CHAPTER SIX
Nonetheless, Westminster Shorter Catechism 1 best captures how we ought to conceive our fundamental reason for existing: 'Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.'² Our chief end, our ultimate purpose, is the blessed enjoyment of God in glory. Man's chief end as everlastingly glorifying and enjoying God suggests a Reformed telic statement about nature oriented toward the supernatural, at least in an eschatological sense. As Michael Horton has put it: 'There is one end, and it is naturally supernatural: to glorify God and enjoy God forever.'³ The created order was built oriented toward the eschatological order. Both orders interface with the truly supernatural by – apart from sin's entry – facilitating our natural communion with God, albeit offering it to different degrees of enjoyment in the protological and consummate states. 234
Refer back to our comments on obediential potency and man’s natural end in our review of chapter 1. Adam, while in a state of pure nature, had an “eschatological state,” i.e. a telos embedded in his nature, but this end and state would have consisted in natural communion with God and not in anything of the supernatural order. Of course, Perkins is using “eschatological” to refer to the state of glory here, but I thought that was worth mentioning. Note also the strange way that the categories here have to work on Perkins formulation: we have a “created order”, an “eschatological order”, and then the supernatural is its own category which “interface[s]” with both of them. How much simpler is it to recognize that nature has its own end definitional to it and that anything above this is supernatural and it is this end which God has superadded to nature and by His Providence is leading men to it?
This chapter then tackles three related aspects of our argument. We first reflect upon the relationship of creation and covenant, contending that they are interdependent categories that are distinct but inseparable. The payoff is to show that covenant is not a purely extrinsic imposition of religious life upon the bare creaturely state. In other words, our view of covenant rejects the notion of pure nature. 235
That pure nature entails the negation of religious life, we deny. That it entails the absence of a covenant, we affirm.
Then, we reflect upon the connection between the image of God and eschatology, articulating how our image-bearing status in the created order intrinsically orients us toward the eschatological order. 235
The eschatological order–that is, glory–is of the supernatural order, being the consummation of grace. To be intrinsically ordered toward something is to intrinsically possess the formal power to achieve it. If man intrinsically possesses the formal power to achieve glory, then 1) he is essentially supernatural since the end is the cause of causes, determining the essence of what a thing is 2) because of 1, he is in no need of external grace to perform what is supernatural; he has within himself a fountain of supernatural power. Man has become God because only God is essentially and intrinsically supernatural, which again, is defined as that which is above the (intrinsic and formal) power of all created natures. This is the central error of Perkins’s book.
Second, this covenantal principle is markedly different from, if not opposite of, the medieval paradigm of grace elevating nature to enable us to merit. 237
Again, distinguish the material conditions for merit of supernatural reward from the formal principle of merit. Scotus’s view does not deny “this covenantal principle,” but only holds that God has fittingly decreed not to reward works of pure nature with the supernatural reward of glory (which, as we have shown in the reviews of chapters 1 and 2, is exactly what the Reformed hold. See for instance, Thomas Goodwin in chapter 1).
Inasmuch as covenantal condescension relates to accommodation and revelation, it is not an ad hoc, extrinsic imposition upon the created order. 237
I don’t really know what this means. It seems pretty clear to me that supernatural revelation is in fact an “ad hoc, extrinsic imposition upon the created order.” The created order is complete in itself apart from any supernatural revelation or covenantal condescension as the latter is entirely contingent and incidental.
In fact, the covenant is how God met the created order so that we would be ordered to our prospect of eschatological advancement. The stakes in this interpretation concern how thoroughly the Reformed calibrated our covenant theology in light of medieval problems. For example, Lee Irons argued that the principle of divine condescension in Westminster Confession 7.1 relies upon the reasoning of Scotist voluntarism. His argument is problematic in presuming that God's covenantal condescension in 7.1 entirely respects the works principle of the covenant of works, exclusively addressing the problem of proportionality concerning works and reward. The problem in his presumption becomes clear in that it remains equally true after the fall that creatures still owe our obedience unto God but cannot experience him as our blessedness and reward apart from his covenantal condescension. In our case, that condescension comes via the covenant of grace forged upon a radically different principle than the covenant of works. 237-238
Setting aside the numerous errors of Irons’s paper which I will not touch on here (but which, if you have read my prior posts, you can probably deduce for yourself), I understand Perkins to be charging Irons here with making covenantal condescension only about proportion between works of merit and reward, whereas Perkins is trying to point out that covenantal condescension respects more than this and thus applies also to the Covenant of Grace inasmuch as God condescends to offer us eternal life through that covenant without respect to our works. But it is not clear to me that Irons does this. His paper is focused on the topic of merit and thus he is speaking about condescension in relation to merit and thus the Covenant of Works, but this does not exclude applying condescension to the Covenant of Grace as well, and it would surprise me if Irons denied this.
As should be obvious, then, accommodation should not be considered equivalent to grace in any meaningful sense. 238
I certainly agree that accommodation is not grace in its most proper sense, but that it cannot be called grace in any meaningful sense, I deny. Consider that even creation itself is often referred to as grace insofar as it is not due on the part of the creature, whose existence is not necessary. Thus Turretin speaks of original righteousness (a gift of nature) like so:
“Although original righteousness can properly be called ‘grace’ or ‘a gratuitous gift’(and so not due on the part of God, just as the nature itself also, created by him)...” (IET 5.11.XVI)
Junius likewise in his True Theology uses the otherwise paradoxical term “natural grace” to likewise refer to the fact that existence is not due to the creature and thus can be referred to as a grace of gift from God.
Now, if the term “grace” can be meaningfully applied to nature itself, of all things, then how much more can it be meaningfully applied to the covenantal condescension in the Covenant of Works which involves not only: 1) a creature superadded to an already complete and integral creation in the form of covenant, but also 2) a supernatural end of the covenant and the opportunity to obtain this end?
This accommodation is about God revealing himself to us as his creatures via a covenant (legal or gospel) to facilitate our way to him as blessedness and reward.
This principle frees us to consider covenantal condescension as more closely related to creation itself, rather than an extrinsic imposition upon the created order. 239
I am not sure how the latter sentence follows from the former sentence.
That closer relation helps us avoid Roman theology's bifurcation of the natural and supernatural orders. 239
I am also not sure why it is desirable to “avoid Roman theology’s bifurcation of the natural and supernatural orders.”
J. V. Fesko has well pointed out that creation itself is another voluntary condescension that provides the gift of knowing God. This rationale suggests a greater unity between creation and covenant than some have suggested. 239
The last sentence does not follow. One can say that covenant is a species of voluntary condescension and creation is another species, but this would not show a greater unity between creation and covenant except insofar as they are different forms of condescension.
