Taken from ‘Theologiae christianae fundamenta et elementa; Vol. 1; (Lausannae)’
The reverend Alexandre César Chavannes, born at Montreux on 30 July 1731 and translated to glory at Lausanne on 2 May 1800, sprang from steadfast Huguenot stock and bore the yoke of Christ and learning with singular constancy. Schooled in philosophy and divinity at the Academy of Lausanne, he was ordained in 1753, served beside his father, and from 1766 until death held the chairs of professor, rector, and librarian, compiling the academy’s first catalogue and its earliest history. During his Basel pastorate he cultivated fellowship with the Bernoulli savants while preaching the evangelical Word to the French Reformed congregation. His magnum opus, Anthropologie ou Science générale de l’homme—a 1788 printed abstract of a vast thirteen-volume manuscript—sought to wed bodily anatomy with the science of the soul, and there he first coined for the French tongue the term ethnologie, charting the study of the nations. In that “new science of man” he forged a pedagogic schema meant to marshal every branch of knowledge toward the cultivation of intellect and virtue. More than three hundred essays for the Encyclopédie d’Yverdon flowed from his tireless pen, trimming the lamps of the Helvetic Enlightenment. Remaining a bachelor, he walked humbly yet cut a broad channel through which modern anthropology still courses, esteeming him a father of its first principles.
Table of Contents:
<aside>
</aside>
LXXVII. From the decree or internal work, flow, as effects, the external works of God: Creation and Providence, in which is placed the third foundation of Religion.
LXXVIII. That the world was brought into existence through the divine act of creation out of nothing is proven by this: that the notion of successive eternity of action past, or of an infinite series of finite things, seemeth contradictory; nor can the world be supposed to have existed from eternity without at the same time being established without origin and cause, existing of itself, necessary, immutable, independent, and so forth.
LXXIX. Moreover, we infer that our earthly globe is not exceedingly ancient, both from the tradition and doctrine of philosophers, and from the more trustworthy historical monuments which scarce ascend to 6000 years, as well as from the successive multiplication of men, the occupation of regions, the migration of peoples from the east, from the first origins of colonies and empires, from the more recent invention of arts—yea, even those most necessary—and their daily increase, and so forth.
LXXX. A twofold creation may be distinguished: the first, that is, the immediate creation of matter; the second, that is, the mediate creation, whereby matter obtained its form through the divine power acting, where it so pleased God, in an orderly and successive manner (51). The efficient cause was God’s infinite and incommunicable power; the final cause, not His own profit (55), but the primary end afore spoken (§. 42); the impulsive cause, God’s Wisdom and Goodness.
LXXXI. All created beings were made in the best manner (43); moral beings in a state of rectitude; yet not without metaphysical evil, which is essential to every finite being. The world itself was not created without physical evil: I mean that singular harm which creatures endowed with sense oft experience from physical causes, according to the laws of nature, established for the conservation and order of the visible world; nor indeed was it from the beginning free from penal evil arising from moral evil, by natural consequence, according to the moral laws necessary for the universal good, to be derived upon the violators thereof. But from the very nature of both these evils it is easily understood that they are not real evils, but rather true goods, since they wholly agree with God’s Wisdom and Goodness, as they are ordained for the conservation of the world and the universal good. Yet the world could not be created by God together with moral evil, from which He supremely abhorreth (47), and which He forbiddeth to creatures under His most severe penalties by His legislation; but only with the possibility thereof, through the abuse of liberty by moral beings who of their own will fall from their state of rectitude (7.10).
LXXXII. The act of divine will and power whereby things continue to be, to act, and to tend toward their end, is called Providence. The necessity and truth hereof are shown both from the very nature and condition of creatures, whereby they utterly depend on God, and from the notion of God Himself as the primary cause, and a being constantly active, from whose will all things flow (53).
LXXXIII. A threefold act of Providence is distinguished: the first is conservation, whereby creatures continue to be by the will of God, by whose efficacy they began to exist; a positive act; universal, extending itself unto all things, both individual and whole beings.
LXXXIV. The second is concurrence, whereby creatures continue to act by the will of God, who first imparted powers unto them; positive; both general as touching the world, and special as touching individuals; physical, as touching the natural actions of men; moral, as touching free actions.
LXXXV. In these indeed it is physical as touching the matter of actions, that is, the force, effort, motion, and effect outwardly produced; but as touching the form, that is, the determination of the will from a moral cause, it is purely moral, to wit, such that the creature acting doth ever act freely; not compelling, but exciting unto good, or calling away from evil.
LXXXVI. The third act is direction or government, Providence properly so called, whereby creatures continue to strive toward their end by the will of God, who destined them unto this end; positive; also physical or moral; general, insofar as it ruleth the universe through general laws first established; special, insofar as it relateth unto certain creatures whose powers, upon occasion given, are singularly governed; yet ordinary, and only most rarely extraordinary, that is, acting by miracles.
LXXXVII. The necessity and certainty of general physical Providence, under which lieth the whole complex and connection of visible things, are proven from the nature of those things which, being inert and blind, cannot of themselves attain their ends, nor indeed maintain a constant order among themselves, without the will and direction of the Creator.