Theological Theses · §2041 · Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu

Second: such conditionals are determinately true or false; even the later Thomists cannot deny it on their own premises

Second, I think it must also be granted that every proposition about free and contingent conditional futures, where a condition of that kind is understood, is determinately true or false. At any rate the later Thomists cannot deny this, nor can others who agree with them on this matter while otherwise attacking middle knowledge fiercely.

On their view, for a creature to act God must premove and predetermine it, and once God's predetermination is posited the creature's action follows necessarily. So on their assumptions this conditional is infallible and necessary: if God willed to place such a creature in this or that state and to deny it nothing it needs to act, it would do this or that. For that condition contains God's decree to predetermine the creature to act.

Latin

XLVI. Secundo, illud quoque concedendum existimo, propositiones omnes de futuris conditionatis liberis & contingentibus, in quibus ejusmodi conditio subintelligitur, determinate veras vel falsas esse. Saltem hoc negare non possunt Thomistae recentiores, & alii qui cum ipsis in hoc negotio sentiunt, & alioqui scientiam Mediam acerrime impugnant. Cum enim ad hoc ut creatura agat, ex eorum sententia, necesse sit Deum illam praemovere & praedeterminare, posita autem Dei praedeterminatione, necessario sequatur creaturae actio, juxta eorum hypotheses infallibilis & necessaria est haec conditionalis, Si Deus vellet talem creaturam in hoc, aut illo statu constituere, & nihil ad agendum necessarium ipsi denegare, hoc aut illud ageret: quandoquidem in illa conditione continetur decretum Dei de illa ad agendum praedeterminanda.

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