Celebriores Controversiae in Primum Sententiarum Ioannis Scoti — Tomus Alter (de Scientia Dei et Ideis)

ARTICLE IV

Whether future contingents are known by God in themselves, or in their determinate truth?

SUMMARY.

Setting forth the view of the more recent Theologians, that future contingents are foreknown by God in themselves, or in their determinate truth. Num. 1. The text of Scotus, from which we lay the foundations for the true opinion. Num. 11. Explanation of the text, and refutation of Hurtado and Theodor Smising, who maintain that a proposition concerning a future contingent is essentially true, or essentially false; wherein the enunciation concerning a contingent object in the neutral state is asserted according to the mind of Scotus. Num. 15. Other observations on the text; and the refutation of Fabri and Cavel, who fall short of Scotus. Num. 19. An accurate observation of Aureolus on the matter. Num. 23. We open up that no determinate truth is given in propositions concerning the future by the intrinsic force of their commensuration to their objects, if the absolute decree of God be set aside. Num. 29. We go to meet the opposing foundations. Nu. 35. Satisfaction to the other objections of the more recent authors; and an elucidation of the mind of Scotus out of Mairon, against the Scotizing neoterics. Num. 40. Aureolus is vindicated from the censure of Gregory and Vazquez, who attribute to Aureolus that he denied a determinate foreknowledge of future things in God. Nu. 44.

1 Neoteric Authors, who reject physical predetermination, affirm with one mouth that future contingents are known by God in themselves; so that their determinate truth, apart from a preceding absolute decree of the divine will, one that does not await the cooperation of a free cause, is the medium on the side of the object for the infallible knowledge of future things; for they ascribe to propositions concerning a future contingent, by the force of their intrinsic enunciation, which is expressed by the copula of the verb of the future, a determinate truth by reason of their habitude to an object altogether determinate, or contracted to one side of the contradiction by hypothesis of futurition.

This is the view of Vázquez, 1st part, disputation 65, chapter 4, who asserts himself to be the first author of the aforesaid pronouncement among the Spaniards, and afterwards glories that, diligently turning over Scotus's commentaries at Rome, he found it in that same Subtle Doctor, in 1st distinction 39, unique question, §. Viso de contingentia. And thereafter he boasts to have seen this opinion of his used freely by other Theologians.

But later it will evidently appear, from the very text that Vázquez cites in his own favor, that either Scotus was not seriously engaged with the matter, or that Scotus has not been perceived, when he takes the Doctor as his leader for confirming a new doctrine against the foreknowledge of future things in the absolute and predetermining decree of the divine will; from which, in Scotus, the infallible determination of future things is drawn.

Vázquez is accompanied by all the Jesuit Authors: Suárez, Opuscul. 2, on the science of future contingents, book 1, chapter 8; Franciscus Albertinus, in question 2, Theological, upon the second corollary from the 4th philosophical principle, marginal number 22; Petrus Arrubal, 1st part, disp. 40, ch. 2, num. 7; Valentin. de Herice, 1st part, tract. 1, on the knowledge of God, disp. 6, c. 7; Pet. Hurtado, disp. 9, on the soul, sect. 4, subsect. 4.

That view, as Suárez reports it in the place cited, is this: that a future contingent from eternity claims to itself to be determinate, and that this is the cause of the determinate truth of the enunciation about the future contingent; on the ground that the truth of a proposition is its conformity to the object, just as the determinate truth of a settled proposition is the settled conformity to the determinate being of the object. Wherefore, although the future, considered in its cause, is simply indeterminate and contingent; nevertheless considered precisely as future, and as importing existence for such a difference of time, it puts on that necessity from the hypothesis of futurition which could serve to terminate the infallible judgment of God.

Now that aforesaid necessity of futurition, according to Suárez, asserts nothing else than this very being which the thing will import for its time; which, if it is referred to the time antecedent to the effecting of the thing, is called future; just as, if it is compared to the time that follows the production of the thing, it is called past. And just as the thing, as it is referred to the time that follows its production, and precisely as it is called past, exhibits a determinate true, or intelligible, object, so also, insofar as it objectively antecedes the time of its production, it cuts out for itself a determinate intelligibility, by reason of the hypothesis of futurition.

Nor indeed is it demanded for the aforesaid fundamental truth, which is as it were the reason of the formal truth of the divine apprehension and judgment, that the future claim to itself from eternity some real being; but it suffices that it acquire a certain mode of being, necessary by hypothesis of futurition, which mode could be the reason on the side of the object of scibility for the whole infallible judgment.

2. That this is plain is persuaded thus: because the divine intellect, by reason of its apprehensive power simply unlimited, ought to exhaust the universal intelligibility of being, or its truth; and yet the future, considered in itself, according to that being which it will import for some difference of time, is especially determined yet not necessary, by the supposition of futurition: therefore the divine intellect gathers that determinate truth, or intelligibility, in the thing itself.

That proof is evident, as Vázquez says, if the minor is demonstrated — which we frankly grant to that author. For he was setting forth theorems, in which their correspondent [truth] seems to be posited; and it hangs upon the controversy concerning the Truth of future contingents, which Aristotle resolved in book 1 of the Interpretation, chapter 9, and which even at present is more fruitful in use, as is apparent from the accounts read before many Theologians of truth.

Nor is the disagreement everywhere given between the truth of a proposition conveyed by the extrinsic commemoration of the enunciation with the object as future, made by the motion of the efficacious and absolute volition of the divine will; and the truth flowing from the objective alone, which is drawn from the decree — the point on which the whole apex of the disputation consists.

3. The Neoterics, who condemn the efficacious and absolute decree of the divine will — one that does not involve a condition on the side of the object, nor expect the knowledge of the cooperation of the created will — contend that a determinate truth inheres in propositions about the future contingent by reason of the enunciation and its connexion with the contemplation of futurition, however the determining decree be awaited as the principle of futurition depending on it absolutely. Thus the Antwerp professors teach, after Vázquez, on the contingency of things, book 1, dispute 2, chapter 8, number 20, and dispute 2, chapter 9, and dispute 3, chapter 1: that which cannot be denied; which they attempted to prove quite plainly in book 1, chapter 12.

For which opinion Aureolus argues thus, in 1st distinction 38, question 3, and dist. 39, question 1. The question of these [questions] is whether it ought to be seen to stand up against God. Where he says:

The first principle of anything being able to be or not be, that it can be, cannot [fail]; therefore, a singular proposition being assumed, it is either true or not true; if true, the point is in hand.

If not true; therefore it is false. Because true and false are immediate contraries, and from the negation of one of them there immediately follows with it the positing of the other in a subject aptly suited [to receive it]. For there follows: it is not a straight rod, and then... But it is evident that every proposition is a subject aptly suited by nature to receive truth or falsity; therefore it follows, if a singular proposition about the future is not true, that then it is false.

4. Furthermore, the law of contradictories is that, if one is true, the other is false; and if of necessity one is true, the other is false. Therefore either both will be, or this one is true: the Antichrist will be; and the other false, namely, the Antichrist will not be; or conversely, since they are opposed contradictorily.

5. Furthermore, assuming the future instant with time intervening, by the variation of the first principle, it is true what is said: Socrates will be, or will not be; because it follows that at each instant either an affirmation or a negation is said to be, and of none at once. But if it is said truly that he will be, the affirming proposition will be true; if truly that he will not be, the negative proposition will be true: therefore of a future contingent, either the affirmation is always true or the negation.

6. Thereupon the Neoterics, the assertors of the aforesaid opinion, arguing thus have borrowed the force of their proofs from Aureolus. Because from Aristotle, 4 Metaphysics, text 27, whatever affirms and denies either expresses truth or falsity; because it either enunciates determinately what is fitting and conformable to the nature of the thing, or determinately signifies what is dissonant and disconformable.

Nor indeed can any medium be assigned between a proposition conformable and disconformable to its object; just as neither on the side of the object does a medium occur between the thing that will be or will not be, since "will be" and "will not be" are opposed contradictorily: therefore either the proposition about the future enunciates the thing to be, and so it is determinately true; or it expresses that the thing will not be, and it is determinately false.

FinallyDeinde; because if the affirmative proposition about a future contingent, for example, Peter will sin, does not signify what is true, nor what is false, determinately, but true or false confusedly — on the ground that the future thing enunciated by such a proposition is indeterminate as to being and not being — it would come about that the negative proposition about a future contingent, which is its contradictory, namely, Peter will not sin, would not express what is true or false determinately, but true or false indeterminately and confusedly.

And consequently propositions about the future contingent could not carry their own proper contradiction; since one enunciation would not be falsified by what the other affirms, but both enunciations would subsist double and as it were suspended, nor would their proper contradiction subsist until one of them pronounce truth determinately and the other falsity, now that [the thing exists] in the present.

It is confirmed; because it would follow that a proper contradiction could only intervene in enunciations about the future contingent which embrace both parts of the contradiction; for example, Peter will sin, or will not sin; Peter will neither sin, nor not sin; of which the former, the affirmative, will be true, because necessary; the latter, however, the negative, will be false, because impossible.

The consequence is evident; because the law of contradictories requires that one be determinately true and the other determinately false; if therefore determinate truth and falsity cannot subsist except in propositions which either affirm or deny both parts of the contradiction: then a proper contradiction could belong only to those enunciations about the future.

7 It is argued secondly; because when now, in the present, the effect contingently enunciated of the future comes to pass (for example, when Peter now sins), it evidently shows that the enunciation about the future that was uttered (for example, Peter will sin) fortiter [= at some earlier time] was a determinate truth; therefore, if the aforesaid proposition was determinately true before the present time, it also acquired that truth from eternity; since the same reason holds for the whole duration antecedent to the real positing of the future outside its causes — nor is it anything other for an enunciation to claim to itself a determinate truth than actually and in re to acquire truth.

