1. The Meditations as Theodicy

Had not God been infinitely Good, perhaps he might have not permitted imperfect Beings; but have been content in Himself, and created nothing at all... Imperfection then arose from the Infinity of Divine Goodness.

William King, De origine mali

Let us begin with two quotations:

Yet firmly rooted in my mind is the long-standing opinion that there is an omnipotent God who made me the kind of creature that I am. How do I know that he has not brought it about that there is no earth, no sky, no ex­tended thing, no shape, no size, no place, while at the same time ensuring that all these things appear to me to exist just as they do now? What is more, since I sometimes believe that others go astray in cases where they think they have the most perfect knowledge, may I not siinilarly go wrong evel)' time I add two and three or count the sides of a square, or in some even simpler matter, if that is imaginable? But perhaps God would not have allowed me to be deceived in this way, since he is said to be supremely good. But if it were inconsistent with his goodness to have cre­ated me such that I am deceived all the time, it would seem equally for­eign to his goodness to allow me to be deceived even occasionally; yet this last assertion cannot be made.

To begin with, I recognize that it is impossible that God should ever de­ceive me ... So what, then, is the source of my errors? It must be simply this: the scope of the will is wider than that of the intellect; but instead of restricting it within the same limits, I extend its use to matters which I do not understand. Since the will is indifferent in such cases, it easily turns aside from what is true and good, and this is the source of my error and sin.

These two accounts, in which Descartes purports to explain the source of error, come from the same work - the Meditations. The differences be­tween them are so striking that one can accept that they came from the pen of the same author only on the assumption that the second is a re­vision of the first. What the first advances, the second denies. The first account (Med. I) implies that were a benevolent God my creator, He would have created me such that I would not be deceived. According to the second account (Med. N), deception is a result of the wrong use of free will. As a matter of fact, much of what Descartes claims in the later

23 Z. Janowski, Cartesian Theodicy© Kluwer Academic Publishers 2000

24 Cartesian Theodicy

parts of the Meditations is, indeed, a revision of the views he presents earlier. Such seems to be the case with the contents of these two quota­tions. The juxtaposition of the two accounts shows an essential shift over the span of two Meditations (II-III) in Descartes' explanation of the source and nature of error. While in the first account error is invol­untary, in the second account man's inappropriate use of free will is the source of error. But there is more to Descartes' explanation. If the first passage, which contains an implicit challenge to God's goodness, is taken as a starting point of Descartes' inquiry, and the second passage, in which God's goodness is vindicated, is taken as a point of arrival, the structure of the Meditations can be interpreted as theodicy.

Unde malum (Whence evil)? This is the question theodicy is de­signed to answer. Its goal, regardless of the strategy taken, is to exoner­ate God from the responsibility for evil. Since St. Augustine, who codified Christian teaching in Latin Christendom, it has been taken as a matter of course that as a result of the Fall of the First Man (and the fall of an­gels), human will has been perverted ever since and is thus the source of all evil. Original Sin reveals itself in concupiscence, which is a rebellion of the flesh against our spiritual nature. An implicit assumption of theodicy is that despite all its imperfections, the world is de facto per­fect: whatever God created is good, and evil is the absence (privatio) of good.

This explanation has never been accepted as satisfactory. Can one believe, without assaulting reason, that the world with all its misery was created by an omnipotent and benevolent Creator? The Epicurean dic­tum Because there is evil, then either God is evil or impotent or both, Voltaire's sneering at Leibniz's idea that the world in which we live is the best of all possible worlds, Ivan Karamazov's rebellion against God, Nietzsche's attack on Christianity, and Camus' idea that suicide is the only philosophical problem, are only a few examples of the same intu­ition: our (imperfect) world cannot be a work of God. Were the theodicy builders oblivious to these arguments? Did they try to deny the reality of evil? Of course not. Leibniz and Voltaire lived in the same world. The point of their disagreement is not that Leibniz denies the rea:lity of evil by claiming that evil is only apparent while Voltaire insists on its actual­ity; the crux of the controversy is whether there evil has any meaning. 1

1. After the huge earthquake in Lisbon, outraged with the magnitude of the event and the number of lives lost, Voltaire wrote a poem to commemorate the event. No Christian philosopher (certainly not Leibniz) thought of natural disasters as begging for explana­tion; their problem was moral evil (malum culpae). Although Voltaire considered him­self to be primarily a dramatist, he is now known chiefly as the author of Candide and of the Dictionarie philosophique. The tone of most of his works is strongly anti-religious. His distinguished intellectual career as a mouthpiece of the Enlightenment consists to a considerable degree of his mocking respected thinkers. He ridiculed Leibniz's idea of the best of all possible worlds, castigated Pascal for making his readers believe that all peo­ple are wretched, and ridiculed the "stupidity" of the Jesuits and Jansenists involved in

The Meditations as Theodicy 25

The answer of the theodicy builders is that the creation of human beings requires that they be endowed with free will which inevitably entails the possibility of doing both good and evil.

Unlike their opponents, and despite obvious difficulties concerning the reconciliation of evil with God's goodness and omnipotence, the builders of theodicies were fully aware that the rejection of God as the creator of the world and in its stead the acceptance of the naturalistic ac­count of its origin (be it chance, fate, or any other cause) would put an end to any philosophical attempts to explain the nature and origin of evil. "I tried to solve the difficulty in question, about the cause of error," Descartes wrote to Denis Mesland, S.l., "on the assumption that God had made the world most perfect, since if one makes the opposite assump­tion, the difficulty disappears altogether. "2

Although the traditional subject matter of theodicy is moral evil, nothing in the notion of theodicy prevents us from extending it to other realms of philosophical inquiry, for example, epistemology, provided, of course, that the epistemological issues can ultimately be translated into moral terms. The Fourth Meditation, which is devoted to the freedom of the will, provides ample evidence that error is of interest to Descartes only in so far as it is voluntary and as such begs for explanation.

The theoditic character of Descartes' argument in the Meditations has not escaped the attention of Cartesian scholars; yet no previous at­tempt has been made to read it as such. In the major works on the Meditations, the religious character of Descartes' enterprise is either played down or is limited to the pointing out of similarities between Descartes' theory of error and the Christian idea of sin.3 The reasons for this silence are not difficult to explain. Descartes set forth several objec­tives for himself in the Meditations: (1) to demonstrate the existence of God and (2) the immortality of the soul; (3) to build "new foundations for the sciences"; (4) to establish the "foundation of all human certi­tude"; to overcome (5) scepticism and (6) atheism.4 While the first five are traditional problems of epistemology, it may not be immediately ap-

the controversy over the freedom of indifference (freedom of indifference is, as he ex­plained it in his Dictionaire, the freedom to spin either in one direction or in another). It is rather swprising that the same Voltaire who ridiculed all those who tried to fmd the meaning behind the "chain of natural causes," was outraged with Nature. 2. Letter to Mesland, 2 May 1644 (AT IV, 113; CSMK III, 232). 3. Among scholars who devoted some space to the relationship between error and sin are Mamus: 1890; Gilson: 1913, 214-15, 271; Gouhier: 1924, esp. 215, 209, 214; Devillaires: 1988, 70ff. English-language Cartesian scholars are almost silent on this issue; there are, however, exceptions. See Cottingham: 1988, 158; Soffer: 1987. 4. "Now my purpose was excellent, because I was using the supposition [of the deceiver] only for the better overthrow of scepticism and atheism, and to prove that God is no de­ceiver, and to establish that as the foundation of all human certitude." Letter to the Curators of Leiden University, May 4 1647 (AT V, 9; CSMK Ill, 316-17). In the Conversation with Burman, 16 April 1648, there is the following statement: "in the Meditations [Monsieur Descartes] established ... certainty against the sceptics" (AT V, 165; CSMK III, 347).

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parent what the "overthrow of atheism" has to do with the quest for Certitude.

This is not, however, the main or the only reason why the religious side of Descartes' philosophy is either entirely left out or reduced to an accidental aspect of Descartes' system. The religious side of Descartes' philosophy is neglected for historical reasons. Ever since the publication of the Meditations (1641), Descartes' religiosity, let alone his Catholicity, has been incessantly questioned. Descartes' frequent pro­nouncements to the effect that to achieve certitude one must demon­strate the existence of God are usually taken to be nothing more than prudent precautions to mollify the religious authorities who sensed the incompatibility of the new philosophy with Christian religion in general and Catholic dogma in particular.

Very few philosophers have been the target of as many accusations as Descartes. Dutch Calvinist theologians accu,sed this former student of the Jesuits of blasphemy and Pelagianism (the doctrine according to which man can do both good and evil without God's grace).5 The Catholics suspected him of being a deist, and later, the Enlightenment philosophes, who appropriated his philosophy and used it in their own fight against the Church, considered him to be an atheist. "One is right to accuse Descartes of atheism," Holbach wrote, "seeing that he very ener­getically destroyed the weak proofs of the existence of God that he gave."6 Nor did D'Alembert have any doubts as far as Descartes' "dissatis­faction" with ecclesiastical policy is concerned: "[Descartes was] one of the chiefs of the conspirators who had the courage to raise the banner against an arbitrary and despotic power, and who, in preparing a brilliant revolution, laid the foundations of government more just and happier than any ever before established. "7 The Descartes that emerges from these and later accounts appears as a deist or atheist, and his philosophy is often retrospectively reduced to the movements to which it histori­cally happened to give rise. This in tum raised speculations concerning Descartes' true intentions, which, it is sometimes argued, were different from the views presented in his published works. Did he really try to prove the existence of God and the immortality of the soul? Was he sin­cere when he said that he would abandon his philosophy if it were to con­tradict the tenets of the Catholic religion, rather than go against the Church? These are only a few of the questions that arise in the context of the discussions on Descartes' sincerity.

