of some they concede this, while of others they deny it.

Others of the same sect explain these sayings otherwise, saying: "It is necessary that Antichrist will be by ordained necessity," that is, if the law and the Scripture divinely ordained must stand fixed, it is necessary that Antichrist will be, and so for the other things foretold in the law. But these err likewise in many ways. For according to them it is necessary that God do what he promised in the law that he would do, by a necessity of this ordained kind; so the law, or God's promise written in the law, and thus something extrinsic, necessitates God and the divine will to do something. But how could a small thing, of small power, bind and necessitate the omnipotent, of infinite power? And how would he not thus be of lesser power and of a more servile condition than a man, who cannot be so necessitated? How, too, if this were so, would he not be mutable? For he would be changed from the free into

the not free, and from the not necessary into the necessary. What was shown earlier in the twenty-first of the first and the thirty-third of the third plainly opposes this. By the same reasoning by which the law would necessitate God to will and do anything, it would also make him unable to do similar things. By similar reasoning, moreover, God could will and do something by ordained power, and something he thus could not. But how does the omnipotent Creator take power or powerlessness from a feeble creature?

Moreover, when they say, "It is necessary that this will be, if the law must stand fixed," they either understand and suppose that it is necessary that the law stand fixed, or not, but that it is possible for it to be dissolved. If it is necessary that it stand, the law is necessary, and from that necessary law it follows that Antichrist will be; so by what was established earlier in the thirtieth of this book, it is now necessary, and not contingent to either side, that he will be. But if it is said that it is necessary that the law stand by ordained necessity, not by absolute, then either it is necessary that this ordained necessity stand, or not. If so, then from it follows the law of Scripture, and from this, that Antichrist will be; so it is still necessary that Antichrist will be, as was argued above. If it is said that it is necessary that this ordained necessity stand by ordained necessity, not absolute, as before, then either there will be an infinite regress in such ordained necessities, which nature abhors, reason shrinks from, and the second supposition plainly forbids, or only a finite one, and there will be some first ordained necessity of this kind; and if it is necessary that this stand, then from it follows the whole series, and that Antichrist will be; so it is necessary that Antichrist will be. But if it is not necessary that this ordained necessity, or another by which it is necessary that the law stand, stand, then neither is it necessary that the law stand, since it has no necessity from elsewhere. And if it is not necessary that the law stand fixed and true, but it is possible for it to be dissolved and falsified, then it is likewise possible for the revelations to be falsified, and so the absurdities derived so far from the forty-second of this book return. Again, if the law is dissolvable, it is contingent to either side that it stand; how then can one proposition de necessario be inferred from one contingent proposition de inesse?

What is it, then, that they say: "If the law stands, it is necessary that Antichrist will be"? If they say that there is only a necessity of the consequence, or of the conditional, what difficulty do they then clear away or avoid? Indeed they are found contrary to themselves. For consistently they must say of any future things whatever that they are necessarily future: for that all those things will be necessarily follows from one contingent proposition de inesse, namely this one: "These things will be." Further, arguing again from the beginning, these men contradict themselves. For if all things foretold in the law of sacred Scripture will come about by this ordained necessity, then much more will all things foretold, foreordained and preordained in the eternal law, in the eternal book, in the divine will and mind, come about by this ordained necessity, since the omnipotent will of God can in no way fail or be frustrated, as the tenth of the first teaches. But all future things are eternally preordained, and foreordained and foretold in the divine will and mind, as the corollary of the ninth, the fourteenth and the twenty-third of the first, together with the thirty-fourth of this book, clearly show. Therefore all future things will come about by this ordained necessity, though they concede this of some, namely those foretold in sacred Scripture, and deny it of others.

