De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate

Whether this causal proposition is true: “Because this thing is future, it is foreknown by God,” or, conversely: “Because God foreknows that something will be future, it is therefore future.”

I. This question is of the greatest importance for explaining the efficacy of divine grace and its harmony with free choice. For authors who assert that this efficacy depends on the future free cooperation of our free choice, in keeping with its innate freedom, and who use middle knowledge¹ to explain this—as proposed and challenged in Disputation 7—consequently admit that this causal proposition is true: “Because this was future by the innate freedom of free choice, it was therefore foreknown by God.” But they say that this one is false: “Because God foreknew that this would be future, it is therefore future.” To explain this, they observe that divine knowledge with respect to creatures can be considered in two ways. First, insofar as God knows that he can produce creatures and that they are to be produced in this or that way, so that they exist and are suited to this or that end. This knowledge in God is natural and not free, because it precedes every act of the divine will. Second, insofar as by this knowledge God knows that creatures will be future at this or that time. Under this aspect, they say, the knowledge God has of creatures is not natural but free, because it presupposes a free determination of his will by which he determines that creatures exist at this or that time. They say, then, that God’s knowledge taken in the first way—that is, natural knowledge—is the cause of things, but God’s free knowledge is not. From this they infer that something will not exist because God knows by free knowledge that it will be future; rather, it is known by God because it will be future. This opinion is proved as follows.

First, by the authority of Saint Jerome on Jeremiah, chapter 26, on the words Do not withhold the word of God, if perhaps they will listen, where he says: The word “perhaps” cannot befit the majesty of God; but he speaks according to our way of feeling, in order to preserve human free choice, so that a person not be compelled by his foreknowledge, as though by necessity, either to do or not to do something. For something is not future because God knew it would be future; rather, God knew it because it is future. Origen teaches the same in Book 7 of his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, explaining the words Those whom he called, these he also justified. He says: Something will not be future because God knows it as future; rather, it is known by God before it happens because it is future.² Justin Martyr teaches the same in question 58, To the Gentiles; Augustine in On Free Choice III, ch. 4, On Predestination and Grace, ch. 5, and City of God V, ch. 10; Cyril in Commentary on John IX, ch. 10; Chrysostom in homily 7 on Matthew; Pope Leo in sermon 16, On the Passion of the Lord; John Damascene in the Dialogue against the Manicheans; and Rupert on Isaiah, chapter 2.

Second, God’s free knowledge, insofar as by it he knows that creatures will be future at this or that time, remains within the bounds of mere divine contemplation; it neither directs the will to action nor defines a way of acting. Therefore it is not the cause of things. Therefore this causal proposition is false: “Because God knew by free knowledge that something would be future, it is therefore future.”

Third, if, impossibly, God did not have free knowledge, his natural knowledge—by which he knows that he can produce creatures and that they are to be produced in this or that way so as to be proportioned to the end to which they are ordered—together with the free determination of the divine will, would still suffice for creatures to be produced by God. Therefore God’s free knowledge is not the cause of things, and consequently this causal proposition is false: “Because God knew by free knowledge that this would be future, it is therefore future.”

Fourth, if the aforesaid causal proposition is true, it follows that God’s knowledge predetermines contingent and free causes to one side of the contradiction before the free and contingent cause is understood to determine itself. But this is incompatible with its contingency and freedom. The consequence is proved as follows: if the first root and cause why Peter’s will, for example, will determine itself at a certain time to the particular act of fasting is God’s free knowledge by which he knew that Peter would fast, then before every act of Peter’s will his will is understood to have been pre-defined and predetermined by God to the act of fasting. The minor premise is proved thus: a cause already understood to be predetermined by another, external cause does not determine itself. For it is contradictory that what is already determined by another should determine itself, since every determination presupposes indetermination. Therefore, if Peter’s will is already determined by another, external cause—namely, by divine foreknowledge—to fast, it does not determine itself and consequently will not be the free cause of fasting. For it belongs to the nature of a free cause that it determine itself to one side.

Fifth, God’s free knowledge is intuitive of things. Therefore it presupposes things existing and created. Therefore it is not their cause, and consequently this causal proposition is false: “Because God knew that something would be future, it is therefore future.”