The incongruity of ce$in parts of Cartesian thought with some of Catholic dogma is indisputable, but does this mean that he was a deist or

5. See Descartes' letter to Mersenne, March 1642 (AT III, 543; CSMK, III, 211). In his ex­cellent study Descartes and the Dutch: Early Reactions to Cartesian Philosophy 1637-1650, Theo Verbeek discusses the accusation ofPelagianism and other heresies brought against Descartes. 6. Holbach: 1774, I, 150. 7. Encyclopedie, 1778, I, xxvi.

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an atheist, as is sometimes implied? It is one thing to maintain that there is an essential incongruity between a given philosophy and the contents of the religious beliefs of its author, yet it is another thing to claim that we should accept as a philosopher's genuine convictions only those he explicitly espouses, or gives support to in his philosophy. To make such a claim is tantamount to presupposing that there is an eternal and irre­movable conflict between religion and philosophy, and that ultimately the contents of religious beliefs are reducible to what can be rationally demonstrated. This view is not, however, unproblematic: it is based on the assumption that in any conflict between the claims of reason and the claims of religion, only claims in accord with reason are true. Given that there are areas where philosophical explanation and religious dogma do come into conflict, there is nothing improbable in assuming that Descartes did believe in the claims of religion even if some of them run counter to his philosophy. "God made three miracles," reads the private note found after Descartes' death: "Creation ex nihilo; God man; free will." This suggests that Descartes admitted that there are questions that lie outside the scope of rational explanation. It is safe to say that accord­ing to Descartes, there is nothing in the claims of reason that would nec­essarily make us reject the religious dogmas. The litmus test of Descartes' religiosity or sincerity cannot, then, be whether his system accords with one dogma or another, but rather rests on the question whether the main tenets of his philosophy can be interpreted outside a Christian Weltanschauung. The answer to this, I believe, is no.

In presenting the Meditations as theodicy, that is as the vindication of God's goodness, I translate Descartes' epistemological notions such as truth and falsity into moral categories such as good and evil, or into reli­gious categories, such as sin; and, finally, I show that Descartes' episte­mological considerations are intelligible only within a religious frame­work.

In the Midst of Theological Controversy In the Synopsis to the Meditations, Descartes states:

(But it is to be noticed, however, that sin - or error that is committed in the pursuit of good and evil - is in no way dealt with there; rather only that occurs in the judging of the true and the falseS is dealt with there. And there is no discussion of matters pertaining to faith or the conduct of life,9 but simply speculative truths that are known by means of the natural light.)

8. Cf Descartes' letter to Mersenne, 18 March 1641 (AT Ill, 234; CSMK Ill, 175). 9. See Descartes' remarks in his letter to Hyperaspistes, August 1641 (AT Ill, 422-23; CSMK Ill, 188-89).

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"Put the words between brackets," Descartes told his good friend Father Marin Mersenne (1588-1648), "so that it can be seen that they have been added."l0 Two years later, in 1643, Descartes explained at length to Denis Mesland, SJ. (a friend and supporter, who, because he was too con­cerned with propagating the principles of Cartesianism, was sent by his superiors to evangelize savages in Martinique) his reason for not being explicit in discussing the issue of freedom and evil:

The only thing that prevented me from speaking of the freedom that we have to follow good or evil, is the fact that I wanted to avoid as far as pos­sible all theological controversies and to stay within· the limits of natural philosophy. But I agree with you that wherever there is an occasion for sinning, there is indifference [of the will]. II

The theological controversies, or rather the controversy to which Descartes refers, concerns the growing conflict over such questions as the nature and scope of human freedom, predestination, and salvation be­tween the Augustinians and the followers of the Spanish theologian Louis Molina (1535-1600) (predominantly the Jesuits) who in 1588 published a work entitled Liberi arbitrii cum gratire donis, divina prrescientia, praedestinatione et reprobatione concordia (On the Agreement of Human Free Will With the Gifts of Grace and Divine PrOVidence). The conflict reached its peak in 1653 when on the instigation of the Jesuits, Pope Innocent X in the bull Cum Occasione condemned the teaching of Cornelius Jansenius (1585-1638), the author of the monumental work Augustinus (published posthumously in 1640, in Amsterdam, and 1641, in Paris). With that 1653 bull, the Church abandoned St. Augustine's teaching on freedom in favor of the semi-Pelagian doctrine, according to which man is free to do both good and evil without God's grace. 12

In 1641 when the Meditations were published, the anti-Augustinian Molinist theology of the Jesuits had not yet become "official" Church doctrine. However, the influence of the Jesuits on social life and on Church theology was becoming stronger and stronger. According to the German historian of the Papacy, Leopold Ranke, the influence of the Jesuits was due primarily to the political situation. To demonstrate his devotion to Roman Catholicism, Henry IV recalled the exiled Jesuits and supported them against their Protestant opponents. 13 To admit openly one's theological or philosophical affinities with the teaching of St. Augustine as espoused in the 1640s by the followers of Jansenius -whose theology as far as the operations of divine grace and human free­dom are concerned is not very different from, if not identical with, that

10. Letter to Mersenne, 18 March 1641 (AT Ill, 234; CSMK Ill, 175). 11. Letter to Mesland, 2 May 1644 (AT IV, 117; CSMK Ill, 234; emphasis Z.J). 12. For a detailed discussion, see Kolakowski: 1995, Part I; Gazier: 1922. 13. Ranke: 1853, vol. II, 185. Cf. Pastor, vol. 26, 12-16.

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of the Calvinistsl4 - could lead to a conflict with the increasingly pow­erful Society of Jesus. Eventually the Jesuits gained the upper hand in their fight against the followers of St. Augustine, and in 1653 furthered the condemnation of the so called "Five Propositions."IS The Molinists never admitted that the "Five Propositions" exactly mirrored the teaching of St. Augustine, and that in condemning them the Pope con­demned the teaching of its greatest theological authority.

Several writers attempted to demonstrate the antiquity of the Molinist doctrine. In 1644, Isaac Habert, later the bishop of Vabres, pub­lished a very erudite work, La Defense de la Foy de l'Eglise ... Contre Ie livre intituie: "Apologie de Jansenius," in which he tries to prove that the Molinist conception of freedom and grace was always a part of Church teaching. Yet both sides were aware of what the controversy was really about. In his short summary of the controversy, Pascal observes that by signing the formulaire, the goal of which was to reinforce the Papal bull, one signs the condemnation of Jansenius and St. Augustine. 16

It seems that were it not for their influence, the Jesuits very well could have lost against their Augustinian opponents.17

The condemnation of Jansenius' doctrine was not an accident, how­ever. Rather, it was the last phase in the very long controversy that had begun much earlier. In 1585, Leonard Lessius (1554-1623) and Jean Hamelius (1554-1589), two pupils of Bellannine (1542-1621) and Suarez (1548-1617), were appointed professors at the University of Louvain where they organized a course of Scholastic theology. First, they at­tacked St. Augustine's teaching on grace and human freedom; second,

14. This view is very clearly expressed by the Calvinist theologian Pierre Jurieu who, in hisL'Esprit de M. Arnauld (1689; the book was published anonymously), shows the ac­cord between Calvin's and St. Augustine's theology of grace on the one hand and be­tween that of the Jansenists and St. Augustine on the other. For a step-by-step analysis of this issue, see Kolakowski: 1995, Part I. 15. 1) Aliqua Dei praecepta hominibus iustis volentibus et conantibus, secundum praesentes, quas habent vires, sunt impossibilia: deest quoque iIIis gratia, qua possibilia fiant (some of God's precepts are impossible to the just, who wish and strive to keep them, according to the present powers which they have; the grace, by which they are made possible, is also wanting). 2) Interiori gratiae in statu naturae lapsae nunquam resistitur (In the state of fallen nature one never resists interior grace). 3) Ad merendum et demerendum in statu naturae lapsae non reqiritur in homine Iibertas a necessitate, sed sufficit Iibertas a coactione (In order to merit or demerit in the state of fallen nature, freedom from necessity is not required in man, but freedom from external compulsion is sufficient). 4) Semipelagiani admittebant praevenientis gratiae interioris necessitatem ad singulos actus, etiam ad initium fidei; et in hoc erant haeretici, quod vellent earn gratiam talem esse, cui posset humana voluntas resisere et obtemperare (The Semipelagians admitted the necessity of a prevenient interior grace for each act, even for the beginning of faith; and in this they were heretics, because they wished this grace to be such that the human will could either resist or obey). 5) Semipelagianum est dicere, Christum pro omnibus omnino hominibus mortum esse aut sanguinem fudisse (It is Semipelagian to say that Christ died or shed His blood for all men without exception). Denzinger: 1946, 360-61. 16. Pascal: 1963, 369. 17. See Gazier: 1922, vol. 2.

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they claimed that the Greek Fathers did not share St. Augustine's view on this question; third, they accepted the views of the Marseillian clergy, which were acclaimed by the Apostolic See as semi-pelagian; fourth, they espoused the view, among others, that "man is the primary agent in the working of grace, and God is secondary. "18 Two years later a conflict arose at the University over their teaching, which led to censure of the views taught by the new Jesuit professors.

