Cursus Theologicus, Tomus I: In Primam Partem

1 Because the question an est? preceded the others in the order of nature, therefore in this first disputation, which concerns the knowledge of God with respect to absolute future events, we inquire into the an est? of the aforesaid knowledge. But since it is easier to explain about divine things what they are not, or how they are not disposed, than what they are, or how they are disposed; and consequently it is easier, concerning the knowledge of God, to declare which are those things in which he does not certainly know the aforesaid future events, than which are those in which he certainly touches upon the same; for this reason, in this same disputation, which concerns the easier matters of divine knowledge, namely about the an est? of that knowledge, we also inquire about those things in which God does not certainly know future contingents. But since among future contingents the absolute futures are of greater importance, and D. Thomas treats of them in this article professedly, we therefore start this disputation concerning not future contingents of any kind, but absolute ones. And deservedly do we devote several disputations to those things that must be said concerning the knowledge of God with respect to all future contingents, because this matter is very diffuse and a very great many things occur that must be said; and so, for the sake of greater clarity, it had to be decided in various disputations.

2 Because, the nature of the future contingent and its multiplicity being unknown, nothing can be said about this and the following discussions; therefore we raise the present doubt in the first place. In it, however, we assume one thing and inquire into two; these, however, because they are easy and without controversy, we shall treat briefly. We do indeed assume, as certain by faith, that there is a future contingent, against Luther and others who assert that everything happens necessarily. Their error is reported and refuted by St. Thomas, qu. 2. de Veritate, art. 12, Palacios in 1. dist. 38, qu. 2, Driedo De concordia liberi arbitrii cap. 1, Medina lib. 2. de recta in Deum fide cap. 2, Molina here, disp. 1, Castro, On Heresies, under the word fatum. But we do inquire what the future contingent is, and how manifold it is. And because such a future is said to be two things, namely, to be future, and to be contingent, it follows that its nature will be made more manifest if the essence of these two is explained.

The future, therefore, is that which has a determination in its causes, to the effect that it be in some determinate time, or duration, subsequent to that moment for which it is said to be future. Whence the future, as such, is distinguished from a thing which now exists, in that the latter says existence of the present; whereas the former connotes the negation of the aforesaid existence in itself, held in that instant in which it is said to be future. From a thing that is precisely possible, however, it is separated in this, that the possible, as such, is not determined to the effect that it be in itself in some certain and determinate time.

3 We have said, then, that that is future which has a determination in its causes to the effect that it be in some determinate time, etc. (but not that it will be in some determinate time: because for the character of the future that is sufficient, and that is required first. Wherefore Aristotle, 2. de Generatione text. 64, said: That someone about to walk does not walk. And St. Thomas, 1. part. qu. 19, art. 7, ad secundum, says: Many things are in the power, and knowledge, and divine will, which are not contained under the order of inferior causes, such as the raising of Lazarus. Wherefore someone looking to the inferior causes could have said, Lazarus will not rise again, but looking to the first, divine, cause he could have said, Lazarus will rise again. And God wills both of these, namely, that something should at some time be future according to the inferior cause, and yet not be future according to the superior cause; or the contrary. The same was taught in De Veritate qu. 12, art. 10, ad 7, where, explaining that testimony which we have just brought from Aristotle, he says: Something can be said to be future, not only because it will be so, but because it is so ordered in its causes that it be so future. For so the physician says: this man will be cured, and this man will die; and if it happen otherwise, he has not spoken falsely: for so it was then future from the order of causes, which nevertheless can be hindered; and then what was future will consequently not be future. Whence the Philosopher says in 2. de Generatione: that someone about to walk does not walk.

Therefore, for this reason, the same Angelic Doctor, in De Veritate qu. 2, art. 12, ad 9, asserted that God can know something to be future which yet will never be; and thus he says: God knows the order of one thing to another: and so he knows something to be future with respect to another. But it is not incongruous that it be posited that God knows something to be future which will never be, in as far as namely he knows that some causes are inclined towards some effect which will not be produced. But these things will be explained at sufficient length below in this same disputation.

The contingent, however, is that which can be, and not be, the ordinary law being considered. And this last clause is prudently added, because it is well founded that something simply necessary should exist, of which kind is the motion of the sun, and yet its opposite can sometimes be done by God by absolute power. By which the first part of this doubt is sufficiently clear.

4 As to the second, namely, concerning the multiplicity of the future contingent, it must be said briefly, with James Naldo in the question On the Origin of Contingents, Julius Sirenus lib. 3. de fato cap. 5, Corduba in his questionarium, qu. 55, dub. 1, and others, that the future contingent can be taken in a twofold way. In one way, for that it can be, and not be, with respect to the sole power of God; and in this way the heavens and the Angels had future contingents to be. In another way, for that it can be, and not be, with respect to a second cause. And this last, again, is twofold. One proceeding from a cause determined from within to the production of the effect, yet able to be hindered by another second cause: as the fruit of the tree, to which its own power is directed; yet it can be hindered either by hail or by frost. The other is that which is from a free and indifferent cause, of which kind are the acts of free choice: about which principally we must treat in these discussions.

Finally, then, such free future contingents are of two kinds, some absolute, some conditional. Those are called absolute which in fact will be in some difference of time, as tomorrow's reading. Conditional, on the other hand, are those which, although they will never come to pass, yet would be if some condition, never to be posited, were posited, as the conversion of Tyre and Sidon, if our Lord Christ had worked in them the virtues which he worked in Bethsaida and Corozain.

Because the question an est? must precede other questions; therefore, in the first place, after the explanation of the nature and multiplicity of the future contingent, in which the terms desired for the understanding of this and the following doubts were defined, we ask an est? concerning God’s knowledge with regard to absolutely future contingents.

§ I. The denying position.

5 Those who follow the denying position are the Commentator, 12. Metaphysic. text. 62., as D. Thom. reports in 1. dist. 48. They attribute this error to Aristotle, Clement of Alexandria, lib. 1. Stromatum, and Gregory of Nyssa, lib. 8. of his Philosophia, although D. Thom., de Veritate, quaestione 2. art. 2, 3, et 4, defends him from the aforesaid error. Cicero also taught it in part in libro 2. de Divinitate, and libro 2. de Natura Deorum. D. August. reports it in libro 5. de Civitate Dei, cap. 9, when he says that, although God knows future contingents which proceed from a natural cause, He nevertheless does not know those which occur from free causes. The Egyptians finally held this same error, concerning whom it is said in Psalmo 93: The Lord will not see, neither will God understand Jacob, since, namely, the things done freely by men have been made free.

It is proved first, because otherwise either God’s knowledge would be fallible, or that future contingent which is said to be known by God would be necessary, or not contingent—which, as is clear, is altogether false. This consequence is sufficiently evident. For could that future contingent occur otherwise, or could it not occur otherwise? If the first, therefore God’s knowledge can be deceived: for what is known through it can be otherwise than it is known to be. If the second, therefore the aforesaid future event will be altogether necessary: for it cannot not be future.

6 It is confirmed first. For the very fact that God’s knowledge is not fallible with respect to any object means that it cannot be otherwise than it is, or cannot be terminated toward an object otherwise than it is terminated: therefore its object cannot be otherwise either, because the proportion that must obtain between knowledge and object demands this: therefore the object of the aforesaid knowledge cannot be a future contingent, whose very nature is that it can occur otherwise.

It is confirmed second. For if God knows future contingents, for example Peter’s bitter weeping, it will not be in Peter’s power to remove this antecedent, namely: That God foresaw that weeping. First, because this seems to follow from itself. Then also, because that knowledge is eternal; but what is eternal is invariable and immutable: therefore neither will it be in Peter’s power to remove the consequent, namely: That he will in fact weep; but he will necessarily weep, because in a valid consequence whoever cannot remove the antecedent cannot remove the consequent; otherwise someone could cause that, in a legitimate consequence, the antecedent should be true and false together; and thus, if Peter cannot remove the consequent without God’s having foreseen his weeping, he cannot remove it without such a weeping following.

7 Second, this same point is proved principally, by proceeding along the same route. In every true conditional, if the antecedent is absolutely necessary, the consequent must also be necessary in the same way, because the consequent always follows the antecedent, and what follows the necessary is never anything but necessary; just as what is false never follows what is true, as is proved in Posteriorum textu 17. But the antecedent of this conditional, Socrates will run, if it is foreknown by God, is absolutely necessary: therefore the consequent too, namely, that Socrates will run; and consequently, since the contingency of future contingents cannot stand with God’s knowledge, their contingency cannot stand. The minor, in which the difficulty lies, is proved: because everything past is necessary; and therefore it cannot not be past.

It is confirmed first. For according to the Philosopher in lib. Priorum, from the major concerning necessity and the minor concerning existence, the conclusion concerning necessity follows: therefore, if future contingents are known by God, then from this wholly necessary major, namely: Everything known by God must be true, and from this minor, namely: This future contingent, namely, Peter will run, is known by God, this necessary conclusion will follow, namely: Therefore it will be necessary that it be true that Peter will run; and consequently it will be necessary that he actually run; otherwise it will not be necessarily true that he runs.

It is confirmed second. For God’s knowing is His very being; but He cannot not be: therefore He cannot not know what He knows: therefore He will be unable to know future contingents. The consequence is evident, because these things are of such a nature that, just as they can be and not be, so one who knows them can know and not know them.

8 Third, knowledge must be of necessities, which cannot be otherwise, as is clear from 1. Posteriorum cap. 2. But future contingents, precisely because they are not necessities, cannot fall under the object of supremely necessary knowledge, such as divine knowledge.

It is confirmed. A contingent thing cannot be known through a necessary means, because if the means is necessary, the conclusion will also be necessary; but God knows everything that He knows through a necessary means, namely through His essence: therefore He cannot know anything contingent.

9 Finally. For if God certainly knew future contingents, all human providence, care, and solicitude, which each person ought to have concerning his own affairs, and especially his spiritual salvation, would be removed, contrary to 2 Peter 1: Save yourselves by good works, making your calling sure. The consequence is proved. For each person could prudently say within himself: Does God know that I will consent to His calling and experience sorrow for my sins? Or does He know that I will not consent? If the second, I will never consent, however much I strive to do so on my part; but if He knows the first, however I act, I will consent, even if I exercise no diligence, because my consent is future; since it is foreknown by God: therefore I may be idle and devoted to pleasure, and unconcerned about my conversion.

§ I. The true and Catholic position.

10 Nevertheless, it must be said that God certainly knows absolutely future contingents. Thus it is found throughout Sacred Scripture, Psal. 138: You have understood my thoughts from afar: You have examined my path and my cord: You have foreseen all my ways. Dan. 13: Lord, who knows all things before they are. Eccles. 23: To Lord God, all things are known before they were created. Therefore in Isa. 41 it is specially attributed to God, as a sign of His divinity, that He knows future things; whence it is said: Announce the things that are to come, and we shall know that you are gods. For this reason the Lord Christ says in John 14: Now I have told you beforehand, so that when it has happened, you may believe: namely, that I am God, to whom alone it belongs to foreknow future things. These testimonies are understood as concerning certain and infallible knowledge by the Fathers and all theologians.

And then all the prophecies contained in Sacred Scripture confirm this same point. For the entire certitude of prophecy rests on this knowledge and certain cognition of God: since the prophecies are therefore believed and revealed by the Prophets as infallible, because they are revealed as things said by God as certainly future; yet God could not thus foretell them unless He knew them in the same way. Hence Tertullian most excellently said, in lib. 2. contra Marcionem, that God’s foreknowledge has as many witnesses as there are prophecies. Finally, the Fathers themselves teach this, as we have just indicated. Augustine, lib. 5. de Civit. Dei, cap. 9, where he attacks Cicero, who denied to God knowledge of future contingents proceeding from created will, says: Because He made men free, He made them sacrilegious. And speaking there against the same Cicero, he says: He who is not foreknowing all future things is certainly not God. The same is taught, lib. 4. de Trinit. cap. 8, and likewise by Fulgentius, de fide ad Petrum, cap. 31 et 32; Jerome, Isaiae 41 and Ezechiel 2; Basil, Isaiae 3; Dionysius, de divin. nominibus, cap. 9; Cyril, lib. 9. cap. 10. in Joan.; Nyssaenus, lib. 8. cap. 4; Anselm, lib. de praescientia et praedestinatione liberi arbit. c. 1; and D. Thom. in this article, and below, quaest. 86. art. 3 ac 4, in 1. dist. 38. art. 5, and in the same place ad Anibaldum, 1. cont. Gent. cap. 67, de Verit. quaest. 2. art. 12, and quodlib. 12. quaest. 3. The philosophers also accepted the same truth, as did Seneca, lib. de providentia, and Plutarch, lib. de sapientia Aegyptiorum, and almost all nations; for this reason they have always held divine oracles concerning future things in the highest veneration.

11 The prior and fundamental reason for this truth, however, was given by D. Thom. in the place cited from 1. contra Gent., and from the passages cited in locis disput. 5. num. 43 et 49 of this treatise; and it can be reduced to the following form. For God’s knowledge, by connoting His will, or His practical knowledge, is the cause of the future existence of all future contingents, as is clear from the statements made there, and will be shown more fully below: therefore the aforesaid future contingents cannot fail to be certainly known through it. The consequence is evident. For as heat cannot produce heat unless by heating, nor can water cause cold unless by making cold, so knowledge cannot be the cause of the future existence of contingents unless by knowing them, and consequently unless by knowing them with certainty.

12 The second reason, which the same Saintly Doctor indicates, can be proposed in this form. For it is certain that God knows future contingents when they have existence in themselves in their determinate time: therefore it is also certain that He has known them from eternity. The consequence is evident. For otherwise God’s knowledge would be changeable, so that it could suffer addition or diminution in time, and consequently would not be infinitely simple or a most pure act. The antecedent, however, is proved. First, because in us it belongs to perfection to know contingents when they are: therefore this must not be denied to God. Then also, because if God did not know contingents even when they are, He could not be judge of the actions of the free will created, and consequently could not give them their due reward or punishment. Finally, because future contingents, so long as they exist in themselves, have a certain and determinate entity, according to that saying: Everything which is, when it is, must be; therefore they likewise have a determinate and necessary knowability: and thus they can then be certainly known by God.

§ III. The arguments initially proposed are dissolved.

13 To the first, the consequence must be denied. And in answer to the proof, the first part of that dilemma must be chosen; but the consequence drawn from it must be denied. For when God knows that future contingent which will in fact occur in the way in which it is future, and that mode consists in the fact that, although in its determinate time it will afterward have existence in fact, it nevertheless may not have it; it follows that because the aforesaid future thing could not exist, divine knowledge is not deceived, nor can it be deceived; but rather it would be deceived, or fallible, if such a future thing could not not be, or if in fact it were not given.

14 It makes no difference if one objects that, if Peter’s future conversion, for example, and his bitter weeping were not given in fact, divine knowledge, which foreknew the aforesaid conversion, would be deceived: therefore, if that weeping could not be, the aforesaid knowledge could certainly be deceived. The consequence is evident. Because what an act does in actuality, a power does in potency: therefore, if through the actual omission of that weeping God’s knowledge would be deceived, it follows that if such an omission can occur, divine knowledge can also be deceived.

For it is answered by conceding the antecedent and denying the consequent. Because, as we shall explain more fully in tract. de Voluntate Dei, disp. 10. num. 93 et 94, the argument is virtually made from one [proposition] in the composite sense, and from another in the divided sense, to another in the composite sense: a defective mode of arguing. For there the following syllogism is formed by virtue of this: If Peter’s conversion, for example, and his bitter weeping were not given in fact, divine knowledge would be deceived; but such weeping can fail to occur; therefore divine knowledge can be deceived. Since among these three propositions the first yields the composite sense, the second the divided sense, and the third again the composite sense, as will be explained in the place cited; it follows that virtually the argument is made from one in the composite sense, and another in the divided sense, to another in the composite sense.

And in answer to the proof to the contrary, the antecedent is conceded if it is understood—and as it truly ought to be understood—of the act and its corresponding potency, while the consequent is denied: because the consequent does not posit the proper potency corresponding to that act. For the act conditionally posited there is not the weeping conjoined with God’s knowledge of the future existence of the weeping, and its existence for the future time, and therefore conjoined with the future existence of that same weeping and its existence at the foretold time; whereas the potency admitted there is not a potency to posit a non-weeping conjoined with all these things, but a potency to posit non-weeping itself according to its own nature: and consequently the proper potency corresponding to the aforesaid act is not posited.

15 This solution will remain the more clearly explained if it is noted that, once the free future existence of that weeping and the adequate determination of all causes with respect to it are supposed, God foreknew that there would be such a weeping, not in any manner whatever, but in a free manner; and consequently that it would be in the way it was for the time for which it was, so that its omission could also have occurred, although in fact it would not occur. Then also, once the entire future existence of the weeping on the part of the determination of all causes, and consequently its being in fact at the due time, is supposed, its omission cannot be composed, or posited simultaneously. And thus, if, after the further supposition that Peter freely weeps—and consequently that he can refrain from weeping—it were granted either that it is impossible for him to weep, or that he cannot refrain from weeping, or, supposing that he weeps, that the omission of such a weeping were granted simultaneously, then in one of these events, and in no other, God would be deceived in act and in exercise: because only then would the opposite of what God foreknew be given in act and in exercise, as will be clear to the observer.

Hence, in order that the potency corresponding to this act—namely, that God be deceived—should be granted, it was necessary either that that weeping be impossible, or that it not be able not to be, or that, supposing it, its omission be able to be composed with it, and consequently with God’s knowledge of such a future weeping. It is not sufficient that such omission be able to be, or that, without making the aforesaid supposition of the weeping and knowledge of it, the aforesaid omission be given in act. Therefore, since these are not granted, and no potency can be granted, it follows that in this objection no argument is made from the act to the corresponding potency. Thus, from the fact that, supposing that future event, its omission would be given, and consequently divine knowledge would be deceived, it is not correctly inferred that it can be deceived from the possibility of the omission of that weeping; but, as we recently said, this could only be inferred either from the impossibility of the weeping, or from the fact that it cannot not be, or from the possibility of composing the aforesaid omission with the future weeping, and consequently with the knowledge of it: because only from one of these, or from one of them, does it follow that God’s knowledge would be deceived in act and in exercise.

16 It makes no difference if one insists that the things we have said in this solution cannot be coherent with one another. For, according to Aristotle, that is called possible in which, when it is posited, no impossibility follows. But if Peter did not in fact weep over his sin, an impossibility would follow, namely that God’s foreknowledge concerning that weeping would be deceived, as we recently asserted: therefore, the possibility of the omission of the aforesaid weeping cannot be coherent with this.

For it is answered that the definition of a possible thing given by Aristotle must be understood whenever the possibility of a thing is not conjoined with the infallible and certain future occurrence of its opposite. For if this were conjoined, it would not be admissible to posit such a possible thing as existing, because its existence would thereby have to be conjoined with the existence of its opposite; and thus, in the case of the objection, Peter’s weeping and its omission would have to be granted simultaneously, which is absurd. Hence, because the foreknowledge of the aforesaid weeping is infallible and altogether certain, it is certain that in act and in exercise such a weeping will be given; therefore its opposite, namely actual non-weeping, must never be posited, even though it is possible absolutely and simply.

17 To the first confirmation it is answered by distinguishing the antecedent: and if it is understood of an inability in the composite sense, arising from some supposition, or from the fact that Everything which is, when it is, must be, which amounts to the same thing, or of consequent inability, it must be conceded; but if it is understood of inability in the divine sense, or simply such an inability, or antecedent inability, it must be denied. The consequent of the first consequence must likewise be distinguished proportionally in the same way. Then the second consequence must be denied. For in order for it to be valid, it would be necessary that the antecedent, and likewise the consequent of the first consequence, were true in the latter sense.

