Providence, necessity and contingence

Use in the book

The human sense appears in Democritus’s speech: people would govern their actions better with discretion and providence, judgement and foresight. Recognition of the world’s changes should restrain misplaced confidence. Divine providence has a different agent and reach. It watches over all in the consolation and expresses love through protection of the world generally and the elect particularly. Burton also invokes special providence in his speculation about a six-hundred-year migration of peoples to purify their blood. His “I think” and the seed-renewal comparison matter: this is his providential and bodily theory, not an established historical or biological cycle.

Contingency is not always a denial of God. In the will discussion, Burton rejects the Stoic denial of freedom and says the will is free relative to ourselves and contingent things, though events are necessary relative to God’s determinate counsel. The Columbus example gives this distinction narrative form: God directs the discovery at that time, while the discoverer experiences it contingently. The sentence then explains revelation and concealment as dependent on God’s will. Its European discovery language is Burton’s; it does not imply that the inhabited Americas were previously unknown to their peoples.

The medical classification must remain separate from that theological contrast. Cause, contingent, preserves the synopsis’s uncertain Contingent, translated incidental, without silently correcting it to the later Continent. contingent causes preserves contingent causes arising from particular circumstances. The account of non-necessary causes explains that some may be avoided, then nevertheless prints “contingent and inevitable.” Its inconsistency is retained rather than solved by changing inevitable to evitable. Similarly, extreme necessity in the casuistical margin about poverty names a local compulsion, not an all-governing destiny.

The later attack on contingence of all things has a stronger scope. Burton accuses philosophers and deists of assigning everything to natural causes and contingency while treating religion as fiction. He reports Melanchthon’s hostile designation and Vanini’s claim that fear of magistrates prevents public avowal. The preceding concession that these people can be temperate, upright and morally instructive remains part of the passage. Neither the universal accusation nor its insults supply a neutral survey of their philosophies. The original Melanchthon margin reinforces the scope: they maintain that everything happens contingently. The printed Vanini book-and-dialogue locator remains uncollated.

Burton answers by making nature and fortune names for divine action. Scaliger is named for nature as God’s ordinary power, Calvin for nature as God’s order; fortune is then God’s unrevealed will. That final definition should not automatically be assigned to either named authority. Happiness and fortune, Fortune, and Will and nill, unrevealed will, retain the existing fortune and hidden-purpose routes. Seneca initially helps this answer, but Burton immediately reverses his approval: Stoic fate is the other extreme, an inevitable necessity that would constrain God.

The objection to stellar prediction likewise concerns total and inevitable control, not merely the occurrence of the word cause. Burton attacks the claim that stars directly determine every future event. His account of Vanini retains celestial intelligences while denying spirits in another sense; it therefore cannot be simplified into a rejection of every incorporeal being. The theory of recurring religions says the same in kind, not the identical individuals. Its ensuing first-person Christian repudiation is Vanini’s quoted disclaimer; the passage alone does not settle its sincerity.

The Roman portents bring the alternatives together: divine judgement, nature, stars, chance and necessity. Burton says Coriolanus’s banishment and then execution; the original margin says exile, and the supplied comparison supports exile without supplying the whole list of causes. The following fortune account is attributed to Sallust, though its parallel is transmitted as pseudo-Sallust. Finally, Seneca’s alleged necessity binds God to secondary causes: once a decree is given, no prayer, force or thunder changes it. The subject unable to alter the decree is God; this is the position Burton condemns, not his own account of divine limitation. Ligation and ligature, alligo · alligatus causis secundis, and Cause, causa secunda, explain the established Latin construction.

Questions about suffering require the same attention to voice. The challenge that illness and poverty cannot accord with providence is given through Chrysostom’s representation of discontented people, not his final teaching; a comparable earlier challenge is Caecilius’s in Minucius Felix. Later Burton positively interprets affliction as a school under divine permission and providence, while recognizing its present grievousness. These historical theological arguments should not be turned into a modern explanation of illness or a warrant to infer a sufferer’s moral condition.

