RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Part 1 Here.
First Question: The Existence of God
(Turretin goes through the standard pre-modern reasoning).
Third Question: The Unity of God
Turretin clarifies the question by saying God is one in the sense that there is nothing else like him. It is a question of essential numerical unity.
Fifth Question: Can the Divine Attributes really be distinguished from the divine essence? We deny against the Socinians.
Definition: The divine attributes are the essential properties by which he makes himself known to us who are weak and those by which he is distinguished from creatures” (III.5.1). Attributes are not superadded to his essence. They are distinguished virtually and eminently (section 5ff). A virtual distinction is that which contains distinct effects
Seventh Question: The Simplicity of God: Is God most simple and free from all composition? We affirm against the Socinians.
Simple is used in two senses, either absolutely or relatively. Absolute means not mixed with anything else. God is simple because he is not dependent. If something is of composition, then it was composed by another (or depends on something else for its existence).
Def. = “The infinity of God in reference to duration is called eternity to which these three things are ascribed:
God’s intellect: the mode and object. “The mode consists in his knowing all things perfectly, undividedly, distinctly and immutably:
The Real Issue: Does God Know Future Contingencies?
There are two ways a thing can be contingent: either it is produced by God (true by definition; all things contingent in this sense) or it depends on the prior causes of other contingent events.
Proof: “Lord, thou knowest all things” (John 21:17; 1 John 3:20). Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world; God knows all his works from eternity. All things are naked and open to his eyes (Hebrews 4). This includes future actions. God predicts future contingent things.
Things can happen necessarily as to the event (per the decree) and yet contingently as to the mode of production (section 23).
Thirteenth Question: Is there a Middle Knowledge in God between the Natural and the Free? We deny.
God’s natural or simple knowledge: God’s knowledge of all things merely possible. It is called indefinite. It is founded on God’s omnipotence
God’s knowledge of vision (Or free): Knowledge of future things. Definite because fixed by his will.
Middle knowledge seeks to be about hypothetically possible things.
Statement of the question: all admit that God knows future contingencies. Is there a special decree concerning the certain futurition of this or that thing preceeds so that God may see things antecedently to such a decree. We deny.
Proofs: natural and free knowledge embraces all knowable things and entities are not be multiplied unnecessarily (sec. 9). 2) Things not true cannot be foreknown as true. 3) Such a knowledge posits a reason for predestination apart from God’s purpose and good pleasure (eudokian).
1 Sam. 23:11 no proof of MK. This is more of a revelation of “circumstances on the ground” than a hypothetical future contingency.
Fourteenth Question: The Will of God: Does God Will some things necessarily and others freely? We affirm.
There is a twofold necessity. Absolute necessity, that which can’t be otherwise. Hypothetical necessity, a necessity from a contingent source. There are two kinds of things willed: that which is willed to the ultimate end, and that which is willed in the relation of the means. Therefore, we say:
“God wills himself necessarily, not only by a hypothetical necessity but also by an absolute necessity.”
Fifteenth Question: May the will be properly distinguished into the will of the decre and of precept, good purpose (eudokias) and good pleasure (euarestias), signified, secret, and revealed? We affirm.
God’s will is simple but it may be apprehended as manifold.
Eighteenth Question: Is the Will of God the primary rule of justice? We distinguish
The will can be called the primary rule of justice extrinsically in reference to us, but not intrinsically in reference to God. In other words, some things are good because God wills them (e.g., the ceremonial laws) God’s natural justice is antecedent to his free act of will.
Nineteenth Question: Is Vindicative Justice Natural to God?
Divine justice can be considered either absolutely in itself or relatively with respect to its exercise. Question: Does God have the right to punish? Is this natural to God? We prove:
Power of God: The divine essence productive outwardly
ousia/essence: the “whatness” of a thing
Substance: we do not mean in this in the sense of God’s having accidents, but rather from subsisting (through himself and in himself)
Subsistence: “marks a mode of subsistence or personality” (sect. 5).
Person: it is properly concrete and not abstract.
Property: the mode of subsisting by which this or that person is constituted (sect. 14).
Twenty-Seventh Question: Can the Divine Persons be distinguished from the essence, and from each other, and how?
They differ not essentially, but modally (sect. 3).
First Question: The Existence of God
(Turretin goes through the standard pre-modern reasoning).
Third Question: The Unity of God
Turretin clarifies the question by saying God is one in the sense that there is nothing else like him. It is a question of essential numerical unity.
Fifth Question: Can the Divine Attributes really be distinguished from the divine essence? We deny against the Socinians.
Definition: The divine attributes are the essential properties by which he makes himself known to us who are weak and those by which he is distinguished from creatures” (III.5.1). Attributes are not superadded to his essence. They are distinguished virtually and eminently (section 5ff). A virtual distinction is that which contains distinct effects
Seventh Question: The Simplicity of God: Is God most simple and free from all composition? We affirm against the Socinians.