When Descartes published his Meditations (1641), one could not yet talk of Jansenism in the sense of an organized theological movement,19 but for several decades there was a strong Augustinian opposition against Molinism among the French Oratorians and Dominicans. The relation­ship between Descartes and the Augustinian Oratorians, especially Descartes' correspondent, Father Guillaume Gibieuf (1591-1650), consti­tutes an important, however little known, chapter in the philosopher's intellectual biography. According to Adrien Baillet, Descartes' first major biographer, the philosopher maintained close relations with Cardinal Pierre de Berulle (1575-1629), the founder of Oratory in France, whom he probably met in Italy. Berulle was a man of great learning and piety, an was able polemicist against Protestants. It was said of him that he had considerable success in converting heretics. When Gibieuf met Berulle, he was a staunch Scholastic and a Molinist. "My dear Father," said Berulle to Gibieuf, "you seem to me to be a poor Christian. You do not give enough to Jesus Christ; you have greater obligation to Him than you think."2o Gibieuf was subsequently "converted" to Augustinism. During his stay in Rome, BeruBe mentioned to Claude Bertin (d. 1638), another member of the Oratory, that his friend Gibieuf just rejected Molinism in favor of the Augustinian doctrine of efficient grace. Curious to learn how Gibieuf managed to resolve certain theological questions, Bertin promptly wrote a letter to Gibieuf.21 Apparently, Gibieuf's solution must have been satis­factory,22 because soon after, Bertin, like many others who fell under Berulle's spell, traveled the same path from Molinism to Augustinism.

18. See E. J. M. Van Eijl: 1994,207-82. 19. There is no agreement among scholars as to the precise defmition of Jansenism and its constitutive elements. See Orcibal: 1953. For example, Leszek Kolakowski (1995,67-68) accepts the year 1643, the date of the publication of Antoine Arnauld's De La frequente communion, as the beginning of Jansenism as a theological movement "con­scious of itself." 20. Batterel: 1971, vol. I, 239-40. 21. On October 21, 1624, Bertin wrote to Gibieuf: "Le Pere General m'a dit que vous aviez change d'avis pour l'efficace de la grace. Vous m'obligerez fort de me mander comme vous sortez de ces trois difficultes: 1 praedeterminatio repugnat indifferentiae seu libertati; 2 tollit sufficienitiam gratiae; 3 facit Deum authorem actuum maloTUill. Il y a ici-un Dominicain [RicardiniJ tres grand docteur et predicateur, qui est appe1e pour 1a grandeur de sa doctrine il padre Mostro, c'est-a-dire monstre, avec 1equel je traiterai de ces difficultes pour voir comme il en sortira." Berulle: 1939, vol. II, 510-11. Cf. Battere1: 1971, vol. I, 96. 22. See Bertin's letter in Batterel: 1971, vol. 1,242.

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Thanks to the Cardinal, Descartes became acquainted with several other Oratorian Fathers (Condren, Bertin, La Barde, and Gibieuf) whom he visited in the Oratorian House on Rue du St.-Honore in Paris before his trip to Holland in September 1628. Berulle, Baillet informs us, cher­ished special affection and esteem for Descartes. Relations between Berulle and Descartes became so close that Descartes declared himself to be the Cardinal's "bien humble et obeissant serviteur" and asked him to become his "directeur de conscience."23 The story sounds today like an edifying piece of apocrypha, yet it does not need to be improbable if one realizes the influence which the charismatic Cardinal exercised on others.

In 1628, Descartes attended a salon of papal nuncio de Bagui. On Berulle's request, Descartes explained to the nuncio's guests how he was going to vanquish the pyrronists. According to Baillet, Berulle himself urged Descartes, "as a matter of conscience," to carry out his project of building a unified system of sciences.24 Descartes even considered Berulle after God to be the principle author of his ideas.25 This and other ele­ments in Baillet's biography of Descartes led Cartesian scholars (most notably Gilson and Espinas) to look for the traces of Berulle's influence on Cartesian metaphysics.26 Jean Dagens even saw the existence of a

23. This sentence comes from Berulle's papers held at Archives Nationales # M. 233. Cited by Espinas: 1906, 273. 24. "Le Cardinal n'eut pas de peine a comprendre l'importance du dessein; et Ie jugeant tres propre pour l'executer, il employa l'autorite qu'il avait sur son esprit pour Ie porter a entreprendre ce grand ouvrage. 11 lui fit entendre qu'ayant rerru de Dieu une force et une penetration d'esprit avec des lumieres sur cela qu'il n'avait point accordees a d'autres, il lui rendrait un compte exact de l'emploi de ses talents, et serait responsable devant ce juge souverain des hommes du tort qu'il ferait au genre humain en Ie privant du fruit de ses meditations. 11 alIa meme jusqu'a l'assurer qu'avec des intentions aussi pures, et une capacite d'esprit aussi vaste que celIe qu'il lui connaissait, Dieu ne manquerait pas de benir son travail, et de Ie combler de tout Ie succes qu'il en pourrait attendre" Baillet: 1946, 73-74. The confirmation of the meeting can be found in the annales of the Oratory: "En 1628 Ie cardinal de Berulle ayant rencontre M. Descartes chez Ie nonce Bagui l'ex­horta a faire part au public de ses idees philosophiques et depuis lui fit faire connais­sance avec plusieurs peres de l'Oratoire qui devinrent ses disciples zeles et c'est la comme on voit l'origine bien plus ancienne que l'on ne croit du cartesianisme dans l'Oratoire." Archives Nationales MM 624 fol. 18v. Cited after Ferrier: 1976, vol. I, 120. In the letter to Mersenne of November 1640 (AT m, 234) Descartes made an allusion to this meeting: "Je suis bien aise que M. Ie Cardinal de Bagui se souvienne encore de moi; illui fudra envoyer rna Metaphysique lorsqu'elle sera imprime ... " 25. Baillet: 1946,83. 26. To demonstrate the agreement between Descartes and Gibieuf, Gilson (1913) drew pa­rallels between Berulle and Gibieuf to apply to Descartes. Most recently Berulle's thought in relation to Descartes' philosophy, and more precisely to Descartes' doctrine of the eternal truths, was subject to devastating analysis by Jean-Luc Marion. For example: "Ainsi Descartes, dans ses trois theses contre Ie paradigme solaire, Ie concept d'emanation et l'exemplarisme, prend position contre des theses theologiques de Berulle, avec une precision, une coherence et une reussite remarquables. II faut en conclure que, du moins sous Ie rapport qui seul nous occupe ici, l'horizon theoretique de la doctrine des verites eternelles, Descartes non seulement s'oppose a Berulle, mais par son biais rompt avec toute la lignee dionysienne et augustinienne, redoublant ainsi sa premiere rupture avec la lignee thomiste (ou ce que Suarez en avait laisse voir).

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"preestablished harmony between the thought of Berulle and that of Descartes."27 Although Dagens' conclusion rests on weak foundations, Descartes' correspondence reveals that he strongly believed that of all the Catholic religious orders, the Oratorians were his intellectual allies. Thus in 1641, Descartes turned to Guillaume Gibieuf for help to obtain approbation for his Meditations from the Faculty of Theology at the Sorbonne. Descartes counted on Gibieufs help on the grounds of philo­sophical affinities, or it would be more proper to say, what Descartes himself thought their respective conceptions had in common.

In 1630, Gibieuf published De Libertate Dei et creaturae. The publi­cation of this book made a commotion among Jesuit Fathers, some of whom later played a crucial role in furthering the condemnation of the doctrine of Jansenius. The polemics around Gibieufs book continued for a long time and engaged the best polemicists among the Jesuits and the Oratorians. Although neither Gibieuf nor his book are remembered today, in the period preceding the publication of the Meditations, De Libertate Dei was one of the most important, if not the most important book written by the seventeenth-century Augustinian before the publication of Augustinus.

The conflict between the Jesuits and the Augustinians might at first glance appear to concern very technical theological questions - predes­tination and salvation, the relation between God's grace and human free­dom, divine sovereignty and human liberty, contrition and attrition, etc. The heart of the controversy, however, was about the form of Christian life, and that is how it was perceived by the Augustinians. In 1619, Berulle founded the congregation of the Oratory in Paris, "a theological power-house, "28 as it was aptly called. The principle goal of the Oratory was the renewal of the state of the priesthood and making the Christian message known everywhere.29 Within just a few years Berulle managed to found several chapters of the Oratory in France. The principal theologi­cal source of inspiration for the Oratorians became St. Augustine, who was, surprisingly enough, little known first-hand at that time even by the

Berulle joue donc un role decisif dans l'itineraire de pensee de Descartes, mais comme un adversaire, d'autant plus difficile a vaincre, que, contrairement a Suarez, son intention reste parfaitement theologique." Marion: 1981, 152. Cf. 140-160. 27. Dagens: 1952,253. Cf. Gilson: 1913, 162-175; Espinas: 1906,273. 28. Brockliss: 1987,29. 29. "Une Congregation de pretres vivant en societe desquels Ie principal but filt de tendre Ii la perfection de l'etat de pretrise selon son ancien usage et institution: instruire Ie peuple taut en la ville qu'es faubourges d'icelle et d'autres villes du diocese en la doc­trine de Jesus-Christ..." (Annales de l'Oratoire, "letters patentes," p. 8, Archives Nationales, MM 623, quoted by Bachelier: 1934,5-6); and: "C'est pour recueillir cette grace du ciel, pour recevoir cet esprit de Notre Seigneur Jesus-Christ, notre grand pretre, pour vivre et operer sous sa conduite et pour la conserver a la posterite que nous sommes assembles en ce lieu et cette forme de vie qui commence" (quoted by Bremond: 1925, vol. III, 157). See also Turme1: 1904, ch. VII; Kolakowski: 1969, ch. VI; Gouhier: 1954.

The Meditations as Theodicy 33

doctors of the Sorbonne.3o The rising popularity of the Augustinian doc­trine was primarily due to dissatisfaction with the so-called "theologie speculative" of the Scholastics in favor of the so-called "theologie posi­tive" or "theologie mystique." According to the Catholic reformers, Scholasticism encouraged vain speculations without the real concern for salvation.

The circumstances in which De Libertate was published and its later vicissitudes strongly suggest that it was an Oratorian manifesto sponsored by Cardinal Berulle himself. The influence exercised by Berulle on others is a phenomenon in itself and it seems that much of what the Parisian Oratory stood for, as· well as the intellectual common front that the Oratorian Fathers represented, can be attributed to the extraordinary personality and the sense of politics of its founder. The question is to what extent Gibieuf can be considered to be the real author of the main theses included in the De Libertate Dei and to what extent they represent the anti-Molinist ideology of the Oratory and its founder.