Moreover, that from the truth of the present there follows the truth of the enunciation about the future, is established thus. Because the truth of the proposition about the future does not begin in that instant in which Peter sins; but rather, in a sense, its truth as about the future then ceases, and the truth of that proposition as about the present begins. And indeed especially; because that enunciation was always antecedently conformable to its object, on the ground that in very truth it was so to be, as was explicitly expressed through that proposition: therefore the existence of the thing in the present, outside the causes posited, does not confer truth anew, but rather brings forth the truth which before was not known.

8 It is argued thirdly; because the enunciation about a future contingent either expresses only the indifference of the thing to being and not being — and then it would come about that the affirmative and the negative proposition would import one and the same pronouncement, if the affirmative enunciated the indetermination of the thing as to being and not being, and likewise the negative —

Or the proposition about the future contingent enunciates something besides the indetermination of the thing as to being and not being; and such a signification can be nothing else than a determinate being, or a determinate not-being: therefore the proposition is determinately true or determinately false, by the force of its intrinsic commensuration to the object, future or not future determinately; even with any extrinsic decree of God's predetermining set aside.

Furthermore; if the enunciation about a future contingent did not express the thing absolutely future, but indeterminate as to being and not being, it would follow that that proposition which signifies the thing absolutely to be, for example (Peter will sin), would be determinately false; on the ground that it would assert the object to be absolutely future, which is merely indifferent to being and not being.

Which objection also presses upon the negative propositions about a future contingent, which enunciate that the thing will not be, for example, Peter will not sin; because absolutely to deny the futurition of that object which is indeterminate as to being and not being, is absolutely and simply false: and consequently it would come about that contradictory enunciations about a future contingent would be false at once.

9 It is argued fourthly; because from Aristotle, all universal propositions in contingent matter, whether affirmative or negative, are determinately false; as every man will sin mortally tomorrow; no man will sin mortally tomorrow; every man will run; no man will run.

That being supposed, the objection presses thus: therefore the contradictory particular enunciation ought to be determinately true; wherefore, if this proposition (every man will sin mortally tomorrow) is determinately false, its contradictory particular, namely (some man will not sin mortally tomorrow), will be determinately true.

But for the determinate truth of a particular proposition about a future contingent, there is necessarily demanded the determinate truth of some singular enunciation about a future contingent; because just as the falsity of the universal affirmative proposition, whose subject supposits distributively, is gathered by copulative descent, from the fact that some singular is false; so also in the contradictory particular negative enunciation, whose subject supposits determinately, its truth ought to be shown by disjunctive descent, descending to some singular determinately true, for example (Peter will not sin mortally tomorrow). But that enunciation is a singular proposition about a future contingent; therefore there can be assigned a proposition about a future contingent determinately true, by the force of its intrinsic enunciation imported through the verb of the future, with every predetermination of the first cause set aside.

Then, from the same Aristotle in the place cited, this disjunct, (Peter will sin; or will not sin), is necessary and determinately true; therefore it imports truth by reason of some determinate part of such a disjunct. For just as, for the truth of a disjunctive enunciation, it is required that one part be true; so, for the determinate truth of a disjunctive enunciation, it is demanded that one part be determinately true.

There is given, therefore, a proposition about a future contingent which claims to itself a determinate [truth], either truth or falsity; and consequently all enunciations about the future contingent attach to themselves a determinate truth or falsity: since the same reason presses universally upon all.

10 The last reason is: that God knows future contingents, and reveals them through the Prophets; but He does not apprehend an object which is not determinately true; for that which has not acquired a determinate truth, or intelligibility, could not be apprehended even by the excellence of infinite light; just as neither can that which is not possible, or feasible, be made by the divine power.

On account of that reason Suárez and Vázquez have maintained that the determinate truth of future things is gathered from the principles of faith; but in what way such a pronouncement is to be understood, will appear below.

The text of Scotus, from which we lay the foundations for the true opinion.

11 The present controversy Scotus treated most thoroughly, in 1 Sentences, distinction 39, unique question, §. Quantùm ad secundum articulum dico, under marginal number 23, where he says:

Having considered the contingency of things as to existence, and this with respect to the divine will; there remains to see, secondly and principally, how with this there stands the certainty of His knowledge.

This can be posited in two ways; in one way by this, that the divine intellect sees the determination of the divine will; namely, that that thing will be for (A), because that will determines it to be for that [time]; for He knows that will to be immutable and unimpedible.

12 Or otherwise; because that way seems to posit a certain discourse in the divine intellect, as if from the intuition of the determination of the will and of its immuta- bility it concluded that this would be.

It can be posited otherwise: that the divine intellect either offers simple [objects], whose union is contingent in the thing; or, if it offers a proposition, it offers it as neutral; and the will, choosing one part, namely the conjunction of these for some now in the thing, makes that determinately true: this will be for (A.)

But this being determinately true; the essence is the reason for the divine intellect's understanding that truth; and this naturally, as far as the essence is concerned. So that, just as it naturally understands all necessary principles, as it were, before the act of the divine will, because their truth does not depend upon that act, and they would be known by the divine intellect if, per impossibile, it were not willing: so the divine essence is the reason for knowing them in that prior instant of nature, because then they are true.

Not indeed, that those truths move the divine intellect, nor even their terms, for the apprehending of such truth; because then the divine intellect would be debased, because it would suffer from another than its essence; but just as the divine essence is the reason for knowing simple [objects], so also for knowing propositions of that kind. But then contingents are not true, because there is nothing then by which they have a determinate truth.

But the determination of the divine will being posited, they are now true, namely for that second instant; and this same will be the reason for the divine intellect (which it was in the first) for understanding those things which are now true in the second instant, and which would have been known in the first instant if they had been in the first instant.

13 Example; just as if in my eye, from my visual power, there were one act of seeing an object, which would always remain; then, if by some presentant now this color were present, now that one, my eye would see now this, now that, and yet through the same vision; there would only be a difference in the priority and posteriority of seeing, on account of the object presented first, and later.

And if one color were made present naturally, and another freely; there would not be a difference formally in my vision, but from its own side the eye would see both naturally; yet contingently it could see one, and of necessity the other, inasmuch as one becomes present to it contingently, and the other of necessity.

14 In the same question, §. Ad tertium it can be conceded, under marginal number 30, he subjoins.

So in our case; the divine will, determining something shown by the intellect to be, makes such a proposition true, and therefore intelligible; and from this that [object] is present to the intellect in the ratio of the object.

And just as the will can make that thing willed, and not make it; so it could be true, and not true: and so it can be known, and not known, by that natural intellect.

Not indeed on account of some contingency which should be prior in that natural agent; but on account of the contingency on the side of the object, which is contingently true on account of the act of the will verifying it.

Explanation of the text; and refutation of Hurtado and Theodor Smising, who maintain that a proposition about a future contingent is essentially true, or essentially false; wherein a statement about the neutral state is brought forward according to the mind of Scotus.

15 In which text, first it must be observed that almost all the ancient Theologians held that future contingents obtain a determinate truth, or intelligibility; on account of which they can be apprehended certainly and infallibly by the divine gaze. Which pronouncement, considered absolutely, must be altogether undoubted, as being that which is very closely allied to the dogma of faith asserting that future contingents are determinately known by God; since that cannot be determinately foreknown which does not obtain a determinate knowability.

Wherefore in this Vázquez and Suárez in no way fight against the school of Scotus, which ascribes to propositions about the future contingent a determinate truth by reason of the preceding determination of the divine will; but they [fight] with Molina, who asserted that future things are determinately foreknown by God because of the swiftness of the infinite divine light over-comprehending the strivings of the created will, even though no determinate truth should inhere in future things — a thing handed down inadvisedly, and disapproved by all the Jesuit authors.

The whole dissent, therefore, intervenes concerning the root from which this determinate truth of future things is drawn: whether, namely, from the intrinsic commensuration of the proposition to an object that has acquired a determinate intelligibility, the preceding absolute decree of the divine will being removed? Or rather, whether such truth proceeds so from the extrinsic that, although the proposition about the future contingent be considered with all that intrinsic enunciative expression which is imported through the verb of the future, yet the enunciation is not conceived true or false from itself in any way, but rather, from the extrinsic — namely, from the free, absolute and pre-determining decree of the divine will — a truth quasi superadded comes to the enunciation from without?

So that, if the proposition does not enunciate the object under that objective change and contraction which it draws from the absolute decree establishing, through the explicit and formal voluntary [act], that the thing be determinately, or determinately not be; it enunciates nothing determinately true, nor determinately false. So that, for the determination of that objective being which is assigned, the reason on the side of the object from which the determinate truth of the judgment is drawn is not any decree whatsoever of God about furnishing concourse; but the absolute decree not involving a hypothesis "to be purified by free choice."

16 To be noted, next, in the text which we transcribe under number 12: that in the knowledge of God with respect to future contingents Scotus contemplates two instants, or moments of reason. The first, which antecedes the free decree of the divine will; the other, which follows the determination of the divine will. In the first moment there are offered to the divine comprehension propositions whose terms agree in the composition from the intrinsic side; of which sort are the terms of necessary propositions; for example, Man is a rational animal, and so of the rest.

In that presupposition of reason, if we would have the knowledge of God embracing future contingents: it will not regard them as determinately true, or contracted to one side of the contradiction, but as neutral with respect to either; until, in the second moment of reason, the absolute decree of the divine will passing on [that is, after it], that proposition is drawn from non-being of a determinately true, or intelligible, [thing] to the being of such.

Whence it comes that, regarded with the intrinsic enunciation of the proposition about the future, and with that opposition which it bears to the other contradictory proposition about the future (which objects the mind of God turns over, according to Scotus, for that moment of reason which precedes the decree), still those propositions are not the substrata of a determinate truth or falsity; but are merely neutral, or indeterminate as to truth or falsity, which adhere to them by reason of the decree that follows.