Related entries

Cause, especially contingent, V089 and V105; Accident, for occurrences without a built-in causal explanation; Will and nill, for qualified freedom and unrevealed will; Happiness and fortune, for fortune’s distinct meanings; Astrology, for stellar prediction; Ligation and ligature, for the binding metaphor. Nature owns the noun’s broader local range rather than the whole providence dispute.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 17human foresight in Democritus’s speech.
2. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 2; note 1085extreme necessity in a reported casuistical claim.
3. A Section 2. Causes of Melancholy Are Either: · paragraph 29uncertain Contingent; see Cause contingent.
4. Subsection 11. The Will · paragraph 42freedom, contingency and relative standpoints.
5. Subsection 6. Parents as a Cause Through Inheritance · paragraph 47providential migration speculation.
6. Member 4 Subsection 1 Non-Necessary, Remote, External, Adventitious or Accidental Causes: First, the Nurse · paragraph 25non-necessary causes and the unresolved inevitable wording.
7. Member 3. Air Corrected. With a Digression on Air · paragraphs 10–17objections about providence, then contingent discovery and divine direction.
8. Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraph 25; Subsection 2 Love’s Origin, Object, Definition and Divisions · paragraph 21divine care and protection.
9. Member 2 Subsection 1 Religious Melancholy From Deficiency: Those Affected—Epicures, Atheists, Hypocrites, the Worldly and Complacent, Carnalists, All Impious People, Impenitent Sinners, and Others · paragraphs 10–19suffering objection, contingence of all things, nature and fortune, then the turn against Seneca.
10. Member 2 Subsection 1 Religious Melancholy From Deficiency: Those Affected—Epicures, Atheists, Hypocrites, the Worldly and Complacent, Carnalists, All Impious People, Impenitent Sinners, and Others · paragraphs 20–27stellar necessity, intelligences, recurrence and Vanini’s disclaimer.
11. Member 2 Subsection 1 Religious Melancholy From Deficiency: Those Affected—Epicures, Atheists, Hypocrites, the Worldly and Complacent, Carnalists, All Impious People, Impenitent Sinners, and Others · paragraphs 28–34Roman explanations, chance and the alleged binding of God.
12. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraphs 24–33affliction interpreted through permission and providence.

In this edition

“Contingence of all things” becomes “the contingency of all things,” modernizing the noun without removing the universal claim attributed to Burton’s opponents. Marginal contingenter becomes contingently; omnia supplies everything, while volunt is they maintain, not an assertion about God’s will. Providence becomes foresight where human conduct is at issue, but stays providence in divine government. Fatum Stoicum becomes Stoic fate, and inevitable necessity becomes inescapable necessity.

The older contingent/necessary antithesis retains its two standpoints. In the later fatalism passage, second causes becomes secondary causes; bound belongs to alligatus, not to causis secundis alone. These Latin components already have their prior routes. The supplied annotations preserve rather than settle the Vanini locator, the Scaliger and Calvin attributions, and the distinct Senecan references. The original marginal quotations remain separate from their editorial English translations.

providence: human foresight

Foresight or prudent attention to future consequences in governing one’s conduct.

Grammar: Abstract noun providence, coordinated with discretion.

Component access (discretion): Discretion supplies judgement; providence separately supplies foresight.

Component access (judgement): Discretion supplies judgement; providence separately supplies foresight.

Original text: “govern their actions by discretion and providence”. In the modern column: “governed their actions with judgement and foresight”. Democritus makes anticipation of worldly change a condition of sensible behaviour. Democritus’s speech in Burton’s literary retelling, not direct historical testimony or divine government. Providence supplies foresight; discretion judgement; the modern adjusts the tense within the conditional.

providence: divine government and care

God’s ordering, sustaining and protective care of the world and people, asserted, invoked or questioned according to the speaker.

Grammar: Abstract noun, often qualified by Gods, his, especial or sweet.

Component access (especial): The adjective qualifies providence within Burton’s explicitly speculative migration theory.

Component access (special): The adjective qualifies providence within Burton’s explicitly speculative migration theory.

Component access (sweet): The adjective describes protective divine care, not a physical taste.

Component access (gracious): The adjective describes protective divine care, not a physical taste.

Component access (is over): The supplied verbal phrase makes care explicit; its subject is providence and its object all/everything.

Component access (watches over): The supplied verbal phrase makes care explicit; its subject is providence and its object all/everything.