Simple is used in two senses, either absolutely or relatively. Absolute means not mixed with anything else. God is simple because he is not dependent. If something is of composition, then it was composed by another (or depends on something else for its existence).
- Also proved from the nature of subsistence. Persons and essence are not related as real component extremes from which a tertium quid may arise. This would create a quaternity.
- Modes/subsistences only modify, they do not compose. Modes distinguish the persons but do not compose the essence.
- God’s relative attributes are attributes of relations, which is “to be to,” not “to be in.”
Def. = “The infinity of God in reference to duration is called eternity to which these three things are ascribed:
- Without beginning
- Without end
- Without succession. (experiencing past, present, future)
- His essence cannot admit succession.
God’s intellect: the mode and object. “The mode consists in his knowing all things perfectly, undividedly, distinctly and immutably:
- Perfectly: he knows all things by himself or by his essence, not by forms abstracted from things.
- Undividedly: He knows all things intuitively and noetically, not discursively.
- Distinctly:
- Quality: good and bad
- Predication: universals and singulars.
- Time: past, present, and future.
- State: necessary and free or contingent.
The Real Issue: Does God Know Future Contingencies?
There are two ways a thing can be contingent: either it is produced by God (true by definition; all things contingent in this sense) or it depends on the prior causes of other contingent events.
Proof: “Lord, thou knowest all things” (John 21:17; 1 John 3:20). Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world; God knows all his works from eternity. All things are naked and open to his eyes (Hebrews 4). This includes future actions. God predicts future contingent things.
Things can happen necessarily as to the event (per the decree) and yet contingently as to the mode of production (section 23).
Thirteenth Question: Is there a Middle Knowledge in God between the Natural and the Free? We deny.
God’s natural or simple knowledge: God’s knowledge of all things merely possible. It is called indefinite. It is founded on God’s omnipotence
God’s knowledge of vision (Or free): Knowledge of future things. Definite because fixed by his will.
Middle knowledge seeks to be about hypothetically possible things.
Statement of the question: all admit that God knows future contingencies. Is there a special decree concerning the certain futurition of this or that thing preceeds so that God may see things antecedently to such a decree. We deny.
Proofs: natural and free knowledge embraces all knowable things and entities are not be multiplied unnecessarily (sec. 9). 2) Things not true cannot be foreknown as true. 3) Such a knowledge posits a reason for predestination apart from God’s purpose and good pleasure (eudokian).
1 Sam. 23:11 no proof of MK. This is more of a revelation of “circumstances on the ground” than a hypothetical future contingency.
Fourteenth Question: The Will of God: Does God Will some things necessarily and others freely? We affirm.
There is a twofold necessity. Absolute necessity, that which can’t be otherwise. Hypothetical necessity, a necessity from a contingent source. There are two kinds of things willed: that which is willed to the ultimate end, and that which is willed in the relation of the means. Therefore, we say:
“God wills himself necessarily, not only by a hypothetical necessity but also by an absolute necessity.”
Fifteenth Question: May the will be properly distinguished into the will of the decre and of precept, good purpose (eudokias) and good pleasure (euarestias), signified, secret, and revealed? We affirm.
God’s will is simple but it may be apprehended as manifold.
- Decretive will: futurition and event of things; rule of God’s external acts.
- Preceptive will: that which we should do. It has a twofold object
- Will of eudokias (good purpose): that which seems good for the Father to reveal. Also our predestination.
- Will of euarestias: frequently referred to the preceptive will. That which we are to conform to.
- Beneplacit will: answers to the decretive will.
- Will of sign: answers to the preceptive will.
Eighteenth Question: Is the Will of God the primary rule of justice? We distinguish
The will can be called the primary rule of justice extrinsically in reference to us, but not intrinsically in reference to God. In other words, some things are good because God wills them (e.g., the ceremonial laws) God’s natural justice is antecedent to his free act of will.
Nineteenth Question: Is Vindicative Justice Natural to God?
Divine justice can be considered either absolutely in itself or relatively with respect to its exercise. Question: Does God have the right to punish? Is this natural to God? We prove:
- Scripture. Ex. 34:7. Hab. 1:13. If hatred of sin is necessary to God, then penal justice is equally necessary because the hatred of sin is the constant will of punishing it.
- Dictates of conscience
- Sanction of the law
- Our redemption through the death of Christ.
Power of God: The divine essence productive outwardly
- The object of God’s power is nothing other than the possible (sect. 6).
- A contradictory is logically impossible.
- God can do contraries, but not contradictories.
ousia/essence: the “whatness” of a thing
Substance: we do not mean in this in the sense of God’s having accidents, but rather from subsisting (through himself and in himself)
Subsistence: “marks a mode of subsistence or personality” (sect. 5).
Person: it is properly concrete and not abstract.
Property: the mode of subsisting by which this or that person is constituted (sect. 14).
Twenty-Seventh Question: Can the Divine Persons be distinguished from the essence, and from each other, and how?
They differ not essentially, but modally (sect. 3).