In Baptist theology, Samuel Renihan posed that all covenants are entirely supernatural and 'not part of the natural created order.' 239
I want to quickly clarify that all covenants are supernatural insofar as they are superadded to the natural created order (and it seems to me that in this they are more properly called “artificial”) and also in origin inasmuch as God is their author, but this is not to say they are “entirely supernatural” as though all covenants have a supernatural end or that all covenants formally involve supernatural grace as such. In other words, God could create a covenant which offered only a natural reward and demanded only natural obedience, but this covenant would nonetheless be a superadded addition to creation. Thus, for instance, the Abrahamic Covenant for 1689 Federalists.
Respectively, since covenants are not natural arrangement, they are entirely positive, making it impossible to assume that any one covenant can inform the structure of another. 240
The latter does not follow, neither from the former nor from what Samuel Renihan says. Renihan only affirms that there is no “one covenant has no necessary connection to what another covenant is” (page 18 of The Mystery of Christ) but he does not affirm that it is “impossible that any one covenant can inform the structure of another,” as he holds e.g. that the Mosaic Covenant is informed by the Abrahamic. The stipulations and nature of one covenant, in itself, holds no necessary implications for how another covenant operates because the nature of covenants are freely determined. But this is not to say that one covenant cannot be freely determined to be informative of another. Saying that A does not necessarily entail B is not to say that it is impossible for A to inform B. These are two different propositions.
Aligning with Renihan, Richard Barcellos contended that, 'there were two pre-fall states in which Adam existed - as a reasonable creature of God, owing obedience to his Creator, and as a reasonable creature of God in covenant with Him, owing obedience to his covenantal Lord.' The covenant thus becomes fully ad hoc to human nature rather than a fitting accompaniment for it, veering near to a pure nature view of human constitution. 240
To say that covenant is really distinct from human nature is not deny that it is a fitting accompaniment for it. It is fitting for God to lead man onto an end above his nature and to require man to work in order to obtain this higher end by legal right. As Thomas Boston said:
“God was free; man could never have required eternal life as the reward of his work, if there had not been such a covenant. God was free to have disposed of his creatures as he saw fit—if he had stood in his integrity to the end of time, and there had been no covenant promising eternal life to him upon his obedience, God might have withdrawn his supporting hand at last and so have made him creep back into nothing, whence almighty power had drawn him forth. And, what wrong could have been in this, for God would have only taken back what he freely gave?”
Covenant was necessary that man might possess the right to eternal life in justice. Since it is fitting for God to lead man on to the immediate vision of Himself, seeing that, if such a thing is even possible, it would be fitting for God to offer this to man that man might enjoy God in the highest mode, then covenant is a fitting accompaniment to human nature even though it is really distinct from it and contingent to it. In fact, the gratuitousness of God’s offer of eternal life to Adam presupposes that this is so. Even if God simply created Adam, didn’t put him in covenant, never gave him grace, and never spoke to him, Adam would have gone on (assuming, of course, that he doesn’t sin) to reach the natural end of loving contemplation of God and would have been perfectly happy in God. But God willed to give Him an even greater happiness by placing him in covenant, giving him grace, and thus setting forth an opportunity for him to reach not just natural happiness, but supernatural happiness by the beatific vision. So in that way, the state of pure nature is precisely what makes grace so gracious. God could have been content with leading us to a natural end, but He decided to do far more, indeed infinitely more, than that.
Our covenant fellowship with God becomes an extrinsic addition to nature 240
I dealt with this misrepresentation of pure nature in chapter 1. See also Thomas Goodwin.
…divorcing the conditions and reward of the covenant of works from the created order. Barcellos applied the same point about the distance between our created and covenantal status to our eschatological orientation: 'The "voluntary condescension" of God was an act of His kind providence, not formally included in the initial act of man's creation. The promise of "the reward of life" is in addition to man's created status.'
A reward in justice by legal right is necessarily an addition to man’s created status. Even if the covenant of works offered only the continuation of natural life, such a covenant would not exist by nature because the opportunity to gain a legal right in justice is entirely contingent and no necessary part of the nature of man. Much less can the reward of supernatural life be a part of man’s created status as God owes grace to nature in no way.
That divorce leaves the created order as a version of pure nature in need of a superadded structure to establish the full bounds of religious fellowship with God.
Again, see Goodwin and chapter 1 of our review.
The suggestion that the covenant of works was not forged upon Adam's nature but later supplemented Adam's call introduces a version of pure nature - including the temporal gap of the full Franciscan-contra-Thomas variety - wherein we were not constitutionally a religious creature made in covenant with God for spiritual communion with the possibility of heightened experience of it.
More accurately, it implies only a logical gap, which is precisely what Thomas holds to. See our review of chapters 3, especially, as well as 4 and 5. I personally hold to a temporal gap as it seems more fitting to me that the donum be given only when Adam is put into covenant when he is placed into the garden, that covenant being the entire reason the donum was given, but someone can affirm that grace or the covenant was given as soon as Adam was created yet this would not make grace or covenant natural to man.
The covenant of works becomes a Protestant version of the donum superadditum. 240
If my thesis is correct, the donum superadditum is the Protestant version of the donum superadditum. See the reviews of chapters 1 and 3. I also want to add that it’s interesting to me that Perkins has not touched on the role of the Holy Spirit at seemingly any point throughout this book so far. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit in Adam was the donum superadditum. He had no ability to perform supernatural actions without Him. The Last Adam, Jesus Christ, was likewise filled with the Holy Spirit and all supernatural graces (By the way, consult Steven Duby "Jesus and the God of Classical Theism" chapter 5, section V here). And for what purpose if not that the human nature of Christ, being a creature, is in itself incapable of supernatural action? For all his denials of supernatural grace in Adam, Perkins never seems to take into account that Christ Himself was filled with habits of supernatural grace. More reflection on this may have helped.