Around 1624, Berulle intended to provide for the Congregation an orthodox theological alternative to Molinism, by which he must have meant a critique of the freedom of indifference championed by the Jesuit theologians. Initially, Berulle employed for the task Father Robert Philips (d. 1647), whom he considered to be best qualified.31 In 1625, however, Philips had to leave for England, so Berulle commissioned Gibieuf to write it. The Cardinal seems to have been in the habit of solic­iting works from the members of his Congregation. In 1619, he had asked Gibieuf to write Memoire servant d'Eclaircissement aux vreux de servitude a Jesus et a sa sainte Mere, which Gibieuf completed in 1620, but never published.32 In tum, before Claude Bertin set out for Rome, Berulle, who was well acquainted with politics in the Eternal City, advised him to inform the theologians there that the French Oratorians uphold the doctrine of St. Thomas on grace. There is no question that Berulle was the main figure in the affairs of the Oratory. In all likelihood he set the Augustinian line in De Libertate Dei, and probably even supplied some of the specific ideas contained therein.33

The publication of De Libertate Dei seems to have been very well thought out. After Gibieuf completed writing De Libertate Dei in 1629, Berulle sent the book to Rome to Cardinal Nicolas Riccardini, O.P., to have it approved by Pope Urban VIII. However, because the bull De

30. According to Lancelot (1738, vol. I, 9), a certain doctor of the Sorbonne, in 1635, admitted that he had never read st. Augustine. 31. See Tabaraud: 1817, vol. 2,179-80. 32. The manuscript is in the Archives Nationales, # M. 234. For details, see Ferrier: 1994, 55. 33. There is no agreement among the historians as to the actual influence of Berulle on Gibieuf. For example, according to Jean Orcibal (1965, 145, fotnote 48), "ll est difficile de savoir jusqu'ou s'etendait l'approbation donnee par Ie general au De Libertate du P. Gibieut"; according to Francis Ferrier (1976, vol. I, 96), who devoted the most thorough study to Gibieuf "[Gibieuf] reconait que ce quIll expose est la doctrine meme du cardi­nal de BeruIle."

34 Cartesian Theodicy

Auxiliis (1607) issued by Pope Paul V, and reconfinned by Urban VIII (1625), forbade the theologians any discussions concerning the question of grace, it could not receive the papal imprimatur34 despite the fact that the book was very much liked by the Pope who "would take it to his room for reading."3s During his stay in Rome, Bertin sent Gibieuf the saying of Pope Clement VIII (d. 1605) - recorded by a French Benedictine, Le Bossu (d. 1626), a consultant to the Congregation De Auxiliis - in which the Pope repeated after St. Augustine (whose opin­ions, as the Holy Father states "the Church inherited and conserves") that man is not free unless he is liberated by grace. The idea of "ampli­tude" (the absence of limitations on man in confonning to divine will), which Gibieuf makes use of throughout his work, was taken from De libero arbitrio and De praedistinatione by the sixteenth century Cardinal Gaspard Contarini, the Master of the Sacred Palace. Bertin gave these two works to Riccardini for reading.36 Although De Libertate did not re­ceive the papal imprimatur, the Oratorians came up with the best strat­egy possible in the given circumstances. De Libertate Dei was dedicated to the Pope. At the beginning of the book, there are references to Contarini and Riccardini and to Pope Clement VII's words.37 Finally, in

34. On November 9, 1629, Bertin wrote to Gibieuf: "Le Maitre du Sacre-Palais m'a dit qu'il avait r~u grand secours de ce livre et que, sur cette matiere, il n'a rien vu de meil­leur. II me dit que, comme docteur particulier, il pouvait bien vous donner l'approbation que vous desiriez, mais qu'il ne Ie pouvait en qualite de maitre du Sacre-Palais, It cause d'un decret de la Congregation du Saint-Office, rendu sous Paul V et confrrme par Sa Saintete en 1625 qui lui lie les mains" (Orcibal: 1947-62, vol. 1,446). 35. Correspondance of Bertin, Archives Nationales #M 234. (Cited by Ferrier: 1994,59). 36. See Bertin's letter to Gibieuf, 15 June 1626. Dagens: 1939, vol. III, 199. 37. "VERBA CLEMENTIS VII Pont. Max. ad Congregationem de Auxiliis nuncupatam: quibus, in hac praefertum materia, doctrinae D. Augustini inhaerendum decernit: simu1que suam in hac re sententiam indicat (the right margin reads: Relata a Domino Ie Bossu ... )

Qvamvis nemeni nisi Deo, rationem reddere debearn mearum actionum; dicam tamen impraesentiarum, rationes propter quas adstringere statui, totam hanc disputtionem, ad normam doctrinae sancti Augustini de Gratia.

Prima est: quod si teste Beato Prospero fere initio libri contra Coll~torem, viginti annorum spatio, acies Ecc1esiae ita dimicavit pro Gratia contra Pelagianos, ut tandem Augustino duce vicerit; oportet etiam ut in causa simili, eumdem ducem agnoscamus & sequamur. Secunda est: quod idem Sanctus, nihil videtur prataerminisse, eorum quae ad praesentes controversias pertinent: quandoquidem si agitur de necessitate Gratiae; eam describit dicens, esse necesse ut nos preveniat, comitetur, & sequatur: si de vi, asserit vires efficacissime praebere voluntati: si de effectis, testatur facere de nolente volentem. Si de modo, asserit Deum id facere omnipotentissima facilitate. Denique sic dissoluit obiectiones, ut doceat liberum arbitrium non tantum bene cum illa Gratia quam defendit, cohearere; sed etiam fieri liberius, quando ab illa suerit 1iberatum. Tertia tandem ratio est: quod cum multi Pontifices Praedecessores nostri, doctrina S. Augustini de Gratia, tam acres fuerint assertores ac vindices, ut quasi hereditario iure earn in Ecc1esia relinqui voluerint, eaqum non est ut ut patiar illam hac quasi haereditate privari. Seque id nunquam passurum, asseveranter affrrmavit: & ita mansit fixus in hac resolutione, ut in omnibus sequentibus disputationibus, ad singula pene dubia quae probonebantur

The Meditations as Theodicy 35

the preface, Gibieuf states that he wrote this book at Berulle's direct re­quest (Variae me cause impulerunt, Beatissime Pater, ut hos Opus de Libertate Dei & Creaturae, Sanctitati Tuae nuncuparem. Primum enim idiussit non semel, Parens optimus Carinalis Berullius... qUi Tibi & Sanctatae Sedi diditissimus foit). Considering Berulle's position as the Superior of the Oratoire, this statement designates Berulle as the intellec­tual and spiritual sponsor of the enteIprise, and implies that De Libertate Dei is the Oratory's theologico-philosophical manifesto. According to Albert de Meyer, who analyzed in detail the reaction Gibieufs book pro­voked, the Fathers of the Oratory considered the opposition to Gibieuf to be an enteIprise mounted by the Jesuits against the whole Oratory.38

De Libertate Dei was published in 1630. The objectives of this work are to reject the false conception of the "freedom of indifference" and to establish the Augustinian thesis of God's liberty. The subtitle of the book reads ''juxta doctrinam D. AUGUSTINI, D. Thomae, D. Bonavetnturae, D. Scoti, Gandaunensis, Durandi, aliorumque veterum Theologorum."39 The name of St. Augustine stands out; it is printed in capital letters and occupies one whole line, thus giving the great Father of the Church (whom Gibieuf quotes throughout the book) an exclusive place among the rest. The practice of presenting one's position as Thomistic was not uncommon among the Oratorians and it is possible that Gibieuf put the names of other doctors next to that of St. Augustine merely for tactical purposes. 40 Although there are numerous references to St. Thomas (especially to his De Malo) in the book, it was still too Augustinian for the Jesuits to swallow its contents. "I would not at all be sUIprised," Jansenius wrote about the book, "if the doctors were to foray against the book of the Seminarist [Oratorian Gibieut]."41 And although Jansenius had certain reservations about the book on the grounds that it was too

disputanda, postularet: An articuli excerpti ex Molinae doctrina, essent apud sanctum Augustinum, aut secundum doctrinam & mentem illius." 38. Meyer: 1919,36. 39. In his Eugenii Philadelphi Romani, 228, Fran~ois Annat did not fail to comment on Gibieuf's use of the authorities: "[U]bi vides, Optime Lector, ex tota theologorum rebublica Quinque viros omnino sibi delegisse quorum testimonio niteretur; totidem ex omnibus philosophorum familijis: ex Patrubus antiquis unum, unum item ex nuperis: ad extremum D. Thomae discipulos." 40. According to Ferrier (1976, 52-53), "quand Gibieuf titre Ie De Libertate iuxta doctrinam Sancti Augustini, D. Thomae, D. Bonaventurae, Scoti, Gandavensis (Henri de Gand), Durand, Ii part ces deux derniers noms qui relevent de la pure scholastique, on peut dire qu'il se rec1ame d'une ligne 'transmise et enrichie par S. Augustin, Denys, Hugues de Saint Victor, Saint Bernard, Saint Bonaventure, les Rheno-Flamands, Marsile Ficin (qu'il nomme au moins une fois), et qu'on peut appeler la ligne mystique de l'amour extatique. Car il ne faut pas se meprendre sur Ie titre du De Libertate, il s'agit moins de theorie de la liberte ou les controverses thomistico-molinistes amusent la ga­lerie, que du'une defense du voeu de servitude, cher Ii Berulle, mis en forme metaphy­sique. Seul un docteur de SOIbonne de la c1asse de Gibieuf pouvait realiser cette perfor­mance." 41. Letter to Saint-Cyran of 5 April 1630. Orcibal: 1947-62, 456. For details of anti­Molinism of Gibieuf's account, see Batterel: 1971, vol. 1,239-244.