17 Wherefore, since it is beyond doubt in Scotus, as will appear more broadly in the following article, that which we premised about the neutral state of the enunciation about a future contingent before the absolute and unimpedible decree of the divine will, even given a contradictory enunciation in propositions of that kind before the efficacious determination of the divine will; and since with Vázquez and the other Jesuit Authors the determinate truth or falsity of enunciations about the future contingent is sought from the contradictory opposition of those enunciations: there is reason to wonder that Vázquez pronounces Scotus to stand apart from himself, with that apparatus of words, unless either he himself hallucinates, or he wished us to see blind in full daylight.

Hence it is inferred that Theodor Smising fell short of Scotus, tome 1, On the one God, treatise 3, disputation 1, On the transcendent Attributes of God. Question 2, marginal number 33, where, following Petrus Hurtado, he holds that the enunciation concerning an object not necessary, or contingent, to be essentially true, or essentially false; so that truth, or falsity, is of the quiddity of the enunciation. Which being granted, the enunciation would imply a contradiction in some moment of reason under the neutral state; concerning which we have treated at length above, in arguing against Hurtado, in controversy 3, On the Truth of God in being, art. 2, from marginal number 4 up to 10 inclusively.

Wherefore, and consequently, under marginal number 9, we taught: that, although the truth is essential and quidditative of the knowledge of God as to the being of the vital and intrinsic form; it is not, however, so as to its extension and termination to a contingent object. By a like reason in which we assert every free operation of God to be necessary as to vital and intrinsic being; but free, or contingent, by comparison, or extension, of it to a contingent object. Because just as thus God foreknows that Peter will in such manner freely comport himself, that He could have not foreknown such an object, if God had not decreed to contract such an object to futurition; so the conformity to such an object under such an objective immutation is not of the quiddity of the knowledge of God: since that very certainty could be removed, the object being taken away for the pleasure of God otherwise disposing concerning the futurition, or non-futurition, of the object.

But you will insist: that to the knowledge of vision (inasmuch as vision) it is contradictory to comport itself otherwise with respect to an object so immuted, because otherwise God could be deceived; therefore to the knowledge of vision the truth is essential and quidditative, inasmuch as it expresses the convocation and comparison to such an object simply contingent, and necessary only by hypothesis.

I answer: that when the knowledge of vision is asserted to be essentially conformable to an object so immuted to futurition, there is already involved the composite sense of such knowledge, as extended to the object; which extension is simply contingent, and necessary only by hypothesis. As when an enunciation about a contingent proposition, while it is composed, [relates] its object, not future but present (for example, Peter runs, with Peter running), is able to be asserted necessarily and essentially conformable, as it is composed to such conformity in the composite sense; just as man, as white, is essentially white.

Yet nevertheless that conformity of the created judgment with an object necessary by hypothesis is not of the essence of the judgment; because, the same judgment persisting, such conformity can be removed just as the contingent object [can]; whence also it comes about that a created judgment can be falsified, if, the object being changed, the assent and judgment about the object be not varied. Therefore an object so comporting itself is not of the essence of the judgment, although it be of the quiddity of the judgment as true; because although it be of the essence of the created judgment to be extended and compared to the object by a transcendental habitude; yet it is not of the quiddity of the assent that the object so comport itself as is expressed by the judgment; whence it comes that, the same assent persisting as to substance, and the object being changed, the accident of the judgment, which is truth, can be destroyed, the substance of the act remaining.

In God, however, there exists no necessity of the comparison, or extension, of His knowledge and volition to a contingent object; wherefore, just as it befalls the divine knowledge and volition that it be extended and terminated to the contingent connotate, so also it befalls the truth of the knowledge, under that respect under which it connotes the contingent object. For that connotation of conformity to the object could be removed, if God had not immuted such an object to futurition; although from the hypothesis of the comparison of the knowledge to the object contracted to futurition (under which connotation it is called the knowledge of vision) it implies that it is not conformed to the object which it sees, just as it implies that a created judgment (as composed with truth and conformity to the object) is not true and conformable. The truth, therefore, of the divine knowledge, as extended to a contingent object, is essential; but it befalls the knowledge of God that it be extended to a contingent object; in which it differs from a created judgment, to which, indeed, the connotation and extension to the contingent object which it expresses is essential; but to the extension itself, or tendency into the object, conformity to the object, or truth, befalls: whence it comes about that a created judgment is falsified. Concerning which see the pronouncements of the most Subtle Scotus transcribed by us, explained below in this distinction, On the Knowledge of absolute contingents, art. 7, under num. 28 and 29, especially those words, from 1 Sentences, distinction 39, unique question, under num. 27.

For it does not follow; God cannot be deceived, and A may not be; therefore God does not know that A will be. But it follows; that He does not know of necessity that A will be.

Which is apparent, because if my intellect always followed the mutation in the thing, so that with you sitting I would opine you to be sitting, and with you rising, I would opine you to be rising, it could not be deceived.

And a little after. Although the divine intellect does not follow things as effects their cause, nevertheless this accompanies it there, that just as the thing can not be, so the divine intellect can not-know it; and therefore it never follows that the divine intellect knows the thing otherwise than it is.

Whence arises that unlikeness between the divine and the created judgment which we premised, that because the created judgment leans upon the object as upon a cause, therefore comparison and extension to the object are essential to the judgment; although it is not of the quiddity of the judgment that the object so stand, as it is represented by the judgment, whence even it comes about that the created judgment is falsified, the object being changed.

Which implicates the judgment of God; that just as it does not look upon the object as the cause of itself, so neither is comparison, and extension exercised to such an object, of the essence of the judgment; and therefore, the object removed, there does not remain in God an extension, and comparison exercised to the object, which is falsified by the mutation of the object; as in creatures there remains the comparison and extension of the judgment to the same object, the object being varied, and therefore the judgment is falsified.

Which, that we may elucidate it quite purely, let those words of Scotus proposed by us under n. 11 be weighed.

The divine intellect sees the determination of the divine will, namely that that thing will be for it, (A) because that will determines that thing to be for it; for it knows that will to be immutable, and not impedable.

Which words elucidate clearly how much Scotus differs from those authors who ascribe a determinate truth to enunciations about a future contingent without a pre-going absolute decree, efficacious and unimpedable; namely inasmuch as they involve no condition on the side of the object on account of the cooperation of the created will. For if Scotus had acknowledged a determinate truth, or intelligibility, in the future free assent of the created will, which would not consist in an objective mutation erumpent from the absolute decree, he would have rendered it the rationale on the side of the object, on account of which the gaze of God could be terminated to such a future.

For such a determinate truth would be the proximate rationale on the side of the object of the science of futures; nor would the decree of God (granted that a sufficient rationale of such foreknowledge could be assigned to it) be pronounced the proximate, but only the remote, rationale on the side of the object of the termination of the divine cognition to a future contingent; inasmuch as it would be the cause or principle of the determinate truth, or intelligibility, of the future being.

18 Moreover, that, upon the principles of the school of the Jesuits, the decree of God cannot be asserted a sufficient rationale, (even remote,) of the science of futures; I demonstrate thus evidently. Because they with one mouth explode the absolute and unimpedable decree involving no condition on the side of the object, which antecedes the truth or determinate intelligibility of the free assent; for they contend that such an efficacious purpose of the divine will overthrows the rights of liberty; wherefore they concede only a conditional decree, or one involving a condition on the side of the cooperation of the created cause.

Which being supposed, it is evident that such a decree is not a sufficient medium on the side of the object for infallibly apprehending the free consent of the created will. For although God may inspect that free decree involving the condition of the cooperation of the created cause, He does not know the determinate future of the free consent unless the condition be purified, or — what falls into the same — unless the cooperation of the created will be apprehended. But whereas such a cooperation is a future contingent, and cannot be foreknown in a decree which has not the character of a prior to that cooperation, as one that by its efficacy unimpedibly infers such a cooperation; but rather of a purpose involving the condition of the cooperation of the created cause (that is, I will the conversion of Peter; if Peter consent), it remains that such a cooperation of the created will is to be regarded not in the decree of God (which in these Authors is not asserted with an unimpedible force inferring such a cooperation), but in itself, or in its determinate truth and intelligibility, and not otherwise.

Therefore Scotus, who assigns only the unimpedible decree of God as the sufficient rationale of the foreknowledge of futures; as is clear from those words, for it knows that will to be immutable, not impedable: can by no rationale defend the placit of the Jesuits.

Other observations on the text, and the expugnation of the placit of the more recent writers departing from the doctrine of Scotus.

19 WHEREFORE Vázquez clearly fell from the consequence of the doctrine, 1. part. disput. 65. capit. 2., whilst he asserted the decree of God to be a sufficient rationale, although remote, of the foreknowledge of futures. Since that author himself often condemns the decree about the future assent of the created will as absolute, or as involving no condition on the side of the object; and the decree importing a condition, (if the created will consent,) is an insufficient medium for the apprehension of the free cooperation, as we have made quite plain.

Whence, with Scotus, no other truth is to be brought in a contingent complexión, except that which is left as it were an extrinsic denomination by the absolute decree; so that this enunciation, Peter will run, is true, or determinately intelligible, on no other rationale except because it is volited efficaciously, and drawing an objective mutation with a habitude to future existence from the absolute and unimpedible purpose of God. But if that will of God about the existence of the future should involve the condition of the cooperation of the created will, it would not be immutable, but impedable, on account of the nod of the created appetite not cooperating; against the express testimony of Scotus teaching that God knows his will, (which is the medium on the side of the object of an infallible judgment concerning futures,) to be immutable, and not impedable.

20 Whence, in my judgment, there are to be held in this matter manifest deserters of the Scotistic discipline, Hugo Cavellus, Scotus's scholiast, in 1. distinct. 39. quaestio. unica, ad numer. margi. 23.; and Philip Faber, in 1. sententiar. distinct. 39. quaestio. unica, disp. 54. num. marg. 51.; who pronounce that will, from which Scotus produces the determinate truth of futures, not absolute, but importing the condition of the cooperation of the created cause.

