332 £SSAVS IN PHILOSOPHY 



Divine predestination, is inwrapt in this conception 

 of Divine causation as causation by efficiency ; and 

 there can be no way of supplementing this fini- 

 tude by the infinity {i.e. freedom) required by a moral 

 order, except by dislodging this view of creation 

 and reo:eneration. 



Ill 



If we are in earnest, then, about human free- 

 dom, — if there is to be any real freedom to 

 reconcile with a real Divine definiteness that is 

 unchangeable, — we must face the problem of sup- 

 planting the older theological conception of the two 

 Divine offices by a conception compatible with a 

 freedom that is freedom indeed. Especially must 

 we find a substitute for creation by fiat, or effi- 

 cient causation. For no being that arises out of 

 efficient causation can possibly be free. Let us 

 clarify our minds of all traditional obfuscation about 

 this, and see the case as it really is. 



Not even by the theory, sometimes advanced, that 

 God freely and " of his grace " endoivs the creature 

 with an "inner" nature which "works out its own 

 salvation," does a being created by efficient causa- 

 tion become really free. Even then it is only ap- 

 parently, not really, self-active. It merely obeys a 

 preestablished order, — like a clock, for example, to 