We set a better trajectory by understanding a closer link among our image-bearing status, the law, and our eschatological destiny, harmonizing creation and covenant more closely." 240
I am going to skip around a bit as I think it is important to establish how precisely Perkins sees creation as related to covenant. This is not entirely clear throughout the book as Perkins never directly tells us what kind of distinction exists between the two. Nevertheless, I think we can estimate the kind of distinction he has in mind. Consider the following paragraph:
Creation and covenant then stand in significant continuity. The relationship is not as if covenant was divinely bolted onto creation, as if it were adding a more extravagant spoiler onto a sportscar. Rather, creation and covenant relate more like a shoe and its laces: the shoe and laces are not identical with one another as if they can be conflated, but shoes and laces exist for one another. A shoe is not fully formed and functional unless its laces are threaded into the holes, which were crafted into the shoe's design precisely so that laces would fit it. In like manner, the covenant laces up humanity's created order, not as an extrinsic addition but as that which pulls together the features of creation to make them functional toward the ends for which they were designed. 241
Based on the analogy of a shoe and its laces, it seems that Perkins is thinking of covenant as an integral part necessary to man’s well-being, analogous to how an arm is an integral part of man necessary for the completeness of a human being. Thus, covenant is a natural due to man in his integral state. This, I think, is why Perkins says that:
Johannes Cocceius helpfully captured the upshot: 'Man, therefore, by the very fact that he was made according to God's image, has been constituted as in a covenant with God.'⁵⁸ Although the present argument refines Cocceius' point to avoid equating the image of God and the covenant, the eschatological order, which was the prospective reward in the covenant of works, was woven into the functional aspects of Adam's image-bearer constitution. 249
Perkins distinguishes himself from Cocceius in that he does not make covenant necessary for being, but only for well-being. Man can still be man without covenant, but he is an incomplete man. At least, that is my best guess as to what Perkins holds and I think that in any case it is the most steel-manned formulation you could come up with.
Now, presumably for Perkins, covenant is not an integral part that has been lost. And if that covenant is the Covenant of Works with Adam, it seems everyone in the Covenant of Grace is actually lacking an integral part of their nature. An implication of this would be that the opportunity to merit is not superadded to human nature, but is naturally due to man on the supposition that God decides to create Him whole. For God to create a creature merely reasonable and bound to render obedience to Him, but not to grant a covenant of works to him, would be, for Perkins, as if God created a man without arms.
I assume that Perkins would answer here, that what is integral to nature is not that it be in this numerically distinct covenant or that one, but that it be in some covenant ordered to supernature. This, of course, has its own problems as it makes the end of supernatural grace in some way due to man’s natural integrity, but I cannot see how this can possibly be proven. What about man’s nature could ever imply this? Cannot a man be whole in his own nature by fulfilling his natural end through the exercise of his rational powers in the love of God without a covenant ordering him to an end definitionally above his nature? Surely he could be, and I think the burden of proof lies heavily on Perkins to prove otherwise. Covenant, it seems, is entirely extrinsic to and incidental to man’s nature. They are in their own nature free and artificial. What natural, intrinsic potency can a man who is not in covenant but otherwise whole and complete lack?
I want to quickly turn to consider at least one historical source which stands against this. John Flavel, Planelogia. A Succinct and Seasonable Discourse of the Occasions, Causes, Nature, Rise, Growth, and Remedies of Mental Errors (London: R. Roberts, 1691), 281-282.
First notice the free and contingent nature of covenant. God might have dealt with us apart from covenant, only commanding what is naturally our duty and exacting penalty when we disobey. But He “chooses to deal familiarly with us” and covenanted with us in an act of “condescending grace and goodness.” This is not how one would speak if he believed covenant to be a part integral to man’s nature and well-being. One would not say that God, though He could have created man without arms, has decided in an act of “condescending grace and goodness” to create us with them. God has created his creation whole and integral, and arms are a natural due to integral nature.
Next, notice Flavel’s “as soon therefore as man was created and placed in paradise…the Lord immediately entered into the Covenant of Works with him.” Adam was first created “upright” and, presumably, whole, complete, and integral. Only after he was “placed in paradise” did God enter into covenant with Adam. Therefore Adam’s nature was in its own order whole and complete, lacking no part necessary to his well-being before he entered into covenant. Therefore, covenant cannot be an integral part necessary to man’s well-being.
This same line of reasoning can be applied anywhere that the Reformed talk about the gracious and free nature of God’s condescension in the covenant of works. Such language only makes sense if they assume that Adam already possessed natural integrity and thus was being given something above and beyond what was due to him in the state of integrity. As such, I feel no need to multiply sources here, but consider Christopher Love:
“You that are in Covenant with God, labour to admire the great condescension of God, that he would be pleased to proceed with you by way of a Covenant:
I have read of some Authors that have more wondred, and stood amazed at this, then at any thing else in the World, that God that is the Soveraign Lord of all the workes of his hands, that he should not rule us and command us by a Law, but deal with us by way of a Covenant, for God is not bound to give us a reward, though we should serve him all the dayes of our lives; God might command us as we are his creatures to serve and obey him, to pray, read, hear, and walk holily and humbly before him, and when we have done all this, yet he might say to us, I will never give you heaven nor happinesse, nor any reward at all; he might have said thus to us, but he hath condescended so far, as to make a bargain with us; that if we will beleeve in his Son Jesus Christ, and live holily, and walk uprightly before him, then he will be our God, and we shall be his people, he will write his Law in our hearts, and sanctifie, and renew our natures, and pardon and forgive all our sins, and give us heaven and hapninesse when we dye; Oh what an infinite condescension is this in God, and what unspeakable bounty and free grace; that when he might say to us, you are bound to serve me, and obey me, and to love and fear me, but I am not bound to make a Covenant with you, and promise you my Son, and life, and Salvation, through him, but though I am not bound to it, yet I will give you my Son, and heaven, and happinesse, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people, and I will regenerate and sanctifie your natures; and create in you new hearts, and write my Law in your inward parts, I will freely do all this for you, sayes God, Oh what infinite condescension and free grace and mercy is this!” https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A49252.0001.001/?view=toc
If God had decided not to covenant with Adam, He would not be withholding from him a part necessary to his well-being, as if God were to create man without arms. Such a formulation would deflate the point of Love’s language as it regards the gratuitous nature of the covenant. The counterfactual situation in which God does not covenant with Adam assumes that, apart from covenant, Adam is already a whole and entire creature who is being given something above and beyond his nature, not that he is being given that which is necessary for well-being in his own natural order. In other words, you would not write a paragraph like this about the moment in which God began fashioning arms out of the mold of clay.
God created many creatures, but only one work of creation was bound to a special act of providence that forged a covenant with the creature being made. Thus, God's work of bringing about real change in the work of creating Adam by fashioning the dust of the earth into the living, breathing divine image bearer is truly distinct from his judicial act of covenanting with Adam.
