De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate

IN WHICH THE SUBJECT IS GOD’S KNOWLEDGE WITH RESPECT TO FUTURE CONTINGENTS, ESPECIALLY THOSE THAT DEPEND ON A CREATED WILL.

Having established these matters, which seemed to belong to the preliminary questions, we must treat of God’s knowledge, which, in the order of reason, is presupposed to the gratuitous act of the divine will by which he loved and chose his elect, or follows upon the free decree of that same will. Concerning this, twelve matters are to be examined.

I. Whether God’s knowledge is sufficiently divided into the knowledge of simple understanding and the knowledge of vision.

II. Whether it is sufficiently divided into natural knowledge and free knowledge. Or whether, in God, besides knowledge that is merely natural and merely free, middle knowledge must be posited with respect to conditional future things, especially those that depend on a created will.

III. Whether all future things are actually present in eternity according to their proper existences, before they exist in their own measure.

IV. Whether God knows future contingents certainly and infallibly because of the real presence they have in eternity before they are brought forth in their being in time.

V. Whether he knows future contingents with certain knowledge in the decree, or in the predetermination, of his divine will.

VI. Whether God infallibly knows future sins in some decree of his will.

VII. Whether God certainly knows future contingents as they are in their proximate causes, especially when the causes are free.

VIII. Whether future contingents have determinate truth before every decree of the divine will, by reason of which they can be certainly known by God as future before that same decree.

IX. Whether God certainly knows future contingents in their ideas before his decree.

X. Whether there is in God, antecedently to the decree of the divine will, a conjectural knowledge of future contingents.

XI. Whether this causal proposition is true: “Because God knew that this contingent thing would be future, therefore it is future”; or, conversely, whether God knows things to be future because they are future.

XII. Whether God produces things outside himself immediately through his knowledge, or through his intellect and will; or whether, besides intellect and will, a third executive power must be posited in him, through which things are produced immediately.

Whether the knowledge of God is suitably divided into the knowledge of simple understanding and the knowledge of vision.

I. The first opinion is Gregory’s, in 1. d. 26. q. 1, where he does not admit in God knowledge of simple understanding, but only knowledge of vision; and by this knowledge, he says, God knows all possible things that will never be. Master Zumel seems to hold the same opinion, 1. p. q. 14. art. 5. disp. 1, in the response to the first argument. In its favor,

First, Gregory argues as follows. That cognition between which and the object nothing intervenes is intuitive; but nothing intervenes between God’s knowledge and any object known by him; therefore all God’s cognition is intuitive, and consequently there will be no knowledge of simple understanding in him, which is manifestly abstractive. The minor premise is proved: nothing intervenes between God and creatures; therefore neither does anything intervene between God’s knowledge and creatures, for God’s knowledge is the divine being itself.

Second, divine knowledge is the principle by which all things are known most perfectly; therefore it is intuitive. The consequence is clear, for intuitive knowledge is the most perfect of all.

Third, creatures do not terminate divine cognition in themselves, but in the divine essence, which is the immediate object of God’s knowledge. Therefore they terminate divine knowledge in the same way, whether they exist in themselves or not. Therefore, for God’s knowledge with respect to creatures to be intuitive, they need not actually exist in themselves; consequently, God’s knowledge by which he knows possible creatures will be intuitive, or knowledge of vision. Therefore there is no knowledge of simple understanding in him.

This is confirmed: otherwise God would not have intuitive cognition of future things, especially contingents, except when they actually exist in themselves—which is contrary to St. Thomas, 1. p. q. 14. art. 9.. The consequence is proved as follows: future things do not yet exist; therefore, if the knowledge by which God knows possibles is not intuitive because they do not exist, knowledge of future things likewise will not be intuitive, because they do not exist.

Fourth, Master Zumel argues as follows. For intuitive awareness of an object, it is not necessary for it to be known as existing in itself; it is sufficient for it to be known in another object known intuitively, in which that thing is represented and contained eminently and virtually, much better than in itself. But all created and creatable things, even if they are never to be produced, are contained representatively and eminently in the divine essence, as in an object previously known intuitively; therefore God knows all things, even possibles, intuitively. Therefore there is no abstractive knowledge in God.

Fifth, if a twofold knowledge were to be distinguished in God, namely, knowledge of simple understanding and knowledge of vision, it would follow that God’s knowledge ought to be signified in the plural, not the singular. The consequence is proved thus: ideas are named in the plural in God because they are many; likewise, the reasons of things are called plural in God because they are many. Power, however, is named in the singular because it is one. Therefore, if there are many knowledges in God, knowledge should be named in the plural, like ideas. Yet this is contrary to the common opinion of theologians and to St. Thomas, 1. d. 36. q. 2. art. 2. ad 4.

II. The second opinion is held by those who think that a third member must be added to the aforesaid division. For they say that, in the divine intellect, according to our way of understanding, a threefold knowledge is found: the first is knowledge of simple understanding, the second knowledge of approval, and the third knowledge of vision. Durandus holds this, in 1. d. 36. q. 1, as does Asturicensis, in his Relection on the Grace of Christ, q. 6. dub. 1. p. 617. In favor of this opinion,

Sixth, an argument is made from the authority of St. Thomas, q. 3. de verit. art. 3. ad 8, where he expressly posits these three members and says that knowledge of approval adds to simple knowledge an ordering of the will toward producing the things known; knowledge of vision, however, adds the existence of things. And in 1. p. q. 14. art. 8, he says that God’s knowledge, which is the cause of things, is customarily called knowledge of approval.

Seventh, knowledge of approval and knowledge of vision have distinct objects; therefore they are distinguished as two knowledges, at least eminently, and consequently there is a threefold knowledge in God. The antecedent is proved. Knowledge of approval is directed toward good things that will have being in some division of time; for it cannot be directed toward evil things, since God does not approve but reproves them, according to the saying, The impious man and his impiety are hateful to the Lord.¹ Knowledge of vision, however, is directed toward all things that have being in some division of time, whether good or evil, including moral evil. Therefore.

Eighth, knowledge of approval is the cause of things, as will be clear below; knowledge of vision, however, is not the cause of things, since it presupposes their existence as its object and consequently presupposes that the things have been produced. Therefore knowledge of approval is distinct from knowledge of vision, and consequently a threefold knowledge must be posited in God.

This is confirmed: knowledge of approval is practical in God; knowledge of vision, however, is not practical, properly speaking. Otherwise God would be the cause of sins, since he knows them through knowledge of vision. Therefore knowledge of vision is distinct from knowledge of approval.

III. The third opinion affirms that between knowledge that is merely natural, or knowledge of simple understanding, and knowledge that is merely free, which is knowledge of vision, a certain middle knowledge must be posited. Some call it conditional knowledge, or knowledge of conditional future things; however, it will be treated in the following disputation.

The fourth opinion, which is more common among Thomists and, in our judgment, is explicitly St. Thomas’s, consists in two propositions.

For the explanation of this, note that, as St. Thomas teaches, q. 2. de ver. art. 9. ad 2, knowledge of simple awareness and knowledge of vision imply no difference in God on the part of the knowledge, but only on the part of the thing known; for knowledge in God is called knowledge of vision by likeness to bodily sight, which beholds things placed outside itself. Hence God is said to know through knowledge of vision only those things that are outside him: things that are present, past, or future. But knowledge of simple awareness also extends to things that neither are, nor will be, nor have been, and God does not know the one class differently from the other. Therefore, although God knows his essence, existence, all the attributes, and the divine persons intuitively, and in a general sense such cognition, insofar as it terminates in what is formally in God, could be called knowledge of vision, nevertheless, when St. Thomas and the Scholastic Doctors divide divine knowledge into knowledge of simple understanding and knowledge of vision, they speak of God’s knowledge in relation to its secondary objects, namely, in relation to creatures.

IIII. Note secondly that things that are, were, or will be in some division of time can be considered in two ways. First, according to the quiddity of existence itself and of all accidents. Second, insofar as they exercise the act of existence in some division of time. According to these two distinct considerations, they can pertain to distinct knowledge in God. For if they are considered insofar as, in exercised act, they have or will have actual existence in some division of time, they are known by God through knowledge of vision. But if they are considered according to their quiddity, they are known by God through knowledge of simple understanding. St. Thomas teaches this in 3. sent. ad Annib. d. 14. q. unic. art. 2. in corp., where he says: In the Word, or in God, a twofold cognition is distinguished: one called knowledge of vision, by which God sees as present all things that are, will be, and have been; the other is called knowledge of simple understanding, by which he knows not only those things but also all things he can make. He says the same in q. 2. de verit. art. 8. in corp. ad 2. By these words he plainly supposes that God also knows through knowledge of simple awareness things that are, were, or will be; this must be understood according to their quiddity, for insofar as they exercise the act of existence, they are known through knowledge of vision. This is proved because (as all Thomists teach, 1. p. q. 34. art. 3) the divine Word proceeds not only from knowledge of the divine essence, all its attributes, the persons, and all possible creatures, but also from knowledge of creatures that will have being in some division of time, since it proceeds from comprehensive knowledge of the divine essence and from the most perfect knowledge that can belong to God. Therefore the Father knew all creatures through knowledge of simple understanding, or natural knowledge—not only possible creatures, but also those to be produced, though considered according to their quiddity. The consequence is clear: before the production of the Word, there could not be in God free knowledge of creatures, which is called knowledge of vision, because, as St. Thomas teaches, 1. p. q. 33. art. 3. ad 1, things that signify a relation in God to existing creatures, such as knowledge of vision, presuppose the notional acts and the produced persons. Further, knowledge of vision presupposes a free decree of the divine will, but before the production of the divine persons there was no free decree of his will in God; therefore, before the production of the divine persons, knowledge of vision with respect to creatures is not understood to be in God. Since, then, the productive cognition of the Word extends to all creatures, it follows that God knew, through natural knowledge or knowledge of simple understanding, all creatures existing in some division of time according to their quiddity.

V. First conclusion. God’s knowledge is sufficiently divided into knowledge of simple understanding and knowledge of vision. First, this is proved because St. Thomas divides God’s knowledge in this way in many places, especially 1. p. q. 14. ar. 9.; 3. p. q. 10. ar. 2. ad 2 and ar. 3. in fi. corp.; q. 13. ar. 1. ad 2; 1. con. Gentes. c. 66 and 69; ad 11 quodl. 3. art. 3. in corp.; de verit. q. 8. ar. 4 and q. 20. ar. 4; 1. d. 38. q. 1. ar. 4; 3. d. 14. q. 1. ar. 2. q. 2; and 4. d. 49. q. 2. ar. 5.

Second, between being and nonbeing there is no middle, since they are contradictorily opposed; therefore neither is there a middle between the object of knowledge of vision and that of simple understanding. The consequence is clear: the object of knowledge of vision is a being actually existing in some measure or in some division of time; the object of knowledge of simple understanding, however, is a nonbeing, or what does not exist in any division of time. Therefore there is no middle knowledge between knowledge of vision and knowledge of simple understanding. For it is impossible that there be a middle knowledge without a middle object, since knowledge is specified by its object.

This is confirmed: as St. Thomas teaches in the places cited above, through knowledge of vision God knows all beings that have being in some division of time, whether present, past, or future, for all these are present to God in eternity. Through knowledge of simple understanding, however, he knows things that have no being, nor will have any, in any division of time or in any measure. Therefore, through this twofold knowledge, God sufficiently knows all knowable things. The consequence is proved because, as was said, there is no other middle object between what exists and what does not exist.

Third, this is proved as follows. In us there is no middle awareness between intuitive and abstractive awareness; all our awareness is sufficiently divided into intuitive awareness, which is of a present thing, and abstractive awareness, which is of an absent thing. Therefore, similarly, in God knowledge is sufficiently divided into knowledge of vision, which terminates in things existing in eternity, and knowledge of simple understanding, which terminates secondarily in possible things and in others that do not exist in eternity and will not have being in any measure.

Fourth, as theologians commonly teach, 3. p. q. 10. arts. 2 and 3, Christ’s soul sees in the Word all things that God knows by knowledge of vision. Therefore, if by knowledge of vision God knows not only things actually existing in some division of time but also all possibles, it would follow that Christ’s soul would see all things God can make, and thus would comprehend God’s power and knowledge, which is contrary to St. Thomas, 1. p. q. 12. ar. 7. and 3. p. q. 10. cited above. Therefore only a twofold knowledge is to be distinguished in God, namely, knowledge of simple understanding and knowledge of vision.

VI. Second conclusion. Knowledge of approval is not distinct from knowledge of vision, not only on the part of the knower, but also on the part of the object known.

First, this is proved because St. Thomas sometimes divides God’s knowledge into knowledge of vision and simple understanding, as in the places cited above, but sometimes divides it into knowledge of approval and simple understanding, as in q. 7. de verit. art. 8. in corp. He therefore holds that knowledge of vision and knowledge of approval are not distinguished within the genus of knowledge.

Second, by the very fact that God has determined by an efficacious will that something will be future, it becomes present to him in eternity, even if it is future with respect to our time. Therefore he knows it by knowledge of vision, or intuitive knowledge. The consequence is clear: for cognition to be intuitive, it is sufficient and necessary that it terminate in an object existing in the measure by which the cognition itself is measured. Since, then, God’s knowledge of approval is measured by eternity, in which all future things actually exist according to their proper existences, it follows that, on the part of the object known, God’s knowledge of approval that regards future things is knowledge of vision.

Third, as St. Thomas teaches, q. 3. de verit. art. 3. ad 8, the ordering of the will toward producing the things known, which knowledge of approval adds to knowledge of simple understanding, lies outside the genus of cognition. Therefore it cannot be a per se difference dividing God’s knowledge and contracting it, even according to our way of understanding, to a particular species. The consequence is clear: a difference that divides a genus per se must add something contained under that genus. If an argument is made against this reasoning—namely, that it would follow that knowledge of vision is also not distinguished in God from knowledge of simple understanding, because the actual existence of things, which knowledge of vision adds to knowledge of simple understanding, lies outside the genus of cognition, as St. Thomas expressly teaches in the same response ad 8; hence knowledge concerning a rose does not vary, whether or not the rose exists—the reply is that, as St. Thomas teaches, q. 2. de verit. art. 9. ad 2, knowledge of simple understanding and knowledge of vision are not distinguished in God on the part of the knower, but only on the part of the thing known. For knowledge in God is called knowledge of vision by likeness to bodily sight, which beholds things placed outside itself; but knowledge of simple awareness is of things that neither are, nor have been, nor will be. Thus God’s knowledge is suitably divided, on the part of the object known, into knowledge of vision and knowledge of simple understanding. The reply, therefore, is that the argument only concludes that these two members do not divide God’s knowledge on the part of the knower, but on the part of the object known.

VII. To the first argument², it is replied that for knowledge of vision³ it is not sufficient that nothing intervene between it and the object known; rather, it is required that it terminate in an object actually existing in the measure by which the knowledge itself is measured.

To the second, it is replied that divine knowledge, insofar as it is considered on the part of the knower, or of the knowledge itself, is a most sufficient principle for knowing all creatures intuitively; but because of the object known, which does not actually exist in any measure, it follows that cognition of such an object is not intuitive.

To the third, it is replied that, on the part of the knower, God knows all creatures only in himself, because he knows them through his essence and not through their own proper and adequate species, as St. Thomas teaches in 1. p. q. 14. arts. 5 and 6. ad 3, and q. 2. de verit. art. 2. ad 2. But on the part of the object known, he knows creatures not only in himself but also in themselves, as St. Thomas teaches, 1. p. q. 20. ar. 2. ad 2. Hence creatures stand differently in relation to God’s knowledge when they exist and when they do not actually exist.

To the confirmation, those authors who deny that future things actually exist in eternity according to their proper existences consequently say that God has no intuitive knowledge of creatures except when they actually exist in their own measure. But this opinion will be refuted in disputation 8, where we shall show that all future things actually exist in eternity according to their proper existences. The reply to the argument, therefore, is that for a cognition to be intuitive it is sufficient that it terminate in an object existing in relation to the measure by which the cognition itself is measured. Thus, for God to know future contingents intuitively, it is sufficient that they actually exist in eternity, by which divine cognition is measured. Since, then, things that are merely possible and will never be have no existence in their own measure or in the measure of eternity, they are not known intuitively by God, but by knowledge of simple understanding. By this same reply we answer the fourth argument, denying the antecedent.

To the fifth, with St. Thomas, in 1. sent. d. 36. q. 2. art. 2. ad 4, it is replied that the divine essence is one and most simple, whereas relations to creatures are many. Therefore what names only the divine essence cannot be signified in the plural. Such is knowledge, which pertains more to the knower, as his perfection. A reason, however, pertains more to things; an idea has an intermediate character, because it signifies the divine essence and the character of being imitated, which is according to relations to creatures. Hence both reasons and ideas can be signified plurally in God, but knowledge cannot, just as divine power cannot.

VIII. To the sixth argument for the second opinion, it is replied from what has been said: although knowledge of approval signifies a relation and ordering of the will toward producing the things known in their proper measure, those things are nevertheless present to God in eternity from eternity. Hence the object of knowledge of approval is truly known by God through knowledge of vision, and consequently these are not distinguished in the account of knowledge on the part of the object known.

To the seventh, it is replied that knowledge of vision, even in relation to evil things, has the character of practical knowledge—not by positively causing evils insofar as they are evils, but by permitting or preventing them;⁴ hence St. Thomas, 1. p. q. 14. ar. 16. in corp., says that evils, although they are not things God can bring about, nevertheless fall under his practical cognition, just as good things do, insofar as he permits, prevents, and orders them; just as illnesses fall under the physician’s practical knowledge insofar as he treats them by his art. Therefore we must say that, although God does not approve evils by knowledge of approval, he does approve their permission.

A second reply is that, although God does not approve evils absolutely speaking, he nevertheless approves and wills every account of good found in evils; for every good by participation, insofar as it is good, is caused by God and consequently willed by him, as will be clear below:⁵ for how would anything exist unless he himself had willed it?

To the eighth argument, it is replied that knowledge of vision does not presuppose the existence of things in their proper measure, but causes them, although in eternity the knowledge of vision and the existences of the things to be produced are simultaneous, as was said.

To the confirmation, the reply is by what has been said to the seventh argument.

Whether the knowledge of God is adequately divided into merely natural knowledge and merely free knowledge, or whether, besides both, middle knowledge must be posited in God with respect to conditionals about future things dependent on the human will.

I. Since the chief foundation of those who do not admit the efficacy of the predetermining help of grace consists in a certain middle knowledge that they posit in God, from which they derive the infallibility of the future consent of free choice and the certainty of predestination as regards the attainment of its effects, it is necessary, for a full understanding of what must be said about the efficacy of the helps of divine grace, to examine more closely whether such knowledge is possible and, consequently, whether it exists in God.

To make the title of the question clear, we must note that the issue here is not the name “middle knowledge,” but the reality signified by that name.¹ This must be observed on account of those who call this knowledge now knowledge of vision, now knowledge of simple understanding, now middle knowledge, now conditional knowledge, and now knowledge of conditionals about contingent future things dependent on the created will—things that in fact are not future absolutely, but would nevertheless be future if this or that condition were posited—confusing all these terms, although in reality they are not the same. For it is most certain that God knows certainly and infallibly not only what is future absolutely, but also what truly would be future by a decree of the divine will if this or that condition were posited. The controversy, then, is whether, before every decree of his will predetermining Peter’s consent as future absolutely, or on the hypothesis that he were placed in such and such circumstances, God knows with certainty in the particular case whether Peter will consent once that condition is posited or will instead dissent. The same difficulty applies to all other similar conditionals. For if it were the case that, before every free decree of the divine will, the propositions just mentioned had a determinate truth or a determinate falsity, it could not be denied that God foreknows this certainly and infallibly, since his knowledge is infinite and extends to every knowable object. But if it is said that it is not certain toward which side Peter’s will would incline in a determinate way once that condition were posited, but only that it could incline either way if it wished, then it must consequently be said that, before the aforesaid decree of his will, God does not know with certainty and infallibly whether Peter, once that condition had been fulfilled, would in the particular case consent or dissent; rather, he knows only what Peter could do.

Accordingly, some theologians teach that the aforesaid middle knowledge must be posited in God before the decree of the divine will, as was seen in Disputation 4, nos. 1 and 2. Others regard this opinion as so certain that they assert it was handed down in the sacred writings, recognized by the holy Fathers and the ancient Scholastic doctors, and hence must be taught by all who think rightly about divine things. They add that now scarcely anyone dares deny that this knowledge exists in God. But this disputation’s course of argument will demonstrate how groundlessly these claims are made. They prove their opinion by the following arguments.

First, they argue from many testimonies of Sacred Scripture, from which they think it can be inferred that the aforesaid middle knowledge, or knowledge of conditionals about future things, exists in God before the decree of the divine will. The first testimony is found at 1 Reg. 23, where David consulted the Lord whether Saul would come if he remained in the city of Keilah, and whether, if he himself remained and Saul came and besieged the city, the people of Keilah would hand him over. God answered both questions: “Saul will come, and these men will hand you over.” On hearing this, David fled; neither did Saul come nor did the people of Keilah hand David over. The whole truth of that revelation, therefore, lay in those conditionals: “If you wait, Saul will come”; “if Saul comes, they will hand you over.” Therefore God infallibly knows conditionals about future things. But he does not know them through natural knowledge, since this concerns only necessary and possible things; nor through free knowledge, since this concerns only things existing at some division of time or at some higher measure. Therefore they are known through middle, or conditional, knowledge.²

The second testimony is Matthew 11: Woe to you, Chorazin; woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works that were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes,³ where the Lord Christ revealed this conditional future: “If the miracles done in Chorazin and Bethsaida had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have converted.” Therefore the Lord Christ knew these conditional future things with certain knowledge, although in reality they were not future. Therefore conditional, or middle, knowledge must necessarily be posited in God.

The third testimony is found at Matthew 24: Unless those days had been shortened, no flesh would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect they will be shortened.⁴ Therefore Christ knew with certainty this conditional future: if the persecution of Antichrist lasted for a notably longer time, the elect who would then exist would fall away and be damned. Therefore the conclusion follows.

The fourth testimony is Wisdom 4: He was taken away lest wickedness should alter his understanding, and lest deceit should beguile his soul.⁵ These words include a certain conditional future known by God, namely: if this elect person is not now taken from life, he will later fall into sin and be damned. Yet that future is conditional. Therefore the conclusion follows.

A fifth testimony is found in Isa. 1: Unless the Lord of hosts had left us a seed, we would have been like Sodom, and would have resembled Gomorrah.⁶ In these words is included this conditional future known to God: if a remnant, that is, some just people in Israel, did not remain, they would be utterly destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah.

A sixth testimony is read in Luke 16: If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they believe if someone should rise from the dead.⁷ Behold, it is shown that this conditional future is certainly known to God: if someone should rise from the dead and preach to them, they will not believe. Similarly, in Ezekiel 3 the Lord said to the Prophet: You are not sent to a people of profound speech and an unknown tongue; and if you were sent to them, they would hear you.⁸ There it was revealed as certain that, if Ezekiel were sent to a people of an unknown tongue, they would hear him.

A seventh testimony is drawn from 4 Kings 13,⁹ where Elisha said to Joash, king of Israel: If you had struck five times, or six times, or even seven times—that is, had struck the ground—you would have struck Syria to utter destruction. Here a conditional future is manifestly revealed as certain on the hypothesis that the king would have struck the ground with his staff five, six, or seven times. But all these conditional futures are known by God through middle knowledge, since they cannot pertain to the knowledge of simple understanding, which is only of possibles, nor to the knowledge of vision, whose objects are only things actually existing. Therefore middle knowledge must necessarily be posited in God.