This is explained as follows. From the fact that God’s knowledge is not fallible and is terminated toward some future contingent which will in fact occur, knowing that it will in fact have existence although it may not have it, it follows only that God cannot in the composite sense, or simultaneously, know the non-existence of that future thing, and consequently cannot know the possibility of its opposite in the composite sense: for these things alone are required for its infallibility, as we recently said. Yet no inconvenience follows from this. For God’s inability to know the things we have mentioned arises from the composite sense and from the supposition that whatever thing is, while it is, must be, and that its opposite is not composable with it; or, which amounts to the same thing, it is only consequent impossibility arising from the existence both of divine knowledge and of the future event: but the aforesaid impossibility is not in the divine sense, nor is it an impossibility absolutely and simply such, or—which amounts to the same thing—antecedent impossibility, either on the part of the object or on the part of knowledge, consisting in the fact that, without any supposition of divine knowledge, of the future occurrence of the effect, and of its existence with respect to eternity, neither the object can be otherwise nor could divine knowledge have been otherwise terminated toward that object. For if this impossibility were antecedent impossibility, then through it God’s knowledge would not know the aforesaid contingent as contingent: for to know it as contingent, it is not enough to know that it will have existence for that determinate time for which it is said to have it; but one must also know simultaneously that it may nevertheless not have it, and that divine knowledge, in the prior state before it is terminated toward the future and before the future occurrence of the effect and its foreknowledge in eternity is supposed, could have failed to be terminated toward it as future.

18 And thus from this we obtain only that that future contingent, in the composite sense of future occurrence and of the existence possessed for the time for which it is said to have it, cannot occur otherwise; or that, supposing its future occurrence and existence, it cannot by consequent power fail to be future. But not that, absolutely and simply, or by antecedent power, or in the divided sense, it cannot fail to be. For not this last point, but the former, is required for the notion of a future contingent. Let those who wish to understand these matters see what we shall say in tract. de Volunt. Dei, disp. 10. num. 84 et sequentib., where the composite and divided senses are explained expressly: and once that has been explained and correctly understood, all these matters will be sufficiently clear.

This solution is drawn from D. Thom., now from de Verit. quaest. 6. art. 3. ad 10, and art. 4. ad 8, and quaest. 24. art. 1. ad 13, and 1. part. quaest. 19. art. 8. ad 1 et ad 3, and also from 1. dist. 39. art. 1. ad 3, in these words: That which is must be while it is, but absolutely it is not always necessary that it be; thus also it is necessary that God know while He knows, but it is not necessary that He know except by the necessity of immutability, which does not exclude the freedom of the will, and this freedom is signified when it is said that God can not know this. Then also from 1. cont. Gent. cap. 67, in these words: Each thing is known by God as it is seen presentially: thus it will be necessary that God know it, as it is necessary that Socrates be sitting from the fact that he is seen sitting.

19 To the second confirmation it is answered first by distinguishing the antecedent: It will not be in Peter’s power to remove this antecedent, namely that God foresaw that weeping is conceded with absolute power together with the power of infallibility; but if it is understood precisely with absolute power, which is compatible with the possibility of the infallibility of that foreknowledge, or with the fact that it is infallible that God foresaw that weeping, although absolutely He can not foresee it, it must be denied. The first part of the consequent must likewise be distinguished in the same way; and then the consequent must altogether be denied with respect to its second part.

And in answer to the proof of the antecedent, insofar as it can oppose the distinction given, it must be said that from the eternity of God’s knowledge concerning the future occurrence of that weeping, it can only be inferred that, precisely because it is actually terminated toward it, it must be terminated toward it invariably. But this argues only that it is necessary by the necessity arising from the supposition of presence, not simply by necessity; and consequently it does not follow that He does not terminate freely toward the aforesaid weeping. For even if we grant that the free act by which God willed to produce this entire universe is measured with respect to its termination by eternity, it does not follow that it is necessary simply and incompatibly with freedom, but only by a qualified necessity and from the supposition of presence. This solution is taken from D. Thom. in 1. dist. 39. quaest. 1. art. 1. ad 1, and de Veritate quaest. 16. art. 3. ad 10. In answer to the proof of the consequent, however, the antecedent is conceded according to the distinction given. And the consequent, with respect to its last words, namely: He will not be able to remove it without such a weeping following, must be denied if it is understood of absolute and simple power.

20 This is made clear. For although Peter did not have, together with absolute and simple power, the power of infallibility for removing God’s knowledge concerning his weeping—that is, although he could not do what was infallible, namely, that God not foresee the aforesaid weeping, and consequently did not have the power not to weep, which is incompatible with the knowledge of a weeping that is future in act—yet he did have precisely absolute and simple power to remove God’s knowledge concerning his weeping, in this limited sense, because he could not have the weeping; for if he did not have it, the knowledge of the weeping would not have been present in God, but rather its omission: and therefore he had a power to remove the aforesaid knowledge compatible with the infallibility of the same divine knowledge concerning the weeping, or with the fact that God in fact and actually foresaw that weeping. Thus it can never be verified in fact and actually that God foresaw it absolutely. Hence it is also compared proportionally in the same way with the future weeping, which is the consequent inferred from that antecedent, namely from God’s knowledge. For although it does not have absolute power together with the power of infallibility not to weep—which power is indeed incompatible with the weeping—yet it has precisely absolute power not to weep, which is compatible with a weeping that is future infallibly. This power, however, is sufficient to preserve freedom and to ensure that the future weeping remains within the notion of a future contingent.

21 Therefore the rules of the Dialecticians advanced in this confirmation are not thereby weakened. Not the first rule. For according to this mode of speaking, we posit equal power or inability with respect to removing the antecedent and the consequent, so that in the sense in which the antecedent can be removed or not removed, the consequent can also be removed or not removed. Nor is the second rule. For in order that, in a good consequence, someone may not be able to cause the consequent to be false when a true antecedent is given, it is enough that the consequent be infallibly true, or—which amounts to the same thing—that it be true in such a way that it is never false in fact. For this purpose it is enough that, presentatively considered, Peter not have the absolute power together with the power of infallibility of his not weeping; but that it be impossible for him by the possibility of infallibility, and possible by absolute possibility, compatible with the possibility of the infallibility of the opposite act, namely weeping.

We have said that it amounts to the same thing whether the consequent is true in such a way that it is never false, or whether it is infallibly true: because from the very fact that the consequent is true in actuality, it must be necessary by a suppositional and qualified necessity, insofar as everything which is, as long as it is, from the supposition that it is, must be: for a necessity arising from a supposition, or a qualified necessity, or in the composite sense of the thing’s existence, coincides with infallibility, and conversely.

22 Second, in answer to the same second confirmation, it must be said that the rule: Whoever cannot remove the antecedent cannot remove the consequent is understood with this limitation, namely, provided that the antecedent is necessary and necessarily infers the consequent; but not if the proper causality of the antecedent consists in freely inferring that consequent, or in causing the aforesaid consequent to be caused freely. For then the removal of the antecedent is not necessary in order that the consequent be able to be removed; but just as its being posited is required in order that the consequent may freely occur and be inferred, so it is required in order that it may fail to follow. Therefore, since from the knowledge by which God foresaw Peter’s future weeping freely this consequent is inferred, namely the weeping of the same Peter, and the proper effect of that knowledge is to make Peter weep freely; it follows that in order that this consequent be able to be removed, it is not necessary that the aforesaid antecedent, namely God’s knowledge concerning it, be able to be removed.

Add that, as D. Thom. well noted in the present discussion in the answer to the second, and indicates in 1. dist. 39. quaest. 1. art. 1. ad quartum, when the antecedent contains a word designating an act of the soul, the rule applies: whoever cannot remove the antecedent cannot remove the consequent, insofar as it depends on that antecedent; but he can indeed remove it absolutely. Hence, because in this antecedent, God knew Peter would weep, the word knew designates an act of the soul; therefore whoever cannot remove the aforesaid antecedent cannot remove the consequent, namely Peter will weep, insofar as it depends on that antecedent. But since it depends on it insofar as it is present in eternity, he cannot remove it insofar as it is present and from the supposition of presence; but he can remove it absolutely: and thus freedom remains. First, because necessity arising from the supposition of presence does not remove freedom. Then also, because the inability to remove that consequent insofar as it depends on the aforesaid antecedent, or insofar as it is inferred from it, means only an inability to remove it in the composite sense, that is, by composing, or causing, that God’s knowledge of that weeping and the non-occurrence of such a weeping should be simultaneous; not that, absolutely and simply, the aforesaid non-weeping cannot fail to be posited. Because, as we recently said, that antecedent, namely God’s knowledge, infers only that the non-weeping is not composed with the weeping, nor can be composed with it; but not that that non-weeping cannot be, but rather it infers its possibility.

23 To the second, the major must be conceded and the minor denied. And in answer to the proof, it must be said that the antecedent of that proposition, Socrates will run, if it is foreknown, is not truly concerning the past, although in its superficial appearance and according to its words it seems to concern the past, as D. Thom. most excellently noted in 1. sentent. dist. 39. art. 1. ad 1, saying: The act of divine knowledge never passes into the past, but is always present in act: and therefore always remains within the freedom of the divine will. For the same reason, speaking of predestination in de Veritate quaest. 6. art. 3. ad 10, he says: Absolutely speaking, God can predestine anyone or not predestine him, or have predestined him or not have predestined him; because the act of predestination, when measured by eternity, never falls into the past, just as it is never future. Hence it is always considered as proceeding from the will by way of freedom. Nevertheless, from the supposition this becomes impossible: for He cannot not predestine, supposing that He has predestined, or conversely. And in art. 4. ad 8 he asserts that the same must be understood of foreknowledge. Add that what we said concerning the second confirmation of the preceding argument sufficiently solves this second argument, as will be clear to the observer.

From what has been said, it is clear concerning the first confirmation how necessity of something, or of some premises, does not follow into the consequent except insofar as it depends on and is inferred from the antecedent; and how from those premises only this consequent follows, namely: Peter will run, if it is known by God to be true: not indeed by absolute necessity, but insofar as it depends on the antecedent, that is, as it is present in eternity, and by reason of that presence, and consequently only by a necessity arising from a supposition, which does not remove freedom.

Add (as D. Thom. well noted, de Verit. quaest. 2. art. 12 ad 4) that when it is said that everything known by God must be true, it can be understood in two ways: either as referring to the statement, or as referring to the thing itself. If it refers to the statement, then it is composite and true, and yields this meaning: that it is impossible for God to know something and for that thing not to be simultaneously. If, however, it refers to the thing itself, then it is divided and false, because it means that what is known by God is necessary and has necessary truth. This, as is clear, is openly false: for things known by God do not necessarily occur on that account. Hence, from that major posited in this confirmation and from the minor immediately subsumed under it, it follows only that what is necessarily true in the composite sense is that Peter will run, if it is known by God to be true, that is, that God’s knowledge of Peter’s running cannot be composed with Peter’s not running; but not in the divided sense. For freedom, it is enough that Peter can refrain from running in the divided sense, as we shall say in tract. 4. disp. 10. num. 84.

It is clear from what is to be said in tract. 4. disp. 7. num. 47 et deinceps concerning the second confirmation.

24 To the third, it is enough for knowledge that what is known through it be necessary by the necessity arising from the supposition of presence, according to that axiom: Everything which is, when it is, must be. But future contingents are attained by God insofar as they are present in eternity, as D. Thom. teaches in the present article and in disp. 8. num. 40, and as we shall say thereafter: where we shall also explain how, in absolutely future contingents, it amounts to the same thing to be seen in the decree and from the supposition of that decree, and to be seen as present in eternity: and consequently that it also amounts to the same thing to be necessary by a necessity arising from the supposition of presence and by a necessity arising from the supposition of the divine decree.

To the confirmation it is answered, with the same Angelic Doctor, de Veritat. quaest. 2. art. 12. ad 12, in these words: There are two means of cognition. One is the means of demonstration: and this must be proportioned to the conclusion, so that, when it is posited, the conclusion is posited; and such a means of cognition is not God with respect to contingents. The other means of cognition is the likeness of the thing known: and such a means of cognition is the divine essence; yet it is not adequate and proportioned to any one thing, though it is proper to each individual.

Add that the divine essence in itself is not a means of cognizing determinate future contingents, except insofar as it presupposes God’s free decree. Hence the means of cognition is not necessary, as it is opposed to freedom, but rather includes it.

25 Finally, the wisest Master Cornelio answers most excellently, 1. tom. in 1. part. tract. 1. circa quaest. 14. art. 13. disp. 1. dub. 2. num. 6, by denying the consequence. For although it is certain that God knows that it is future that you should repent your sins efficaciously, since God does not know this by excluding your diligence and solicitude, but by means of it, it clearly follows that your solicitude is not frustrated but is altogether required, so that what was foreknown to happen may happen by no other means than through it. A similar argument is also foolish in human affairs: Did God foreknow that I would take food today, or did He foreknow that I would not take it? If He foreknow that I will take it, there is no reason for me to be diligent, and I will not do what is within my power in order to take it, because it is certain. But if He foreknow that I will not take it, whatever I do, I will not take it, because God’s knowledge is infallible: therefore I would be idle; and there is no reason for me to care about taking food. The reason is the same. For although it is certain that you will take food, because it is foreknown by God, nevertheless, since God did not foreknow it except by means of your care and diligence freely applied, it is foolish for you not to apply it.

And certainly the same argument can be made, even if God were not foreknowing future things by an impossibility. For in fact and in reality, setting aside God’s foreknowledge, is this effect future, or is it not future? If it is future, then human diligence and care are importunate and superfluous, because it will be future even without them. But if it is not future, our diligence will be of no avail to make it occur, however efficaciously it may be exerted: therefore there is no reason for us to be solicitous and diligent concerning our affairs, but rather we should leave everything to fate and fortune. For that consequence is invalid and foolish: because from the supposition that such an effect is future, it does not follow that it is future except in dependence upon these means.

26 Once it has been explained whether there is divine knowledge about future contingents, or free absolutes, the mind is immediately prompted to inquire how God has knowledge of them. And so, in order to explain this exactly, both this difficulty and the following difficulties of this disputation are raised.

In this difficulty, however, we suppose something as certain, and we call something else into controversy. For we suppose, with St Thomas, in the present place and in the following question, as also De Veritate, q. 2, a. 7, ad 6, and q. 3, a. 6, and 1 Contra Gentes, c. 66 — whom Capreolus follows in 1 Dist. 38, q. 1, a. 2, on the arguments of Scotus, Cajetan, Zumel, Báñez, Nazarius, González, Ripa, and commonly his disciples, and many others — that God certainly knows absolute future contingents through his own essence and the divine ideas. Because the divine essence, insofar as it has the character of an intelligible species, and the divine ideas, insofar as they are exemplars of all creatures, are infinitely perfect as regards representing; and therefore each of these can, within its own genus, at least if it is determined by the decree of the divine will, represent any creature whatever, whether existing or future. And thus they will be able to serve the divine intellect, which operates after the manner of an artisan, with a view to the aforesaid knowledge. We call into controversy, however, whether the divine essence, insofar as it has the character of an intelligible species, and the divine ideas, have this function antecedent to the decree by which God determines that the aforesaid future contingents exist in some difference of time; and consequently whether divine knowledge certainly knows them through its own essence and the divine ideas antecedent to such a decree.

§ I. The affirmative opinion.

27 The affirmative part is held by Aegidius Romanus in 1 Dist. 38, q. 1, a. 2, in the body near the end, and q. 2, a. 1; by Henry of Corduba, reported in book 1 of the Questions, q. 55, dub. 8, who favours it; and St Bonaventure favours it in 1 Dist. 39, a. 2, q. 3. For this opinion Suarez, Molina, and others could be cited; but their positions, because they involve special difficulties, we shall propose in the following difficulties.

It is proved first, by the testimony of St Thomas in this article, where he says that God certainly knows future contingents, not only by that reason whereby he has present to himself the reasons of things, namely the ideas, but also because they themselves are present: therefore he holds that God knows the aforesaid future contingents through his own essence and the divine ideas; and not in just any way, but antecedent to his free decree. The consequence is evident. Because beyond that mode of knowing future contingents, or free things, insofar as they themselves are present, and consequently by reason of the decree, by which they coexist with God in eternity, he admits another, namely insofar as he has present to himself the reasons of all things, and consequently not by reason of the decree, or dependently upon it, but antecedent to it.

28 Second. Because the divine essence and the ideas, antecedent to the free decree, are infinite in representing; therefore in that prior state they will represent future contingents, and consequently antecedent to the decree God will be able certainly to know them through his own essence and the ideas. This last consequence is evident from the former. Because whatever is represented to God's intellect through the divine essence and the ideas antecedent to the divine decree can, in that prior state, be certainly known by him, as is clear inductively. The first consequence, however, follows from the antecedent. Both because otherwise the essence and the divine ideas would not be infinite in representing: for they would not extend to future contingents. And also because otherwise their representation would vary: since after the decree they would represent something which before they did not represent. The antecedent, however, is sufficiently clear. Because when the divine essence and the divine ideas are infinitely perfect within their own line, the former indeed as regards the character of an intelligible species, the latter as regards that of ideas, it follows that they must be infinite as regards representing: since being representable, although in a different way, belongs to the line of each of the two.

It is confirmed. Because no perfection can accrue to the essence or the divine ideas from the decree: therefore, since it is certain that after the decree they represent future contingents, it must also be certain that before it they represent those things and their truth; and consequently that God can have knowledge of the aforesaid future things through his own essence and the ideas in that prior state. The antecedent seems certain. For just as the free decree of itself brings no perfection — in that that perfection would be free, and consequently some perfection, which is in God and is God, could fail to be in him, and he would not be God — so neither can any perfection accrue from the decree to the essence and the divine ideas. The first consequence, however, follows from the antecedent. Because representing objects belongs to the perfection of the divine essence insofar as it has the character of an intelligible species, and of the ideas: therefore, if no perfection can accrue to it by reason of the decree, it follows that if after the decree it represents those things, they were also represented by it before the decree.

29 Third. Because the divine ideas, insofar as they most formally have the character of ideas and of exemplars, are nothing except with respect to future creatures: therefore in them — yet with the divine essence, which has the character of an intelligible species, as intermediary — God will be able, antecedent to the decree, to know absolute future contingents. The antecedent seems to be expressed by divine Thomas in the following question, a. 3, in the body and on the second. The consequence, however, is evident. Because an idea is a necessary form, and not a free one. Both because it is one of the divine attributes: for the divine attributes are perfections that necessarily belong to God. And also because it is not just any attribute, but an intellectual one, and pertaining to the intellect: for the intellectual attributes are of themselves prior to the attributes of the will, and much more so to the decrees proceeding from that same will: and consequently they do not depend upon them; nor do they have free being from them; therefore, if the idea, insofar as it is such, is with respect to future things, it will represent them after the manner of a natural form, and naturally before the divine decree: and consequently God will be able, in them, with the divine essence as intermediary, as an intelligible species, to know all future things before such a decree.

30 Fourth. Because if, impossibly, God were not freely willing future contingents, but they were by chance with respect to him, either because they would be produced by a secondary cause alone independently of the first, or because they would be made by another God, nevertheless he would have knowledge of them: therefore it is a sign that the knowledge God has of future contingents does not depend upon his free decree, but that he is able to know them in his essence and the divine ideas antecedent to such a decree. The consequence seems certain. The antecedent, however, is proved. Because, the aforesaid impossibility being granted, the divine knowledge would still be infinite, and so could not fail to terminate upon those future contingents: for they would have a truth that can be known, and consequently one attainable by a knowledge of infinite perfection, such as the knowledge of God would then be.

§ II. According to the mind of St Thomas the knot of the difficulty is untied.

