Of The Prescience Or Foreknowledge Of God, And How It Is Questioned And Overthrown By The Arminians
Chapter 3
OF THE PRESCIENCE OR
FOREKNOWLEDGE OF GOD,
AND HOW IT IS QUESTIONED
AND OVERTHROWN BY THE
ARMINIANS
The prescience or foreknowledge of God has not up till now been denied by the Arminians in express terms, but only questioned and overthrown by consequence – inasmuch as they deny the certainty and unchangeableness of his decrees on which it is founded. It is not a foreknowledge of all or any thing which they oppose, but only of things free and contingent, and that is opposed only to comply with their formerly-disproved error, that the purposes of God concerning such things are temporal and mutable. Once this obstacle is removed, the way is open for them to ascribe the presidentship of all human actions to omnipotent contingency, and to her sire, free-will. Now, we call something contingent when, before it comes to pass (in regard to its next and immediate cause), it may be done or it may not be done.
For example, a man may do a thing tomorrow, or any time after that, which he may choose to do, whether he ever does it or not. Such things as these are free and changeable with regard to men, who are the immediate and secondary causes of them. But if we look up to Him who foresees and has ordained the event of such things, or their
Chapter 3: OF THE PRESCIENCE OR FOREKNOWLEDGE OF GOD
omission, as we ought to do (James 4:13-15),66 then they may be said to necessarily come to pass, or be omitted – it could not be otherwise than it was. Upon such events (and in all things of this nature),
Christians up to now, yes, and heathens, have usually reflected on God as the one whose determination was passed on them from eternity;67 he knew these things long before. For example, men being killed by a house falling on them – in respect to the freedom of their own wills, they might not have been there. Or if a man falls into the hands of thieves, we quickly conclude that it was the will of God. It must be so; he knew it before.
Divines, for distinction's sake, ascribe to God a twofold knowledge; one, intuitive or intellective, whereby he foreknows and sees all things that are possible – that is, all things that can be done by his almighty power – without any respect to their future existence, whether they shall come to pass or not.68 Indeed, infinite things whose existence eternity shall never behold, are thus open and naked to him – for was there not strength and power in his hand to have created another world? Was there not counsel in the storehouse of his wisdom to have created it another way, or not to have created it at all? Shall we say that his providence extends itself in every way to the utmost of its activity?
Or can he not produce innumerable things in the world which he does not now produce? Now, all these things, and every thing else that is feasible to his infinite power, he foresees and knows "scientia," as they say, "simplicis intelligentiae," by his essential knowledge.
Out of this large and boundless territory of possible things, God by his decrees freely determines what shall actually come to pass; he makes them future which before were only possible.69 After this decree, as they commonly say, follows or accompanies (as others say more exactly), that prescience of God which they call "visionis," "of vision,"
70 whereby he infallibly sees all things in their proper causes, and how and when they shall come to pass.71 Now, these two sorts of knowledge [intuitive and visionary] differ: by the one, God knows what is possible and may come to pass; by the other, God knows only
Chapter 3: OF THE PRESCIENCE OR FOREKNOWLEDGE OF GOD
what is impossible and shall not come to pass.72 Things are possible with regard to God's power – they are future with regard to his decree.
So that (if I may say so) the measure of the first kind of science is God's omnipotency – what he can do; the measure of the other kind is his purpose, what he certainly will do, or permit to be done. With this prescience, then, God foresees all things; and nothing but what he has decreed shall come to pass.
For every thing to be produced next and under him, God has prepared diverse and several kinds of causes, variously operating to produce their effects.73 Some of these are said to work necessarily, because the institution of their nature is to do as they do, and not otherwise – so the sun gives light, and fire gives heat. And yet, in some regard, their effects and products may be said to be contingent and free, inasmuch as the concurrence of God, the first cause, is required for their operation. He does all things most freely, according to the counsel of his will. (Eph 1:11) Thus the sun stood still in the time of Joshua, (Jos 10:13) and the fire did not burn the three children; (Dan
3:25) but ordinarily such agents work "necessitate naturae," their effects are said to be necessary.