II. Second, they prove this by the authority of the holy Fathers, who seem to attribute this middle knowledge of conditional futures to God, especially St. John Chrysostom, Homily 31 on Matthew, where he says: Just as he then approached and called others when he knew they would obey, so too he called Matthew at the time when, subdued by the report of the miracles, he saw that he would not resist. For this reason he also caught Paul after the resurrection: for he who searches hearts and sees the secrets of minds did not fail to know when each person was ready to obey. Therefore he did not call Paul immediately at the beginning, when he was more obdurate, but after a thousand miracles and a remarkable and widely spread reputation had already made him more disposed to obey.¹⁰ And in Homily 65 he asks why Christ the Lord did not call Paul earlier, and answers: because he foresaw that Paul would resist the call; and he says the same about the thief. Chrysostom’s words are these: But why, he says, did he not bring them all in at once? He would indeed have wished to bring them all in from the beginning; but if they did not all obey at the same time, this difference arose from the will of those called. Therefore some are called in the morning, others at the third hour, others at the sixth, others at the ninth, others at the eleventh, because they would then obey, as Paul also plainly indicated when he said: “When, however, it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb.” When, then, did God will it? Certainly when he was going to obey. For God had wished it from his earliest infancy as well; but because he knew that Paul would resist, he willed it then, when he knew the call would penetrate his mind. So too, when he later called the thief, he could have called him earlier, but the man, had he been called, would not have obeyed.¹¹¹²

They say that St. Augustine likewise establishes this same middle knowledge in God, in his book On Six Questions of the Pagans, q. 2, where he says: Christ then willed to appear to human beings and preach his teaching among them, when and where he knew there would be people who would believe in him; for he foresaw that at those times and in those places there would be such people at his preaching as there were—not all, indeed, but many—during his bodily presence, who nevertheless did not wish to believe in him, even when he raised the dead.¹³ And in q. 2 To Simplicianus he says: He whom he has mercy on, he calls in the way he knows will be fitting for that person, so that he will not reject the one calling.¹⁴ In these words he teaches clearly enough that God has certain knowledge of this conditional future: if I call this person at such a time with such a call, he will consent; but if I call him at another time with the same call, he will not consent. Again, in bk. On Correction and Grace, ch. 12, speaking of the foreknowledge by which God foresaw that the first parent, placed in paradise, would sin, he says: God foresaw what that man would do unjustly, yet he foresaw it without then compelling him, while at the same time knowing what he himself would do justly with respect to him. And in On Nature and Grace, ch. 26, discussing how God permits the fall of a predestined person because he knows that the person will become more cautious, he says: This the proud mind does not understand, but the Lord is great, and persuades as he knows how.¹⁵

The same is proved from St. Ambrose, commenting on Rom. 9, who says: Those are called according to the purpose whom God foresaw would, as believers, become fit for him, so that they were known before they believed.¹⁶ They draw the same conclusion from St. Gregory, Moralia, bk. 23, ch. 23, where he speaks thus: God sometimes presses his own with scourges and burdens, because by his pure power he foresees that, if they remained in tranquility, unable to bear the enemy’s temptations, they would lie prostrate, wounded in mind.¹⁷ He therefore holds that God has foreknowledge of this conditional future: if the just remained in tranquility, they would succumb to the enemy’s temptations.

Finally, they think this same middle foreknowledge was handed down by St. Thomas, 3 p., q. 1, art. 5, ad 2, and q. 24, On Truth, art. 14, in the body of the article, when he says: All external motions, however, are governed by divine providence, insofar as he judges that someone is to be roused to good by these or those actions.¹⁸ And in Against the Gentiles I, chs. 66, 67, and 68, he says that God knows future things in their causes. From these words of the holy Fathers they wish to infer that middle knowledge, explained above, must altogether be posited in God before the free decree of his will.

In confirmation of this same teaching, they adduce almost innumerable other testimonies of the ancient Fathers and Scholastics, who unanimously teach that God foresaw that our first parents would consent to sin if they were tempted by the serpent, and also knew the way in which he was to bring them a remedy; and that, knowing this beforehand, he created them. They say the same about other contingent conditional futures of this kind. Therefore.

III. Third, they prove the same opinion and the necessity of this conditional knowledge from the perfection of divine providence and its effects. For this kind of knowledge is most useful for prudently applying means proportionate to the intended end. This can be conjectured from human affairs: if I wish to persuade another of something, then, in order to do so prudently, it greatly helps to know at what time and under what circumstances that person is usually better disposed, what things usually affect him more, and the other circumstances of this sort. And if one could foresee exactly what he would do when entreated in this or that way, such knowledge would be most useful for determining what one ought to do and for applying suitable means. But one must posit in God whatever can contribute to the most perfect prudence and providence. Therefore this knowledge is most necessary to God, and therefore it must be posited in him before every decree of his will.

First, this is confirmed because God does not have an efficacious decree to do something unless he foreknows the way in which he can carry it out, and unless he first knows the means by which he will attain what he intends. But God knows these means through middle, or conditional, knowledge, by which he knew that the Tyrians and Sidonians would have done penance if the miracles that were done among the Jews had been done among them. Therefore such knowledge must be posited in God.

Second, the same antecedent is confirmed and explained. No one prudently makes a decision about an end unless he first knows suitable and proportionate means by which he will attain that end; otherwise his providence would be ridiculous, like that of the man of whom it is said in Luke 14: Which of you, wishing to build a tower, does not first sit down and consider whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise they will say, “This man began to build and was not able to finish.”¹⁹ Therefore, before God perfectly decrees to bring the elect to eternal life, he foreknows the means by which, if they are bestowed on them, they will effectively attain it. Therefore God certainly knows this conditional future: if I give Paul such help of grace, he will be justified and saved. But God has not only those means which he bestows on the predestined so that they may be saved; he also has almost infinitely many others which, if he bestowed them on those same people or on others, they too would be saved. Therefore, before the decree of his will, he certainly knows the conditional futures that would obtain if such means were applied.

IIII. Fourth, an argument is made. Through theological knowledge we know many conditional futures that would in fact obtain if this or that condition were applied. Such is the example given by St. Thomas, 3 p., q. 1, art. 2: if Adam had not sinned, the Son of God would not have become incarnate; and 1 p., q. 97: if man had persevered in the state of innocence, he would have been immortal. Therefore an infallible knowledge of every conditional future must also be posited in God. But this is middle knowledge. Therefore.

Fifth, after God has decreed to create Peter and to permit him, placed in this order of things, to sin, he foreknows absolutely that Peter will sin. Therefore, before he decides to create him and place him in that order of things, he foreknows that if Peter were created and placed in it, he would sin; and the same applies to other cases. Therefore in God there is knowledge of all conditional futures, which is also called by another name “middle knowledge.”

Sixth, there is a middle between what is absolutely future and what is possibly future, namely, what would be future if this or that condition were posited. Therefore, between purely natural knowledge, by which God knows all possibles, and purely free knowledge, by which he knows all things existing in some division of time, there is middle knowledge, by which he knows all conditional futures.

Seventh, every conditional future is knowable in itself; therefore it is the object of some knowledge. For knowledge and the knowable, being correlatives, are said of one another convertibly. Therefore such knowledge will be in God, since the knowledge of God, being infinite, in fact extends to every knowable thing and to every kind of being, whether it is being in act or in potency, as St. Thomas expressly teaches, 1 p., q. 14, arts. 5 and 9. But that knowledge is middle, or conditional, knowledge. Therefore.²⁰

This is confirmed. Before every decree of the divine will, these two propositions are contradictories: “If Peter is created and placed in this order of things, he will sin”; “If Peter is created and placed in this order of things, he will not sin.” Therefore one of them is true. The inference is evident, since, as Aristotle teaches in the book On Interpretation, of two contradictories one must be true and the other false. Therefore a true conditional about the future is certainly known by God. For God certainly knows every truth, as was said above. Therefore, before every decree of his will, God knows conditional futures of this kind.

V. Eighth, with this middle knowledge posited, the freedom of our free choice is easily and clearly reconciled with divine foreknowledge, providence, and predestination, and a way is opened by which Pelagians and Lutherans may return to the unity of the Catholic Church. Without it, however, it is scarcely intelligible how the freedom of our free choice coheres with those three. Therefore middle knowledge must necessarily be posited in God.

Ninth. For, as the authors of the contrary opinion admit, the motion of prevenient grace that is efficacious is efficacious of itself, as it comes from God antecedently to the free consent of our free choice. Therefore, before decreeing to give such a motion, God knows with certainty that, if he grants it to some person, it will infallibly obtain its effect. But the knowledge by which God knows this is middle, or conditional, knowledge, since it concerns a conditional future. Therefore middle knowledge is truly given in God, between knowledge that is merely natural and knowledge that is merely free.

VI. Tenth, there is an argument that some magnify and consider probative: knowledge of conditional future things that will never occur, but would nevertheless be future if this or that condition were posited, presupposes no actual decree of the divine will, but rather wholly precedes it. For in God there can be no actual free decree without some real effect produced at some division of time by that same decree. But no effect was, is, or will be produced in the conditional future contingents that would be future if the condition were fulfilled; for in fact they are not future. For example, no real change has occurred in the Tyrians and Sidonians because they would have done penance if the signs performed in Chorazin and Bethsaida had been performed among them. Therefore the truth of that conditional proposition and of others like it does not depend on any actual decree existing in God; consequently, such things are infallibly known by God before the aforementioned decree. The major premise is proved: between two absolute extremes, there cannot be a different relative comparison without some real change in one extreme that provides the foundation for the different relative comparison. For two quantities cannot be compared differently with one another unless one of them changes. But, by willing something freely through an actual decree, God is related to it differently than if he had not had such a decree. Therefore this different relation must be founded on a real change in the other extreme. But it cannot be founded on a real change belonging to God, since God is wholly immutable. Therefore it must necessarily be founded on a real change in the creature; consequently, every free decree of God posits some real change in things.

First, they confirm the same major premise. Every actual free decree existing in God connotes something that could have failed to exist; otherwise God’s decree would not have been free but necessary. But what it connotes cannot be something intrinsic to God himself, for all things that exist formally and intrinsically in him are uncreated and consequently absolutely necessary. Therefore it connotes something existing in a creature that could have failed to exist. Therefore it always entails a real change in a creature.

Second, they confirm this same point by the authority of St. Augustine, On Grace and Free Choice, chapter 8, near the end, where he says: Why did God not snatch them away before they sinned? Was it because he²¹ could not, or because he did not know that their evils were future? To say either of these is most perverse or insane. There he clearly teaches that God knows conditional future things. Likewise, in On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 8, he says: If he had wished to teach the word of the Cross to those for whom it is foolishness, without doubt they too would come. There Augustine treats of a conditional contingent that is certainly future, as those words indicate: Without doubt they would come. He also treats of a contingent having this truth as a conditional future before the decree of the divine will, as these words indicate: If he had wished to teach. For the truth of any conditional proposition obtains before the positing of its condition, since a conditional proposition posits nothing as actual. Finally, St. Augustine is cited to establish the same middle knowledge in On the Gift of Perseverance, chapter 14, where he says: From this it is evident that some have, in their very natural disposition, a divine gift of understanding, by which they are moved to faith if they hear words suited to their minds or see signs.

Third, they confirm the same point as follows. The truth of a conditional proposition does not require that the inference be valid; therefore, even if no divine decree precedes it, by reason of which the consequence is infallible, an intelligible truth in conditional future things will still be preserved. The antecedent is proved from 3 Kings, chapter 12: If today you will obey this people, yield to their request, and speak gentle words, they will be your servants all their days.²² For those who gave this counsel thought that they were speaking truth and giving good counsel; yet there was no necessity of the consequence between the king’s gentleness and the people’s obedience. Therefore the conclusion follows.

On the contrary, as will be clear below, neither St. Augustine nor St. Thomas nor any of the other ancient Doctors ever mentions this middle knowledge, between knowledge that is merely natural and knowledge that is merely free—not only as to the name “middle knowledge,” but even as to the very thing signified by this name. Nor is there any necessity or compelling reason for positing such knowledge in God. Therefore the conclusion follows.

VII. To understand this difficulty, we must assume that a conditional proposition can be taken in two ways. First, in the sense of an inference, so that the particle “if” is taken inferentially. In that case, for the truth of a conditional proposition it is sufficient and necessary that the inference be valid, even if both the consequent and the antecedent are impossible. Thus, in the proposition “If a stone were a human being, a stone would be a rational animal,” the proposition is true because the inference is valid, although both consequent and antecedent are impossible, since a conditional proposition posits nothing as actual. St. Thomas expressly teaches this, 1. p. q. 25. ar. 3. ad 2, q. 44. art. 1. ad 2, and q. 1. de potentia. art. 6. ad 3. In a second way, the conjunction “if” can be taken to signify a concomitance of the antecedent with the consequent of the conditional proposition, founded not on the validity of the inference in itself, but on some promise or intention of a person, or another cause, by which, if the antecedent were posited as actual, the consequent would also be posited. Such are these conditional propositions: “If you had come to your friend’s house yesterday, you would have dined with him”; “If you intercede for me with the king, I will give you a horse.” Some invent a third interpretation of the conditional future, in which the particle “if” is taken according to a certain unrelated denomination or concomitance, as in this proposition: “If there is rain in Rome tomorrow, Peter will dispute in Spain.”

Second, we must assume from the principles of dialectic that every inferential conditional proposition, if true, is necessary, and, if false, is impossible. The reason is that the truth of an inferential conditional consists in the validity of the inference; but an inference that is once valid and formal is always valid, and one that is invalid is always invalid. Therefore a true conditional is necessary, and a false one is impossible. Hence no conditional is contingent.²³ Alphonsus Mendoza holds the contrary of this principle in his Quodlibets, q. 7. ad 4. But our opinion is expressly that of St. Thomas, Opusculum 48, Treatise on Propositions, chapter 14, where he says that it is certain that this conditional—“If a human being is white, a human being is musical”—is false, because “musical” does not necessarily follow from “white.” From this the holy Doctor concludes that every true conditional is necessary and every false one is impossible, because, as was said, the term of the consequent necessarily follows from the term of the antecedent.²⁴

But if the particle “if” is not taken in the strict sense of a formal inference, but in the second way, insofar as it signifies the concomitance of the consequent with the antecedent, then for a conditional to be true it is sufficient and necessary that the foundation of that concomitance exist in reality and that, if the antecedent were posited as actual, the consequent would be posited as well—even if it were posited freely or contingently, such that it could fail to be posited, namely, because, even if the condition were posited, it could still be impeded by other secondary causes. For example, the promiser must have an intention to give what he promised on condition that the condition be fulfilled, as in the example given: “If you intercede for me with the king, I will give you a horse.”

Third, we must assume that conditional future things (so far as concerns the present point) are of two kinds. Some have a consequent that in fact will be posited as actual by a decree of the divine will, though dependently on the antecedent. Such was the case before Adam’s sin; indeed, from eternity God knew this conditional future: “If Adam sins, the Son of God will assume human flesh.” For by the divine decree that consequent had a concomitance with the antecedent and depended on it: God had decreed to send his Son as a remedy for sin, and not otherwise, as St. Thomas proves, 3. p. q. 1. art. 3. Hence, if sin had not existed, the Incarnation would not have occurred. But just as the Incarnation itself, and foreknowledge of the future Incarnation, presupposes God’s decree willing the Incarnation, so proportionally Adam’s future sin, and foreknowledge of it antecedent in the order of reason to the decree of the Incarnation, presupposes in God another decree, by which he determined to permit the first parent’s sin and to concur as the first and universal cause in its positive act, with respect to all its being, because, as Augustine says: Nothing happens unless the Almighty wills it to happen, either by permitting it to happen or by doing it himself.²⁵ Other conditional propositions, however, are those whose conditions will in fact never be fulfilled, and thus they will never be posited as actual; they would nevertheless be posited if the condition had been fulfilled, as is clear in the examples given above concerning the Tyrians and Sidonians and the men of Keilah.

Fourth, note that a decree to do something is twofold. One is absolute, as when someone determines without any condition firmly to fast on the following day. The other is a conditional decree, which can occur in two ways. First, on the part of the object willed, as when someone says, “Therefore, I wish to give alms to a poor person if he asks.” Second, a decree can be conditional on the part of the act of the will itself: as when the will truly has no determinate act concerning some object, but would have had one if this or that occasion had presented itself.²⁶

VIII. Finally, we must note that a decree to do something is twofold: one is formal and explicit, such as the decree by which God decreed from eternity to create the world at the beginning of time, and the decree by which he determined to bring his elect to glory; the other is a virtual, or implicit, decree, namely one included by virtue of another decree. Thus a sinner who, despite the commandment, wills to eat meat on Friday virtually wills to commit an offense against God. As to the absolute reality they imply, these decrees in God are identified with the divine Essence itself; but in reason they are distinguished by different relations, or relations of reason, to various objects. With respect to conditional future things that will at some time be actualized, a decree preceded them in God by which he determined that the condition be fulfilled if it is good, or decreed to permit it if it is evil, and by which he predetermined that, once the condition was fulfilled, the consequent of the same conditional would be actualized if it is good. Thus both antecedent and consequent, as well as the actual connection between them, are referred back to the divine will as their first cause, according to all the entity and goodness they possess. With respect also to conditional future things that will never be actualized, though they would be if the condition were fulfilled, a conditional decree is presupposed in God on the side of the object willed: by it he determined that the consequent would occur if the condition expressed in the antecedent of the future conditional were fulfilled. But because by an absolute and efficacious will he decreed that the consequent would not be future, by that same efficacious will he also determined that the condition of that same conditional not be actualized.²⁷ A clear example is the people of Tyre and Sidon, who, according to the Lord’s word, would have repented if the signs and mighty works done in Chorazin and Bethsaida had been done among them. But because God, by his hidden yet just judgment, decreed by an absolute will not to convert the people of Tyre and Sidon, but to leave them in the mass of perdition, he also determined that those signs and mighty works not be done among them, although, if they had been done, they would without doubt have believed. Hence St. Augustine, explaining this same passage, says: ²⁸ Therefore the eyes of the Tyrians and Sidonians were not so blinded, nor their heart so hardened, for they would have believed if they had seen signs such as these people saw. But it did not benefit them that they could believe, because they were not predestined by him whose judgments are inscrutable and whose ways are unsearchable; nor would it have harmed these people that they could not believe, if they had been predestined, so that God might illumine them while blind and might will to take away their heart of stone from them when hardened. And a little later: For they hear these things and do them to whom it has been given; but those to whom it has not been given do not do them, whether they hear them or not. Behold how Saint Augustine refers the determinate truth of that future to God’s free decree to give faith itself or a pious action. From this it is manifestly inferred that the truth of that conditional future—if signs such as those the Lord Christ worked among the Jews had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have converted—does not precede the decree of the divine will, but rather follows it and presupposes it. The same must be said of other similar conditional future things that are revealed in the sacred Scriptures or asserted by the holy Doctors to be future if this or that condition were actualized. This point must be observed above all, since some seek to enlist the passages of Scripture cited above and the testimonies of the holy Fathers to prove that middle knowledge, or knowledge of contingent conditional future things, must be posited in God as preceding every decree of the divine will, as is clear from the arguments made above. These foundations having been laid, the following conclusions settle the present controversy.

IX. First conclusion. All contingent conditional future things in which the particle “if” is taken inferentially, in the strict sense of consequence, are known by God through merely natural knowledge, which is knowledge of simple understanding, provided that the inference is valid and formal. Examples are these conditional future statements: “If God had wished to create another world, he would have created it”; “if Peter is predestined, he will be saved.” This conclusion must be conceded by all theologians, and its reason is evident. For God knows by his merely natural knowledge every truth or necessary inference; but every conditional proposition that is a valid and formal inference contains a necessary inference, however free and contingent its consequent may be. Therefore it is known by God through merely natural knowledge. The major premise is clear, because every necessary proposition is of eternal truth; therefore its truth does not presuppose a free act of the divine will, but precedes it; therefore it is known through merely natural knowledge, which precedes such a decree. The minor is proved as follows: as was shown in the third foundation, every true conditional is a necessary consequence; and for the truth of a conditional it is sufficient, and required, that it be a valid inference.

From this it follows that if an inferential conditional is an invalid inference, it will be false and hence will not be knowable, even by God himself. For what does not exist and has no foundation of truth is not knowable, much less can it be an object of knowledge.

X. Second conclusion. Conditional futures in which the word “if” is not taken inferentially, in the strict sense of a formal consequence, but concomitantly, in the second meaning explained in the first foundation—if they are taken as prior to every decree of the divine will predetermining that something of this kind be future once the condition is fulfilled—do not fall under knowledge as futures in any way, nor, as such, are they infallibly knowable even by God; rather, they are known only as things that can happen. ²⁹ For example, God certainly and infallibly knows that if he were now to create other angels in habitual grace and decree by an absolute and efficacious will that they persevere in grace, so it would happen, and in fact they would persevere; for he knows the power and omnipotence of his divine will, by which he does whatever he wills. Nevertheless, if such a decree is excluded, it is not knowable what those angels, if they were created in grace, would determinately do by their innate freedom; nor is it knowable by infallible knowledge, even to God, whether, in the particular case, those angels would persevere or consent to sin. Rather, only what they could do in such a case is knowable. The same must be said proportionately of other similar conditional futures that depend on a created will. This conclusion is directly opposed to the advocates of middle knowledge.

It is proved as follows: this is the express teaching of St. Augustine. For in Epistle 105 to Sixtus, explaining the words of John 6, For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who would believe, and who would betray him, he says: Lest anyone suppose that believers pertain to his foreknowledge in the same way as unbelievers—that is, that faith itself was not given to them from above, but only their will was foreknown—he immediately added and said: “And he said: Therefore I told you that no one can come to me unless it has been given to him by my Father.” By these words he teaches clearly enough that, before the decree of his will by which he decides to give faith to believers, God does not foreknow who will believe in him. He confirms the same point in On the Predestination of the Saints, ch. 17: This, he says, is the unchangeable truth of predestination and grace. For what does the Apostle say: “As he chose us in him before the foundation of the world”? ³⁰ If this was certainly said because God foreknew that they would believe, and not because he himself was going to make them believers, the Son speaks against this foreknowledge when he says: “You did not choose me, but I chose you”; whereas God rather foreknew that they would choose him, so that they might merit being chosen by him. They were therefore chosen before the foundation of the world by that predestination in which God foreknew his own future works; but they were chosen out of the world by that calling through which God fulfilled what he predestined. And a little later: He foreknew, then, says the Pelagian, who would be holy and immaculate through the choice of free will, and therefore he chose them before the foundation of the world in that very foreknowledge by which he foresaw that they would be such. He chose them, then, he says, before they existed, predestining as sons those whom he foresaw would be holy and immaculate; certainly, he himself did not make them; nor did he foreknow that he would make them, but that they would become so. And when explaining the words of Wisdom 4, He was taken away, lest wickedness should change his understanding, he says that this was said with regard to the dangers of this life, not with regard to the foreknowledge of God; for God foresaw, he says, what was going to happen, not what was not going to happen. ³¹ And in another place, arguing against those who said that God permitted many infants to die in original sin because he foresaw that they would be wicked if they lived, he says: Foreknowledge itself is altogether emptied of meaning if what is foreknown will not happen. For how can something that will not happen be said to be foreknown as future? ³² By these words he teaches plainly that it is not knowable, before the decree of the divine will, what those infants would have done if they had lived longer. Therefore, according to Augustine, before the decree of the divine will it is not knowable, even to God, what a person would do if placed amid these or those circumstances, with sufficient helps that do not predetermine his will to one side.

They reply that in the cited places St. Augustine is arguing against the error of those who said that God punishes or confers grace on account of the works a person would do if this or that happened, even if in fact he would never do them; and they say Augustine never denied that this kind of knowledge is in God. Had he held that view, they say, he ought to have stated it there, since no easier way could refute such an error. But this solution is insufficient. For in the words quoted St. Augustine clearly enough denies that God knows those conditional futures, because in reality, before the decree of the divine will, they were not future, even if that condition were fulfilled.

Moreover, an argument is made against the same solution. Although St. Augustine principally intends in those passages to argue against the error of the Semipelagians, who said that infants dying in this life without baptism are condemned on account of an actual sin they would have committed had they lived, nevertheless he attacks this view because in reality, before every decree of the divine will, it is not knowable to God as future that, if that infant had lived, he would have sinned mortally. He gives as the reason that God does not know as future what in reality was not going to happen, even if that condition were posited. For from the fact that the infant had lived, it does not follow that he would have sinned: by divine grace he could have been preserved from every mortal sin.