31 It must nevertheless be said that God cannot know absolute future contingents through his essence (insofar as it has the character of an intelligible species) and the ideas antecedent to the free and efficacious decree of his will, existing in it. Thus St Thomas, De Veritate, q. 3, a. 6, in these words: An idea can be of that which neither is, nor will be, nor was; yet not in the same way as that of those things which are, or were, or will be: because for those things which are, or were, or will be to be produced, [the idea] is determined from the purpose of the divine will; but not for those things which are not, nor will be, nor were. And thus they have, in a certain sense, undetermined ideas. Where, as you see, according to the mind of the Angelic Doctor, the divine ideas do not represent determinately future contingents unless they are determined by the purpose, or efficacious decree, of the divine will; and consequently they cannot be certainly and determinately known by divine knowledge before such a purpose: and since the divine essence, insofar as with respect to creatures it has the character of an intelligible species, is co-measured with itself, as it is the object, or the idea, as the holy Doctor often teaches, it follows that, according to his mind, that same essence, insofar as it has the character of an intelligible species, does not represent determinately the aforesaid future things before the aforesaid purpose and efficacious decree of the divine will.

The holy Doctor teaches the same thing also in 1 Dist. 39, q. 1, a. 2, ad 1. Where, speaking of the knowledge of future things, he says: Just as the act of knowing itself is subject to the freedom of the will, so also the idea, according as the act of divine knowledge terminates upon it, is like the knowledge of the artisan with respect to the form of the thing he devises; and therefore there is the same reasoning about the idea and about the act of knowing. For just as it cannot be maintained that the act of knowing is in a thing and that it was not [there], so it cannot be asserted that the idea is in a thing and was not [there]; yet with respect to both, freedom of the will can be asserted. Where, as you see, both the knowledge of future things and their ideas are said to be subject to the freedom of the divine will, and consequently neither will knowledge terminate upon the aforesaid future things, nor will the ideas in any way certainly represent what is known, except with subjection and (so to speak) dependently upon the free and efficacious decree of divine liberty.

And at length he indicates this very point in 1 Dist. 36, q. 2, a. 13, and often elsewhere.

Hence the holy Doctor is followed by Capreolus in 1 Dist. 38, q. 1, a. 2; by Cajetan in the present place, § ad secundum autem, et reliqua negatur antecedens, quod est radix omnium [on the second, then, the antecedent is denied in the remainder, which is the root of all], and q. 15, a. 3; by Zumel, tom. 3 of the Opuscula, fol. 24, § ex dictis colligo [from what has been said I gather]; by Báñez on this article; by Gaspar Ramus, relectio 2 on the infallibility of the divine cognition about absolute future things, assertio 4, fol. 39; by Alvarez, De auxiliis divinae gratiae, disp. 14, and in his replies to the objections against the agreement of free choice with divine foreknowledge, ch. 1, 2 and 5; by Henriquez, Ult. lib. de fine hominis, ch. 4, num. 2; by Ledesma, lib. 2, De auxiliis, disp. 2, in the second part of it; by Guillielmus Estius in 1, disp. 41, § 7; by Leonardus Coquaeus, Doctor of Paris, at the place cited below in disp. 10, dub. 8, num. 128, by reference; by Nazarius, controversia 1 and 2; by González, disp. 43, 44 and 45; by Ripa in this article; by Corneius in the present place, disp. 2, dub. 1; and commonly by the disciples of St Thomas and very many others, whom we shall refer to below in disp. 10, from num. 126 to 131.

32 The fundamental reason of this assertion has been touched on by St Thomas in the places cited, and can be reduced to this form. Since the essence of God, insofar as it has the character of an intelligible species, or of an idea, and the reasons of things, does not represent creatures, or future contingents, as they actually exist and are in act in some difference of time, unless they are determined by the purpose of the divine will: therefore God will not be able to know through them future contingents antecedent to the aforesaid decree. The consequence is evident. Because nothing can be known by God through them unless it be represented by them: therefore, if in that prior state, before they are determined by the efficacious decree of the divine will, they do not represent future contingents, as existing in act in some difference of time, neither will divine knowledge be able to terminate upon the aforesaid future things in that prior state. The antecedent, however, is likewise evident. Because the divine essence, insofar as it has the character of an intelligible species, or insofar as it is the idea and the reasons of things, before it is determined by the purpose of the divine will, represents absolutely, naturally and necessarily: since whatever is in God before every free determination of his will is absolutely necessary, so that it can neither now nor ever have been otherwise: therefore that representation can be only with respect to necessary objects, which can neither now nor ever have been otherwise: and consequently future contingents will not be able to be represented through it, which do not have necessary being, but can be otherwise.

33 It is confirmed by a reason drawn from St Thomas in the places cited, disp. 7, num. 96 and following, and disp. 8, num. 12, of this treatise. Because future contingents, antecedent to the decree of the divine will, do not have the character of future things: therefore antecedent to that decree they cannot be represented as future through the essence or the divine ideas: and consequently neither can they be certainly attained, as such, by divine knowledge. This last consequence is evident from the former. Hence St Augustine, book 1 of De Anima et eius origine, c. 12: Foreknowledge itself (he says) is utterly emptied, if that which is foreknown is not to be: for how is that said to be foreknown as future which is not future? Which is also taught in the book De praedestinatione Sanctorum, c. 4. The first consequence, however, follows from the antecedent. For as antecedent to the divine power nothing can be represented as possible, because all possible things have such being from it, as from the first source and root of their possibility, so too, because all future contingents have the character of future things from the decree of the divine will, as from the first source and root of their futurition (though this was explained elsewhere above), they therefore cannot be represented as future antecedent to the aforesaid decree.

The antecedent, however, is proved. Because no created thing has, from its own nature and from its own termini, to exist in some difference of time. For to exist in this way is proper to the divine essence alone: of which it is the very concept that it is to exist. Nor, then, can any created thing transfer itself into the state of futurition; for as long as it is under the status of possibility, nothing is in itself: and so it cannot exercise any causality towards itself. And finally, although it may have some other secondary cause of its futurition, yet in order to be future in the thing itself, and completely, that effect must be reduced to the first cause: therefore, since the first cause is not understood to cause before the act of its will — since God is a free agent ad extra — it follows that no future thing, and consequently no future contingent, has its futurition before the decree of the divine will.

We have said that the free decree of God is the first root of the futurition of creatures — though this was explained elsewhere, in order that these matters might cohere better with what was asserted above in disp. 5 of this treatise, num. 43 and following. For although, as we showed there, the immediately executive power is the practical knowledge of God, yet this knowledge, insofar as it actually influences with a view to the future production of some creature, presupposes a free intention and application of the divine will towards that future thing, on account of which the knowledge of God is applied to the aforesaid production of it; wherefore the futurition of any created effect is attributed to the free decree of the divine will, as to the first source and principle, not indeed immediately executive, but initiatory of that futurition.

§ III. A multiplicity of answers to the opponents, and their refutation.

34 In a number of ways one could answer this reasoning from the opinion of the opponents. First, indeed, for the purpose that future things be freely represented as present on the part of the object through the essence of God and the ideas, the objective truth which they have antecedent to the decree is sufficient. But we shall say more about this answer below in this disputation, dub. 6.

Secondly, one could proceed in another way, both against the reason and against its confirmation. Against the reason, indeed, [one could] establish that before the purpose of the divine will future contingents cannot be represented, as future, through the divine essence or the ideas: yet not before the aforesaid purpose, as formally existing in God. Because it is enough that such a purpose, or decree, should have existence in the following instant, for this, that dependently upon it, and by an order towards it, the aforesaid future things may be freely represented: so that if in the following instant God has the decree of creating the world, or that some free action be exercised by the created will, then in the preceding instant the world is represented, through the divine essence and its ideas, as future, or that free action as future. If, however, in the same instant God has decreed not to create the world, or that that free action is not to be exercised, then in the preceding instant these two are represented as future.

35 Against the confirmation, however, one could also proceed from the aforesaid doctrine: that it is enough, for this, that absolute and created future contingents have future being antecedent to the decree of the divine will as exercised, and consequently that they can be represented as future, that in that prior state the decree by which in the following instant God would determine their futurition should be future. For from the very fact that the decree of creating the world is future in that instant, the world cannot fail to have something more than the character of the possible: since the possibility of that decree was already enough for this; and since that which is immediately added to possibility with a view to being can be nothing else than futurition, it follows that the world is said to be future in that instant dependently upon the futurition of the aforesaid decree.

But although this answer will remain sufficiently refuted by what we shall set out in the following difficulty, num. 48 and following, showing that the free decree of God can neither have the character of the future, nor, in that instant, before God is understood to determine, that is, before the first act of his free will, be certainly represented or known through the divine essence; nevertheless it can be refuted for the present briefly, though effectively. Because a future contingent has the character of the future from the divine will, as from the efficient cause of that futurition. Both because this follows from what has been said. And also because a thing has from that same efficient cause both that it be future and that it exist in act and in exercise: and nothing created exists unless through the decree of the divine will: therefore it is repugnant for a future contingent in that prior state to have the character of the future while its efficient cause, namely the divine decree, does not exist in the same instant: and consequently, before such a decree exists in God, no creature will be able to be represented through the divine essence or the ideas as future.

This last consequence is evident from what has been said, and from the former. The first, however, is also evident. Both because the efficient cause is here distinguished from the formal or material cause, since these do not demand of the force of their own line, indispensably and necessarily, that they exist, in order to cause; whereas the efficient cause, as the Complutensians explain in Phys., disp. 3, num. 62, does: and hence it is commonly said by the philosophers that an efficient cause does not cause except according as it is in act. And also because for this reason a present effect cannot be produced by the Antichrist, or by any other created cause that is future immediately: because the Antichrist, or that future thing, does not exist.

36 It is confirmed and explained. Because from the fact that possible creatures have the character of possible things from the divine omnipotence, as from a cause, or reason a priori of their possibility, it follows that they cannot be possible until omnipotence has its actual essence: and so in that prior state, before omnipotence is understood, possible creatures are not yet understood in the character of possible things: therefore, from the very fact that the free decree of God is the first source and origin of the futurition of creatures, they will not be able to have their futurition before the aforesaid decree has its actual being: otherwise the effect in act, that is, that futurition, would not presuppose its cause in act.

From which, too, a certain evasion remains refuted, advanced by some of the junior men, namely this: that from the force of the futurition of the decree, which is to be posited in the following instant, it follows at least that that which, by means of it, is to have existence should at least have the futurition of its futurition in the preceding instant, in which such a decree is said to be future. For as the futurition of the effect proceeds from the decree, as from an existing thing, so the futurition of that futurition proceeds from the same decree, as from a future thing: for, as was said in the preceding answer, from the fact that the decree of the production of the world is not only possible, but future, the world does not have precisely being possible, but moreover something else, and a greater approach to existence, than those things which are purely possible: and since it does not have existence, or futurition, it cannot have anything else by which it might approach existence more closely, except only that of its own futurition, as will be evident to one who considers it. This, however, will be enough for this, that that thing be represented through the divine essence and the ideas as destined to have futurition, which is manifest of itself; nay, as future: because in that futurition of its futurition it has a sufficient determination to this end, that it be known to be future immediately.

From what has been said, therefore, this evasion remains sufficiently refuted. Because from those premises it is sufficiently established that this futurition of a futurition is impossible; for this futurition of a futurition must be reduced to God, as to the first efficient cause of it, and consequently to the divine decree: therefore, since an efficient cause cannot cause until it exists, and from the very fact that the aforesaid decree exists the thing defined by it already determinately has being future, it follows that the aforesaid decree can never cause the futurition of a futurition, but the being future of future things; and consequently that the possible must be immediately joined with its futurition or non-futurition: and consequently that no thing has the futurition of its own futurition.

37 Nor does it make any difference, if, to nearly everything that we have said so far, one answers that a thing's being future is not some effect existing in the nature of things: and so it is not necessary that an efficient cause be assigned to it, which is supposed to exist with a view to the aforesaid effect.

It makes no difference, then, in this respect: for although we granted that the aforesaid effect does not require an efficient cause, it nevertheless cannot fail to require a formal cause extrinsic to the future thing, and intrinsic to another, which is presupposed to exist. And the reason is plain. For although the being future is not some being real intrinsic belonging intrinsically to the future thing, according as it has being in itself, yet it is a true and real extrinsic denomination coming to it from the free act of the divine will, as was proved in num. 33: therefore it is repugnant for the aforesaid extrinsic denomination to belong truly and really to it, unless the divine decree about its futurition, by which it is truly and really denominated future, should actually exist. Just as it would be repugnant for a thing seen to be denominated extrinsically, truly and really in the same way, unless from a vision which truly, really, and actually existed.

38 Secondly, it is false that a thing's being future does not depend upon the decree of God, as upon the first efficient cause of its futurition. Of this a twofold account can be given. The first, indeed. Because every truth which is not such by essence, and hence is not God himself, must be such by participation: and consequently, if there be a truth determined to a free thing, and one which could have been otherwise, it must be such by means of the free divine will: on account of which effects are determined indifferently to being and not being, and have a determined truth, from the fact that the will itself is the first indifferent, and the first thing that determines itself.

The second, however. Because as the possibility of creatures, insofar as it is an effect external to the divine power, and a real denomination from it, as proceeding from an extrinsic formal cause, must arise from that same omnipotence, as from the first efficient cause of that possibility, so being future, which is an effect external [to it], and an extrinsic denomination, proceeding from the free decree of God, as from an extrinsic formal cause, must proceed from that same decree, as from the first efficient [cause].

39 This second reason, too, can be explained: from the fact that as when a form, which by the mode of an extrinsic formal cause, in the manner explained above, gives to some effect its existence dependently upon another, as upon an efficient cause, then that which is the efficient cause of the form, as of that which denominates, also causes efficiently the effect that arises from the extrinsic denomination, and from that which is denominated (as is clear in the extrinsic denominations visible and seen. For from the fact that the denomination of being visible proceeds from the visive power, as from an extrinsic formal cause, hence the efficient cause of the visive power is also the efficient cause of the aforesaid denomination and of the effect. And likewise, because to be seen is a denomination and an effect external to the vision, therefore the sight that causes the vision efficiently is also the cause of the aforesaid effect just mentioned), so a form which independently of another, as of an efficient cause, gives to some extrinsic effect its existence by the mode of an extrinsic formal cause, is also the first efficient cause of that effect: because to every effect that has a true extrinsic formal cause there must correspond an efficient cause of it; which in the aforesaid event can be none other than that same extrinsic formal cause: for indeed, as we suppose, it gives its effect independently of another, as of an efficient cause. Hence God, precisely insofar as he is omnipotent, without any other thing being needed for this on his part, is the true efficient cause of the possibility of creatures, which coalesces from the non-repugnance on their part and from that real extrinsic denomination which proceeds from that same omnipotence: because the being possible of creatures demands no other causality, action, or passion. And likewise, precisely from this, that he freely wills the futurition of some thing, by reason of that decree he is the true efficient cause of the aforesaid futurition, which arises from that extrinsic denomination and from the presupposed possibility. Nor does it in the least stand in the way of this efficient causality that the form which denominates extrinsically be uncreated: for God can indeed be the efficient cause of the total effect, which coalesces from the form and from the matter underlying it, without being the cause of the form, or of that extrinsic denomination, insofar as this is what is meant by the formal [cause]. Just as the eternal Father can be the productive principle of the divine Word without producing the divine essence, which is the formal terminus of that production. And likewise God is the efficient cause of Christ the Lord, who coalesces from the personality of the Word and from humanity, and yet he cannot be the cause of the personality.

§ IV. He meets the arguments of the first opinion head-on.

40 To the first it is to be answered that the sense of that testimony of St Thomas is only this, that God does not know future contingents only as they are represented in the divine ideas, insofar as these are the reasons of things — that is, as they represent those things according to their essence, or according to their possible being — but also because his intuition is carried above them, as they are in act and exist in exercise

in the now of eternity. That this is indeed the mind of St Thomas is clear from what follows. Because it is familiar with him that by the ideas, insofar as they are the reasons of things, he understands those very ideas, insofar as they precisely influence towards the knowledge of the essences of possible things.

41 To the second, the antecedent being granted, both consequences must be denied. And with respect to the first proof of the former, upon which the latter rests, the sequence must be denied. Because for the infinity of that representation it is enough that they represent all contingents: for as antecedent to the decree of God about their futurition they do not have future being, so neither can they be represented as future antecedent to it. With respect to the second proof, however, the sequence must be denied, if we are to speak properly and in strictness. Because variation of representation, taken properly, denotes that there was previously a representation of something, and that afterwards it ceased to be: which, however, cannot be found in the divine essence or in the ideas measured by eternity. Nevertheless, granting this much, that the divine essence, when the decree is added, represents a future contingent which before it did not represent: not indeed from a defect of its own, but from a defect of the object, which, for that prior state, just as it did not have the character of the future, so neither had it the being representable as future: and so, from the very fact that in the following instant it has the character of the future, it will be represented as such by the divine essence and the ideas without any variation of theirs.

With respect to the confirmation, the antecedent being granted, the consequence must be denied; and with respect to the proof, the antecedent must also be granted and the consequence denied. Because the fact that the divine essence and the ideas do not represent future contingents before the decree does not arise from a defect of perfection, but from a defect of the object, which requires, for its own futurition and consequently for this, that it be represented, that the aforesaid decree precede: and consequently the same thing arises from a defect of determination, of that perfection which pre-existed in the divine essence. For that perfection was indifferent as to representing the futurition or non-futurition of a contingent thing, according to the prescription of the divine will. And so, from the very fact that the aforesaid decree of futurition is added, the futurition is represented: just as if, in its place, a decree of non-futurition were added, then the non-futurition of the same thing would be represented. How, however, the free decree of God does or does not signify a perfection, and how, from the fact that some decree is present or absent in God, no intrinsic variation is inferred in God himself, will be explained more fully in the treatise on the Will of God, a. 3.

42 To the third it is to be answered that the ideas can be taken, besides other acceptions, in a twofold way: that is, either in the first act, that is, insofar as they are precisely practical principles within their own line, with a power of concurring towards the production of creatures, or in the second act, that is, insofar as they actually influence together with the decree and the practical knowledge of God, with a view to the actual production of those same creatures: and though they are considered in the second way, they are then only with respect to future things. Now on this second consideration they presuppose the efficacious decree of the divine will, although on the first consideration they do not presuppose it: but they represent things only as possible. Hence, in the form of the argument, the antecedent concerning the ideas taken in the second act being granted, the consequence must be denied. And with respect to the proof, the antecedent concerning those same ideas in the second act must be denied. Because although the idea is an intellectual attribute, yet insofar as in the second act it influences together with knowledge and will, with a view to the actual production of creatures, it can, no less than knowledge itself, quasi depend upon the actual decree, insofar as it influences only as determined by the divine decree: from the fact that God, as he is an agent ad extra, must operate freely.

43 To the fourth it is to be said that, that impossibility being granted, God would not know such a future thing: because in that event it would not be contained in his essence, as in a cause. And so he would not be able to know it in that, as in a known mean: and consequently he could not in any way attain it, lest, if he knew it otherwise, he should receive his knowledge from things, that is, from the future thing itself. Which, indeed, is repugnant to the perfection of the divine intellect, as is sufficiently clear from what has been said above.

44 The decision on this difficulty has been reached in the preceding question; and therefore, so that what was hinted at there may be explained more fully, we at once start a new question immediately after the preceding one.

§ I. The prior opinion is proposed.

The affirmative part is held by Suarez, lib. 2. de scientia Dei, cap. 8. num. 6 and 11; by Fonseca, 3. tom. of his Metaph., lib. 6. cap. 2. quaest. 4. sect. 10. § Sed quaerat aliquis; and is favoured by Cabrera, 3. part. quaest. 1. art. 3. num. 393.

