Strang: with the decree of permission joined to foreknowledge, God predefined each lawful act, foreknowing and decreeing in one instant
Toward the end of the chapter he explains the matter more precisely in these words. 'Whenever God leaves to the choice of the created will an election and option between two or more things, or between acting and not acting, we must not think that God restricts it to one side only.
But if we join to the decree of permission God's foreknowledge of the future event, it can be said that God predefined each lawful act that comes about. For he himself grants that freedom to the will, cooperates with it, and decreed the same from eternity.
This is not because God first foresaw the future event and then decreed that it would be; that would be absurd, to decree as future what he already foreknew to be future before the decree. Nor is it because God first decrees absolutely and then foreknows the thing as future. In that case he would not have permitted, or decreed to permit, the will's free choice to do and not do this and other things. It is because in one and the same instant he both foreknows and decrees, or predefines.
In eternity there is certainly nothing prior or posterior. Since foreknowledge and predefinition are both from eternity, neither comes before or after the other. In our way of conceiving we do distinguish different instants of reason in God's eternal acts. But even by instants of reason we do not call one of these prior or posterior to the other.'
Latin
XIII. Sub finem vero capitis rem eandem accuratius explicat his verbis, Quotiescunque Deus permittit creatae voluntatis arbitrio electionem & optionem ad duo aut plura, vel ad agendum aut non agendum, non est existimandum Deum illam ad unam duntaxat partem restringere. Sed si decreto permissionis praescientiam Dei conjungamus de eventu futuro, sic dici potest Deum praedefinivisse singulos actus licitos qui eveniunt, quia ipse eam libertatem voluntati concedit, & cum ea cooperatur, idemque ab aeterno decrevit. Non quod Deus prius praeviderit eventum futurum, ac deinde eum decreverit fore; id enim ineptum esset, nempe illud decernere futurum, quod ante decretum praescivit esse futurum; nec quod Deus prius absolute decernat, ac deinde id praesciat futurum. Nam sic non permisisset, nec decrevisset permittere libero voluntatis arbitrio ut id & aliud ageret & non ageret: sed quod uno eodemque instanti simul praesciat ac decernat seu praedefiniat. Certe in aeternitate nihil est prius aut posterius; itaque cum praescientia & praedefinitio sint ab aeterno, neutra est altera prior aut posterior. Nos quidem pro nostro concipiendi modo, diversa rationis instantia distinguimus in aeternis Dei actibus. Sed nec secundum instantia rationis unam altera priorem aut posteriorem dicimus.