Sixth, privations, evils, or sins are not future in things because God knew they would be future. Otherwise God would be the cause of evils and privations, which is false, for privations and sins are referred back to deficient causes, not to God, who is an efficient cause and not a deficient one. Therefore, likewise, positive things are not future because they are foreknown by God.

Nevertheless, Saint Thomas is against this in Summa theologiae I, q. 14, a. 8.

II. To explain this difficulty, we must assume that knowledge, according to the formal account of knowledge precisely as such, does not imply any causality, but does so insofar as it is the knowledge of an artisan.³ This principle is expressly stated by St. Thomas in 1. d. 38. q. 1. art. 1. in corp. and q. 2. de verit. art. 14. in corp., and he proves it for two reasons. First, if knowledge as such were the cause of things, every kind of knowledge would be the cause of things, which is false. Second, knowledge as knowledge is a form of the knower. But a form, insofar as it is the form of a knower, does not signify an active cause, since a form, as such, only perfects the subject in which it is and rests in it; action, however, implies something proceeding from an agent. Therefore knowledge as such does not imply an active principle, but the knowledge of an artisan does. Hence, from the analogy with what occurs in the knowledge of a created artisan in relation to artifacts, we must investigate how the knowledge of the supreme Artisan, who is God, is the cause of things.

Second, with the same St. Thomas in the cited article 1 of Book I of the Sentences, we must assume that in producing an artifact the following process is observed: First, the artisan’s knowledge shows the end; second, the will intends it; third, it commands the act by which the work is brought forth; and finally, with respect to that work, the artisan’s knowledge imposes the conceived form. From this St. Thomas infers that the principal causality resides in the will, which commands the act. Hence, for the artisan’s knowledge to be the cause of an artifact and to have the account of an efficient principle in second act, an act of the will determining the knowledge to the work is necessarily required. Therefore St. Thomas says, q. 2. de verit. art. 14. in corp. and ad 2: Things proceed from God’s knowledge through the mediation of the divine will. He teaches the same in 1. p. q. 19. art. 4, especially ad 4.

III. Third, we must assume the distinction by which St. Thomas, in the passages cited in disputation 7, divides God’s knowledge by a sufficient division into natural and free knowledge, a distinction admitted by all theologians except the proponents of middle knowledge.

First conclusion. God’s knowledge is the cause of things. This conclusion, as stated, is St. Thomas’s, 1. p. q. 14. ar. 8. and 2. cont. Gent. chapters 23 and 24; Ferrariensis teaches the same there. He also teaches it in q. 3. de potentia art. 15, and it follows from passages of Scripture. For it is said of God in Proverbs 3:⁴ The Lord founded the earth by wisdom. And Psalm 103: You made all things in wisdom. Psalm 135: He made the heavens in understanding, that is, through wisdom, as the Gloss explains. The same is to be held about the other creatures as is said about the heavens. Likewise, Wisdom 8 says of divine wisdom, through which heaven and earth were made: Who of these things that are is a greater artisan than she?⁵ And the Apostle John says of the divine Word, which is the Father’s wisdom: All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made.⁶

Moreover, this is proved by reason. The most perfect cause must have the most perfect mode of causing; but to cause things through knowledge and art is the most noble mode of causing. For an agent acting through intellect and art directs an action that is by way of nature and uses an agent acting by nature as an instrument. Therefore, since God is the first and most excellent cause, the mode of causing through intellect and art must belong to him. St. Thomas touches on this reasoning in 2. cont. Gent. chapter 23 and the q. 3. de potentia cited above.

If someone objects against this reasoning: the production of the divine persons is nobler than the production of creatures, and yet the persons are produced by way of nature, not through intellect and art, whereas creatures are produced through intellect and art; therefore producing by way of nature is simply more perfect than producing by art—

The reply is that producing by nature is indeed more perfect than producing by art, but causing by nature is not more perfect than causing by art.⁷ This is clear because the most perfect mode of causing through art is nobler than the most perfect mode of causing by nature. But the instance adduced concerning the production of the divine persons is not relevant, since that production is not through causality but through the emanation of one person from another. For within God there is no causality properly speaking⁸, since nothing there is prior or posterior, whereas a cause is prior to its effect. Let the other arguments in St. Thomas’s places cited above be consulted.