Original text: “ordered by Gods especial providence”. In the modern column: “God’s special providence has ordained”. Burton makes providence the alleged ordering agency of migrations. I think qualifies Burton’s speculation; six-hundred-year renewal and purification of peoples are not established historical or biological facts. The passive ordered by is recast actively as providence has ordained; especial becomes special.

Original text: “His providence is over all”. In the modern column: “His providence watches over everything”. Universal care is followed by different kinds of advancement and protection. Burton’s consolation combines Psalm 17:8 and the angel-guard image, not one continuous biblical quotation. Is over becomes watches over, making care explicit; all becomes everything.

Original text: “by his sweet providence, in protecting of it”. In the modern column: “in his gracious providence, protecting the world”. Divine love appears as protective government, generally and specially. Burton distinguishes all in general from elect saints and Church in particular; the nearby biblical numbering is retained. Sweet supplies gracious; it refers to the world, made explicit in the modern.

Original text: “Are these signes and works of Gods providence”. In the modern column: “Are these signs and works of God’s providence”. Suffering is put as an objection to protective divine care. Chrysostom speaking in the dialect of objectors; the accompanying note explains his later defence, not his adoption of their conclusion. Equal-scope question; providence remains providence, not an assertion that care is absent.

Original text: “it comes by Gods permission and providence”. In the modern column: “it comes by God’s permission and providence”. Affliction is interpreted as permitted instruction and trial. Burton’s theological consolation; an interpretation of suffering, not a present medical explanation. Both permission and providence remain, rather than conflating permission with the whole government of events.

contingence

The happening of events that need not occur as they do; in the selected polemic, a claim that all things happen contingently rather than through providential government.

Grammar: Abstract noun contingence, modernized as contingency.

Original text: “contingence of all things”. In the modern column: “the contingency of all things”. Burton accuses opponents of an all-encompassing explanatory claim, not merely acknowledging some uncertain events. Burton’s accusation amid Melanchthon’s hostile designation and a Vanini report. The preceding paragraph concedes sober moral conduct; the accompanying note leaves Vanini’s locator uncollated. Contingence becomes contingency; of all things retains the universal scope; the is supplied.

contingenter

Contingently: in a way not required to occur exactly as it does.

Grammar: Adverb modifying fieri in an infinitival report of what opponents maintain.

Component access (contingenter): Adverb only; everything comes from omnia, and the attributive frame from volunt.

Component access (contingently): Adverb only; everything comes from omnia, and the attributive frame from volunt.

Component access (Omnia): Omnia supplies everything and the universal scope; it is the accusative subject of the infinitive fieri. Contingency comes separately from contingenter.

Component access (everything): Omnia supplies everything and the universal scope; it is the accusative subject of the infinitive fieri. Contingency comes separately from contingenter.

Component access (volunt): Plural verb interpreted as maintain in the reported doctrine, not as a claim about God’s will.

Component access (maintain): Plural verb interpreted as maintain in the reported doctrine, not as a claim about God’s will.

Component access (fieri): The infinitive in the Latin report is recast as a finite English clause after maintain; happens is not the form’s literal morphology.

Component access (happens): The infinitive in the Latin report is recast as a finite English clause after maintain; happens is not the form’s literal morphology.

Original margin: “Omnia contingenter fieri volunt.” Supplied note translation or expansion: “They maintain that everything happens contingently.” The margin explicitly states the universal doctrine attributed to the opponents. Original marginal quotation attributed to Melanchthon on the first commandment, with editorial translation kept separate. Contingenter supplies contingently; omnia everything; volunt conveys maintain in this reported assertion, not God’s will.

contingent and necessary: relative standpoints

Contingent means not necessary from the stated human standpoint; necessary describes what must occur relative to God’s fixed purpose in these passages.

Grammar: Predicative adjectives contingent and necessary; contingent also qualifies things.

Component access (in respect of): The relational phrase marks the viewpoint under which freedom is affirmed; it is not an absolute denial of providence.

Component access (in relation to): The relational phrase marks the viewpoint under which freedom is affirmed; it is not an absolute denial of providence.