36 Cartesian Theodicy

philosophical,42 he thought it contained good things and promised Saint­Cyran to give it a "moderate approbation."43

Soon after the book's publication, Gibieuf was attacked by two main spokesmen of the Society of Jesus. In 1632, Fran~ois Annat (1590-1670), confessor to Louis XUI, relentless critic of the Jansenists and ar­chitect of the "Five Propositions" that led to the condemnation of the doctrine of St. Augustine by the Papacy, published a malicious response to Gibieufs theses, Eugenii Philadelphi Romani exercitatio scholastica tripartita. Another Jesuit theologian and polemicist, Theophile Raynaud, the author of the famous pamphlet Calvinismus bestiarum religio, in the massive book Nova Libertatis explicatio (published anonymously in November, 1632, and later condemned by the Holy Office) accused Gibieuf of apostasy and Calvinism.44 Calvinism, Raynaud argues, is the religion of the beasts: it denies man liberty and thus likens him to ani­mals. Also Philip Chalmers (known under his Latin name as Camerarius), the man originally commissioned to write the book, and who was as much an object of Raynaud's attack as Gibieuf,45 responded in 1634 with a book dedicated to Riccardini, Antiquitatis de novitate victoria... contra impetitiones pseudo Eugenii Phi/adelphi Romani. Finally in 1634, a Capucin, Louis Dola, attacked Gibieufs thesis on the cooperation of God with human actions.46 Despite their attempts to censure De Libertate, the Jesuits never succeeded in getting Gibieufs book put on the index; they seem, however, to have managed to keep it from being reprinted.47

What gave rise to the Jesuits' panicked reaction against Gibieufs book? The explanation should be sought in what the Augustinians and Molinists considered respectively to be the essence of human freedom. According to Gibieuf, who is concerned whether the liberty of indiffer­ence in man is absolute, or, in other words, whether it belongs to the essence of human freedom (Hic duae quaestiones emergunt: una, utrum indifferentia libertatis sit indifferentia absoluta ad agendum & non agendum48 ), or whether the liberty of indifference is only "conditional and tempered" by the its end (Dico 1. Indifferentia quae spectat ad liberum arbitrium creaturae, non est indifferentia absoluta ad agendum & non agendum, sed indifferentia conditionata & temperata per respectum ad jinem ... 49). Hence, Gibieuf concludes - and here he repeats

42. Letter to Saint-Cyran of 21 September 1629 (Orcibal: 1947-62,437). 43. Letter to Saint-Cyran of21 September 1629 (Orcibal: 1947-62,438). 44. For Raynauld's attack on Gibieuf, see Th. Raynaudi Opera, XVIII, 9-14. Cf. Batterel: 1971, vol. I, 249ff, and 261-70. 45. The subtitle of Annat's book (325-364) reads: n[C]um Appendice ad Guillelmum Camerarium Scotum Appendix: ad Camerarium.n Much of the contents of chapter III is devoted to the criticism of Chalmers. 46. See Hurter: 1892, vol. II, 256. Cf. Meyer: 1919,40. 47. Batterel: 1971, vol. 1,245. 48. De Libertate, 68. 49. De Libertate, 68-69.

The Meditations as Theodicy 37

St. Augustine verbatim - the more man becomes subject to God's will, the more free he is.

The freedom of indifference, however, was not discussed in a vac­uum. It pertains to the most fundamental theological problem: Can man not sin without divine grace? According to St. Augustine and his seven­teenth-century followers,50 human will after the Fall of the First Couple is totally corrupt and cannot do any good; it can incline itself only to­ward evil. Hence it follows that if man was to count only on his own re­sources in trying to do good, he would deserve eternal damnation. In other words, as a result of Original Sin, we are entirely at God's mercy, and in so far as man is capable of doing good, it is in fact not man who does good but God who works in man and through man. Whatever good man is capable of is thus a result of God's grace. But there is another question: can divine grace be resisted? The answer of St. Augustine and his followers is: no. God's grace works in man with the power of necessity and cannot be resisted. Because the opposite of freedom is not necessity but compulsion (vis externa), there is no conflict between God's imposi­tion of grace and human freedom. "The more human will is subject to divine grace," St. Augustine claims, "the more free it is" (Voluntas libera tanto liberior quanto divinae granae subjector51 ). Human freedom lies in man's submission to God's will. For the most part Gibieuf does nothing but reiterate or cite St. Augustine. 52

The controversy between the Molinists and the Augustinians can easily be translated into philosophical language: If God's freedom is abso­lute, what is the nature and extent of human freedom? Gibieufs answer is the following: God does not tend toward any end in order to be free. He is not subject to anything higher than Himself, He is not dependent on any principle (QUia enim Deus nec finem habet, nec principium, ac nullum proinde superiorem cuius directioni subdatur: ideo cum agit, ut a principio nullo dependet, ita nec ad finem tendi(53 ). God is indifferent; in fact, His indifference is absolute (ejus indifJerenna ad agendum & non agendum, creandum, & sit indifJerentia absoluta, non autem ex conditione & pront finis ordo postulaveri(54). Thus God's liberty consists, first and foremost, in His absolute sovereignty which, note well, 'Stems from God's perfect unity (Deus autem plane un us est, imo Unum ipsum est... Unum omnem omnino vel taneum divisionis umbram eliminas, quod proinde cUiquam subjici omnino repugnat; quae est summa et

50. See, for example, De Condren's Sentiment du R. P. de Condren, second general de l'Oratoire, touchant l'impuissance et la faiblesse de la nature pour faire Ie bien. Biblioteque Sainte-Genevieve. M 3209 (Y-f-in-80. 7), 62. 5l. St. Augustine, Letter 89. 52. De Libertate, iii: "Hanc autem explicandi rationem ex D. Augustini liquidissimis fontibus manifeste defluere, qui Libertatem tat majorem affmnat, quanto divinae Gratiae subjectior fuerit: qui magnam docet esse libertatem, quando possumus non peccare, maximam vero cum ne peccare quidem possumus: proms Deo subjecti." 53. De Libertate, 69. 54. De Libertate, 69.

38 Cartesian Theodicy

perfecta libertas55). God is not moved to action by any end in view (Deus non movetur ad agendum a Fine, etiam Seipso56); He is limited neither by place nor by nature. In short, God is free because nothing, absolutely nothing, can direct, limit, or oppose Him.57 Man, on the contrary, is free in so far as he does God's will.

As for Molina's conception of human freedom, it is the power to "act or not act, or do something or its opposite, and this faculty of act­ing or of doing something or its opposite when all that is required for acting is given is called liberty."58 From this it follows that if man is ca­pable of doing good out of his own resources (and man is so capable be­cause God's grace even if necessary is distributed equally), he can also be indifferent with respect to the choice between good and evil, right and wrong, and truth and falsity.

Jansenius, his reservations about Gib~eufs book on the ground that it is "too philosophical" notwithstanding, considered the Oratorian's criti­cism of the freedom of indifference to be its most valuable part. "The true liberty of the liberum arbitrium known by the ancient authors," Jansenius says in his approbation, "does not consist in this philosophical indifference to act as it is commonly proclaimed. This book demon­strates this with numerous and solid reasons, and it refutes the defenders of the contrary opinions."59 In his Augustinus, Jansenius gives a much more severe and elaborate criticism of the freedom of indifference than does Gibieuf, and there seems to be very little in De Libertate Dei et Creaturae as far as the criticism of the freedom of indifference is con­cerned that is not in Augustinus. In 1630, however, Gibieufs book was the first philosophical work (unlike Augustinus, which is strictly theolog­ical) to take an open stance against the Molinists.

The significance of Gibieufs De Libertate Dei in the growing conflict between the Augustinians and the Molinists might not have been imme-

55. De Libertate, 291. 56. De Libertate, 291. 57. For an extensive summruy of Gibieuf's conception of God, see Ferrier: 1987, 164-70. 58. Molina: 1935, 207: "Altero modo potest accipi, ut opponitur necessitati, quo modo id liberum dicimus, quod positis requisitis ad agendum in potestate ipsius habet agere aut non agere, aut agere hoc aut oppositum; facultasque ilia agendi et non agendi aut agendi hoc aut oppositum positis omnibus requisitis ad agendum appellatur libertas." 59. The full text of the approbation reads: "Veram arbitrii Libertatem antiquis Scriptoribus notam, non esse sitam in ilia Philosophica indifferentia agendi, quae vulgo praedicatur, multis praeclaris et solidis rationibus hic liber astruit et adversae opinionis defensores confutat. Et quia non modo eruditionem, sed etiam pietatem Auctoris sui testamentum fecit, et Lectoris provocat, dum animum creaturarum visco et nexibus expediendum docet, ut asseratur in libertatem gloriae filiorum Dei; merito omne tulisse punctum dici potest: quia Dei simul et hominis consuluit dignitati." Cornelius Iansenius, S., Thologiae Doctor ac Professor Ordinarius, In Universitate Louvanevsi (13 December 1629). Besides Jansenius' approbation, Gibieuf's book received approbation from Martin Meurisse, Chastellain, Eustache de Saint Paul, P. Coppin, Matthieu Doles, and Martineau. Note, however, that Jansenius discusses the content of the book, while the others employ standard formulas.