Secondly. God has fitted free and contingent causes to some things, which either apply themselves to particular operations according to election, choosing to do this thing rather than that – as when angels and men, in their free and deliberate actions, so perform that they might easily not have done them – or else they produce effects to< sumbebhko>v, merely by accident. We say the operation of such things is casual, as when a hatchet falls out of the hand of a man cutting down a tree, and kills another man he never saw. Now, nothing in either of these ways comes to pass unless God has determined it, both the matter and manner of it.74 It is agreeable to their causes – some necessarily, some freely, some casually or contingently – yet also having a certain future from his decree: he infallibly foresees that they shall so come to pass. Yet whether he does so with regard to things which are free and contingent is greatly questioned by the Arminians in express
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terms, and denied by consequence, notwithstanding that St. Jerome affirms that to do so is destructive to the very essence of the Deity.75
First. Their doctrine of the mutability of God's decrees, on whose firmness is founded the infallibility of God's prescience, quite overthrows it. God thus foreknows only what he has so decreed shall come to pass. If that is not firmly settled, and it may be, and often is, altered according to the various inclinations of men's wills (which I showed before they affirm), then God can have at best only a conjectural foreknowledge of what is yet to come. It is not founded on his own unchangeable purpose, but on a guess at the free inclination of men's wills.76 For instance, God wills that all men should be saved.
This act of his will, according to the Arminian doctrine, is his conditional decree to save all men if they will believe.77 Well, among these is Judas,78 who is as equal a sharer in the benefit of this decree as Peter. God, then, will have him saved; and so to this end he allows
Judas all necessary means to produce faith in him; and in every way they are sufficient for that purpose – they produce that effect in others.
What then can God foresee, except that Judas as well as Peter will believe? He intends that he should; he has determined nothing to the contrary. Let him come, then, and act his own part. Yet he proves so obstinately malicious that God, with all his omnipotency, as they say,79 by any way that becomes him (except irresistible efficacy), cannot change Judas' obdurate heart. Well, then, God determines according to the exigence of his justice, that Judas shall be damned for his impenitency; and he foresees that accordingly. But now, suppose this wretch, even at his last moment, should reconsider and return to the Lord (which in their conceit he may), notwithstanding his former reprobation (which, as they state it,80 seems like a great act of mercy),81
God must keep to the rules of his justice, and elect or determine to save him; by this line of thinking, the varlet82 has twice or thrice deceived
God's expectation.
Secondly. They affirm that God is properly said to expect and desire various things which nonetheless never come to pass. "We grant," says
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Corvinus, "that there are desires in God that never are fulfilled."83
Now, surely, to desire what one is sure will never come to pass, is not an act regulated by wisdom or counsel; and, therefore, they must grant that beforehand he did not know, but perhaps it might be so. "God wishes and desires some good things, which still do not come to pass," they say, in their Confession.84
From this one of two things must follow – either, first, that there is a great deal of imperfection in God's nature, that he should desire and expect what he knows shall never come to pass; or else he did not know it, but it might come to pass – which overthrows his prescience.
Indeed, they expressly say, "That the hope and expectation of God is deceived by man;" and they confess, "That the strength of their strongest argument lies in this, that God hoped and expected obedience from Israel."85 Secondly. That God complains that his hope is deluded. Taking this properly, and as they urge it, it cannot be consistent with his eternal prescience; for they disesteem86 the usual answer of divines, that hope, expectation, and similar passions, which include any imperfection in them, are ascribed to God per ajnqrwpopa>qeian [anthropomorphism] – in regard to that analogy, his actions hold with those of ours which we perform having those passions.87
Thirdly. They teach that God has determined nothing concerning such things as these in question. "That God has determined future contingent things to either part (I mean those which issue from the free-will of the creature), I abominate, hate, and curse as false, absurd, and leading us on to blasphemy,"88 says Arminius. To determine them
"to either part" is to determine and ordain whether they shall be, or whether they shall not be – such as David shall or shall not go up tomorrow against the Philistines and prevail. Now, if there is no such thing as this, then the infallibility of God's foreknowing such things, depending on the certainty of his decree and determination, must also fall to the ground.
