[Collegii S.S. Trinitatis Disputatio II De: De Unitate Dei Qoad Essentiam & Voluntatem; Volume 2; (Helwig, 1618)]
Friedrich Balduin (17 November 1575, Dresden – 1 May 1627, Wittenberg) was a leading Lutheran theologian and professor at Wittenberg whose career spanned the critical decades of post-Reformation Saxony. Educated at the Fürstenschule Meißen and the University of Wittenberg, he earned his M.A. in 1597, a poet-laureate crown in 1599, and the doctorate in theology in 1605 under mentors such as Polykarp Leyser and Ägidius Hunnius. Ordained in 1602, he rapidly advanced from diaconus at Freiberg and superintendent in Oelsnitz to fourth (later first) professor of theology at Wittenberg, while also serving as city pastor of the Marienkirche, assessor of the consistory, and Generalsuperintendent of the electoral Kurkreis, positions that made him the acknowledged head of the faculty until his death. A prolific exegete and polemicist against Roman Catholic doctrines, Balduin is chiefly remembered as the father of Protestant casuistry: his post-humous Tractatus de casibus conscientiae (1628) systematised cases of conscience for Lutherans and influenced moral reasoning across confessional lines.
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That He is, albeit it be the first and chief axiom of all religion, yet we, for the waves of doubts wherewith both the heathen are tossed—by reason of a wavering reason which rather divineth God from effects than knoweth Him clearly and firmly, as is seen even among the saner Gentiles—and the godly betimes, when they behold that the same things, yea oft evil unto the good and good unto the evil, do befall, shall in few words demonstrate.
And verily, first, from the book of the heart or of nature, wherein we have certain axioms, both theoretical (which, for that they are known true by terms only understood, come under the name of innate notions) and practical, whereby they seem firmly to conclude that God is. Of these we shall here recount at the least two: First, Nothing is of itself, for it cannot effect itself. For a thing that cometh to be by effecting presupposeth not being and requireth being; but a thing that maketh and produceth is supposed to have being. Wherefore it involveth manifest repugnance to say that the same is the cause of itself, that is, to exist afore production and to be produced, since a thing, as is evident, cannot be afore it be in formal or virtual act to make itself. Second, Every necessary thing hath the cause of its necessity from elsewhere, or hath it not. But in things necessary that depend on another, it is not lawful to proceed unto infinity. Therefore it must needs be stayed in that which is the cause of the necessity of others, which is the condition of God alone.
Moreover, among these we reckon, when conscience beareth most ample testimony: both unto the godly and upright, that they rejoice in good deeds and hope for rewards therefore; and unto the ungodly and most wicked, that they tremble and are tormented in their evil deeds, even those secret ones which come not unto any man’s notice. Which is a certain and manifest token that there is a divine power knowing the hidden things of men, that is, that God is.
Also from the book of the world, or of creation, these arguments are taken: The fabric of the world, wherein, beside other divine works, the unchangeable certainty and most wise order do yield an hundred arguments for God. For where there is order, there is an orderer and disposer, whom here to be none other than God, as Aristotle in his first book of Metaphysics confesseth with these words: For in what manner could there be order, if there were not somewhat perpetual, separate, and abiding?
Again, the destination of all things unto certain ends. That which hath no end is vain, that is, it is for nought, as Scaliger elegantly saith in Exercise 61, section 1. But in nature all things are, and nothing is in vain, as we hear in the schools of the philosophers; therefore they shall have their certain end. Wherefore it must be granted that there is some supreme thing which terminateth, finisheth, perfecteth all things, and unto which all things are directed.
Thus far have we been disciples of nature and creation; now also shall we be of Scripture, wherein whatsoever is said is truth. And we prove our thesis thence by a triple testimony: First, of God Himself, who hath oft appeared, been seen, and heard, as in Genesis 18 and Isaiah 6. For He that is seen and heard truly is. Second, of the angels executing the commandments of God and praising Him, as in Genesis 19:14 and Isaiah 6:3. Third, of men, to wit, the prophets and apostles, everywhere confirming the same.
Also from the perpetual and universal consent of all peoples, which is to be held as a law, yea, as a divine oracle. Cicero, in his second book of On the Nature of the Gods, saith: It is innate in all, as if graven in the mind, that there be gods. The same in his second book of On Laws: There is no nation so savage, no man so barbarous, whose mind hath not been imbued with the opinion of gods. Avicenna: Whosoever acknowledgeth not God or a divine power lacketh not so much reason as sense.
Now come we unto the other part, as it were, of this chapter, which is concerning the manner of the knowledge of God. The knowledge of God is threefold: First, of reason, which by the power of reasoning to some degree, that is, howsoever, divineth that supreme cause from effects; Second, of the letter, which is had from doctrine concerning God and miracles without the Spirit; Third, of revelation, which is had from the Holy Spirit through the Word. The first is feeble, the second ill-rooted, the third clear and firm.
And in general now we say, God is known in a triple manner: First, of eminence, whereby absolute and positive predicates concerning God are known, when we attribute unto God, through multitude, whatsoever pertaineth in creatures, yet so that things infinitely more perfect are understood in God. And the reason of this eminence is evident hence: for that God is an equivocal cause of things. But in an equivocal cause it behoveth that the perfections of the thing caused preexist eminently. Hitherto pertain Isaiah 40:1, 15, 17, 22, 25, and Psalm 94:9. Second, of affirmation through the relation of a principle. Thus we know the relative attributes of God, as the Creator (cause) from creatures (effects). And the reason of this affirmation is manifest hence: for that we see in the series of efficient causes there cannot be a progression unto infinity. Wherefore, since this is moved by that, and that by another, to stay this progression, it must needs be that we come unto some first thing, and so we call God the first mover. Likewise, since in creatures there is a defectible being which needeth conservation from without, hence we apprehend God as the conservator, and so also in other things we know Him through His operations. Third, of remotion. Thus we know the negative attributes of God, by abstracting from them the defects of creatures. Yet we say not here that there is no affirmed knowledge of God, for it is as an iron wood to know aught only negatively, since negation is not known save by affirmation; but we understand here negation which necessarily inhereth, which is known through some affirmation or positive entity formally opposed unto it.
And this knowledge, which is by negative terms, is better than that which is by positive terms. The reason whereof is this: that in a negative proposition we know adequately and distinctly some predicate which we deny of God, for that it is somewhat created; but in an affirmative proposition, albeit the affirmation be true, yet the predicate, as we know it to be in God, we know not adequately, but confusedly.
Briefly, and in particular, with respect to revealed knowledge, we know God by reason of: First, His being; Second, His willing; Third, His working. The first is considered in the unity of essence and the Trinity of persons. The second is either legal, which Moses revealed, or evangelical, which Christ brought forth, John 1:17. The third is either internal and personal, or external and essential.
Here the Church meeteth with enemies of truth of divers kinds: some sin in excess, as Zwinglius, Bullinger, and others, teaching that God hath written faith in the heart of Seneca without the preaching of the Gospel; likewise Pelagius and Puccius, of whom the one thought that man by his own powers might sufficiently know God, the other wrote that in every man is the substance of saving faith, and so all men are born apt unto eternal life; some in defect, as the Photinians of this day, who deny not only the subjective knowledge of God, that is, the sense of divinity implanted in nature, but also the objective, that is, the vestiges of divinity impressed upon creation.