It is proved, first. For God, in that signum of reason, before he is understood to have a free decree, comprehends his own essence and will: therefore he knows what his will will be willing in the following sign: therefore in those future decrees he will certainly know future contingent things. This last consequence is evident from the first. Because it does not stand that God should certainly know a decree concerning the futurity of some thing, unless he should know that very thing to be future in the same way. The first consequence, on the other hand, seems clear from the antecedent. Since that very knowledge is comprehensive, it must be most perfect in every respect; and consequently it must extend to every truth: therefore through it will be known what the divine will will be willing in the following sign concerning the production, for example, of this world, or of another. The antecedent, however, is proved. For from that knowledge, according to what belongs to it in the aforesaid sign, the divine Word proceeds: since it is prior that it should proceed than that there should be a decree concerning the production of creatures: therefore such a knowledge is comprehensive of that which is prior: otherwise the Word would not proceed from the comprehension of the essence, and consequently not from the most perfect knowledge of it.

It is confirmed and explained from the difference that obtains between the comprehension by which an Angel comprehends himself and his own will, and the comprehension of the divine essence and attributes. For since the former is not infinitely perfect, there is no need that it extend itself to the free acts of that same Angel: because they have no necessary connexion with him. But since the comprehension of the divine essence is a knowledge infinitely perfect, it follows that, although on that ground the free decrees have no necessary connexion with the essence, they yet ought not to be known in that prior instant, in which they precede themselves as existing; but on the other hand by that ground on which the aforesaid knowledge is asked for, to the end that it be comprehensive, to the effect that it be infinitely perfect: and consequently it demands that it extend itself to every truth, whether present or future, etc.

45 Second. Because the free decrees of God in that sign, in which the knowledge of God precedes the decrees themselves, are not understood to be actually present in themselves, but only future: therefore they are known by God as future: therefore in themselves, when known, future contingent things are also known, which are decided by them. This last consequence plainly seems to follow from the first. The first, however, follows from the antecedent. Because whatever has some mode of being, whether of possibility, or of futurity, or of presence, must, for some prior reason, also be known by God for that same reason: otherwise his knowledge would not be infinitely perfect: for there would be something knowable to which it would not extend. The antecedent, however, as regards the first part, seems certain. For since they follow upon the knowledge of God, by which they are directed, and are posterior in the collation compared with it, and consequently are in the following sign, it must be that in that sign in which the knowledge precedes them, they are not understood to be present in themselves. From this too the same antecedent is clear as regards the second part. For since in the following sign they are to have existence, although for the preceding sign they do not have it, they cannot but be future in that same preceding sign: since of everything which is not in some sign and is thereafter to have existence, it is rightly predicated in time, or in the preceding sign, that it is future.

46 Third, this very thing is proved, and at the same time the preceding argument is confirmed. For in that sign in which God precedes his own free decrees, for example, the decree of creating this universe, this proposition is false: God will not decree in the following sign to create this universe: and its contradictory, namely, God will decree in the following sign to create this universe, is true: therefore the aforesaid decree will have in the preceding sign the character of a future decree: and consequently in that same sign, known by God, the creation of this universe will also be known. This last consequence is sufficiently clear from itself and from what has already been said.

The first consequence, however, is clear from the antecedent. Because that proposition could not be true in the preceding sign, namely, God will decree in the following sign to create this universe, unless the decree were future in that same preceding sign. Since it is the same for a thing to be future in some preceding sign, and to be what it will be in the following sign, either as to duration or otherwise. The antecedent, however, as regards the first part is sufficiently clear. For since in the following sign God will have decreed to create this universe, that proposition could not but be false, God will not decree in the following sign to create this universe. From this too the same antecedent is proved as regards the second part. Both because from two contradictories, whenever the one is false, the other must be true. And also because, since in the following sign God will have the aforesaid decree, it follows that that enunciation which affirms this very thing must be true.

47 And this very thing can be confirmed and explained. For this disjunctive proposition, namely, The decree of creating the world will be, or will not be, in the following sign, cannot but be true for every preceding sign: therefore this too, God will have in the following sign the decree of creating the world, will be true in the same way. The antecedent seems certain from that principle known by the light of nature, namely: that either being or not being of anything whatever must necessarily affirm one part of the contradiction. The consequence, however, is proved. For the truth of a disjunctive proposition depends on the truth of one of its parts: therefore since the other part of the aforesaid proposition, namely, God will not have in the following sign the decree of creating the world, is false, because it is certain by faith that he had it, that other proposition, namely, God will have in the following sign the decree of creating the world, must be true.

§ II. The true opinion of the Angelic Doctor, and its first foundation.

48 It must nevertheless be said that the divine decrees do not have the character of future things: and consequently that God does not certainly know future contingent things in the aforesaid decrees, as future. Thus the Angelic Doctor, de Veritate, quaest. 6. art. 3. ad 10, where, speaking of predestination that includes, or connotes, the proposal of the divine will, says: Speaking absolutely, God can predestinate each one, or not predestinate him: and can have predestinated him, or not have predestinated him — because the act of predestination, when measured by eternity, never falls into the past: just as it is never future. Whence it is always considered as issuing from the will by the mode of liberty. In which words, as you can see, the character of pastness, or of futurity, is denied to predestination that concerns the proposal of the efficacious will of God; and only the character of presentiality is granted to it: and consequently in it, or in its future decree, future contingent things will not be able to be known, according to the mind of the Holy Doctor.

Which the same Holy Preceptor also taught: both where, close by, art. 4. ad 8; and in 1. sent. dist. 39. quaest. 1. art. 1. ad 1, where, speaking of the knowledge of vision, which concerns the decree of the will, he says: The act of the divine knowledge never passes into the past; but it is always in act: and therefore it always remains in the liberty of the divine will; and thereafter it can no longer be future: since what can be future can also pass into the past in the same proportional way. Then afterwards, in this same article and below, quaest. 88. art. 3 and 4, and 1. cont. Gent. cap. 67; as likewise de Verit. quaest. 2. art. 12, and quodlib. 12. quaest. 3; and finally in all the other places in which he teaches that future contingent things cannot be certainly known by God, such as they are in their indifferent causes. For if the free decrees of God are future, and as such are certainly known by God, they would have to be known in their (so to speak) cause, or in the will of God, as free and indifferent, quasi in the first act, and from the comprehension of it, as the opposite opinion teaches, as will become plain from what is said immediately below.

Whence the Holy Doctor is commonly followed by his disciples, Capreolus, in 1. dist. 38. quaest. 1; Cajetan, Bannez, and Ripa in the present place; Ledesma, lib. de auxiliis divinae gratiae, disp. 2. de scientia futurorum conting. dub. 6, in the 2nd difficulty of it, fol. 585; Nazarius, in the present controversy, 1. conclus. 5; Gonzalez, disp. 45. sect. 5; Gaspar Ramon, relectione 3. de infallibilitate scientiae divinae circa conditionaliter futura, fol. 59. columna 2; Machin, quaest. 14. art. 13; disput. 27. sect. 1; Petrus de Corneio, tom. 1. in 1. part. tract. 1. circa quaest. 14. art. 13. disp. 2. dub. 2; Alvarez, lib. de auxiliis divinae gratiae, disput. 7, and lib. 1. responsionum, cap. 1. num. 12; the most learned Lord Alfonsus Curiel, in certain manuscripts on the third part, quaest. 11. art. 1, which in the last year of his life we took down at his dictation. And from the Fathers of the Society, Arrubal in the commentaries on this article, disput. 47. cap. 4. num. 13; Vazquez in this 1. part. disp. 65. cap. 4; Molina, disp. 17; Granado, tract. 4. disp. 1. sect. 3. num. 15; Herice, tomo 1. in 1. part. disp. 7. cap. 9; and finally many others, whom we shall mention in disput. 10. from num. 126 as far as num. 131, against conditional knowledge.

49 The prior and fundamental reason of this assertion, however, was touched upon by St. Thomas in the place cited, in the question de Verit.; and he also hints at it in this article, and it can be proposed under this form. Because the free acts of God are measured by eternity, which is their own and adequate measure: therefore it is repugnant for them to have the character of future things: and consequently it will also be repugnant that in them, so known by God after the manner of future things, the future contingent things that are decided by them should be certainly known, or known as future. The antecedent needs no proof: for the aforesaid acts, being uncreated, must endure with an uncreated duration, as being their own proper measure; and it is clear that there is no other uncreated duration than eternity. The first consequence, however, seems clear from the antecedent. Because just as it is of the character of eternity that it be a single now always present, because it is an infinite duration, comprehending on both the before and the after side, and virtually containing every other duration and every sign of durations; so it is of the character of that which is measured by eternity that it be always, and in whatever sign be present, and never have the character of a future thing. From this too the second consequence is sufficiently clear. Because that which in no way has the character of a future thing cannot by any means be certainly known by God as future: otherwise the divine knowledge would err: and consequently neither in that known sign will future contingent things be able to be known.

50 It is confirmed and explained by a reason taken from the same Holy Doctor. For that which is eternal with uncreated eternity cannot pass into the past, otherwise it would not be eternal, since that which passes into the past, quatenus it is such, still contains as much as it does of every time as it is of itself, and its opposite is what the thing that has the character of the eternal seeks: therefore neither will it be able to be future. The consequence is evident. Then, because that which is future can pass into the past. Then also: because by the same reasoning it would not be eternal: since by that very fact, that it would be future, it would already, according to its actual being of essence, not be present to every duration and to all its signs.

It is confirmed and explained, second, by a reason which the same Holy Doctor hints at. Because it is repugnant for a thing to be immense, and not to be present, so far as it is of itself, to all and every place, and to their indivisibles taken in any way; and likewise for a thing to be infinite in the ratio, for example, of light, or of cognitive power, and not to embrace actually in some sign every knowable in that same sign, as is clear from itself: therefore it will also be repugnant for a thing to be eternal with uncreated eternity, and not to be actually present, at least so far as it is of itself, to any other lasting thing, or to anything able to last, or not to embrace actually any conceivable created duration, or any of its signs. The consequence is evident. Because uncreated duration, and that which lasts by it, as by its own proper measure, is no less infinite in the ratio of duration, or of a lasting thing, than immensity, or uncreated cognitive power within its own bounds: therefore just as, by reason of the infinity in the ratio of the immense, or in the ratio of cognitive power, God cannot but, so far as he is of himself, be present to every place, and to every indivisible of it; and likewise cannot but extend himself actually in every sign to every knowable in it, so that which will be infinite in the ratio of duration must actually be present to every other duration, and to every sign of duration, and must actually embrace any created duration, and any of its signs: and consequently it will not be able to be future: because what is future cannot, according to this reasoning, be actually present to any other duration, or to any sign of duration, as is clear from the very terms.

§ III. Objections against the first foundation of St. Thomas, and their solution.

51 This reasoning, however, of St. Thomas does not please Francisco Suarez; and so against it, first, he objects. For although the decree of God is eternal in itself, and actually present, nevertheless it can be known quasi independently of its actual presence, which is indeed explained most excellently by this hypothesis. Namely, that if, by an impossibility, that decree were not eternal, but God were to have it in the following time; nevertheless he would always have known that his will would, so to speak, elicit the aforesaid decree: therefore also, if it is now eternal, it will be knowable after the manner of a future thing, and independently of the actual presence: because this alone is denoted by the statement that a thing is known beforehand, by reason, as future.

52 Second. For although the divine free decree is measured by eternity, as by a measure proportionate to itself, nevertheless by reason we understand first that God knows his will, insofar as it is capable of freely willing, than that he is actually willing this or that object: therefore likewise he will be able, notwithstanding that the will and the divine willing are eternal, by reason to perceive it first as one that will will, than as one actually willing. The consequence is evident. Then, from the parity of the reasoning. Then also: because the indivisibility and infinitude of the instant of eternity is repugnant to any division of diverse real signs, and to its not actually embracing them; but it is not repugnant to a division of diverse signs, or of instants, by reason: therefore, just as for this reason God can, by reason, before he knows his actual decree, know his will as being able to will, notwithstanding that each of the two is measured by eternity, so for the same reason he will also be able, by reason, before he attains to the aforesaid decree as actually possessed, to attain to it as one that is to be possessed, or as future.

53 It is confirmed and explained, first. Because the fact that the free decree of God is eternal is no obstacle to its being known as possible; otherwise it could not be: therefore it is likewise no obstacle to its being future, and to its being known as such by God. The consequence is evident. Because possible is more distant from actual being and from presence than future is: therefore if the decree to be eternal does not remove that greater distance, neither will it remove this lesser one; but both are compatible with eternity, provided that all these are found in the same real instant.

It is confirmed and explained, second. For if an Angel were created by God from eternity, loving him freely, then the aforesaid Angelic love could be known by God, not only as present, but also as future, that is, as one that in that subsequent sign is to have existence: because in fact in that sign following upon the essence of the Angel he will have it: therefore the fact that the decree of God is eternal will be no obstacle to our philosophising about it, after the same proportional manner: since that decree is to have existence, as it were dependently upon the divine will, and consequently in the posterior sign following upon it.

54 Third, the same reasoning can be objected to. For eternity, by reason, belongs to the divine essence and its necessary perfections before it belongs to free decrees: therefore in that prior respect the free decrees are not understood to be actually lasting, notwithstanding that in fact, and correspondingly with respect to a real instant of true or imaginary time, they always last. The antecedent seems certain. Both because eternity belongs necessarily to necessary perfections, whereas it belongs to free decrees only freely; for it is clear that what is necessary is prior and more intrinsic than what is free. Then also: because by reason God is omnipotent, for example, before he freely wills the creation of the world: since the willing to create the world supposes his omnipotence. The consequence, however, is clear from the antecedent. Because in that prior respect in which eternity is understood to belong first to necessary perfections, it is not understood to belong to free decrees: since these exist only in the subsequent posterior respect, therefore in that prior antecedent respect the aforesaid decrees are not understood to be actually lasting.

It is confirmed. Because here we are enquiring not about formal futurity, but only about fundamental futurity with respect to our intellect, which considers the distinct signs with a foundation in the thing, one indeed of futurity, the other of existence, whether, namely, we rightly understand with a foundation that these two signs are given with respect to the divine decree? and that God in that prior sign of futurity certainly knows the decree before he perceives it as existing? But for this it is enough that being and eternity belong to the free decrees later than to the attributes, because by that very fact in that prior antecedent respect we can understand that God knows that in the posterior sign the aforesaid decrees will be, although they are not in that prior one: therefore, and so on.

55 Fourth, at length, it can be objected. Because, notwithstanding that the free decrees are eternal, nevertheless they can be compared after the manner of intention and of election, and therefore we say that there is in God an intention of an end and an election of means: therefore by that very fact one decree will have to be future by reason of another. The consequence is evident, because election of its own nature has the character of a future thing by reason of the intention; and an efficacious intention of an end infers an efficacious futurity of the means.

56 But these do not press very hard. Whence, to the first of these objections, the antecedent is to be denied, understood of the decree with respect to the one that knows it quiddatively, and insofar as it is in itself, as it occurs in God. Wherefore that conditional brought forward in this first objection is false, as will be more clear from what is said in dub. 6.

57 To the second, the antecedent is to be denied if it is understood of the priority of reason in which, and with a foundation in the thing: otherwise, however, if it is understood either of the priority of reason from which, both on the part of knowledge and on the part of the object, whether that priority be virtual or eminent, or of the priority of reason in which without a foundation in the thing, and precisely on the part of our mode of conceiving. And then the consequent must in like manner be distinguished, and the consequence concerning the priority of reason from which already stated is to be granted, but not that concerning the priority of reason in which. And for the first proof of that same consequence it is clear from what has been said that a parity is preserved between the antecedent and the consequent. For the second proof, however, it must be said that although the division of diverse signs by reason, which do not have among themselves an order of priority and posteriority in which according to reason, but only from which, is no obstacle to the indivisibility and infinitude of eternity, and of the eternal thing, nevertheless the division of the aforesaid signs, if they do have among themselves an order of priority and posteriority in which still according to reason with a foundation in the thing, that is to say, although it is no obstacle to the indivisibility and infinitude of eternity, and of the eternal thing, that something measured by it should depend, or as it were depend according to reason, yet with a foundation in things, on something existing in God and also measured by eternity, whether this quasi-dependence be virtual or only eminent: and consequently that a priority and posteriority from which according to reason, founded however in things, is not repugnant to the character of the eternal thing: since this quasi-dependence founds, so far as it is of itself, such an order of prior and posterior. Yet it is an obstacle to the indivisibility and infinitude of eternity, and of the eternal thing, that with a foundation in the thing it can be conceived in some sign as not existing: because by that very fact it will not be infinite in the ratio of the lasting, as was shown above. And so although it can be conceived with a foundation in the thing as it were depending on another, nevertheless if it is then conceived as it ought to be conceived, it must be understood to be one with the other, and always to exist together with it, and in every sign.

58 This is explained. For although by priority of reason in which we understand first that God knows his will, insofar as it has the power to will freely, than that he is actually willing this or that object, this priority is nevertheless only a priority in which of reason without a foundation in the thing, and holding only on the part of our mode of conceiving and of signifying. For since the knowledge which God has of his will and of free willing is the knowledge of a thing such as it is in itself, and consequently the knowledge of the existing thing for every sign of reason in which founded in things, from the fact that it is the knowledge of the will and of the willing, having eternity as its own proper measure, it must be that the divine knowledge attains to this very thing: and it cannot conceive with a foundation in the thing that his will is prior, by priority of reason in which already stated, than his free willing: and consequently this object cannot furnish us with a foundation for this, that, still according to reason, we may first conceive in which the will as having the power to will, rather than as actually willing. Although willing does in some way depend, or as it were depend, upon the will, so that the knowledge of the will is prior from which, whether virtually or eminently, both on the part of the knowledge itself and on the part of the object, to the knowledge of the free willing.

59 We have said, whether virtual or eminent, in order to abstract from that question, namely, whether the knowledge of God, insofar as it terminates on the divine will, is virtually distinguished from itself, insofar as it terminates on free willing? or whether the same knowledge by the reason of its eminence, and without any virtual distinction, terminates on both? from the fact that although it is equivalent to diverse created acts of knowing, nevertheless these do not belong to a distinct line, which was nevertheless required for a virtual distinction of the divine knowledge: and likewise whether free willing and the divine will are virtually distinguished, or not? For if the necessary knowledge of God of his will, and the free knowledge of free willing, are virtually distinguished, then on the part of knowledge there will be a priority from which, whether virtual, or with a foundation in the thing, between them; otherwise, however, if they are not distinguished in this way. For then there will only be an eminent priority, that is, a certain eminence equivalent to diverse created acts of knowing, which have among themselves a priority from which, yet which belong to the same line. Just as if free willing and the will of God are virtually distinguished from each other, then on the part of the object of the divine knowledge there will be a priority from which, virtual, between the will and the aforesaid willing; otherwise, however, if there is not such a distinction, but only an eminence, by reason of which it is equivalent to things belonging to the same line; for then there will only be, in the sense explained, an eminent priority on the part of the object. Yet a priority in which, even according to the fundamental reason in things, must never be admitted there. Because the aforesaid division of signs in which, according to reason, removes the infinitude of eternity, and of the lasting thing as measured by it, as was explained above. And therefore St. Thomas, in the place cited, speaking of predestination, and of the mode of conceiving which predestination itself demands and founds, said: That it is always considered as issuing from the will by the mode of liberty: and consequently not as one that has issued, or is to issue, but by the mode of a present thing: which presupposes nothing else, by the mode of a prior thing, by priority in which, already stated.