Moreover, the same second solution can be challenged, because the Massilians established this foreknowledge of the future cooperation of free choice, prior to the free decree of God who predestines, as a foundation for proving that there is a cause of predestination on the part of the good use of free choice foreknown by God, as is clear from Saint Prosper’s letter to Augustine, where he says: ³³ But they subject God’s election to all manner of fabricated merits to such an extent that, because past deeds are absent, they invent future deeds that will not occur; and thus, by a new kind of absurdity among them, both things not to be done are foreknown, and things foreknown are not done. Saint Hilary also mentions this very point, saying: ³⁴ But when they are asked why the Gospel is or is not preached to some people or in some place, or is preached now though at some time it was not preached to nearly everyone, as it is now to certain nations, they say that this is by divine foreknowledge: the truth was or is announced at that time, in that place, and to those people when and where it was known that it would be believed. And they claim to prove this not only by the testimonies of other Catholics, but also by an earlier discussion of Your Holiness. For in favor of their teaching the Massilians cited the passage from Augustine’s book On Six Questions of the Pagans introduced above, claiming that they proved such foreknowledge from it. The Arians likewise made use of the same foreknowledge to substantiate their error, as is clear from the letter of Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, to Alexander, bishop of Constantinople, which is found in the Nicene Council. ³⁵ In contending against the Catholic Church that the Lord Christ was not the Son of God by nature but had been chosen by grace alone for that dignity and excellence, when they were asked why Saint Peter, or Paul, or others had not been made sons of God in the way they contended the Lord Christ had been, they assigned the reason for the difference to foreknowledge of the future good use of free choice. Alexander’s words are: And when the following statement is brought up against them, “But they themselves rejected me,” which plainly conflicts with the nature of the Savior, who is immutable by nature, then, having cast off all piety and reverence toward God, they say: “Because God, by his foreknowledge and foresight, had known beforehand that he would in no way reject him, he therefore chose him from among all.” For they say that he had no prerogative by nature or anything beyond the other sons—for they affirm that no one is a son of God by nature, nor that anyone is joined to him by any peculiar relation—but that, since he was mutable by nature and did not turn aside to vice because of³⁶ his singular diligence and zeal in properly ordering his life and conduct, God chose him. Thus, if Paul or Peter had applied themselves with the same earnestness, they too would have been sons of God in the same way as he was. And to confirm their mad and pestilential teaching, they also do violence to Scripture itself, twisting to their own purpose the statement about Christ handed down in the Psalms, which runs thus: “You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions.” ³⁷ Thus far Alexander. Since, then, these fictions of heretics are refuted most effectively if we assert that foreknowledge of the future cooperation and good use of free choice—even future on the hypothesis that a person were placed in such circumstances—does not precede but necessarily presupposes God’s free decree, it follows that such foreknowledge must not be posited in God prior to this decree.

Some respond that just as heretics abuse Sacred Scripture to establish their errors, yet Scripture must not on that account be denied, so too they abuse middle foreknowledge to confirm their errors, yet such foreknowledge must not on that account be rejected, although those who have used it wrongly rightly deserve censure.

This response, however, has no small difficulty, which consists in the following. For once it is admitted that such foreknowledge precedes, in the order of reason, the free decree of the divine will, it seems to follow that there is a cause of predestination on the part of the good use of free choice foreknown by God as future on the hypothesis that a person were placed in such circumstances. This appears to be implied by those words of Prosper, who says of the Massilians: ³⁸ For this is their definition and profession: that indeed every human being sinned when Adam sinned, and that no one is saved by his own works but by the grace of God through regeneration; yet the propitiation that is in the sacrament of the Blood of Christ is offered without exception to all human beings, so that whoever wishes to approach faith and baptism may be saved.

Those who are going to believe, and who are going to remain in that faith which thereafter is to be assisted by God’s grace, God foreknew before the foundation of the world; and he predestined to his kingdom those whom, called gratuitously, he foresaw would become worthy of election and would depart this life with a good end. And therefore every person is admonished to believe and to act according to the divine teachings, so that no one may despair of attaining eternal life, since a reward is prepared for willing devotion. St. Augustine, in his replies to Prosper and Hilary, teaches very often that the foreknowledge by which God foreknew the future good use of free choice does not precede the decree of God predestining in the order of reason, but follows upon it, as is clear from the passages of his cited above, nos. 10 and 11. Therefore this is a sign that Saints Prosper, Hilary, and Augustine held that foreknowledge itself of the good use, or cooperation, of free choice, even future on the supposition that it were placed in such circumstances, does not precede in the order of reason, but follows upon the decree of God predestining; so as to avoid assigning a cause of predestination³⁹ on the part of that same good use foreknown by God. Otherwise, if the aforementioned supposition were posited as actual, the good use of free choice would only be foreknown, and not predestined, by God; consequently, as St. Prosper argues against Collator, God would have to be called not our savior but a witness and observer of that same good use of free choice. Maxentius also uses this argument against Faustus when he says:⁴⁰ But if, as this man wishes, only the preaching that took place through Jesus Christ is to be believed to be God’s grace, then the same God and our Lord Jesus Christ (which God forbid) must be believed to be not a savior but merely a preacher.

Moreover, the same conclusion is proved by the authority of St. Thomas, who sufficiently divided God’s knowledge into natural knowledge, which he calls knowledge of simple understanding, and free knowledge, which is knowledge of vision, as is clear in 1. p. q. 14. art. 9; 3. p. q. 10. art. 2. ad 2 and art. 3. at the end of the body; q. 13. art. 1. ad 2; 1. con. Gen., and many other places cited in the preceding disputation, no. 5, when we treated of knowledge of simple understanding and of vision. Therefore he acknowledged no middle knowledge between the two.

XII. Second, this is proved by reason. Before every decree of his will, God does not know how many human beings or angels he would produce if he created another world. Therefore, likewise, before that same decree he does not know how many acts, or what kind of acts, each human being would produce if he were created and placed in such an order of things. Some proponents of middle knowledge grant the antecedent. The consequence is proved because just as everything God operates immediately through himself outside himself depends intrinsically on the decree of his will, so too whatever God operates through a secondary cause, and whatever the secondary cause itself does, depends intrinsically on the decree of the divine will, since his causality and providence extend to every particular being.⁴¹

Some reply by denying the consequence, and assign a reason for the difference: although God comprehends his own free choice, he does not comprehend it with a certain most eminent and highest comprehension, since his comprehension does not exceed his free choice but is equal to it, because each has infinite being. But God comprehends created free choice with a most eminent comprehension, because he infinitely exceeds it. To see into which direction a free thing will incline, however, its being comprehended is not enough, nor is any comprehension greater than the thing comprehended; rather, a highest and most eminent comprehension is necessary. For the same reason, they say, a human being and an angel do not know, before the free determination of their wills, in which direction they ought to incline, because the intellect in them does not infinitely surpass their essence and will in that manner.

But this solution does not seem satisfactory, because God comprehends his own free will no less perfectly than he comprehends ours. For the distinction they assign between an eminent and a less eminent comprehension pertains to the knower, not to the object known. For by either comprehension, if it is comprehensive, the object is known insofar as it is knowable, so that nothing in it, actually or potentially, escapes the knower’s awareness. Therefore, just as before the free determination of the divine will it is not knowable, even to God, how many angels or human beings he himself would produce if he created another world, so also before the determination of that same will it will not be knowable how many acts, or what kind of acts, a created will would produce on the supposition that it were created or placed in such an order of things. A human being or an angel does not know with infallible knowledge, before the free determination of their wills, in which direction they will incline, because, apart from divine revelation, they are ignorant of the counsel of God’s absolute will and of what in particular he has preordained and decreed concerning the future acts of those same wills. Hence, if God revealed this to someone, that person would without doubt know certainly and infallibly, before the determination of his will, in which direction he would incline. For example, if God had revealed to Paul that from eternity he had decreed efficaciously to convert him on the following day, then before the determination of his will Paul would know with certainty that on the following day he would consent to God calling him, because he knows with certainty that no one can resist God’s will, as it is said in Esther 13 and Romans 9.

Some, recognizing the force of this argument, try to satisfy it in another way. They say that the explanation of the difference must be given not on the side of the cognitive power, but on the side of the knowable object. According to them, the point is this: a proposition in which some free decree is attributed to God, such as his willing to create the world, does not have a determinate truth prior in the order of reason to the point at which God is understood actually to have that decree in his eternity. Therefore it is not presented to the divine knowledge as something to be presented, but as something already presented. The case is different with created wills, and therefore in them there is room for knowing futures, whether absolute or conditional, before they actually exist in themselves, though not in the free decree of God’s will.

XIII. This solution seems less than sufficient, because our argument does not concern a decree that actually is, or will be, in God, but a decree to create so many angels or human beings, which would be in God on the hypothesis that he wished to produce another world. For although this decree cannot be presented to the divine knowledge as something to be presented at some future time, it can nevertheless be presented to it as possible, with respect to its determination to create these or those creatures. For if God had wished to create another world, he would without doubt have decreed from eternity to produce these or those creatures in a determinate number. Our argument concerns this decree, which would be in God from eternity given that hypothesis. On that supposition, the argument proceeds as follows. The proposition “God would create so many angels if he were to produce another world” does not have a determinate truth before every decree of the divine will determining the future angels on the hypothesis that he wished to create another world. Therefore, in the same way, this proposition—“If Peter is placed in such circumstances, he will consent”—does not have a determinate truth before a decree of the divine will decreeing that this consent will be future on the hypothesis that Peter were created or placed in those circumstances. Therefore, in this respect the same reasoning applies in both cases.

This is confirmed, since, as Aristotle teaches in bk. 1 of On Interpretation, ch. 8, and as will be shown in disputation 13, propositions about a future contingent do not in themselves have a determinate truth, nor are they determinately false; otherwise contingency would be removed, since a contingent thing, precisely as contingent, is altogether indifferent to either alternative. Therefore, before a decree of the divine will predetermining the will to one side of the contradiction, it is not knowable what, in the particular case, a person will do, or what he would do if placed in such circumstances, but only what he could do. The inference is evident, since nothing is knowable unless it is determinately true. Therefore, if before a decree of the divine will it is not determinately true that Peter will consent if he is placed in such circumstances, this will not be knowable even to God. ⁴²

They reply that Aristotle’s statement is false, and give this reason: a cause is not said to act or to be going to act contingently because it is not going to act determinately, but because it is going to act in such a way that it could fail to act. And when it is objected that if the same proposition is determinately true, then it is necessarily true, and therefore what it states as future is necessarily future, so that the contingency of things would be removed, they reply that it follows only that, if propositions about a future contingent are once supposed true, what they signify must at some time be future by the necessity of the consequence and on a supposition, not absolutely; for it was not absolutely necessary that those propositions be true. Nevertheless, given that they are true, they cannot fail to be verified at the time for which they are supposed to be true. Thus contingency is not removed, since a necessity on a supposition consequent upon the cause of a thing is no obstacle either to freedom or to contingency.

This solution seems to beg the question. For we contend that before a decree of the divine will predetermining contingent causes to act contingently in their particular actions, there is no greater reason why a will placed in such circumstances will perform this particular act rather than its opposite, since, even when placed in those circumstances, it remains altogether indifferent to either alternative. This will be treated expressly in disputation 13; there we will show that propositions about the future do not have a determinate truth or falsity before the free decree of the divine will. Nor is it enough to reply that before a decree of the divine will the proposition “Peter, if placed in such circumstances, will consent” is determinately true, because a created will has this proper feature: by its innate freedom it can determine itself, when placed in those circumstances, to either side, and it does so because that is what it pleases. Yet, if it wished, it could fail to determine itself to that side of the contradiction and determine itself to the opposite. This reply, I say, is invalid. For although the will is a proximate cause that moves itself and determines itself to a particular operation, it cannot nevertheless be the first root simply, or the first cause, of its own determination. For a determinate act does not proceed from a contingent cause, insofar as it is contingent, unless it is determined to that act by something else, as St. Thomas proves from the Commentator, Physics 2, text 48. ⁴³ The reason is that a contingent thing, precisely as contingent, is altogether indifferent to either alternative. Therefore another prior cause must necessarily be assigned, on account of which a created will, if placed in these or those circumstances, will determinately will this object proportionate to it rather than the opposite. But no other prior cause can be assigned except the divine will. Therefore, before a decree of that will, it is not knowable what a contingent and free secondary cause will do in particular on the hypothesis that it is placed in these or those circumstances. ⁴⁴

XIV. The advocates of middle knowledge try to dissolve this argument. For they say that it comes from the object being suitably presented to the will and accommodated to the constitution and inclination of this individual that the will will consent to an object presented in this way rather than dissent from it. For example, someone may be inclined to eat food prepared in a certain way. If another person offers him food suited to his appetite while he is hungry, it is certain that he will eat it in order to preserve his life; yet he would not eat it if it were prepared differently and offered at a time when he had no inclination to eat, especially no inclination for that food, but would instead be provoked to nausea by any food offered to him.

XV. This solution can nevertheless easily be challenged. Although a suitable object, proposed to the will as fitting, determines it as to specification—that is, if the will proceeds to act through that presentation of a fitting object, such an act will be the pursuit of that same object, since the will rejects nothing presented to it as good and fitting—it is nevertheless impossible for any particular good, however fittingly presented and in due circumstances, to determine the will as to the exercise of its act. The reason is the one St. Thomas gives, 1. p. q. 105. art. 4. in corp.: For something cannot sufficiently move a mobile thing unless the active power of the mover exceeds, or at least equals, the passive power of the mobile thing. But the passive power of the will extends to the good in general, for its object is the universal good, just as the intellect’s object is universal being; whereas every created good is a particular good. God alone, however, is the universal good. Hence he alone fulfills the will and sufficiently moves it as its object.⁴⁵ From this principle, in the same work, 1. p. q. 106. art. 2, he concludes: An angel does not sufficiently move another’s will, either as an object or by showing an object; rather, he inclines it as something lovable and as one who manifests certain created goods ordered to God’s goodness. In this way he can incline it to the love of a creature or of God, by way of one who persuades. He teaches the same in q. 111. art. 2. Indeed, even the universal good, which is God, however fittingly it is presented to a human will while the person is on the way, cannot, as an object, move it efficaciously as to the exercise of its act; it can do so only in the homeland. First, because only in the homeland, where the blessed gaze clearly upon God’s essence, is God himself presented to the will as universally good under every consideration; nor can he be represented to those who see him under any aspect of evil. Hence the will cannot fail to love him. But while on the way, God can be represented to the will as bringing the evil of punishment or as prohibiting some pleasurable good toward which the will is inclined; likewise, ceasing from actually loving him can be represented to it as a good, and therefore the will can fail to love him. St. Thomas touches on this reason, 1. 2. q. 10. art. 2. in corp. and 1. p. q. 106. art. 2. in corp. Second, as long as a human being is on the way, he can refrain from thinking about any object, whether it is a particular or a universal good, and consequently can refrain from willing it. This too is St. Thomas’s reason, in the cited 1. 2. Therefore it follows that the first root and cause determining the will to the exercise of an act and to the pursuit of any good presented to it is God alone, and his efficacious decree; he alone can change the will he created, according to Proverbs 21: The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord; like streams of water, he will turn it wherever he wishes. Therefore, before God’s decree it is not knowable what, in particular, a created will would do if it were created or placed in these or those circumstances, but only what it could do.⁴⁶

XVI. Third, our conclusion is proved principally as follows: there appears to be no necessity or utility in positing in God, before the decree of his will, foreknowledge of the cooperation and good use of free choice that would occur on a hypothesis; therefore it must not be posited before that decree, but after it. The antecedent is proved thus. If there were such a necessity or utility, it would be chiefly for reconciling freedom of choice with the infallibility of divine providence and predestination, and with the efficacy of the helps of grace. But it is not necessary for this, since these things cohere very well with one another without it, as will be clear in Disputation 121; nor is it useful or apt for achieving this reconciliation. For it does not resolve the difficulties they seek to avoid in that reconciliation; rather, it runs into them all the more. For if such foreknowledge is posited antecedently to God’s decree predestining the good use of free choice as future absolutely or on a hypothesis, it seems to follow that this good use of choice must ultimately be reduced to something natural—namely, a celestial constellation, an individual temperament, or some property of this free choice—which is not in a person’s power. On account of this natural feature, the call in the same circumstances is asserted to be so congruous and suited to this will that, if it is moved beforehand by that call, it will infallibly give its consent.⁴⁷ I prove this as follows. That Peter, for example, will consent rather than dissent when an object is proposed to him, if he is placed in such and such circumstances, cannot be referred to any decree of the divine will predetermining that a person consent if placed in those same circumstances, because the object of middle knowledge and middle knowledge itself precede every divine decree. Nor can it be reduced to the help of grace itself: for, as is presupposed, that help does not move the will efficaciously toward either side, but leaves it altogether indifferent to opposites. Yet in a cause altogether indifferent, insofar as it is indifferent—that is, not efficaciously inclined toward either side—a determinate effect cannot be known certainly and infallibly, as was said above. Nor can it be reduced to the free will itself, placed under that help and in those circumstances, for the same reason: for the will, placed under the same help and in the same circumstances, still remains undetermined and altogether indifferent to opposites. Nor can it be reduced to the object proposed to the will, because, as is clear from the premises, no object moves the will of a wayfarer efficaciously with respect to the exercise of an act. Nor can it be reduced to some prior free act of the will, for let us suppose that this is the first free act. Nothing, then, remains to which the aforesaid consent of free choice in such circumstances can ultimately be reduced except the natural temperament or property of this individual, or some other natural cause. Yet this must in no way be conceded, for it would follow that the will of this person, placed in such circumstances, is determined by nature, or naturally, to one thing; and that is a grave difficulty.

If it is said that the will itself has this power of itself, namely, that it can determine itself and does determine itself toward whichever side it pleases, the same difficulty arises against this. For although the nature of the will consists in a faculty for either alternative, it does not have, nor can it have by its nature, the ability to determine itself to consent to this particular object proposed to it rather than to dissent from it; otherwise it would be determined by nature to one thing, at least when placed in such circumstances. Since all these difficulties are easily avoided if we say that foreknowledge of the good use of free choice, even on the hypothesis that a person were placed in such circumstances, does not precede the free decree of the divine will in the order of reason but follows it—and that the creature derives all its freedom from that decree—it follows that such foreknowledge of the future good use of free choice must not be posited in God before that decree, even on a hypothesis.

This is confirmed: for, as some advocates of middle knowledge admit, if God knew before the determination of his will how many angels he would produce on the hypothesis that he wished to create another world, he would not be free in producing them, because their production would then be determined by nature and in itself. Therefore it seems that, by the same reasoning, Peter’s future consent would not be free but necessary if, before every decree of the divine and human will, God knew certainly and infallibly that Peter would consent on the hypothesis that he were placed in such circumstances—especially since it is not within Peter’s power to remove or posit that condition and supposition, once that supposition is posited, they say it is infallible that he will consent. For they very often presuppose as certain this foundation—which we do not admit—namely, that an act which follows necessarily from some supposition antecedent to the consent of a created will is simply necessary and not free whenever it is not within the power of that same will to remove or posit the supposition. Therefore they do not escape by means of middle knowledge the difficulty of reconciling free choice with divine grace and predestination, which they intend to resolve; rather, they seem to entangle it further and make it more difficult. The force of this argument will become clearer from what will be said in Disputation 13.

Fourth, our conclusion is proved by deriving another inadmissible consequence. For, if this middle foreknowledge is posited, the efficacy of grace seems to be weakened, and a ground or at least a necessary condition of predestination is assigned on our part. Therefore it must not be admitted. As to its first part, the antecedent will be clear in disputations 73, 90, and 91. The second part is proved as follows. Conditional, or middle, foreknowledge does not pertain intrinsically to predestination, but is presupposed to it, as the authors of the contrary opinion admit. Therefore the object of that same knowledge does not pertain intrinsically to predestination itself, nor is it a part or effect of it. Therefore, before the decree to predestine Peter to grace and glory, it is necessarily presupposed, on Peter’s part, that by his innate freedom he will consent to God calling him, on the supposition that he is placed in such circumstances and given such helps that do not efficaciously apply his will to consent. For this is the object of middle knowledge. Therefore it is prior in the order of reason that Peter, placed in those same circumstances and given those same helps, will consent by his innate freedom than that he be understood to be predestined. Consequently, Peter’s predestination would depend on his future cooperation, foreknown by God through middle knowledge, as a necessary condition for God’s predestination of Peter, or for the efficacious decree to predestine Peter. Therefore a ground or condition can be assigned on our part, necessarily presupposed, by which the order of means to a supernatural end—through which God determines to help this or that person—would have the character of predestination, or retain only the character of common supernatural providence. For if Peter in fact will consent by his innate freedom, with such helps of grace reaching him, and persevere to the end, he will remain predestined; but if he will not consent with those same helps, he will not remain predestined, but will be reprobate.

This is confirmed. Precisely because, before every decree of the divine will, it is supposed that Peter will consent by his innate freedom to God calling him, on the supposition that he is placed in such an order of things, given that supposition and with everything else excluded, Peter’s cooperation would in fact occur. Consequently, such cooperation would be exempted from predestination and divine causality; and thus something that contributes greatly to attaining eternal life—such as the aforesaid cooperation of free choice—would be attributed to nature, by reason of its innate freedom, and would not be an effect of predestination but rather a necessary condition for it.

The authors of the contrary opinion try to overcome the force of this argument with two replies. The first is an argument from an inadmissible consequence: they say that the same argument could be made against us, who admit this foreknowledge of a conditional future in the predetermining help. For before God predestines a person through such helps, he foreknows that the same person will merit glory if such predetermining helps are given to him; nevertheless, it does not follow that God predestines the person because of such merits, but rather predestines him through such merits. Therefore neither does that follow on the contrary opinion, since for the force of the inference it makes little difference whether that foreknowledge is in the cause or in the very truth of the future event. But this reply first presupposes something we do not admit: namely, that the aforesaid middle knowledge exists in God in the predetermining help. For the foreknowledge of this conditional future—“If God were to move Peter to conversion by a predetermining help, he would be converted”—which we assert to be in God, is purely natural and is founded on the omnipotence of the divine will, which, as Scripture teaches, no one can resist.⁴⁸ But the middle foreknowledge we oppose is not purely natural; it is partly natural and partly free, and rests on the free cooperation of the human being, which is said to be future before every decree of the divine will, on the supposition that the person is placed in such circumstances. Hence, in our opinion, the cooperation of free choice that God foreknows as future on the supposition that he himself wills efficaciously to convert Peter, or to premove him by a predetermining help, once that supposition is posited as actual, is ultimately reduced to divine predestination as its per se efficient cause. Hence it cannot be a cause or ground of predestination, or a necessary condition for it. But according to the opinion we oppose, the free cooperation of free choice said to be future on the supposition that it is placed in such circumstances would not be an effect of predestination; nor would the cooperation of our free choice be reduced to God as its prior efficient cause, but would be founded on the innate freedom of free choice. Hence, since such cooperation is a necessary condition without which the order of means to a supernatural end preexisting in the divine mind would not have the character of predestination, but would retain the character of common supernatural providence in relation to that person, it follows that, if middle knowledge is posited, a cause, ground, or necessary condition of predestination is assigned on our part. This will be treated expressly in disputations 36, 37, and 38.

The second solution is this: the aforesaid knowledge of the cooperation of free choice that would occur on a hypothesis, which is posited prior to predestination, is not a necessary condition on the human side, but on God’s side. That is, it is not necessary because it applies or presents to the divine will some consideration on the human side that moves God, by way of a merit of the human being, to predestine him. For in a thing that neither exists nor is known as going to exist at some time, no such motivating consideration can be founded. Rather, it is necessary only so that this object may be presented to God as predefinable, as infallibly future, and so that it may have the character of an efficacious means in God’s mind, so that it may be chosen under that character, or even intended as a proximate end. Hence it does not follow that there is in that object another moving reason besides the final one, which is not incompatible with predestination. For God predestines a person not because he has or will have merits, but so that he may have them and be holy, in keeping with the words: He predestined us to be holy.

But this solution does not remove the force of the argument. For although the foreknowledge of the cooperation of free choice belongs on God’s side, the cooperation of free choice itself, which is asserted to occur on the hypothesis, belongs on the human side. Hence, if on the human side a ground or condition is assigned without which the ordering of means to an end would not have the character of predestination but would retain only the character of common supernatural providence, a ground for predestination is indeed assigned on the human side. Nor is it enough to say that this cooperation, future on the hypothesis, does not apply or present to the divine will any consideration on the human side that moves God by way of merit to predestine that person. For we contend not only that this reason for predestination on the human side must be excluded, but also that reason which is in fact a condition without which the ordering of means to the supernatural end, preexisting in the divine mind, would not have the character of predestination but would retain the character of common providence. Otherwise, as will become clear in disputation 37, predestination, formally speaking in its character as predestination, would depend on the free cooperation of free choice.

Nor is it an obstacle that a thing which does not exist and is not known as going to exist at some time cannot be a cause or a condition without which predestination would not obtain. For once it is asserted that, before every decree of the divine will, it is certain that Peter, by his innate freedom, will consent to the divine call and persevere to the end, on the hypothesis that⁴⁹ he is placed in such circumstances, then, with that hypothesis posited in reality—as it is posited in the case of all the predestined who are or have been, and will be posited in the case of those who are to be born—the cooperation of free choice persevering to the end would in fact be a condition without which predestination would not obtain. Consequently, it would not have the character of a final cause of that predestination, since such a cause is an effect of predestination.

