[Institutiones Theologicae Ex Optimis Autoribus Concinatae (ex officinâ Francisci Moyardi, 1658)]

Johannes Hoornbeek (4 November 1617, Haarlem – 23 August 1666, Leiden), was a Dutch Reformed theologian. He was a student and a follower of Gisbertus Voetius, writing with him on spiritual desertion. Like his teacher Voetieus, he was also later a professor of theology at the University of Leiden and University of Utrecht. The two universities were closely related in the 17th century, and both the teacher and his students participated in the intellectual “Utrecht Circle.” Another member of the circle was Hornbeek's student colleague Andreas Essenius. The circle was also known as De Voetiaanse Kring (The Voetian Circle), and it was one of the most influential intellectual circles of the Dutch second Reformation.

Table of Contents:

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Chapter IV. On the Decree and Predestination of God

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I. The Divine Action and Decree

Unto the divine nature there pertaineth action: which is twofold, immanent or transient; the former is either essential or personal: the essential again is either necessary or arbitrary: and this latter is called the decree.

Gomarus saith: That action agreeth unto God, both the testimonies of Scripture, Ephesians 1:11; Romans 11:36, and the divine perfection (which cannot be idle) do manifestly demonstrate. Essential action is that which ariseth from the common essence of the three Persons. And it is either of the divine intellect or of the will; the former is the action of God’s omniscience, whereby He knoweth Himself, as the highest good, and all things absolutely possible, most perfectly from Himself and in Himself: the latter is the action of goodness, whereby He embraceth Himself, as the highest good, and all things consonant unto Him, with love. But personal action is that which pertaineth only unto certain divine Persons. And it is either proper unto the Father, as the generation of the Son: or common unto Him with the Son; as the spiration of the Holy Spirit. Which actions, both essential and personal, are referred inwardly unto God, whence they are commonly called actions ad intra (more aptly than in Latin). And these be concerning the internal and eternal actions of God, absolutely necessary.

Ames saith: Liberty in these operations ad extra is not only concomitant, as in operations ad intra, but also antecedent under the reason of a principle: for that what God willeth to work ad extra, He willeth not by necessity of nature, but by a preceding choice: for there is no necessary connection between the divine nature and those acts.

Spanheim saith: It is to be observed by negation:

1. That decrees pertain not unto God properly or humanly, but only metaphorically and by translation, and therefore the decrees of God are not with deliberation or preceding consultation, with suspension of the mind and fluctuation of the will antecedent, and with a certain discourse, either from the posterior to the prior, or from the known to the more unknown, which are found antecedently in human decrees, because of the imperfection of our intellect and will.
2. That the decrees of God are not accidents, or anything superadded, for thus some entity, and therefore perfection, would accede unto the divine essence; but since the divine essence is in itself infinitely perfect, and cannot be made more perfect, nor can there be given any perfective thereof. Nor also accidents of that kind, or could they have being either created or uncreated. Not created, because such is neither eternal nor can be but finite; nor uncreated, because there would be given something uncreated having diminished being, and needing sustenance, which is absurd. Nor are the decrees in God by inherence, but by identity with the essence of God.
3. That the decrees of God are not many and diversely disposed in God inwardly, although they are disposed toward diverse things outwardly, which therefore in finite beings are formally diverse, but in the infinite being they are eminently identified. And these imperfections indeed removed, Julius Caesar Scaliger willed rather that the decrees simply should be removed from God, when in Exercitationes 365, section 8, he inveigheth against Ludovicus Vives, who attributeth counsel unto God, and saith that it is as impious a word in divine things, counsel, as the plurality of Deity, insofar as God needeth not counsel (after the manner of men) as a means or instrument, or idea for governing, nor doth He dispute or reason, or propose, or collect, or confer with another, or receive from any. In the same sense there he denieth that God foreseeth, but seeth, because unto Him nothing is future, but all things are present.