IIII. Second conclusion. God’s knowledge is an efficient cause of things. This conclusion is expressly stated by St. Thomas, 1. p. quaest. 14. art. 8. in corp., where he says: God’s knowledge is related to all created things as an artisan’s knowledge is related to artifacts. Immediately he adds: An artisan’s knowledge is the cause of artifacts, just as heat is the principle of heating. But heat is the efficient principle by which heating occurs, as is clear in itself, and art is the principle by which artifacts are made, as Aristotle expressly teaches, Ethics 6, chapters 3 and 4, and St. Thomas, p. 2. q. 57. art. 3, where he says: Properly speaking, art is an operative habit. Durandus teaches the same in 1. d. 38. q. 1, Aegidius in the same distinction, art. 1. q. 1, and Sylvester in Conflatum, q. 14. art. 2. Therefore.

This conclusion is also proved by the reasoning given for the preceding conclusion. For the mode of efficient causation through intellect and art is most excellent and consequently must belong to the first and most universal cause.

Moreover, this is proved as follows. As will be clear in the following disputation, there is in God no executive power besides intellect and will. Therefore he produced created things as an efficient cause through intellect and will. For one cannot say that he produced them through the will alone, without any account or reason, as some have said; St. Thomas refutes their error in the cited 2. cont. Gent. chapter 24.

Third, this is proved by an argument of St. Thomas in the same chapter. According to the Philosopher, Metaphysics 1, chapter 2, it belongs to the wise person to order. Hence all created things are ordered among themselves according to the Apostle’s saying: Whatever things exist have been ordered by God.⁹ Therefore God produced all creatures through the ordering of his intellect. See St. Thomas, 1. p. q. 19. art. 4. ad 4, and 1. d. 38. q. 1. art. 1, where he teaches that God’s knowledge is the cause of things in the manner of one directing them.

V. Third conclusion. God’s free knowledge is the cause of things. This conclusion is opposed to the authors of the first opinion, but is asserted by St. Thomas, 1. p. q. 14. art. 8., and is commonly taught by the Thomists.

First, this is proved as follows. God’s knowledge, insofar as it presupposes the free determination of his will to one side of the contradiction, is free knowledge, as the authors of the contrary opinion admit. But this knowledge is the cause of things, as St. Thomas teaches in the cited article 8. in corp., and as is clear from his reasoning. For, as we said in the second foundation, knowledge in itself, insofar as it is precisely an intelligible form, has no inclination toward a determinate effect unless it is determined to that effect by an act of the will. Therefore the knowledge that is the cause of things presupposes an act of the divine will. Therefore God’s free knowledge is the cause of things.

Second, if God’s natural knowledge is the cause of things, then this causal proposition is true: “Because God knows future things by natural knowledge, therefore they will exist.” Consequently, before every decree of the divine will things are understood as future, which is contrary to Ephesians 1: He works all things according to the counsel of his will, and Revelation 4: You created all things, and because of your will they existed and were created.

This is confirmed. God’s natural knowledge is related equally and indifferently to all possibles. Therefore, if it is the cause of things, he would have produced this world no more than another.

Third, this is proved. God’s natural knowledge is in him naturally, so that it could not fail to belong to him even by absolute power. Therefore, if God is the cause of things through it, it follows that creatures proceeded from God naturally and consequently from eternity. This is erroneous, as St. Thomas shows throughout 1. p. q. 46.

They reply that not only is God’s natural knowledge the cause of things, but an act of the divine will must also be joined to it; consequently, none of the aforesaid inadmissible consequences follows. Yet this reply does not remove the force of the argument. For, as is clear from what has been said, an act of the divine will is necessary precisely so that, according to our way of understanding, it may determine knowledge to one side. Therefore such an act of the will precedes in the order of reason God’s knowledge insofar as it causes things. Consequently, God’s knowledge, insofar as it causes things outside himself, is free knowledge. For that knowledge in God is free which presupposes an act of the divine will.