Precisely because this act of covenant making was intwined within this work of creation and because it forged judicial realities upon natural strata, this special act of providence differs from God's other general works of providence by being unique in its relation to the work of creation and by being specifically a forensic act. 243
I wish Perkins was clearer as to whether or not God could have chosen not to have “forged a covenant with the creature being made.” At least from what we have determined above, it seems Perkins would grant this, but hold that such a creature would be incomplete. But I do wonder whether he intends more with his language of covenant being “forged” to our nature. It is a strange phrase to use and I’m not entirely sure what it means other than that it is in contrast to something being “bolted on” (which is bad). We would not say, I do not think, that God has “forged arms” to our nature as it seems to imply He could have created human nature such that arms are not due to it in its integral state.
The features of our created order have view to the covenant that supports this interpretation. Stephen Wellum helpfully articulates that God's covenant with Adam must be explained 'in less contractual terms and in more continuity with creation itself.' Drawing attention to the creational features of Adam's sonship, marriage, priest-king mandate, and demand for obedience, all which factor into the covenant between God and Adam, Wellum concluded that the initial covenantal relationship resulted from God creating humanity in his image. He concluded, 'The command, then, given to Adam in Genesis 2:16-17 did not create a 'covenant of works' relationship subsequent to creation; instead, Adam, by virtue of his creation as God's image-son, was already in filial relation with his Creator-covenant Lord.' 243
Keep in mind that while Adam’s status as a creature made in the image of God factors into the Covenant of Works, no one denies (indeed it is necessary insofar as the Covenant of Works republishes the whole of the natural law), but this does not establish that creation and covenant are the same event.
This discussion's main contribution to our overall argument is that the eschatological order was not bolted onto the created order. It was not a superadded afterthought but was hardwired into our natural constitution as God's image bearers. 248-249
It is sad to me that philosophical precision has been exchanged for engineering analogies which are not very illuminative.
Adam's created order was oriented toward the eschatological order by the very form in which God worded him into existence…In other words, the covenant of works provides rationale for why our supernatural destiny is not added to the natural order by grace but is baked into the created order. The eschatological order is supernatural in the sense of exceeding our present state of affairs. It was not, however, extrinsically added as a destiny foreign to our original constitution. 249
This is perhaps one of the most dangerous parts of this book. Again, what is the eschatological order but the state of glory? Look at this statement: “our supernatural destiny is not added to the natural order by grace but is baked into the created order.” What is this if not gross Pelagianism? Grace is not needed to achieve glory, nature is sufficient to do so. Grace is not necessary to perform supernatural actions. Adam could reach the beatific vision all in his own natural powers. The eschatological order is supernatural, Perkins explicitly affirms, only in our present state of affairs. But it was not so for Adam! Adam could by his very nature mount up to glory! He was essentially ordered to grace; he must therefore have been God. He could do the impossible as he was like a stone which in its own nature was capable of traveling upwards all by itself. He needed no external help to do so because his own nature was formally capable of such a miraculous feat. No less than the vision of God was in his own natural power; all he needed to do was act for it.
Remember what Augustine says:
“For this, too, the Pelagians have been bold enough to aver, that grace is the nature in which we were created, so as to possess a rational mind, by which we are enabled to understand — formed as we are in the image of God, so as to have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creeps upon the earth.” (On Grace and Free Will).
The Pelagians held that grace is none other than the Image of God. By it we are able to mount up to glory. Adam needed no external help; he had it all because he was created in the Divine Image. The beatific vision was formally in his power.
Zacharius Ursinus connected the dots concerning our wider discussion about the relation of the created and eschatological orders, informing how we should think about the issue of nature and supernature: 'The law contains the natural covenant, which God began with men in creation, that is, it is known by men by nature and requires from us perfect obedience toward God and promises everlasting life to those who keep it but threatens everlasting death to those who do not keep it.' 252
That the covenant of works can be known by nature I suppose I demur from Ursinus in as I do not see how this is possible as the covenant of works is formally of special revelation (see also Rutherford here https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A57966.0001.001/1:5.7?rgn=div2;view=fulltext).
Yet I should add that the covenant may be called natural, and perhaps it is called natural here, because it falls under the general rubric of Law as opposed to Gospel and so one can distinguish the Covenant of Works from the Covenant of Grace in this more improper sense by calling the former natural and latter supernatural. Thus, Samuel Rutherford says of Robert Rollock:
“And therefore though Divines, as our solid and eminent Rollock, call it a Cove∣nant naturall, as it is contradistinguished from the supernaturall Covenant of Grace, and there is good reason so to call it.” https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A57966.0001.001/1:5.6?rgn=div2;view=fulltext
And furthermore, Rutherford says that man may be:
“considered as indued with the Image of God, so the Holy God made with him a Covenant of life, with Comandements, though positive and Morall, yet not deduced from the Law of Nature, in the strictest sense, as to observe such a Sabbath, the seventh from the Creation, the not eating of the forbidden tree, and with a promise of such a life. And therefore though Divines, as our solid and eminent Rollock, call it a Covenant naturall, as it is contradistinguished from the supernaturall Covenant of Grace, and there is good reason so to call it; Yet when it is considered in the positives thereof, it is from the free will of God, and though it be connaturall to man, created according to the Image of God, yet the Covenant came so from the Lords wisedom and free-will, as he might have casten it in a new and far other frame.”
I can see how someone might take Rutherford in a manner similar to Perkins in which covenant itself is natural to man but the specific stipulations free, especially with his “though it be connaturall to man, created according to the Image of God” however, I understand Rutherford saying here, continuing with Rollock’s way of ramifying what is “natural” and “supernatural,” that nature is suited for covenant and that the Image of God is required for covenant. The Image of God agrees with covenant. Yet it is clear he does not think covenant to be a natural due or part of his nature (see https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A57966.0001.001/1:5.6?amt2=40;amt3=40;c=eebo;c=eebo2;g=eebogroup;rgn=div2;view=fulltext;xc=1;q1=Condescension;op2=near;q2=Covenant)
John Owen argued much the same, affirming that, 'Man in his creation, with respect to the ends of God therein, was constituted under a covenant' and 'this covenant belonged unto the law of creation' so that 'it belongs unto and is inseparable from the law thereof.' The law as the legal criteria for obtaining the eschatological order was imbedded in our created order, drawing tight lines between our nature and our relation to supernatural realities and ends. 252
With what we have said above, it is clear how Owen can be interpreted similarly, as it is equally true that Owen can consider the counterfactual situation in which man was bound only to the natural law and not to covenant. See A Continuation of the Exposition of the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews (London: Nathaniel Ponder, 1680), 221-222. (This is his third Volume, covering Hebrews 6-10):
See also page 122 onwards here https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/10023/9646/TimothyBaylorPhDThesis.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y I allow that there may be some difficulty in interpreting Owen on this (see page 144 onwards), especially if my suspicions of Jansenism mentioned in my last review hold up (although I will add that it is possible that Owen is equivocating on modes as I have mentioned before, which the author does not consider). Since I am personally operating on the assumption he held to something of a Jansenist view, I do not see him as coherent on the whole since I do not see Jansenism as coherent on the whole, but again, I am entirely open and even desire a different interpretation of him should the evidence convince me.
