Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CHAP. ix. of Necessity. 249
But if tins position does not mean this, as in the minds of
those who maintained it it did not, it is not available for
the object for which it is designed. For all it means to
assert in that case is the incomprehensibility of the Divine
Will, and that there is some mysterious sense in which
everything which takes place agrees with this will ; bub
this is not to explain the difficulty of the co-existence of
evil with that will, but only to state it.
A distinction, again, was drawn between an antecedent
will of Grod voluntas antecedens, and a posterior will
voluntas consequens ;
the former of which willed a thing
absolutely simpliciter, the latter conditionally secun-
1 dum -, quid and the former of which was opposed to evil,
the latter not. Thus God willed the salvation of all men
on the one hand absolutely ; and that will, which was
opposed to all evil, to sin and punishment alike, could be
frustrated imperfectio antecedentis voluntatis. But, on
the other hand, He willed this salvation conditionally i.e.
on the supposition that men were good and this ; will,
which was not opposed to the evil of punishment if men
were bad, could not be frustrated, being as much fulfilled
in the damnation of men as in their salvation. This dis
tinction, then, had the same aim as the former ; viz., to
establish a Divine Will which was not opposed to evil, and
which therefore the existence of evil did not frustrate, and
so interfere with the Divine Power. But while the diffi
culty which this distinction professes to meet is in the case
of the will antecedent simply confessed instead of solved,
it is only evaded instead of solved in the case of the will
consequent. Grod wills the salvation of men on the con
dition that they are good which ; will, if they are bad, is
1 Voluntas Dei duplex, antece- Aquinas, in Lomb. 1. 1. Dist. 46.
dens et . . . consequens propter
diversas conditiones ipsius voliti. Si
in homine tantum natura ipsius
Q. 1. A. 1.
Quicquid vult Deus voluntate
consequent! totum fit, non autem
consideretur, aequaliter bonum est quicquid vult voluntate antecedent! ;
omnem hominem salvari, et hoc quia hoc non simpliciter vult, sed
Deus vult, et hsec est voluntas ante- secundum quid tantum ; nee ista
cedens. . . . Consideratis autem imperfectio est ex parte voluntatis,
circumstantiis, non vult omnem sed ex conditione voliti. In Lomb.
. . . non volentem et resistentem. Dist. 47. Q. 1. A. 1.