De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate

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.