XVII. Fifth, this is proved as follows: the object of middle knowledge is not knowable; therefore, with respect to it, there cannot be true knowledge. The antecedent is proved because something is knowable only if it is necessary by some necessity; but before every decree of the divine will, it is not necessary by any necessity, not even by the necessity of the consequence, that Peter, placed in such circumstances and with such helps that do not efficaciously apply his will to conversion, infallibly be converted. Therefore it is not knowable even to God that he will be converted. The minor premise is proved: it is impossible for an effect to follow necessarily, by the necessity of the consequence or the necessity of infallibility, from a cause liable to fail and to be impeded by the concurrence of other causes, unless that cause is determined to that effect by another, superior cause that cannot fail or be impeded by other causes. But God does not determine causes liable to fail to particular effects except by a decree of his will. Therefore, before such a decree, it is not necessary by the necessity of the consequence, or by the necessity of infallibility, that a created will—which is by its nature liable to fail and to be impeded—will consent to the object presented to it if it is placed in such circumstances.⁵⁰

This argument is confirmed by the authority of St. Thomas, 1. p. q. 14. ar. 13. in the body of the article, where he says: A contingent thing as it is in its cause is considered as future and as contingent, not yet determined to one outcome, because a contingent cause must be related to opposites; and thus a contingent thing is not subjected with certainty to any knowledge. Hence whoever knows a contingent effect only in its cause has no more than conjectural knowledge of it.⁵¹ He teaches the same in q. 57, art. 3; q. 88, art. 3, in the body; art. 4, in the body; and q. 16, On Evil, art. 7.

XVIII. Sixth, it is proved as follows: it is impossible for an effect to exist or be understood as future in some case except dependently on its efficient cause. But the decree of the divine will is the first and most universal efficient cause, on which effects depend more than on their proximate cause, as is said in the book On Causes, proposition 1. Therefore, before a decree of the divine will, nothing will be or would be future, whatever condition is posited; and consequently, before that same decree, it is not knowable that, if Peter’s will is placed in such circumstances, it will consent to the object presented to it.⁵²

This is confirmed first. An absolute decree of God stands in relation to an absolute future just as a conditional decree stands in relation to a conditional future. But it is contradictory for something to be absolutely future unless an absolute decree of God deciding that it come to be precedes it, as Augustine says in the Enchiridion to Laurentius, ch. 95. Therefore it is likewise contradictory for something to be conditionally future unless a decree of God deciding that it come to be if the condition is fulfilled precedes it. Therefore, before such a decree, it is not knowable that Peter will consent on the hypothesis that he is placed in these or those circumstances.

This is confirmed a second time. A conditional future, once its condition is fulfilled, passes into an absolute future. Therefore, if before a decree of his will God knows certainly and infallibly that, if Peter is placed in such circumstances, he will consent to such an object presented to him, then, once that condition is fulfilled and before God decrees anything about the future act, he will know that act as an absolute future. And thus in that case something would be absolutely future independently of the decree of the divine will, which is incompatible with the perfection of divine causality.

They reply that both the conditional and the absolute future, in order to be posited in being, depend intrinsically on the decree of the divine will as their efficient cause, by which a thing is principally brought into being. They say, however, that when the secondary cause is free, God does not have an absolute decree to produce a free effect with it unless he presupposes foreknowledge that, if the secondary cause is placed in such circumstances, it will, by its innate freedom, contribute its own free influx, without which a free act cannot be produced. Hence, precisely by God’s fulfilling the condition through a decree of his will and placing the created will in circumstances in which he foreknows it will contribute its influx to free consent, he consequently wills at the same time to concur with it as a universal cause, from whose influx the effects of a free secondary cause, like those of any other cause, principally depend. According to these authors, therefore, before God decides to create a human being in such circumstances and before he decrees anything in particular concerning that person’s free acts, he foreknows certainly and infallibly that, if that person’s will is placed in such circumstances, it will by its own free influx determine itself to consent to the object presented to it. Then God, by his free and efficacious decree, places that person in those circumstances with that object presented, and consequently wills at the same time to act together with the will determining itself, and produces a free effect with it. Thus the effect depends principally on the decree of the divine will and does not proceed from the secondary cause alone. But if the created will were going to dissent in those circumstances, as it could, God likewise, by the very fact that he wills to place it in those circumstances, decrees to produce dissent with it. They say the same about other conditional futures which in fact will not be brought into being, but, as they claim, would be if the condition were fulfilled.⁵³

XIX. Nevertheless, this solution brings with it many difficulties and inconveniences, which will be treated expressly below. For an argument is made against it. First, even if we grant that it saves the operation of the secondary cause as depending on the decree as its efficient cause of the divine will—a point to be discussed elsewhere—it does not save the claim that the influx of the created will itself, by which it contributes to a free act, depends on that same decree as its efficient cause. This is shown as follows. Every efficient cause must precede its effect; but the decree of the divine will does not precede the future free influx of the created will once the condition is fulfilled. For, according to the authors of the opposing opinion, God does not decide that the will will contribute and cooperate before he foresees that by its innate freedom it will cooperate on the hypothesis that it is placed in such circumstances. Therefore, formally speaking, that influx, insofar as it is the influx of the created will, does not depend on God as its efficient cause, but on the created will alone. Thus, with respect to it, the created will would be the first cause simply, which is impossible, as St. Thomas proves in Sentences II, dist. 37, q. 2, art. 2, in the body; and we will show the same in disputation 25.⁵⁴

Second, it would follow that this causal proposition must be granted: “Because the created will wills to contribute to this act in particular, God contributes to the same act in particular”⁵⁵; and thus the human will and operation would be prior, while the divine will and operation would be posterior and would be the attendant of that same created will. Consequently, the creature would act and God would cooperate with it. It would also follow that God’s influx is determined to this act by the influx of the created will, and that the divine will and its help are subordinated to the human will. All of this seems greatly to detract from the causality of the first cause and from the efficacy of the helps of divine grace, as will become clear in Disputations 18, 23, 86, 97, and the two following ones.

Finally, the argument made above presses against this teaching, and it is necessary and useful to repeat it often, lest it be thought trivial, as Prosper says, if it is not frequently argued:⁵⁶ for a determinate act does not proceed from an indifferent cause insofar as it is indifferent. But before a decree of the divine will, the created will, placed in any circumstances whatsoever, is altogether indifferent to opposites. Therefore, before that same decree, it cannot be certain with infallible certainty that the will will determinately produce consent rather than dissent, or vice versa.

XX. There is no need to dispute here about unrelated conditional propositions, whose consequent has no connection with the antecedent even by a decree of the divine will, but is altogether accidentally joined to that antecedent; for these will be treated specially in Disputation 13. This one point must be established with certainty: if they are considered as conditional propositions, they have no truth. For it is necessarily required for a conditional proposition to be true that the consequent follow from the antecedent if the antecedent is posited as obtaining. But when the consequent is altogether unrelated to the antecedent, as in this proposition, “If Peter will debate tomorrow in Spain, there will be heavy rain in Rome,” the antecedent in no way entails the consequent. Hence, even if both are posited as obtaining together, the conditional is not true, although both the antecedent and the consequent are true as simple propositions.⁵⁷

Third conclusion. No other middle knowledge is to be posited between God’s purely natural and purely free knowledge. This conclusion remains sufficiently proved from the foregoing, and will become clearer from what is to be said in disputation 37.

To the first argument, it is answered that the conditional propositions discussed in the cited passages of Scripture are not known by God, nor knowable as future, prior to a conditional decree of the divine will, but as following upon it. Hence there is no middle knowledge of them, since middle knowledge precedes every decree of that same divine will, as was said.

XXI. Specifically, as to the first passage cited from 1 Kings, ch. 23, it is answered that by those words the Lord wished to indicate to David the certain danger threatening him from the proximate cause if he remained in Keilah and Saul came there. For the Lord knew that the people of Keilah were firmly resolved to hand David over. Hence the phrase “they will hand you over” is to be understood in this way: they have the will to hand you over. So explains the interlinear Gloss, which has very great authority; its author was Anselm of Laon, a most learned man.⁵⁸ Likewise, the phrase “Saul will come down” is to be understood conditionally, that is, if you remain in that city, Saul will come down. This explanation is gathered from the very context, where it is said that Saul did not come to that city because David had departed from it. We therefore grant that this conditional is true and consequently known to God: “If you wait, Saul will come; if Saul comes, the people of Keilah will hand you over,” even though neither the antecedent nor the consequent was posited as obtaining. For a conditional does not posit anything as obtaining; its truth requires only that the inference be valid, so that if the antecedent is posited as obtaining, the consequent must infallibly be posited as well. Thus this conditional is true: “If a stone is a human being, a stone is a rational animal,” although both antecedent and consequent are impossible. Yet God did not know the truth of the conditional “If Saul comes, they will hand you over” through middle knowledge, because he did not know it prior to every decree of his will, but in the decree by which he decided to permit David to be handed over and to concur in the handing-over itself insofar as it was an action, unless David’s flight had prevented it. But because God had decided by an absolute and efficacious will that David would not be handed over, David was warned to flee. Hence God knew these conditional futures by free knowledge.⁵⁹ When it is argued that free knowledge concerns only things existing in some division of time, the assumption is denied. For it is enough for free knowledge to concern things existing in some division of time, or things that would exist by a special decree of God if this or that condition were applied. For just as absolute futures are objects of free knowledge because they presuppose an absolute decree of the divine will, both on the side of the act of willing and on the side of the object willed, so too conditional futures of the kind discussed in the cited passage pertain to free knowledge because they presuppose a conditional decree on the side of the object willed, by which God decides to posit the consequent as obtaining if the antecedent is posited. Hence, by virtue of the decree explained above, that consequence was infallible: “If you wait, Saul will come; if Saul comes, the people of Keilah will hand you over.”⁶⁰

XXII. But an argument is made against this. It follows that this conditional future is known by God through free knowledge, namely, “If God had wished to create another world, he would have created it.” The consequent is false; therefore, so is the antecedent reasoning. The inference is proved as follows: this future too presupposes a conditional decree in the antecedent, expressed by the words “if God had wished.”

It is answered that God knows this conditional through natural knowledge, and not through free knowledge, because the infallibility of that inference is not founded on some free decree existing in God, but on the omnipotence of the divine will, which belongs to God by nature. For from the fact that he is omnipotent, and no one can resist his will, it follows evidently that whatever he had wished to do, he would have done. But the connection of the consequent with the antecedent in the conditional propositions discussed in the cited passage from 1 Kings is not founded immediately on something that belongs to God by nature, but on his free decree explained above. Hence the cases are not alike.

XXIII. To the second testimony, from the authority of Matthew 11, we acknowledge that Christ the Lord knew with certain and infallible knowledge this conditional future: if the signs and wonders that were performed in Chorazin and Bethsaida had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have been converted. This would not have been because of those miracles and external signs alone. For, as even the authors of the contrary opinion admit, it pertains to the Pelagian heresy to say that internal help from divine grace is not required for conversion, but that external signs and wonders, by which the preaching of the Gospel is confirmed, are sufficient; for all these pertain to the law and teaching. They would therefore have been converted by the efficacious help of prevenient divine grace, which God mercifully determined to give them if those wondrous signs and miracles had been performed among them. Hence the truth of that conditional future does not precede that decree of the divine will, but rather follows upon it. Consequently, it is not known by God through middle knowledge, but through free knowledge, as was said above.⁶¹ This reply has strong support in St. Augustine, On the Gift of Perseverance, chapter 10, where, asking why Christ did not perform those signs in Tyre and Sidon, since they would have believed if the signs had been done, he replies that this must be referred to the divine will and the inscrutable judgments of God. In the following chapter 14 he confirms the same point, saying: The eyes of the Tyrians and Sidonians were not so blinded, nor their heart so hardened, that they would not have believed if they had seen signs such as these people saw. But it did not benefit them that they were able to believe, because they were not predestined by him whose judgments are inscrutable and whose ways are unsearchable; nor would it have harmed these people that they were unable to believe, if they had been predestined, so that God would illumine their blind eyes and wished to take away their heart of stone from those hardened. And after this he adds: For those to whom it has been given hear these things and do them; but those to whom it has not been given do not do them, whether they hear or do not hear. “To you,” he says, “it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.” One of these belongs to the mercy, the other to the judgment of him to whom our soul says: “I will sing of mercy and judgment to you, O Lord.”⁶²⁶³ By these words Augustine teaches most clearly that it proceeds from the divine will and mercy, which grants the good will, that these people believe when they hear and see the signs. Therefore, if the Tyrians and Sidonians had believed upon seeing those signs and wonders, they would have believed by God’s grace and will, which grants belief itself; consequently, that conditional future follows upon the decree of the divine will.

XXIIII. But you will say: why, then, are the Jews reproached, if they too would have believed had God given them efficacious help and willed to convert them?

It is replied that they are rightly reproached because they placed greater obstacles in the way of grace and proved more unworthy, being hardened by their own malice. Such hardening was not found in the Tyrians and Sidonians. For although the Tyrians and Jews could not by their own powers attain the help of grace or prepare themselves to receive it, they could nevertheless impede themselves more or less, so that it would not be given to them by God, according to Hosea 13: Your destruction, O Israel, is from yourself; only in me is your help.⁶⁴⁶⁵ St. Thomas treats this at length, Against the Gentiles, book 3, chapters 149 and 160.

To the third testimony, from Matthew 24, the first reply is that it was said with reference to the dangers of this life, not to foreknowledge, as Augustine says in explaining the authority from Wisdom 4, as will be clear immediately.

A second reply is that, in the decree by which God determined to confer on the elect efficacious help to overcome only this or that temptation—which he decreed to permit them to undergo, and not other temptations that could have occurred but did not—God knew with certainty and infallibly that, if they had experienced other, more severe temptations, they would have succumbed to them. And because by God’s mercy they had been separated by predestination from the mass of perdition, he therefore prevented them from being touched by those temptations. Hence God knew this not through middle knowledge but through free knowledge.

By this we also answer the other testimony from Wisdom, chapter 4. Let St. Augustine be consulted, On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 14, where he says: This is the whole reason why it was said—whoever said it—“He was snatched away lest malice change his understanding.” For it was said with reference to the dangers of this life, not to God’s foreknowledge: God foreknew what was going to be, not what was not going to be. That is, that he was going to grant him an untimely death, so that the person might be removed from the uncertainty of temptations, not that he would sin, since he would not remain in temptation.⁶⁶ By these words he signifies that God did not know as future the sin of the one who was snatched away, because in truth it did not have the character of something future in the divine decree or permission. He also confirms this in the words cited above from On the Soul and Its Origin, chapter 12. A second reply is that, in the decree by which God determined to confer on that person the gift of perseverance up to a certain appointed moment, he knew that if the person had lived longer, left to his own nature, he would have been overcome by the force of temptations and sinned.

XXV. To the fifth testimony from Isaiah, chapter 1, we answer in the same way: God knew by natural knowledge that unless, through the Apostles and other preachers of the Gospel, or immediately by himself, he made the mysteries of faith known to those Israelites who were saved, they would have perished altogether. We likewise know by natural knowledge that unless God preserved the world, it would at once be reduced to nothing, since it cannot subsist without his preservation. The reason is that no one can believe the mysteries of faith unless they are proposed by another, in accord with the saying: How will they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?⁶⁷ Therefore, by the seed in the passage from Isaiah cited here, the Lord Christ is understood, of whom it is written in Galatians 3: In your seed, which is Christ. The Apostles are also understood, in accord with Isaiah 61: These are the seed whom the Lord has blessed.⁶⁸ Second, one may say that just as, in the decree by which he determined to convert Paul through Stephen’s prayers and not otherwise, God knew by free knowledge this truth—that if Stephen had not prayed, the Church would not have had Paul the Apostle—so too, in the decree by which he determined to save believers through the preaching of Christ and the Apostles, he knew that unless that small seed had been left to the Jewish people—that is, the Apostles—the same people would have been destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah. For a negative is known by God through its positive, as Saint Thomas teaches. 1. p. q. 14. ar. 10. Hence God did not know that conditional by middle knowledge, but by merely free knowledge.

XXVI. To the sixth testimony from Luke, chapter 16, we answer in the same way: in the decree by which God determined by an absolute will not to confer efficacious help on the rich man’s brothers so that they might be converted, he knew that they would not believe even if someone rose from the dead.⁶⁹ To the other testimony from Ezekiel, chapter 3, we answer that this way of speaking is a phrase of Sacred Scripture, which people commonly also use when, reproaching a friend for his hardness, they say: “If I had begged this with so many entreaties of a stone or of an enemy, he would have done it.” For Scripture often adapts itself to the common manner of human speech.

To the seventh testimony from 4 Kings, chapter 13, we answer that God had decreed to destroy Syria entirely, on the condition that the king strike the ground five or six, or even seven, times without interruption, as the Gloss teaches on the same passage. Hence that conditional was known by God in the aforesaid decree of his will; accordingly, he knew it not through middle knowledge but through free knowledge.

To the second argument from the authority of the holy Fathers who wrote before the Pelagian error, we answer that they taught little about divine grace and chiefly sought to establish those things that seemed necessary for refuting the error of the Manichaeans, who denied free choice. Hence Saint Augustine says in On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 14: Why, then, is it necessary for us to scrutinize the little works of those who, before this heresy arose, had no need to engage with this question, which is difficult to resolve? They would certainly have done so if they had been compelled to answer such people. Consequently, they briefly touched on what they thought about God’s grace in certain passages of their writings and in passing, while they devoted themselves to the matters they were disputing against other enemies of the Church.⁷⁰ Nevertheless, they never taught that middle knowledge which we oppose. And to the words cited from Saint Chrysostom we answer that it is most true that God knew with certainty and infallibly that Matthew would consent, and likewise Paul, if they were called at the time when they were called. Yet he knew this because from eternity he determined and decreed in his predestination to convert them at that time and not earlier. Thus he foreknew such conditional future things, and others like them, by free knowledge, not by middle knowledge.

XXVII. We apply the same solution to the words cited from Saint Augustine’s On Six Questions of the Pagans, question 2; the same Doctor also expressly teaches it in On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 9, where he explains at length what he had said in the aforesaid book and turns against those who charged him with teaching that knowledge which precedes the decree of the divine will. For he says: Did I perhaps intend to say this about Christ’s foreknowledge, without prejudice to God’s hidden plan and other causes, because it seemed sufficient for refuting the unbelief of the pagans who had raised this question? For what is truer than that Christ foreknew who would believe in him, when they would believe, and in what places? But whether, once Christ had been preached to them, they would have faith of themselves or receive it as God’s gift—that is, whether God merely foreknew them or also predestined them—I did not then think it necessary to ask and discuss. Accordingly, what I said—that Christ then willed to appear to human beings and his doctrine to be preached among them when and where he knew there would be people who would believe in him—could also have been said in this way: Christ then willed to appear to human beings and his doctrine to be preached among them when and where he knew there would be people who had been chosen in him before the foundation of the world. But because saying it in this way would have made the reader attentive to questions that, now that the Pelagian error has prompted us, must be discussed more fully and laboriously, it seemed to me that what was then sufficient should be said briefly—except, as I have said, for the depth of God’s wisdom and knowledge, and without prejudice to other causes, which I thought should not be discussed then but later, at a more suitable time.⁷¹ Saint Thomas pursues this solution in 3 p., q. 1, a. 5, ad 2.

XXVIII. To the other passage from Augustine, Questions to Simplicianus, q. 2, it is answered that when he says that God “calls him in the way he knows will be fitting for him, so that he will not reject the one calling,” he wished to signify nothing other than that God is not ignorant of the power and energy of his grace, by which he secretly calls some people in such a way that, by calling them, he converts them and makes them obedient; and for this reason he sees that those called in this way will follow, because by calling them he will bring it about that they follow. Thus he knows his gifts and benefits by which he has deigned to free us, as Augustine himself admits in the cited On the Predestination of the Saints, ch. 9, a point he repeats in the following ch. 10 when he says: For by predestination God foreknew those things that he himself was going to do; hence it was said, “He made the things that are to be.” And in ch. 22: They were therefore chosen before the foundation of the world by that predestination in which God foreknew his own future works. And in ch. 19: When, therefore, he predestined us, he foreknew his own work, he who makes us holy and immaculate. And in On the Gift of Perseverance, ch. 14: Will anyone dare to say that God did not foreknow to whom he was going to give the gift of believing, or whom he was going to give to his Son so that he would lose none of them? If he foreknew these things, he certainly foreknew the benefits by which he deigns to free us.⁷² He repeats the same in the same book, chs. 17, 18, 21, and 24.

To the authority from On Correction and Grace, ch. 12, it is answered that, as will become clear in disputation 11, in the decree by which God decided to permit the sin of the first parent placed in paradise and to concur in its positive action insofar as it was an action, God knew that he would sin if placed in paradise. Hence he knew this through free knowledge and not through middle knowledge. The same answer is given to the other passage from On Nature and Grace, ch. 26: God wished through the fall of the predestined person, which he permits, to make that person more cautious; therefore, through free knowledge he knows this conditional future: if he sins, he will thereafter become more cautious.⁷³

By these answers the objections from St. Ambrose, St. Gregory, St. Thomas, and the other saints and Scholastic Doctors are met. For St. Thomas in particular very often attacks that middle knowledge, though under another name, as is clear from the passages cited above.

XXIX. To the third argument it is answered that middle knowledge is not only useless for the perfection of divine providence, but also impossible in itself, as was shown above.⁷⁴ As to the objection, it is answered that human providence and will are not efficacious for moving another’s will and bringing about whatever one wishes. For it is said in Wisdom 9: The thoughts of mortals are fearful, and our providence is uncertain. Hence, to persuade another prudently of what one intends, one must observe the circumstances and wait for a time when the other is more disposed. But this reasoning does not apply to the divine will, which is most efficacious and has done all things whatsoever it willed in heaven and on earth. Thus St. Prosper, Against the Ungrateful, ch. 15, says: But when the Almighty saves a person with grace, grace itself completes its work. It always has time to perform what it wills to be done; no dispositions delay it, nor is it suspended in doubt by any causes. Nor does it carry out by the care and service of a minister what it alone can do, or entrust to a servant the function of acting.

To the first confirmation it is answered that, prior in the order of reason to having an efficacious decree to do something, God, he foreknows by his natural knowledge his omnipotence and the efficacy of his divine will and motion. For by that knowledge, and not by middle knowledge, he knows that if he wills to convert a person and give him efficacious help, he will convert him, as was said above. The second confirmation is answered in the same way.

To the fourth argument it is answered that the conditional future “If Adam had not sinned, the Son of God would not have become incarnate” is true and known to God in the decree of his divine will by which he decided to become incarnate on the supposition of the sin of the first parent, and not otherwise, as is clear from St. Thomas in the cited third part.⁷⁵ Hence God knew it through free knowledge. The same must be said of that conditional future, “If man had persevered in the state of innocence, he would have been immortal,” for its truth is founded on the decree of the will by which God decided to preserve man from death for as long as the state of innocence lasted. But other conditional propositions whose consequent has no infallible connection with the antecedent either by the nature of the thing or by a decree of the divine will are not true, and consequently are not knowable even by God, as was explained above.

XXX. To the fifth argument it is answered that, as will become clear in disputation 11, after the decree of the divine will by which God decided to permit Peter, placed in such circumstances, to sin, and to concur in the act of sin insofar as it is an action, he foreknew absolutely that Peter would sin. Likewise, before he decided to create Peter and place him in the aforesaid circumstances, he foreknew certainly and infallibly that if Peter were placed in those same circumstances, and God permitted Peter’s sin and decreed to concur in the act of sin insofar as it is a positive action, Peter would sin. But this conditional is not an object of middle knowledge, nor is it known by God through that knowledge, but through purely natural knowledge, or the knowledge of simple understanding; for every possible thing would be future if God had willed:

To the sixth argument, the antecedent is denied. In proof of it, the reply is that all possibles would be future on the supposition that God willed to bring them about, if they are good, or to permit them, if they are evil.⁷⁶ Hence something’s being future on the supposition that God willed to bring it about does not remove the aforesaid object from the account of the possible; therefore it is known through natural knowledge. But if the antecedent is not supposed to include a divine decree, at least a conditional one,⁷⁷ by which God decreed that something of this kind occur if that condition is posited as actual, nothing would be future by force of that supposition. For an effect cannot be understood as future in any way antecedently to the decree of the first cause, as was said above. Thus that conditional proposition would not be true, and consequently it would not even be knowable by God.

What was said already makes clear, in reply to the seventh argument, how conditional future things are not knowable in the sense posited by the proponents of middle knowledge: for in reality they would not be future if that condition were posited, unless a decree of the divine will were supposed in that condition, without which decree, whether absolute or conditional, no conditional future exists at all. Hence we, in denying and opposing middle knowledge, do not deny that God has knowledge of conditional future things, but only of those things that, since they will in no way be future even on a supposition, are said to be conditional futures.