The Meditations as Theodicy 39

diately apparent after its publication. Read after the publication and through the prism of Augustinus, however, Gibieuf's theses appeared to be closer and closer to that of the "horrible heresy" of Jansenius.60 F()r example, in 1630, Isaac Habert wrote about De Libertate in his approba­tion:

I, the undersigned, doctor of the Sorbo nne, priest, canon, and a theologian of the Church of Paris, after reading the book by Father Gibieuf, De Libertate Dei et Creaturae, feel obliged to praise it, finding therein noth­ing that I could censure. It seemed to me full of piety and erudition ... [the author] falls short of nothing that Saint Paul thought necessruy for an ec­clesiastic writer ... If one considers the style, the manner of writing is beau­tiful and noble; if one considers the depth of the doctrine and the thoughts of the author, they are sublime and edifying ... Nothing of the subtleties of the School escapes him; it seems that his knowledge of its doctrine is per­fect... In a word, this is a work that deserves eternity, that will have the approbation of all and from which all will benefit.61

After Habert engaged himself in the anti-Jansenist campaign, Gibieufs theses appeared to him in a different light. De Libertate, he states in La Defense de la Foy de l'Eglise (1644), "contains the principal points of the doctrine of Monsieur d'Ypre [Jansenius]." A Jesuit writer, Father de Colonia, the author of Bibliotheque janseniste, called Gibieufs book heresie propre, apparently to suggest that Gibieufs views are as perni­cious as those of Jansenius. More recently, Jean Laporte even found in De Libertate two propositions that were later condemned in the Bull

60. Ferrier: 1987, 152. 61. The whole text of Habert's approbation is reprinted in Batterel: 1971, vol. I, 242-43. Habert's approbation never appeared in De Libertate, which means that he changed his mind very quickly. In La Defense de La Foy de L'Eglise ... , he returned to Gibieufs book in his attack on Father Sennond: "11 [Sennond] auroi appris par cette lecture, que Iansenius declare, qu'il n'est point de l'opinion du P .. Gibieuf, pour ce qui est de la liberte. Si bien qu'en approuvant Ie Livre du P. Gibieuf touchant la liberte, ie n'ay rien fait dont lansenius puisse tirer avantage." I have not come across any work that contains anything about the circumstances concerning the withdrawal by Habert of his approbation. In TheoLogiae Graecor[umJ. Patrum Vindicatae Circa Universam Materiam Gratiae (148), is the following explanation: "Assentur etiam Orthodoxi Latinorum Theologi liberum arbitrium creaturae cuicscumque rationalis esse versatile & flexibile ad bonum & ad malum, quam libertatem contrarietatis appellant: & ad agendum vel on agendum, quam vocant libertatem contradictionis, adduntque positam esse libertatis rationem in indifferentia quadam, sed activa, qua homo potest ab intrinseco & ex propria virtute sese determinare ad bene vel male agendum, vel non agendum. Ignorabam doctrina huic contrariam haereseos etiam nota inustam suisse a Facultate Parisiendi donec illius Censura Anni 1560. lun 27. nuper in lucem prodiit. PROPOSITIO. Liberum arbitrium hominis non habet potestatem ad opposita, nec iLli convenit ea potestas ex ipsius naturali & intrinsecaratione. CENSURA Prima pars huius propositionis est haeretica: Secunda est faLsa & erronea & morali Philosophiae adversa. Scio Doctores aliquos vt P. Gibiefum & D. Iansenium Yprensem oppositam sententiam amplexos. Illius, ego probabilem aliquando sententiam iunior Theologus iudicabam; iudicium istud vero emendare ac retractare, post Facultatis matris meae agnitum Decretum ... " (148).

40 Cartesian Theodicy

Unigenitus (1713) as the heretical propositions of Pasquel Quesnel.62 As late as 1666, there appeared an author who apparently felt an urgent need to get engaged in this controversy that had begun more than three decades earlier, and he attacked one of Gibieuf's critics.63 The last attack against Gibieuf's book took place in 1734 when Father Duchesne, S.1., published his L'Histoire du Bafanisme.

The publication of De Libertate Dei in 1630 can be said to be a phase in the long battle between the Molinists and the Augustinians over the freedom of indifference that begun with the incident at Louvain in 1587 and ended with the condemnation of the "Five Propositions" in 1653. In 1641, however, when the Molinist Jesuits were busy reading the monu­mental Augustinus, the polemics around De Libertate Dei were still fresh in the memory of the French theologians and Guillaume Gibieuf was considered to be the principle critic of the freedom of indifference, the advocate of the idea of the simplicity of God's nature and God's absolute freedom.

After the appearance of Gibieuf's book, every subsequent publica­tion, on each side of the fighting camps, narrowed the room for intellec­tual maneuvering. In 1641, there were essentially only two options: the Molinist position, followed by the majority of the Jesuits, and the Augustinian, adhered to by the Oratorians, Benedictines, Dominicans, and by the future Jansenists.

Is God Indifferent? Descartes and Gibieuf What do the subtle theological quibbles that divided the Catholic Church in the first half of the seventeenth century have to do with Descartes' philosophy? Descartes was not a theologian, he did not want to meddle with theology, and he did everything to avoid taking an open stance in the conflict between the two fighting parties, which, despite papal de­crees, continued for several decades. Nevertheless, the liberum arbitrium is a vital notion in Descartes' explication of the origin and nature of er­ror, and Descartes could not remain an impartial observer as .much as he desired to stay clear of these debates. For all we know and are in a posi­tion to demonstrate, Descartes' intellectual sympathies were on the side

62. Laporte: 1923, 418-426, 432-438. Cf. Orcibal: 1954, 57. The propositions are the following: # 10. Gratia est operatio manus omipotentis Dei, quam nihil impedire potest aut retardare (Grace is the working of the omnipotent hand of God, which nothing can hinder and retard); # 11. Gratia non est aliud quam voluntas omnipotens Dei iubentis et jacientis, quod iubet (Grace is nothing else than the omnipotent Will of God, ordering and doing what He orders). 63. P. Vincent Baron, O. P. (1604-1674) published a response to Raynaud's book, Sanctorum Augustini et Thomae vera et una mens de libertate humana et gratia divina explicatur et scholae thomistica assertitur adversus duos Theophili Raynaudi libros, aliosque hujus aetatis melioris notae theologos, where he also defends the opinions of Jansenius (18-21). See Meyer: 1919,38, footnote 3.

The Meditations as Theodicy 41

of the Augustinian Oratorians not only because of personal connections but also as a result of his philosophical assumptions.

In 1630, Mersenne informed Descartes about the publication of Gibieufs book and summarized its contents.

As for the liberty of God, Descartes responded, 1 completely share the view that you tell me was expounded by Father Gibieuf I did not know that he had published anything, but I will try to have his treatise sent from Paris as soon as possible so that I can see it. I am pleased that my opinions co­incide with his, because that assures me at least that they are not too ex­travagant since they are upheld by able men.64

That same year in a series of letters to Mersenne (of which the above quoted is one), Descartes elaborated upon the most controversial doc­trine in his entire corpus - the doctrine of divine freedom, or, as it is commonly called, the doctrine of eternal truths. The fundamental point of this doctrine is the following: Not only is God the creator of the exis­tence of things, but also He is the creator of their essences. Accordingly, if 2+ 3 = 5, or, if all the radii of a circle are equal, it is not because there is something intrinsically or absolutely necessary in the nature of math­ematical objects, but only because God created them to be such.

In 1641, the doctrine of eternal truths amazed Pierre Gassendi. It also startled the theologians who wrote the Sixth Set of Objections to the Meditations. The theologians quickly realized that the doctrine which appeared to concern purely epistemological problems stemmed from an entirely new conception of God: if the there is nothing intrinsically nec­essary in the nature of mathematical objects, God is not bound by any norms of rationality and morality as we know them. Consequently, His nature is completely unintelligible to the human mind. Although Descartes never explicitly set out this doctrine in the Meditations, during the exchange with the theologians, however, he was forced to state in clear terms what his conception of God is. Descartes' response is as sim­ple as it is straightforward: God is not and cannot be limited by anything; no rules or norms can frustrate His will. If the eternal truths werf1 inde­pendent of God, there would be limits to His freedom. To think that the sovereign Creator is obligated to respect any norms that appear neces­sary to us, is to liken Him to the ancient gods who were subject to the Fates. God not only is but also must be indifferent to any truths or norms. The freedom of indifference that belongs to the essence of God, is, how­ever, a "defect in man." Man is truly free when he is necessitated to act: either as a result of divine grace, or as a result of the clear and distinct perceptions that propel him to pursue the true and the good.

In 1641, eleven years after receiving Mersenne's first letter concerning Gibieufs book and just a few months before the publication of

64. Letter to Mersenne, 27 May 1630 (AT I, 153; CSMK III, 26; emphasis Z.J.).

42 Cartesian Theodicy

the Meditations, Descartes returned agam to the topic m a letter to Mersenne:

I wrote [in the Fourth Meditation] that indifference in our case is rather a defect than a perfection of freedom; but it does not follow that the same is the case with God. Nevertheless, I do not know that it is 'an article of faith' to believe that he is indifferent, and I feel confident that Father Gibieuf will defend my position well on this matter; for I wrote nothing, that is not in accord with what he said in his book De libertate.65

The two letters indicate that Descartes had not changed his views be­tween 1630, when he received the summary of Gibieufs book from Mersenne, and 1641, when he published the Meditations. Descartes' re­sponse in the first letter (As for the liberty of God, I completely share the view which you tell me was expounded by Father Gibieuj) is too general to draw any conclusions about the nature of the concordance between Descartes and Gibieuf, especially given that in 1630 Descartes had not read Gibieufs book, but knew about it only from Mersenne's summary. Descartes' response to Mersenne of 1630 (which includes his doctrine of divine liberty) plus his account of human freedom in Meditation Four in 1641, do, however, show why Descartes might have thought of Gibieuf as an ally in his war against the Jesuits - an ally influential enough to be instrumental in his plans to obtain the approbation of the Sorbonne for his Meditations. 66

65. To Mersenne, 21 April 1641 (AT III, 360; CSMK III, 179; emphasis Z.J.). In his biography Baillet (1946, 87) notes that "La publication du livre de P. Gibieuf, touchent la liberte de Dieu et de la creature, OU il eut Ie plaisir de trouver de quoi autoriser ce qu'il pensait de l'indifference et du libre arbitre." 66. "I thought that I might send you my treatise [the Meditations] in manuscript for you to show to Father Gibieuf and that I might write to him myself to ask him to examine it. He will, unless I am much mistaken, be kind enough to approve it. You could also show it to a few others, as you judge fit. Once approved by three or four such people, it could be printed; and if you agree, I would dedicate it to all the masters of the Sorbonne, asking them to be my protectors in God's cause. For I must confess that the quibbles of Father Bourdain [against my Dioptrics-Z.J.] have made me determined to fortify myself henceforth with the authority of others, as far as I can, since truth by itself is so little es­teemed." Letter to Mersenne, 30 September 1640 (AT III, 184; CSMK III, 153). See also Descartes' letter to Gibieuf of 11 November 1640 (AT III, 237; CSMK III, 157).

