Disputation On the Ways of Knowing God: Part 2
By Gisbertus Voetius
Respondent: Lucas vander Meer, from Veenhuizen, North Holland, November 24, 1665.
§ 1. We have laid out the concept of the natural knowledge of God based on the mainstream orthodox view. What is left is to demonstrate the wider agreement on this by quoting different authors (though we cannot reproduce their words here). These authors do not just generally affirm this natural knowledge of God, but also distinctly break it down into parts or species which they explain: the innate or implanted or subjective type; and the acquired or added or objective or discursive or demonstrative type, derived a posteriori from observing effects.
In affirming and explaining the prior innate knowledge, Reformed theologians and philosophers agree: although they refer to it with various names or descriptions: Such as faculty, light, principle, sense, dictate of nature, preconception, spark, remnants, rudiments, notions or ideas implanted in the mind, inclination to believe, book of nature (which they distinguish from the book of creatures), book of conscience, information of natural law, impressed notions, of nature and reason, impressed on human minds.
When it comes to explicitly asserting, explaining, and proving this acquired type of knowledge, there is universal agreement—not just among those practicing the Christian religion, but also Pagans, Jews, and Muslims. This has been thoroughly demonstrated by writers defending the truth of Christianity against atheists, gentiles, and so on. In fact, this truth has been so widely accepted that even some of the early leaders of Socinianism made room for it, like Smalcius, Crellius, and Slichtingius. We have already noted many relevant authors previously in the disputations on atheism, part 3.[1] But here are some more to consider.
I. The authors of the first class are those refuting Socinus and his followers, such as Alting, in his collected disputations published in the year 1630, and in his Elenctic and Problematic Theology.[2] John Junius in his Refutation of Socinus’ Praelectiones;[3] Johannes Hoornbeeck in his Refutation of Socinianism, volume 1.[4] Isaac Junius in his Antapologia, chapter 1.[5] Trigland in his Antapologia, chapter 1.[6] Abraham Heidanus book 3 of The Cause of God, chapter 2, pages 243–44.[7] John Owen in his treatise On Theology book 1, chapter 5.[8] To whom add [Josua] Stegmann in his Photiniana, disputation 1.[9] [Balthasar] Meisner also deals with this in his Anthropologia, decade 1, question 2, section 2, in his refutation of Flacius Illyricus;[10] And Marin Mersenne, a monastic of the Order of Minims of St. Paul, quite famous for his writings and various correspondences (so to speak) through letters, in his commentary on some of the initial chapters of Genesis, where he argues against the Atheists, and on that occasion against Flacius Illyricus’ denial of innate notions.[11]
II. Commentators on Isaiah 40, Psalm 8 and 19, Acts 17, Romans 1 and 2, and various passages from the book of Job. From the many I have once again consulted and examined, here are some: the Belgic and English notes on Romans 1:18–19.[12] Furthermore, [Peter] Martyr, [David] Pareus, [Andrew] Willet, Gomarus in their commentaries on the cited passages.[13] Also consult Aquinas and [Tommaso de Vio] Cajetan on Romans 1.[14] On Psalm 8 and 19, [Jean de] Lorin; and on 19, [André] Rivet.[15] On Acts 17, [Heinrich] Bullinger, Daniel Tossanus, Gaspar Sánchez.[16]
III. Authors who have written on the truth of religion against atheists, unbelievers, etc., include Thomas Aquinas, Against the Gentiles, book 1, chapters 3–4), Raymond de Sabunde, Girolamo Savonarola, Agostino Steuco, Ludovicus Vives, Philippe Du Plessis Mornay, and many others who wrote in French and English.