Original text: “our will is free in respect of us, and things contingent”. In the modern column: “our will is free in relation to ourselves and to contingent things”. The assertion concerns freedom relative to humans and contingent objects. Burton’s we say answer contrasts with his report of Stoic fatal necessity; the two standpoints cannot be collapsed. In respect of becomes in relation to; the continuation separately assigns necessity relative to God’s counsel.

Original text: “it was contingent to him, but necessary to God”. In the modern column: “To Columbus it was contingent, but to God necessary”. The Columbus example distinguishes the discoverer’s contingency from providential ordering. Burton explicitly adopts the providential view, with uncollated De Laet and Daniel references. His European discovery framing does not mean the Americas were unknown to their inhabitants. Equal-scope antithesis with the person’s name supplied for him; but preserves the contrast.

necessitas; extrema necessitate

Necessity or compelling need: constraint causing an action in the particular circumstances, not necessarily a universal doctrine of fate.

Grammar: Necessitate is the ablative singular of necessitas; extrema agrees in the feminine ablative singular; coacti is a masculine nominative plural perfect passive participle referring to the persons compelled.

Component access (necessitate): Ablative singular noun in the Latin original; the English recasts it as subject, not as an attested English original word.

Component access (necessity): Ablative singular noun in the Latin original; the English recasts it as subject, not as an attested English original word.

Component access (extrema): Adjective agreeing with necessitate, not a free-standing universal claim about necessity.

Component access (extreme): Adjective agreeing with necessitate, not a free-standing universal claim about necessity.

Component access (coacti): The Latin passive participle means compelled; compels them is the supplied editorial active recasting, not a morphological identity.

Component access (compels them): The Latin passive participle means compelled; compels them is the supplied editorial active recasting, not a morphological identity.

Component access (compelled): Compelled is the participle’s explanatory gloss; the supplied translation recasts it actively as compels them.

Original margin: “extrema necessitate coacti”. Supplied note translation or expansion: “extreme necessity compels them”. A cited casuistical statement makes extreme need the condition of the poor taking another’s property. Maldonado original margin; the argument is a reported historical moral permission, not an unqualified rule or present legal advice. Necessitate supplies necessity in an ablative construction; extrema extreme agrees with it. Coacti means compelled, describing the persons; the editor recasts the Latin passive as compels them with necessity as grammatical subject.

fatum Stoicum; inevitable necessity

Stoic fate as Burton characterizes it: an inescapable determination of events that would bind even God to what has been decreed.

Grammar: Latin neuter noun fatum qualified by Stoicum; English abstract noun necessity with inevitable or inexorable.

Component access (fatum): The noun is fate; Stoic belongs to its adjective.

Component access (fate): The noun is fate; Stoic belongs to its adjective.

Component access (Stoicum): The adjective identifies the attributed school, not the whole doctrine.

Component access (Stoic): The adjective identifies the attributed school, not the whole doctrine.

Component access (ab initio): Temporal phrase, not itself the doctrine of necessity.

Component access (from the beginning): Temporal phrase, not itself the doctrine of necessity.

Component access (inevitable): The adjective qualifies the necessity attributed to Stoic fate, a doctrine Burton rejects.

Component access (inescapable): The adjective qualifies the necessity attributed to Stoic fate, a doctrine Burton rejects.

Original text: “fatum Stoicum, that inevitable necessity in the other extreme”. In the modern column: “Stoic fate, that inescapable necessity at the opposite extreme”. Burton turns from using Seneca against denial of God to rejecting his alleged fatalism. Burton’s polemical characterization, not a neutral summary of all Stoic philosophy and not his own defended doctrine. Fatum supplies fate; Stoicum Stoic; inevitable inescapable. The English apposition glosses the Latin.

Original text: “some by necessity decreed ab initio, and could not be altered”. In the modern column: “others by a necessity decreed from the beginning, which could not be altered”. Necessity is one among competing explanations of Roman portents. Burton’s reported alternatives; the accompanying note says the checked Dionysius parallel does not furnish his entire cause-list. Ab initio supplies from the beginning; could not preserves the asserted inability to alter the decree.

