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发帖数: 10575 | 1 Sect. IX. — THIS, therefore, is also essentially necessary and wholesome
for Christians to know: That God foreknows nothing by contingency, but that
He foresees, purposes, and does all things according to His immutable,
eternal, and infallible will. By this thunderbolt, “Free-will” is thrown
prostrate, and utterly dashed to pieces. Those, therefore, who would assert
“Free-will,” must either deny this thunderbolt, or pretend not to see it,
or push it from them. But, however, before I establish this point by any
arguments of my own, and by the authority of Scripture, I will first set it
forth in your words.
Are you not then the person, friend Erasmus, who just now asserted, that God
is by nature just, and by nature most merciful? If this be true, does it
not follow that He is immutably just and merciful? That, as His nature is
not changed to all eternity, so neither His justice nor His mercy? And what
is said concerning His justice and His mercy, must be said also concerning
His knowledge, His wisdom, His goodness, His will, and His other Attributes.
If therefore these things are asserted religiously, piously, and
wholesomely concerning God, as you say yourself, what has come to you, that,
contrary to your own self, you now assert, that it is irreligious, curious,
and vain, to say, that God foreknows of necessity? You openly declare that
the immutable will of God is to be known, but you forbid the knowledge of
His immutable prescience. Do you believe that He foreknows against His will,
or that He wills in ignorance? If then, He foreknows, willing, His will is
eternal and immovable, because His nature is so: and, if He wills,
foreknowing, His knowledge is eternal and immovable, because His nature is
so.
From which it follows unalterably, that all things which we do, although
they may appear to us to be done mutably and contingently, and even may be
done thus contingently by us, are yet, in reality, done necessarily and
immutably, with respect to the will of God. For the will of God is effective
and cannot be hindered; because the very power of God is natural to Him,
and His wisdom is such that He cannot be deceived. And as His will cannot be
hindered, the work itself cannot be hindered from being done in the place,
at the time, in the measure, and by whom He foresees and wills. If the will
of God were such, that, when the work was done, the work remained but the
will ceased, (as is the case with the will of men, which, when the house is
built which they wished to build, ceases to will, as though it ended by
death) then, indeed, it might be said, that things are done by contingency
and mutability. But here, the case is the contrary; the work ceases, and the
will remains. So far is it from possibility, that the doing of the work or
its remaining, can be said to be from contingency or mutability. But, (that
we may not be deceived in terms) being done by contingency, does not, in the
Latin language, signify that the work itself which is done is contingent,
but that it is done according to a contingent and mutable will — such a
will as is not to be found in God! Moreover, a work cannot be called
contingent, unless it be done by us unawares, by contingency, and, as it
were, by chance; that is, by our will or hand catching at it, as presented
by chance, we thinking nothing of it, nor willing any thing about it before. |
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