IV. Theological writers who have discussed this topic in their works include [Phillip] Melanchthon, [Wolfgang] Musculus, [John] Calvin, [Martin] Chemnitz, [Niels] Hemmingsen, [Peter] Martyr, [Andreas] Hyperius, [Nikolaus] Selnecker, Victor Strigel, [Lambert] Daneau, Francis Junius in his treatise On Theology, [Daniel] Tilenus, Johannes Gerhard, the authors of the Leiden Synopsis, [Antonius] Walaeus, [Daniel] Chamier, [Johann Heinrich] Alsted, especially in his treatise On Natural Theology, [Johannes] Scharpius in his Theological Course, [William] Perkins in his book on Cases of Conscience, and Prideaux in a sermon on Romans 1:20 published with his works.[17] We can also add the commentators on Peter Lombard’s Sentences, distinction 3, Antonino [de Florencia] in part 1 of his Summa, and Thomas Aquinas and the Scholastics in part 1 of his Summa.[18] However, Aquinas only explicitly discusses acquired knowledge there; he does not deny innate knowledge but passes over it or implicitly assumes it. He does mention innate knowledge in his commentary on Romans 1, where he calls it an “internal light” and distinguishes it from the “book of creatures.”[19]
V. Authors of Academic Disputations include: [Théodore de] Bèze and [Antoine de la] Faye in a collection of disputations published or reprinted in 1591.[20] Daniel Hofmann in his lengthy disputation “On the Innate Notions of God and His Will in Human Minds….”[21] Pareus in the first Collection of Disputations, chapter 2.[22] In the University of Leiden, we have disputations by Fr[ancis] Junius, [Franciscus] Gomarus, [Johannes] Cuchlinus, [Johannes] Polyander, and both Stuarts. We can also add various works by Jac[obus] Revius and [Johannes] Hoornbeeck’s first decade of Theological Questions from July 1665.[23] In the University of Harderwijk, there are disputations by Constantijn L’Empereur in his Collection of Disputations, chapter 2, both Diests, Abdias Widmar, and [Heinrich] Flocken in his tables and Elenctic Theology). In the University of Franeker, [Johannes] Maccovius discusses this in his disputation on “The Method of Proving God” and in Anti-Socinus, along with some other posthumous works edited by Nicol[aus] Arnold (now theologian at Franeker).[24] Chr[istian] Schotanus also touches on it in his idea of Reformed Scholasticism, chapter 2.[25] In the University of Groningen, Mat[thias] Pasor addressed this in a disputation on the knowledge of God in 1646.[26] In the University of Utrecht, it was discussed by those we mentioned above, to whom we can add (having inadvertently omitted them before) [Johannes] Hoornbeck in his disputation on Theology from September 28, 1644, Jacob Ravensperger in his disputation on God from December 12, 1648, and the disputations of my now deceased son on Natural Theology.[27]
The writers we have reviewed so far have affirmed the existence of a natural knowledge of God, which they have explained in detail. Many of them have defended this idea against opponents without using the recently shown method and idea, although some have seen it coming to light and others have even dismissed it as a contradictory or nonsensical notion.
If anyone were to accuse all of these writers of being supporters or promoters of atheism or Socinianism, I do not think they could easily justify this based on their own judgment, learning, and conscience. But if it does happen, it must be endured. I myself have defended this common doctrine, whose truth I still clearly and distinctly perceive by the grace of God, against the atheists, Socinians, and their followers to the best of my ability in my response to the examination in 1635 and in my disputations on Atheism. I willingly submit this doctrine to the judgment not only of Reformed theologians but also of all others who engage in theology under the Christian name.
§2. So let us now see whether and why we should abandon this doctrine, or change it based on other opinions, so that, according to Homer’s famous metaphor, we do not end up trading “golden things for bronze things,” or bronze things for bronze things.[28]
Generally, we are asking whether a change in name, phrasing, or interpretation is considered necessary, or a change in the actual thing itself.
If the first, does that apply to all the ways theologians and philosophers have thus far explained the natural knowledge of God, both natural/innate and acquired? Or only some phrases that could be criticized as improper, ambiguous, or obscure? If the latter, then those phrases should be pointed out, along with the new phrases that are supposed to be clearer or more accurate replacements, even if they are newly invented. Just show us which phrases you mean. We are not beholden to any one teacher, Reformed thinker or philosopher, much less to the likes of Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus, Seneca, Lull, Ramus, etc. We have not sworn allegiance to anyone’s words, or learned to elevate anyone’s authority and reputation to the point that, like Thomas Aquinas, we interpret the Church Fathers and Aristotle not as they actually thought, but as they supposedly should have thought (which I remember Cajetan saying about Aquinas somewhere). The papacy employs a similar tactic of “contrived fiction” in explaining or excusing various authors, as the Belgian index of prohibited books shows us in the case of Bertram’s booklet on the Lord’s Supper.[29] If you object to the phrasing, then prove which rules or conditions of logic and rhetoric it violates.
In the meantime, while we are waiting for proof of improper phrasing, I want to remind the opponents that just because someone uses a questionable name or a phrase that is less than ideal in terms of suitability, clarity, distinctness, or propriety, that does not mean you should accuse them of heresy, heterodoxy, or collusion with such things, especially if you know or should know that their intended meaning is sound, and that they have more than sufficiently declared themselves opposed to heterodoxy, heresy, and the unspeakable evil of atheism and its promoters. This holds true even if he has not yet grasped or accepted someone’s new method or terminology, just as he has indeed grasped and accepted technical terms that were once new, like “homoousios” or the distinction between God “according to theology” and “according to economy.”