In which they patently fall away from the camp of Scotus; both because Scotus everywhere calls that will unimpedable; and because, referring seriously and by design the truth of the future contingent, he did not assign that futures are attained in themselves, or in their own proper truth, but in the decree alone. But if the decree should involve the condition of a creature not predetermined to infallible assent, the cooperation of the creature ought to be inspected in itself; and consequently it should acquire its proper truth, since it cannot be apprehended in the statute of the divine will alone; as we showed.

How far that is diametrically against Scotus, the words of the text declare, which we shall transcribe under n. 14.

The divine will determining that something shown by the intellect will be, makes such a complexión to be true, and therefore intelligible; and from this that thing is present to the intellect in the rationale of object: and as the will can make that thing volited, and not make it, so it could be true, and not true.

What more open, if the determinate intelligibility of the future be sought from the will alone, and the statute of God, the knowledge of free choice not awaited?

21 Furthermore; those words of the text require an elucidation, num. 12.

Not indeed that those true things move the divine intellect, nor yet are their terms for apprehending such a truth; because then the divine intellect would be vile, because it would suffer from another than its essence.

Where Scotus seems to have spoken somewhat obscurely, whilst he surmises that no necessary complex can move the divine intellect; otherwise the mind of God would be vile, if it suffered from another than its own essence. For it does not easily stand, what it is, in Scotus's phrase, for the intellect of God to suffer from a created object, if that should carry before it a motive intelligibility with respect to the divine intellect?

Which words are to be taken in accordance with those which we drafted in the present general controversy on the science of God, in distinct. 1. art. 2. on the Science of God compared to possible creatures, especially under margin number 11.; where we showed that it is repugnant to the illimitation of the divine apprehension that any created true thing should be able to look as it were first, and per se, as the motive rationale of the termination of the divine science to a created object; for otherwise the divine intuition would be specified, and consequently would depend upon a created object; which, according to the placit of Scotus, would be for the mind of God to suffer from a participated true, and to be made vile.

For nor can to suffer from a necessary complexión be taken in any other sense; since a proposition of necessary truth, as it antecedes the divine decree, is nothing other than the non-repugnance of the terms of such a complexión to existing; which can no way avail (since it is a merely negative being) nor have force to mutate intentionally the created mind. Other things we pressed by design in the place cited.

22 Finally it is to be observed, in those words of the text under margin number 13.

And if one color were made present naturally, and another freely; there would not be a difference formally in my vision; but on its part the eye would see both naturally.

Where is insinuated the right understanding of that common pronouncement of the Theologians surmising the knowledge of vision to be free; and therefore distinct from the knowledge of simple intelligence, which is the natural and necessary apprehension of its object. For Scotus asserts both sciences, both that which antecedes the decree of the divine will in the first moment; and that which in the second moment follows the decree; to be an apprehension formally, and intrinsically necessary, as regards the predicate of the vital apprehension of the object.

Inasmuch, however, as the science extends to the object, neither is that science itself as it were the practical rationale of its own extension or comparison to the object so mutated, but a mere speculative intuition of that objective mutation, which is accepted from the free purpose. Whence such a science is not asserted the first rationale of its own extension to the object simply contingent, and necessary by hypothesis; but presupposing the free extension of the decree to the object; which extension of the decree presupposed, there accrues a necessary comparison of the science to that object simply contingent, and necessary by hypothesis.

Which Scotus elucidates with a most apposite example of corporeal vision; for if the eye should obtain that rationale of apprehending in the form of intuition, which would stand whilst objects run past, and of that capacity and sufficiency of representative power, that it could express whatever object; and there should be objected to it some object necessarily, another indeed freely; it would represent both objects necessarily by the force of its intrinsic and formal causality; although the expression of an object applied freely could be asserted free objectively, and presuppositively, on account of the object, which freely, and not necessarily, would be objected to that gaze.

Thus God, by the force of that same most unlimited and apprehensive intellect, embraces both kinds of object, the natural and the contingent, necessarily and naturally, as far as lies on the side of the act of knowing; although the knowledge of vision of future things can be called free objectively, and presuppositively, because its object is so freely proposed by the divine will that it could not be proposed, since the whole reason of the determinate intelligibility of future things is sought from the absolute proposal of the divine will: nevertheless, from the hypothesis of the objective mutation, which is freely left by the decree, such objective being is necessarily inspected by the knowledge of vision.

Therefore the knowledge of vision is not formally free, inasmuch as it is referred to the power of understanding, which is a faculty, and a predicate altogether necessary in God; but it is free presuppositively, and quasi-denominatively, inasmuch as it presupposes the decree as the medium on the side of the object, or as supplying to the science itself the medium, in which the object of such a science is foreknown by God. Because, as we have often shown elsewhere, in respect of future contingents, the medium in which is not only the attribute of the power, or only the attribute of the will, inasmuch as it expresses the predicate necessary in God, under which rationale will, or power, is joined in the place of species to the science of possible creatures; but the will itself, or power, inasmuch as it is joined to the free determination, performs the offices of impressed species and of the medium on the side of the object to the knowledge of vision in respect of future contingents.

From which letter of Scotus it is also manifestly patent against certain Thomists; that the knowledge of vision is not practical, nor the cause of the object, but the speculative intuition of it. Which either quite clearly appears; both from the analogy of corporeal gaze, which Scotus uses for opening the termination of the knowledge of vision to the object; since the inspection of corporeal sight is a mere speculation.

Then most of all; because Scotus calls the termination of the knowledge of vision to the object necessary formally, and only presuppositively, and objectively free; or free, because it intuits the object freely mutated, and simply contingent, although it be necessary secundum quid, by hypothesis of the decree.

But if the knowledge of vision is, according to Scotus, a necessary predicate in God formally and intrinsically, and only presuppositively and objectively free; it follows that such a predicate is not the formal reason of acting ad extra, nor tends into the object so as to immute it physically; because, according to Scotus, God exercises no real causality, nor intentional, ad extra except through a formally free principle of acting. For which reason, in controversy nine, On the Vision of God, distinction 2, article 2, we showed, according to the mind of Scotus, that the will of God concurs in the place of the species to the beatific vision, and not the Deity itself immediately, because it is a necessary predicate in God.

An accurate observation of Aureolus on the matter; and the best argument for our opinion, which denies the determinate truth of future contingents in themselves.

23 THE best proof of the indeterminate truth of futures Aureolus produces nervously, and subtly; from the fact that before the instant of production the thing lies under the indifference of a principle utterly indeterminate to either; thus therefore he has it in the precited dist. 38. artic. 3. §. But these things not withstanding. Where he elucidates and weighs whatever the ancient school of Theologians judged about the truth of futures.

It is to be considered; that the truth of a proposition is taken from the entity of the thing, since the truth of a sign is taken from the condition of the thing signed; whence from the fact that the thing is, or is not, the speech is called true, or false, as is patent in the predicaments.

It is evident, moreover, that a contingent ad utrumlibet has no determination to one of the two from its order to its causes; for the causes regard it under an altogether complete indifference; then, therefore, is the contingent first determined to one of the two, when it is actually posited, and exists.

But the actuality which gives determination to the contingent can be referred to every instant that precedes, and is distant in the past; or to every instant that succeeds, and is distant by posteriority from that actuality.

Therefore actuality gives the contingent its determination in every instant following the actuality, tatem, although it not be in those instants; whence it is always determinately true that such an actuality was; but it does not give it determination for any preceding instant; whence it is never determinately true that which it says.

For the determination which actuality gives to the contingent is drawn to the instants subsequent; but not to the instants preceding.

24 The rationale of which is; because actuality in respect of futures following posits the contingent outside its causes; whence it does not remain within the causality of any, nor can active power fall upon it.

But conversely, in all the instants which precede, the actuality leaves the contingent itself beneath the causality and power of its own principles; but those are ad utrumlibet, and indeterminate: and consequently a determination taking its rise from the actuality cannot be drawn back to the instants which precede.

25 Another rationale also can be assigned more immediate; because when something arises from something, it follows it; and does not precede. But the determination of the contingent arises from actuality, as was said; therefore that determination cannot be posited for the instants preceding actuality, but for those following.

Thus therefore, since the nature of the contingent is altogether indeterminate for every instant preceding its actual existence; necessarily both parts of the contradiction are owed to it without any determination for that time.

26 And therefore no proposition is true except one that encloses both parts of the contradiction under indifference, and disjunctively; but one that determinately expresses one part is neither true nor false; because if it were false, the opposite part would be determinate.

And hence it is; that this proposition is true; Socrates will be, or will not be; and that false, Socrates will be, and will not be; and that true; that one of these will fall out indeterminately; namely that Socrates will be, or will not be; and that false; namely that neither will fall out determinately.

27 From which doctrine of Aureolus the proper foundation of Suárez is diluted, and falls, and of his echoers surmising, that as the actuality of a thing, as it connotes the instants subsequent to its effection, claims for itself a determinate intelligibility under the denomination of a past being; so, as it is drawn to the instants preceding the production of it, it acquires a determination, or necessity by hypothesis, under the denomination of a future being.

For the opposition of Aureolus vigorously attacks that feigned subtlety as frivolous; because the thing, inasmuch as it connotes the duration subsequent to the instant of the extraction of the thing from the eminence of the cause, and as it is called past, retains the determinate rationale of the true, or cognoscible; because after its outflow from the virtuality of the principle, it no longer remains within the potentiality of a cause altogether indeterminate to either; and consequently it does not exhale that indetermination of the principle indifferent to either, under which it might be subjected wholly anew.

On the contrary, indeed, the thing, as it is drawn back to the instants which antecede its effection, although it be conceived under whatever rationale of necessity by hypothesis; as it ought not to be brought in not supposed, or subjected to the indifference, and indetermination of the free cause, and within the potentiality of it; so neither can it escape that indetermination, which the free cause claims for itself, fully subjecting to its dominion and elicitive power the influx which it holds within its eminence for the whole of that presupposition of duration which antecedes the instant of the effection of the future proceeding from a cause indeterminate to either.