But those who profess the other sect, positing in all and only the things divinely revealed, prophesied and promised an unfailing necessity, and once such things have come to be, an absolute one, so that they cannot fail to occur by any power, go astray in two ways. First, because they affirm what is false; second, because even granting this they do not avoid the difficulty. First, I say, they affirm what is false: namely, that God is newly necessitated and bound, as can be gathered from the arguments brought against the response recited just before. Who would dare say that the omnipotent, infinitely perfect in every respect, is less powerful, less perfect and less free now than before, at one time than at another, after he has revealed or foretold something, than before, when, as James testifies, "with him there is no change, nor shadow of alteration," James 1? The fifth of the first shows this too. Who would dare say that the omnipotent can come to such powerlessness that he cannot lift a single straw even once, supposing that he will never lift any straw and reveals or says this to someone: that he cannot do it?5 What Christian would dare say that Christ, indeed the whole Trinity with the whole host of angels, could not have preserved him from death, and that Christ could not even then have asked the Father, nor the Father have heard the Son? Who would deny the Gospel and the most true voice of Truth saying, "Do you think that I cannot ask my Father, and he will now give me more than twelve legions of angels?" Matthew, chapter 26. Who, finally, would dare set his mouth against heaven and blaspheme so impiously as to say that God is not omnipotent, against all the creeds, against the whole of sacred Scripture, and against the first supposition of the first? And whoever presumes to say this has next to say with the fool, "There is no God": for if he is not omnipotent,

he is not God, as the first supposition of the first teaches.

Further, if a revelation in its own kind,6 if a word in the air, if a single breath of the feeblest being in the ether imposes necessity on God and on future things, then incomparably more does God's intrinsic, eternal Word, by which he eternally said, and says, all future things, and his intrinsic and eternal revelation, by which the Father eternally revealed, and reveals, all future things to the Son and the Holy Spirit, as was shown more fully in the thirty-fourth of this book. Moreover, let such a revelation or prediction of the future be destroyed, and all such necessity is destroyed, and the whole difficulty returns. Again, then the cause of that necessity would be a prophetic revelation or prediction. But how does one prophesying in London about the future free acts of a man who is in Rome (say, the Pope or the Emperor) necessitate him to his free acts, when he does nothing at all concerning him? And how, if the prophet dies before the one about whom he prophesied is born,

does he necessitate him? And if anyone has recourse to God, and to divine action and necessitation, I suppose that after the prophecy God does nothing else concerning the one about whom it was prophesied than he would otherwise have done; for he himself knows what he would otherwise have done. And that a prophecy, or any prediction whatever, imposes necessity is contrary to the Philosopher, in 1 B1 Peri hermenias, last chapter,7 who says thus: "Nor does it matter whether someone has stated the negation or has not stated it; for it is clear that the thing is so; or if this man has affirmed something and that man has denied it; for it will not be or not be because of affirming or denying." B2 In agreement with this is the Gloss on that passage of Matthew 1: "All this took place so that what was said by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled: Behold, a virgin will be with child, etc." As the Gloss of Thomas relates it,8 it says thus: "It can be said that 'so that' is not to be taken causally: for it was not fulfilled because it was foretold, but rather it was foretold because it was going to be fulfilled. Let it be taken consecutively, as also in Genesis: 'He hanged the other

on a gibbet, so that the truth of the interpreter might be proved,' because, with the one hanged, the interpreter's truth was proved. So too in this place it must be understood that, this having been done which was foretold, the prophecy was fulfilled." I did not find this in the old gloss in this form, but I found this in it: "Prophecy is a sign of God's foreknowledge, because what he said is certainly foreknown by God, and therefore must be held by man; but no sign effects what it designates, but only signifies what it shows, just as prophecy does not make necessary the things it foretells, but is a sign of God's foreknowledge." And below: "There is no necessity of things from the utterance of the prophets, but only a manifestation of the truth; prophecy does not make necessary the things it speaks of, but is a sign of God's foreknowledge." Further, even if what they say were true, it would by no means unravel the perplexity of this tangle, but would rather entangle it more and involve it in more ways. For let God reveal to Christ or to Michael, concerning all future things, that these will be; then, according to the hypothesis, all of them will be by necessity. Again, let God reveal