But if the latter, that is, if we are talking about abandoning and replacing the doctrine itself, rather than just the phrasing, then you would first need to provide a solid, clear, and convincing proof that the main thesis about innate knowledge is false or self-contradictory, or that the other main thesis about acquired knowledge of God is false, or that both theses are false and contrary to Scripture, experience, and reason (as Socinus argues). Or if anyone thinks that the assumptions, arguments, or corollaries of the main thesis are contrary to Scripture or reason, then once they have solidly and clearly proven this and demonstrated the truth of their proposed replacement, then it would be time to consider a change. Otherwise, if everything has been proven, we should hold on to what is good and buy the truth rather than selling it.
But even if we grant that some hypothesis or argument put forward by the orthodox, or by an orthodox defender of this truth, is false or not entirely solid, it does not necessarily follow that the main thesis is false and should be abandoned, since the thesis does not depend on that one hypothesis or argument alone.
We should not immediately reject a doctrine, or even doubt it, just for the sake of mental exercise, or because of minor quibbles, or out of loyalty to a teacher, or because of someone’s excellence and authority in other areas of knowledge (whether real or supposed), or because of the antiquity of the doctrine, or because of its novelty, or because it was commonly accepted before our time, or even because it is still known and accepted by some people today, or because we cannot satisfactorily and clearly resolve some objection against it. We should not reject or doubt a doctrine even if we have not yet found a solution to an objection and are uncertain about it.
Problem 1. In order to do theology freely and skillfully, should we clear our minds of all preconceptions to the point that we doubt everything we have learned through diligent study, meditation, and the teaching of our instructors, and treat it all as false (even if it is not), until the truth is inscribed anew on our minds like a blank slate, after proper and methodical inquiry and demonstration based on certain principles? Answer: No. The Remonstrants wanted the National Synod to revise the Confession and Catechism, and they wanted the Synod members to be released from affirming the Belgic Catechism and Confession in the meantime, supposedly so they would not be hindered by any preconceptions in perceiving and judging the truth. Therefore, should we have temporarily suspended our agreement with, belief in, and profession of the truths attested by our affirmation (e.g., in articles 1 and 2 of the Confession)? Therefore, should the Reformed Synod have re-examined and investigated the article or thesis “That there is a God?” I ask the same about the truths and theses of natural theology or philosophy concerning God, his attributes and works, providence, the distinction between moral good and evil, the honorable and the base, etc. I ask the same about the basic catechetical elements instilled and proven from God’s word in infancy, childhood, and adolescence, before someone devoted himself to theological studies in an academic program.
Problem 2. If someone upholds and clearly lays out the common doctrine on innate and acquired knowledge, but then afterwards also adds and attaches that famous [Cartesian] idea, would he, by that fact, be absolved him of the charge of Socinianism and Atheism?
§. 3. The people who have opposed the widely accepted Christian teaching about the natural knowledge of God are:
I. Socinus and his followers, who denied all of it. The writers mentioned earlier have argued against their position.
II. Flacius Illyricus. Marin Mersenne, in his commentary on the early chapters of Genesis, says that by denying innate ideas, Flacius took away the tools we need to fight atheism and atheists. Flacius’ rejection of inborn sparks of knowledge was based on his mistaken view of original sin.[30] He apparently claimed that original sin was the actual substance or nature of a human being or the human soul. Like Meisner in his book on Anthropology, it is hard for us to see how an educated man like Flacius could have asserted and defended such a ridiculous idea, even in the heat of his argument against Victorinus Strigelius’ synergism at the Weimar Colloquium in 1552.[31] Maybe we should judge some of Flacius’ followers differently. As for the historical question of what Flacius himself meant, we can reserve judgment, like Meisner does, while still rejecting Flacius’ view itself as absurd and contrary to Scripture and reason. If anyone wants to look into the history further, they should check out [Johann] Micraelius’ Survey of Church History and Johann Gerhard’s Introductory Disputations, disputation 21, chapter 3.[32] Both of them say Flacius caused division and said inappropriate things.
