ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the main elements of Auriol’s position: immutability and necessity are the same, and so immutable God cannot know what is future to us as future to Him, for in that case all would happen of necessity. A difficulty remains with God’s will. Because God is absolutely necessary, there is no potency, no possibility, in Him. Of course Auriol cannot leave it at that, at the God of the philosophers. If he did, God would seem to be too distant from the world for orthodox Christians, and all contingent events would occur outside of God’s will, with God neither willing nor nilling. Auriol holds that this willing all men to be saved is the role of God’s intrinsic will, although he adds that God does not will to be saved those who have an impediment or “obstacle to grace,” blocking their reception of grace.