28 Whence; because Aureolus has attacked the absolute and unimpedible decree, from which there is sought by Scotus the determinate cognoscibility of the future contingent; so also, and consequently, he has attacked the determinate futurity carrying a necessity by hypothesis, which is not put underneath contingence; for the reason that the future lies under a cause neither premoved extrinsically, nor intrinsically, nor contracted to one part of the contradiction, but utterly indeterminate to either.

Wherefore, any given future being assigned, and under whatever supposition of necessity, just as such a necessity cannot be submitted to a principle altogether indifferent ad utrumlibet before the instant of the production of the thing; so neither can it avoid the indifference to not-being, which follows from subjection to a principle indeterminate and beyond; and consequently, neither can it supply the medium on the side of the object of any knowledge that is beyond conjecture.

For the full elucidation however of Aureolus, those words must be weighed, from number 24. which at first gaze insinuate something of obscurity. Actuality in respect of futures following posits the contingent outside its causes; whence it does not remain within the causality of any, nor can active power fall upon it. Where by futures following the actuality Aureolus understands future contingents not in the state of futurity, whilst they lie hid within the eminence of the causes; but futures after the real emanation of them from their principles; whether those objects themselves exist really at present, through a real duration, or whether they pre-existed really, and have now been destroyed, and have gone away into nothing; so that thus they do not import the determination, and actuality, which is required for verifying an enunciation about the past; which those preceding words of Aureolus express.

Therefore actuality gives the contingent its determination in every instant following actuality, although it not be in those instants; whence it is always determinately true that such an actuality was.

---

Firm confutations from Aureolus of the determinate truth of contingent complexións by the force of comparison to the object, secluding the mutation which is drawn from the absolute decree.

29 THESE things prescribed; it must be said, that future contingents, the absolute decree going before being set aside, obtain no determinate cognoscibility of futures; no determinate truth, or falsity. So all Theologians, except Suárez, Vázquez, and others; who devised that new placit of the determinate truth of futures in themselves, to avoid the absolute determination of the divine will anteceding the assent of the free cause.

But that our assertion was the dogma of all Theologians before the times of Luis de Molina, (as often as Scotus, the Disciple, testifies it expressly, it will more amply stand from the following articles. It is also the perspicuous consensus of the Thomists, who do not surmise that future contingents in the real coexistence of them with eternity are prefined; nor those to whom such real coexistence pleases less, fly to the predetermination of causes. Yet none of the ancient Theologians will be able to be cited, who pronounces that future contingents are known by God in themselves, or in their determinate truth, the decree set aside; from which the omnimodal objective determination, or absolute contraction to one part of the contradiction, perishes; Aureolus also consents, inasmuch as although he denies the real coexistence of futures in eternity, and also attacks the predetermination, he nevertheless condemns the determinate truth of futures.

And our assertion is supported as well; because comprehensive cognition, just as it exhausts the object according to every moment of its scibility, so also it cannot contemplate that object except according to the mode of its truth. But it is destructive of the hypothesis that whatever moment of necessity, taken on hypothesis in an inner consent, is drawn out toward the moments antecedent to the instant of its production, should lie below the potentiality of a free cause; so that, by full right, the active power, which on the side of the assertors of the opposite opinion is indeterminate both intrinsically and extrinsically to acting, escape above such an influx: therefore it is destructive of the hypothesis that any cognition should taste that contingency of not-being, while it holds the object beneath the eminence of the cause, to which it lies fully subject.

If you object: that God does not know these future things as they exist within the potentiality of a free cause.

On the contrary; therefore God is ignorant of the future according to the moment of its own scibility; and accordingly he would suffer deception, while he contemplates as outside the potentiality of causes that to which the active power of a free cause, indeterminate to either, extends by full right.

Further; that is not a necessity on hypothesis which essentially imbibes indifference, or a power of not-being, within the determination of infallible futurition; but any supposition of a future consent, whereby it precedes the instant of germination from an indifferent cause, can not be laid beneath a principle utterly indeterminate to dissenting; therefore it essentially imports a contingency of not-being.

30 If you say: that God does not regard future things as lying within the potentiality of their causes; but according to that being which is determinate and actual, which they draw from their causes for that instant of their production.

On the contrary; that actuality of the future, as it is drawn toward the duration which precedes the effecting of the thing, and as it is apprehended by God in the state of futurition; just as it is not conceived as actually issuing forth from its cause, but as about to issue under such a difference of time, so neither can it be contemplated as not subject to a principle utterly indeterminate. Therefore the active power falls determinately upon a free consent, as it is the object of the divine cognition; and accordingly it is conceived as lying within the potentiality of a cause indifferent to either: and so a futurition is impossible which is clothed with an infallible determination, or with a necessity on hypothesis, upon the principles of the adversaries.

For that objection of Aureolus obtains force, transcribed under n. 25: "When something arises from something, it follows it, and does not precede it. But the determination of the contingent arises from actuality, as was said; therefore that determination cannot be posited for the instants preceding actuality, but for the following ones."

Because among the adversaries the whole actuality and determination of the truth of a proposition about the future (insofar as it is opposed to the potentiality and indetermination of future things in their causes, indifferent to either) is taken from the actuality and determination of the proposition about the present, as is plain from the foundations of the opposite opinion, especially from n. 1 and 7. And also because such determination is neither sought from causes indifferent to either; nor from an extrinsic determining or predetermining principle, since the assertors of the opposite opinion banish every predetermination; there remains, then, only that such determination be drawn from the contraction of the proposition of the present, or from the determined actuality of the object of the proposition of the present.

This supposed, they press the pronouncements of Aureolus. When something arises from something, it follows it, and does not precede it. That determination cannot be posited for the instants preceding actuality, but for the following ones.

Because if the whole determination of this enunciation, Peter will sin, is taken from the actuality and the contraction of this complex about the present, Peter sins; therefore it implicates that the enunciation about the future be conceived as determinately true, without first conceiving the enunciation of the present, as of the present, and as drawn from the eminence of causes; since the proposition about the future does not refer an objective determination which can avail as a medium on the side of the object, unless it is contracted in its potential power by the actuality of the proposition of the present.

Therefore, that God may conceive from eternity a proposition about the future; he first conceives it as about the present from eternity; so that for every now or sign of eternity, connotating the course of time, it be true to say that Peter now sins; seeing that the proposition about the future does not import an objective contraction which would furnish a medium for an infallible foreknowledge, except insofar as it is contracted by the proposition of the present, and is drawn from the eminence of a principle potential and indifferent to either. Therefore either God suffers deception, while he contemplates as present in that now, which is not present but future for the now and the following sign; or he conceives the object not as present, but as future; and accordingly as potential and lying subject to a contingency of being or not being, seeing that the whole determination of the future is drawn from the objective proposition of the present, and is not known as present act, that which act is not, but will be of the future.31 Whence it is inferred; that a necessity on hypothesis involves a contradiction in a free effect for all that duration, for which there can fall upon it an active power utterly indeterminate to either, such as is the state of universal futurition; if a free cause of such a future be not determined to one side of the contradiction by an absolute decree. In this Aureolus, transcribed under sub n. 24, exercises force and plants his foot.

In all the instants that precede, actuality leaves the contingent beneath the causality and power of its principles; but those are to either, and indeterminate: and in consequence a determination having its origin in actuality cannot be drawn toward the instants which precede.

But if you insist, by turning back the objection of Aureolus against our opinion; in which also he ought to have something true, that future things, for the whole anteriority of their duration, be submitted to a free cause indifferent to either.

It is answered; that with Scotus the indifference of the created will is contracted by the absolute purpose of God, so that such an efficacious volition performs the function of the use ad extra, or of the causality of the executive faculty of God. Whence it comes to pass, that the future consent of the created will is not foreknown by God as lying within the potentiality of a principle utterly indeterminate, but as contracted to one side of the contradiction by the extrinsic determination of the divine will; but that such a composition extrinsic of the efficacious decree with the created will does not injure liberty, we shall pursue in the following article.

Another argument for our opinion against the determinate truth of future things in themselves.

32 A second confirmation of our opinion is drawn from the text of Scotus which we have submitted under n. 12; because contradictory enunciations about a future contingent, for example, Socrates will run, Socrates will not run, are apprehended by God before the absolute purpose of the divine will, not as having attained a determinate truth or falsity; but in the neutral state as to truth or falsity. Therefore a complex about a future contingent, by the virtue of the intrinsic commensuration of itself to the future object, (the antecedent absolute purpose of the divine will being set aside) does not claim for itself a determinate truth or falsity.

The pronouncement of Scotus, namely, that enunciations about a future contingent are conceived before the absolute decree of the divine will in the neutral state, is confirmed thus.

Every future being, qua it imports futurition, is not a being from itself, or from its own quidditative moment it is not drawn out of a mere collection of possibles toward the series of futures; therefore it is changed toward determinate futurition by the first cause.

But this objective change must not be sought from the first cause, as it stands beneath the attribute of cognition anteceding the free decree; since such cognition is a predicate altogether necessary, from which a change toward a futurition which is not simply necessary cannot be drawn, and take away liberty; therefore such an objective change toward being-about-to-be must be drawn from a form essentially free; such as is the efficacious and absolute volition of God.

33 This proof Scotus instils into us in 1. dist. 39. q. unica, §. Supposito ergo isto, under margin. n. 14, where he subjoins.

I say; that on account of the first argument made against the third opinion (which is more fully expounded in dist. 2, in the question on the being of God) no causation of any cause can save contingency, unless the first cause be posited contingently to cause immediately; and this by positing in the first cause perfect causality, as catholics posit it; but the first being causes through intellect and will.

