Theological Theses · §2047 · Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu

A prior decree fixing all connections of possibles is fiction, idle, and unworthy of God's goodness and justice

Indeed, the decree some posit, as reported above, by which God fixed within himself the connections and sequences of everything that could be made before he decreed anything to be future, seems pure invention. It seems contrary not only to God's wisdom but also to his goodness.

If it were so, God would have had to form decrees like these within himself before resolving to create this world: 'If I will to create Adam, I will that his fall be necessarily bound up with his temptation. If I will to create David and that he see Bathsheba, I will that lust for that woman be joined to that sight.'

Or again: 'I will that such occasions of sin be followed by such sins, if I decree that such occasions shall exist.' Or even: 'I will that in the countless worlds I could create, these or those contingently possible events be inseparably linked with these or those events of the same kind.'

Such decrees are not only plainly idle, trivial and pointless. They are utterly unworthy of the goodness and justice of the one who is a God who does not will iniquity.

Latin

LII. Imo etiam plane commentitium, neque tantum sapientiae, sed etiam divinae bonitati repugnans videtur illud decretum quo nonnulli volunt, ut supra retulimus, Deum omnium fieri possibilium connexiones & concatenationes apud se praefinivisse, priusquam decerneret aliquid esse futurum. Nam si ita esset, oporteret ut Deus, antequam hunc mundum creare statueret, hujusmodi decreta apud se concepisset, si velim Adamum creare, volo ut ejus lapsus cum ejus tentatione necessario cohaereat. Si velim creare Davidem & illum videre Bathscebah, volo ut cum isto visu connexa sit istius mulieris concupiscentia. Item, volo ut tales occasiones peccandi consequantur talia peccata, si decernam tales occasiones fore. Imo volo ut in infinitis mundis a me creabilibus hi & illi eventus contingenter possibiles cum his & illis ejusdem naturae eventibus nexum habeant inseparabilem. Quae certe decreta non tantum plane otiosa, frivola & frustranea sunt, sed maxime dedecent bonitatem & justitiam illius qui Deus nolens iniquitatem est.

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About this text

Louis Le Blanc, a Reformed professor at Sedan, sets out theology in theses argued against Rome: Scripture, faith, grace, free choice, good works and the saints.

This volume holds the Theses on Theology I–XLIII and On Faith I–XXII, in eighteen sections.

Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu (1614–1675) was minister and professor of theology at the Academy of Sedan, the Reformed school on France's eastern border. His Theses were disputed by students over many years and collected in a London folio (1675).

The Theological Theses range across the whole Reformed system — Scripture, God, predestination, grace, and justifying faith — in the crisp thesis-and-proof form of the seventeenth-century schools.

Date1675 AD (Sedan theses; London collection)

No modern English.

Reference

ESTC R17887; Wing L802. IA bub_gb_eOkHAW4G0-wC (+ EEBO 1675 for gap leaves).

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