VI. Fourth conclusion, which answers the question. This causal proposition—“Because things are future, therefore they are known by God”—is false;¹⁰ but this one is true: “Because God knew something to be future by free knowledge, therefore it is future.” This conclusion is commonly received among the Thomists and is also expressly taught by St. Thomas in the First Part, q. 14. art. 8. ad 1. St. Augustine also teaches it, volume 3, book 15 of On the Trinity, chapter 13, where he says: He knows all his creatures, spiritual and corporeal, not because they exist, but they exist because he knows them; for he was not ignorant of what he would create. Therefore, because he knew, he created; he did not know because he created. He repeats the same in book 6, chapter 10. St. Gregory supports this in Moralia 20, chapter 24. The Master of the Sentences expressly holds the same in 1. d. 38, where he says: Future things are not the cause of God’s foreknowledge. For although they would not be future unless they were foreknown by God, they are not foreknown by God because they are future. If that were so, something outside and different from what is eternal would be the cause of it, and the Creator’s knowledge would depend on creatures, and the created would be the cause of the uncreated.

This conclusion is proved by an argument of St. Augustine and the Master of the Sentences. Otherwise it would follow that God receives knowledge from things and that something is added to divine wisdom from them. The consequence is absurd and contrary to St. Thomas, cited article 8 and the other places mentioned. Therefore.¹¹ The consequence is manifestly proved. As the opinion we oppose says, because Paul was going to consent to God calling him, God therefore foreknew that he would consent. Therefore the cause on account of which God foreknew this is that it was future. Therefore God receives his knowledge from future things.

If it is said that God receives his knowledge from future things as from an object, but not as from an efficient cause, the following objection arises: it follows that, in the genus of efficient causality, this causal proposition is true: “Because God knew that this would be future, therefore it is future.” Yet this conflicts with the opinion we oppose.

This is confirmed: the proximate object of divine cognition is not something outside God; rather, the divine essence itself is its immediate object, as St. Thomas often teaches.¹² Therefore God does not receive knowledge from created things, even as objects.

This is confirmed a second time. Angels do not receive knowledge from created things, even as from an object, because they do not receive from them the intelligible species by which they know those same things. Hence St. Thomas, q. 2, On Truth, art. 14, in the body, says: Our knowledge is caused by things, insofar as we receive it from things. But the knowledge of angels is not caused by things, nor is it the cause of things. Since in the same article the holy Doctor expressly teaches that God’s knowledge is the cause of things, and not conversely, he understands that God’s knowledge is not caused by things, even as by an object; rather, things themselves proceed by efficient causation from divine practical knowledge.

Second, it is proved. God’s free knowledge is the cause of things. Therefore this causal proposition is true: “Because God knew this would be future, therefore it is future.” The antecedent is clear from what was said in the preceding conclusion. The consequence is proved by analogy: since rationality in a human being is the cause of risibility, this causal proposition is true: “Because a human being is rational, he is risible.” Therefore, if God’s free knowledge is the cause of things, this causal proposition will be true: “Because God knew something would be future, therefore it is future.”

VII. Third, it is proved. From the opposing opinion it would follow that God’s knowledge is not infallible. For the fact that Antichrist will be born is not infallible in itself, since it is a future contingent and consequently can in itself be and can fail to be. Therefore, if God’s knowledge by which he knows that Antichrist will be born is derived from this object, it will be fallible, just as the object itself is fallible. Therefore one must say that the first reason and cause why God knows with certainty that Antichrist will be born is not that he is going to be born; rather, the converse is true: he is going to be born because God knows by free knowledge that he will be born.

Fourth, it is proved. It would likewise follow from the opposing opinion that the human will is prior to the will of God, and consequently that detriment would be done to divine causality, on which all things future in any way intrinsically depend. For according to that opinion, it was prior that the Apostle Paul, placed in such circumstances, would consent, and posterior that God knew his consent would be future. For they say that God’s knowledge does not wholly precede the free use of created choice, lest its freedom be removed. Therefore, Paul’s consent being future by innate freedom is understood as prior to God’s knowing that it would be future, and consequently as prior to God’s efficaciously willing that it be future. Thus the human will would be prior and God’s will posterior. Consequently, something would come from a human being that did not come from God, which would nevertheless detract from divine causality, as was shown above and will become clearer in Disputations 96 and 97.