60 Nor is there an obstacle, if one presses the point, that the divine Word does not proceed from the knowledge of the free acts of God, as St. Thomas and his disciples teach in common, and as we shall say more fully in the treatise on the Trinity: therefore, in that sign of reason in which the eternal Father is understood to comprehend himself and the divine essence, he does not know the aforesaid acts. The consequence is evident. Because if in that sign of reason he knew those acts, there would be no reason why the Word should not proceed from the knowledge of them, and consequently from the knowledge of future creatures, as it proceeds from the knowledge of the divine essence and of its attributes, as well as of possible creatures, from the fact that all these things are known together in that prior instant.

It makes no difference, then. Because, the antecedent being granted, the consequence is to be denied. And for the proof, the antecedent is to be denied. Because, since the divine Word is a being necessary in every respect, it requires two things on the part of the knowledge from which it proceeds. First indeed, that such a knowledge be in the same sign in which the aforesaid Word is understood to proceed; otherwise it could not proceed from that knowledge. Second, however, that it be of an altogether necessary object, and not of a free one; and consequently that it be a knowledge simply necessary: which indeed is lacking to the divine knowledge, insofar as it terminates on the free acts of God himself. And so the aforesaid acts, and their knowledge, are there concomitantly in the same sign in which, still according to reason: not indeed on account of the procession of the Word, but because although they could have not existed, yet, supposing that they do exist, they must be measured by eternity: and consequently in every sign in which, with a foundation in the thing, they must be present.

61 To the first confirmation, the antecedent is to be denied, understood of possibility properly, and taken in the strict sense. For that confirmation requires that what is called possible be an effect of the divine power, having its own true cause, which yet does not in the least belong to the free acts, which are identified with God. Otherwise, however, if it is understood of possibility, insofar as it only says that what is possible does not oppose its being, whether it has its own true cause, or only a reason a priori, or finally whether it is of itself without dependence, or quasi-dependence, on another, whether as on a cause or as on a reason a priori. And therefore the divine essence, by the very fact that it exists of itself, and independently of another, as of a cause, or as of a reason a priori, must be something that does not oppose its being of itself.

Add, moreover, that this confirmation also does not convince the intention, from another head. Because over and above the fact that the antecedent is false, the consequence must also be denied. And for the proof of the consequence, insofar as it can be brought in some way against what has been said, it will be answered that although possibility properly, and taken in the strict sense, is further removed, according to the common laws, from actuality of being than the future is, insofar as the future does not pass to being except by means of futurity; nevertheless by the divine power it is not necessary for it to be so, suppose that some Angel were created by God from eternity: because then he would pass immediately from possibility to being, not by means of futurity, as we have said elsewhere. And likewise things which are not properly possible, since the divine attributes are possible, that is, not involving that they be, and along with this not repugning, have immediately the actual being of existence, without its being preceded by, or serving as a mean to, futurity. But between the futurity of a thing and the actual being of existence there must intervene either some real duration, if this futurity is formally such, or some sign of reason in which with a foundation in the thing, if such a futurity is feigned to be only virtual; each of which is at variance with what is eternal, as has been said.

62 By this too it is sufficiently clear, both as regards the second confirmation. Because the antecedent is false, and its proof only convinces as to posteriority from which: not, however, in which, even according to reason with a foundation in the thing. Then also as regards the third objection. Because the antecedent is true only of a priority from which: and therefore the consequence must be denied. Because it is argued from a priority from which according to reason, to a priority in which, even according to reason, but founded however in things. That mode of arguing is of no value; nor does its proof convince of anything other than a priority from which. Then afterwards as regards the confirmation of that same third objection. Because even granting the major, the minor is to be denied, understood of a priority from which. And for the proof it must be said that, supposing that fundamental futurity were granted, it was required that the free act, as future, should precede by some sign in which of reason, itself as actually present; the opposite of which we have said occurs.

63 To the fourth, the antecedent being granted, the consequence is to be denied. And for the proof, the antecedent is to be denied, understood universally. Because for the character of the election of the means it is enough that it be posterior in posteriority from which to the intention: it is not, however, necessary that it be posterior in posteriority in which than the intention; and so both the intention and the election are from eternity in God, and each has being from eternity present; in such a way that neither precedes the other by priority in which with a foundation in the thing; but only the election has being posterior in posteriority from which, whether virtual or eminent, to the intention.

§ IV. The second foundation in favour of the opinion of St. Thomas is examined.

64 The second, and principal, foundation of the assertion is hinted at by the same Angelic Doctor in the place cited above, and can be proposed under this form: for if the free decrees of the divine will have the character of future things, then in that sign in which they are understood beforehand as future the will of God will be determined to have in the following sign those decrees which are future, and not to have those which are not future: therefore by that very fact the liberty of the divine will would be wounded. Wherefore, since this cannot be admitted, as is clear from itself, it follows that the aforesaid decrees neither have the character of future things, nor can be known by God as such. The antecedent seems clear. Because that which is future, by the very fact that it is such, has a determination to be; just as that which is not precisely possible, but moreover has being not-future, must by that very fact have a determination not to be, as will be more fully clear from itself and from what is said in the tract. de Volunt. Dei, disp. 5. dub. 3: therefore if some of these divine free decrees are future, and others are not, the consequence will be that the will of God, in that preceding sign in which it is presupposed with respect to all its decrees, will be understood beforehand to be determined to have those which in that sign are future, and not to have those which are not future.

The first consequence, however, is clear from the antecedent. Because since this determination of the divine will is presupposed with respect to all its free decrees, there must be a prior determination, and one that simply necessitates, and that removes liberty: since whatever belongs to God before every free act of his will belongs to him necessarily, and without liberty. And therefore, because the knowledge of the divine essence, and of possible creatures, as well as the love with which God loves himself, belong to him before every free determination of his will, these things all therefore belong to him altogether necessarily, and God himself by the prior determination is determined to have them.

65 It is confirmed. Because by the very fact that God certainly knows towards which part his will is to be inclined, before the free election of it is given, such a knowledge must be independent of the aforesaid election, or free decree, both as to its substance and as to its mode: since that which is prior does not depend on the posterior: therefore the divine intellect, having the aforesaid certain and infallible knowledge, would not propose to his will indeterminately and indifferently either part, but only the one, namely, in which he would know that his will was to be determined: and consequently the will would not remain with sufficient formal indifference for choosing either part, but only for that which has been proposed to it by the intellect. This last consequence plainly follows from the first. Because formal indifference cannot be given on the part of the will unless radical indifference is given on the part of the intellect: from the fact that it proposes either part indifferently and indeterminately. The first consequence, however, is clear from the antecedent. Because there cannot be present in the divine intellect at the same time an infallible knowledge of the future election of the one part, and a judgement by which it moves and directs itself, with indifference on its own part, towards choosing whichever of them.

66 The adversaries raise objections, both against this reasoning and against its confirmation. To the reasoning indeed, that although the determination which belongs to the divine will before every decree existing in it, and which does not arise at the same time from the supposition of the futurity of those decrees, is indeed a prior determination, and one that removes liberty, as one may see in the examples brought forward in this reasoning, it is not, however, a determination that arises from the presence of the decree, or from its futurity, as occurs in the present case: because this is only a determination from the supposition of futurity, which does not remove liberty, just as neither does the supposition of presentiality.

From this they answer, to the confirmation, that as Christ the Lord knew through his blessed knowledge what his will was infallibly going to will: and likewise St. Peter knew from the revelation of Christ that his triple denial was infallibly future, and nevertheless neither the liberty of Christ nor of St. Peter was wounded, either on the part of the intellect or on the part of the will itself; so, although God foreknows the infallibility of the futurity of his decree, for example, of creating the world, his liberty will not on that account remain wounded. And the reason is the same in both cases. Because these things are not foreknown as future except in the same way in which they are future, that is, freely: and it is prior that they have the aforesaid free futurity than that they be seen. Whence from the fact that they are foreknown to be freely future, so far is it from liberty and consequent indifference of judgement being removed, that rather the aforesaid liberty is gathered from this.

67 But against it. For in this solution there seems to be involved a plain entanglement; namely, that the divine will is only determined to have the decree, for example, concerning the creation of the world, from the supposition of its futurity, and consequently that there is only (so to speak) infallibility with regard to it, and not necessity simply: and on the other side, that this necessity is a necessity simply, and from the intrinsic nature of the will itself, and not from any consequent supposition. Since, however, the former is sufficiently clear from the aforesaid solution, therefore we shall show the latter in this way.

Now, that which is, namely, that the divine will in that prior instant before the decree of creating the world is determined to have it, in such a way that in the composite sense of this determination it cannot have the opposite act, cannot proceed from the supposition of the presentiality of such a decree, nor from the supposition of its futurity: therefore it is a sign that it proceeds from the determination, and from the absolute necessity, of the divine will; but not from a necessity secundum quid, and from a supposition; and consequently, by the very fact that the aforesaid decree is foreknown as future, it will not be foreknown as only infallibly, and freely, but as necessarily, and with all-determination, both on the part of the intellect and of the divine will, to be future.

This last consequence is plainly clear from the first. The first, however, is clear from the antecedent. Because every determination of any will which does not arise from some supposition of a divine decree, whether present or at least future, is altogether prior, and removes liberty: since the indifferent principle, as such, is not of itself determined infallibly towards one part rather than another being had, unless some supposition be superadded, which, in the present case, as is clear to one considering it, can be nothing other than either the presentiality of the divine decree, or its futurity. The antecedent, however, as regards the first part is clear. Because according to the opposite opinion, in that prior instant that decree does not have the character of a present thing, but only of a future one: therefore the divine will cannot be understood beforehand to be determined from the supposition of the decree, as present.

68 As regards the second part, however, the same antecedent is proved. Because that which is, namely, that the divine will in that prior instant is determined freely to will the creation of this world, is some real reason, existing in act there, and in exercise, and bearing itself after the manner of an affection of the will itself; and so by reason of it the will has, so to speak, in act and in exercise, a peculiar (so to say) habituation towards this universe, which it does not have towards another universe, since by reason of this determination it regards, as it were, this universe after the manner of a future thing, but not another: therefore such a determination demands in God some reason a priori, from which, actively or quasi-actively, it proceeds: therefore it will be repugnant for the reason a priori of the aforesaid determination to be the futurity of that same decree.

This last consequence is evident. Because that which is an active, or quasi-active, reason a priori of another must, in that prior instant in which it quasi-causes, be existing, and present by true and real existence, or at least must have the being of an actual essence, such as the being of an actual essence is distinguished from the being of a future essence, as is clear by induction: but the future, as such, does not exist, nor has its own being of an actual essence, such as the being of an actual essence is distinguished from the being of a future essence: therefore, insofar as it is such, that actual and existing-in-nature determination by which the divine will is understood beforehand to be determined to the futurity of this decree rather than of another cannot proceed, in such a way that in the composite sense it cannot have the opposite decree.

69 It is confirmed and explained. Because according to this mode of speaking, not only is that attributed to the divine will which all theologians in common teach, namely, that it is indifferent as to this, that it should terminate on this object rather than on that; and that for this indifference it is enough for it that in act it have that termination, or that exercise of its will rather than the other; but moreover it is attributed to it that before the actual termination, or volition, it is determined to will this, for example, the creation of this world rather than another: therefore since this determination cannot proceed from the supposition of the futurity of such a decree, as has been shown, it must arise from elsewhere, namely, from the nature of the will itself: therefore by that very fact the will will not remain indifferent to either, but will be altogether necessitated.

The antecedent as regards the first part is evident. As regards the second, however, it is also clear. Because by the very fact that the decree concerning the creation of the world is infallibly future, the divine will cannot but have that in the composite sense: and consequently it cannot but have some determination to have it. The first consequence, however, is clear from the antecedent and from what has already been said. The second, moreover, is evident as well. Because that which is indifferent to either, such that so far as it is of itself it can be composed with either, cannot of itself precisely be more determined infallibly towards having one part rather than another: therefore if the divine will is of itself determined infallibly to have the decree concerning the creation of the world, it cannot remain with indifference, and with liberty, as regards not having it.

70 This very thing is finally confirmed and explained. Because this supposition, and determination of futurity, if it is true and is not feigned altogether, cannot belong to the divine decree according to the being which it has in that prior instant in itself: therefore it must belong to it according to the being which it has in its principle, or quasi-principle, namely, in the divine will: therefore the aforesaid will will be of itself determined to the futurity of that decree; and will in no way be indifferent. The antecedent is evident: because that which is future, as long as it is future, does not have being in itself. The first consequence, however, is clear from the antecedent. Because any determination, true and not feigned altogether, must belong to a thing according to some true and real being which it has, since a determination is the mode of a thing; and consequently a true determination, and not feigned altogether, must be the mode of a thing according to its true and real being: therefore since a thing can have being only in itself, or in its principle, or quasi-principle, it must correspond to it according to the mode of being it has by one of these: and consequently according to that which belongs to it as it is in its quasi-principle, if once it cannot correspond to it according to the being which it has in itself, as occurs in the present case.

From this too the second consequence is sufficiently clear. Because the decree, as it is in the divine will as it were in its principle (so to speak) quasi-elicitively of it, says only as much as that same will according to what it has of itself and intrinsically: therefore if, as it is there, it has a determination to be, it follows that the divine will is of itself determined to quasi-elicit that, so to speak (as we say); and consequently that it is not of itself indifferent to either; nor can, so far as it is of itself, be composed with any decree whose opposite is required for liberty. And so that is obtained which we said at the beginning of this refutation, namely, that on the one hand this determination is from the supposition of futurity, as the aforesaid solution hinted; and on the other hand that it is a determination simply, and arising from the nature of the will itself. But on this confirmation we shall return below in this same disputation, num. 115 as far as num. 122, where it will be treated more fully, and the solutions which will be brought forward in its favour will be refuted.

71 Nor does that which this solution brought forward in its own favour concerning Christ the Lord, and blessed Peter, help it, but rather hinders. Because the fact that the free acts, for example, of Christ the Lord and of St. Peter, were infallibly future, had its origin in the supposition of the divine decree actually existing in God; the effect of which was to make them infallibly, and freely, future. Because the aforesaid decree, by the very fact that it is actually in God, is the first root, and efficient cause, of the free futurity of the thing which, by it, is decreed to be done freely. And so such a futurity, and the determination to it, did not have its origin in a determination proceeding from the nature of the created will alone, but from the aforesaid supposition: and consequently it could be compatible with the innate and intrinsic indifference, and liberty, of that will (which was the same, in due proportion, when the triple denial of St. Peter is compared with the permissive, yet efficacious, decree which God had concerning it, as we have said). Just as, for the opposite reason, no determination to the infallible futurity of any decree can be compatible with the divine liberty: since, as has been shown, there is no source from which the aforesaid determination could arise, except from the nature of the will itself, and consequently except if its own indifference is removed.

§ V. An answer is given to the foundations of the prior opinion.

72 To the first, the suppositum of the antecedent is to be denied, which is hinted at there, namely, that there is some sign of reason in which God comprehends his essence, and does not understand, or have, his free decrees. Because these signs of reason in which ought not to be distinguished with respect to the divine intellect, which knows itself such as it is in itself, and by a single and the same most simple intuition measured by eternity, touching all things; indeed, nor even with a foundation in God himself, ought the aforesaid signs be distinguished with respect to our intellect, when it comes to know the mode by which God comprehends himself, as has been shown. Although between the aforesaid comprehension and the free decree there is its priority from which already stated.

Whence the first consequence is to be denied, understood properly and formally. Because from that antecedent, in the sense explained, it follows only that God knows what his will then wills; but not what it will be willing in the following sign in which. Because for this a multiplicity of signs in which according to reason with respect to the divine intellect would be required, and consequently that that volition should have the character of a future thing. For the other point, however, it is enough that in that prior in which it have being present, and that that volition which God in fact had be understood as present; although it is posterior in posteriority precisely from which to the comprehensive knowledge of God. And for the proof of that same consequence it is clear from what has been said that the antecedent, and the first consequence, are to be granted, but the second to be denied; since it is not true that God in the following sign in which, still according to reason, is going to will anything, but only that in that same sign in which he wills in the present. And so from the fact that that knowledge is comprehensive, and most perfect, it does not follow that through it what the divine will will be willing in the following sign is to be known. Wherefore that is false which is hinted at in the proof of the antecedent of this argument, namely, that the divine Word proceeds from the knowledge of God, such as in some sign in which, still according to reason, is presupposed with respect to free decrees, as was touched upon above in this difficulty.

By this too it is sufficiently clear as regards the confirmation. Because we do not deny that the comprehensive knowledge of God extends to his free acts, but that it extends to them as future: from the fact that they do not have the character of future things. Whether, however, the aforesaid comprehensive knowledge ought to attain to them precisely because it is comprehensive, and because this is required by the character of the divine comprehension, or for some other reason? That is another question, which little serves the solution of this confirmation.

73 To the second, the antecedent is to be denied, and for the proof, as regards the first part, it is clear from what has been said that free decrees do not follow upon the knowledge of God by a succession of posteriority in which, still according to reason, but only by the posteriority from which already explained. And so in that sign in which they are understood to be present in themselves together with the divine knowledge. By this too, as regards the second part of the proof of that same antecedent, it is clear that those decrees are to be denied, as being to have existence in the following sign, and as not having it with respect to the preceding sign: because there is no priority in which, still according to reason with a foundation in the thing, between things which are measured by eternity, as by their own proper measure.

74 To the third, the suppositum of the antecedent is to be denied, if it is understood of a sign of reason in which, so that God in the aforesaid sign precedes his decrees. If, however, it is understood of a sign of reason from which, then the suppositum of the antecedent being granted, the antecedent itself is to be denied, if the discourse is (as it is in the present difficulty) about the truth determined in that sign, in relation to the divine intellect (for we shall speak more fully, in dub. 6. of this disputation, of its truth in relation to our intellect, or of the objective truth in any way). The reason, however, for which the aforesaid antecedent is denied, is clear from what has been said. Because when the verb he will decree, or he will not decree, signifies something about the future, and the act of the divine will, by which God is determined, is present to him in every sign in which, still according to reason, from the fact that it is measured by eternity, and consequently with respect to the divine intellect is never future, it must be that with respect to that same intellect that proposition about the future, God will decree, is always false; and that its contradictory, namely, God will not decree in the future, is always true. As for the proof of the antecedent, it is clear from what has been said.

As regards the confirmation, let the antecedent pass, and let the consequence be denied. And for the proof, let the antecedent also pass for the present, but the consequence must be denied. Because in it that other proposition is supposed, namely, God will not have in the following sign the decree of creating the world, to be false; whereas it is true, if it is understood (as it ought to be understood) in relation to the divine intellect, of which we are speaking: since, as we said a little while ago, the free act of God, both according to the thing and according to its own character, or according to its own mode of being conceived, is always present to him, and never future. And so in relation to the aforesaid intellect it will always be falsely enunciated that the decree of creating the world will be in the following sign: and it will always be truly enunciated that it will not be in the following sign, because it always is, and in whatever sign it is.

75 With respect to the heading of the chapter, it should be noted that, precisely because the discussion in it concerns divine knowledge before the decree of his will, we are not speaking here of the secondary causes as determined and completed by efficacious premotion and predetermination to do what is called the future. For, since this predetermination — whose possibility or necessity in the present instant we do not discuss, so that in every respect we may comply with the decree of our most holy Lord Paul V — were the effect of the efficacious decree of the divine will, and consequently posterior to it, it is certain that when we speak of the knowledge of future contingents in the comprehension of the secondary causes, antecedent to the divine decree, such a premotion, or a secondary cause as completed by it, cannot be understood under the name of the aforesaid causes; but only the secondary causes themselves, taken in themselves, and according to the other conditions prerequisite for acting.

Having consulted the heading, however, we have hinted that the discussion there concerns absolute future contingents, in some way dependent on created freedom, so as to make it clear that the discussion is either about free acts, which are elicited by the will, or about other effects which can be freely commanded or impeded by it.

§ I. The prior opinion is proposed.