In other words, original righteousness is natural to us, bound into our awareness of
God's character which necessarily accompanies our constitution as his image bearers, not superadded to our nature by supernatural grace. Our investigation of even God's specially revealed stipulations will clarify and confirm this point. 252-253
Continuing with the formulation of original righteousness given in chapter 1, the concern here is, once again, a form of Flacianism in which original righteousness constitutes man.
Grace in the Covenant of Works?
The preceding discussion mounted a biblical defense that humanity was created with the intrinsic constitution of bearing God's image, irremovably plaiting our nature with original righteousness and relating it to the eschatological order. The point is that the created order, our nature, orients us toward even supernatural realities. 260
The natural order is what creatures can achieve through their intrinsic powers and the supernatural order is what exceeds those powers. By definition, nature is not naturally oriented to that which is above it. Natural beings have capacities ordered toward natural ends (e.g. humans are naturally ordered to knowledge and virtue), they lack a natural potency for the supernatural. A natural potency is an innate capacity to achieve a given end, but the supernatural is entirely beyond the scope of nature. Grace and divine revelation are necessary for a creature to be elevated to the supernatural order.
An effect must be proportionate to its cause. Finite and created beings cannot direct themselves to the beatific vision because it is a supernatural effect requiring a cause proportionate to it. An apple seed cannot be the cause of an orange tree any more than nature can be the cause of grace.
Grace is the divine assistance given by God that elevates human nature beyond its natural capacities. If nature were already oriented toward the supernatural, then grace would not be necessary—it would be redundant. But, since nature cannot achieve the supernatural on its own, grace becomes a gift freely given by God. The gratuitousness of grace presupposes that nature is not naturally ordered to it.
This section unpacks how these principles of Reformed theology motivate us to reject the notion that the covenant of works required the imposition of extrinsic grace. 260
Insofar as the Covenant of Works commanded the theological virtues, which is the more common opinion insofar as they are held to be the means and way to eternal life, it was necessary that grace be given to man above his nature that he might have the strength to obey. We derive the necessity of grace from what we understand the demands of the covenant to be and from its end inasmuch as we hold: 1) supernatural means were given to a supernatural end 2) At the very least, the reception of the beatific vision itself, as the reward of the covenant, requires elevating grace even if no elevating grace was given prior.
I’m going to skip much of what follows here because it all rests on the same misunderstanding of pure nature that the Goodwin quote we linked to above can rectify.
This chapter, however, furthers their more basic point about the needed real connection between nature and supernature. It shows that the best way to articulate the covenant of works is with a close connection of the creational and covenantal realities rather than by the Roman method of attaching supernatural ends to nature via superadded grace. Nature's revelatory capacity has been critical in Reformed theology. 262
The opposition between covenant and superadded grace is false, as we imply above. Covenant cannot, not even in principle, by its own formal power, elevate my nature to be capable of the vision of God. It can, at best, only give me a legal right to it. Perkins’s argument here is akin to arguing that because Christ through the Covenant of Grace merited sanctification morally, it is therefore unnecessary for the Holy Spirit to sanctify us physically. The moral merit of the covenant and its physical effects must go together. Adam needed covenant to earn a legal right to glory, but that glory be given, it is necessary elevating grace be given.
The significance of Adam's natural integrity forms the heart of our argument. 262
Adam’s natural integrity is actually quite remote to the main thesis of Perkins’s book here, which largely blurs the lines between nature and supernature in line with de Lubac. Instead of simply arguing that integrity is of the natural order, for which Turretin’s Institutes would have sufficed, the majority of this book is spent attacking the division of the orders of nature and grace themselves. In this book, Rome’s view that Adam’s integrity was a preternatural gift supplied by supernatural grace is akin to a small fly that Perkins kills with a flamethrower.
Our above exploration of the image of God contended that God's law was written naturally on our hearts, also as the standard of the covenant of works. Our earlier historical investigations showed that the premise of the Roman view is that Adam's nature needed to be elevated by infused grace for him to have supernatural communion with God, meaning that God would have to strengthen Adam's natural ability to equip him with the 'infused virtue' to perform the 'surpassing good' required to obtain the beatific vision. 263
Here the “Roman” view is accurately set forth, but notice how absurd it would be for someone to deny it: “Adam’s nature needed to be elevated [i.e. raised above itself]...for him to have supernatural [that is, above nature] communion with God.” It is tautologically true.
By contrast, Westminster Larger Catechism 17 affirms that God 'created man, male and female' so 'made them after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, having the Law of God written in their hearts, and power to fulfill it.' 263
How this is supposed to be contrary to the “Roman” position is not clear. Inasmuch as this sentence has only the natural law in view, it is absolutely true since original righteousness is of the natural order. Yet this is not to deny that supernatural and elevating grace is necessary to do that which is supernatural (which the natural law does not formally command). To affirm the former is not a denial of the latter. And if one wishes to argue that not only is the natural law in view, but also the positive commands of the Covenant of Works, then this is again consistent with what I have said as any supernatural positive commands would correlate with supernatural “power to fulfill [them].”
Thomas Aquinas affirmed Adam's natural fitness for communion with God along with the potential for heightened communion by works. Although Thomas had a logical distinction between nature and infused grace, his view had the practical outcome that Adam could perform the surpassing good to obtain his supernatural end from the beginning because God built this superadded gift into his constitution by creation. 263
See our reviews of chapters 4 and 5 for Perkins’s misunderstandings of Thomas.
Nonetheless, the Reformed more resemble Henry of Ghent's view that Adam's strength to fulfill the law unto his supernatural end was purely concreatum rather than superadditum. 263
See the review of chapter 4 for Perkins’s misunderstanding of Ghent.
The rest of the evidence he marshals to attempt to argue that the Covenant of Works did not require supernatural obedience is of no force when the above is accounted for. See also our review of chapter 1.
Francis Turretin draws this connection, explaining that God's covenant with Adam 'as his creature in integrity concerning the giving of happiness and everlasting life under the condition of perfect and personal obedience,' was called the natural covenant 'because it was founded in human nature as first created, and on his integrity or strength.' To our point about nature and grace, he asserted that the covenant 'added nothing above nature and the condition which man had from creation' and 'depended upon natural strength and obedience, which in accordance with that strength he owed to perform.' 268
We have seen multiple examples of translations from Perkins which obscure or even run directly contrary to the author’s original intent (one can think especially of the Ghent quote), but this is a significantly bad misquote.