In reply to the confirmation, it is said that for those two propositions to be contradictories, the negation must precede the copula “if” in the negative proposition. Then, before every decree of the divine will decreeing a future act, the affirmative proposition is false, since it is a bad inference. For the truth of a conditional proposition requires that the inference be good; consequently the negative conditional is true, for it has this sense: “It does not follow that, if Peter is placed in such an order of things, he will sin.” This sense is true, since the will, even when placed in those circumstances before the decree of the divine will, is wholly indifferent to producing an act of sin or an act of the contrary virtue.

XXXI. A second reply is that when propositions concern contingent matter, it is not necessary that, of two contradictories, one be determinately true in itself and the other determinately false;⁷⁸ it is sufficient that, if one is true, the other be false, so that it is impossible for both to be true together or false together. And because sinning or not sinning belongs contingently to Peter, the proposition “Peter, placed in such circumstances, will sin” is not more true in itself than its opposite.

To the eighth argument, the antecedent is denied. It can more truly be said that this concord of free choice with divine grace and predestination through middle knowledge gives rise to very many difficulties concerning the freedom of free choice, the efficacy of the helps of grace, and divine causality, providence, and gratuitous predestination,⁷⁹ as is clear from what has been said and will become still clearer from what is to be said below.

XXXII. To the ninth argument, it is replied that, since efficacious help is an effect of the divine will decreeing that a person be converted, his conversion has an infallible connection with that same help, just as it does with the absolute will of God, who wills that the person whose heart he moves be converted.⁸⁰ For St. Thomas says: It is impossible for both of these to be true at once: that the Holy Spirit wills to move someone to an act of charity and that the person himself loses charity by sinning.⁸¹ And again he says that if it is God’s intention in moving that the person whose heart he moves should attain grace, he infallibly attains it, according to John 6: “Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.”⁸² Hence, before the absolute decree of his will, God knows certainly and infallibly that if he had given efficacious help to Judas, he would have been converted. But God does not know this conditional proposition through middle knowledge, but through purely natural knowledge, by which he comprehends the omnipotence of his will and the intrinsic power of efficacious help, as was said above and will become clearer from what is to be said in disputation 25.

To the tenth argument, it is replied that it not only fails to demonstrate what it intends, but does not even make it probable. For the principle assumed in the major premise is gratuitous and manifestly false, even on the opinion of those who defend middle knowledge. They themselves admit that God decreed to concur with the created will in free acts by an indifferent general concurrence, if the will itself should wish to exert its influence. Yet this decree does not necessarily posit a real change in anything: for, on their opinion, God has this decree even with respect to those who do nothing, in whom no real change is made by that decree. In proof of the argument, the reply is that when God’s decree is absolute on the part of the object willed, a real change in a creature results from it at some time; but when it is conditional on the part of the object willed, it need not entail a real change in a creature. It is sufficient that, by force of that decree, the creature would be changed differently if the condition were fulfilled. This real change, which would be future if the condition were fulfilled, is also sufficient for the divine will to be related differently to creatures after that actual decree than before it. This is especially so because the relation of reason involved in God’s actual decree in relation to the objects willed secondarily, as objects, is not a categorical relation but a transcendental one; nor is it a real relation but a relation of reason, even on the part of creatures when creatures do not exist but would exist if the condition were fulfilled.

A second reply is that it is not necessary even in God’s decree that is absolute on the part of the object willed that it always entail a real change in a creature at some time. For the decree by which God wills, through his natural law, to bind a rational creature under pain of mortal sin is absolute on the part of the object willed; yet no real change in that creature results from this decree.

XXXIII By this we also answer the first confirmation: when God’s actual decree is absolute on the part of the object willed, it connotes something existing in a creature at some time that could fail to exist. But when the decree is conditional on the part of the object willed, it only connotes something that would exist in a creature by force of that decree if the condition were fulfilled, but which could nevertheless fail to exist. For when the condition was fulfilled, it would be produced by God, not with absolute necessity, but only with necessity on the supposition of the immutability of the divine decree, as will be said below.

To the second confirmation, it is replied that the passage of Augustine from On Grace and Free Choice, chapter 8, is not relevant to the present point. For there he speaks expressly about things that truly were future, namely the future sins of those who were not snatched away while they were in grace. These sins were indeed known with certainty and infallibly by God as future before they occurred, but they were not known before the actual decree of the divine will, as the objector claims; rather, they were known after the decree by which God determined to permit those future sins and to concur with the very act of sin insofar as it is an action, in the manner to be explained in disputation 25. It is most perverse and insane to say of these future things that God did not know them before they occurred, just as it is most perverse and insane to say that God could not have prevented them. But of the other conditional future things, which are at issue in the present controversy, it is said not perversely and insanely, but most rightly and truly, that before the decree of the divine will they are not knowable as determinate future things, even on the supposition that the created will were placed in such circumstances; they are knowable only as things that can come to be, as was said above. If it is said that St. Augustine teaches not only that God knew future sins, but also this conditional future: “If these people live longer, they will sin,” the reply is that God knew that conditional proposition too, but after the actual decree of his will, as was said.

Likewise, the passage cited from chapter 8 of On the Predestination of the Saints is not relevant. For in the very condition expressed in the antecedent—namely, “if he had wished to teach them”—a conditional will of God is included on the part of the act of willing, so that the sense is: “If God had willed efficaciously to draw them to himself, they too would certainly have come.” God certainly knows this conditional proposition through purely natural knowledge, by which he knows the efficacy and omnipotence of his will, just as he knows with certainty that if he had willed to create another world, he would have created it. No theologian denies that God has infallible knowledge of these and similar conditional propositions that are simply necessary, because, as St. Thomas teaches, their consequent follows infallibly, or with necessity of the consequence, from the antecedent if it is posited as actual.⁸³ The other passage of Augustine, from chapter 14 of On the Gift of Perseverance, has already been answered above.

To the third confirmation, it is replied that, as was said above from St. Thomas, for a conditional proposition to be true it is necessarily required that, if the antecedent is posited, the consequent also be infallibly posited as actual. In reply to the objection, it is said that this counsel signifies that the king’s kindness has great force for morally attracting and drawing the people to his service and obedience. Those who gave the counsel spoke truly, because this is what usually happens morally. In fact, however, that conditional proposition does not have infallible truth antecedently to the decree by which God determined to make the people his servants through the king’s kindness. For, setting aside such a decree, it can sometimes happen that the condition is posited and that the people are ungrateful and rebel against the king. The same must be said proportionally about other similar consultations and counsels.

Whether all future things are actually present in eternity according to the proper existences they will have in their own measure.

I. This is the chief difficulty among those that help clarify the certainty of divine foreknowledge in relation to contingent future things. For if it is once established that all contingent future things exist actually from eternity in the measure of eternity—not merely in known and objective being, but also according to their proper and actual existences—a simple path is opened for explaining the infallibility of that same divine knowledge. There are, then, two opposing opinions on this point. The first is that of many theologians who assert that things are not present to God in eternity in real being and according to their proper existences except when they actually possess them in their own immediate measure. Scotus followed this opinion in Book I, distinction 39, as did his disciples. Aureolus holds the same, as cited by Capreolus; Durandus in the same book, distinction 38, question 3; Gabriel, Ockham, and Palatius there as well. Many more recent theologians defend the same opinion, contending that Saint Thomas also held it. The arguments that convince them are as follows.

First, they argue from passages of Scripture in which it is said that God alone is from eternity, whereas all other things were produced by him in time, as is clear from Genesis 1: In the beginning God created heaven and earth, and Psalm 89: Before the mountains were made, and the earth and the world were formed, from age to age you are God. These passages and similar ones must be understood in their proper sense. Therefore, properly speaking, no created thing has from eternity, in eternity itself, its own actual existence; rather, from eternity it is present to God only in known being, or objective being.

Second, they argue from the authorities of Saint Thomas, in which he grants only a real presence in eternity from eternity according to objective being. For in Summa theologiae I, q. 14, a. 13, he says that future things in time are present to God from eternity, because his gaze is directed from eternity over all things insofar as they are in their presentness. In I–II, q. 91, a. 1, ad 1, he says that things which do not exist in themselves exist with God insofar as they are known and preordained by him. He teaches the same in Summa contra Gentiles I, ch. 66, argument 6. Again, in Summa theologiae I, q. 8, a. 3, he says that God is present to all things and all things are present before his sight because he beholds all things. There Saint Thomas posits no other presence of things in relation to God before they exist than objective presence alone.

Third, future things do not exist in eternity from eternity; therefore, they do not coexist with God in eternity. The consequence is clear, since to coexist with something is to exist at the same time as it. The antecedent is proved as follows. All created things begin to exist in eternity: for they begin to exist in themselves according to their proper measure and, consequently, begin to exist in any higher measure as well. Therefore they do not exist in eternity from eternity.

First confirmation. If things existed in eternity from eternity, it would follow that they were not created by God. This is proved as follows: since creation is the production of the whole of being from nothing, true creation requires that a thing have being after nonbeing. But what exists in eternity from eternity does not have being after nonbeing. Therefore.

Second confirmation. For in the Nicene Council, in the Creed, that impious statement of Arius is condemned: concerning the Son of God, he asserted that “there was when he was not” and that he had a beginning like creatures. But if the opinion asserting that all created things existed in eternity from eternity were true, there would be no difference, as regards eternity itself, between the generation of the Word and the production of creatures according to their proper existences. Therefore.

Fourth, it would follow from the opposing opinion that two contradictories were true in eternity. The proof is manifest. “Peter is white” and “Peter is not white” are contradictories. But these would both be true if future things existed in eternity from eternity. The minor premise is proved as follows. Suppose Peter is white today and black tomorrow. The affirmative is true, since it is now verified in our time that Peter is white; he is therefore also white in the measure of eternity. The negative, however, is proved thus: tomorrow Peter will truly not be white. But according to the opposing opinion, future things exist in eternity according to their proper existences; therefore the statement “Peter is not white” will also be true from eternity in eternity. Thus he will at once be white and not white in eternity.

Fifth, it is impossible for the same thing to be produced twice. But if things existed in eternity before existing in their proper measure, the same thing would be produced twice in reality. Therefore. The minor premise is proved as follows: if Antichrist coexists with God from eternity in eternity itself, then he has already been produced in eternity; for otherwise he could not exist, since he does not have being from himself but from another. Yet Antichrist truly is future; therefore he will have to be produced again, and so the same thing would be produced twice.

Sixth, creatures that are future in our time do not coexist with an angel in the measure of the aevum; therefore neither do they coexist with God in the measure of eternity. The antecedent is proved as follows: otherwise an angel would naturally know all contingent future things before they were produced, because they would be present to it and would coexist with it in the measure of the aevum, by which the angel is measured. The consequence is proved as follows: the aevum is a measure higher than our time, just as eternity is. Therefore, if contingent future things exist in eternity because it is a higher measure, they also exist in the measure of the aevum before they are produced in time.

This is confirmed: God has certain knowledge of future contingents because they coexist with him in the measure of eternity according to that real being which they will have in time. But future contingents also coexist with an angel in the measure of aevity, since that measure is above our time and is unchangeable and wholly simultaneous. Therefore an angel too will have certain knowledge of future contingents.

A seventh argument is made. It is impossible for something to exist in a higher measure according to its real being unless it first exists in a lower measure according to that same real being. Therefore it is contradictory that something have its own existence in eternity unless it has it in its own measure. But future things do not exist in their own measure; therefore neither do they exist in the measure of eternity. The antecedent is proved as follows: things are related to a higher measure only through an intermediate lower measure. Therefore, just as it is contradictory that something be under the heavens as under an inadequate and higher measure unless it exists in some lower place proper and adequate to it, so too it is contradictory that something exist really in eternity before it has being in its own measure.

An eighth argument is made. If things already have being and their own existence in eternity, it follows that no freedom of choice or contingency of things remains. But this must not be said. Therefore. The inference is proved: if things exist in eternity, then all future things have already been produced with all the circumstances they will have in our time. Therefore it will not now be in the power of free choice to do something, or to do it in another way than it was done in eternity. Therefore no freedom remains.

This is confirmed. A future contingent and free thing is in eternity only by the same being that it will have in time. But if it had being in time before it was brought about by free choice, it would be neither contingent nor free. Therefore, likewise, it will not be contingent or free if it has being in eternity before it is produced in time by free choice.

II. The second opinion, opposed to the preceding one, is followed by Capreolus, Sentences I, dist. 36, q. un., art. 1, and dist. 38, q. un., art. 2; Ferrari, Against the Gentiles I, chs. 66 and 67; Giles in Sentences I, dist. 38, q. 1; Cajetan, 1 p., q. 14, art. 13; and all Thomists. It is also the express teaching of St. Thomas, as will become clear below. For its explanation, some points must be presupposed.

First, note that when we say “a future thing is,” or “exists in eternity according to its own existence,” the adverb “now” included in the verb “is” does not denote the now of our time. The sense is not that future things exist in eternity within the measure by which we are measured according to the successive being that this measure has. Rather, “now” signifies only the now of eternity, which is unchangeable and wholly simultaneous.¹

Second, note that eternity is related to our time as a common measure to a particular one.² There is something similar in natural things. For just as the heavens, considered as a place, are related to this hall and to everything contained in it as a common and universal measure to a particular one, so proportionately eternity is related to aevity and to our time. Hence, just as everything contained in this hall is contained under the heavens, and not conversely, so whatever is contained in our time is contained in eternity, and not conversely.

Third, from Ferrari, cited ch. 66, § “It must be considered,” note that, as Aristotle teaches in Physics 4, text 114, two things measured by some duration are said to coexist with one another in one way, and the durations themselves are said to coexist in another way.³ For things measured by a duration are said to coexist with one another when both coexist in the same present measure. Thus two individuals are said to coexist on this day because, in relation to the measure of this day, they have being together. But two measures are said to coexist because one is contained in the other, as the present day coexists with the month of March and the year 1610 because it is contained in them. Therefore, for future things to coexist with God in eternity, it is sufficient and required that God and future things have being together in that measure of eternity by which God is measured, even though eternity is the proper and adequate measure of God, but a common and inadequate measure of other things.

III. Our conclusion, then, is this: future things are present to God in eternity not only according to objective being, or being as known, but also according to the real presence and actuality they will have in our time.⁴ This conclusion is opposed to the authors of the first opinion, but it is asserted by St. Thomas in the cited art. 13 and in Against the Gentiles I, ch. 66, argument 6, where he says that God knows all contingent things not only as they are in their causes, but also as each of them is actually in itself. And in 1 p., q. 14, art. 13, in the body, he says that all things that exist in time are present to God from eternity, not only because he has the ideas of things present to him, as some say, but because his vision is from eternity directed upon all things insofar as they are in their own presentiality.

The authors of the opposing opinion reply that St. Thomas is speaking only of objective presentiality, and not of real presentiality, which is according to a thing’s own being and its own existence.

But this explanation seems to conflict with St. Thomas’s words. For what is present only objectively does not yet have being in itself, or at least is not present insofar as it has being in itself. But St. Thomas plainly says that a future thing is present to God insofar as it actually has being in itself, in relation to the measure of eternity. Therefore. I add that St. Thomas expressly says that future things are said to be present to God in eternity not only because God has the accounts of things present to himself, which pertains to objective presence, but also because each of them has being in eternity, which is wholly simultaneous. And in the cited 1. con. Gen. c. 66, he adds that whatever exists in any part of time coexists with eternity, as though present to it, even if it is past or future with respect to another part of time. He teaches the same in q. 2. de verit. art. 12. in corp.; 1. p. q. 57. art. 3; q. 86. art. 4; and 22. q. 171. art. 6. ad 1 and 2. These passages must necessarily be consulted. St. Thomas explains this teaching further in 1. d. 38. q. 1. art. 5. in corp., where he says: God knows from eternity not only that he knows the causes of things, which is to be in his knowledge; he also sees from eternity, in one intuition, each of the times, and that such a thing exists at this time and is absent at this time.⁵ By these words he plainly acknowledges that future things have presence not only objectively in relation to the divine intuition, but also according to the real presence they will have in their proper measure.

IV. This opinion is proved first from Sacred Scripture, in which our conclusion is indicated not obscurely, especially in Job 14, where it is said: The number of his months is with you. Explaining this passage, St. Gregory says: Because even things that pass away stand with almighty God, he declared that the number of our months is with him.⁶ But months include future and past times; therefore these stand present with God. Likewise, Hebrews 1 says of the divine Word: Through whom he also made the ages. Among the ages some things are past and some future, but all are said to have been made by God, because in eternity all things are present. Isaiah 45 likewise says of God that he made the things to come,⁷ that is, the things that are future; here future things themselves are said to have been made by God because in his eternity all things are present as made, and nothing is future or past with respect to him, although something is said to be past in relation to one part of our time and future in relation to another. Finally, for this opinion note the passage of the Apostle in Romans 4, where it is said of Abraham: I have made you the father of many nations before God, who calls the things that are not as though they are.⁸ By saying “before God”, he explains what he had said in the past tense, “I have made you.” For although that was future, since it was present to God in eternity he said, “I have made you”; and he adds the reason when he says: “who calls the things that are not as though they are.” It is as if he said: for this reason he speaks of the future in the manner of the present, because future things are present to God in eternity, and he sees in the same way the things to be done in our time as those that have been done or are being done. St. Ambrose and many other holy Doctors explain this passage of the Apostle in this way.

Second, this is proved by the authority of the saints, first from St. Augustine, On the Trinity, book 4, chapter 17, where he says: With God, past and future things stand. And in book 5, chapter 16, he says: With God (he says) neither have past things passed away, and future things have already come to pass. He says the same in book 15, chapter 7. But especially notable for proving the same point is a passage of that same St. Augustine in Soliloquies, chapter 26, where he says: Before I was born, I, the son of your handmaid, O Lord, my hope from my mother’s breasts, you foresaw and prepared for me the paths on which I would walk and come to the glory of your house. Before you formed me in the womb, you knew me; and before I came forth from the womb, you preordained whatever pleased you concerning me. What things, and of what kind, are written about me in your book, in the secrecy of your council, I do not know, and therefore I greatly fear; but you know, because what I await through the succession of days and temporal events, from here to a thousand years of this temporal existence, is already accomplished in the sight of your eternity, and what will be future is already accomplished. These words cannot be explained as referring only to objective presence, for future things, if they were present in eternity only objectively, would not be said to have already been accomplished in that same eternity. Jerome also holds this, in his commentary on Ephesians 1, as do Ambrose in the passage cited above and in book 8 of On the Faith to Gratian, chapter 7; Gregory, in his homily for the Sunday of the Passion; Anselm, On the Fall of the Devil, chapters 18 and 20, and On the Harmony of Foreknowledge and Predestination, chapter 1; Isidore, On the Supreme Good, book 2, chapter 6; the gloss on Psalm 89; and St. Prosper, On the Call of All Nations, book 1, chapter 24.

Third, this is proved by reason. God has clear and distinct intuitive cognition of all future contingents; therefore all those things are present in eternity according to their proper existence, and not merely in objective being, or in the being of what is known. The consequence is clear: intuitive cognition is of a present thing insofar as it is present according to its proper existence. The antecedent is proved as follows: God’s cognition of future contingents is most perfect; therefore it is intuitive. Otherwise God’s cognition would change when future things were brought into being, for he would begin to know intuitively what he had previously known abstractively.

It is proved fourth by Ferrari’s argument from the passage cited above. Either Adam and Antichrist coexist with God in the now of eternity according to their own real existences, or they do not. But Adam coexists with God as past, and Antichrist as future. If the first is granted, we have what we intend. If the second is granted, it follows that there is future and past in eternity. For something is called past or future in relation to a duration only if that duration has past and future parts in itself, as is clear in our time. For if there were only one indivisible instant in it, nothing would be past or future in relation to it. But the past and future are incompatible with eternity, as St. Thomas teaches, 1. p. q. 10. ar. 4. and 5. For eternity is indivisible and wholly simultaneous. Therefore.

V. It is proved fifth. Whatever at some time coexists with eternity always coexists with it, since eternity is wholly simultaneous, as was said. But when Antichrist is born, it will be true to say that Antichrist coexists with God in eternity according to his real being. Therefore he has this coexistence in eternity from eternity. The minor premise is granted by the authors of the opposing opinion, and the inference is proved because eternity has no succession.

To this argument someone replies by distinguishing the major proposition. If it is understood of the whole of eternity, insofar as eternity is a certain simple thing made up of no parts, then, he says, the proposition is true: for since eternity in reality lacks parts in itself, it cannot happen that something coexists with eternity and does not coexist with the whole of eternity, according to the reality of eternity itself. But if it is understood of eternity as a whole insofar as eternity can terminate our different concepts, by which it is truly affirmed that eternity itself exists, then the proposition is false.

But this solution does not remove the force of the argument. For let us set aside our concepts and speak of existence itself on the side of reality. For, as this author admits, whatever once exists on the side of reality in eternity coexists with the whole of eternity. Therefore it is the case on the side of reality that Antichrist has actual existence from eternity throughout eternity itself.

Finally, this teaching is proved and explained by some examples. The first example is the one St. Thomas uses in the cited art. 13, ad 3. God’s relation to future contingents is like that of someone standing on a high lookout, from which he sees the whole road and those passing along it. For although one person walks after another and the later person does not see the earlier one, the person on the lookout sees them all together and has them present to him. Therefore in the same way God has all things, past and future, present to him in the lookout of eternity, although the future things follow upon the past. The second example is from the same St. Thomas, Against the Gentiles I, ch. 66, argument 6, where he compares eternity to a center. For just as an indivisible center is present to every designated point on the circumference and to all the lines drawn from that circumference to the center, so eternity, since it is indivisible, is present to all things existing at any difference of time and has them all present to it. The third example is used by St. Anselm in On the Harmony of God’s Foreknowledge and Predestination, ch. 1, where he says that, just as the same now of time, being indivisible, reaches all divisible places and all the things located in them, however far apart they may be, and any duration, however divisible, so likewise eternity, although indivisible and wholly simultaneous, can be present to many divisible durations separated from one another. The fourth example is taken from the rational soul, which is indivisible and yet is present at once, wholly, in several divisible parts of the body separated from one another. All these points will become clearer from the solutions to the arguments.

VI. To the first argument drawn from the passages set out at the beginning, it is answered that the cited passages of Scripture and similar ones teach only that creatures were not from eternity in their own measure, nor did they have being in themselves from eternity in their own measure; only God is from eternity in his own measure, which is eternity. Nevertheless, it remains true that all things to be produced in time, and likewise past things, are present in eternity according to their own existences, as is clear from what was said.

To the second argument from the authorities of St. Thomas, it is answered that the holy Doctor indeed admits that future contingents are objectively present to God in eternity, but in those places he does not deny that they are present according to their own existences. Rather, he expressly asserts this in other places cited above in support of our opinion, and in Quodlibet 12, art. 3, ad 3.

To the third argument the antecedent is denied. In answer to the proof, it is said that for future things to coexist with God in eternity, they need not first exist in their own measure. The reason is that the existence they have in eternity does not depend on the future existence they have insofar as they are future, since eternity is an infinite and unlimited measure in which God can consequently behold the existences of all things before they exist in their own measure. Hence, although future things begin to exist in their own measure, they do not begin to exist in eternity, since eternity has no before and after, being indivisible and wholly simultaneous. Thus we cannot mark in eternity one instant at which a thing is not, and another at which it begins to be, or at which it first is.

But there is an argument against this. At this instant of our time it is true to say, “Now Antichrist coexists with God in eternity.” Therefore the existence of things in eternity depends on the existence they have in their own measure. Therefore it is contradictory for the proposition “Antichrist exists in eternity” to be true in the measure of eternity without also being true in our time and at every instant of it.

With Ferrari, Against the Gentiles I, chs. 49 and 66, it is answered that the proposition “At this instant of our time, future things are present in eternity” has two senses. The first is that the determination “at this instant,” or “in this time of ours,” indicates the measure of the truth of that statement. In this sense the proposition is most true: for it is now true to say that Antichrist is present to God in the measure of eternity; the same statement was true yesterday, and will be true at every future instant. The second sense is that the determination “in this time” indicates not the measure of the truth of the proposition, but the measure of the actual existence of Antichrist or some other future thing. In that case the proposition is false. For its sense would be that in this present instant all future things are in themselves and are seen by God in eternity itself as coexisting with him and having being in their own measure. Cajetan follows this same teaching in the cited art. 13. For he observes that things’ being present in eternity can be understood in two ways. First, the coexistence of temporal things in eternity might be measured by every instant of our time; this sense is false and is not intended by St. Thomas. Second, temporal things might be present to God in eternity itself at every now of eternity; St. Thomas is to be understood in this sense. Since eternity itself comprehends all times, it is therefore verified at every instant of our time that all temporal things are present to God in eternity.

