BOOK III.
I.—"He hath shut the lions' mouths and they have not hurt me, forasmuch as before Him justice was found in me."[276] At the beginning of this work I proposed to examine into three questions, according as the subject-matter would permit me. Concerning the two first questions our inquiry, as I think, has been sufficiently accomplished in the preceding books. It remains to treat of the third question; and, perchance, it may arouse a certain amount of indignation against me, for the truth of it cannot appear without causing shame to certain men. But seeing that truth from its changeless throne appeals to me—that Solomon too, entering on the forest of his proverbs, teaches me in his own person "to meditate on truth, to hate the wicked;"[277] seeing that the Philosopher, my instructor in morals, bids me, for the sake of truth, to put aside what is dearest;[278] I will, therefore, take confidence from the words of Daniel in which the power of God, the shield of the defenders of truth, is set forth, and, according to the exhortation of St. Paul, "putting on the breast-plate of faith," and in the heat of that coal which one of the seraphim had taken from off the altar, and laid on the lips of Isaiah, I will enter on the present contest, and, by the arm of Him who delivered us by His blood from the powers of darkness, drive out from the lists the wicked and the liar, in the sight of all the world. Why should I fear, when the Spirit, which is co-eternal with the Father and the Son, saith by the mouth of David: "The righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance, he shall not be afraid of evil tidings"?[279]
The present question, then, concerning which we have to inquire, is between two great luminaries, the Roman Pontiff and the Roman Prince: and the question is, does the authority of the Roman Monarch, who, as we have proved in the second book, is the monarch of the world, depend immediately on God, or on some minister or vicar of God; by whom I understand the successor of Peter, who truly has the keys of the kingdom of heaven?
II.—For this, as for the former questions, we must take some principle, on the strength of which we may fashion the arguments of the truth which is to be expounded. For what does it profit to labour, even in speaking truth, unless we start from a principle? For the principle alone is the root of all the propositions which are the means of proof.
Let us, therefore, start from the irrefragable truth that that which is repugnant to the intention of nature, is against the will of God. For if this were not true its contradictory would not be false; namely, that what is repugnant to the intention of nature is not against God's will, and if this be not false neither are the consequences thereof false. For it is impossible in consequences which are necessary, that the consequent should be false, unless the antecedent were false also.
But if a thing is not "against the will" it must either be willed or simply "not willed," just as "not to hate" means "to love," or "not to love;" for "not to love" does not mean "to hate," and "not to will" does not mean "to will not," as is self-evident. But if this is not false, neither will this proposition be false; "God wills what He does not will," than which a greater contradiction does not exist.
I prove that what I say is true as follows: It is manifest that God wills the end of nature; otherwise the motions of heaven would be of none effect, and this we may not say. If God willed that the end should be hindered, He would will also that the hindering power should gain its end, otherwise His will would be of none effect. And since the end of the hindering power is the non-existence of what it hinders, it would follow that God wills the non-existence of the end of nature which He is said to will.
For if God did not will that the end should be hindered, in so far as He did not will it, it would follow as a consequence to His not willing it, that He cared nought about the hindering power, neither whether it existed, nor whether it did not. But he who cares not for the hindering power, cares not for the thing which can be hindered, and consequently has no wish for it; and when a man has no wish for a thing he wills it not. Therefore, if the end of nature can be hindered, as it can, it follows of necessity that God wills not the end of nature, and we reach our previous conclusion, that God wills what He does not will. Our principle is therefore most true, seeing that from its contradictions such absurd results follow.
III.—At the outset we must note in reference to this third question, that the truth of the first question had to be made manifest rather to remove ignorance than to end a dispute. In the second question we sought equally to remove ignorance and to end a dispute. For there are many things of which we are ignorant, but concerning which we do not quarrel. In geometry we know not how to square the circle, but we do not quarrel on that point. The theologian does not know the number of the angels, but he does not quarrel about the number. The Egyptian is ignorant of the political system of the Scythians, but he does not therefore quarrel concerning it.[280] But the truth in this third question provokes so much quarrelling that, whereas in other matters ignorance is commonly the cause of quarrelling, here quarrelling is the cause of ignorance. For this always happens where men are hurried by their wishes past what they see by their reason; in this evil bias they lay aside the light of reason, and being dragged on blindly by their desires, they obstinately deny that they are blind. And, therefore, it often follows not only that falsehood has its own inheritance, but that many men issue forth from their own bounds and stray through the foreign camp, where they understand nothing, and no man understands them; and so they provoke some to anger, and some to scorn, and not a few to laughter.
Now three classes of men chiefly strive against the truth which we are trying to prove.