A few years back, in 1648, Adam Stuart, a philosopher at Leiden University, was accused by one of his fellow philosophers of denying that we have any inborn knowledge of God. But Stuart sets the record straight in his disputation on God. In his little book called Addenda Delenda, published in 1649, he complains on page 24 about this false accusation.[33] He says he has always firmly believed and argued “that knowledge of God is naturally built into us from the beginning, in a basic form—but not in a fully developed form, meaning that a person does not have an actual, conscious awareness of God from the very first moment of their existence.” His colleague, replying to him, insists that he never said or implied that this conscious knowledge exists from birth.
III. Those who do not deny the natural acquired knowledge of God, but depart from the method and way of proving God’s existence used till now by Christian philosophers and theologians, and substitute some newfangled discovery of their own, are:
Suárez, Descartes, and Julius Caesar Vanini, a philosopher, theologian and doctor of both civil and canon law (he styled himself with these titles). In 1615 he published a book in Lyon by the widow Ant. de Harsy’s press, The Divine-Magical, Christian-Physical, and Astrological-Catholic Amphitheater of Eternal Providence Against the Ancient Philosophers, Atheists, Epicureans, Peripatetics, and Stoics, approved and licensed by a doctor of theology, the episcopal vicar, and the royal prosecutor.[34] In Exercise 1 of this book, Vanini says “we can know God exists through the first divisions of being, and can even prove it necessarily, like this: Every being is either eternal or temporary. If it is temporary, it must have had a beginning. Therefore, it could not have created itself, because then it would have existed before it existed. And since we can see that beings have beginnings, we have to admit there must be an eternal being.”[35] After making that argument, he moves on to another one.
“But perhaps,” he says, “the reader demands from me a more subtle division of beings: let him receive not the Scholastic, but the divino-magical or cabalistic one; not derived from the Pythagorean numbers, for we have in mind a more illustrious work…. The number nine is highest and most perfect, excluding and containing all others, increasable by unity alone to become ten, the ultimate. We thus celebrate a certain omnipotence of unity, both because it is the end, for it closes the ennead, in which are all the species and proportions of quantity….”[36]
This, of course, is a demonstration of the divine existence against atheism. Behold where pride and self-conceit lead those who scorn the well-trodden path they did not discover first. We already indicated in our 1639 disputations on atheism how Vanini sank to even lower depths here (unless he was just being a crafty fox when he wrote these things), and what became of him in Toulouse.[37] And since then, we have learned even more details from the history of [Gabriel Bartholomew] Gramond, the head of the Toulouse parliament, which came out in 1653.[38]
III. Francisco Suárez very often shows his subtlety in demonstrating the insufficiencies of arguments and responses put forward by others, while sometimes failing to provide a more accurate substitute. On this question, in part 2 of his Metaphysical Disputations, disputation 29, he rightly teaches that God can be proved through his effects, in line with Thomas Aquinas and the mainstream Scholastics.[39] But that proof he gives from the division of being, which the Helmstedt philosopher Cornelis Martini first criticized in his Metaphysics Compendium (if I am remembering right, I do not have the book on hand), is just as dubious and unclear as Vanini’s proof from the division of being.[40] In both cases, they are tacitly assuming there is an infinite, self-caused, uncreated being, i.e. God, which is exactly what needs proving! So, any skeptic rashly doubting God’s existence could just accuse them of begging the question. And while in disputation 28, section 1, paragraph 6, Suárez tries to prove the first part of dividing being into self-caused and caused-by-another, it still does not follow that dividing being into finite/infinite, self-caused/caused separates out God’s existence immediately and directly (which he calls the first division of being).