To the first confirmation, it is answered from what was said that creation, properly and absolutely speaking, regards the proper measure in which things are produced from nonbeing into being. The reason is that in time there is before and after, so that in it we can mark one instant at which a thing is not and another at which it begins to be. This has no place in eternity, since eternity is indivisible and wholly simultaneous.

It is answered a second way that, as St. Augustine says in the passages cited above, and as can be gathered from the cited passage in Isaiah, ch. 45, things that are future are said to have been made with God, since in relation to him nothing is future. Nevertheless, one must observe that by the same action by which future things will come to be in time, they are said to have been made in eternity, because a future action is always present in the measure of eternity.

To the second confirmation, it is answered from what was said that the difference established by the Council between the Son of God and creatures in opposition to Arius consists in this: the Son of God did not begin to be in his proper measure, nor did he have being after nonbeing; creatures, however, began to be in their proper measure, since in time they were produced by God from nonbeing into being. Hence this inference is invalid: “Antichrist exists in eternity; therefore Antichrist exists.” For we are arguing affirmatively from what is less restricted to what is more restricted, or from the broader to the nonbroader. Thus it does not follow, “Peter exists, or existed, or will exist; therefore Peter exists.” In the same way it does not follow, “Peter exists in eternity; therefore Peter exists.” For in order to exist in eternity it is enough that Peter have being at some difference of our time, whether in the present, past, or future time. But for the proposition “Peter exists” to be verified, he must exist in his proper measure.

VII. As to the fourth argument, Cajetan, 1 p., q. 14, art. 13, Master Bañez, in q. 10, art. 1, in reply to the last argument, and several other Thomists do not consider it inadmissible that two contradictories be true in the measure of eternity. Their reason is that, according to the opinion of all theologians, that indivisible instant of eternity, although formally indivisible, nevertheless by its eminence contains virtually the succession and different instants of our time. Hence in that measure of eternity one of the contradictories is verified by its relation to one instant of our time, and the other likewise by its relation to another extrinsic instant.

But this solution is open to an objection. For if contradictories are truly contradictories, they must be taken in relation to the same instant. For contradiction is the affirmation and negation of the same thing of the same subject, in the same respect. Therefore it is contradictory for two contradictories to be true, even in eternity.

So, in reply to the argument, those contradictories are not true even in eternity;⁹ for the negative is false. Its sense is that Peter is not white at the instant of eternity insofar as that instant corresponds to every instant of our time; but this sense is false. And if the argument is made, “For Peter is black at the instant of eternity; therefore he is not white at the instant of eternity,” the consequence is denied. For the affirmative is verified if he is black at some instant of our time; but for the negative “Peter is not white in eternity” to be verified, it is required that he not be white at the instant of eternity insofar as it corresponds to every instant of our time. But if one proposition is taken of the instant of eternity insofar as it corresponds to one instant of our time, while the other is taken of the instant of eternity insofar as it corresponds extrinsically to another instant of our time, then they are not contradictories. So too, in relation to our time, these are not contradictories: “Peter is white now”; “Peter will not be white tomorrow.” For both can be true together, or false together.

To the fifth argument, it is denied that future things are produced twice. In reply to the proof, Antichrist is produced only once in time, but his production, which is called future in relation to this day, is present in relation to eternity. For, as was said, eternity coexists as present with our whole time, since it admits no succession.

VIII. To the sixth argument, we answer with Cajetan, cited at article 13 in his solution to Scotus’s third argument, that the angel’s cognition by which it knows contingent future things is not measured by the aevum.¹⁰ The reason is that the actual representation of singular contingent things, which occurs through species given to the angel, is not measured by the aevum, but comes anew when future things are brought into being. It does not follow, therefore, that an angel knows contingent future things before they are brought into being.

But an argument is made against this solution. For that cognition of future things is measured at least by an angelic instant, which is indivisible and wholly simultaneous. Therefore future things can have coexistence in relation to that angelic instant before they exist in their proper measure, and hence an angel will be able to know future things before they exist.

We answer that although an angelic instant admits no variation or succession in the substance of the operation it measures, it does admit them with respect to certain accidents, as Saint Thomas teaches in Quodlibet 9, a. 8, and Ferrariensis in Summa contra Gentiles III, ch. 100, as does Master Báñez in Summa theologiae I, q. 63, a. 6, at the end. Eternity, however, admits absolutely no variation, just as God himself does not. Hence God, without any succession, simultaneously beholds all things insofar as they are present in eternity; an angel, by contrast, knows contingent future things successively, when they exist in their proper measure. There is also another difference: although an angelic instant is a more perfect measure, it is not a measure higher than the measure of our time, nor does it contain that measure, as eternity contains all other measures. Therefore it does not follow that contingent future things coexist with an angel in relation to the angel’s own measure, as they coexist with God in relation to the measure of eternity. This also makes the reply to the confirmation clear.

To the seventh argument, we answer that when a higher measure is finite and limited, nothing exists in the higher and inadequate measure unless it first exists in its own lower and adequate measure, as occurs in the example given in the argument. But when the higher measure is infinite and unlimited, as eternity is, something may well exist according to real existence in the higher measure before it exists in its own lower and adequate measure.¹¹ The reason is that an infinite measure can admit no succession or mutability in itself; hence, in a more eminent way, it contains in a single instant whatever is contained successively in lower measures.

To the final argument, we answer that, on the supposition that God sees presently in eternity some act of our free choice as future at a certain time, it cannot at the same time be true that the act does not occur. Absolutely speaking, however, and in relation to its proximate cause, which is liable to fail, it can fail to occur. Hence, when it is produced by the will in time, it is produced freely and contingently, for the freedom and contingency of things are formally drawn from their relation to their proximate cause. If the argument proved anything, it would also prove that God’s foreknowledge removes the freedom and contingency of things. For, on the supposition that God has foreknown something as future, it is impossible, in the composite sense, that it not be future. This solution is confirmed: for, on the supposition that I see Peter speaking, it is impossible that he not be speaking, yet he speaks freely and contingently. Therefore, in the same way, although God presently sees all future acts of free choice, they are nevertheless produced freely and contingently in their own time. Therefore the existence of things in eternity does not impede their contingency.

To the confirmation we answer that the very same being a contingent future thing has in time it also has in the eternal now. In relation to our time that being is future, but in relation to eternity it is present. Hence, although it is present in eternity, it will nevertheless occur contingently in its own time. And when the argument is made, “If a future thing had being in time before it was produced by its free and contingent cause, freedom with respect to that act would be removed; therefore it is removed as well if it has being in eternity before it is produced in time by its contingent cause,” we answer by denying the consequence. For if a contingent future thing had being in time before it was produced by free choice, free choice would be wholly passive in relation to that act, as Luther said, since it would merely receive an action produced by another and not by itself; hence, in relation to that thing, it would not be a free cause. But this does not follow from the fact that contingent and free future things have being in eternity before they are produced in time. For just as God beholds in his eternity our free act, which will be future at a certain time, so too he beholds in that same eternity the free cause of that act freely producing it, although in relation to our time that production is future.

IX. Nevertheless, one difficult argument remains to be resolved. It would follow from our opinion that there is in actuality an infinite multitude actually present in some duration; the consequent is impossible. Therefore.¹² The consequence is proved as follows: all the future acts of cognition of the blessed are infinite. Therefore, if all of them are actually present to God in the measure of eternity according to their proper existences, there will be an actually infinite multitude in relation to some duration. The minor premise is proved as follows: an actually infinite multitude cannot exist in a limited duration of time, because every multitude consisting of all its parts is proportionable to the species of number and consequently is finite, just as every species of number is finite, since it is specified by its last unit. But this argument also applies to a multitude existing in eternity. Therefore it is impossible for any actually infinite multitude to exist in eternity.

We answer this argument that an infinity can exist in eternity,¹³ because those things are not present to one another, although they are present in eternity. Thus Adam and Antichrist are present to God in eternity and coexist in eternity itself, yet they are not present to one another, since in relation to their proper measure Adam is past and Antichrist is future. The impossibility of an actual infinite applies only to things that are present to one another, for then infinitely many things would be mutually present, and there would be an actual multitude of coexisting things not proportionable to the species of number, which is a contradiction.

But an argument is made against this: things identical with one third thing are identical with one another; therefore, things present to one third thing are present to one another. But Adam, Antichrist, and all the future thoughts are actually present to one third thing, namely eternity. Therefore they are present to one another; consequently, all future thoughts will be actually present to one another, and thus there will be an actual infinite in things mutually present. We answer that the assumed major premise is true only of things identical with one third thing both in reality and in reason¹⁴, but not of those things which, although really identified with one third thing, nevertheless differ from it in reason, as is clear in divine things. For the Father and the Son are really the same as the divine Essence, and yet they are personally distinct from one another: the Father is not the Son. Likewise, action and passion are identified with motion, yet they are distinguished from one another. In proportionate fashion, we say in the present case that although the existence of Antichrist and that of Adam are present in eternity, they are nevertheless not present to one another, since presence to one another is derived from relation to their proper measure, in relation to which they do not coexist. Therefore it does not follow that there is an actually infinite number of things mutually present.

Whether God certainly knows future contingents on account of their real presence in eternity before they come to be, and whether this existence contributes anything to the certainty and infallibility of divine knowledge.

I. The negative position is defended by all those Doctors who deny that future contingents exist in eternity in their own real being before they are produced in their proper measure; we cited their passages in the preceding disputation. But many modern theologians in particular now defend this opinion, and they advance all the arguments by which in the preceding disputation we tried to prove that future contingents, before they are produced in their proper measure, exist in eternity only in objective being, and not according to their own real existence.

Moreover, an argument is made. There is truly and formally in God certain and infallible foreknowledge¹ of future things, as is clear from Wisdom 19: For you knew their future; and Romans 8: Those whom he foreknew, he also predestined; and ch. 11: God has not rejected his people, whom he foreknew; and in 1 Peter 1 and Acts 2 foreknowledge is attributed to God. St. Augustine asserts this too, City of God 5, chs. 8 and 9, as does the Master of the Sentences in Sentences I, dists. 36 and 38, who teach that not only knowledge but also foreknowledge is in God. But, formally speaking, foreknowledge signifies certain knowledge of things before they actually exist. Therefore the foreknowledge God has of future contingents is certain and infallible before they are understood to exist, even in eternity. Consequently, such existence contributes nothing to the certainty of divine knowledge as regards future contingents.

This is confirmed. Formally speaking, God infallibly knows future contingents. Therefore he knows them as infallibly future. Therefore the reason why he knows them infallibly is not their existence in eternity; otherwise that knowledge would not formally concern future things, but present things. Therefore such existence is irrelevant to the certainty of foreknowledge of future things.

A second argument is made. The free knowledge of God is the cause of things, or of their existence, as will become clear below:² therefore such certain and infallible knowledge is understood by a priority of reason before contingent things are understood to exist actually, even in eternity. Therefore the infallibility of divine knowledge is not founded on, nor derived from, the existence that contingent things have in eternity from eternity; for what is prior does not depend on what is posterior, nor is it founded on it.

A third argument is made. God in no way receives his perfection from created things. But the certainty and infallibility of divine foreknowledge, by which he knows future contingents, is a great perfection of that knowledge. Therefore he does not receive it from the existence they have in eternity, nor does he presuppose that existence. Therefore God’s knowledge of future contingents is not certain because they actually exist in eternity. Therefore such existence contributes nothing to the certainty of divine knowledge.

A fourth argument is made. God infallibly knows conditional futures that really would be future if this or that condition were posited as obtaining, as is clear from what was said in disputation 7. But such futures have no existence in eternity, because they will never be posited as obtaining in their proper measure. Therefore actual existence in eternity is irrelevant to infallible knowledge of conditional futures. Therefore it will likewise be irrelevant to infallible knowledge of future contingents that are absolutely future.

A fifth argument is made. God can certainly and infallibly know future contingents to be future without their existing in eternity. Therefore such existence will at least not be necessary for the certainty of divine foreknowledge of future contingents. The antecedent is proved: even if we exclude this existence, once an efficacious decree is posited in God by which he absolutely wills a future contingent to occur at a certain time, it is infallibly future. For, as St. Thomas teaches, 1 p., q. 19, art. 8,³ this conditional is necessary: “If God wills something to happen, it will happen.” For God has done whatever he willed in heaven and on earth,⁴ as the Psalmist sings. Therefore, through the efficacy of his divine decree, God infallibly knows that what he decreed to do or permit will happen at a certain time. Therefore the actual existence of future things in eternity is not necessary for the certainty of divine foreknowledge.

This is confirmed. For God to infallibly know future contingents, the truth itself of the future object is sufficient, since God infallibly knows every truth. Therefore the actual existence of future contingents in eternity is posited superfluously for God to know them certainly before they come to be.

II. St. Thomas holds the opposing opinion, 1.p. q.14.ar.13., q. 86, art. 4, in the body; Against the Gentiles I, ch. 67; q. 2, On Truth, art. 10; and Quodlibet 12, q. 3; and wherever he speaks about the certainty of divine knowledge. For he always appeals to the actual existence that future contingents have in eternity in order to show that God knows them most certainly before they come to be. The Thomists commonly follow this opinion, but some points must be presupposed for its explanation.

Note first that the presence of things in eternity⁵ can be considered in two ways: first, on the part of eternity itself; second, on the part of the contingent things that exist in eternity.⁶ For since presence implies a certain relation, things are said to be present to eternity, and eternity is present to all things and has them coexisting and present to itself. For since it is an infinite and indivisible measure, it encompasses all time and every other, lower measure at once, and actually contains all things that will have being in that measure, as was said above.

Note secondly that we can show the certainty of God’s knowledge of future contingents in two ways. First, a priori, or quasi a priori, through the proper cause or ground of that certainty. Second, a posteriori through an effect, from which, by an evident inference, it is concluded that God’s knowledge of future contingents is infallible.

Note finally that the present question may concern the infallibility of divine knowledge insofar as it is infallible knowledge, or the knowledge itself insofar as it is formally called knowledge of vision.

Our first conclusion, then, is this: the actual presence of things in eternity, considered on the part of the divine eternity, is the proper ground on account of which God certainly knows all future things.⁷ This is St. Thomas’s conclusion in the cited places, where he proves that God’s knowledge of future contingents is infallible from the fact that God’s intuition from eternity is directed to all things according as they are in their presence. For eternity, by which divine knowledge is measured, has all future things present to itself because of its eminence and infinite perfection. Therefore the proper ground for the certainty of divine knowledge with respect to future contingents must be assigned on the part of eternity’s own perfection. Nor can St. Thomas be explained as speaking only of objective presence; otherwise he would be proving the same thing by the same thing.

Moreover, the conclusion is proved by the authority of Ecclesiasticus, chapter 39, where it is said: The works of all flesh are before him; he looks upon them from age to age, and nothing is new in his eyes. The reason why God sees all contingent things and certainly knows them all from eternity, so that nothing is new or future with respect to him, is assigned on the part of eternity by which divine knowledge is measured: namely, because eternity has present in itself all things that are future in their proper measure.

The conclusion is also proved by reason. For, as St. Thomas teaches, eternity encompasses all time;⁸ therefore it actually contains all future things in time as present to itself. Therefore, from the perfection of eternity itself, a proper and sufficient ground is assigned on account of which God’s eternal knowledge of future contingents is infallible, although future things in themselves are contingent. The consequence is clear: things that are present to a knower, although contingent in themselves, are already considered as determined and determinately true in relation to the measure in which they are present and to the knowledge by which they are known as present to that knower.

III. Second conclusion. If the presence of future contingents in eternity is considered on the part of the contingent things themselves, it is not a ground why God certainly knows future things; nevertheless, their existence in this way shows a posteriori the infallible certainty of divine knowledge.⁹ The first part of this conclusion is effectively proved by the second and third arguments given at the beginning. It is also proved as follows. The essential perfection of divine knowledge must not be derived from its secondary object, but from its primary object. For the being of knowledge itself is derived from its primary object, and consequently every essential perfection must be derived from that same primary object. But certainty and infallibility are essential perfections of knowledge, for cognition that is not certain is not scientific. Therefore the certainty of divine knowledge must not be derived from creatures themselves existing in eternity, since creatures pertain to the secondary object of divine knowledge. The second part of the conclusion is the express opinion of St. Thomas, 1. p. q. 14. art. 8. ad 1. It is proved as follows: a cause can be demonstrated a posteriori through its proper effect, just as we demonstrate a posteriori through creatures that God exists and is omnipotent. But the existence that things have, whether in time or in eternity, is the proper effect of God’s infallible knowledge, as will be clear in disputations 16 and 17. Therefore. Moreover, the certainty of knowledge, especially divine knowledge, is best inferred from the certainty and determination of the object and its truth. But future contingents, insofar as they are present in eternity, are already considered as determined to one outcome, as St. Thomas teaches, 1. par. quaest. 14. art. 13.. Therefore, from the determination of the truth they have in eternity, it can be inferred a posteriori by an evident inference that God knows them infallibly, since it is evident that no truth escapes God himself.

But an argument difficult to answer is made against the first part of the conclusion. The presence of things in eternity on the part of the things that exist is the reason, or condition, on account of which God’s knowledge is intuitive with respect to contingent future things. Therefore it is the reason for the certainty of intuitive cognition and, consequently, by that existence the certainty of God’s intuitive knowledge can be demonstrated a priori. The antecedent is proved as follows: God’s knowledge with respect to contingent future things is intuitive because it terminates in the actual existence of those same things, which they have in eternity, and this distinguishes it from knowledge of simple understanding, which terminates in possible things. Therefore, from the very existence of things it is demonstrated a priori that God’s knowledge of those same things is intuitive.

The same antecedent is confirmed. For a proof through the proper reason of the thing demonstrated is a priori, and likewise a proof through a necessary condition is reduced to an a priori argument, just as the condition of a cause is reduced to the cause. But the actual presence that things have in eternity is the reason, or condition, why God’s knowledge is intuitive of creatures. Therefore a proof drawn from the existence of things in eternity, in order to conclude that God’s knowledge is intuitive, will be an a priori proof.

We answer by conceding that through the existence of things in eternity it can be shown a priori that God’s knowledge of contingent future things is intuitive. It does not follow from this, however, that the certainty possessed by that intuitive knowledge is proved a priori through the existence of things in eternity on the part of the things themselves. For this is the difference between our vision, or intuitive knowledge, and God’s intuitive knowledge: in addition to the common character of cognition and to abstractive knowledge, our intuitive knowledge adds some real perfection on the side of cognition, namely, greater certainty and greater clarity of the object known.¹⁰ It also adds a real relation of the cognition itself to the known object, for created intuitive cognition depends on the object seen and is measured by it. Hence, in created intuitive cognition, the present object—which is the cause or reason why the cognition is intuitive—is also the reason and condition why that cognition is more certain and clearer. In God, by contrast, the knowledge of vision is neither more certain nor clearer than his abstractive knowledge. Nor does this knowledge of vision imply a real relation to the present or seen object, nor does it depend on that object or take its measure from it. Rather, since this cognition of creatures in God is practical, it causes the very things that exist, as will be made clear in Disputations 16 and 17. The relation of reason to existing creatures that God’s intuitive knowledge adds beyond knowledge of simple understanding depends on the actual existence of those same things as its term; this dependence is reduced to the genus of formal cause. Therefore, although it can be proved a priori through the existence of things that God’s knowledge is intuitive, it cannot be proved a priori through that same existence that God’s intuitive knowledge is certain and infallible.

IIII. Third conclusion. The knowledge God has of contingent future things was intuitive in him from eternity.¹¹ This conclusion is contrary to certain modern authors who assert that knowledge of contingent future things is not intuitive in God before things exist in their proper measure, judging that when they do not exist in their proper measure it is merely abstractive. Their chief reason is this: intuitive knowledge necessarily requires that it terminate in the actual existence of a thing; but created or to-be-created things have no actual existence, even in eternity, before they exist in their proper measure. Therefore God’s knowledge of creatures begins to be intuitive only when things begin to exist in their proper measure. But our conclusion is gathered from Saint Thomas in the passages cited above.

It is proved as follows. For knowledge to be simply intuitive, it is sufficient that it terminate in an object actually existing and insofar as it exists in the measure by which the cognition itself is measured. But all contingent future things exist from eternity in the measure of eternity, as was shown in the preceding disputation. Therefore.

It is proved further. It is incompatible with the perfection of divine knowledge that it begin to be intuitive in time, when a contingent future thing begins to exist. For divine knowledge would change from abstractive to intuitive, and when afterward the object ceased to exist in its proper measure, God’s knowledge would change from intuitive to abstractive. This is shown as follows: although this difference arises from the mutability of the object, it nevertheless passes over into a different mode of God’s cognition itself and of the actual representation that the divine Essence has, as an intelligible species, with respect to contingent future things. Yet that would redound to its imperfection.

V. To the first argument we answer that God has foreknowledge with respect to future things if they are considered according to the being they have in their proper measure.¹² But if they are considered according to the being they have in eternity, God’s cognition of them is not properly called foreknowledge, but knowledge of things present, as Augustine says, quaest. 2. ad Simplicium, and S. Anselm. de casu diab. cap. 21. The reason is that, in relation to eternity, by which God’s cognition is measured, nothing is future; rather, all future things are present, as was said above.

To the confirmation we answer in the same way: God knows contingent future things as future in their proper measure, if the word “as” imports a condition on the side of the object known;¹³ for the object actually known by God is future in its proper measure. Yet he does not know them as future in eternity, but as present according to their actual existence.

We answer that the second and third arguments prove only the second conclusion.

To the fourth we answer that although conditional future things which God knows by free knowledge do not have being of existence in eternity, nevertheless from eternity an actual decree preceded in God to produce them on the hypothesis that the condition had been fulfilled, as was shown in Disputation 7. Hence, by virtue of that decree, they would exist in eternity if the condition were to be fulfilled.

The fifth will be treated fully in the following disputation. For now, we say that, by that very fact that God determines by an absolute and efficacious will to produce something in time, it is actually present to him in the measure of eternity according to its proper existence. Hence such presence is not separable from the aforesaid decree. A second answer is that, although knowledge of future things may be infallible on another ground, God’s knowledge of contingent future things is certain and infallible by the actual presence itself of things in eternity, on the side of eternity itself. And, as we said above, such presence is at least necessary for God’s knowledge of future things to be intuitive from eternity, because it belongs to the nature of intuitive cognition that it terminate in an object present to the knower as present.

To the confirmation we answer that, if we abstract from the divine decree and the actual existence that contingent future things have in eternity by virtue of that decree, no simple proposition about a contingent future thing has, in itself, determinate truth, as will be made clear in Disputation 13. Hence, once the aforesaid decree and existence in eternity are set aside, it is not knowable even by God; nor is the object of that proposition knowable as determinate future, but only as possible.

Whether God knows with certainty and infallibly all contingent future things in the decree, or predetermination, of his divine will.

I. On this question there are nearly as many opinions as there are people, but there are three principal ones to which the others in circulation can be reduced.

The first opinion is Capreolus’s in Book I, distinction 38, article 2, question 1, in reply to Durandus’s arguments against the first conclusion. It is followed by Francis of Christ in the same book, distinction 39, question 6, and Palatius, distinction 38, question 2, toward the end, as well as by certain other theologians. They hold that the entire reason why God knows contingent future things with certainty is their actual presence in eternity from eternity, such that, if this presence were removed, whether possibly or impossibly, God’s knowledge of future things could not be certain and infallible. The following arguments support this opinion.

First, as is clear from the passages cited by Saint Thomas in the preceding disputation to prove the infallibility of God’s knowledge of contingent future things, he always has recourse to their actual presence in eternity. Therefore he thinks that, if this presence is set aside, no contingent thing can be known, even by God, as infallibly future. For otherwise he would have assigned another cause and reason for the certainty of divine knowledge with respect to contingent future things.

Second, a contingent future thing, insofar as it is in its free cause, has neither determinate being nor determinate truth, because a free cause is indifferent to opposites. Therefore, insofar as it is in a free cause, it cannot be known with certainty and infallibly as future, but only as possible. But the divine will is the free cause of all future things. Therefore God cannot know with certainty in the decree of the divine will alone that something is infallibly future.

This is confirmed. Another possible world has being in its first cause, namely in God’s infinite power by which he can produce it. Yet God does not know that world as future but only as possible. Therefore.

Third, even when the predetermination of the divine will is posited, the created will remains altogether free and indifferent to act or not to act. For it belongs to the essence of a free cause that, with all the requisites for acting posited, it can act and not act. Therefore, if the created will does not act—as it truly can fail to act—even with the decree of the divine will posited, God’s knowledge will be made false. Therefore God cannot know with certainty in his decree alone that created free choice will perform this or that particular act.

