Hugo Grotius’s Philosophorum sententiae de fato et de eo quod in nostra est potestate (from hereafter: psf) has, so far, received little scholarly attention, even though it provides us with an interesting insight into Grotius’s philosophical interests (and the intellectual debates that these interests were reacting to). This text, published posthumously in 1648 (Paris and Amsterdam) by Grotius’s wife, Maria van Reigensberg, contains translations of texts from various philosophers on the question of fate.

The aim of this article is to 1) place the debate on fate, in which Grotius was actively involved throughout all his life and career, in the wider context of the theological and philosophical debates on free will and divine foreknowledge; 2) acknowledge the importance played by Grotius’s psf, a gnomological collection of philosophical sources ranging from Pythagorean philosophers to early patristic authors all providing different, although converging arguments in favor of the existence of free will; and 3) suggest that debates on fate are distinctively linked by Grotius with those on the importance of law and punishment as a guarantee of order. This “legalistic” interpretation of fate ultimately allows Grotius to reconcile divine decrees with human liberty.

迄今为止，雨果·格罗蒂乌斯（ Hugo Grotius）的《肥沃的哲学》（以下简称：psf）几乎没有受到学术上的关注，尽管它为我们提供了对格罗蒂乌斯的哲学利益的有趣见解（以及这些思想上的知识分子辩论）兴趣正在做出反应）。该文本于1648年死后在巴黎和阿姆斯特丹出版，由格罗蒂乌斯的妻子玛丽亚·范·雷根斯堡（Maria van Reigensberg）出版，其中包含有关命运问题的各种哲学家的文本翻译。

本文的目的是：1）将命运置于辩论之中，格罗蒂乌斯在整个人生和职业生涯中都积极参与有关自由意志和神圣预见的神学和哲学辩论；2）认识到格罗蒂乌斯（Grotius）的psf的重要性，psf是一本从毕达哥拉斯哲学家到早期爱国主义作者的哲学文献集，尽管支持自由意志存在的论点趋于一致，但都提供了不同的观点；（3）格罗蒂乌斯（Grotius）将关于命运的辩论与关于法律和惩罚作为秩序保证的重要性的辩论有明显的联系。对命运的这种“法律”解释最终使格罗蒂乌斯能够调和神圣的法令与人类自由。