Original text: “to that inexorable necessity, that he could alter nothing of that which was once decreed”. In the modern column: “to that inexorable necessity that he could change nothing once decreed”. The doctrine attributed to Seneca denies divine alteration of the decree. Reported and rejected position. Adjacent alligatus causis secundis is already alligo · alligatus causis secundis and causa secunda; the accompanying note distinguishes the Senecan sources. Inexorable necessity remains; nothing retains universal negation, and he refers to God, not Seneca.

Earlier explanation: Contingent

Earlier explanation: contingent

For Contingent, see Cause.

Reference scope: Uncertain synopsis qualifier remains Cause-owned; incidental is the supplied interpretation, not proof of the historical sense.

Access scope (Contingent): Uncertain synopsis qualifier remains Cause-owned; incidental is the supplied interpretation, not proof of the historical sense.

Access scope (incidental): Uncertain synopsis qualifier remains Cause-owned; incidental is the supplied interpretation, not proof of the historical sense.

Earlier explanation: contingent causes

Earlier explanation: contingent causes

For contingent causes, see Cause.

Reference scope: Prior-owned circumstantial causes; adjacent inevitable is retained, not silently corrected.

Access scope (contingent causes): Prior-owned circumstantial causes; adjacent inevitable is retained, not silently corrected.

Earlier explanation: alligatus causis secundis

Earlier explanation: alligo · alligatus causis secundis

For alligatus causis secundis, see Ligation and ligature.

Reference scope: Prior-owned binding construction: alligatus means bound; God is the constrained subject in the reported and rejected position.

Access scope (alligatus causis secundis): Prior-owned binding construction: alligatus means bound; God is the constrained subject in the reported and rejected position.

Access scope (alligatus): Prior-owned binding construction: alligatus means bound; God is the constrained subject in the reported and rejected position.

Access scope (bound to secondary causes): Prior-owned binding construction: alligatus means bound; God is the constrained subject in the reported and rejected position.

Access scope (bound): Prior-owned binding construction: alligatus means bound; God is the constrained subject in the reported and rejected position.

Earlier explanation: causis secundis

Earlier explanation: causa secunda

For causis secundis, see Cause.

Reference scope: Prior-owned causal component; the phrase alone does not include bound or the subject God.

Access scope (causis secundis): Prior-owned causal component; the phrase alone does not include bound or the subject God.

Access scope (to secondary causes): Prior-owned causal component; the phrase alone does not include bound or the subject God.

Access scope (secondary causes): Prior-owned causal component; the phrase alone does not include bound or the subject God.

Earlier explanation: Fortune

Earlier explanation: Fortune

For Fortune, see Happiness and fortune.

Reference scope: Prior-owned theological definition, not every local sense of fortune and not indiscriminately assigned to Scaliger or Calvin.

Access scope (Fortune): Prior-owned theological definition, not every local sense of fortune and not indiscriminately assigned to Scaliger or Calvin.

Access scope (Fortune his unrevealed will): Prior-owned theological definition, not every local sense of fortune and not indiscriminately assigned to Scaliger or Calvin.

Access scope (Fortune is his unrevealed will): Prior-owned theological definition, not every local sense of fortune and not indiscriminately assigned to Scaliger or Calvin.

Earlier explanation: unrevealed will

Earlier explanation: unrevealed will

For unrevealed will, see Will and nill.

Reference scope: Prior-owned hidden divine purpose; explanatory context does not add a new compact.

Access scope (unrevealed will): Prior-owned hidden divine purpose; explanatory context does not add a new compact.

Earlier explanation: non individuo

Earlier explanation: individuum · individuo

For non individuo, see Inseparable and individual.

Reference scope: Prior-owned distinction between individual instance and kind; non supplies negation, and Vanini’s subsequent disclaimer is retained.

Access scope (non individuo): Prior-owned distinction between individual instance and kind; non supplies negation, and Vanini’s subsequent disclaimer is retained.

Access scope (individuo): Prior-owned distinction between individual instance and kind; non supplies negation, and Vanini’s subsequent disclaimer is retained.

Access scope (not in the individual): Prior-owned distinction between individual instance and kind; non supplies negation, and Vanini’s subsequent disclaimer is retained.

Access scope (in the individual): Prior-owned distinction between individual instance and kind; non supplies negation, and Vanini’s subsequent disclaimer is retained.