De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate

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.