Fourth, God knows all future sins with certainty, in all their circumstances, yet he does not know them in the decree and predetermination of his will. For God does not predetermine future sins, nor does he will them to exist, but only permits them, as stated in the Second Council of Orange, canons 23 and 25, and the Council of Trent, Session 6, on Justification, canons 10 and 17. Therefore.

II. The second opinion is Scotus’s in Book I, distinction 39, single question, which all his disciples defend: namely, that God knows with certainty and infallibly all contingent future things in the predetermination of his divine will, whether those future things are natural or free. John Major holds the same opinion in Book I, distinctions 38 and 39, question 1, article 4; Durandus, distinction 38, question 3; Richard, question 1; and Hervaeus, single question. All those authors who assert that from eternity God, by an absolute and efficacious will, without any presupposed middle knowledge, determined in particular and in all their circumstances all contingent future things, even free ones, are bound to defend this opinion if they are to speak consistently. We will present their testimonies and foundations below, in Disputation 22 and the two following ones.

The third opinion is an intermediate one, held by those who assert that some contingent future things¹ are known by God in the determination of his will, and some are not. But the authors of this opinion differ. Some say that contingent future things proceeding from natural causes are known with certainty by God in the determination of his will, whereas those proceeding from free causes are not known by God in that same decree; they are persuaded by the third argument given at the beginning. Others teach that free future things depending solely on God’s operation, without any cooperation of a secondary cause, are known with certainty by God in the predetermination of his will—for example, the creation of heaven, the creation of the first human being, and other such things that depend on God alone. These effects are called free with respect to God because they were not produced by natural necessity. But they say that those contingent or free future things that depend on God and are produced by him through the mediation of a contingent and free secondary cause are not known by God with certainty in the absolute and efficacious decree of his will. Their reason is that God does not efficaciously predetermine such contingent future things, nor does he will them before middle knowledge, by which he knows what free choice will do from its innate freedom on the hypothesis that it were placed in such circumstances, as we noted at “contr. 7.”

III. First, to resolve this difficulty, one must presuppose something that will be proved expressly in Disputations 22 and 23: namely, that from eternity, before the foreknowledge of the future cooperation of free choice, even on a hypothesis, God predetermines by an absolute and efficacious decree all future contingents, both those belonging to the order of nature, whether necessary or free, and those belonging to the order of grace. The reason is that whatever God works in time, he predetermines from eternity that he will do in time. Otherwise either God would be changed by producing anew a volition that he does not have from eternity—or, to speak more accurately, by having a new volition—or future contingents would come about apart from his intention and predetermination, and thus would happen by chance with respect to him. This, however, is to be understood of future contingents according to every aspect of being and goodness that they have. For, absolutely speaking, sins are not predetermined, intended, or willed by God, but only permitted, as will become clear in disputation 24.

Second, one must presuppose from the teaching of St. Thomas, 1. p. quaest. 19. art. 3., that although God freely decided from eternity to produce things outside himself, and freely produces all the effects he produces, nevertheless, given that he decreed from eternity by an efficacious will to produce them, it is impossible in the composite sense that he not produce those effects at the time appointed by his providence. For these two things are incompatible: that God decided from eternity to produce such an effect at such a time, and that the effect not be produced at the appointed time, even if it is a free effect. Otherwise either God’s will would be inefficacious or liable to be impeded by created free choice, which is contrary to the Catholic faith, as St. Augustine expressly shows in the Enchiridion to Laurentius, ch. 65; or it would follow that God’s will is changeable, which is also incompatible with divine perfection. For he himself says: I am God, and I do not change; and Hebrews 1: But you are the same, and your years will not fail. Let the following therefore be our conclusion.

IIII. First conclusion. By the absolute and efficacious decree of his will, by which he predetermines in particular all future contingents, even free ones, God knows certainly and infallibly that they will be future in all their circumstances and as to² their substance.³ Thus, on the side of this decree, a sufficient reason can be assigned for the certainty of divine knowledge with respect to all future things that are not morally evil. This conclusion is opposed to the authors of the third opinion; nevertheless, it is asserted by the authors of the second opinion and is the express teaching of St. Thomas, Against the Gentiles I, ch. 66, after the sixth argument, where he says: God knows things that are present, past, or future for us as they are in his power, in their proper causes, and in themselves. This knowledge of them is called knowledge of vision. For of things that do not yet exist among us, God sees not only the being they have in their causes, but also the being they have in themselves, insofar as his eternity, by its indivisibility, is present to all time. And in ch. 68, argument 4, referring to the chapter cited above, he says: God knows things not only insofar as they are in themselves, but also insofar as they are in their causes, as is clear from what was said above. For he knows the order of a cause to its effect. After the fifth argument, drawing on what he had set out in the course of the chapter, and especially on the fact that God is the first cause under whose dominion and power our willing and not willing are, he concludes that God, by knowing himself, can know the movements of our will, because he knows the decree of his will by which he determines to perform such free acts in us and with us at such a time. St. Thomas therefore holds that God knows certainly all future contingents, even free ones, in the decree of his divine will. Likewise, in ch. 67, especially argument 3, he teaches that effects can be known with certainty in a determinate and complete cause that is not impeded. But the decree of the divine will is the most efficacious cause of all future things and is not impeded, nor can it be impeded by any secondary cause or by any change in the divine will, as was said in the second foundation. Therefore. He teaches the same in 2.2, q. 171, art. 6, ad 2, where he says that God regards contingent and future effects in two ways: in one way, as present in themselves in eternity; in another way, as they are in their determinate secondary causes. He teaches the same in 1 p., q. 14, art. 13, when he says: God knows future contingents not only as they are in themselves, but also as they are in their causes, namely, determinate causes. Therefore this is all the more true when speaking of the determination of the first and most universal cause, which by its eternal decree determines all secondary causes to act and brings it about that, although they can be impeded by the concurrence of other secondary causes, in fact they are not impeded but infallibly produce the effects predetermined by God, in the way in which they were predetermined. St. Thomas teaches the same conclusion in his Opusculum on predestination, ch. 3, near the end.

V. Moreover, the conclusion is proved by the striking testimony of the Prophet Isaiah, ch. 14: The Lord of hosts has sworn, saying: “Surely, as I have thought, so shall it happen, and as I have planned, so shall it come to pass, that I may crush the Assyrian in my land,” etc. And immediately he adds: This is the plan I have devised concerning the whole earth, and this is the hand extended over all the nations. The Lord of hosts has decreed it, and who can weaken it? His hand is extended, and who can turn it back? There the Lord says that the crushing of the Assyrians will certainly take place because he decreed it and his outstretched hand causes it. But this crushing depended on the free act of the Assyrians coming into the Lord’s land, since if they had not come, they would not have been crushed in the Lord’s land. Therefore God can know free future contingents with certainty in the predetermination of his will.

Moreover, the same point is proved by reason. A determinate cause that is so efficacious that it cannot be impeded by another cause infallibly produces its effect. But the decree of the divine will is the most efficacious cause of all future contingents and cannot be impeded by another cause, even a free one, from producing its determinate effect. Therefore, by the very fact that God knows he has determined by an efficacious will that future contingents come to be, he certainly knows that they will be future. The major premise is evident: if a cause is most efficacious and immutable, no reason can be assigned why it would not produce its effect.⁴ The minor premise is the express teaching of St. Augustine in the Enchiridion to Laurentius, ch. 95, where he proves it from the Psalm: The Lord has done all things whatsoever he willed in heaven and on earth. “This,” he says, is not true if he willed to do certain things and did not do them; and what is more shameful, he did not do them because a human will impeded the Almighty’s will from bringing about what it willed. And a little later: Unless we believe this, the very beginning of our confession of faith is in danger, by which we profess to believe in God the Father Almighty. For he is not truly called almighty for any other reason than that he can do whatever he wills; nor is the effect of the omnipotent will impeded by the will of any creature.

VI. To the first argument it is answered that St. Thomas also assigns the reason for the certainty of knowledge of future contingents in God on the side of the determination of the divine will, as is clear from the passages cited in support of the first conclusion.

To the second it is answered that a future thing has determinate being in a determinate cause when that cause is efficacious and cannot be impeded by another cause, as is the decree of the divine will.

To the confirmation it is answered that the divine will does not have, nor did it have from eternity, a determinate decree to produce another world. Hence the cases are not alike.

To the third it is answered that, even when the divine predetermination by which God predetermines free future contingents is posited, the created will nevertheless remains free and can fail to perform the act predetermined by God; yet it will infallibly produce that act.⁵ For the will of God brings this about: although created free choice can either perform or fail to perform such an act, it infallibly and freely performs it in keeping with the condition of its nature. Hence these two things are incompatible: that God has decreed that Peter be converted at such a time, and yet Peter is not converted. It is true, however, that these two things are compatible: that God has decreed Peter’s future conversion and that Peter can fail to be converted. For God’s decree does not take away from Peter the power for the opposite act, but only excludes the act opposed to conversion. This will be discussed more fully in disputation 18, no. 23, and Disputations 22 and 23.

As to the fourth, the controversy that follows will make the answer clear.

Whether God knows future sins certainly and infallibly in some decree of his divine will.

I. Certain modern theologians defend the negative position, which they prove with these arguments.

First. We can imagine in God a threefold decree with respect to an act of sin. The first is a decree physically predetermining free choice to a future act of sin, insofar as it is an act and a being. The second is a decree to concur together with the will in that same act, if the will wishes to apply itself to it. The third is a decree to permit the moral evil of the sin itself. But God does not know future sins certainly and infallibly in any one of these decrees, nor in all of them together. Therefore God does not know them in any decree of his will. The minor premise, with respect to the first decree, is proved as follows: there can be in God no absolute and efficacious decree physically predetermining created free choice to an act of sin, even insofar as it is an act; for then sin itself would also be attributed to God as its first author and mover. Therefore God does not know future sins in the aforesaid decree of his will. That he does not know them in a decree to concur together with created free choice in an act of sin is proved as follows: God’s will alone is not the complete cause of an act of sin, but the free concurrence of the created will is also required for it. Therefore, unless the will concurs, an act of sin will not certainly be future. Therefore, in the decree by which God determines to concur together with the will in an act of sin, he cannot know with certainty that the act of sin will be future. That he does not know sin in a decree to permit the evil of sin is proved as follows: God is said to permit sin insofar as he does not confer a predetermining help on the will to perform the contrary act of virtue. If he were to confer such help, the person would not sin. But such help is not necessary for a person to produce acts of virtue. Therefore, future sin cannot be known with certainty in the denial or absence of such help.

Second, it is argued that the will to permit sin includes two things. One is the intention not to prevent sin and not to give efficacious help for an act of virtue by which sin is avoided. The other is the will to concur in the positive act of the will by which sin is freely committed. For, according to St. Thomas, there is no culpable pure omission.¹ But sin cannot be known infallibly as future in the intention not to give the aforesaid efficacious help, because it would follow that the human will, left to its own nature and efficacy with the general influence of the first cause, is of itself determined to perform an evil act. This seems to be the doctrine of the Manicheans and Lutherans, as was shown in Disputation 3. Therefore. This is proved as follows: that will, left to itself with the common influence in all acts, infallibly performs evil; therefore it would be determined of itself to evil. For the future effect cannot be known with certainty in a proximate contingent cause unless the cause is predetermined to it and is not impeded. Likewise, in a decree to concur together with the created will in an act of sin, God cannot know with certainty that the act will be future, since the will, by its freedom, can fail to produce such an act; otherwise it would be determined of itself to produce an evil act. Therefore God cannot know sin with certainty in the mere will to permit sin, unless we have recourse to middle knowledge, by which God certainly knows that the will will consent to sin on the supposition that it is placed in such an order of things and in such circumstances.

II. All the Doctors who hold that middle knowledge does not exist, even in God, consequently defend the contrary opinion. For if this knowledge does not exist, infallible certainty that, for example, Peter will sin cannot be derived from it, nor can such certainty be founded on that same knowledge. Hence this certainty and infallibility must be derived from another source, namely, from the real existence that future sins have in eternity, as we were saying in disputations 8 and 9, or from some decree of the divine will. We intend to explain the latter in the present discussion.

Therefore, to resolve this difficulty, note that two things are found in sin. First, there is the positive action of sin, which, insofar as it is a being, is good and consequently proceeds by efficient causation from the first good, namely, God, as from the first author and first cause, as St. Thomas proves, 1. 2. q. 79. art. 2 and 2. d. 37. q. 2. art. 2. We will discuss this expressly in disputation 24, where from the opinion of St. Augustine and St. Thomas it will be made clear that by his general concurrence God physically premoves and predetermines the created will to an act of sin, insofar as it is an act, however intrinsically evil it may otherwise be in relation to the created will, which acts defectively. Second, there is in sin the formal account of sin, or moral evil and disorder from right reason. God does not cause this, but only permits it, insofar as he does not provide efficacious help to avoid sin. If God were to provide this help to a person, he would not sin, as St. Thomas says, 1. 2. q. 79. art. 1. in corp.

Second, note that it is one thing to say that created free choice is liable to fail by its nature, and another to say that free choice is determined by itself to evil. The former is Catholic truth; the latter is an error even against the light of nature. The former says that it is possible to fail from the end and from God’s law, because the faculty of free choice is not itself the rule of its actions. The latter refers determination to evil back to the author of nature, who produced free choice, and this is a blasphemous heresy. The former belongs to free choice, as the holy Augustine and Thomas often teach, because it is produced from nothing,²³⁴ as Cyril, On John 1, ch. 25; Gregory of Nyssa, On Free Choice 7, final ch.; St. Gregory, Moralia 25, ch. 5; Damascene, Orthodox Faith 2, ch. 27; and Rupert, On Genesis 1, ch. 15, also teach. But the latter is opposed to the natural inclination of that same free choice, for it always tends toward the true or apparent good, since even when it sins it cannot will evil under the aspect of evil. Let the following therefore be our conclusion.

III. First conclusion. By the decree in which God decides to predetermine the created will to the entity of the act of sin, insofar as it is an action and a being, and to permit the moral evil of sin, or the sin itself insofar as it is sin, by not giving efficacious help to avoid it, God knows with certainty and infallibly all future sins.⁵

The conclusion is proved from Psalm 80: I gave them over to the desires of their heart; they will walk in their own devices. These words signify that when God abandons the sinner and does not help keep him from falling, the sinner will infallibly sin. Hence St. Augustine, explaining the difference between Christ’s bodily and spiritual departure, says:⁶ The Lord departed from that very city, or from that place. Did Lazarus not live? The soul is not raised in this way: God raises it; it dies if God departs. Brothers, I will speak boldly, but truthfully. There are two lives: one of the body, the other of the soul. As the soul is the life of the body, so God is the life of the soul. Just as the body dies if the soul departs, so the soul dies if God departs.

This is confirmed by the authority of the Second Council of Orange, canon 19, where it is said: Even if human nature remained in that integrity in which it was created, it could in no way preserve itself if its Creator did not help it. Therefore, according to the Council’s meaning, if God does not help keep a human being from falling, he will infallibly fall; otherwise he would preserve himself in the good without his Creator preserving him. The same is proved from Pope Innocent’s Epistle 25 to the Council of Carthage, which is found in Augustine’s Epistle 91, where he says: He provides daily remedies; unless we rely on them and trust in them, we will in no way be able to overcome human errors. For we must be overcome when he does not help us, just as we overcome through him who helps us. Nothing could be said more clearly in support of our opinion.

Second, it is proved by reason. God knows with certainty that if he did not preserve creatures in their being, they would immediately be reduced to nothing, since a creature cannot preserve itself if its Creator does not preserve it. Therefore he also knows that if he does not preserve a human being in the good of reason, the human being will not preserve himself. Therefore, in the decree by which God decides not to give someone efficacious help at a certain time to preserve the good of reason by doing good or abstaining from sin, he knows with certainty that the person will fall away from that same good of reason by sinning.

Third, it is proved. Without efficacious help predetermining free choice to an act of virtue, a human being will never perform that act, as will become clear in Disputations 18 and 23. Therefore, in the decree by which God decides not to give Peter, for example, efficacious help at a certain time for an act of virtue that is commanded, he knows that Peter will not perform that act and, consequently, knows that he will sin by omission.

Moreover, the same is proved concerning a sin of commission. In the decree by which God predetermines Peter’s will to the act of sin insofar as it is an act, he knows with certainty that Peter will produce that act, as will become clear in disputation 24. Therefore, if on the other side he permits the moral evil of that same act and that Peter, by failing to follow the rule of reason, produce the same act, it will be infallible that Peter sins, and consequently God will know this with certainty.

IIII. Second conclusion. It must be said simply and absolutely that God does not know future sins with certainty and infallibly in any decree of his will by which he has predetermined free choice to commit those same sins. This conclusion is a matter of faith, and the arguments made at the beginning prove it for the most part.

Moreover, it is proved by all the passages of Scripture, the Councils of Orange and Trent, and the authorities of the holy Fathers, by which we will show in disputation 24 that, absolutely speaking, God does not predetermine the human will to evil, or to sin.

Therefore, it is replied to the arguments made at the beginning that they prove only this second conclusion. Insofar as they seem to work against the first, each must be addressed in turn.

To the first argument it is answered that God knows future sins in the first and third decrees, namely, in the decree to move the created will beforehand as an efficient cause toward the entity of the act of sin insofar as it is an act, and in the decree permitting the created will to fail to follow reason, as is clear from what was said. Nor is such a decree incompatible with human freedom, nor is sin on that account referred back to God as its first author, speaking absolutely, but only with a qualification that diminishes the attribution, namely, insofar as sin is an act and a being. This will be treated expressly in disputation 24. As to the other point, by which it is proved in the same argument that God cannot know a future sin in the decree permitting its evil, it is answered that, as will become clear below, every act of virtue requires beforehand God’s decree and help predetermining created free choice by efficient causation to that act. From this, however, one may not infer that someone who does not actually have that help cannot perform such an act of virtue; nor may one infer that someone who has that help cannot fail to perform the same act. We have already explained above the defect in this inference, and in disputation 18 we will show how fallacious this argument is.

To the second argument it is answered by what was said in the second foundation. For we said that the created will is by its nature inclined to the good, since its natural inclination is from God, as St. Thomas often teaches in Opusculum 2, chs. 29 and 30, and elsewhere. Hence such an inclination cannot tend toward evil. Nevertheless, one must assert that the created will is by its nature liable to fail, and that unless it is preserved in the good of reason by the hand of its Creator, it will not preserve itself by itself. Thus, when God abandons it, it will infallibly fail, and will fail freely; just as, when God preserves it, it will infallibly and freely preserve itself, as was said above from St. Augustine. Hence, in the decree by which God, by his hidden yet undoubtedly most just judgment, decides not to preserve the created will in the good of reason, but to permit it to fail from that good, and to concur in the act of sin insofar as it is an act in the way explained above, he knows future sins with certainty.

Whether God certainly and infallibly knows future contingents in the predetermination of secondary causes, especially when the secondary causes are free.

I. Those authors who deny that God efficaciously predetermined such future contingents by his eternal decree antecedently to his foreknowledge of the free cooperation of free choice that would occur on the supposition that it were placed in such circumstances defend the negative position. We shall present their arguments in disputations 22 and 23.

Moreover, this opinion is also proved as follows. It often happens that secondary causes are determined to produce some effect and yet in fact do not produce it, as is clear in the case of Hezekiah, to whom Isaiah 38 said: Set your house in order, for you shall die; you shall not live. For in that case the natural causes of death were already determined, and yet death did not then follow. Therefore an effect to come cannot be certainly known in determined causes.

A second argument: the first free act of both human beings and angels follows infallibly upon their determinate and natural judgment, by which they judge that such an object is to be pursued; for this judgment must be natural and not free. Otherwise the act of the will that follows that judgment would not be the first free act, but would presuppose another free act on the part of the intellect, and so there would be an infinite regress. But the future free act cannot be certainly known in such a judgment; therefore future contingents cannot be certainly known in determined causes. The minor premise is proved: otherwise every angel would, by the power of his nature, know all the first free acts of other angels and human beings. For he naturally knows all the natural acts of others and everything pertaining to the order of nature; therefore he knows that natural judgment from which the first free act follows infallibly. Therefore, if future contingent and free acts could be certainly known in the determination of secondary causes, it would follow that an angel who naturally knows that natural judgment would also know the first free act of any other angel or human being—which no one grants.

St. Thomas holds the contrary opinion in the places cited in the preceding disputation, conclusion 1. The Thomists generally follow him, as do other theologians who teach that God predetermines all secondary causes to their operations.

II. Our conclusion, then, is this: God certainly knows all future contingents, including free ones, in the determination of secondary causes that are not to be impeded by the concurrence of other causes.¹ That is, precisely because God knows the determination of the secondary cause and the concurrence of all the other causes by which the contingent effect will not be impeded, he certainly knows that effect to be future.

This conclusion is proved. An effect is known with certainty in a cause that is necessary without qualification because such a cause has an infallible ordering to that effect, as we know infallibly that every human being is capable of laughter because he is rational. But a contingent cause that is completely determined and not to be impeded, however free it may be and capable of not acting, will in fact operate infallibly and produce its effect. Therefore its effect, contingently future, can also be known with certainty in such a cause.

III. Second, this is proved as follows. In the absolute and efficacious decree of his will, God certainly knows future contingents, including free ones, as was shown in the preceding disputation. Therefore he also knows them in the complete determination of secondary causes that are not to be impeded. The consequence is clear: in the very motion by which God determines secondary causes to their contingent and free effects there is God’s intention, which cannot fail, as St. Thomas teaches, p. 2. q. 112. art. 3. in corp., and 2. 2. q. 24. art. 11. in corp.

IIII. To the first argument, it is replied that although the natural causes of Hezekiah’s death were determined, they were impeded by a special dispensation of God, so that Hezekiah’s death would not then follow from them. Hence his death could not be certainly known in those causes.

To the second, it is replied that the first act of the will follows infallibly upon the first command, which is not wholly a natural act but is free in some respect, at least as to exercise. For this, note that an act can be free in two ways.² First, because it is expressly willed as an object; in this sense the first act of command is not free, otherwise there would be an infinite regress, as the argument proves. In a second way, an act can be called free because it concerns an object to which the power eliciting that act is not naturally determined. In this sense the first command is a free act as to exercise, because the intellect is not naturally determined to that particular object with which the first command is concerned. Hence one angel cannot naturally know the first act of command of other angels or human beings, nor the first free act that follows upon such a command.

A second reply is that the first act of the will must concern the good in general, to which the will is naturally determined as to specification. For, as weighty authorities teach, the will cannot will some particular good unless it has first had an act concerning the good in general.³ Hence an angel, by the power of his nature, can know with certainty that the first act the human will produces will be an appetite or volition of the good in general. Yet he cannot know at what time it will produce such an act, because, although that act is necessary as to specification, it has some freedom as to exercise.⁴

Whether, abstracting from every predetermination of the divine will and from existence in eternity, another ground can be assigned for the certainty of divine knowledge, namely, on the side of the truth of the object.

I. The first opinion is held by certain more recent authors, who assert that God knows these future things solely through a simple intuition of the truth of the thing that is future. Thus, on this opinion, God knows contingent future things with certainty because the future thing itself has determinate truth, which God then knows with certainty. Other modern authors infer the certainty of God’s knowledge, by which he knows contingent future things from eternity, from the truth of contingent future things and the infinity of God’s intellect. The chief arguments for this opinion are the following.

First, in that prior order of reason, before any decree of the divine will is understood and before future things exist in eternity, this proposition about a contingent future thing, “Antichrist will exist,” is determinately true or determinately false. Therefore, in that prior order, God knows determinately whether Antichrist will be future or will not be future, through the very truth of the object. The consequence is clear: for in every order of reason God knows every determinate truth; otherwise in that order his knowledge would not be infinite. The antecedent is proved as follows: even in that order of reason these two propositions are contradictories: “Antichrist will exist”; “Antichrist will not exist.” Therefore one of them is determinately true and the other determinately false, for it belongs to the nature of contradictories that one is true and the other false. Therefore, in that order, God knows whichever contradictory is true.

The same antecedent is confirmed. This disjunction is true and necessary: “Peter will sin or will not sin,” as Aristotle teaches in De interpretatione I, ch. 8. Therefore one of its parts is determinately true, since the truth of a disjunction requires that one part be true. Therefore that part is known by God before an act of his will.

Second confirmation. True and false are attributes of a proposition, just as even and odd are attributes of a number. But it is impossible that, in some order of reason, there be a number that is neither even nor odd. Therefore it is impossible that, in some order of reason, there be a proposition about a contingent future thing that is not determinately true or false.