*And if there be posited a third exe-

cuting power other than these, it does not help toward the purpose; because if it understand and will necessarily; it produces necessarily.**

Therefore this contingency must be sought in the divine will; or in the divine intellect: Not, however, in the intellect, as it has the first act before every act of the will; because whatsoever the intellect understands in this mode, it understands merely naturally, and by a natural necessity: so no contingency can be in knowing something that it does not know, or in understanding something that it does not understand by that first intellection.*

Therefore the first contingency must be sought in the divine will.*

Where Scotus argues subtly; both that the futurition of a contingent free thing is sought from the first cause; and that from the attribute of cognition, as it antecedes the decree, the future in that objective being of determinate futurition cannot be produced; because there would be inferred a necessity upon the created will.

Next he unravels; that from the absolute and pre-defining purpose of the divine volition there should flow forth an infallible futurition of contingents; inasmuch as the free will of God antecedently possesses eminently every substance and mode of indifference and of created liberty; for that is the sound of those words of Scotus. "Therefore the first contingency must be sought in the divine will." Whence it comes to pass, that this does not stand in the way with Scotus, that a supposition of the absolute decree weaken liberty; that rather from it the determinate futurition of a thing germinates, according to the mode of an intrinsic liberty and indifference.

34 But you will object; that the aforesaid contradictory complexes about a future contingent, with which Scotus proceeds, do not pertain to absolute but to conditional cognition; since those complexes, (Socrates will run; Socrates will not run), before the decree from which is sought the absolute futurition of the thing, necessarily involve this condition. If Socrates have existed in the nature of things for such a difference of time, he will run; or he will not run.

It is answered; that also in conditional futures the argument of Scotus presses, that before the conditional free decree, on the side of the object and the act exercised on the side of the act and the free purpose, conditional futures should not refer a determinate truth or falsity, but should only be cast in the neutral state before the divine inspection; as we shall show by design in the following Distinction on the cognition of conditionals.

Because also in conditionals the objection of Scotus presses; that either a conditional future, qua such, be a being from itself, and not from the first cause; or that the objective change of it toward a conditional being-about-to-be be sought from the necessary form of the cognition of God; and accordingly such a future would be a being simply necessary, and not a supposit, or lying subject to the indifference of a free principle. Or finally, that the whole of its determinate scibility emanates from a free decree; as Scotus contends, of which see below n. 36.

Moreover; we hand down below, in art. 7 of this Distinction, a testimony of Scotus express and vivid, seeking the determinate futurition of our consent from the absolute decree of the divine will; so that such a decree be the moment on the side of the object, for the foreknowledge of the consent of created free choice, and for the reconciling of the infallible divine judgment with our liberty; where we weigh how the certainty of foreknowledge coheres with our liberty according to the principles of Scotus; especially under margin. n. 27.

The foundations of the adversaries are refuted for the determinate truth in themselves of complexes about contingents, wherein their principal foundation, sought from the contradictory enunciation, is undermined.

For although truth and falsity in an enunciative proposition are opposed as it were contrarily; nevertheless that opposition is not immediate except in respect of a fit substrate, such as the complex concerning the future is not, as an object for the divine gaze, before the free, efficacious, and predetermining decree of the divine will.

To the other confirmation of Aureolus, under num. 4, insofar as from the contradictory enunciation which is available to propositions about a future contingent, as they are set before the divine knowledge before the decree, he tries to fish out a determinate truth, or falsity.

To the other confirmation of Aureolus, under n. 4, inasmuch as from the contradictory enunciation, which suppeditates to the complexes about a future contingent, as they are cast before the divine cognition before the decree, he attempts to fish out a determinate truth or falsity.

Ambrose Machado answers, 1. p. disp. 34. sect. 1. §. the truth of conditionals about contingents is none of it independent of the divine decree: that those propositions, which are cast before God before the free statute of the divine will, although at first gaze they may appear absolute, yet are to be judged simply conditional; because they import a condition concerning the existence of the object. For example; Socrates will run; and Socrates will not run, as they are referred to the cognition of God before the decree, involve a condition concerning the existence of Socrates, which is necessarily supposed for the running.

But granting that propositions import their own proper contradiction before the decree; and that between any position and its negation, adequately contradicting the position, for any moment of reason whatsoever there is given a proper contradiction even before the decree; Aureolus nevertheless more solidly and more acutely blunts the blow in the place cited there, §. non procedunt ergo instantiae. Where he subjoins.

The second instance, therefore, does not hold; because although it is a law of contradictories that, if one is true, the other be false; yet it is not a law that one be true and the other false always: nay, the Philosopher excepts the proposition about a future contingent, 1 Perihermenias.

Therefore the second instance does not avail; because although the law of contradictories be, that if one is true, the other be false; yet it is not a law, that one be true, and the other be false always: indeed, the philosopher excepts the proposition about a future contingent, 1 Periermenias.

For if that pronouncement could be sustained, it would come about that, not only with the objective mutation which breaks forth from the predetermining decree set aside, but also with the absolute decree of concurring, or of furnishing concourse, set aside, the thing would be determinately contracted to a determinate future, or to a determinate non-future.

The consequence is shown in the hypothesis of Scotus admitting contingent complexes in the gaze of God before every free decree of the divine will; which being premised, if those contradictory complexes, framed from contingent terms, for that sign before every decree of the divine will, were not neutral as to determinate truth and determinate falsity, as to a contracted future and a contracted non-future, as Scotus will have it; but were determinately true, or determinately false, by reason of the contradictory enunciation; it would follow that a free participated being would be contracted by itself (the habitude to the first cause set aside) to a determinate future, or a determinate non-future; which is more than false, and absurd.

The sequence is shown in the hypothesis of Scotus, admitting complexes about contingents in the gaze of God before every free decree of the divine will; which premised, if those contradictory complexes, fused from contingent terms, for that moment before every decree of the divine will, were not neutral as to determinate truth and determinate falsity, as to contracted being-about-to-be and contracted not being-about-to-be, as Scotus wills; but were determinately true or determinately false, on account of the contradictory enunciation; it would follow that participated free being would be contracted by itself (the habitude to the first cause set apart) to a determinate being-about-to-be, or determinate not being-about-to-be; which is more than false and absurd.

Seeing that a determinate truth or falsity sought from the contradicting complexes in that moment, and in the hypothesis of Scotus, would not only antecede the decree of predetermining, but also the decree of concurring; therefore the doctrine of Aureolus is to be preferred, that it does not pertain to the laws of contradictories that one be determinately true, and the other determinately false; but that if one be determinately true, its opposite be determinately false.37 Nor can there be answered for the adversaries: that for that moment, before the exercised and real existence of the decree, there is conceived the existence of such a decree as to objective being, which existence, prior to the exercised and real existence of the same decree, suffices in order that a future contingent be conceived in cognized being, and determinate, by connotation and habitude toward the decree of concurring, not in the being of existence, but in objective and cognized being.

For against the doctrine premised militate those foundations, which assail that the divine decree be not pre-amended, statutes by God, for any moment before existence, or as to the logical habitation of its drawn-out cognition, inasmuch as the divine decree before the exercised existence does not import a determinate truth, whereby it can be a medium on the side of the object for an infallible foreknowledge; of which we treat more fully in the following Distinction on the cognition of conditionals, q. unica. sect. 1. throughout, and specially n. 17, 18, and 19.

To the third objection of Aureolus, under n. 5. It is answered, that if there be cut away the antecedent statute of the divine will pre-defining the thing for a determinate being-about-to-be or not to be; by the virtue of this constituting principle (of which Scot. in 1. dist. 38 and dist. 39, not p. d.) there cannot be predicated a determinate distraction of the thing toward futurition, or non-futurition; as will be shown more fully from the contraction of the objections which the more recent authors instruct against the common opinion.

38 Whence, to the foundation of the more recent authors proposed by us, under the preceding number 6. We say; that a proposition about a future contingent, the decree of the divine will not preceding, is left neutral, or indeterminate as to truth, or falsity: so that it subsists as it were suspended, until from the supervening divine volition there be said of it a truth or falsity from conforming or disconforming to the thing, lest it be referred to a destined futurition or non-futurition.

As to the objection which presses: that no medium is given between the enunciation of futurition, and of the definition of the object; as between the being-about-to-be, and not being-about-to-be, of the object, from which such enunciation is drawn.

It is answered; that a created thing, before the decree of the divine will, is not contracted to that objective change which it receives from the decree for being-about-to-be, or not to be; but is indifferent and neutral, in order that it lie subject to that change which may accede at the nod of God.

Wherefore, if you insist; that no medium is given between enunciating a thing determinately to be, and not enunciating a thing determinately to be. This we freely grant; yet we assert, that of these two contradictories the affirmative is false; namely, that, the absolute decree anteceding the stability of the future being cut off, the enunciation about the future exacts the object determinately to be: on the contrary, that the negative proposition be true, viz. that, the habitude of this decree set aside, the enunciation not pre-announce the thing determinately future.

Whence, for that moment of reason, in which complexes of this kind are offered to the divine intellect before the efficacious purpose of the divine will, either of the two contradictories is not determinately conforming to its object, or neutral as to conforming and disconforming; not, however, determinately disconforming. For wider runs the not-conforming than the disconforming: since the enunciation in the neutral state (which antecedes the efficacious statute of the divine will) is not determinately conforming to the future object; not, however, determinately disconforming.

As before the quantity is substantiated to a quality inferring similitude, or dissimilitude, toward another quality; although it may be affirmed that such a quantity is not similar, it cannot be dissimilar; because similitude and dissimilitude presuppose a form of quality to be induced proximally by such a relation of convening, or disconvening; yet the quantity antecedes the form of whiteness, and in that state (under which it is conceived neutral as to whiteness and blackness) is understood not similar, or neutral as to similitude and dissimilitude.

For the not-similar extends more widely than the dissimilar, insofar as similar and not-similar are opposed contradictorily; but similar and dissimilar bear an immediate opposition only around a fit substrate; such as quantity is not, as it precedes the quality of the habitude of similarity or dissimilarity, proximately introduced.