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Fourthly. See what they write positively concerning this everlasting foreknowledge of God: first, they call it a troublesome question; secondly, they make it disputable whether there is any such thing or not; and though perhaps it may be ascribed to God, yet, thirdly, they think it is no motive to worship him; fourthly, they say, it would be better if it were quite rejected, because the difficulties that attend it can scarcely be reconciled with man's liberty, with God's threatening, and with his promises; indeed, fifthly, it rather seems invented to crucify poor mortals, than to be of any import in religion. So Episcopius said.89 It may be excepted that this is but one doctor's opinion. It is true – they are one man's words; but the thing itself is countenanced by the whole sect. For example, in the large prolix90 declaration of their opinions, they do not speak one word of it. Being taxed for this omission by the professors of Leyden, they vindicated themselves so coldly in their Apology, that some learned men conclude from this,91 that certainly, in their most secret judgments, all the Arminians consent with Socinus in ascribing to God only a conjectural foreknowledge. One great prophet of their own, Vorstius, affirms roundly, "That God, in his way, often suspects and prudently conjectures that this or that evil may arise, and that is not without cause,"92 And their highest patriarchs say, "That God often intends what he does not foresee will come to pass," Armin., Corv.93 Now, whether this kind of atheism is tolerable among Christians or not, let all men judge who have their senses exercised in the word of God; which, I am sure, teaches us another lesson. For –
First. It is laid down as a firm foundation, that "known to God are all his works from the beginning of the world," Acts 15:18. Everything, then, that in any respect may be called his work, is known to him from all eternity. Now, what in the world, if we may speak as he has taught us, can be exempted from this denomination of things known to him?
Even actions that are sinful in themselves are not; though they are not known sinfully, yet they are known in some other regard, such as punishments of others. "Behold," says Nathan to David, in the name
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of God, "I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun; for you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel," 2 Samuel
12:11-12. So, also, when wicked robbers had nefariously robbed Job of all his substance, the holy man concludes, "The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away," Job 1:21. Now, if the working of God's providence is so mighty and effectual, even in and over those actions in which the devil and men most maliciously offend – as did Absalom and the Sabean with the Chaldean thieves – so that it may be said to be his work, and he may be said to "do it" (I crave liberty to use the Scripture phrase), then certainly nothing in the world, in some respect or other, is independent of his all-disposing hand. Indeed, Judas himself betraying our Savior did nothing but "what his hand and counsel determined before should be done," 94 Acts 4:28, in regard to the event of the thing itself. And if these actions, notwithstanding these two hindrances – first, that they were contingent, and wrought by free agents, working according to election and choice; secondly, that they were sinful and wicked in the agents themselves – if they were still dependent on his purpose and determinate counsel, surely he has an operational interest in the acts of every creature. But his works, as it appears before, are all known to him from the beginning; for God works nothing by chance or accident, but all things are worked determinately, according to his own decree, or "the counsel of his own will," Eph 1:11.
Secondly. The manner of God's knowing things evidently shows that nothing that is, or may be, or can be hidden from him. 95 This is not by discourse and the collection of one thing from another, conclusions from principles; but it is altogether and at once – evidently, clearly, and distinctly, both in respect to the cause and the effect.96 By one most pure act of his own essence, he discerns all things.
For there is "no creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all are naked and opened to his eyes," Heb 4:13. So he knows of those things which we are speaking about, in three ways: 97
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(1) in himself and by his own decree, as the first cause of them – they may be said to be necessary in respect to the certainty of their event; (2) in their immediate causes, in which their contingency properly consists; (3) in their own nature as being future – but to his infinite knowledge, they are ever present.