Third confirmation. As Aristotle teaches in Metaphysics VI, true and false are immediate contraries with respect to a proposition, just as healthy and sick are with respect to an animal. But there is no middle term between immediate contraries. Therefore, in every order of reason, every proposition about a contingent future thing is either true or false and, consequently, is known with certainty by God.

Second, God revealed many contingent future things in Sacred Scripture before they happened, as in Isaiah 7: Behold, a virgin will conceive and bear a son; and that the resurrection of the dead will occur. The Lord Christ also said to the Apostle Peter: Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.¹ Therefore, before they happened, these things were determinately true and consequently known with certainty by God.

Third, every proposition about a contingent future thing has a corresponding de inesse proposition that is determinately true or determinately false. Therefore it is true or false. The consequence is clear, for the truth or falsity of a proposition about the future must be governed and proved by a de inesse proposition. Hence the proposition about the future is true if at some time it will have a true de inesse proposition; but it is false if it will never have one. The antecedent is proved as follows: the proposition “Antichrist exists” will be true when Antichrist is born, whereas the proposition “A golden mountain exists” will never be true. Therefore the future proposition “A golden mountain will exist” is determinately false. The same applies to all other similar propositions. Therefore.

This is confirmed. At some time things will be as a proposition about a contingent future thing signifies. Therefore that proposition will be true. The consequence is clear, since a proposition is called true or false according as a thing is or is not, as required by the copula.

Fourth, this complex expression, “Antichrist will exist,” is willed by God as future. Therefore, before the act of the divine will, it was known by God as future. The consequence is clear, because nothing is willed under any aspect whatsoever unless it is foreknown under that same aspect.

Fifth, before every act of his will, God knows with certainty what he himself will will and which creatures his will is to determine to produce. Therefore, before every act of his will, he knows with certainty which things are determinately future and which are not future. The antecedent is clear, for the divine Word proceeds from the knowledge of all truths, since it is produced through the most perfect act of the intellect. Therefore it proceeds from knowledge of this truth, “Antichrist will be born,” and from knowledge of all other contingent future things. Therefore, before every act of the divine will, this complex expression was true: “Antichrist will be born.” For the divine Word proceeds before every act of the divine will, and consequently the truth of that future thing precedes every act of the divine will. Otherwise it would have to be said that the divine Word does not proceed from knowledge of all truths.

Sixth, the Ideas of creatures that are in God represent, before every act of the divine will, all future things as future. For, as Saint Thomas teaches in Summa theologiae I, q. 15, properly speaking, Ideas represent future things as future, since they are the intelligible principles of the things God is to produce. But such Ideas must actually represent future contingent things before every act of the divine will; otherwise an Idea would not be a divine attribute. For no attribute, especially one pertaining to the intellect, presupposes in God a free act of his will. Therefore, through these Ideas, God knows with certainty, in that prior order of reason, which things are determinately future and which are not future.

This argument is confirmed by the authority of Saint Thomas. 1. p. q. 14. art. 13. c. There he says: God knows future things not only because he has the intelligible principles of things present to himself, but also because his gaze is directed from eternity over all things insofar as they are in their presentness. By these words he seems to teach that God also knows all contingent future things with certainty through the Ideas, which are the intelligible principles of things. Since, then, Ideas represent contingent future things before an act of the divine will, it follows that before the aforesaid act God can know them as future.

II. The second opinion, common among Thomists, asserts that before every act of his will God does not know with certainty and infallibly what is determinately future, nor does a proposition about a contingent future thing have determinate truth. This opinion is certain and accords with the mind of Saint Thomas; to explain it—

We must note that here we are speaking only of priority according to distinct orders of reason. For whatever God decreed to produce in time, he decreed from eternity, and no act can be found in God, even a free one, that was not in him from eternity; otherwise he would be mutable.

Second, we must note that just as the actual creation of things outside God, and the actual willing to create or justify a human being, adds no perfection in God beyond the power to create or justify, but only implies the same real perfection with a new relation of reason to the creature, so too knowledge of future things adds no perfection in God beyond knowledge of possible things. Rather, it expresses the same perfection with a new relation of reason to those same future things, insofar as they are in their determinate causes.² Otherwise there would be in God some real perfection dependent on a free act of his will; consequently, if God had wished to create another world, he would be more perfect in himself than he in fact is, since he would know more things as future. But this must in no way be said. Therefore.

Third, we must note that whenever two things are contradictorily opposed or are immediate contraries, it is necessary that at every instant of time one of them belong to its proper subject. It is not, however, required that one or the other belong to that same subject in every order of reason.³ The example is clear. Grace and sin are immediate opposites in a human being ordered to eternal life; accordingly, at every instant of time the person must either have grace or have sin. Yet this is not necessary in every prior order of reason or of nature. For in that prior order of nature in which contrition precedes grace in the genus of material cause, the person is not understood to have mortal sin, because mortal sin is incompatible with contrition; and yet in that prior order he is not yet understood to have habitual grace. But if we speak of an instant of time, at that instant he has habitual grace. Let the following therefore be our conclusion.

III. First conclusion. If we speak of an instant of time, every proposition about a contingent future thing is determinately true or false before future things are actualized. Certain arguments made at the beginning prove this conclusion effectively, especially the second and third arguments.

It is proved further. From eternity God has already decreed what will be future and what will not be future. Therefore, at every instant of time before future things are actualized, it will be true to say that what truly will be future will be future, and that what truly will not be future will not be future. Therefore God knows this from eternity, before it happens or does not happen in time.

This is confirmed. From the instant of time in which future things are actualized, the proposition about the future begins to be false, since at that time the thing is no longer future but present or past. Therefore, before they are actualized, propositions about the future are determinately true or determinately false at every preceding instant of time.

Second conclusion. Before every decree of the divine will—that is, in that prior order of reason before such a decree determining what will be future and what will not be future is understood to be in God—no proposition about a contingent future thing has determinate truth. Consequently, in that prior order, even God cannot know from the truth of the object itself what is determinately future.⁴ This conclusion is directly opposed to the authors of the first opinion; nevertheless, it seems to accord with the mind of Saint Thomas in the passages cited in the preceding disputation. For the holy Doctor shows on two grounds that God knows contingent future things with certainty: namely, because they actually exist in eternity before they happen in their proper measure and through the determination of their causes. But this determination cannot be prior to the decree of the divine will, by which all secondary causes are determined to produce their effects. Therefore, and so forth.

Moreover, this is proved by reason. In that prior order of reason, future things do not have determinate being, either in themselves, since they are not understood to exist even in eternity (for such existence depends intrinsically on the decree of the divine will, as is clear from Revelation 4: Because of your will they existed and were created; and Scripture says again: How would anything exist⁵, unless you had willed it?), or in their causes. For in that prior order the first cause is not yet understood to be determined to produce any future thing. Therefore, in that prior order, future things have no determinate truth if they are considered as future, because what does not have determinate being does not have determinate truth.

Second, before the decree of the divine will, this proposition, “Antichrist will exist,” is not determinately true by the nature of its subject. For actual existence belongs by the nature of the thing to God alone, and the proposition is not determinately true by reason of any efficient cause. In that prior order, the decree of the divine will is not yet understood, without which the causality of any secondary cause can neither exist nor be conceived, since it depends essentially on the causality of the first cause. Therefore, in that prior order of reason, the predicate is not understood to belong to the subject, and thus no determinate truth is found in the object signified by that proposition.

Third, this is proved by the authority of Aristotle, On Interpretation, book 1, chapter 8, a passage we cited and examined in disputation 7, especially in the second argument made for our opinion.⁶ For he teaches that the contingency of things and consequently the freedom of free choice would be taken away if propositions about future contingents were determinately true or determinately false in themselves. This also seems to follow if they are posited as determinately true in that prior order of reason. It is shown as follows: if before the decree of the divine will this proposition, “Antichrist will exist,” or “Antichrist will speak,” is determinately true, then that predicate belongs to that subject by the nature of the thing and per se. The consequence is clear: as was shown, in that prior order of reason it cannot belong to the subject through any efficient cause. Therefore it would belong to it per se and intrinsically, and thus could not later be predicated of it contingently and freely in time, because what belongs to something by nature does not belong to it freely.

This reasoning is confirmed by the third argument, by which middle knowledge was opposed in the same disputation 7, no. 16.

From this conclusion it follows that propositions about future contingents are also not determinately false in that prior order of reason, before the decree of the divine will is understood. This is proved by the same arguments: in that prior order causes are not determined not to produce this or that contingent thing; therefore, in that prior order, it is not determinately false to assert that this or that thing will be future.

This is confirmed. If propositions about future contingents were determinately false in that prior order, it would follow that they were determinately false by the nature of the thing, and consequently God could not make them true by his decree. In the same way, God cannot make this proposition, “A human being is not rational,” determinately true, because by the nature of the thing it is determinately false antecedently to every decree of God’s will.

Second, the same point is confirmed with respect to disparate conditional propositions, against those who think all such conditionals have determinate truth or falsity before every decree of the divine will. Before the decree of the divine will, this conditional—“If a horse is an animal, Antichrist will be born”—is not determinately true in itself. Otherwise God could not determine himself not to produce Antichrist, but would produce him in his own time by absolute necessity. Nor is it determinately false before that decree, for the same reason: it would follow that God could not produce Antichrist, since he cannot change the truth or falsity of propositions that are determinately true or false in themselves antecedently to his decree. The same argument can be made proportionally about any other disparate conditional future whose consequent has no connection with its antecedent and is not inferred from it, even if the antecedent is posited as actual, as in this assertion: “If it rains in Spain on a certain day, Peter will dispute in Italy,” and similar examples. For if this conditional is said to be determinately true before every decree of the divine will, it follows that, if the antecedent is posited as actual, God could not bring it about that the consequent is not posited as actual, which must by no means be said. But if, conversely, it is asserted that this conditional is determinately false before every divine decree, another inadmissible consequence follows: namely, that if the antecedent is posited as actual, God could not bring it about that Peter disputes in Rome⁷, which likewise cannot be said.

To the first argument, it is replied that, as is clear from what has been said, especially in the third foundation, the proposition “Antichrist will exist” is neither determinately true nor determinately false in that prior order of reason in which it is considered before every decree of the divine will. In proof of it, the reply is that of two contradictories, even concerning a future contingent, one must be determinately true and the other determinately false for every instant of time; it is not necessary, however, that one be determinately true and the other determinately false for every order of reason. If it is said that even in that prior order of reason the two propositions are contradictories, and therefore one is determinately true and the other false in that same order, the consequence is denied. For this is not required for the essence of contradictories in every order of reason; it is sufficient that both cannot be true or both false together, and that if one is true, the other be false. This indeed applies to those propositions even in that prior order. Or one may say that true contradiction is considered according to an instant of time, but not according to an instant of nature, because an instant of nature is not an instant in which something is, but one from which it is.

IIII. To the first confirmation, it is replied that, just as the disjunctive proposition “Peter will sin, or he will not sin” is necessary, although neither of its parts is necessary, so too that same disjunction is determinately true, because both parts cannot be false, although neither part is determinately true in that first order of reason. For the truth of a disjunction does not require that one part be determinately true; it is sufficient that both parts cannot be false at once.

To the second confirmation, the first reply is that even and odd are attributes or properties that follow upon number by the nature of the thing, just as the capacity for laughter follows upon human nature.⁸ Hence, for any given number, even in that prior order of reason it must be either even or odd. But determinate truth or falsity in future contingents does not follow upon a proposition about a future contingent by the nature of the thing, because a future contingent by its nature has neither determinate being nor determinate nonbeing; rather, this follows from the decree of the divine will. Hence the cases are dissimilar.

A second reply is that the argument only concludes that, for every instant of time, every proposition about a future contingent is determinately true or determinately false; it does not conclude this for every order of reason. The same is also found in number. For in that prior order of reason in which we consider number according to its precise quiddity, we do not attribute determinately to it that it is even or odd. This belongs to number in the second order of reason, in which it is also considered according to the properties that follow upon its nature, setting aside actual existence. If, however, even or odd are taken as belonging to number in the exercise of actual existence, neither is determinately predicated of number before the decree of the divine will, because before it no number exists in reality and consequently no number, even or odd, exists. This also answers the third confirmation.

To the second and third arguments, with their confirmation, it is replied that they prove only the first conclusion. See St. Thomas, q. 6. de verit. art. 3. ad 6, where he explains the saying of Aristotle cited above, namely: Propositions about a future contingent do not have certain and determinate truth before they are posited as actual.

To the fourth argument, it is replied that for God to will that something be future, it is sufficient, on the part of the intellect, that he know it through knowledge of simple understanding as possible or as future according to its quiddity. He need not foreknow it as future in exercised act, because it has the character of futurity from the determination of the divine will. For the object of an active power does not precede but follows the operation of that same power.

To the fifth argument, the antecedent is denied, as is clear from what was said in disputation 7 on middle knowledge, where we showed that before the actual determination of his will God cannot know with certainty what, in particular, he will will or do, even on the supposition that he were to create another world or place a human being in such circumstances. In proof of the argument, it is replied that the divine Word proceeds from the necessary knowledge of all truths that the Father has through knowledge of simple understanding, but not from free knowledge.⁹ For free knowledge adds no new perfection in God over and above knowledge of simple understanding, as was shown in the second foundation. Hence, even if the Word does not proceed from knowledge of future contingents as future in exercised act, it still proceeds from infinitely perfect knowledge. To explain this reply more fully, note that future contingents and their existence can be considered in two ways. First, with respect to the actual exercise of existence itself; and according to this account, they are known by God through free knowledge alone, not through knowledge of simple understanding. St. Thomas speaks in this sense in q. 8. de verit. art. 4 and 3. sent. d. 14. q. 1. art. 2. q. 2, when he says that God does not know by knowledge of simple understanding things that at some time exist, but only those that never exist. Hence the divine Word does not proceed from knowledge of future contingents according to the way they exercise the act of existence. Second, future contingents and their existence can be considered according to their quiddity; and under this account they are known by God through knowledge of simple understanding,¹⁰ as St. Thomas expressly teaches in 3. sent. ad Annibaldum d. 14. q. un. art. 2. in corp., where he says: In the Word, or in God, a twofold cognition is distinguished: one called knowledge of vision, by which God sees as present all things that are, will be, and have been. The other is called knowledge of simple understanding, by which he knows not only those things but also all things he can make. The reason is that the quiddity of such existence does not depend on the decree of the divine will, since the essences of things are everlasting. Under this account, therefore, the divine Word proceeds not only from knowledge of possible creatures, but also from knowledge of creatures existing at any temporal interval, if such existence is considered according to its quiddity and not insofar as it actually exercises the act of existence.

To the sixth argument, the reply will be clear from what is to be said in the following disputation.

Whether, before the decree of his will, God knows contingent future things with certainty in their Ideas, as future things.

I. Scotus in Book I, distinction 39, and all his disciples hold that contingent future things can neither be represented nor known by God through the divine Ideas, either before the decree of the divine will that predetermines future things or after it. Durandus teaches the same in Book I, distinction 35, question 2; Aureolus, as cited by Capreolus in Book I, distinction 38, in reply to the arguments against the second conclusion; Gabriel and Ockham in the same distinction, question 1, article 2; and Corduba in Book I, question 55, doubt 8. Certain theologians attribute this opinion to Saint Thomas as well. 1.p. q. 14. ar. 13. But Saint Thomas in fact holds the contrary, as will be clear below. It is proved manifestly that before the decree of the divine will the Ideas do not represent future things as future, but only as possible: for what does not exist either in itself or in its causes cannot be represented. But before every decree of the divine will, no future thing has determinate being either in itself or in its causes, as was shown above. Therefore—

This is confirmed. Otherwise, before every act of his will, God would know with certainty which things are future and which are not. For he knows all things represented through Ideas, since representation belongs to Ideas by nature. Therefore, if before the decree of the divine will future things are represented through the divine Ideas as future, it follows that before that same decree God knows future things, which is an unacceptable consequence. Otherwise future things would not depend on the decree of the divine will, contrary to Revelation 4: You created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.

II. It is proved that future things are not represented even after the decree. For whatever the divine Ideas represent, they represent naturally and necessarily, since the representation of Ideas belongs to the essential perfection of the divine intellect. Therefore they represent nothing after the decree of the divine will that they would not represent before that decree. Otherwise the representation of Ideas in God would be changeable, and some divine perfection—such as the representation of contingent future things that belongs to Ideas—would depend on a free decree of the divine will.

Saint Thomas holds the opposite opinion in 1.p.quaest.15.ar.3. ad 4, and De veritate, q. 2, a. 7, ad 6, and q. 3, a. 6. In these passages he clearly teaches that the Ideas are forms by which things are known not only according to their essence, but also according to all their accidents and the dispositions they have. Capreolus teaches the same opinion in the cited article 2, in reply to Scotus’s arguments against the first conclusion, as do Cajetan and Master Báñez in Summa theologiae I, q. 14, a. 13, and the Thomists generally. To explain it, let this be our position:

III. First conclusion. Before the decree of the divine will, the divine Ideas do not actually represent future things as future, but only as possible.¹ This is proved by the arguments made in favor of Scotus’s opinion and by the final argument we proposed: for it would follow that God knows contingent future things before an act of his divine will, the contrary of which was said above.

Second conclusion. After the decree of the divine will that predetermines future things, the divine Ideas actually represent them as future; consequently, on the supposition of the aforesaid decree, they are known by God through these Ideas.

This conclusion is proved as follows. The divine Ideas represent creatures according to the different ways in which they imitate the divine Essence. But future creatures imitate the divine Essence in a different way from possible creatures: future things imitate God according to their actual existence, which possible creatures do not share. Therefore Ideas must be posited that represent creatures as future after the decree of the divine will.

It is proved secondly. God truly produces everything he produces as an artificer, as is self-evident. Therefore he has Ideas of all those things. The consequence is clear, since every artificer has beforehand in his intellect the Ideas of the things he can produce and also of those he does produce.

It is proved thirdly. Otherwise contingent future things would not have in God an exemplary and formal cause, which is false. The consequence is proved as follows: an Idea is an exemplary cause on which the artificer looks when he works. Therefore, if there are no Ideas in God that represent contingent future things, they will have no exemplary causes in him, for there can be no other exemplary cause in God than an Idea.

IIII. To the arguments made in favor of Scotus’s opinion, we answer from Cajetan’s teaching that the representation of things as to their essence or possibility of existing belongs to the natural perfection of the divine intellect, and this representation belongs to the Ideas antecedently to the decree of the divine will. But the representation of things as to their futurity or accidental conditions does not belong naturally to the Ideas, if we speak of representation in the actual exercise of representing; rather, it presupposes the decree of the divine will. The reason is that the Ideas, like the divine Essence under the aspect of an intelligible species, necessarily represent all things that have determinate truth and being. Since, before an act of the divine will, things have determinate being as to their quiddity, essence, and possibility, they do not presuppose a decree of the divine will in this respect. Therefore, before such an act, these things are represented naturally through the Ideas. But because future things, insofar as they are future, do not have determinate being and truth before an act of the divine will, though they do have them on the supposition of the divine decree, future things as future are not represented through the Ideas before an act of the divine will, but only after such an act. Nor does it follow from this that the divine Ideas are not naturally infinite in representing: for, as we said above, the representation of future things as future, like their cognition, adds no new perfection beyond the representation of possible things. Moreover, the fact that the Ideas do not actually represent future things as future in the exercise of representing before the decree of the divine will does not arise from any imperfection in the Ideas, but from the imperfection of contingent future things, which are not representable before that same decree.

V. But an argument in favor of Scotus’s opinion still presses against this doctrine. An Idea presupposes cognition of creatures; therefore it cannot be the principle of their cognition and, consequently, cannot represent creatures. For the representation of an object precedes its cognition. The antecedent is proved as follows: an Idea has the character of a known object, for different Ideas arise in the divine mind from God’s knowing his Essence as imitable in different ways by creatures. Therefore an Idea presupposes cognition of creatures.

We answer that, according to our manner of understanding, God knows his divine Essence as imitable by creatures according to different degrees of perfection before he knows the creatures that imitate those degrees. For the divine Ideas are, as it were, an intermediary between the first and second acts of cognition. Hence, although the Ideas presuppose cognition of the divine Essence as imitable in different ways, they do not presuppose cognition of creatures that imitate the divine Essence in different ways; rather, they precede that cognition in the order of reason. In this way the sixth principal argument of the preceding disputation, together with its confirmation, remains resolved.

There was a great difficulty concerning conditional future things, namely, how they are known by God. But we have now treated this fully in Disputation 7, where we explained which conditionals are known by God and through which knowledge, and in Disputation 13 we said something about disparate conditionals whose consequent has no connection with the antecedent, even if the antecedent is actualized.

Whether there is conjectural cognition in God: what, in particular, a created will will do if it is placed in such circumstances.

The present difficulty may concern both future things that truly will be future and conditional future things that will never occur. The controversy is this: before God determines in particular the future act of a created will, does he have conjectural cognition that the will, once placed—or if it were placed—in such circumstances, and with such an object proposed to it, will will that object? The affirmative side is proved as follows.

First. Such a constitution, disposition, and inclination of this will, together with the proposal of an object that is suitable and lovable, is a strong conjecture that the will will pursue it. But God comprehends every constitution, disposition, and inclination of any created will. Therefore, before he decrees that will’s future act, he has conjectural cognition that, if an object suitable to it is proposed in such circumstances, it will pursue that object.

Second. From what regularly happens one draws the best conjecture about what will occur in similar cases. But, generally speaking, irascible people, when provoked by injuries, burst out in a desire for vengeance. Therefore, before any decree of his will, God has conjectural cognition that such an irascible person will desire vengeance if another inflicts injuries on him.

Third. As Saint Thomas teaches, 1.p.q.14. ar. 13. in the body of the article, whoever knows a contingent effect in its cause has conjectural cognition of it. But God knows all contingent future things in their causes, as Saint Thomas teaches in the same article and as is clear from what was said in the preceding disputations. Therefore he has conjectural cognition of them.

This is confirmed. For, as Saint Thomas teaches in Summa theologiae I, q. 57, a. 3, in the body, angels have conjectural cognition of contingent future things that proceed from their causes for the most part, because they know the causes of things more universally and perfectly. It is like physicians, who see the causes more sharply and therefore make better predictions about the future state of an illness. Since, then, God knows most perfectly the nature, propensity, or inclination of all contingent causes, it follows that he has conjectural cognition of contingent future things before he determines anything about them.

On the contrary, conjectural cognition, like opinion, intrinsically includes imperfection. But God’s cognition cannot be imperfect. Therefore no conjectural cognition of any future thing is found in him.

To resolve this difficulty, we must note that cognition of something can be conjectural in two ways. First, it can be conjectural on the side of the cognition itself and in relation to the knower, who is guided by conjectures to pronounce judgment about something, as a physician judges conjecturally about a future illness from certain signs. In this way conjectural cognition of any contingent future thing cannot be found in God, both for the reason already given and because one who judges about a contingent future thing by conjectures is not altogether certain about it. Hence what is false can underlie conjectural cognition. Since God’s cognition cannot be uncertain, nor can anything false underlie it, it follows that no conjectural cognition on the side of the knower is in him—especially when the matter is considered antecedently to the decree of his will. For God knows with certainty that nothing will be future in the nature of things unless he first decrees that it be future, either by doing it himself or by permitting it to be done. But one who has conjectural cognition of something is not certain that it will not be future. For when there is complete certainty that something will not be future, all conjectures that incline the intellect to judge conjecturally that it will be future vanish.

Second, cognition can be conjectural on the side of the object known considered in itself. This occurs when someone knows the relation that causes have to effects that regularly proceed from those same causes, and at the same time knows that the human intellect, which is inclined by conjectures to judge about some future event, draws from those same causes sufficient conjectures on which to base a judgment about a future thing—even though, for some other reason, the person who has conjectural cognition only on the side of the object knows with certainty that it will not be future. In this way conjectural cognition of contingent future things, or at least of some of them, can be attributed to God. The reason is that such cognition is not simply and intrinsically conjectural, but only extrinsically so, on the side of the object known. So too God’s knowledge of contingents is not contingent except extrinsically, because the object known secondarily is contingent in itself and may consequently be impeded by the concurrence of another cause. Therefore, just as knowledge of all contingent future things is attributed to God without God’s knowledge itself being contingent, so too certain knowledge of all conjectures about a contingent future thing must be attributed to him, without God’s own cognition being conjectural.

Accordingly, conjectural cognition of any object is not to be attributed to God simply and absolutely, for this proposition signifies that the cognition is conjectural on the side of the knower. But if, with a qualification, we say that God’s cognition is conjectural—namely, on the side of the object known secondarily—we signify only that in the object known there is a conjecture of a future event in relation to an intellect that is moved by conjectures to judge about something. In this way the reply to all the arguments made above is clear.