D. Fourth Opinion

26. [Exposition of the opinion] - He [Henry] rejects this opinion [nn.21-25] and speaks in another way, and this as follows:

A divine act can be considered as it is from God the agent or as it is received in some passive thing or as it has a term in some object.

27. In the first way there is no reason for the divine action; neither as end, save his goodness - nor as efficient cause, save his will.

28. In the second way, however, it is possible to assign some reason, namely for which the existence that the action concerns - as an entity for the end - agrees with the end.

29. And that there is some such reason on the part of the entity for the end is shown by him in three ways:

First, because in things altogether equal choice cannot be talked of; therefore if God chooses some things, there is some difference in the thing chosen, - or there is no choice.

30. Second, because in all the works of divine mercy it seems that justice concurs; therefore there is some congruence on the part of the thing he does mercifully.

31. And third (as if in like way): there seems not to be or to be a merit of choice and reprobation, and so although malice on the part of him who receives [sc. damnation] is not the cause of damning on the part of God (because “then God would be passive” and “the temporal would be cause of the eternal”), yet it is well conceded that on the part of the act of damning there is a motive reason for the act’s receiving in itself this action and its being about this person; therefore by similarity it seems - on the other side [sc. choice] - that without imperfection of God in acting there could be posited some reason on the part of the person predestined. And it rests on this conclusion, the authority of Augustine cited before [n.7], 83 Questions, which does not seem to have been retracted.

32. Further, in particular he says what this reason is: that it is the good use, foreseen, of freewill on the part of the elect person - and the bad use, foreseen, of freewill on the part of the reprobate.

33. And this is made clear as follows: although grace operates principally in good acts yet freewill cooperates; this is proved from Augustine “on the remark of Psalms ‘Help us, God, our savior” [On Psalms 78, 9 n.12] where Augustine says, “When he wants us to be helped, he is neither ungrateful nor does he take away freewill; for he who is helped also does something of himself.” When grace, then, is offered to the wayfarer, if he receives the offered grace and cooperates with it well in accord with his use of freewill, he merits grace according to a further degree - as he exemplifies in many intermediate degrees, from the state of mortal sin up to the state of glory, all which it is not necessary for us now to enumerate; and so it seems that the whole use of freewill, foreseen for all its states, can be the reason for eternal election of him who will use freewill well, and so on the other side about evil use and reprobation.

34. And if it is objected against this that the good use of freewill is by grace, therefore it pertains to the effect of predestination and so is not a reason for election - the response is that the good use “is in a certain way included under predestination, but not under its effect (although it is not without its effect), nor is that which belongs to predestination distinct from that which belongs to freewill.”

35. Thus, therefore, according to him, and in general, good use and bad use can be assigned for the whole human race, and about any man a reason can be assigned on his part (not “because of which it is so” but “without which it is not so”); yet in particular, about a definite man, “it is not for man to investigate the reason, although it is not lacking and could be multiple.” However “in particular” - according to him - “the Apostle labored under a want of means for giving a reason, when he said (Romans 11) ‘O the depth of the riches’,” because in this “consists a great abyss of God’s judgments.”

36. [Rejection of the opinion] - But against this I argue:

First, that God does not foresee that this man will use freewill well, save because he wills or pre-ordains him to use it well, because - as was said in distinction 39 [in the interpolation above] - definite foreseeing of future contingents is from the determination of his will. If therefore two equal persons are offered to the divine will, I ask why he preordains this to use freewill well and not that one; it is not possible, as it seems, to assign a reason for this other than the divine will; and this is the first distinction among them, which for you [Henry] election or reprobation has to follow; therefore in the first distinction, pertaining to predestination or reprobation, the only reason is the divine will.

37. Besides, the reason that he posits [n.32], does not seem common to all the predestined and reprobate:

First indeed because not for children, in whom God does not foresee good or bad use of freewill.

38. And if you say that, although he does not foresee such use, yet he foresees that this one would have used it well had he survived, and that one would have used it badly if he had survived (and therefore he leads the former to baptism and the latter not, and the former is saved and the latter damned), - this he himself thus rejects, because on account of the foreseen good use by someone, if he had survived, he is not accepted or reprobated; for then - according to him - an adult dying in grace would not pre-merit according to the merits he already has, but according to those that he is foreseen to have, if he had survived.

39. Let us speak likewise of the predestined and non-predestined angels; which use of freewill does God foresee in this one - if grace is offered - which he does not foresee in that one, because of which he predestines this one and reprobates that one?