76 The affirmative part is held by Durandus in 1. dist. 38. quaest. 3. num. 9. Thom. de Argentina in 2. dist. 40. art. 1. in so far as they say that God knows free future contingents in their proximate causes, not indeed taken bare, but as applied here and now, with this judgement, this object, this inclination, and these circumstances; although these authors speak confusedly, not determining, or counting among the circumstances and determinations, the decree of the divine will and efficacious premotion. The same opinion was taught more clearly by Molina in the present disputation, disp. 14. concl. 1. ratione 2. and disp. 2. § according to that, therefore, whom Martinus Becanus follows in tomo 1. summae Theologicae cap. 10. quaest. 9.

It is proved first. Since the angel knows conjecturally, and very probably, the aforesaid future in the comprehension of the created will, and of the remaining causes and of the circumstances that occur; therefore God will attain to those things certainly and infallibly, precisely because he comprehends them all. The antecedent is evident in itself, and is commonly received among theologians. The consequence, however, is proved. For since the knowledge by which God comprehends the proximate causes and the circumstances occurring, which are prerequisite to the production of these future contingents, is infinitely more perfect than the knowledge by which the angel comprehends all these things, the consequence is that if the angel's knowledge with respect to the aforesaid future things is only within the limits of very probable knowledge, then divine knowledge will extend beyond the limits of probable knowledge, and will reach the point of being a certain and infallible knowledge of the same things.

It is confirmed, and explained. Since the angel's knowledge with respect to the secondary causes and to the circumstances concurring with the coming-to-be of the aforesaid contingents is only a comprehension, and not a supercomprehension; whereas the knowledge of God supercomprehends all the aforesaid things; therefore, just as by the angelic knowledge comprehending the aforesaid causes with their circumstances, any future contingents proceeding from them are known under the character of possibles, so too by the supercomprehension of God, which infinitely exceeds this comprehension, the aforesaid future things will be attained under the character of future things. The consequence is evident. Since through a supercomprehension infinitely exceeding a given cause, more must be known of it than through comprehension alone; therefore, if through the latter the cause itself is attained, according to its essence, as well as all the possible effects contained in it, those same future effects of it cannot fail to be known also through supercomprehension: since nothing else remains besides these effects which could be attained by this knowledge and not be attained by pure comprehension.

77 Second. For as a natural effect has its dependence from a natural cause, so a free and contingent effect has it from a free and contingent cause; therefore, just as precisely because God comprehends a natural cause, he cannot fail to know with certainty a naturally future effect, even though that cause can be impeded from without and naturally, so too, by comprehending a free and contingent cause, he will know with certainty a free and contingent effect future from it. The antecedent needs no proof. The consequence, however, also stands. For as the natural effect will infallibly proceed from the natural cause, if it is not impeded, so too the contingent and free effect will infallibly proceed from a contingent and free cause, if it is not impeded in the same proportional manner.

§ II. The opinion of St Thomas is more acceptable.

78 It must nevertheless be said that God does not know with certainty the aforesaid future things in the comprehension of the proximate causes and of the circumstances occurring, antecedent to the divine decree. Thus D. Thom., De Malo, q. 16, a. 7, in these words: Some future things are in their causes in a threefold way. In one way only according to potency: namely, those which can equally well be or not be, and these are called contingents to either side. But some are in their causes not only according to potency, but according to the active cause, which cannot be impeded in its effect: and these are said to happen by necessity. But some are in their causes both according to potency and according to the relation of the active cause: which nevertheless can be impeded in its effect: and these are said to happen for the most part. Since, however, each thing is known according as it is in act, and not according as it is in potency, as is said in 9. Metaphys.; it follows that those things which are to either side cannot be foreknown in their causes determinately, but under a disjunction, namely that they will be or will not be: for thus they have truth. Those, however, which are in their causes as proceeding from them by necessity, can be known with certainty in their causes. Those, however, which happen for the most part, can be known in their causes not by an altogether certain knowledge, but by a certain conjectural knowledge. The same distinction is laid down in 1. sententiarum dist. 38. quaest. 1. art. 5, where he says: It must be understood, therefore, that before a thing is, it has no being except in its causes; but some causes are those from which the effect necessarily follows, which cannot be impeded, and in these causes the caused being is certain and determinate: so far indeed that it can be known there demonstratively, as the rising of the sun, and an eclipse, and the like. But some are causes from which effects follow in the greater part, yet fail in the smaller part. Whence in these causes the future effects do not have absolute certainty, but a certain degree of it, insofar as the causes are more determined to one thing than to another: and therefore from these causes a conjectural knowledge of the future can be taken, which will be so much the more certain as the causes are more determined to one thing; as is the physician's knowledge of the future health, and death, and the astrologer's judgement about future winds and rains. But some causes are such that they bear on both alternatives, and in these causes future effects have no certainty or determination at all; and therefore contingents to either side can in no way be known in their causes. The same author taught also in this article, in these words: In another way the contingent can be considered as it is in its cause; and thus it is considered as future, and as a contingent not yet determined to one thing; because a contingent cause bears on opposites. And thus a contingent is not subjected by certainty to any knowledge. Whence whoever knows a contingent effect only in its cause has nothing of it except a conjectural knowledge. And finally the holy Doctor maintains this very point in 1. contra Gentes, cap. 66. and 67. and in this 1. part. qaest. 57. art. 4. and qaest. 86. art. 4. as also in 2. 2. quaest. 171. art. 6. ad 2. and elsewhere often.

Whence the holy Doctor is followed by Capreolus in 1. distinct. 38. quaestione 1. art. 2. conclusione 1. Ferrara 1. contra Gent. capit. 66. Caietanus in praesenti § as to the second, Bannez, Nazarius, Gonzalez, Ripa, Machin. ad praesentem articulum, Gaspar Ram. relectione 2. de praescientia futurorum absolutorum, Scotus, and Okamus with his followers in 1. distinct. 38. quaest. 1. Curiel lib. 2. controvers. disputat. 4. a num. 134. Alvarez lib. 1. Responsionum cap. 5. Ledesma lib. de auxiliis disputat. 2. affin. de scientia futurorum contingent. dub. 2. Corneio tomo 1. in 1. part. tract. 1. circa quaest. 14. art. 3. disp. 2. dub. 3. Arrubal in praesenti disput. 42. Herice tract. 1. disput. 6. cap. 2. num. 14. et 30. where he also reports the whole school of the Society as holding this opinion, except Molina and Martinus Becanus. And finally our Complutensian college, lib. 2. Perihermen. a num. 6. usque in finem.

79 The fundamental reason, however, for this assertion is drawn from the aforesaid places of D. Thom., and can be proposed in the following form. Since a free cause, however much it is united with all the circumstances and dispositions antecedent to the free decree of God, always remains indifferent to either side; therefore from the force of its comprehension a future contingent cannot be known with certainty and determinately, nor can that which is to be elicited from it, namely that such is the free act of the cause itself, or, depending on it, is to be produced immediately or proximately by other secondary causes. We suppose the antecedent to be certain, and it is commonly admitted by philosophers and theologians; otherwise the aforesaid future things would not be the future contingents of which we are speaking; since they would not depend on a free cause as such. The consequence, however, as to the first part, is proved. Since in a cause indifferent to either side, for example toward loving or not loving, or toward hating, from the force of its comprehension it cannot be known with certainty that he will infallibly and determinately love, and will not hate. Just as in a cause determined toward one part, namely toward love, it cannot be known with certainty that he will love indifferently and indeterminately, or will not love; but that he will love determinately.

From this, also, the same consequence stands as to the second part. Since the fact that a future contingent is to be produced immediately, or proximately, by other causes, means that it also depends on a free will which is indifferent to either side, it cannot be known with any greater certainty from this head, through the force of the comprehension of the aforesaid will, than free future contingents, which are immediately elicited from the same will; therefore, just as these cannot be known with certainty from the force of the comprehension of the will, so neither will those be able certainly to be attained through the force of the comprehension of their causes, from which they are immediately produced, and of that same will, on which they also depend.

80 It makes no difference if, along with Molina, you say that it is rightly proved from this reasoning that the aforesaid future contingents are not known by the force of the comprehension of the secondary causes alone; but not, however, by the force of supercomprehension. Since, as was hinted at num. 76, supercomprehension of causes extends by reason of its own eminence to all effects, even future ones, just as comprehension does to possibles.

It makes no difference, then, for this solution collapses from the mere extension of the reasoning already made. For an effect cannot be known in its causes, and by the force of the supercomprehension of them, except in the manner in which it is contained in them: but future contingents, taken precisely together with their secondary causes antecedent to the divine decree, are not contained in them as determinedly future, but as indifferent to this, that they be or not be; therefore from the force of the aforesaid supercomprehension they will not be able to be known as determinedly future, but as indifferent to this, that they have or have not being. The consequence seems clear. The minor, too, is evident. Since, as we were just saying, a cause indifferent to either side, and not more determined to love infallibly, for example, than to hate, cannot contain as determinedly and infallibly future love rather than hatred: and so love cannot be contained in it, thus taken, as determinedly and infallibly future, but as indifferently and indeterminately future. The major, too, stands. For however much a cause be supercomprehended, that cannot be elicited from it which is not contained in it; and therefore, however much a plant be comprehended, from it, taken precisely, the possibility of a horse or a lion cannot be known, from the fact that these are not pre-indicated in it; therefore, if a future contingent, as determinedly and infallibly future, is not contained in its proximate causes, taken precisely and in the sense already stated, but only as indifferently, and as determinedly future, or as it is indifferent to this, that it be or not be, it will not be able, through the force of such a supercomprehension, to be known as determinedly and infallibly future, but only as indifferent to this, that it have or not have being: otherwise such a supercomprehension would not only not have the character of such a one, but would not even have the character of a comprehension of a cause: since it would not attain the causes, nor their effects, in the manner in which they are in them.

81 It is confirmed, and explained, first. For either this supercomprehension means an excess of perfection on the part of the knower alone, and not on the part of the thing known, over pure comprehension; or it means an excess of perfection over that on the part of the thing known itself, such that supercomprehension extends to something which holds on the part of the thing known and is knowable in it, to which comprehension does not extend? If the first is said, then this supercomprehension will not be distinguished from comprehension in this, that supercomprehension attains something of the comprehended thing, or something contained in it, which comprehension does not attain; but only in this, that it comprehends it with a clearer and more perfect manner on its own part than the comprehended thing demands; whereas this other supercomprehension does not: otherwise, as is evident from the terms themselves, the aforesaid excess would not be on the part of the knower alone, but also on the part of the thing known. But the second cannot be said: otherwise the created will could be comprehended by God alone: since for comprehension it is required that nothing of the comprehended thing escape the knower, that is, that neither the thing itself, nor anything of it, nor finally anything contained in it and knowable in it escape the comprehender, as is evident from what has been said in the tract. de Visione Dei. And so, if the determined futurity of the free act of the human will escapes the created intellect, which is not able to know in the will itself what it will determinately will, when nevertheless this is knowable in it and is manifested only to the divine intellect, the consequence will be that the aforesaid will could be comprehended by the intellect of God alone.

82 It is confirmed, and explained, second. Since this infinite excess of supercomprehension is not required on the part of the thing known itself toward its most perfect comprehension, but only on the part of the knower; therefore nothing further will be known of the comprehended thing through it than would be known through pure comprehension: and consequently, if future contingents cannot be known through it by the force of the comprehension of their causes, taken in the manner stated, neither can they be known through supercomprehension. The antecedent seems clear. Because the divine intellect comprehends most perfectly the essence of God on the part of the thing comprehended, otherwise he would not be as great on the part of the knower as the divine essence is on the part of the knowable; and yet he does not supercomprehend it, nor exceed it on the part of himself.

The first consequence, however, from which the second plainly follows, also stands. Since precisely because the aforesaid excess is not required on the part of the comprehended thing toward the most perfect comprehension, it is a sign that it is on the part of itself, in the character of the knowable, equal to the comprehension which does not have the aforesaid excess; so that it is not further knowable from itself, nor is there any mode, or formality, or content in it which is not attained by pure and most perfect comprehension: and hence nothing further will be known of the things contained in it through any supercomprehension than would be known through pure comprehension: otherwise comprehension would not be equal to it as regards the knowability which it has on its own part, that is, as regards all the things which are contained in it in the character of the knowable.

83 There is added, in support of the greater refutation of this solution adduced by Molina, the point that it does not fit together with what the same Molina teaches. Namely, that God in the comprehension of his will does not know its free determinations: and yet in the comprehension of the created will he knows the free acts which are to be elicited from it. Now it is clear that these two things do not fit together. First, because although God supercomprehends the created will, but not his own will; yet the former, as supercomprehended, is not known more perfectly than the divine will as merely comprehended; otherwise, speaking absolutely and simply, the created will would be known more perfectly by God — which is the more remote object — than the divine will, which is the more proximate object, and more immediate to the divine essence, which, as is clear, is plainly false; therefore, if that knowledge, as terminated to the divine will, and as being its comprehension, cannot certainly attain its free decrees within it, neither will it be able certainly to attain, as terminated to the created will, and as being its supercomprehension, the free future acts of that same will; or, if it can be certainly terminated to the former, it can to the latter as well.

The consequence is evident. Because to know or not to know anything which is contained in some way in a cause belongs to the perfection of knowledge: and so, if the knowledge terminated to the divine will and to the created will is of the same perfection as the comprehension of the one and the supercomprehension of the other, the consequence will be that if through its force, as supercomprehension, the free acts of the created will are certainly attained, then the free decrees of the divine will will also be known with certainty through its force, as comprehension.

84 Then too: since precisely because the determination of God's will is not known, the determination cannot be known in the created will as being, in the cause, the future determination of that will itself; therefore, if God, before his own free determination, does not fail to know with certainty that same determination, neither will he be able to attain the determination of the created will. The consequence seems clear. The antecedent, however, is also evident. Since the created will cannot determine itself, or be the cause of its own determination, without the determination of the divine will; especially so, because its determination proceeds from the determination of God's will: and so the aforesaid determination of the created will will not be able to be known from the force of the knowledge of that same will, as being the cause of it, unless the determination of the divine will be known.

This same proof is confirmed, and explained. For as often as an effect has a dependence per se from two causes, it is necessary, in order that it be known in its cause as determinedly and simply future, that the determination of each of the causes be known; otherwise it would not depend per se on either: therefore, precisely because God then does not attain the decree of his will with respect to some effect of the created will, he will not be able certainly to attain its futurity in that same created cause: since the futurity of that will depends both on the determination of the divine will and on the determination of the created will.

§ III. The arguments of the first opinion are met.

85 To the first, the antecedent being granted, the consequence is to be denied. And to the proof it is to be said that from the infinite excess of divine knowledge over angelic knowledge it is not rightly concluded that God certainly knows the determined futurity of the aforesaid contingents in the comprehension of their secondary causes, antecedent to the divine decree, if the angel once conjecturally and very probably attains it in the aforesaid causes. For such a future is not certainly knowable, as being infallibly future, in its causes thus taken: and so it does not pertain to the infinite perfection of divine knowledge that it attain that as infallibly future; but only that it perceives its indifference to being and not being with greater clarity to an infinite degree, in such a way that it knows both the indifference and the degree, or (so to speak) the quantity of the indifference, which it has with respect to this, that it be or not be.

It will not follow from this, as Alvarez well noted in lib. 2. de auxiliis disput. 15, that in God strictly speaking there is conjectural knowledge. For a knowledge of some thing can be conjectural in a twofold way. First, on the part of the knowledge itself, and with respect to the knower, who is led by conjectures to pronounce a judgement about the determined futurity of some thing: as the physician conjecturally judges future illness from certain signs. Second, on the part of the object known, as when someone knows the disposition which causes have with respect to their effects, which proceed from them in the regular course of things; yet, not being led by the aforesaid conjectures, he sees them as not determinedly future; but only clearly knows that there is such a propensity in the causes, that they are accustomed, for the most part, or frequently, so to happen. Wherefore, since that former knowledge, to which falsity can underlie, is not in God, especially since he certainly knows that nothing is determinedly and completely future except after the decree of his will, and dependently upon it; yet the latter does indeed subsist in him: from the fact that it pertains to the perfection of divine knowledge that he know each thing according to its merits, and hence that he certainly know that what is regularly future is in that way future: hence it follows that conjectural knowledge is not in him properly, and speaking absolutely, because thus taken it stands for the conjectural knowledge in the first manner; but not for conjectural knowledge in the second manner.

86 To the confirmation, let the antecedent pass, and the consequence be denied. To the proof, however, the antecedent is to be denied. Because this whole excess, as has been said, holds on the part of the knower. And so nothing is known on the part of the thing known through supercomprehension which is not known through comprehension: and consequently neither is that very thing which is known as possible by the comprehender, namely a free act, to be known as future by the supercomprehender, if only attention is given to the secondary causes of the aforesaid future contingents, taken in the manner stated; but they are only known as possibles, though with infinitely greater clarity on the part of the supercomprehender.

87 To the second, let the antecedent also pass, and let the consequence be denied in like manner. And to the proof it is to be answered that the reasoning is dissimilar. For a necessary cause is presupposed to be determined toward a future effect: and therefore, the cause itself being known, as also the other necessary causes which might otherwise have impeded its influx, and which are likewise determined toward it, for example, toward not being impeded, the effect can also be known as a determined future, at least as far as it pertains to the secondary causes. But free causes are not determined toward producing it, if they are taken in the manner in which at present we take them; nor is it determined that they are not, for example, to be impeded; but this too is in itself contingent and free: and so in their comprehension, or supercomprehension, it cannot be known that their effect is infallibly and determinately future.

88 The sense of the heading is whether absolutely future contingents, prior to the divine decree, have a determinate determination of their futurition, and so have sufficient truth and objective certitude, on account of which they can be certainly known by God. Others, however, raise this doubt in other words, asking: does God certainly foreknow the aforesaid futures in the truth, or falsity, of the determinate propositions which can be formed about them? Yet both ways coincide into one. For precisely because the aforesaid propositions which can be formed about them are certainly known by God as determinately true, or determinately false, prior to the divine decree, it must be that their significance too, that is, the futurition of the same future, is known by him: for if it were repugnant that the truth of this presupposition should be certainly known, namely, Antichrist will be, how much more so would it not be certainly known that its significance, that is, the futurition of that same Antichrist, holds. And so, if the aforesaid presuppositions have certain objective truth with respect to the divine intellect, and on this account are certainly attained by God, this same thing cannot fail to be affirmed of the aforesaid futures. But so that the heading of the doubt may be understood still better, we must note what we shall assert in nn. 100 and 101.

§ I. Sententia affirmans.

89 The affirmative part is held by Suarez, in the treatise on the divine knowledge of future contingents, bk. 2, ch. 2, n. 3 and following, and ch. 7, nn. 15 and 16; by Vazquez, in the present disputation, 66, ch. 2; by Herice, tract. 1, disp. 6, ch. 7 ¹, citing in its favour the Conimbricenses, Boethius, Jandun, Burlaeus, Tartaretus, Alanus, Scotus, Ocám, Gabriel Marsilius, Major, Richard, and Corduba, and many others: although whether all of these hold this opinion will be discussed by us later. Benedictus Pereyrus, bk. 16, Commentary on Genesis, on ch. 11, disp. 7, § illud.