Thirdly, The Scripture (Psalm 44:21; Job 11:11; Daniel 2:47; Psalm 7:9, 26:2, 147:4; Luke 2:27; Mat 10:29, 30; Psalm 139:2) is full of expressions to this purpose: "That God knows all secrets, and reveals hidden things: he searches the affections and the heart: he knows the number of the stars, and the birds of the air, the lilies of the field, the falling of sparrows, the number of the hairs of our heads." Some places are most remarkable, as that of the Psalmist, "He knows my thoughts long before;" even before ever they come into our minds, before their first rising. And yet many actions that are most contingent, depend on those thoughts which are known to God from eternity; indeed, this breaks the very neck of the goddess contingency – those things in which her great power is imagined to consist, are directly ascribed to God, as our words have it, "the answer of the tongue," Prov 16:1; and the directing of an arrow, shot by chance, to a mark that was not aimed at, 1 Kings 22:34.98 Surely God must foreknow the event of that contingent action; he must know the man would so shoot, for he had determined his arrow would be the death of a king. He makes men poor and rich, Prov 22:2; He lifts up one, and pulls down another,
Psalm 75:7. How many contingencies the dreadful eye of the Lord 99 – his piercing eye – ran through to foresee the crowning of Esther for the deliverance of his people! In a word, "Known to God are all his works."
Now, what can possibly be imagined to be more contingent than the killing of a man by the fall of an axe from the hand of someone who intended no such thing? Yet God assumes this as his own work, Deut
19:5, Exodus 21:13; and it was thus surely foreknown by him.
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Fourthly, But consider the prophecies in Scripture, especially those concerning our Savior, how many free and contingent actions concurred to fulfill them, such as Isaiah 7:14, 9:6, 53; Gen 3:15, etc.
The same may be said of other predictions, such as of the wasting of Jerusalem by the Babylonians – though in regard to God's prescience, it would certainly come to pass, yet the Babylonians did it most freely, not only following the counsel of their own wills, but also using divination, or chance lots, for their direction, Ezekiel 21:21. Yet the One who made the eye, sees all these things, Psalm 94:9.
Various other reasons and testimonies might be produced to confirm our doctrine of God's everlasting prescience. Notwithstanding
Episcopius' blasphemy, that it only serves to torture poor mortals, we believe it is a good part of the foundation of all that consolation which God is pleased to afford us in this vale of tears. Amidst all our afflictions and temptations, under whose pressure we would otherwise faint and despair, it is no small comfort to be assured that we can do not suffer anything except what his hand and counsel guides to us.
They are open and naked before his eyes, and he knows their end and issue long before. This is a strong motive for patience, a sure anchor of hope, and a firm ground of consolation. Now, to present in one view how opposite to this sacred truth the opinions of the worshippers of the great goddess Contingency are, take this short antithesis:
S.S.
Lib. Arbit.
"Known to God are all his works from the beginning of the world," Acts 15:18.
"God sometimes fears, and prudently conjectures, that this or that evil may arise," Vorsti.
"Nor is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened to the eyes of him with whom we have to deal," Heb 4:13.
"God does not always foresee the event of what he intends," Corvin. ad Mol.
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"He that formed the eye, shall he not see?"
Psalm 94:9. "When a man goes into the woods with his neighbor to hew wood, and his hand fetches a stroke with the axe to cut down the tree, and the head slips from the handle, and lands on his neighbor, so that he dies," Deut 19:5.
"God delivers him into his hand," Exodus 21:13.
"Future contingencies are not determined for either part," Armin.
That is, God has not determined, and so, consequently, he does not foreknow, whether they shall come to pass or not.
"Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or with what shall we be clothed? For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things," Mat 6:31-32.
"God hopes and expects various things that will never come to pass,"
Rem. "Take away God's prescience and you overthrow his deity," Jerome.
"The doctrine of prescience seems to be invented only to trouble and torture poor mortal men," Episcop.