[41] Plus, the proof he tries to give there says nothing peculiar that exceeds in certainty and evidence the common method of demonstrating from effect to cause, from creation to creator, shown in sacred Scripture (Isaiah 40, Psalm 19, Romans 1 and 2, Acts 17), explained and developed by the church fathers, Thomas Aquinas with the scholastics, and more recent thinkers. For his philosophical arguments, both in this and in many other disputations, are difficult due to their prolixity and obscurity, about which the famous poet Barlaeus, in a poem written in honor of someone then being decorated with a master’s degree in philosophy at Leiden University, sang: “and the impenetrable writings of Suárez, to be investigated by the laboring brain.” Reformed philosophers have more than sufficiently pointed out, when the occasion presented itself, plenty of false and absurd things in his writings (for the most part arising from the prejudice of Roman Catholic theology, which he necessarily had to defend and aid). But even so, you cannot deny that he had a really sharp mind and judgment when it came to metaphysics, and that saying about Origen and Bernard applies to him too: “Where he is good, no one is better.” As for the connatural natural knowledge of God, I do not see Suárez distinguishing it properly (in his disputations on the first part of Thomas’ Summa) from acquired and argumentative knowledge we get, or even raising the question about it. In fact, what he says in book 1, chapter 1, paragraph 17 seems to go against this. “All men,” he says, quoting Gregory the Great, “see God, each one beholds him from afar. Jerome and others also testify to this, as well as Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 24, where he says that men have an implanted natural knowledge of the Father, that is, of God (as the unproduced and unmade principle). But he says it is implanted by nature because it is acquired through natural discourse, as he himself explained in Oration 34, which is the second theological oration. There the translator rendered the Greek word for discourse or reasoning as ‘to attain by conjecture.’ But the Greek word properly means to syllogize and reason. What sort of reasoning this is can be sufficiently gathered from another passage, namely, that the conclusion ‘God exists’ is so clear and evident that it is said to be a conclusion implanted by nature in this way. The scholastics, Thomas Aquinas with his followers….”[42]
Therefore, do not expect Suárez and thinkers like him to give a clear explanation and defense of connatural knowledge against the views of Socinus and his followers and some other non-Socinian folk as well, given that Suárez does not seem to distinguish this knowledge in first act from the intellect itself, just as innate synderesis and conscience are commonly distinguished from the intellect in which they reside. Mersenne was different though, arguing for this connatural knowledge under the term “notions.” Anyway, we still have to look at Descartes’ method, about which I will get to next.
[1] Voetius, Selectarum Disputationum Theologicarum, vol. 1 (Utrecht: Johannes a Waesberge, 1648), pgs. 149–66.
[2] [I do not know the collected disputations Voetius is referring to.] Alting, Theologia Elenctica Nova; Alting, Problemata Theologica in Scriptorum Theologicorum Heidelbergensium, vol. 2.
[3] Junius, Refutatio Praelectionum Theologicarum Fausti Socini.
[4] Johannes Hoornbeek, Socinianismi Confutati, vol. 1.
[5] Junius, Antapologia, pgs. 53–70.
[6] Jacob Trigland Sr., Antapologia, pgs. 25–36.
[7] Abraham Heidanus, De causa Dei, dat is, De sake Godts… (Leiden: Paulus Aertsz van Ravesteyn, 1645), pgs. 243–44.
[8] John Owen, θεολογούμενα Παντοδαπά Sive de Natura, Ortu, Progressu, Et Studio Verae Theologiae Libri Sex… (Oxford: Henry Hall, 1661), pgs. 21–31.
[9] Josua Stegmann, Photinianismus hoc est, Succincta Refutatio Errorum Photinianorum (Frankfurt: Office of Wecheliana, 1626), pgs. 1–12.
[10] [The citation seems wrong. Perhaps he has in mind:] Balthasar Meisner, ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΛΟΓΙΑ Sacra, vol. 1 (Strassburg: Reppius Ledertz, 1625), pgs. 13–14.
[11] Marin Mersenne, Quaestiones Celeberrimae in Genesim (Paris: Sébastien Cramoisy, 1623), pgs. 236ff.
[12] Annotations upon all the Books of the Old and New Testament, vol 2 (London: John Legat and John Raworth, 1645), loc. cit.; [For the Dutch Annotations, cf. https://bijbel-statenvertaling.com/authorised-version-annotated/genesis/1/#1]
[13] Peter Martyr Vermigli, In Epistolam S. Pavli Apostoli Ad Romanos (Heidelberg: Johannes Lancellot, 1613), loc. cit.; David Pareus, Commentarius in Divi Pauli Epistolam ad Romanos, in Opera Theologica, vol. 2 (Geneva: Peter Chouet, 1647), loc. cit.; Andrew Willet, Hexapla, that is, A six-fold commentarie upon the most divine Epistle of the holy apostle S. Paul to the Romanes… (Cambridge: Cantrell Legge, 1611), loc. cit.; Franciscus Gomarus, Analysis & Explicatio Epistolae ad Romanos in Opera Theologica Omnia (Amsterdam: Johannes Janssonius, 1644), loc. cit.
[14] Thomas Aquinas, Super Epistolam B. Pauli ad Romanos lectura a capite I, lectione VI ad lectionem VIII, (https://www.corpusthomisticum.org/cro016.html); Tommaso de Vio Cajetan, Epistolae Pauli et Aliorum Apostolorum ad Graecam… (Paris: Hieronymus and Dionysius de Marnef Brothers, 1550), fols. 5v–10r.
