Venema:

(4.) We come now to the fourth question–the question namely as to the manner in which the decree was formed in the mind of God.

A decree is not a natural act on the part of God, but an act of his will freely determining itself. It proceeds indeed from a natural self determining power in him, hut it is not in itself an essential act. The power to decree is essential but not the decree itself. The decree accordingly is not of the essence of God, because it is a free act of his will and must not consequently be confounded with his nature. They speak inaccurately therefore or do not understand what they say or deny the freedom of the decree who affirm that the decree is God himself. Those who hold that the decree is freely made cannot , confound it with God; because that which may or may not be does not belong to his nature. Now he forms his purpose because he wills to do so; but it cannot be said that he exists because he wills to exist and consequently the decree is not natural–it cannot be said to belong to his nature, for it exists because he wills it,–it cannot be said to be God himself. From this it will appear how incorrect it is to say what is in every one’s mouth that God is a pure act, that he is every thing that may be. This is a contradiction in terms, for that which has a possible has not an actual existence.

God who is possessed of all power can produce more than he does, because his omnipotence is not exhausted. His decree is a free act and does not therefore belong to his nature, and although he maybe in the state of decreeing, he is not naturally and of necessity so. It is not correct, moreover, to deny that those actions are free which proceed from the natural power of God, as if the act and the power to act were in him two separate and distinct things. Those who say that as a pure act he is every thing that exists have done so chiefly for the purpose of avoiding the error of those who ascribe to him accidental qualities–qualities, i.e. which are superinduced from another quarter and which contribute to make up the perfection of which he is possessed. But a free action is not of this description. It is the result of an inherent power and, although in common with an accidental property it may or may not be, it has yet no effect in making him the perfect being he is. No addition is made by it to his excellence which is already infinite; it is only the effect of an exercise of the power which originally and naturally belongs to him.

A decree is an act which occupies the whole mind of God, the understanding and the will. In regard to the understanding it is an idea of possible things and a perception of ends and of means. It passes thence to the judgment by which its proportion and form, its end and means, are settled, and which combines, disposes, and arranges the ideas of these, and is at length completed by the will in the exercise of which God determines to give them being for these ends and by these means. The decree has thus its full form, inasmuch as it is the determination of the divine will.

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