United States or Senegal ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
For I have already observed that those who employ this axiom, that one does not fail to do what one wills when one can, and who thence infer that God therefore does not will the salvation of all, imply a decretory will. Only in that sense can one support this proposition, that wisdom never wills what it knows to be among the things that shall not happen.
He can avoid or put away as 'seems good to him' all 'that does not please him'. Nevertheless it must be borne in mind that some objects of his aversion, such as certain evils, and especially sin, which his antecedent will repelled, could only have been rejected by his consequent or decretory will, in so far as it was prompted by the rule of the best, which the All-wise must choose after having taken all into account.
But he is determined by this same goodness, united to an infinite wisdom, and by the very concourse of all the previous and particular inclinations towards each good, and towards the preventing of each evil, to produce the best possible design of things. This is his final and decretory will.
Moreover, his wisdom has prompted him to will the salvation of all men, but not by a consequent and decretory will. Yet this consequent will, being only a result of free antecedent acts of will, cannot fail to be free also. 'The work most worthy of God's wisdom involves amongst other things the sin of all men and the eternal damnation of the majority of men.
The tribunician right of intercession had extended also to the decrees of the senate as a collective body, after the latter had become not merely a deliberative but a decretory board, which probably occurred at first in the case of a -plebiscitum- that was meant to be binding for the whole community; it was natural that there should thenceforth be conceded to the tribunes a certain participation in the discussions of the senate-house.
Power and will are different faculties, whose objects also are different; it is confusing them to say that God can do only that which he wills. On the contrary, among various possibles, he wills only that which he finds the best. For all possibles are regarded as objects of power, but actual and existing things are regarded as the objects of his decretory will. Abélard himself acknowledged it.
He does so sometimes nevertheless, when superior reasons allow of it, and when his consequent and decretory will, which results from all his reasons, makes him resolve upon the election of a certain number of men. He gives aids to all for their conversion and for perseverance, and these aids suffice in those who have good will, but they do not always suffice to give good will.
Nevertheless if anyone will not suffer this use of the terms, let him put 'previous' in place of 'antecedent' will, and 'final' or 'decretory' in place of 'consequent' will. For I do not wish to wrangle about words. Whoever produces all that is real in a thing is its cause. God produces all that is real in sin. Therefore God is the cause of sin.
But having himself some smattering skill in physic, and perceiving after the ninth day, which useth to be decretory in such cases, that the disease was no usual one nor proceeding from ordinary causes, when he stands up to speak, he waives applying himself to the soldiers, and addresseth himself as a councillor to the general, thus:
Thus it is the result of all the inclinations together that makes his will complete and decretory, as I have already explained. One may therefore very well say with ancient writers that God wills to save all men according to his antecedent will, but not according to his consequent will, which never fails to be followed by its effect.
Word Of The Day