Richard Baxter's Catholic theology plain, pure, peaceable, for pacification of the dogmatical word-warriors who,…Richard Baxter's Catholick theologie plain, pure, peaceable, for pacification of the dogmatical word-warriours who,…

The tenth Crimination.

C. They seem to err much, in that they deny the eternal Cause of eternal ¹futurition; (while they make sin that is eternally future, yet not to be eternally willed or decreed by God to be future.) How can things pass without a cause enumero possibilium, in numerum futurorum?

1. 1Vasqu. 1. Tho. q. 14. d. 65. c. 4. vainly saith, Ens quod in universum est objectum intellectus non tantum est praesens, s•d etiam futurum, preteritum & possibile & quod futurum est aliquid, contrary to common reason: For these are all termini diminuentes as to ens real: That which only was or will be, Is not indeed, 1. The Idea in a mans mind de futuro, & de praeterito is something. 2. And so is the Proposition, Hoc suit, vel erit. And hence men falsely say, that futurum is aliquid; when it is only an assertion that aliquid erit. So also Aquinas saith, 1. dis. 38. a. 4. & de verit. q. 1. a. 8. That quae non sunt actu, aliquo modo sunt, in potentia Dei vel creaturae sunt, vel sunt in potentiae opinandi vel imaginandi, vel quocunque modo significandi: which is but to abuse men with words, & play with the equivocation of [sunt]. Posse vel potentia, opinio, imaginatio, &c. are something: But must nothing therefore be something? His question is, Utrum scientia Dei sit non-entium: And if he had no better way to prove the affirmative, than by saying that nothing is something, it's equal to silence. Vasqu. ibid. confesseth, Intellectui Divino secundum se, nunquam res objicitur nisi sicuti est: Unde quod non est, non objicitur sicuti esset. And here the School-men contend, An Deus cognoscat actu infinita possibilia & futura: Aquin. Cajet. Ferrar. Bonav. Richard. Waldens. Vasqu. &c. affirm it. Durand. Almain. and many later deny it. Blank de concord. lib. & decret. 1. n. 58. well noted that futurity may be with out a Decree to predetermine the Agent: For sin is so, e. g. hating God, blasphemy. And that Dr. Twice ill maketh Gods Decree the sole cause of futurity. As to the presumptuous question, how God knoweth future things, besides that there is no time to measure Gods Acts by, there need no other answer than that Gods infinite Understanding knoweth all that is intelligible. But futures as such are intelligible.—Quid divinus intellectus infinitae tutis est: quicquid intelligibile est necessarie debt amplecti & intelligere: At futura contingentia intelligibilia sunt, o quod sunt determinatae veritatis, Vasq. 1. Tho. q. 14. d. 65. cap. 4. But whereas he himself also defendeth that futures are known in decretis divinis, he is forced to say that sin is known in Gods Decree of the materiale peccati: where yet in his Doctrine of Simultaneous Concurse, he maketh Gods concurse to be but part of the determining cause, which would not without mans free co operation do it. Therefore the Decree of a half causation is not enough to infer the effect.