II. God’s Knowledge and Decree

God understandeth all possible things in His own omnipotence: hence He decreeth to make whatsoever and howsoever it pleaseth Him: which therefore He seeth as future in His decree concerning them; not by any middle knowledge, antecedent to His decree, and arising from the things and their conditions.

Ames saith: In every artificer, or efficient agent working by counsel ad extra, there preexisteth an idea, which he looketh upon who is to act, that he may fit his operation unto it; so also in God, since He doth not effect naturally, nor rashly, nor by compulsion, but with the highest perfection of reason, such an idea preexisteth, as the exemplary cause of all things to be effected, Hebrews 11:3—“The things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” The idea in man, who acquireth knowledge by analysis, is collected from the things themselves, and so the things first exist in themselves, then come unto the sense of men, and thence unto the intellect, where they can constitute some idea, to direct the following operation. But since God understandeth all things by genesis, and requireth not knowledge by analysis of things, therefore all things are first in His mind, before they are in themselves. In us the things themselves are the pattern, and our knowledge is the image: but in God the divine knowledge is the pattern, and the things themselves are the image or expressed likeness thereof. The idea in man is first impressed, and afterward expressed in things: but in God it is only properly expressing, not impressed, because it cometh not from elsewhere. From this one foundation all errors concerning merits and foreseen faith can sufficiently be refuted. For if any decree of God should properly depend upon such foresight, then the idea of God would come unto Him from elsewhere, which in no wise agreeth with His nature. Ideas, as they are considered antecedent to the decree of the divine will, represent the quiddity of things and only possible existence: as they are considered after the determination of the divine will, they represent the same things as actually future, according to their actual existence. From this varied consideration ariseth the distinction of divine knowledge, into that which is called the knowledge of simple intelligence, and that which is called the knowledge of vision. The knowledge of simple intelligence is the most perfect knowledge in God of all possible things, that is, of all and singular things which can be made: the knowledge of vision is the knowledge of all future things, whether they be in their nature necessary, or free, or contingent. Those things which God knoweth by the knowledge of simple intelligence, He knoweth from His own omnisufficiency: but those which He knoweth by the knowledge of vision, He knoweth from His own efficiency, or from the decree of His own will. Psalm 33:15—“He fashioneth their hearts alike; He considereth all their works.” Isaiah 44:2—“Who, as I, shall call, and shall declare it, and set it in order for Me, since I appointed the ancient people? and the things that are coming, and shall come, let them shew unto them.”

Maccovius saith: The Jesuits and their followers have feigned a third species of divine knowledge, namely, conditional knowledge, but they mean by this knowledge, which they also call middle, that God foreseeth that upon this or that condition, this or that will follow, even if He hath not decreed it: therefore against this our disputation is now instituted:

1. The first argument we deduce from the dependence between the first cause and the effects, that is, between the Creator and the creatures. For it is impossible that any effect should either be or be understood as future in any case, unless dependently from its efficient cause. This proposition is the first of the Philosopher, in the book of causes, upon which also the whole fabric of Scholastic Theology resteth, which considereth created beings in no other wise than as so many emanations from the first cause, from which they depend in being and operating, as rays from the Sun. But unto this middle knowledge is subjoined, as its object, the free determination of the will, which dependeth from no superior cause. Therefore, an effect is posited without a cause, a creature without a creator, and consequently such knowledge is wholly to be exploded. Sharply doth Ripa press this argument, in the first part of Aquinas, question 4, chapter 3, distinction 4. For hence, saith he, this order would be constituted, that because man will do, God doth, and because the second cause doth, the first doth, and not contrariwise, which also Augustine detested, in the book of the predestination of the saints, chapter 13, and true Philosophy, and sound Theology. Finally, not only nature, but the very names of God, of man, of the first and second cause, so abhor it, that nothing more, so that those with whom we dispute dare not assert this save tremblingly and under certain meanders.
2. The second argument is that this middle knowledge casteth fetters upon the divine will and providence. For if the human will freely determineth itself before the divine decree, then the divine power and providence can dispose nothing, save from the awaited and previously had assent of the created will, with which it concurreth as a partial cause to produce the effect: and since those things which God foreknoweth before the predefinition of His will, become known unto Him through His natural knowledge, they cannot be otherwise through a subsequent decree; which seemeth to prescribe limits unto the first cause.
3. The third argument is from the sufficient division of divine knowledge, into the knowledge of simple intelligence and of vision, whose objects, since they are non-being or being, between which no middle can be imagined, therefore no middle object is left for middle knowledge, whence it ceaseth to be knowledge. The adversaries here are compelled to insert being by supposition, as a middle between contradictories: but in vain. For that conditional being is either something in itself simply, or nothing; if the former, it is comprehended under the knowledge of vision; if it be nothing, but only possible through the power of the Creator, it coincideth with the object of simple intelligence, what need therefore is there to feign this new and neuter knowledge in God?
4. The fourth argument is from the comparison of conditionals with absolutes. The conditional decree of God relateth unto the conditional future, as the absolute decree unto the absolute future: but it implieth a contradiction (as the Jesuits confess) that anything should be absolutely future, unless from the decree of God decreeing that it should be absolutely future, as Augustine showeth in Enchiridion to Laurentius, chapter 95. Therefore, it also implieth a contradiction that anything should be conditionally future unless a conditional decree precedeth, which utterly taketh away middle knowledge (which is established to precede every decree).
5. The fifth argument: If God should foresee that which He hath not decreed; therefore He would know the thing, because the thing would be future: not, contrariwise, the thing would be future because God foreknew and decreed it: but these are plainly absurd. Because in this manner the thing outside God would be the measure of the divine intellect, not truly the intellect of God would be the measure of the future things outside God: therefore, the knowledge of God would depend upon things posited outside, and consequently God. For knowledge in God is God Himself. Secondly, the divine intellect would be conformed unto things posited outside itself, and so there would be given in Him passive potency: in one word, God would not be called God, but a creature, and the creature not a creature, but God.
6. The sixth argument: Nor doth this middle knowledge untie the knots in grace and free will to be reconciled, for which cause it was chiefly devised, but rather entangleth them, therefore it is to be rejected as useless. The antecedent is thus formed: The acts of free will not determined by decree either have determination from another external cause, or not: if the former, then either from constellations, or from individual complexion, or from moral persuasion, or in some other manner; but however this may happen, no less difficulty ariseth, why these should succeed more happily for Jacob than for Esau: but if the will here naturally consenteth, then it could not do otherwise, therefore it could not dissent, therefore, these circumstances being posited, it is not free. And thus the adversaries have fallen into the snares which they laid for us.

But now let us come unto the objections wherewith the adversaries go to support this doctrine:

Objection: 1 Samuel 23. God foresaw that the men of Keilah would have delivered David unto Saul, if David had remained in Keilah, whence it seemeth that God foresaw what would have been future, if David had not consulted for himself by flight, even if He had not decreed this.

Response: That God decreed to deliver David from the hands of Saul by this means, namely, flight, wherefore He knew that without this means, this would not have been future, that David should be delivered from the hands of Saul, even if He knew that he was to be delivered, and that he would use this means. I declare the like from the Word of God already cited. God said unto Paul, Acts 27:24, that none of those who were in the ship with him should perish, because, however, He was not to effect this without means, therefore a little after, when the sailors were preparing flight, Paul saith unto the centurion and the soldiers, “Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved.” Here God foretold, who spake this through Paul, that the centurion and the soldiers would not be saved if the sailors fled; yet He knew that neither would the sailors flee, as He who had decreed this, and that all those would be saved. Excellently doth Ames distinguish between the formal and explicit decree, and the virtual and implicit, which is included by virtue of another decree. For example, the explicit decree concerning the saving of David is conceived in this manner: I will save David from the hands of the men of Keilah by flight. From this floweth this implicit and virtual decree: therefore, if David flee not, he will be delivered up.

III. No Cause of God’s Will or Decree Outside God