[15] Jean de Lorin, Commentarii in Librum Psalmorum… (Venice: Hieronymus Albritius, 1718), pgs. 106–17, 262–68; André Rivet, Commentarius in Psalmorum Propheticorum… (Rotterdam: Arnoldus Leers, 1645), 127–83.
[16] Heinrich Bullinger, In Acta Apostolorum… (Zurich: Christopher Proscho, 1583), fols. 59v–64r; Daniel Tossanus, Commentaria in Acta Apostolorum, in Opera Theologica, vol. 1 (Hanau: Wechalianus et al., 1604), pgs. 334–43; Gaspar Sánchez, Commentarii in Actus Apostolorum (Lyon: Horatius Cardon, 1616), pgs. 309–17.
[17] Johann Heinrich Alsted, Theologia Naturalis … (Frankfurt: Antonius Hummius, 1615); Johannes Sharpius, Cursus Theologicus…, 2 vols. (Geneva: Petrus et Jacobus Chouët, 1620); William Perkins, The Whole Treatise of the Cases of Conscience… ([Cambridge]: John Legat, 1606); John Prideaux, Concio VI. De Scala Visibilium ad Invisibilia in Opera Theologica Omnia (Zurich: David Gessner, 1672), pgs. 508–20.
[18] Antonino de Florencia, Summa Theologica: Pars Prima (Venice: Marinus Saracenus, 1487);
[19] Thomas Aquinas, Super Rom., cap. 1 l. 6.
[20] [Perhaps, Théodore de Bèze and Antoine de la Faye, Theses theologicae in schola Genevensi… (Geneva: Eustathius Vignon, 1586).]
[21] Daniel Hoffman, Theses de Noticiis Dei et Voluntatis Ipsius, Humanis Animis Natura Insistis & Disciplina Excultis… (Helmstedt: Jakob Lucius, 1593).
[22] David Pareus, Collegiorum Theologicorum … (Heidelberg: John Rhodius, 1611).
[23] [Cannot find.]
[24] Johannes Maccovius, Johannes Maccovius redivivus sev Manuscripta ejus…, vol. 1 (Franeker: Johannes Arcerius, 1647).
[25] [Cannot find.]
[26] Matthias Pasor, Disputatio Theologica, De Cognitione Dei… (Groningen: Augustinus Eissens, 1646).
[27] [Cannot Hoornbeck or Ravensperger.] Paul Voet, Theologia Naturalis Reformata (Utrecht: Johannes à Waesberge, 1656).
[28] Homer, Il. vi.236.
[29] The Bertram book may be: Ratramnus [monk of Corbie], A booke of Bertram the priest, concerning the body and blood of Christ written in Latin to Charles the Great (London: John Dawson, 1623).
[30] Marin Mersenne, Quaestiones Celeberrimae in Genesim (Paris: Sébastien Cramoisy, 1623), pgs. 236ff.
[31] Balthasar Meisner, ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΛΟΓΙΑ Sacra.
[32] Johann Micraelius, Syntagma historiarum ecclesiae omnium … (Stetin: Georgius Rhetius, 1644); Johann Gerhard, Disputationes Isagogicae … (Jena: Johann Ludwig Neuenhahn, 1663), pgs. 780–83.
[33] [Cannot find.]
[34] Julius Caesar Vanini, Amplitheatrum Aeternae Providentiae Divinomagicum (Lyon: Widow of Antonius de Harsy, 1615).
[35] Vanini, Amplitheatrum Aeternae Providentiae Divinomagicum, pg. 3.
[36] Vanini, Amplitheatrum Aeternae Providentiae Divinomagicum, pg. 4.
[37] E.g., Voetius, Selectarum Disputationum Theologicarum, vol. 1, pgs. 129, 134, 148, 202ff.
[38] Gabriel Bartholomew Gramond, Historiarum Galliae ab Excessu Henrici IV … (Toulouse: Arnaldus Colomerium, 1653).
[39] Francisco Suárez, Metaphysicarum Disputationum, vol. 2 (Cologne: Franciscus Hevidius, 1614), pgs. 15–34.
[40] [Perhaps] Cornelis Martini, Metaphysica Commentatio … (Strassburg: Joannes Carolus, 1605).
[41] Suárez, Metaphysicarum Disputationum, vol. 2, pg. 6.
[42] Francisco Suárez, Commentaria ac Disputationes in Primam Partem Divi Thomae, vol. 1 (Mainz: Hermannus Mylius Birckmannus, 1621), pg. 6.