VIII. To the first argument from the authority of St. Jerome, Origen, and the other Fathers, St. Thomas replies, 1. p. q. 14. ar. 8. ad 1, that Origen spoke with regard to the character of knowledge, to which the character of causality does not belong unless will is joined to it. But when he says that God foreknows things because they are future, this must be understood as speaking of the cause of consequence, not the cause of being: for it follows that if some things are future, God has foreknown them; yet future things are not the cause that God knows them. He assigns the same solution in q. 2, On Truth, art. 14, ad 1. The Master of the Sentences also uses it in Sentences I, dist. 38. Second, it is answered with St. Thomas, q. 2, On Truth, art. 14, ad 1:

Origen and the other Doctors intend to say that God’s knowledge is not a cause that induces necessity in what is known, as though something were compelled to happen because God knew it.

To the second it is answered that God’s free knowledge, insofar as in our way of understanding it is determined through an act of the divine will to bring about the conceived form, does not remain within the limits of mere speculation. Rather, it is a kind of practical knowledge of an artisan, through which the work is produced and through which that same work is contemplated.

To the third argument it is answered first: once one impossibility is admitted, another follows,¹³ Hence, if free knowledge in God, as the cause of things existing at some difference of time, is not posited, this impossibility will follow: that this world was produced by God and was not produced by God. The affirmative is clear on the hypothesis; the negative, however, is proved as follows. As was shown, God’s knowledge produces things outside himself only insofar as, in our way of understanding, it is determined by an act of the divine will to produce this or that thing. But God’s knowledge determined by an act of the divine will to produce things outside himself is free knowledge, as the authors of the opposing opinion admit. Therefore, if such knowledge were not in God, he would not have produced the world.

Second, we answer that God knows things through natural knowledge in a certain speculative way, as is clear from Saint Thomas. 1. p. q. 14. art. 16. Hence, for God to be the cause of things through his knowledge, he must be determined to act by an act of will. But knowledge that presupposes an act of will in God is free; hence God is the cause of things through free knowledge. I concede, however, that God’s knowledge, insofar as it precedes an act of the divine will, is causative of things and has in first act the power to produce them, just as art by its own nature, before every act of the artist’s will, is a practical habit in first act, or operative. Capreolus teaches this in the passage cited above, and the reason is that God’s knowledge has the character of an efficient cause, as it were in first act, insofar as it is an infinite act containing beforehand in itself the perfections of all things. But it has this before the determination of the divine will, for God’s knowledge is formally the divine being itself, which does not contain the perfections of creatures beforehand in dependence on the will, but contains them necessarily and naturally, just as art considered in first act necessarily contains virtually the perfection of the thing made. Therefore. It is true, however, that in second act, or with respect to the exercise of causality, it requires beforehand an act of the divine will, as is clear from the passages of Scripture cited above.

IX. To the fourth argument, we admit that God’s knowledge, insofar as it is joined with his will, predetermines contingent and free causes to their operations, prior in the order of reason to their determining themselves;¹⁴ we deny, however, that any impairment of the freedom or contingency of things follows from this, as will be clear in Disputations 18 and 22. In reply to the objection, a cause already understood to be predetermined by another, external cause, namely God as first cause, determines itself as a secondary and proximate cause. This suffices for the nature of created freedom, which is not absolutely the first cause of its own determination, but is the proximate and secondary cause. This matter, however, will be discussed fully below in the cited places.

To the fifth argument, we answer that God’s intuitive knowledge does indeed terminate in existing things, which it itself produces. Hence God’s knowledge, insofar as it is practical in second act, produces the existences of things by efficient causation; but insofar as it is intuitive, it presupposes them as a secondary object.¹⁵

To the sixth argument, the consequence is denied. For, as will be clear in Disputation 24, defects and privations cannot be referred back to God in the way that all perfections and positive entities are; hence the cases are dissimilar. A second answer is that God’s knowledge is the cause of those things it knows through their proper likeness. But God does not know evils, or privations likewise, through their proper likeness, but through the likeness of goods,¹⁶ as Saint Thomas teaches. 1. p. q. 14. ar. 10. and q. 15, a. 3, ad 1. Hence God’s knowledge is not the cause of evils. This is Saint Thomas’s solution in Book I, distinction 38, question 1, article 1, ad 2.