So also in the matter at hand; an enunciation about the future, as conceived before the decree from which is sought the determinate scibility of the object; for that anteriority of reason, is not determinately conforming to the object; and also not determinately disconforming, quasi-precisively; yet not conforming or disconforming, quasi-contraritly; since for that moment it is prescinding from the determinate futurition or non-futurition of the object, from which the determinate similitude or dissimilitude of the complex about the future is taken.

39 To the objection ¹^; that if propositions about a future contingent did not attain to a determinate truth or falsity; it would come to pass, that they would not bear a proper contradiction.

It is answered; that a contradictory proposition about a future contingent negates the whole that the other affirms, yet under indetermination, and indifference to the opposite, by the virtue of the intrinsic commensuration of such a complex to the object; if the pre-defining decree be prescinded. For example, this complex, (Socrates will not run,), negates whatsoever the other contradictory complex enunciates, (Socrates will run), yet that does not take away, that each enunciation express the object with indifference to the opposite.

For the affirmative proposition thus enunciates Socrates about to run, that the running lie subject to an indifference of not being, as that which stands within the potentiality of a free cause, and indeterminate to either; and the negative proposition, namely, Socrates will not run; thus negates Socrates about to run, that such a negation of running be supposed of a contingency to being. Because of this, in order that the object of such an enunciation be left within the indetermination of a principle not efficaciously premoved to one side of the contradiction; in that way of thinking, which repudiated the predetermination of the decree, not involving a condition on the side of the cooperation of the created cause.

Whereas, however, the objection instils; that the law of contradictories demand, that one enunciate determinately true truths, the other falsity; this we have exploded from Aureolus, under n. 35. and 36.

From which also is unnerved that confirmation contending; that a proper contradiction alone could intercede in enunciations about the future, which encircle both parts of the contradiction; because to those alone could determinate truth, or falsity be congruous.

For we reprove, that it be of the reason of a contrary opposition of enunciations, that one proposition be determinately true, or false; but that it pertain to a proper contradictory opposition, that if one be determinately true, the other be determinately false; as we have opened out from Aureolus.

Satisfying the other objections of the Recentiores; and unfolding the mind of Scotus out of Maior against the Scotizing Neoterics.

40 TO the second argument of the Recentiores, sub num. 7. it is answered from what has been laid down: the enunciation about the future is not true or false by the force of the intrinsic adequation or inadequation of such a proposition to the object, the extrinsic proposition of the divine will being set aside, from which the contraction of the object to one side of the contradiction is drawn.

Wherefore from the fact that that enunciation, (Sortes currit, "Socrates runs,"), is determinately true, the truth of this proposition about the future (Sortes curret, "Socrates will run,"), does not break forth, since that actuality of running which inheres in Socrates for the present duration cannot be drawn back to the instants preceding the motion of running, without the thing's being subjected again in its entirety to a free principle dominating by full right and pre-possessing such a motion together with indifference to the contrary.

But when you object that the truth of the enunciation about the future does not begin (inasmuch as it is truth about the future) in that time in which Socrates runs in the present; whereas rather the truth about the future then ceases, and the truth about the present begins — I answer by denying the supposition; namely, that a determinate truth which begins, or which ceases, in that instant in which the truth of the enunciation about the present flows forth, can be owed to a proposition about a future contingent (the prevenient decree being set aside); wherefore the objection voluntarily assumes that which it ought to have shown.

41 To the third argument, from num. 8. it is answered: that the enunciation about a future contingent (the contraction set aside, by which the object receives from the decree establishing the futurition or non-futurition of the object) neither affirms nor negates the object determinately; for otherwise both contradictorily opposed propositions would be false. Nor indeed does it express the indifference of the free cause to acting toward either; for then both contradictorily opposed propositions would be true. But the affirmative enunciates the effect, as future for such a difference of time, in such a way that it remains subject to indeterminacy as regards not being about to be; and the negative denies the future object, yet so that it remains subject to indeterminacy as regards being about to be.

Wherefore the proposition about the future signifies more than the indifference of a principle able to determine itself to either; since it advances further to affirming or denying the futurition of the object; nevertheless, because the futurition of the object is expressed together with indifference to the contrary, therefore the enunciation, the absolute and predetermining decree being cut off, cannot be asserted to be determinately true or false.

Toward the confirmation the matter is likewise clear; for it is displayed on the same thread of doctrine.

42 To the fourth argument, under number 9. it is answered, by conceding the universal proposition, both affirmative and negative, in contingent matter to be determinately false; and hence the particular contradictorily opposed proposition, both affirmative and negative, to be determinately true; nevertheless the truth of the particular proposition does not emanate from that hypothesis of determinate futurition which the opposing opinion mingles in, banishing the absolute and precedent decree of God; but from the universal and particular sign which is attached to the subject of the enunciation and contributes to falsifying or verifying the proposition. For the universal proposition affirms or denies a power in moral readiness for acting in the whole collection and universality of individuals, which is evidently false; since throughout the whole throng of individuals there is no moral expedition composed for an act of the same rational character, for instance, for running, standing, sitting, for sinning or for working piously.

Wherefore the particular proposition, both affirmative and negative, which does not express the universal power (but pronounces, or removes, in some particular supposit such a faculty girt for the work), attributes to itself a determinate and necessary truth by hypothesis; for which there is not demanded that some singular enunciation about a future contingent be determinately true, by reason of its adequation and commensuration to the infallible futurition of the object, the precedent and unimpedible proposition of the divine will being set aside; but that from the decree, as from the cause of the scibility of the future being, its determinate truth flow forth.

Because God did not establish himself to concur, according to the exigency of secondary causes, to the positing of a contingent act, or to its negation, throughout the whole collection of individuals; but that he pre-defined certain individuals, by the office of the first cause and according to the exigency of secondary causes, to the positing of such a contingent act, and others indeed to its negation.

43 To the confirmation it is answered: that (however it may be from what we premised out of Aureolus under num. 26.) we concede that the disjunctive proposition embracing both parts of the contradiction (for instance, Petrus peccabit, vel non peccabit, "Peter will sin, or will not sin,") is determinately true; not on that hypothesis of futurition which the opposing opinion erects; but by reason of the copula embracing both parts of the contradiction; which takes care that such an enunciation be constituted not only determinately true but also simply necessary.

But since, among the adversaries, the proposition about a future contingent, although it be determinately true, is not yet asserted to be simply necessary; whereas the disjunctive enunciation, which coalesces from both extremities of the contradiction, claims for itself a truth not only determinate, nay, even simply necessary (so much so that the contradictorily opposed proposition is not only determinately false, but rather simply impossible and self-contradictory); it follows from this that the truth, or falsity, of these propositions which are re-integrated from both extremities of the contradiction is not to be sought from that hypothesis of futurition with which the opposing opinion obtrudes itself; but from the necessity of the copula embracing both parts of the contradiction.

From which we elicit, that in no way do the determinate truth or falsity of such enunciations favor the adversaries toward confirming their opinion; since Aureolus, denying the determinate truth of future contingents, candidly admits a determinate truth in propositions re-integrated from both disjuncts, as is plain from his words transcribed under n. 26.

Nulla propositio est vera, nisi quae claudit vtramque partem contradictionis sub indifferentia, et disiunctim; quae verò determinatè alteram partem exprimit, non est vera, nec etiam falsa. — "No proposition is true, except that which embraces both parts of the contradiction under indifference and disjunctively; whereas that which determinately expresses one part is neither true nor even false." [The words of Aureolus transcribed in the place cited. — Tr.]

As to the last argument the matter is plain from what has been said; for it holds only that future contingents draw their determinate truth from the decree, and on that account are foreknown by God and revealed through the Prophets.

Which doctrine I judged should be established against the Recentiores Cavel and Faber, straying from Scotus, by the perspicuous doctrine of Franciscus Maior, Doctor Illuminatus, and auditor of Scotus, which he delivers in 1. sententiar. distinctio. 39. quaestion. 4. where he asks in his own terms, Vtrùm futura contingentia habeant veritatem determinatam? — "Whether future contingents have a determinate truth?" §. Quantùm ad secundum — "As to the second." There he has it as follows.

Hoc ergo probo primò sic, satis euidenter. Omn. productioni actiuae correspondet necessariò aliqua passiua; sed diuina voluntas actiuè producit ista futura cōtingentia in esse volito, quod non est aliud nisi actiuè ea determinare. Et paulo infra: Sicut productiuum requirit producibile, ita determinatum productiuum determinatum producibile; et eodem modo sicut determinatiuum requirit determinabile, ita determinans, determinatum. Voluntas autem diuina est determinans; ergo aliquid est determinatum: illud autem non potest esse nisi futurum contingent. — "This therefore I prove first thus, sufficiently evidently. To every active production there necessarily corresponds something passive; but the divine will actively produces these future contingents in acted-upon being, which is nothing else but to determine them actively. And a little below: As the productive requires the producible, so the determinate productive the determinate producible; and in the same way, as the determining requires the determinable, so the determining, the determined. But the divine will is the determining; therefore something is determined: but that cannot be anything except a future contingent."

Where Maior judges it evident in the doctrine of Scotus, that the determinate truth of the future contingent consists in its production in acted-upon being according to Scotus's familiar way of speaking; or in the objective change breaking forth from the divine will determining. Therefore the operation of created free will, foreseen in itself, or in its determinate truth, is not the contracting and determining ratio at which the divine will, as absolute, wheels its proposition about the futurition and existence of such an operation of free will; if this operation does not have a determinate truth, which can be foreseen, so as to rouse and contract the divine will, except with the absolute proposition going before, from which it is produced in the being of the true and intelligible, as also in the being of the willed and objectively mutated.

Aureolus is vindicated from the charge which Gregory of Rimini and Vázquez brand upon him.

