Chapter IV: The End Purpose of Providence
CHAPTER IV: ON THE SECOND ACT OF PROVIDENCE, ITS END PURPOSE
What sort of act end purpose is.
§ 47. Second, the providence of God consists in His predetermination or end purpose, [that is], in His decree and will to provide for all things. For whatever God does in time He has decided to do from eternity. For to foresee is not only to have knowledge but also includes the will to provide for what things require. Eph. 1:11: “God works all things according to the counsel of His will.”
§ 48. On the basis of this foundation, Scaliger (Exerc. 365, sect. 8) refutes Ludovicus Vives, who had said that the providence of God was “His will governing all things by His counsel,” because His providence existed before the creation of the world and its governance, and because God does not lack counsel for governing as if it were a medium or an instrument or an idea. At the same time, one cannot deny that Scripture in its usual condescension to us attributes counsel to God anthropopathically. You see, although, accurately speaking, God neither takes thought nor ponders, yet because the rays of His supreme infinite wisdom shine upon His works and because He does the sort of things which men do with the greatest prudence and counsel of mind, therefore counsel is attributed to God.
The word “end purpose” is taken in two ways.
§ 49. The word “end purpose” [πρόθεσις] in Scripture refers especially to the plan of our salvation, that is, God’s decree from eternity as arranged in Christ and as revealed to us through the Gospel that human beings are to be saved through faith in Christ, so that in this way this end purpose includes the entire order of our salvation. Rom. 8:28: “Called according to His purpose.” Rom. 9:11: “In order that God’s purpose according to election might remain.” Eph. 1:9: “According to His purpose which He set forth in Christ.” Verse 11: “Having been predestined according to His purpose.” Elsewhere this end purpose of God is called “the good-pleasure and the counsel of God’s will” [Eph. 1:5, 9, 11].
§ 50. However, because God’s work includes not only the renewal of the human race through Christ and the salvation of those who believe in Him but also the prolonging and preservation of His creatures, therefore we are able to claim by analogy that in the mind of God there existed an eternal purpose concerning not only the renewal of the human race through Christ and the salvation of those who believe but also concerning the prolonging and preservation of His creatures. For whatever God does in time He has decided to do from eternity.
Should the purpose of God be referred also to the sins of people?
§ 51. On the other hand, because the purpose of the will of God should be referred only to the things that God does in time (because the things that God does not do in time He has not decreed to do from eternity), we conclude from this that the fall of Adam, as such, and the sins of people, as such, must not be said to have arisen from the eternal purpose of God, because man was neither compelled nor induced by any decree of God to fall, for he received a command from God not to fall [Gen. 2:17]. As far as the remedy for the fall is concerned, however, that has been decreed by God from eternity and arranged in Christ. God did not cause the fall of man in time, nor did He drive man to fall. Therefore God did not decree the fall of man from eternity. God in time permitted man to fall. (We shall list the reasons for this permission in its own place [§§ 103–4, 107–41; cf. §§ 90–92; On Original Sin (Commonplace XII), §§ 15–25].) Therefore God decreed from eternity to permit or not to hinder the fall of man. God through Christ has provided in time the most precious remedy for the fall of man. Therefore from eternity God decreed a remedy for the fall of man.
§ 52. Consequently, if anyone should wish to extend the word “decree” so broadly as to refer it to all things in which the providence of God is engaged—namely, to the evil deeds as well as to the good deeds of men—here he must also of necessity make this distinction: that in the actual controlling of divine providence the purpose of God acts in one way with respect to good deeds and in another with respect to evil deeds. For as God in time controls the deeds of men in such a way that He commands, approves, and assists the good ones but does not command nor approve nor assist the evil ones, but permits them because of the good purpose which He knows how to elicit from them, so also we must say that the eternal purpose of God is arranged in such a way that He has decreed to order, approve, and aid the good deeds of men but permit the evil ones because of the good purpose which He knows how to elicit from them. Briefly, as is the character of God’s control in time, such is also the character of the purpose of His controlling, because of the most precise relationship of both as they correspond to Him.
§ 53. However, observe carefully that when we speak of a decree to permit evil deeds, we must understand the word “decree” to refer not to the evil deeds themselves, but to those good ends which God knows how to elicit from them by His wisdom and goodness. God decreed to permit the fall of Adam and the rest of the sins of man which followed the fall not as if He were delighted with the fall and with those sins, not as if He approved them or caused them, but because He knows how to bring a good result from them. Therefore as God in time willingly permitted the fall and yet did not want man to fall, so also He has decreed from eternity to permit the fall but did not decree the fall itself. Hence we must seriously disapprove of how Beza (Colloq. Mompelg., part 2, p. 155) applies the apostolic text of Eph. 1:11: “God accomplishes all things according to the counsel of His will.” He applies this passage so nakedly and crudely even to all the evil deeds of men, despite the fact that God neither does them nor decreed from eternity to cause them.
The word “predestination” is taken in two ways.
§ 54. The word “predestination” [προορισμός] is also taken in Scripture specifically and properly to refer to the election of those “who are going to believe in Christ” unto eternal life. (See Rom. 8:30; Eph. 1:5; etc.) Nevertheless the word “predestine” is a general word meaning “to take counsel, decide, and define what one will do about something, and to establish for oneself the goal and means.” Damascenus (Dial. de haeres. Manich.): “Predestination is a judgment and decree about things that are going to happen.” Here we take the word “predestination” in this general sense. On the other hand, Thomas ([ST,] part 1, q. 23, art. 1) explains how the word “predestination,” taken specifically, relates to providence: “Predestination is a part of providence. For the effect of providence1 is to direct and move things to their end. Now the end of a rational creature is twofold: One is natural, proportionate to the creature, to which it can attain by its own powers. The other is supernatural and surpasses the proportion of the created nature; this is eternal life. It cannot accomplish this end unless it be transmitted thereto by another, namely, by God, as an arrow is sent to its target by a bowman. The manner of the transmission or the decree of transmitting to eternal life is called predestination.”
1 Read providentiae with Cotta instead of providentia.