Here’s the quotation straight from Turretin:
“Foedus naturale non ideo dicitur, quod nihil conferat supra naturam, & conditionem, quam homo habuerat a Creatione, sed quia nitebatur naturae viribus, & obediential, quam juxta illas praestare debuit”
Now, here is English translation:
“A natural covenant is not called such because it contributes nothing beyond nature and the condition that man had from Creation, but because it relied on the powers of nature and the obedience that, according to those, he ought to have rendered.”
Turretin here does not say, as Perkins says he does, that the covenant “added nothing above nature and the condition which man had from creation.” Instead, Turretin makes the opposite point that the Covenant of Works is called “natural,” NOT because it “contributes nothing beyond nature” (the implication being that it does contribute something beyond nature). There is a double negative here (“non” and “nihil”), but Perkins cuts off the “non” in his quotation, as if I were to say “nor did I hit the ball with the stick” and Perkins were to quote me as saying that “I hit the ball with the stick.”
This entailment rises clearly from how Reformed soteriology should differ from at least one aspect of Roman Catholic views on nature and grace. In the Roman paradigm, drawing heavily upon Aristotelian ideas, their concept of nature means that God owes whatever is strictly needed according to the intrinsic principles of a given nature. As considered in chapter four, Rome formally condemned the teaching of Michael Baius precisely because he espoused a strong version of Adam's prelapsarian integrity, lacking a need for elevating grace, and that the fall's effects extensively damaged human nature itself. 269
Again, the affirmation of natural integrity must be distinguished from the claim that Adam required elevating grace to perform supernatural actions. Perkins has routinely conflated the two. The affirmation that original righteousness is a natural and not a supernatural gift does not entail the non-necessity of a supernatural gift of elevating grace for the performance of supernatural actions.
This historical issue highlights why Protestant soteriology is stronger when we limit the need for, and application of, grace to only the redemptive order. 269
The need for grace is related to man’s nature since, as we have said many times, man is unable by his own nature to effect that which is above his nature. To hold otherwise is Pelagian since it is to hold that Adam could by his own nature effect that which is above it, such as supernatural faith and this is a much weaker soteriology.
The Roman response to Baius is incorrect to pose that grace is strictly, that is absolutely, necessary for nature after the fall. Rather, grace is contingently necessary, given God's decision to save sinners. 269
God’s decision to save sinners and elevate them to the beatific vision is contingent, yes, but should he choose to do so, it is necessary that grace be given to sinners so that their sinful natures may be healed by medicinal grace and their human natures be raised to a higher mode of acting so that they might be capable of supernatural actings.
The true alternative to our concreated supernatural end of the eschatological beatific vision is damnation, not a fulfillment of some penultimate natural end. God does not unalterably owe the beatific vision even to creatures who have it as our ultimate, natural end. God can justly deprive us of that end as the penalty for sin. 269
When we say that natural ends are “owed” to creatures, we do not mean that God must infallibly lead creatures into the actual possession of such ends such that He could not deprive them of the possession of those ends or that creatures cannot fail to attain those ends. Rather, we mean that a creature retains its natural orientation to such an end by way of final cause. A seed is “owed” the end of becoming a plant even if it never attains to this end. Remember that the final cause is the cause of causes and determines the nature of things. Thus the final cause of human nature is the natural love of God and human nature is what it is because it is oriented to this intrinsic and natural end. Were the final, natural, and intrinsic end of humanity the beatific vision, humanity would be a very different creature—he would be essentially supernatural, which, as we have spoken of before, is contradictory for a creature. See Diego de Caceres in the review of chapter 1. It is precisely for this reason that grace is not owed to human nature.
We sinners need grace to obtain our supernatural end because of the problem we introduced through sin, not because of the limitations belonging to the proportions of our created nature. 270
Again, this is Pelagian.
Despite a recurring emphasis in the Reformed tradition that God built the conditions of the covenant of works on Adam's natural ability, not all agreed about whether the covenant included grace. 270
This is true, but not in the way that Perkins means here. Some agreed that the Covenant of Works offered only the continuation of natural life and for that reason denied grace was given the covenant, in line with the principle that the end and means ought to agree (which presupposes that if the end was supernatural, the means ought to be as well).
On the one hand, Arminius argued that Adam needed grace to perform the duties required of him, meaning that Adam needed grace concerning his ability in the covenant of works. This application of grace seemingly resembled medieval views that Adam needed grace to elevate his nature, prompting Witsius and du Moulin's criticism that Arminius was too close to Franciscan views of works and grace. Arminius had employed the same terms (naturalia, supernaturalia, gratiam superinfusam) that Bonaventure implemented in this discussion. They levied pushback against Arminius on account of their understanding that a right view of the covenant of works protects a proper understanding of the covenant of grace, which Arminius did not protect. 270
The source here is apparently pages 13-29 of Fesko’s book on Arminius. I do not have access to it, but part of that section is addressed here under the heading “Arminius and Semipelagianism”: https://thelondonlyceum.com/book-review-arminius-and-the-reformed-tradition/
Still, because he affirmed that God created Adam in supernatural grace, Rutherford had no place to consider Adam in pure nature. 271
That Rutherford affirms Adam was created in grace is true and I’m glad Perkins cedes this, but that this leaves no place for any consideration of Adam in pure nature, not even in a logical way, is not. Refer back to the review of chapter 2 in which I address this part in Rutherford.
Rutherford's differing from Arminius comes to greater clarity in the object of elevating grace: whereas Arminius thought that infused grace elevated Adam's person, Rutherford thought that grace elevated Adam's acts. 271
On the opposition between person and act, see the review of chapter 4. I will skip what follows as we addressed it there.
Junius and Rutherford as exemplars of a Reformed appropriation of the Thomistic distinction of natural and supernatural ends were both supralapsarian. Rutherford's supralapsarianism has been well documented. Junius' supralapsarianism played directly into his correspondence with Arminius. 272
That Junius was a supralapsarian is a claim that I wager Perkins has drawn from Muller’s Predestination in Early Modern Reformed Theology. The claim is, nevertheless, false. Jordan Ballor correctly argues in his chapter in Beyond Dordt that Junius argues for the substantial compatibility between Beza’s supralapsarianism and Augustine’s infralapsarian and I imagine it is from Junius’s defense of supralapsarianism that Muller drew the incorrect conclusion that Junius himself endorses supralapsarianism. In my view, nobody who has commented on Junius’s correspondence with Arminius has as of yet fully grasped all of its implications and I wish to write more on it elsewhere, but I will quickly walk through it with regard to Junius’s infralapsarianism.