Proof first. For a future contingent, from the supposition of its true futurition, has a certain and necessary determination to be, even before the decrees of the divine will: therefore, by that very fact, it will have even prior to those decrees a sufficient certitude and objective truth, on account of which it can be certainly known by God. The consequence seems certain. The antecedent, however, is shown from the testimony of Augustine, vol. 6, bk. 20, contra Faustum, ch. 4, in these words: They cannot fail to be future any less than past things failed to have been done. Anselm, in the book On the Concordance of Foreknowledge and the Grace of Predestination with Free Choice, ch. 1, asserting: But a thing that is future must needs be future; since it cannot be both future and not future. Hence, according to Augustine, just as a past thing, from the supposition of its pastness, has also, independently of the divine decree, a certain and necessary determination, on account of which it cannot fail to be past, so too a future thing, from the supposition of its futurition, will have in the same proportional manner a certain and necessary determination, on account of which it will be determinately and necessarily. And similarly, according to Anselm, just as in every sign, including that which precedes the divine decree, nothing can be future and not future at once, so too in every sign the future thing, from the supposition of its futurition, will necessarily be future, so that in no sign, as Anselm gives us to understand, can anything be future and not future at once.

90 Proof second. For when the time arrives in which the absolutely future and contingent thing will already have existence, as when tomorrow comes, in which the reading for tomorrow will exist, then the aforesaid reading cannot be indeterminate as to whether it will be or not be, so as to be, as it were, suspended between the two: for this conflicts with that first principle, namely, that it is necessary that of every thing one or the other part of the contradiction be verified: it cannot be both to be and not to be; but of necessity, when tomorrow comes, it must either determinately have being, or determinately have not-being: because the opposite of this conflicts with that other first principle, namely, that nothing can be both to be and not to be: therefore, likewise, in any preceding sign the aforesaid reading cannot be indeterminate as to being future or not being future for such a day, so as to be, as it were, suspended between the two: nor yet can it have futurition and non-futurition at once, but it will determinately have either to be future or not to be future for that same day: and consequently, on account of this certain and determinate futurition, it will be certainly and determinately known by God.

This last consequence follows from the preceding one. The first, however, is manifest. Then, because its opposite would likewise conflict with those two first principles already stated. Then also: because that very thing which will be present tomorrow, in any preceding sign already has being to be future, since in every sign it is true that it will be tomorrow: therefore, if the reading for tomorrow will have being to be tomorrow, for instance determinately present, then even in every sign it already had being to be determinately future. Then finally: because when the futurition of the reading for tomorrow is said to be such with reference to the being which it will have tomorrow; and likewise such a determination of futurition belongs to it with reference to the determinate being which it will then acquire, it follows that if it has determinate being on the day of tomorrow, but not indeed non-being, then in every preceding duration, and in every sign, it will have determinate futurition. Just as, because the notion of not-future and its determination is taken with reference to the not-being which the thing will have for that time for which it is said not to be future, therefore, if for that time it determinately has not-being, then even in every preceding duration and sign it will have being not-future.

91 It is confirmed. For precisely because Adam has passed, it can now be verified with reference to that time in which he had being, that he existed in the said time, although in fact he is nothing: therefore, likewise, with reference to the future time in which Antichrist will be, it can be verified in every preceding sign that he will have existence. The antecedent is commonly admitted by theologians and philosophers. The consequence, however, follows from the parity of reason. For if that something was in a past time, although it is now nothing, this suffices to verify for the present that it was for that preceding time, why should that which will have existence in a subsequent time not suffice to verify in any preceding sign that it will be for the aforesaid future time?

92 Proof third. For in that prior sign of reason, before any decree of the divine will is understood, one of these propositions about a future contingent, namely Antichrist will be, Antichrist will not be, has determinate truth or falsity; therefore, in that same prior sign, God will certainly and determinately attain which of the aforesaid propositions is true: and consequently whether Antichrist will be future or will not be future. The second consequence follows openly from the first, as is manifest from what has been said. The first, however, follows from the antecedent. For since divine knowledge is infinite within its own line, it must be, precisely because some object is certainly knowable in some sign, that it certainly attains that same object for that same sign; otherwise it would not be infinite in the range of its knowledge: for it would not extend to certainly knowing whatever is certainly knowable. The antecedent, however, is proved. For even now in that sign of reason the aforesaid proposition, namely Antichrist will be, is contradictorily opposed to this one, Antichrist will not be: therefore, one of the two is determinately true and the other determinately false: since it is of the nature of contradictories that one should be determinately true and the other determinately false.

It is confirmed. For this disjunction, Antichrist will be, or will not be, is true and necessary for every sign, as is manifest from the terms themselves: therefore, one of its parts will be true: therefore, that part, and consequently its objective truth, will be certainly known by God before his decree. This last consequence is manifest from the previous one. The previous one, however, follows from the antecedent. For the truth of a disjunction requires that one of the parts be true: just as the truth of a copulation requires that each part contain truth.

93 Proof fourth. For that some proposition is determinately true or false is nothing else than that it is determinately conformable, or deformed, to the thing signified by it; but in that sign prior to the free decrees of God, this proposition, Antichrist will be, has being conformable to the thing signified: therefore, etc. The minor is proved. For a proposition is then conformable to the thing signified by it when the thing is so situated as it is enunciated by the aforesaid proposition; and this is what happens here: for it is enunciated of the Antichrist that he will be in the future time: and this will be so, and thus the thing will be so situated.

It is confirmed, and explained, first. For if for some reason the aforesaid proposition were not conformable to its object before the divine decree, most of all because before it the causes are not determinate for its production, and therefore it does not even have being to be future; and this reason is null: therefore, etc. The major seems certain. The minor, however, is proved. Because what is enunciated by the aforesaid proposition is not that the causes are determinate, otherwise such a proposition would be about the present and not about the future; but what is enunciated is only that that thing will be for the future time: therefore, even if the causes are not determinate, yet if for the future time that thing exists, then the aforesaid proposition will be true and conformable to its object.

94 It is confirmed, and explained, second. Because to every proposition about a future contingent there corresponds its own determinately true, or determinately false, de inesse proposition: therefore, any proposition about the aforesaid futures will have determinate truth or falsity for every sign. The consequence seems certain. For the truth or falsity of a proposition about the future is regulated by the de inesse proposition; such that that proposition about the future will be true to which there at some time corresponds one de inesse that is likewise true: and that will be false which will never have a true de inesse. The antecedent, however, is proved. For when the time arrives in which something future is foreknown, for instance that Antichrist will be, it cannot be that this proposition, Antichrist is, is not determinately true, or that this same proposition is determinately false and the opposite one, namely Antichrist is not, is determinately true: therefore, to every proposition about a future contingent there must necessarily correspond its own de inesse, which is determinately true or determinately false.

It is confirmed third. For, as Aristotle teaches in Metaphysics bk. 6, true and false, with respect to a proposition, are immediate contraries, just as healthy and sick are with respect to an animal; but among immediate contraries, in no sign is a middle given, otherwise they would not be immediate contraries: therefore, in whatever sign of reason, any proposition about a future contingent will be determinately true or determinately false: and consequently its objective truth, or the truth of its object reduced into it, will be certainly known by God.

95 Proof fifth. For to signify true or false concerns the notional concept of the proposition, or at least a property of it, as is manifest from the definition which Aristotle gives of it in the Prior Analytics: therefore, since this proposition, Antichrist will be, even for the sign prior to the free decrees of God has the character of a proposition, since it is manifest that it affirms something determinately by means of subject, predicate, and copula, it follows that it must be determinately true or determinately false: for the determination inseparably flows from the essence.

It is confirmed first. For if before the determination of the divine will nothing has the character of the future, it will follow that, if we speak of God in that sign prior to his decrees, then he will judge that no effect contingently is future in that sign, and consequently that the negative proposition which signifies this is determinately true, and the affirmative false: for its object is the futurition of the contingent thing decreed by God in act, which yet is not in that sign.

It is confirmed second. For if for some reason the negative proposition about the future, for instance Antichrist will not be, were not determinate then, but only indeterminate false, most of all because before the decree there is neither the futurition nor the positive non-futurition (so to speak) of the Antichrist, that is, it has no positive term on account of which futurition is repugnant to it; but this reason is null: therefore, etc. The major appears below, and the minor is proved. Because precisely because it does not have positive futurition, and this is the object of such a proposition, it will be false that it will be: just as it is true that it will not be: for in order that it be true that it will be, it is required that it have futurition; and in order that it be false, it suffices that it lack that. Just as in order that in that sign it be false that the Antichrist is, it suffices that he then not be; and in order that it be true, it would then be required that he be.

§ II. Vera Aristot. et Divi Thomae sententia.

96 We must nevertheless say that future contingents, in that sign prior to the free decrees of God, do not have a determinate and infallible futurition, nor a determinate and infallible non-futurition; and consequently that they have neither determinate objective truth in the sense of futures, in which they can be certainly known, nor are the propositions formed about them in that sign determinately true or determinately false. Thus Aristotle, On Interpretation bk. 1, ch. 8, where, speaking of future contingents insofar as they are such, and of them while they are contained in their indifferent causes, before they are determined — their indifference being preserved — to the production of the aforesaid futures; and so speaking implicitly, and virtually, of them as preceding the efficacious decree of God, by which the aforesaid causes are determined; and in order to explain how in contradictory propositions about them there is verified what he had taught before, namely, that in contradictory opposites one part is true and the other false, says right at the beginning of the chapter: Therefore, in things which are and which were, the affirmation or the negation must be true or false; and, a few words having been interposed, in which he explains this, he adds: But in singular and future things, the matter does not stand so.

These words, after the several divisions of the proposition have been set out, are thus explained by St Thomas, lect. 13: These differences of enunciation having been considered, judgment concerning truth and falsity is not the same in all of them. Hence the Philosopher says that in propositions about the present and about the past, the affirmation or the negation must be determinately true or false, etc. But in singular and future things there is a certain dissimilarity. For in past and present things it is necessary that one of the opposites be determinately true and the other false in whatever matter; but in singular things which are about the future, it is not necessary that one be determinately true and the other false. And this is said indeed with respect to contingent matter.

97 The Philosopher taught the same in the same chapter, where, after he had said that the aforesaid futures, taken in the way just described, have no infallible determination toward being determinately, or determinately not, he immediately infers that the propositions formed about them are neither determinately true nor determinately false, in these words: Therefore, since propositions are true in the same way as things, it is manifest that, since whatever things are so situated as to be able to be either way, and their contraries happen to them, the contradiction must also be so situated. This occurs in things which are not always, and are not always not. For of these it is necessary that one part of the contradiction be true or false; yet not this one or that one determinately, but either one; and indeed the one is rather more true, yet not already true or false.

The Angelic Doctor expounds this testimony in the place cited, in these words: He says, therefore, first, that, since enunciative propositions stand to truth in the same way as things stand to being or non-being, because from the fact that a thing is or is not, the proposition is true or false; it follows that in all things which are so situated as to be able to be either way, and in whatever things such are that their contradiction can happen in any way, whether equally or one of the two, as happens in most cases, it follows of necessity that the contradiction of the enunciations also stands in the same way. He then explains what those things are whose contradiction can happen: and he says that they are those which are neither always necessary, nor always not so, as impossible things are, but which sometimes are and sometimes are not. And further on he makes clear how the same is true of the contradiction in the enunciations: and he says that of these enunciations which are about contingents, it is necessary that under a disjunction one part of the contradiction be true or false; yet not this one or that one determinately, but it stands either way. And if it happen that one part of the contradiction be rather more true, as occurs in contingents which are so in most cases: yet it does not follow of necessity that, of necessity, one of them be determinately true or false.

98 The Angelic Doctor taught the same in Sentences, bk. 1, d. 38, q. 1, a. 5, ad 2, in these words: A future contingent is not determinately true before it occurs, because it has no determinate causes. And in On Evil, q. 16, a. 7, he says: Since each thing is known according as it is in act, and not according as it is in potency, as is said in Metaphysics bk. 9; hence it is that things which are capable of either way cannot be foreknown in their causes determinately, but under a disjunction, since they will be or will not be: for thus do they hold truth. And then in the same place, bk. 1, q. 16, a. 7, ad 3, saying: That which now is was in the future before it was, because it was in its cause that it should occur. Hence, the cause having been removed, that thing would not have been in the future; but the first cause alone is eternal. Hence it is not required from this that things which are, or which were, always have been truly future, except insofar as they were in an eternal cause in order to be future; and that cause is God alone. And finally in On Truth, q. 2, a. 12, ad 1 and 9, as well as in the present article, in these words: A contingent thing can be considered in a twofold way. In one way, in itself, according as it is already in act: and thus it is not considered as future, but as present; nor as contingent either way, but as determined to one thing; and on this account it can thus be infallibly subjected to certain knowledge, namely to the sense of sight, as when I see Socrates sitting. In another way a contingent can be considered as it is in its cause. And thus it is considered as future, and as contingent, not yet determined to one thing: because a contingent cause stands to the opposites. And thus a contingent is not subjected through any certitude of knowledge. Where, as you see, he does not grant to a future contingent, as such, or compared with its causes as indifferent and undetermined, that it is certainly knowable, but only conjecturally; and consequently that before the determination of the divine decree, on account of which the causes are determined, it does not have certain and determinate truth: nor are the propositions formed about it certainly and determinately true, or certainly and determinately false. And finally, as often as St Thomas treats of the knowledge of absolutely future contingents, he finds in them no objective determination on account of which they are certainly knowable by God, other than that which they have from presence in eternity; which has its origin in the efficacious decree of God about their production, as is clear from an examination of all the passages in St Thomas in which he treats of this matter.

99 Wherefore both Aristotle and St Thomas are followed by Capreolus in bk. 1, d. 38, q. 1, a. 2, conclusion 1 and following; by Ferrara, On the Gentiles, bk. 1, ch. 67; by Caietanus, Báñez, Ripa, Nazarius, and González in this article, Supplement 3, q. 62, a. 5, q. 2, ad 12; by Ledesma in his book On the Divine Aids, disputation 2, On the Knowledge of Future Contingents, fol. 632, where also at fol. 626 he reports that Alfonso Curiel retracted in the Catholic manuscripts his position on q. 11 of the third part, namely the opinion which he had taught as the more probable in bk. 1 of the Controversies, controversy 7, article 4, at the beginning, namely that God knows future contingents before the determination of his will, and that the propositions about them are determinately true or determinately false before the aforesaid decree; which manuscripts indeed we possess; and whom we heard dictating it and wrote in his own hand at the very end of his life, in the year of his primary professorship at this most sacred University of Salamanca. Alvarez, bk. 2, On Grace, disputation 7, n. 13, and disputation 13 throughout; Gaspar Ramirez in his book On the Divine Predeterminations, relection 2, fol. 38; Aestius favours it in the first distinction 39, § 7; Petrus Cornelio, vol. 1, in bk. 1 of the first part, tract. 1, around q. 14, a. 13, disputation 2, dub. 4; and this opinion is commonly held by the younger disciples of St Thomas. And finally, from others this same opinion is followed by Scotus in bk. 1, d. 39, q. 1, 2 and 3, § viso de contingentia: where he teaches that propositions about a future contingent prior to the act of the divine will are not determinately true, but as it were neutral; the divine will, however, choosing each one of the two parts, makes them determinately true, and from that time certainly knowable by God; by Richard, Distinctiones 38, a. 1, q. 5; by Durandus in the same place, q. 3; by Leonardus Coquaeus, to be referred to below, disputation 10, n. 28; by Fonseca, bk. 4, Metaphysics, ch. 7, in the explanation of the text, and bk. 3, Institutes, ch. 6; by Henriquez, vol. 2, book On the Last End of Man, ch. 4; by Bellarmine, vol. 2, On Grace and Free Choice, ch. 4 and 15; and by Toledo on ch. 8 of the Prior Analytics, in as far as these four Doctors affirm that propositions about a future contingent are neither determinately true nor determinately false. And finally, several others, whom we shall mention in connection with conditional knowledge, disputation 10, n. 126 and following.

100 But, in order that the aforesaid assertion may be better understood, and that what is said about it may cohere better with what we said about the divine decrees above in dubium 4, it must be explained. For in it we do not mean that future contingents, absolutely and speaking simpliciter, do not have, both in themselves and with respect to the divine intellect, a determinate and infallible futurition for any sign of reason, and consequently that the propositions enunciated about them are not, with respect to that same intellect, determinately true or determinately false; but rather we hold the opposite, although in our own mind and in that of our adversaries this arises from a different root.

For in the opinion of the adversaries it follows from this, that they are persuaded that the aforesaid futures have an objective truth arising from the future event; and that this is preceded in some sign of reason by the free and efficacious determination of the divine will. In ours, however, it follows from this, that the divine decree about their determinate and infallible futurition, or determinate and infallible non-futurition, must hold for whatever sign in which it still holds according to reason, in accordance with what we said in n. 49 and following of this disputation, such that no sign in which prior to the aforesaid decree can be given in the thing on the basis of reason; and therefore by virtue of such a decree future contingents will have a determinate futurition, or non-futurition, for whatever sign. Hence that supposition must always be rejected which is assumed in all the arguments of the contrary opinion, namely, that in that sign before God decrees concerning the futurition of creatures, future contingents have a determinate and infallible futurition, or that the propositions enunciated about them are determinately true or determinately false; because in truth the aforesaid supposition must not be admitted, namely, the aforesaid priority of the sign in which it still holds according to reason with a foundation in the thing, for the reasons which we gave in the place cited.

101 But notwithstanding this, the assertion must be firmly held: that the divine decree, or the efficacious decree about their futurition, does not have a certain and infallible futurition, nor a certain and infallible non-futurition; and consequently does not have a determinate and infallible objective truth, on account of which they can be certainly known by God. Then, because, even granting what is impossible, that the decrees of God were posterior in some sign in which according to reason with a foundation in the thing, than those other things which are found in God, then future contingents in that sign of reason would have no certain and infallible futurition, nor would the propositions enunciated about them be, even with respect to the divine intellect, determinately and infallibly true, or determinately and infallibly false.

Then also: because we are able to speak of the divine knowledge about future contingents either according as it is in God himself, and with respect to his intellect, or according as it is imperfectly conceived by us on the part of our mode of understanding, insofar as we conceive it by a purely precisive abstraction, conceiving nothing of the efficacious determination of God about future contingents. Speaking thus of it, and of future contingents according as they precisely have being, insofar as they are expressly objected to this concept, then such futures neither have a determinate and infallible futurition, nor a determinate and infallible non-futurition: nor can divine knowledge be certainly extended to them, nor are the other contradictory propositions at least, enunciated about them, with respect to it so taken, determinately and infallibly true, nor determinately or infallibly false. And on this account, in this doubt we shall sometimes speak of the divine decrees as if, by an impossibility, they did not exist in that first sign: although on that account we do not attribute to them the character of the future, for the reasons which we indicated above.

§ III. Aristotelica, et Thomistica doctrina ratione fulcitur.

102 The first and fundamental reason of the assertion, however, was given by Aristotle in the place cited. St Thomas reduced it, moreover, to this form and nearly in these words, lect. 13. For if every affirmation or negation about singulars, or about futures, were determinately true or false for every sign, and consequently future contingents had a determinate futurition or a determinate non-futurition for any sign whatever, then it would be necessary that everyone affirming or negating should determinately say the true or the false for any sign whatever: therefore it would be necessary that all things be determinately to be or not to be: and consequently all things would occur of necessity, and contingency and indifference either way would be removed. The consequence is proved. For if something were capable of either way, it would stand in the same way with respect to occurring or not occurring, and no more to one than to the other: and so it would not be necessary that everyone affirming or negating should say determinate truth or determinate falsity.

103 It is confirmed, and explained, by a reason drawn from the same Angelic Doctor, which we touched upon above. For if future contingents had a determinate futurition before the efficacious decree of the divine will, and consequently the propositions formed about them were, in that prior sign, or independently of the divine decree existing prior, determinately true or determinately false, then the aforesaid futures would have the character of the future from the nature of the thing, and intrinsically: and likewise the propositions already mentioned would be in the same way from the nature of the thing, and simply necessary true: therefore contingency of things, and indifference either way, would be removed by that very fact. The consequence is manifest. For the contingency of things can hold only so long as future contingents do not have the character of the future necessarily, and from the nature of the thing, but contingently, or freely, and the propositions enunciated about them are not from the nature of the thing and necessarily true. The antecedent, however, is proved. For whatever befalls things prior to the free decree of the divine will, which is the first and most universal root of all freedom, or contingency, does not befall them freely or contingently, but from the nature of the thing, and simply necessarily. Just as what befalls them dependently on that same decree, and by virtue of it, cannot fail to befall them contingently and freely.