It was assumed until recently that the approbation of the Sorbonne for the Meditations was never granted. Recently, Jean-Robert Armogathe convincingly argued on the basis of the existing documents that the Meditations did receive the approbation. See Armogathe: 1994. Four men served as the examiners of the Meditations: Chastelain, Potier, Hallier, and Comet. The hostile attitude of the latter two towards Jansenism is well-known. There is very little or almost no information about the other two. Ferrier (1994, 58) mentions that Bertin met "Chattelain of Paris" in Rome with whom he dis­cussed the final arrangements concerning Gibieufs book. The spelling of the name is different, but it is likely that Chattelain is the same person who was an examiner of the Meditations. See also Ferrier's remarks on the same question (1976, 125).

The Meditations as Theodicy 43

In his meticulous studies of Gibieufs thought, La pensee philosophique du Pere Guillaume Gibieuf and Un Oratorien ami de Descrates: Guillaume Gibieuf et sa philosophie de la liberte, Francis Ferrier exhaustively analyzes the connection between Descartes and Gibieuf. Why does man arrive at indifference, that is, a state of hesita­tion before making a decision? Gibieuf invokes man's habits, moral weaknesses, and attraction to what is easy.67 Gibieuf goes on to remark that the freedom of indifference is not an ideal of liberty; one needs to change one's habits and make an effort. Ferrier contrasts Gibieufs con­tention with the following passage from the Fourth Meditation:

What is more, even if I have no power to avoid error in the fIrst way just mentioned, which requires a clear perception of everything I have to delib­erate on, I can avoid error in the second way, which depends merely on my remembering to withhold judgment on any occasion when the truth of the matter is not clear. Admittedly, I am aware of a certain weakness in me, in that I am unable to keep my attention fIxed on one and the same item of knowledge at all times; but by attentive and repeated meditation 1 am nev­ertheless able to make myself remember it as often as the need arises, and thus get into the habit of avoiding error.68

In other words, where the Oratorian recommends "effort," Descartes proposes a rule of holding on to the truth firmly once one catches sight of it. Gibieufs constant reminder to "adhere to God" (a Berullian leitmo­tiv par excellence, as Ferrier stresses) is similar to Descartes' idea of rec­tifying a judgment. Furthermore, Gibieufs notion of unlimited human will - which reminds us of the passage in the Fourth Meditation in which Descartes talks about the ample will - comes from De Libero Arbitrio by the sixteenth-century Cardinal Gaspar Contarini.

As intelligence is very ample because it understands everything. The will itself is also very ample and extends itself towards all the kinds of good and the universal Good itself ... A spontaneous human will ... unconfined

67. De Libertate, 272-73. Cf. Ferrier: 1976, vol. II, 13. Descartes most likely took two other points from Gibieuf. The idea of evil as privation, which Gibieuf took from St. Augustine and describes as the return to nothingness: "Ex parte principii, quia non qua capax Dei operatur, sed qua ad inferiorem gradum dec1inans propria defectibilitate & nihilo, unde nondum omnino emersit" (De Liberate, 271); also, the idea that perfection of creation should be looked at not from a perspective of a perfection of an individual part but from the perspective of creation as a whole: "Videlicet, etsi multa mala sint, relata ad creaturas et naturas earum, ad providentiam tamen comparata, omnia bona sunt, satem per modum medii, quia omnia ad bonum aliquod conferunt" (De Libertate, 441). Cf. St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae, la, Q. 48,2; St. Augustine, Enchiridion, 11, 95, 96, 99, 100. 68. Med. IV (AT VII, 61-62; CSM II, 43; emphasis Z.J.).

44 Cartesian Theodicy

by anything, but free and with no limits, stretches itself no less to any good as it does to the universal good.69

The above allows us to fonnulate a few general conclusions concern­ing the "agreement" between Descartes and Gibieuf. In the first of his three letters to Mersenne of 1630, Descartes writes: "In my treatise on physics I shall discuss a number of metaphysical topics and especially the following. The mathematical truths which you call eternal have been laid down by God and depend on him entirely no less than the rest of his creatures" (15 April 1630). Descartes elaborated this doctrine in his next letter of 27 May. We know that Descartes learned about Gibieufs book from Mersenne's letter, which was written sometime between 15 April and 27 May 1630. Mersenne infonns Descartes about De Libertate, in which Gibieuf presents his own conception of the unity of God's nature, after receiving Descartes' letter of 15 April~ where Descartes talks about God's unlimited freedom and the unity of His nature. Thus Gibieuf cannot have influenced Descartes. Nor can he have influenced Descartes' con­ception of human freedom. Although there is no criticism of the free­dom of indifference in any of the three letters of 1630, nor in the Discourse on Method, we must bear in mind that Descartes' conception of human freedom is the reverse (and the logical consequence) of his conception of divine liberty. His silence on this point should not be seen as implying that he did not have a clear position on the subject. In working out the doctrine of divine freedom in 1630, he must also worked out a clear position on human freedom.

To be sure, Descartes' account of human freedom in the Fourth Meditation remains one of the least elaborated upon and vague of all Descartes' official writings. It can be boiled down to two main points: first, that grace does not diminish freedom and, second, that indifference of the will is the cause of deception and sin.1° Although the remarks con­cerning the freedom of indifference do not go beyond these two points, the intellectual climate in 1641 was such that even the slightest criticism could be enough for the Molinists to consider it as an attack on their po­sition. As Boyce Gibson aptly remarks, "by his deliberate and I almost un­necessary allusion to 'divine grace,' and by his use of the technical tenn,

69. The whole fragment quoted by Gibieuf (De Libertate, 44) reads: "Cum, inquit [Contarini in tractatu De Libero arbitrio], hominis voluntas facultas quedam sit & appetendi vis quae intellectum sequitur & ad omnia se extendit ad que ipse se extendit intellectus, cumque intellectus \ ampLissimus sit quoniam intelligit omnia, voluntas etiam ipsa amplissima est, seseq~e ad omnia bonorum genera, atque ad Bonum ipsum universum extendit, quare praecdente cognitione in finem ut finis est fertur, & media quae sibi accommodata fini videntur, eligit. Spontanea ergo voluntate homo, proprio, neque ullo termino circumscripto, sed amplo, ac Libero movetur arbitrio, quod tum ad singulat um ad universum bonum extenditur." Gasparis Contareni Cardinalis, De Libero Arbitrio (1571, 599). I retained the original punctuation from Contarini's work, which was slightly changed by Gibieuf. 70. Med. IV (AT VII, 58; CSMll, 41).

The Meditations as Theodicy 45

'liberty of indifference,' which he could have easily avoided, Descartes here ranges himself with one of the parties to the bitterest of the con­temporary theological controversies. "71

Descartes' account of freedom has been a matter of prolonged dis­cussion among Cartesian scholars for several decades. The problem con­cerns certain incongruities between his account in the Fourth Meditation on the one hand, and his account in the letters to Denis Mesland, SJ., of 2 May 1644, and, especially of 9 February 1645, and also to some parts from the Principles of Philosophy, on the other. Some scholars have ar­gued that the two letters indicate that Descartes changed his view on the nature of human freedom between 1641 and 1644-45. Whether the two accounts are in fact irreconcilable is a matter of contention. Personally, I do not think Descartes ever changed his position. In 1644, when the balance of power between the Molinists and the Augustinians started changing in favour of the Molinists, and the Augustinian friends of Descartes began loosing to their opponents, Descartes probably realized that in so far as his philosophical position could be seen as coinciding with that of Gibieuf, open adherence to his original position in the Meditations could jeopardize the chances of propagating his philosophy in Jesuit colleges.72 Descartes knew perfectly well that his account in the

71. Gibson: 1932,333. Note, however, that Gibson is right for the wrong reasons. He has in mind Jansenism, which did not exist in 1641. 72. When in 1543 Ignatius of Loyola founded the Society of Jesus, the Order obligated itself to accept the theology of St Thomas as its official doctrine: "In theologia legetur vetus et Novum testamentum et doctrina scholastica D. Thomae." This rule was con­fIrmed by its General Claude Aquaviva, in a memorandum of June 18, 1613 (for the text, see Touron: 1737, 657-659). The Society was then joined to the Holy See. Unlike the Jesuit Order, the Oratory was joined to the prelates. The Oratorians were united by the love of piety and sciences, following the constitution of the primitive Church. "Only the rule of charity binds us," Bernard Lamy says in his Entretiens sur les sciences, 1768, 178. "If this bond is broken, we are no more." All those points are stressed by Bossuet in his funeral Oration in memory of Father Bourgoing, the third general of the Oratory (and the editor of Gibieufs writings). "It seems that the eulogy is a satirical tract against the Jesuits," states Bouiller (1868, vol. II, 6). "What Bossuet praises in the Oratory stands in direct opposition to the constitution of the Jesuit Order. The two Orders are no less opposed to each other in their respective constitutions, as in their spirit and their philosophical tendencies as well." (For the project of the Congregation designed by BeruIle and presented to the Archbishop of Paris, see Germain Habert: 1866,333).