Arminius begins the correspondence: “there are three views in reference to that subject, [predestination] which have their defenders among the doctors of our church. The first is that of Calvin to Beza; the second that of Thomas Aquinas and his followers; the third that of Augustine and those who agree with him.” https://ccel.org/ccel/arminius/works3/works3.iv.iii.html
Arminius then elaborates: “They differ in this, that the first [Calvin and Beza] presents men as not yet created, but to be created, to God, electing and predestinating, also passing by and reprobating, (though, in the latter case, it does not so clearly make the distinction): the second [Thomas Aquinas] presents them created, but considered in a natural state, to God electing and predestinating, "to be raised from that natural state above it; it presents them to Him in the act of preterition, as considered in the same natural state, and to Him in that of reprobation, as involved in sin by their own fault: the third [Augustine] presents them to Him both electing and predestinating, and passing by and reprobating as fallen in Adam, and as lying in the mass of corruption and perdition.” https://ccel.org/ccel/arminius/works3/works3.iv.iv.html
In other words, to Calvin and Beza, Arminius attributes a supralapsarian view where the object of predestination is man not yet created (this is also Rutherford’s view, by the way). To Thomas Aquinas, Arminius attributes a supralapsarian view in which the object of predestination is man as created but not yet as fallen. To Augustine, Arminius attributes the infralapsarian view where the object of predestination is man as already fallen.
The attribution of a form of supralapsarianism to Thomas Aquinas may be surprising to some, but this was not an uncommon interpretation of Thomas for the time. See for instance John Davenant.
Junius, though he takes issues with parts of Arminius’s descriptions of these views, does ultimately say that:
“This theory [Augustine’s] agrees with the first [Calvin and Beza] and second [Thomas Aquinas] in all respects, if you make this one exception, that, in the latter case, the election and reprobation of men is said to have been made after the condition of the fall and of our sin, in the former case without reference to the fall, and to our sin. But neither of them seems properly and absolutely to pertain altogether to the relation of election and reprobation since all admit that the cause of election and reprobation is placed in the consent only of the Being, who alone predestinates.” https://ccel.org/ccel/arminius/works3/works3.iv.vii.html
Arminius, writing to Junius about the second theory says, “I come then to the theory of Thomas Aquinas, to which, I think, you also gave your assent, and presented proofs from the Scriptures, and I will openly state that, of which I complain. I would pray you not to be displeased with the liberty, which I take, if your good will towards me was not most manifest.” https://ccel.org/ccel/arminius/works3/works3.iv.ix.html
Junius responds to this with “The theory of Thomas Aquinas I unite with the other, I do not follow it [homae sententiam conjungo alteri; non sequor]. But I will, briefly and in a few words, explain what I shall state in this argument, and in what mode, from the word of God, and what does not please me in that theory, noticing the words of your writing in the same order.”
“The other [theory]” at this point can only be referring to the previous theory of Calvin and Beza’s supralapsarianism. Jordan Ballor writes about this response from Junius:
“This is a difficult reading. It may mean that Junius does not follow it as understood exclusively as the only correct way of expressing the doctrine of predestination. Another way of understanding the non sequor is that Junius is stating he does not follow Arminius in radically separating the two theories. In neither case would it be a statement of Junius’s disagreement with or rejection of the Thomistic view, but rather it would be a statement of his rejection of either understanding the Thomistic position exclusively as the only acceptable formulation or as a rejection of Arminius’s understanding of the Thomistic position as substantially opposed to the view of Calvin and Beza.” (Beyond Dordt, 145n69).
While this is certainly a possible interpretation, I think that Junius’s response to Arminius’s fifth proposition and his unqualified “I do not follow it,” said without respect to Arminius’s interpretation of it, push us to understand Junius as uniting Thomas’s position with Calvin and Beza’s insofar as they both hold that election is made “without reference to the fall.” The implication would be that Junius sides against these two views, instead holding, with Augustine, that “the election and reprobation of men is said to have been made after the condition of the fall and of our sin.” Thus, while Junius spends much time argues for substantial agreement between the three theories, it seems he does ultimately hold that the object of predestination was man having already sinned.
Even if my interpretation of Junius as an infralapsarian is rejected, it should at least be clear that Junius is not a supralapsarian. Either Junius sees complete agreement between the three theories and thus is no more of a supralapsarian than he is an infralapsarian, or, as I have interpreted him, he ultimately recognizes one point of real difference between the views and sides with the infralapsarian position.
Specifying his position further than the previous chapter, Junius noted that in puris naturalibus 'does not exclude supernatural aspects, which God joined with Adam, but is opposed to sin, which arrived later, and to the corruption of natural aspects.' 272-273
Junius’s comments can be read here: https://ccel.org/ccel/arminius/works3/works3.iv.x.html
Perkins misunderstands Junius here. The reason that Junius says this is not because he is giving a precise definition of pure nature. In his other works, as I have documented at length, Junius uses “pure nature” to exclude supernatural gifts. The reason that Junius here insists on using the term “pure nature” so as not to exclude supernatural gifts is to counter Arminius’s misunderstanding of Thomas’s view. While both agree that Thomas held the object of predestination to be man prior to the fall (i.e. in his natural state), Arminius draws the false consequence from this that Thomas holds that man was predestined while he was in a state of pure nature (i.e. Adam existed without grace prior to the fall). You can read Junius correct this misunderstanding here: https://ccel.org/ccel/arminius/works3/works3.iv.xx.html The relation of election must be distinguished from the condition Adam was in prior to his fall. Thomas may hold that Adam was predestined to grace formally considered as one liable to fall, but this is not to say that Adam’s condition was one without grace prior to the fall. Thus Junius accommodates himself to Arminius’s repeated use of “puris naturalibus” in order to make clear that though Thomas holds that the object of predestination of man as apt to fall (which might be taken as “pure nature” in the stricter sense), this is not opposed to affirming that the condition that Adam existed in prior to his fall included grace, since these are two distinct issues.
In other words, although Junius accepted the distinction of natural and supernatural orders, he saw them as coming together in opposition to the fallen condition. His view of pure nature then seriously differed from the Franciscan tradition that saw pure nature as fully intact even respecting sin's effects. The further upshot is that, in Junius' thought, nature in its own principles is not entirely closed off to supernature. His appropriation of the natural and supernatural orders therefore differs also from the later pure nature tradition as promulgated by Cajetan and Bellarmine. 273
Cajetan and Bellarmine do not think nature to be “entirely closed off to supernature,” the former giving one of the clearest expositions of obediential potency you can find.
