But someone will perhaps bring up the objection that it is God himself[139]
who acts and who effects all that is real in the sin of the creature. This
objection leads us to consider the _physical co-operation_ of God with the
creature, after we have examined the _moral co-operation_, which was the
more perplexing. Some have believed, with the celebrated Durand de
Saint-Pourcain and Cardinal Aureolus, the famous Schoolman, that the
co-operation of God with the creature (I mean the physical cooperation) is
only general and mediate, and that God creates substances and gives them
the force they need; and that thereafter he leaves them to themselves, and
does naught but conserve them, without aiding them in their actions. This
opinion has been refuted by the greater number of Scholastic theologians,
and it appears that in the past it met with disapproval in the writings of
Pelagius. Nevertheless a Capuchin named Louis Pereir of Dole, about the
year 1630, wrote a book expressly to revive it, at least in relation to
free actions. Some moderns incline thereto, and M. Bernier supports it in a
little book on freedom and freewill. But one cannot say in relation to God
what 'to conserve' is, without reverting to the general opinion. Also it
must be taken into account that the action of God in conserving should have
some reference to that which is conserved, according to what it is and to
the state wherein it is; thus his action cannot be general or
indeterminate. These generalities are abstractions not to be found in the
truth of individual things, and the conservation of a man standing is
different from the conservation of a man seated. This would not be so if
conservation consisted only in the act of preventing and warding off some
foreign cause which could destroy that which one wishes to conserve; as
often happens when men conserve something. But apart from the fact that we
are obliged ourselves sometimes to maintain that which we conserve, we must
bear in mind that conservation by God consists in the perpetual immediate
influence which the dependence of creatures demands. This dependence
attaches not only to the substance but also to the action, and one can
perhaps not explain it better than by saying, with theologians and
philosophers in general, that it is a continued creation.

28. The objection will be made that God therefore now creates man a sinner,
he that in the beginning created him innocent. But here it must be said,
w