44 But as for the rest, this one thing remains to be dispatched: that since we have used the aid and acumen of Aureolus to establish the common view, and since our Franciscan communion of the Religion presses, over which the most learned Cardinal eminently shone forth, that we vindicate him as far as we can from the carping of the adversaries; and since in the present matter he is in ill repute concerning the foreknowledge of future contingents, on account of Gregory of Rimini, in 1. distinct. 38. quaestion. 2. art. 1, and Gabriel Vázquez, 1. p. disput. 66. capit. 1. numer. 6, having cavilled that Aureolus babbled, that it is false to assert that God distinctly and determinately knows that the Antichrist will be; but that he will be, or will not be, under a disjunction.

It must therefore be shown how far removed this was from the mind of Aureolus; which is plainly evident from the aforesaid distinctio. 38. art. 1. §. Quòd actualitas futuri contingentis exemplatur à Deitate sub versiculo Nunc ergo procedendum est affirmatiuè. — "That the actuality of the future contingent is exemplified from the Deity by the verse, Now therefore we must proceed affirmatively." There he says.

Actualitas futuri contingentis exemplatur à Deitate, ita quòd Deitas est eminens similitudo illius; hoc autem potest multipliciter declarari. Constat enim quòd nullius est Deitas similitudo ex tempore, quin sit ab aeterno, et immutabiliter illius similitudo; aliàs esset apud Deum vicissitudo, et variatio. — "The actuality of the future contingent is exemplified from the Deity, so that the Deity is its eminent likeness; but this can be declared in several ways. For it is evident that the Deity is the likeness of nothing only from time, without its being that thing's likeness from eternity and immutably; otherwise there would be in God vicissitude and variation."

But it is manifest, that while the actuality of the future contingent is posited and exhibited in time, the Deity of necessity is its likeness and exemplar; for it is certain that God knows the contingent when it actually is, and so the Deity is the exemplar and eminent likeness of that actuality: therefore from eternity and immutably it was that likeness.

45 Furthermore; in the same article 1. §. Quòd secundùm hoc sola Deitas potest esse similitudo sine fallacia repraesentans actualitatem futuri contingentis — "That according to this the Deity alone can be a likeness without fallacy representing the actuality of the future contingent," he subjoins.

Tertia quoque propositio est, quòd Deitas sola potest esse similitudo sine fallacia repraesentans actualitatem cõtingentis futuri: Declaratum est enim suprà, quòd Deitas abstrahit in essendo ab omni tempore; et ab omni duratione formali; ita quòd terminare non potest aliquam habitudinem pertinentem ad tempus, seu successionem: vnde nihil est sibi praeteritum, nilque futurum, nilque simultaneum, seu coexistens positiuè. — "There is also a third proposition, that the Deity alone can be a likeness without fallacy representing the actuality of the future contingent: for it was declared above, that the Deity abstracts in being from all time; and from all formal duration; so that it cannot terminate any habitude pertaining to time or succession: whence nothing is past for it, nothing future, and nothing simultaneous or coexisting positively."

Yet from this, that it does not stand off from anything according to the prior, because nothing is future to it; nor according to the posterior, because nothing is past to it, it is necessarily conceived as non-standing-off from all time: not however as simultaneously, or presently coexisting, as the first opinion above attacked was feigning.

But it was said straightway that the actuality of the future contingent can have a likeness unable to deceive, if such a likeness be posited that in no way does it stand off according to prior and posterior; but rather coexists simultaneously, or exists indistantly.

Therefore the Deity, which exists indistantly in every way from the actuality of the future contingent, will be able to present and exemplarize it infallibly.

45 With these testimonies I have nothing that could be opposed, such that Aureolus might be dragged to a sense absurdly negating; since he plainly defends that God from eternity apprehends the future with the same certitude of judgment before its effecting, as also after its extraction from the virtuality of the cause; for in otherwise mutable divine judgment there would steal in a vicissitude, if God knew how to know the future when it is produced in the present, which before its production he had not foreknown.

Then, in the words cited under nume. 45. he candidly professes the intimate objective presence, or indistance, of futures from the Deity, so that it performs the function of the exemplary form, that is, cognition exemplarizing futures; for although Aureolus rejects that real presence, or coexistence of futures in eternity, which the Thomists asserted, he nevertheless asserts an objective presence which contributes to the infallible judgment of God concerning such futures.

Moreover; even from thence can Aureolus be re-conquered [revindicated against himself — Tr.]; and pressed under man, by that excursion by which some from the school of St. Thomas [Tr.: text corrupt here; the print runs the sense on: "we intercepted and shut out the Refugees of the school of St. Thomas, interpreting of Futurs an objective and not real presence from eternity, rendering the same presence a sufficient medium on the side of the object for the infallible foreknowledge of futures;" against whom we wrought pressing out the principle from the Ferrariensis, as is plain from ar. 1. huius dist. n. marg. 6.]

By the same blow is Aureolus cast down, who although with Scotus he sharply assails the real presence of futures in eternity; as is manifest from that proof of his which we there transcribed, under num. marg. 20. nevertheless inconsequently assigns the indistance of the Deity exemplarizing the exemplified futures as the ratio on the side of the object, or the objective medium toward the foreknowledge of futures; as is plain from those words.

Ex hoc quòd non distat ab aliquo secundùm prius, quia non est sibi quidquã futurum, nec secundùm posterius, quia non est sibi quidquam praeteritum, necessariò concipitur ut indistans ab omni tempore; non tamen ut simul, aut praesentialiter coexistens, ut fingebat prima opinio superiùs impugnata. — "From this, that it does not stand off from anything according to the prior, because nothing is future to it, nor according to the posterior, because nothing is past to it, it is necessarily conceived as non-standing-off from all time; not however as simultaneously, or presently coexisting, as the first opinion above attacked was feigning."

Nor does Aureolus escape the pressure, urging that God is not present to things by positive contiguity, or contact of presence, but by negative indistance; as is plain from the Aureolus transcribed by us in controu. 6. de Immensitate Dei, ar. 2. à numer. 1. vsque ad 5. and refuted there à numer. 6. vsque ad 10.

Because, given that the presence of God would not claim a positive contact of presence toward things, but a negation of distance, or negative indistance, as Aureolus hails it; there still stands the reason pressing Aureolus. That God from eternity was not really indistant from futures before the real existence of futures, because futures before their production had attained no real being, by which they could really stand off, or not stand off, from the substance of God; therefore the substance of God was to them indistant according to objective coexistence, which is left over from the knowledge of God as something posterior and consequential to knowledge; therefore such indistance cannot be assigned the objective medium, or medium on the side of the object, toward the infallible foreknowledge of futures; since Aureolus falls again into that snare of begging the principle, in which we showed implicated those who interpret St. Thomas of objective presence alone.

47 But setting these aside; since in the present matter we labor to assert Aureolus against the criminations of those who opine him to have denied the determinate foreknowledge of futures in God; the Catholic sense concerning the determinate foreknowledge of futures Aureolus more fully disclosed in eadem dist. ar. 1. in initio — "in the same distinction, article 1, at the beginning," — so that he plainly lays bare the imposture of the adversaries; for he has it thus.

Circa primum ergo considerandum; quòd licet Philosophus, et Commentator, et alij plures Philosophi, ut Seneca, et quidam Morales, negauerint diuinã praescientiam propter hoc, quòd non patet, qualiter stet cum contingentia rerum, ut apparebit in quaestione sequenti; Catholicè tamen concedere oportet, quòd omnis futura quantumcunque sint contingentia, Deus determinatè praenouit. — "Therefore concerning the first it must be considered; that although the Philosopher, and the Commentator, and several other Philosophers, as Seneca, and certain of the Morals, denied the divine foreknowledge on this account, that it is not apparent how it stands with the contingency of things, as will appear in the following question; nevertheless it must be conceded in the Catholic manner, that all futures, however contingent they may be, God foreknew determinately."

And this can be concluded demonstratively; because it seems to be a common conception of the mind, from making toward the divine perfection; and universally, the things which were inducted above to prove that God knows singulars, can by parity of reason be inducted to prove that God knows future contingents, and every cognoscible whatever it may be.

Therefore this supposed, there remains to inquire; because the difficulty is in the mode, how the future, which in itself is indeterminate and uncertain, can be known certitudinally by God before it be made. What more manifest? Since that presupposed as the outset of the question by Aureolus, namely the determinate and infallible foreknowledge of futures in God, he proceeds to disquisition upon the medium on the side of the object of the apprehension of futures.

48 But to the aforesaid there seems to oppose another testimony of Aureolus ex praedicta dist. 38. artic. 3. §. Quòd notitia diuina. — "From the aforesaid distinction 38, article 3, § That divine knowledge." There he says: Secunda verò propositio est; quod notitia diuina, quam de actualitatibus futurorum contingentium habet, non dat ut propositio affirmatiua praecisè, vel negatiua praecisè formata de futuro sit vera, vel falsa; imo relinquit utramque nec veram, nec falsam. — "The second proposition indeed is, that the divine knowledge which he has of the actualities of future contingents does not make it happen that a proposition about the future, formed precisely affirmatively or precisely negatively, be true or false; nay, it leaves both neither true nor false."

From which the doctrine of Aureolus seems to be produced [said to bring it about — Tr.], that the foreknowledge of God concerning futures is impossible; if to such objects there be not forthcoming truth, or determinate scibility. Therefore Aureolus, who denies the determinate truth of the future, is also denominated to deny the infallible foreknowledge of God concerning such objects.

49 It is answered, that that [passage] serves only as an objection; [and that] Aureolus spoke less metaphysically, in which he found acolytes among certain of the Recentiores; Ludovicus Molina, and others professing the determinate foreknowledge of futures in God, even though to those futures there should be no determinate truth.

Wherefore, just as the reprobated doctrine is not ascribed to these authors by the denial of an infallible foreknowledge of future things in God, on the ground that they have rejected the determinate truth of future things; so neither ought such a lapse to be attributed to Aureolus, against his express meaning and so many of his perspicuous assertions.