In contrast to Arminius, Junius saw the object of predestination as man in pure nature without respect to sin as a factor within God's decree of election and reprobation. 273
Our comments above suffice to correct this but you can also directly read Junius here and you will see he affirms nothing of the sort. https://ccel.org/ccel/arminius/works3/works3.iv.xi.html (yes, this is the correct place that Perkins cites).
The coordination of supralapsarianism and an appropriation of the distinction of natural and supernatural orders is potentially a fruitful avenue for future research to explore. 273
Evidently, if the above is correct (and it is), Perkins’s reasons for suggesting this do not hold good. But, lucky enough, anyone who desires to set out to find a coordination between supralapsarianism and the distinction between natural and supernatural orders will not be disappointed, seeing as every orthodox theologian affirms such a distinction.
This denial of grace before the fall does not entail the Franciscan position of 'pure nature' prior to grace since the paradigm is completely different. The Franciscans denied that Adam was created with infused grace but affirmed that he needed to obtain grace as that which orders humanity to an end beyond our nature and enables us to perform works that are meritorious of such supernatural reward. In contrast, the Reformed theologians who deny that grace was needed before the fall intend to short-circuit the entire premise of the Franciscan argument. 274
In the course of these reviews we have already seen two among the Reformed explicitly take the Franciscan “pure nature prior to grace” approach involving a temporal gap (Junius and Flavel).
Witsius underscored Adam's natural ability to obtain everlasting reward without further infusion of grace:
God entrusted his own image to man to be kept as the all-surpassing deposit of heaven, and, if kept pure and holy, the down payment of the greater good. To that end, he built him with sufficient strength from his very composition, to such degree so that he had no need of habitual grace in addition. 274
As has been common in the course of these reviews, Perkins’s translation is obscuring the matter.
Here is the Latin:
Imaginem hanc sui, ceu praestantissimum coeli depositum, si caste sancteque servaretur, majoris boni arrham, custodiendam homini Deus commiserat: quem eum in finem ab ipso conditu sufficientibus viribus instruxerat, adeo ut nulla gratia habituali praeterea opus haberet.
Here is a better translation:
“God entrusted man with the safeguarding of this image of himself, as the most excellent treasure of heaven, to be preserved chastely and reverently, as a pledge of greater good: for this purpose, He had equipped him from the very beginning with sufficient strength, such that no further habitual grace would be necessary.”
Witsius’s point here is the same as the one we saw from Turretin in our review of chapter 2, which Perkins likewise misunderstood.
On the front end, we should not discard the distinction of the natural and supernatural orders but should apply it precisely and correctly. Concerning the issues of revelation, we know that some truths are beyond our natural capacity to learn without special revelation. In this respect, we ought to accept that the natural and supernatural orders shape the way we do theology. Johann Heinrich Alsted helps us on this point: 'Though not everything that is true can be demonstrated by reason, since truth is more extensive than the ends of reason (for some truths are of greater magnitude than reason, if we look to the kingdom of grace), nevertheless no war exists between reason and faith, nature and grace.' For this reason, 'we believe in the supernatural order in order to understand.' 276
This paragraph is stunning as Perkins here correctly articulates the reason behind the distinction between the natural and supernatural orders through the example of special revelation but does not see that this overthrows his thesis. Perkins is exactly correct: there are some truths which are beyond our natural capacity to learn without revelation. The reason for this is because nature is not intrinsically ordered to learn these truths, seeing as they are above nature. In order to learn these truths, nature has to be raised above itself by a higher agent. Sin is not the reason that Adam in a state of sinless nature was unable to reason himself to the Trinity. His nature was. And this is because nature is unable to mount up above itself and produce an effect not proportionate to the cause. In itself, it is only ordered to and capable of natural actions. Perkins needs to dig deeper here and think about the implications of this. Man is not naturally ordered to a supernatural end because his nature cannot mount up above itself and attain it. He needs external, elevating help in order to accomplish this, and this is true even without respect to sin. My nature is capable of a natural contemplation and love of God, but were you to ask me to know and to love Him in a supernatural mode, directly beholding the essence of God, I would tell you that I am simply not capable of doing this unless my nature be elevated to perform this act.
This need for faith in what special revelation reveals has ground in nature because 'natural knowledge of the creator God is twofold, implanted and acquired.' 276
What the distinction between implanted and acquired knowledge has to do with the need for special revelation, I am at a complete loss to determine. My best guess is that perhaps he is confusing implanted knowledge of God (which is of the natural order) with infused knowledge of God (which is of the supernatural order)?
We can easily maintain God's freeness, however, by the simple doctrine that God did not have to create a creature that was naturally ordered toward the beatific vision as its appointed end. By free decision, God ordered humanity by nature toward a supernatural end. He is the one who crafted us for an eschatological destiny. 277-278
With “By free decision, God ordered humanity by nature toward a supernatural end,” Perkins either means that: 1) God was free to choose to create man (who is a creature intrinsically ordered to a supernatural end or not to create man. Or Perkins means that: 2) God could have decided to create man, but not to order him by nature toward a supernatural end. If the first, Perkins is only wrong about man being ordered by nature toward a supernatural end for the reasons we have already adduced. If the second, Perkins’s position is even more incoherent than I have suspected. God is not free to create creatures with natural ends different from the ones they possess since those ends determine the nature of those creatures (and thus are natural ends). For instance, the end of marriage is procreation. God could not, no not even in His absolute power, determine a different end for marriage other than procreation. This is why homosexual marriage is a contradiction in terms. The nature of a thing is defined by its end. Were man to have a different natural end, he would not be man, but another thing.
Anthony Tuckey (1599-1670), a Westminster divine, in his refutation of the donum superadditum, ties the point to original righteousness: 'We, on the contrary, though we would not quarrel about the terms natural and supernatural, if it stood only for the reality itself, nevertheless we say in the sound sense that this righteousness was natural to our first parents, not (as they would have it) a completely natural gift.' Even an annotator on Tuckney's text questioned if this sentence's end should be 'not a completely supernatural gift,' but the point stands the same either way because Tuckney's argument was that righteousness was natural to Adam as created but had a supernatural orientation. The fundamental constitution of bearing God's image has a supernatural edge. 278
The person who knows how to distinguish original righteousness from the donum superadditum and its elevating effects upon it will have no problem here. Also see more from Tuckney here as it regards grace elevating nature qua nature and not qua sinful: https://x.com/DordtyHylemorph/status/1872740193570005113
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