It seems that the success of Descartes' philosophy among the Oratorians was rather accidental. The Oratory was founded in 1619, and in the years 1637-1641 the Oratory was entering only its third decade of existence. In terms of its educational infrastructure, it obviously could not compete with a hundred-year old Society of Jesus. Descartes was certainly right in thinking that if his philosophy was to replace Scholasticism, he must approach what was then the most powerful international educational institution (as op­posed to the Omtory, which was confmed to the French kingdom). The idea of publish­ing a text-book, such as The Principles of Philosophy (1644), that philosophy profes­sors could use in their courses was as cunning as it was naive. It was cunning precisely because Descartes realized that to succeed in replacing "the philosophy of Aristotle," one has to seize the minds of young philosophy students; it was naive precisely because as an educational Order, the Society of Jesus was by defmition suspicious of novelties in education.

46 Cartesian Theodicy

Fourth Meditation overlaps with some of Gibieuf's theses,73 and that it runs counter to the Molinist position advanced by the Jesuits. In 1641, when adherence to the Augustinian doctrine of freedom was, albeit not entirely safe, not all that exceptional either, Descartes could allow him­self some mild criticism of the freedom of indifference.74 By the early fourties, however, the situation had started to change. By then the Jesuits had read Jansenius' Augustinus. In 1643, Antoine Arnauld published his Jansenist manifesto, De la Jrequente communion. The war between the Molinists and the Augustinians had begun. Descartes' old allies embarked on the adventure whose outcome was uncertain. Descartes' criticism of the freedom of indifference was, however, mild enough that he could re­tract it if necessary. And that is what he seems to have done a few years later. In his letters to Denis Mesland, SJ., he maneuvers between what he wrote in the Meditations and what the current political climate required. However, the similarities between Descartes' conception of freedom and the Augustinian conception expounded by Gibieuf remain visible. In a let­ter to Mesland of 2 May 1644, Descartes writes:

But if we would know the immensity of His power we should not put these thoughts before our minds, nor should we conceive any precedence or priority between His intellect and His will; for the idea that we have of God teaches us that there is in Him only a single activity, entirely simple and entirely pure. This is well expressed by the words of St. Augustine: "They are so because thou see'est them to be so"; because in God seeing (videre) and willing (velle) are one and the same thing."75

If Descartes ever really succeeded in convincing the Jesuits, it was only when the Order almost completely lost its influence. When the Society was suppressed in Europe in 1762 (it continued to exist in Russia, where Catherine the Great had invited it), one cannot fmd among its ranks one well-known, let alone outstanding writer, with the ex­ception of the celebrated convert into Cartesianism Father Andre. If one wishes to estab­lish a symbolic temporal caesura for the success of Descartes' philosophy among the Jesuits, there are two dates: 1741, the hundreth anniversary of the publication of the Meditations, when Father Andre publishes the Essais sur Ie Beau; or, 1755, when the twenty-nine year old Jesuit Father Antoine Guenard is awarded fIrst prize by the French Academy in the essay-contest on the subject L'Esprit philosophique. In his essay Father Guenard includes a eulogy for Descartes for liberating philosophy from the yoke of the spirit of Aristotle and reintroducing the Christian spirit into philosophy (For the text of Father Antoine Guenard's eulogy and details of Father Andre's Cartesianism, see Cousin: 1843, ccxxiv-ccxxxvj). One should note that around the middle of the 18th century all the famous enemies of Descartes' philosophy are dead: Daniel (tI 728), Hardouin CtI 729), Bouffier (t1737), Tournemine (tI739), Baltus (tI 743). 73. Letter to Mersenne, 23 June 1641 (AT III, 385-86): "Pour ce que j'ai ecrit de la liberte, il est conforme a ce qu'en a aussi ecrit avant moi Ie R. Pere Gibieuf, et je ne crains pas qu'on m'y puisse rien objecter" (emphasis Z.J.). 74. According to Albert de Meyer (1919, 71), "Les theses de l'augustinisme sont tolerees en Sorbonne et soutenues par des oratoriens." Besides Gibieuf, Nicolas Y sam bert (1565-1642), a layman Augustinian, was at the Sorbonne. 75.ATIV,1l9;CSMKIII,235.

The Meditations as Theodicy 47

This fragment is an echo of Descartes' remark to Mersenne of 6 May 1630: "In God willing and knowing are a single thing in such a way that by the very fact of willing something he knows it and it is only for this reason that such a thing is true." To be sure, Descartes went much further than Gibieuf. From the fact that in God knowing and willing are one, Descartes drew the conclusion that the necessary truths were also created by God. There is no such doctrine in Gibieuf. Yet, all the differences of argument, style, intention, and objective between Gibieuf and Descartes notwithstanding, the point of fundamental importance is that each re­jected what Jansenius called "the false conception of the freedom of in­difference," and, following St. Augustine, they both asserted, against the Scholastics, the unity of God's will and understanding.

Descartes was uninterested in theological hair-splitting, and it would be unjustified to assume that there were any close connections between his philosophy and the Augustinism propagated by the Oratorians. Augustinism, especially in its Jansenist fonn, was not a philosophical sys­tem. The Augustinism of the Jansenists concerned first and foremost theological questions, such as man's salvation and the role divine grace plays in it. The Jansenists claimed that they were merely repeating what St. Augustine said centuries earlier. The Oratorians could not say this. They were more philosophically oriented than were Jansenius, Saint­Cyran and the early Arnauld, author of the De fa jrequente communion. Many of the Oratorians, including Bertin, Chalmers, and Gibieuf, were Scholastics and Molinists before they joined the Oratory. They were shaped by the philosophy of the Schoolmen. After reading Gibieuf's De Libertate Dei, Jansenius even complained to Saint-Cyran that the "semi­narist's" work is "too philosophical." And even though in 1630 he praised it, his approach in the Augustinus was more criticaP6 Descartes' concerns have nothing to do with the strictly theological issues that con­sumed the seventeenth-century theologians. It would therefore be wrong to see his philosophy as supporting specific points in Catholic theology. The problem of man's salvation and divine grace is a philosophical one in so far as it concerns the questions of the relationships between human and divine freedom, divine omnipotence and human will, and divine and human natures. These are the questions that divided the Augustinians and Molinists, and they are the questions that Descartes treated in his three letters of 1630 to Mersenne and in a considerable part of the Fourth Meditation. It is precisely on the conception of divine liberty and the criticism of the freedom of indifference that Descartes' philosophy and Augustinian theology converge, and it is there that Descartes saw agree­ment between his own views and those of the Augustinian Gibieuf.77

76. See Jansenius, Augustinus, 1641, Vol. 3, Bk. VIII, ch. 16,345. Cf. Ferrier: 1976, vol. I, 103-111 ("L'opinion veritable de Jansenius sur Ie De Libertate"), 1987, 207-11. 77. Most commentators on Descartes and the Jesuits try to account for Descartes' anti­Jesuit attitude and the Jesuit opposition to Cartesianism, almost exclusively in terms of the anti-Aristotelian character of Cartesian physics. Descartes' philosophy unquestion­ably created problems for Aristotelian science. This explanation of Descartes' conflict

48 Cartesian Theodicy

As Descartes' two letters to Mersenne show, Descartes himself per­ceived Gibieufs conception of the "simplicity" of God's nature - which corresponds to his own doctrine of the divine unity of will and intellect - and the rejection of the freedom of indifference as constituting the core of their agreement. So the "complete accord" between Descartes and Gibieuf - the man who, were it not for the publication of Augustinus a decade later, would be considered to have triggered the conflict between the Augustinians and Molinists and has fallen into a complete oblivion 78 - provides plausible ground for claiming that the influence of the writings of St. Augustine on Descartes must have been more considerable than the documents at our disposal allow us to demon­strate.

with the Jesuits is one-sided. The animosity can be explained also in tenus of the afrmi­ties of the underpinings of Descartes' epistemology with the theology of St. Augustine that divided the Catholic Church in the seventeenth century. For the theological impli­cations of Cartesianism for Catholic theology, see Laporte: 1950,339-419; Feret: 1904, vol. III, 21-39. 78. It seems that Gibieuf had bad luck not only during his life but even after his death. Besides the works I have already mentioned, Gibieuf is the author of Catechese de La maniere de vie paifaite a Laquelle Les chrestiens sont appeLes et en suitte les personnes consacrees a Dieu par Ies vreux de la religion ... , La Vie et Ies grandeurs de Ia tres sainte Vierge Marie, mere de Dieu, Memoire que Ie Pere Gibieuf a Iaisse pour servir a une seconde edition de Ia vie de notre Bienheureux Pere, Recueil sur Ie jansenisme, contenant Ie "Sentiment du Pere Gibieuf, de l'Oratoire, touchant Ie jansenisme." Leszek Kolakowski, in his monumental work Chretiens sans eglise, does not mention Gibieuf even once. Bruno Neveu, in his erudite study Erudition et religion aux XV lIe et XVlIle siecles mentions him in passing only two times. Henri Bremond, who devoted the third volume of his Histoire litteraire du sentiment religieux en France to the spirituality of the Oratory, mentions Gibieuf only a few times without, however, analysing even one page from his works (see Bremond: 1925, vol. III, 673-74 and vol. IV, 20-35). This omis­sion on the part of Bremond is even more curious given the fact that De Libertate Dei is Gibieut's only philosophical book; all his other works deal with strictly spiritual mat­ters with which Bremond is concerned. For the discussion on Gibieut's spiritual works, see Cognet: 1967, and Notonier: 1960, 1961; for the account of his philosophical works, see Ferrier: 1973, 1975, 1976, 1987, 1994.