De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate

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.