Theological Theses · §2053 · Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu

Since God does not cause sin in time, his will is no cause of sin's futurity; it depends only on his decree to permit

Since God is not the cause of sin in time, I am far from thinking we should say that God's will is the only cause of sin's futurity. On the contrary, I judge that we must deny plainly and without qualification that it is the cause of that futurity at all, whether on its own or together with the second cause.

It is true that man sins only in dependence on God's will, since he could not sin unless God permitted him to. In that sense the futurity of sin also depends on God's decree to permit sin.

But God's will is not for that reason to be called the proper cause of man's actually sinning. In the same way, it does not follow that God's decree is the proper cause of the futurity of sin.

Latin

LVIII. Cum ergo Deus in tempore causa peccati non sit, tantum abest ut dicendum putem Dei voluntatem esse causam unicam futuritionis peccati, ut plane & simpliciter negandum existimem illam esse istius futuritionis causam, vel solam, vel cum causa secunda. Verum est quidem hominem non peccare, nisi dependenter a Dei voluntate. Nec enim peccare posset, nisi Deus ipsum peccare permitteret. Et sic quoque peccati futuritio pendet a decreto Dei de peccato permittendo. Sed quemadmodum Dei voluntas non propterea dicenda est propria causa cur homo actu peccet; sic etiam inde non sequitur Dei decretum esse propriam causam futuritionis peccati.

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