Cap. 4 Mem. 3 close: Ordinary power not tied to secret decrees; Thesis 2 closed
Finally reason itself teaches that ordinary Divine power is not restricted by the secret decrees of eternal predestination. First, because we little humans sense that our power is not constrained according to the decrees of our will. He who has most firmly decreed with himself not to give alms to this singular human being does not thence lose the power of giving: and on the contrary, he who has decreed to give to another does not thence take from himself the power of not giving. For just as he freely willed one of opposites, when he could have willed the other, so also he freely does the one, the power of doing the other not lost. If the matter so stands in a human being, whose power is mutable and can be lost, how much more in God, whose power is immutable, eternal, and always the same. Second, because if we posit God’s ordinary power bound to his eternal and occult decrees and as it were circumscribed, we could ask nothing from God with sure faith — I am not saying that he wills, but that he can help us. For example: if I sense myself struck by Satan himself with some heavy temptation, I cannot with the certainty of faith flee back to God as able to free me, because it is uncertain to me what he decreed from eternity about this matter. By like reason we could not pray God to convert any unbelievers to faith, to bring any impious persons back to penitence, with full persuasion that he can do what we ask; because what was decreed to God in secret before the foundations of the world about these things is hidden from us. Third, finally, because if nothing else is judged possible to be done besides those things which God decreed to be done, it would follow that Divine power is not infinite. For that power is finite which is equaled to finite effects and is brought forth into its whole act. But infinite power, as Halensis rightly has it, Part 1, question 21, Can be brought forth into act, but not into the whole. God can therefore do many things which he does not will — for example, gift any singular person whatever with faith, justify, save. Indeed, he can will many things which he does not will, and yet his will (as Lombard rightly has it, Book 1, Distinction 43, Letter E) Can be neither new nor mutable in any way. Which, although he can will what he never willed, yet not otherwise, nor by a new will, but only by a sempiternal will can he will. For he can will what from eternity he can have willed: for he has the power of willing, both now and from eternity, what yet he neither now wills nor from eternity willed. Thus far he.
We thought these things should be set out a little more fully, that it may stand clearer that Christ’s death is applicable to any wayfarer, because the condition of Faith and penitence is possible for any wayfarer, the secret decree of predestination or preterition in no way destroying or coarcting this power either on God’s part or on human beings’ part. Therefore those act with little consideration who try to overturn the universality of Christ’s death, pertaining to any human beings under the tenor of the Evangelical pact, by the decrees of occult election and preterition. So much for our second thesis: let us go on to the third.
Latin
Denique ipsa ratio docet Divinam potentiam ordinariam non artari per arcana decreta aeternae praedestinationis. 1. Quia nos homunculi sentimus potentiam nostram non constringi juxta placita voluntatis nostrae. Qui firmissime decrevit apud se huic homini singulari non dare eleemosynam, haud inde amittit potestatem dandi: et e contra, qui decrevit dare alteri, haud inde adimit sibi potestatem non dandi. Sicut enim libere voluit unum oppositorum, cum potuisset velle alterum; ita et libere facit unum, non amissa potentia faciendi alterum. Si res sic se habeat in homine, cujus potentia est mutabilis et amissibilis, quanto magis in Deo, cujus potentia est immutabilis, aeterna et semper eadem. 2. Quia si ponamus ordinariam Dei potentiam aeternis et occultis ejus decretis alligatam et quasi circumscriptam, nihil possemus a Deo petere cum certa fide, non dicam quod velit, sed quod possit nobis subvenire: Verbi causa, si sensero me ab ipso Satana gravi aliqua tentatione pulsatum, non possum cum fide certitudine ad Deum recurrere, quasi potentem me liberare, quia mihi incertum est quid hac de re ab aeterno decreverit. Pari ratione non possemus Deum orare ut quosvis infideles ad fidem convertat, ut quosvis impios ad poenitentiam reducat, cum plena persuasione quod possit facere illud quod rogamus; quia nos latet quid in occulto ante jacta mundi fundamenta hisce de rebus Deo decretum sit. 3. Denique quia si nihil aliud judicetur possibile fieri, praeter ea quae Deus decrevit facienda, sequeretur Divinam potentiam non esse infinitam. Finita est enim illa potentia quae finitis effectis adaequatur, et in totum suum actum educitur. Potentia siquidem infinita, ut recte Halensis, Part. 1. qu. 21, Potest educi in actum, sed non in totum. Potest igitur Deus multa facere quae non vult, puta hanc personam singularem quamcunque fide donare, justificare, salvare. Imo, potest multa velle quae non vult, et tamen ejus voluntas (ut recte Lombardus, Lib. 1. Dist. 43. Littera E) Nec nova, nec mutabilis aliquo modo potest esse. Quod etsi possit velle quod nunquam voluit, non tamen aliter, nec nova voluntate, sed sempiterna tantum voluntate velle potest. Potest enim velle quod ab aeterno potest voluisse: habet enim potentiam volendi, et nunc, et ab aeterno, quod tamen nec modo vult nec ab aeterno voluit. Hactenus ille. Paulo fusius haec edisserenda putavimus, ut clarius constet Christi mortem esse cuivis viatori applicabilem, quia Fidei et poenitentiae conditio est cuivis viatori possibilis, arcano praedestinationis aut praeteritionis decreto hanc potentiam sive ex parte Dei sive ex parte hominum nullatenus perimente aut coarctante. Parum igitur considerate faciunt, qui universalitatem mortis Christi, ad homines quoscunque sub Evangelici pacti tenore pertinentem, per occultae electionis et praeteritionis decreta conantur evertere. Tantum est de secunda nostra thesi: pergamus ad tertiam.