Quod prouidentia rerum naturam non perimit
The Dangers of Fatalism
The author warns against those who use the concept of divine providence to justify fatalism and pride, thereby insulting God.
Neither does the sequence of events change providence, nor does the fact that free will remains alongside providence. What they propose sounds plausible enough, but there's still poison hidden under the honey. For they impose a certain fatal necessity upon things under the pretext of humility and reverence for God, fearing that His plan might somehow be emptied of meaning unless necessity accompanies the outcome of events. Furthermore, they infringe upon the privilege of divine majesty by claiming a knowledge that allows them to foresee the times and moments the Son testified were reserved for the Father's authority. It is so much so that these things remain hidden from the eyes of those to whom the Son of God revealed whatever He had heard from the Father. Moreover, they puff up people's minds with pride or crush them with the faint-heartedness of despair, promising long life or worldly prosperity to those destined to be brought down, or conversely, threatening impending doom or adversity to those destined to be raised up. They are certainly forbidden from removing the upper millstone of fear or the lower millstone of hope, by which the faithful soul is ground on the threshing floor of the world. Yet they do this not so much to their own ruin and that of their followers as to the insult of the One who forbids it.
Providence and Human Freedom
God's foreknowledge does not negate the nature of things or the freedom of the human will, which was lost through sin but remains active in iniquity.
But just as the sequence of events doesn't change God's providence, so too the eternal plan doesn't destroy the nature of things. For it's not the case that man couldn't help but sin because God had foreseen him sinning, nor that the Lord was ignorant of his future sin because he could have avoided it. Nor was he unaware that he could die, since he was destined to die by the merit of sin. And it wasn't necessary for him to die just because the Lord foresaw it. He was therefore made immortal in a sense, though undoubtedly destined to die; sin brought about the death that his natural condition did not introduce. He was to be transferred from that immortality in which he could not die to one in which he could not die, had not the sin of disobedience—by cutting off the path of justice—blocked the way to such glory for a time. Thus, he was able to sin and not to sin, endowed with the pure freedom of choice; he was not driven to sin by any violence of divine plan, any impulse of fate, any goad of condition, or any defect of nature, but it was sin itself, the undoubted parent, that pushed man, who had fallen of his own accord, into death. But because he loosened the reins of his will in injustice, he lies so oppressed and overcome in it that, by the just judgment of God, because he then refused to abstain from sin when he could, he now cannot abstain when he wishes. Yet in that alone his will still remains free, so that it suffices for the work of iniquity, even if it cannot rise to the good unless it is anticipated and aided by grace.
The Logic of Responsibility
Humanity is responsible for its own state of sin, and the possibility of action remains distinct from the certainty of divine foreknowledge.
In this way, by voluntarily abandoning justice, he was transferred into the kingdom of sin and death, so that, weighed down by the yoke of slavery, he is subject to the necessity of sinning and dying—even though it isn't the sequence of fate that brings this about, but the merit of his own transgression. Otherwise, no justice would condemn a person, since the guilt wouldn't be turned back onto him, but onto its author. Things are therefore possible even if they are never going to happen; if they couldn't happen simply because they won't happen, they wouldn't be called possible at all. For it's possible for a naval battle to happen, and it's possible for it not to happen; yet one of these is precisely and definitely true and foreknown.
Read the original Latin
neque series rerum immutat prouidentiam, et quod liherum arbitrium manet cum prouidentia. Probabilia quidem sunt haec quae proponunt, sed tamen uenenum hic sub melle latet. Fatalem etenim quandam necessitatem rebus imponunt sub praetextu humilitatis et reuerentiae Dei, timentes ne forte ipsius euacuetur dispositio, nisi rerum euentus necessitas comitetur. Praeterea priuilegium diuinae maiestatis irrumpunt, scientiam uendicantes qua tempora praeuideant et momenta quae Filii testimonio Patris reseruata sunt potestati. Adeo quidem ut abscondita sint ab oculis eorum, quibus Dei Filius quaecumque a Patre audierat patef ecit. Deinde mentes hominum tumore elationis extollunt aut desperationis pusillanimitate prosternunt, dum uel uitam diuturnam aut mundi prospera deiciendis promittunt, uel e contra imminentia fata aut a seculi aduersa minantur erigendis. Certe superiorem timoris uel inferiorem spei molam, quibus fidelis anima in area mundi teritur, tollere prohibentur. ToUunt non tamen tam in suam et clientelae suae pemiciem quam in contumeliam prohibentis.
Verum sicut series rerum Dei prouidentiam non immutat, sic et etema dispositio rerum naturam non perimit. Neque enim homo non peccare non poterat, quia eum Deus praenouerat peccatumm, aut quia ille non peccare poterat, eum peccaturum Dominus ignorabat. Neque non mori posse nesciebat, eo quod erat peccati merito moritums. Neque eum mori necesse erat, quoniam hoc Dominus praesciebat. Factus est igitur quodammodo immortalis, procul dubio morituras; et mortem culpa S attulit, quam naturae conditio non inuexit. Essetque ab ea immortalitate qua non mori poterat, in eam qua mori non posset transferendus, nisi culpa inobedientiae, praecisa iustitiae semita, tantae gloriae aditum pro tempore praeclusisset, Itaque peccare et non peccare potuit mera praeditus libertate arbitrii, qui nulla dispositionis uiolentia, nullo fatorum impulsu, nullo conditionis stimulo, nuUo adhuc naturae def ectu urgebatur ad culpam, quae indubitata parens paene hominem sponte lapsum impegit in mortem. Verum quia in iniustitia frena laxauit arbitrii, sic in ea oppressus et obmtus iacet, ut iusto Dei iudicio, quia tunc noluit a peccato abstinere cum potuit, modo nequeat abc stinere cum uelit. In eo tamen solo adhuc ei liberam uiget arbitrium, ut sibi ad opus iniquitatis sufficiat, etsi ad bonum non nisi a gratia praeuentus et adiutus assurgat.
Sic iustitiam per se deserens traductus est in regnum peccati et mortis, ut iugo seruitutis pressus necessitati delinquendi et moriendi subiaceat, quamuis hoc non fatomm series sed praeuaricationis meritum introducat. Alioquin hominem nulla iustitia condempnabit, cum culpa non in eum sed in ipsius retorqueatur auctorem. Possibilia itaque sunt, quae numquam futura sunt; quae si, quia non erunt, euenire non possent, nequaquam possibilia dicerentur. Nauale siquidem bellum fieri, itcm non fieri possibile est, alterum tamen praescise et determinate uerum est et praescitum.
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