Theological Theses · §2073 · Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu

If pressed that God's decrees would be frustrated, they deny it: had man acted otherwise, God would have decreed otherwise

Someone may press the point: granted God's decree about some action, it cannot be said at all that a man can act otherwise, since it would follow that God's decrees could be thwarted and made void, which is utterly impossible. They deny the inference. If the man acted otherwise, which is assumed to be possible, God would have decreed otherwise.

They do not think it conflicts with the unchangeableness of God's decrees that a man, while carrying them out, keeps the power to act otherwise. It would conflict only if someone said that a man can end up doing the contrary of what God has decreed, and these theologians say no such thing.

Latin

XIII. Quod si aliquis urgeat, posito decreto Divino de actione aliqua, nullo modo posse dici hominem posse aliter agere, quoniam inde sequeretur decreta Dei posse frustrari & irrita esse, quod simpliciter impossibile est, negant istam consequentiam, quia si homo aliter ageret, quod supponitur possibile, Deus aliter decrevisset. Nec pugnare existimant cum immutabilitate decretorum divinorum quod homo dum illa exequitur, potestatem servat aliter agendi, sed solum si quis dicat, contingere posse ut homo contrarium agat ejus quod a Deo decretum est, id quod Theologi isti minime dicunt.

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