to someone, or foretell, that this Paul, a wayfarer, will freely and contingently, to either side, do this act A, and this without any tacit or express condition. For God can do this: for so he knows all future things, as can be shown by what was set out earlier in the forty-eighth and forty-fifth of this book. Paul, then, will do A freely and contingently, equally, because it was so foretold; and also necessarily, because according to the hypothesis all things divinely revealed and foretold will come about by necessity. Let God also foretell to someone the merits and sins, the salvation and damnation of this man and that; then these things will come about by necessity. Hence the proponents of this hypothesis must also concede that necessity, freedom of contradiction and contingency to either side, merit and sin and the like are not in conflict, but are amicably joined together, which they nevertheless strive entirely to avoid. Moreover, heaping errors upon errors, they go on to answer by affirming that God cannot reveal singulars, above all in contingent matter. But in saying so, they excessively constrict, mutilate and truncate

the vast breadth of God's omnipotence. Or, if they wish this and are unable,9 what prevents the omnipotent God from saying and asserting some singular contingent thing, and this singularly, which, as he knows most certainly, is true? What prevents God from revealing in its own kind to Christ, to Mary, or to Michael some singular contingent thing, as he also reveals it in the Word? Who would dare say that Christ did not know, nor that God could reveal to him in its own kind, those or him whom he came to redeem and did redeem, for whom or for whom he prayed, and for whom he did many other things? Who would dare say that Christ never knew even one of the wayfarers to be saved or damned, when he himself says, E1 "I know whom I have chosen," John 13? He who also prayed especially for Peter, that his faith not fail, Luke 22. And who would presume to affirm that Christ did not know

that Judas would betray him and be finally damned? Who would so far contradict the Gospels? Or who would presume to affirm that Christ could not have said, "This man will do this, and that man that," when he foretold of Judas that he would betray him and incur the woe of damnation, and of Peter that he would deny him, as ‖A1 the Evangelists testify, and of Paul that he would carry his name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel, Acts 9? A2 Why, moreover, could not a singular of this kind be revealed and foretold, since this is not from a defect of active power in God, who would be the one to reveal, as no one is unaware, nor from a defect of passive and receptive power in the angel or man who would receive the revelation, nor from a defect in the capacity of a singular of this kind to be revealed, since God could make up these defects from the fullness of his power? And a man can, by himself or through another man, assent to a singular proposition of this kind, and a man can also do this with such a proposition,10 just as it is possible for one man to reveal it to another: so the requisite power is present both here and there. Even if a man can do these things by himself or through another, much more can they be done through

God, and God through him. What reason for a difference, moreover, or what difference of reason, is there why God can reveal and speak singulars of the past and present, and not of the future, since he knows all things intrinsically and equally certainly, as the thirty-first of this book shows? These men also seem to have neglected ‖B1 both Testaments. To review a few out of very many: in Genesis it is plainly written how many and what great things God foretold and promised to Abraham, to be fulfilled in him and in his seed, Genesis 12, 15 and 17; where he specifies singularly that it would be in a son, by the name of Isaac, whom Sarah would bear him at that time, in the following year, namely the one coming next, and not by just any Sarah, B2 but by Sarah, his one wife, to whom he also promised that from Isaac nations, kings and peoples would arise. There, too, concerning Ishmael it is foretold and promised in this way: "I will multiply him exceedingly; he will beget twelve chiefs," and likewise above in 16: "He will be wild, etc." This promise concerning Isaac too, specifically, once his offering as a holocaust had already been carried out,11 the Lord confirmed by a most firm oath, because he confirmed it by himself, below in 22.

