Fathers

Two Dissertations · §65

Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Elect Obj. 1 Solut: Relative names change with the creature, not God

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That God is reconciliable to this or that elect person before that person’s faith and repentance, and is actually reconciled to the same person after faith and repentance, no more proves a change in God from act to potency than this does: that a human being is not justified at all until he believes, and is actually justified by God after he believes. Nor does it prove a temporal change of the divine essence or will from potency to act that someone’s sins are remissible and, after repentance, are actually remitted by God. No one will rightly say that because Paul is now justified as a believer in Christ—though he was not justified at all while he blasphemed against Christ—God himself undergoes some change. So neither does it follow from saying that a person is now reconciliable to God and now actually reconciled. To be justified and to be reconciled to God are either plainly the same, or at least inseparably joined.

To clear the scruple more openly, this must be known: although nothing absolute can newly arrive to God without a change in him, yet countless relative names can newly be predicated of God—at one time, and not at another—according to differences of time, while the divine essence and will remain without any shadow of change. What is affirmed of God in a mutable and temporal way is not affirmed because some change has come upon God, but because a change has come upon the creature. For example, one could truly say “Adam is creatable by God” when one could not yet truly say “Adam is created by God.” By the same measure, one could say before Adam’s actual repentance, “Adam is justificable by God,” or “Adam is reconciliable to God”; but one could not say, “Adam is actually justified and reconciled to God.” Even so we do not put acts and potencies in God, or any mutability at all. These things are said of God in different ways not by a change of God in himself, but by a change of the creature that comes from him.

Latin

Deum esse reconciliabilem huic aut illi electo ante fidem & paenitentiam ejus, & esse actu reconciliatum eidem post fidem & paenitentiam ejusdem, non magis arguit in Deo mutationem ab actu ad potentiam, quam hunc hominem minime esse justificatum donec credat, & esse actu a Deo justificatum postquam credat, arguat eandem in Deo mutabilitatem; aut hujus peccata esse remissibilia, & esse post paenitentiam actu a Deo remissa, probet essentiae aut voluntatis Divinae mutationem temporalem a potentia ad actum. Nemo autem recte dixerit, ex eo quod Paulus nunc justificatus est in Christum credens, qui minime fuit justificatus dum fuit in Christum blasphemus, Deum ipsum subire aliquam mutationem; ergo neque ex eo quod modo reconciliabilis Deo, modo actu reconciliatus statuitur: cum esse justificatum, & esse Deo reconciliatum, aut plane eadem sunt, aut saltem inseparabiliter connexa. Sed ut hunc scrupulum magis aperte eximamus, sciendum est, Utcunque nullum absolutum potest de novo advenire Deo sine ejus mutatione, tamen infinitas relativas denominationes posse de novo, & secundum differentiam temporis de Deo aliquando praedicari, aliquando non praedicari, Divina essentia & voluntate interea manente absque omni umbra mutationis. Quae enim mutabiliter & temporaliter de Deo affirmantur, non sic affirmantur propter mutationem aliquam Deo advenientem, sed secundum mutationem creaturae advenientem. Verbi causa, Adamus est a Deo creabilis vere dici potuit, quando vere dici non potuit, Adamus est a Deo creatus. Pari ratione, Adamus est a Deo justificabilis, vel Adamus est Deo reconciliabilis, potuit dici ante paenitentiam ejus actualem; at Adamus est actu justificatus & Deo reconciliatus, non potuit. Neque tamen in Deo ponimus actus & potentias, aut mutabilitatem qualemcunque; quia haec praedicantur de Deo diversimode, non per mutationem sui in seipso, sed per mutationem creaturae quae est ab ipso.

About this text

John Davenant — Dissertationes duae from the 1650 Cambridge Latin. Honest partial through De praedestinatione Cap. 1 subject tip; Cap. 1 mid-Thesis and remainder remain; De praedestinatione Cap. 1 Prolegomena IV distinguishing conditions tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Variae (Pelagian opening) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Scholastici / Vasquez Arg. 1 tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Arg. 2 praescientia tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Arg. 3 (1 Cor. 2:9) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Arg. 4 (2 Tim. 2:21) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Arg. 5 (1 Tim. 2:4) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Arg. 6 (James 2:5) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. II Arg. 7 (Apoc. 3:11) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 1 (common inefficacious will) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 2 (Vasquez physical vs moral media) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 3 (king/prize / victory foresight) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 4 (optimum modus / crown of justice) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 5 (acceptor personarum) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 6 (misericordia/congruitas) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 7 (equal disposition) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 8 (few saved / major part) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 9 (Stephen / glory from others' sins) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 10 (mere beneplacitum / Predestinati) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III reprobation ratio (foresight of sin) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 12 (efficacious election / free choice) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 13 (hortation/prayer) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. III Rat. 14 (decree/execution conformity) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. IV Arminianorum open tip; De praedestinatione Cap. IV Arg. 1 Sol tip; De praedestinatione Cap. IV Arg. 7 (τρόπος; Rom. 9:22) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. IV Arg. 8 (ordo exsecutionis) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. IV Arg. 9 (Christus fundamentum) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 1 (amor ad salutem) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 2 (actualis vitae datio) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 3 (qualis existens) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 4 (justitiae satisfactio) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 5 (natura vitae aeternae) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 6 (Christus a decreto) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 7 (Evangelium invertitur) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. V Obj. 8 (arcana/revelata) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI (Orthodoxa sententia) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 2 (gratia specialis) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 3 (Scripturae) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 4 (vocatio) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 5 (adjutorium) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 7 (inconveniens) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 8 (perseverantia) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 9 (unica ratio) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 10 (abyssus) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 11 (efficacia) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 12 (segregativum) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VI Arg. 13 (pura gratia) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VII open (reprobatio) tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VII Junius trifariam tip; De praedestinatione Cap. VIII open (adversariorum) tip; Cap. VIII peccata-causa tip; Cap. VIII fewer-reprobates tip; Cap. VIII Argentina tip; Cap. VIII dives-misericordia tip; Cap. VIII Corvinus tip into Cap. IX; Cap. IX Ab Adae tip; Cap. IX Ab Adae Christus omnibus+Minor tip; Cap. IX Arg. 3 Sol tip; Cap. IX vocatione Evangelica tip; Cap. IX vocatione Sol cont. tip; Cap. IX Arg. 6 Sol cont. tip.

English follows locked 1650 Cambridge Latin of De morte Christi Cap. 1-6 opening (origin + Thesis 1 + Cap. 2 Rat. 1-ultima + Cap. 3 Satisfit through Obj. 17 + Cap. 4 Thesis 2 tip through Mem. 1 close + Cap. 4 Mem. 2 through Mem. 3 tip + Cap. 4 Mem. 3 possible-faith through Thesis 2 close + Cap. 5 Thesis 3 tip through Mem. 2 Scripture close + Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Rat. 1-4 + Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Fathers tip + Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Huberiana objections tip through Obj. 3 Solut close + Cap. 5 Mem. 2 elect-from-eternity objections tip through Obj. 3 Solut close + Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Scripture elect objections tip through Cap. 5 thesis close + Cap. 6 opening tip through Arg. 1 close before Arg. 2), reconstructed from the Internet Archive PDF (pdftotext + tesseract) of the Roger Daniel folio with DjVu OCR check. The 1683 reprint was not used as copy-text. No modern English was copied.

Witnesses

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