Archive for November 9th, 2007
27.-Divine providence governs the bad as well as the good actions of men, the latter by an actio efficax, the former by a permissio efficax.
–WOLLEB p, 30: “By God’s providence things good and bad are ruled. Good things are ruled by effectual action, to which belong the praecurrence, concurrence and succurrence of divine power. Bad things are ruled by actuosa permissio and so by permission, determining and direction” .
–POLAN distinguishes (VI, 17) two parts. in “God’s actual providence”, namely actio and permissio. “God’s actio–is only one of the good things which God effects right from the first creation of all things, either by Himself or by others, in which also the punishment of evil is counted, because it is of the nature of moral good.
–Divine permission is the act of the divine will by which God, in whose power it is to inhibit the actions of others, if He wiled, does not inhibit them, but according to His eternal and righteous decree allows them to be done by the rational creature” .
28.- This permissio is not a moral one, by which God would approve of sin, but a physical, by which He gives sin way, a non-impeditio peccati–BREMISCHE BEKENNTNIS (HEPPE, p. 169) : “Evil is partly malum culpae, partly malum poenae. That” the evil with which God temporally and eternally punishes and wî1 punish the world is ordained by God, is undeniable.–But that evil which is sin and which God neither creates nor causes, cannot be completely and in every way withdrawn from the eternal ordering of God, even though it be said that God is such a controller of the world that apart from and contrary to His ordering many a thing happens in the world.-But God does not ordain evil as He does good, i.e. as something that pleases Him, but as the sort of thing He hates, nevertheless knowingly and willingly destines, lets be in the world and uses wondrously for good”.
–RIISSEN (VIII, 12): “Sin should not be withdrawn from the providence of God. It falls under it as to start, progress and finish.-13: As to beginning God freely allows sin.–14: This permission is, however, not ethical, like a licence to sin, but physical, a non-impeditio of sin.–The statement ‘God wills to allow sin’ thus does not mean ‘God wills to approve sin morally’. Hence KECKERMAN (p. 115) says: “If willing to permit is the same as willing the permission of sin, we agree that God willingly permits it. If it is the same as permitting it approvingly or approving the thing permitted, we must not admit that God willingly permits sin”.