What could be revealed or foretold more singularly than what the Lord revealed through Joseph about the butler and the baker of King Pharaoh, Genesis 40? What more singular than that prophetic blessing by which Jacob, with his hands crossed, blessed Ephraim and Manasseh, Genesis 48? What more singular than the Lord's many predictions about Moses and Aaron, and Pharaoh and their works, which the beginning of Exodus plainly writes? What more singular than the prediction of Moses' exclusion from leadership of the people into the promised land, and of his death, and of the substitution of Joshua, and of the people's being led in by him, as the history of Numbers and Deuteronomy shows? What more singular than the revelation about Saul, 1 Kings 9 and 10,12 and the revelation about David, 1 Kings 16, and frequently afterwards? What more singular than the revelation made to Jeroboam through Ahijah that he would reign over ten tribes of Israel, 3 Kings 11, and below, 13; about Josiah and the altar in

Bethel, and below, 22, and 2 Paralipomenon 18, about Zedekiah and Ahab, who would not return from the battle, through Micaiah?13 What more singular than this prophetic prediction of Elisha: "At this time tomorrow a measure of fine flour will be at one stater, and two measures of barley at one stater, in the gate of Samaria," and to a certain officer who did not believe: "You will see it with your eyes, and you will not eat of it," 4 Kings 7? Or what more particular than Elisha's prophecy about Hazael, who would reign and do evil, in the same book, chapter 8? What more singular, too, than the prophecies about Babylon, about Jerusalem, Zedekiah, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Cyrus, and many others, through Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the other prophets? That is a few things from the Old Testament. Now, from the New, a few brief items are to be briefly brought forward. Who does not know the most singular promises, predictions and prophecies about John the forerunner, and about the Lord the Savior, and about the glorious Virgin? Who has not heard or read that saying of Gabriel, Luke 1: "Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son,

and you shall call his name John, etc. He will be great before the Lord, and he will drink neither wine nor strong drink, etc."? And that of Zechariah: "And you, child, will be called prophet of the Most High, etc."? And that again of Gabriel: "Behold, you will conceive in the womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus; he will be great," and the glorious rest? And that of Elizabeth: "Blessed are you who believed, for what was said to you will be accomplished"? And that of the glorious Virgin: "All generations will call me blessed"? And that of Simeon: "Behold, this child is set for a fall and as a sign that will be contradicted, and a sword will pierce your own soul," Luke 2? Or who does not know what and how great things Christ had foretold that he would do and suffer? Or how he foretold that Judas would betray him, that Peter would deny him and later follow him through martyrdom, and that John, whom he loved, would remain thus until he himself came, as ‖E1 the Evangelists testify? And that Paul would carry his name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel, and how much he would have to suffer for the name of Christ, as the history of Acts 9 teaches? Concerning which, below in 21,

Agabus prophesied quite specifically. Further, it must be affirmed not doubtfully but most certainly that every true prophecy, even if uttered generally, was understood, and foretold at least,14 by that Holy Spirit who spoke through the prophets specially and distinctly, indeed singularly and discretely, of him or of those about whom or which it was, is, or will be fulfilled. For otherwise he would speak ignorantly, uncertainly, in vain and foolishly; and this I think can be sufficiently confirmed by one brief example. Blessed Peter, indeed, says: "Brothers, the Scripture must be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit foretold through the mouth of David about Judas, etc." For it is written in the Book of Psalms:15 "Let there be a commemoration," or, according to the truer text, "let his dwelling be made desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in it, and let another take his episcopate," Acts 1. Now these things in the Book of Psalms, namely in Psalm 108, had been prophesied generally. Therefore prophecies uttered generally necessitate as much as those prophesied singularly; and whatever the Holy Spirit prophesied generally, he could also have prophesied singularly. These things, then, are against the thirty-third opinion

and against its hypothesis mentioned above. So it seems most marvelous, and to be marvelled at marvelously, how learned men dare, in so great a matter, to suppose so great a supposition (so doubtful, so uncertain, indeed one that appears so probably false, with its opposite true) so plainly, as if it were a first principle known through itself. For it would seem fitting that it be a conclusion demonstrated by compelling reasons, not a supposition taken for nothing; and if anyone wishes to prove it, let him weigh, I beg, faithfully his own reasons and the contrary reasons.