104 It is confirmed, second, by another reason which the same Aristotle also gave in the place cited, and which St Thomas proposed and explained in this form, lect. 13, in these words: For if truth and falsity are the same in present and future things, it follows that whatever is true of the present was true of the future before, in the same way as it is true of the present; but it is determinately true now to say of some singular thing, that it is white: therefore, first, that is, before that thing became white, it was true to say that it would be white. But the same reason seems to hold for what is near and for what is remote: therefore, if before a certain day it was true to say that this would be white, it follows that it was always true to say of each of those things which have occurred, that it will be. Now if it is always true to say of the present, because it is, or of the future, that it will be, it cannot be that it is not, or not future. The reason of this consequence is manifest. For these two are incompatible, that something should truly be said to be, and that it should not be. For this is included in the signification of the true, that it should be that which is said. If, therefore, it is posited that that is true which is said of the present, or of the future, it cannot be without its being present, or future. But what cannot fail to occur means the same as what it is impossible not to occur. And what it is impossible not to occur means the same as what it is necessary to occur, as will be explained more fully in the second. It follows, therefore, from the premises that all things which are future must occur. From which it follows further that nothing is capable of either way, nor accidental, because that which happens by chance is not of necessity, but as occurs in fewer cases.

105 It makes no difference if, meeting the adversaries on the ground of this reason and its confirmations, it does not follow that contingency is removed from things. For neither do future contingents have, prior to the divine decree, a determinate futurition which is from the nature of the thing and simply necessary, but only, once some supposition has been made, it belongs to them necessarily secundum quid. And likewise, those propositions do not have determinate truth or falsity per se and from the nature of the thing, but accidentally, and from the supposition of the event for the future time; inasmuch as, being enunciated of Peter for any sign whatever by this proposition, namely that he will sin tomorrow, it is necessary that, when the day of tomorrow arrives, he either determinately sin or determinately not sin. And so from the supposition that he will sin on the day of tomorrow, and by virtue of the aforesaid supposition, it will be contingently and infallibly true for any preceding sign that he will sin: and consequently the sin itself will also have a determinate futurition, which is necessary only secundum quid, and from a supposition which is not opposed to contingency and freedom.

This, therefore, makes no difference. For this solution remains sufficiently refuted by what we brought forward above in this disputation from n. 67 through n. 72: where we showed both that the determinate and real futurition of a future thing is a true and real effect, really extrinsic, when it demands a true and real efficient cause, and consequently one that truly and really exists: and thus that it cannot arise precisely from the future event, or from the objective being of that thing: for as long as it has the character of the future, it does not exist: and consequently, if such a determinate futurition does not arise from the determination of the divine will existing prior, there is no source from which it can arise freely and contingently. And so it would have to be necessary, and take its origin from the natures of things. Most of all because, as we showed there, the divine decree cannot have the character of the future, whether really, or with a foundation in the thing. And so whatever does not have being to be future dependently on it as existing cannot have the character of the future with any dependence on the decree itself: and consequently it will be future per se, and from the nature of the thing, and simply necessarily. Then also: because if that supposition is posited per se and necessarily, it cannot fail to remove contingency from things, as is manifest from itself: but if it is not posited per se and intrinsically, but from elsewhere, it cannot fail to be posited by means of the divine decree, which is the first root of the whole supposition, which is not posited necessarily but freely.

106 To these there is added, first, the fact that that event, for instance the sin of tomorrow, not only does not have true existence in the sign prior to the divine decree; but indeed it does not even have a true and determinate real objective being, as we shall show in this very doubt from n. 115 through n. 122: and thus no real determination whatever can be derived from it for the aforesaid future.

There is added, second, that it is not well inferred from the fact that Peter's sin exists on the day of tomorrow that for any preceding sign it had a determinate futurition, or that the propositions enunciated about it were determinately true. For the argument proceeds from the composite sense to the divided: and so it does not hold. Peter, in so far as he will be composed tomorrow with his sin then present, cannot fail in the composite sense to have it, and to be determined to it: therefore, in the divided sense, and as it is presupposed with respect to the aforesaid sin, he has a certain determination and necessity for having it; but rather it follows that he has indeterminacy and indifference with respect to the aforesaid sin.

107 There is added, third. Because otherwise, by the same reasoning it would be inferred that a future contingent has a determinate futurition prior to the production of the divine Word, and that the propositions enunciated about it are determinately true or determinately false; indeed, that in the sign prior to its own possibility it is determinately future: and consequently that it is at once determinately future, as is supposed, and not determinately future: for nothing can be determinately future before it is possible. That the sequence follows in both parts is manifest. For if from the fact that it will be verified tomorrow that Peter will sin tomorrow, which is in fact the case, it is inferred that throughout the preceding time, and still in that sign which precedes the divine decree, it is true that Peter will sin tomorrow; by the same reasoning it will be true, still in the sign prior to the production of the divine Word, that the aforesaid Peter will sin: for when such a proposition is then put forward, there corresponds to it its own de inesse for the time imported through the copula: which is the same thing, in due proportion, as we say of the same proposition enunciated in that prior sign, in which the divine essence precedes its omnipotence, and consequently the possibility of creatures.

The falsity of the consequence, however, as regards the second part, is sufficiently manifest. As regards the first it is also clear. For since the divine Word is the cause of the futurition of creatures, from the fact that the works of the Trinity ad extra are undivided, the futurition of creatures, nor the truth of the enunciation about such a futurition, can be presupposed prior to the production of the Word: otherwise the effect would precede its cause, which is a contradiction.

§ IV. Eadem veritas ratione alia stabilitur.

108 The second reason, however, no less fundamental, is drawn from St Thomas, articles 5 and 6 of this question, and from several other places, and can be proposed in this form. Because prior to every free decree of the divine will, creatures do not have in God a determinate and infallible future being: therefore it is a contradiction that prior to such a decree they should be represented by the divine essence as certainly future, and consequently that they should be known as such by God himself. This last consequence follows openly from the first, since God knows nothing except what is represented in his own essence. The first, however, follows from the antecedent. For the divine essence does not represent things according to any determinate and infallible being, unless it precontains them according to the aforesaid being: from the fact that it knows all creatures in itself, as in a cause.

The antecedent, however, is proved from what we said in this disputation, n. 33 and following. Because just as creatures do not have a possible being except by virtue of the divine essence, as by an a priori reason, and so are possible from the fact that God can produce them; so, with much greater reason, they do not have a determinate and infallible future being from themselves, but from the fact that God has in act decreed to produce them; otherwise they would be their own first causes of a determinate and infallible futurition: therefore prior to the divine decree they will not have in God the character of futures, determinately and infallibly as such.

109 It is confirmed, and explained, from the same Saintly Doctor, supposing however beforehand both that the future and the possible are compared with one another by the way of the superior and the inferior, insofar as every future is possible; but not conversely, and also that the foundation of possibility is the divine power. These two things are so manifest as to need no proof; and from them the confirming argument is deduced as follows. For it is possible, indifferent as to whether it is future or not future in the absolute sense: its reason, insofar as it is future, is placed in the determination, or contradiction, of possibility: therefore the first foundation of futurition will have the character of the first contracting and determining principle of the first foundation of possibility, namely the divine omnipotence: therefore, since it is manifest from natural light that the first determinative principle of God's omnipotence is the divine will, it will be necessary that the first principle determining the possible to the character of the future be that same will, or the divine decree: and things—

110 It makes no difference if you meet the adversaries on the first point. It is enough for this conclusion that futures be contained and represented in the divine essence prior to its decree, that is actually existing, such that the aforesaid decree in that prior sign has the character of the future; from the fact that in the sign immediately following God will have it. For this solution remains sufficiently refuted by what we said above in n. 48 and following of this disputation.

Nor, if, on the second point, you meet others among the adversaries, is it enough for this conclusion that future contingents be contained determinately in the divine essence, that God has decreed, or is ready to give, aids sufficient for their production, and that in fact afterwards the event follows, without God efficaciously predetermining and decreeing the aforesaid event.

It does not, therefore, make any difference. Because just as the reason of a future contingent is not drawn from the presentiality of the contingent thing, which afterwards is in the future time; so that this is not sufficient for it that for any sign whatever, and prior to the divine decree, the thing be future — this is sufficiently manifest from what has been said. And then, that God's being ready to give sufficient aids is not sufficient for it that by the force of that will futures should determinately have the character of futures, is likewise clear. Since by the force of that will the effect remains indifferent as to being future or not being future: so that fore itself is not infallible: and consequently neither by the force of this will will their futurition be contained, certainly and determinately, in the divine essence; nor will it be certainly and determinately known.

It is added, that, as we shall treat more largely in the treatise On the Will of God, the divine will is most efficacious, and all things are predetermined by it before they are done, or are understood to be done: so that the event never follows for the future time, nor is understood to be about to follow, unless God has first defined it, not only (so to speak) sufficiently, but also efficaciously: otherwise its efficacy would not be the most universal, as we shall weigh more fully in the following doubt: for before its efficacious causality, all future things would have the character of the future.

111 Nor finally, if you meet the same, is there an obstacle in the fact that absolutely future things are said, prior to the efficacious and predetermining divine decree, to have sufficient truth and objective determination, and by virtue of it to be certainly known by God: for in truth, insofar as they are absolutely future, they have a determinate futurition before the aforesaid decree (and so Suarez teaches very often, in the prologue to bk. 2 before the book On Grace, that an absolutely future thing does not have determinate being before the absolute decree of God existing in it: and he complains of those who impose the opposite upon him) — but the point is that they are said to have before the aforesaid decree a determinate objective futurition, because the futures themselves, which in the following sign will be absolutely future after the aforesaid decree, have presupposed to themselves, in the state of conditionality, and in that state have a determinate futurition and objective, as well as conditional, truth: and thus by virtue of that, God attains what it is that the created will should will, were it to be placed in such or such an occasion with these or those circumstances. And by that very fact, that God foreknowing it to consent in such occasion and circumstances wills it to be placed in that occasion and circumstances, he also wills efficaciously its consent. And such a consent, by means of the aforesaid efficacious will, passes from conditional future into absolute, and as such is certainly known by God.

It does not, therefore, stand in the way. For in the first place, by the same reasoning by which an absolutely future thing cannot have a determinate and infallible futurition before the efficacious decree of the divine will, and consequently cannot be certainly known by God, the same must also be said of conditional futures, namely that they lack a determinate and infallible futurition before the efficacious and conditioned decree of the divine will (provided that it is explained as we explained it in n. 63 and following of disputation 9 of this treatise): most of all because, as we were just saying, the divine will is so efficacious and universal that, the proper natures of each thing being preserved, all future or non-future things must be efficaciously predefine according to their condition, whether absolute or conditional.

112 Then. Because from this solution it is manifestly to be seen that that solid foundation is not sound, on which Suarez and the other followers of the contrary opinion rely, namely that for this reason future contingents can be certainly known by God in their objective truth prior to the efficacious decree existing in God, because the propositions enunciated about them are contradictory for any sign whatever: and therefore in whatever sign one of them must be true and the other false. For from this foundation it openly follows that absolutely future things too, as such, have a determinate futurition and can be certainly known by God before he efficaciously decrees their futurition: for before such a decree exists in God, two contradictories can be formed about the aforesaid future: and consequently one of them must be determinately true for any sign whatever, and the other false. Indeed, it follows from this as well that the absolute truth of the aforesaid futures does not follow upon the conditional truth of the same, as this solution intended: and consequently that it depends on it neither as to being nor as to being known; since even in the sign of conditional truth, and in the signs preceding that and the divine omnipotence, the propositions enunciated about absolutely future things would have, according to the contrary opinion, the character of contradictories, as we showed in n. 107: and so one must be determinately true and the other determinately false. Hence (that the complaint of Francisco Suarez may thus be satisfied) neither we nor the followers of our own, or, as we may put it better, of the Angelic opinion, bring forward that the aforesaid Father Suarez taught that absolutely future things have an absolute and infallible futurition before the efficacious divine decree existing in God; but only that this follows openly from the most solid foundation of his opinion concerning the determinate truth or falsity of two contradictories for any sign whatever.

113 Add, first: that according to this mode of speaking, the determination in the second cause with respect to some act in the particular would be prior to the determination of the first cause about that same act: for according to it, God would first see the created will efficaciously consenting, if it were placed in such occasion and circumstances, than that he himself efficaciously wills the aforesaid consent: and consequently it would be future with reference to the second cause before it is future with reference to the first: and this is repugnant. Then, because of what we shall say below in this same treatise, disputation 8, n. 16 and following. Then also: because otherwise the divine will would not be the first and most universal cause drawing out any possible thing, at some time future either way, from the state of pure possibility into the state of futurition. Most of all because, as is manifest from what was said in this same disputation, n. 48, the decrees of the divine will cannot have the character of the future: and therefore nothing can be future by virtue of the divine decree, unless it be future by virtue of that same decree, as actually existing.

114 Add, second, that from this mode of speaking it is inferred that God waits to see what our will is going to be, in order himself to establish that it concurs determinately; and consequently that we are chosen by him for faith and for the supernatural goods out of the conditional foreknowledge of our future consent, as out of a motivating cause. This, however, seems to be against the Second Council of Auchy, canon 25, and against St Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints, ch. 18, on those words of the Apostle: He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we might be holy: where Augustine says: Not because we were going to be, but that we might be. The sequence is proved. For according to this mode of speaking, God does not will to concur determinately with the good consent of the created will until he sees that it will consent, if it were placed in such occasion and circumstances, and therefore God wills to concur determinately with the good act along with it, because he has seen that it will consent. And so, if he should see that it would not consent, for no reason would he will to concur with it with respect to consent: but by that very fact, that he would place the aforesaid will in that occasion with the aforesaid circumstances, he would will not to concur with it with respect to consent, from the fact that he foreknew that it would not consent. But we shall return to this expressly in this same treatise; for at present we only wish briefly to refute what is suggested in this solution.

§ V. Ultima ratio pro vera Divi Thomae sententia.

115 The third and last reason of the assertion was brought forward by St Thomas in Prior Analytics bk. 1, lect. 13, in these words: Since this, the true, signifies that something is said to be that which is, a thing is true in that way in which it has being. Now when a thing is in the present, it has being in itself: and therefore it can truly be said of to be; but as long as a thing is future, it is not yet in itself, but is in some way in its cause. And this happens, indeed, in a threefold way. In one way, so that it be in its cause in such a way that it proceed from it of necessity, and then it has determinate being in its cause, whence it can be determinately said of what it will be. In another way a thing is in its cause as that cause has an inclination to its effect, which yet can be impeded. Hence this too is determinate in its cause, but mutably, and so it can truly be said of this that it will be, but not with all-embracing certainty. In a third way a thing is in its cause purely in potency, which is likewise no more determined to one than to another. Hence it is left that no way can it be determinately said of any of them whether it will be or not.

It is confirmed, and explained, first. Because the ways of having real being, and consequently determinate and infallible real being, are only those of having it either in itself, or in its cause truly and really productive of it: but future contingents before the efficacious decree of the divine will existing in it, neither have the aforesaid being in themselves, as is manifest from itself, since they do not exist before God decrees to concur with their production, nor do they have it in their cause; for before the efficacious decree of the divine will, the secondary causes, and also the first, are not determinate, and (so to speak) made infallible, toward the determinate and infallible production of such futures, but are indifferent either way: therefore a future contingent will not be able, before the aforesaid decree, to have a real, determinate, and infallible futurition, on account of which it can be certainly and infallibly known by God: and consequently neither will the propositions enunciated about it be, for any sign whatever, determinately true or determinately false. The minor with the consequence seems manifest. The major, however, is also clear. Because therefore a being of reason does not have true and real being, and consequently neither has determinate and infallible true and real being, because it does not have it truly and really in itself, from the fact that it truly and really is in itself nothing, nor does it have it in its cause, which is truly and really the productive cause of it as of a true and real effect.

116 The force of this argument is further declared by noting that the past, the present, and the future agree with one another in part and differ from one another in part. They do indeed agree in this, that they are said of things with reference to the present time: for just as the present now has the character of the present, so likewise the past now has the character of the past: but not at that time in which it formerly was: for then it was called present. And likewise the future is now called future, but not afterwards in the future time, when it will have existence: for then it will be present. They differ, however, in this, that that which is present says only present existence. And that which is past brings a present negation of existence, which it enjoyed when it was present. And the future also imports a negation of actual existence, which the thing will enjoy for the future time, or to which it is determined for the future time. And so a thing is said to be present from the fact that it has existence; and past, from the fact that it lacks the existence by which it formerly existed; and future, from the fact that it does not have the existence which it is now said about to have. Hence a fuller explanation of the preceding reason is drawn. For just as the present, insofar as it is present, is said to be necessary, because it is now determined that it itself has existence; and the past, because it is now also determined that it itself had existence, which it now lacks, so too the future, insofar as it is future, is said to be in some way necessary, because it is now in some way determined that it itself will have existence, which it does not have, and consequently either this determination will hold in the future itself, or in its cause: and since neither can be said of a future contingent, for the reason given, if it be considered before the free and efficacious determination of the divine will, it follows that before that determination it does not have a determinate futurition, or (which is the same as what belongs to the present) an infallible determination toward being for the future time, on account of which, the contingency of the thing itself being preserved, it can be certainly and infallibly known by God.

117 It makes no difference if you employ the common and often-repeated solution of the adversaries, namely that future contingents in that prior sign prior to the divine decree do not have determination and infallibility, either in themselves, or in the determination of their secondary causes according to being exercised, and existing in the act of exercise; but indeed according to objective being, and in the act designated, in the same way in which real essences are said to have real objective being, because they express an order to real existence. Hence, precisely because the reading, for instance, for the day of tomorrow, has tomorrow determinately, for instance that it will be, it must be that in any preceding sign the aforesaid reading has a determinate futurition with respect to the determinate existence which will befall it on the day of tomorrow, as though through the object conferring the aforesaid determination: and consequently the aforesaid reading will have in objective being a true being, namely that within this line it is real.

This, therefore, makes no difference. For in the first place this solution remains sufficiently refuted from what has been said, both in this doubt and in the preceding doubts. Then. Because this solution is against the testimonies of Augustine and Anselm brought forward in favour of the adversaries' opinion in n. 89: for in them it is said that a future thing has this necessity from the supposition by which it is future; just as a past thing has it from the supposition by which it is past; and a present thing from the supposition by which it is present: therefore, just as in what is present and past this necessity is a mode, or determination, of them according to real being on the part of the thing, or according to the real negation of that which was, and not according to objective being, so too in what is future.

118 Besides. For that objective being either consists in this, that it is to be an object actually terminating certain and infallible knowledge, or in the signification of a proposition of determinate truth, or in this, that it is to be a foundation apt for terminating. The first is not asserted by the authors of the contrary opinion, nor can it be asserted by anyone. Because from the fact that something precisely has being actually known, it is not inferred that it has a true and real objective being, according as the aforesaid being is distinguished from a being of reason: for a being of reason also has being actually known by the intellect.

If, however, the second is said, it follows that that objective being is not distinct from the real being which befalls the future on the part of the thing: and consequently that it does not differ either from the being which it has in itself, or from that which it has in its cause. The consequence is proved. Because that according to which the future itself is said formally to be apt and proportioned, so that it may be known and signified, pertains formally to the order of the object: and consequently it must be founded in something pertaining to the order of the thing; such that that which, according to the aforesaid reason looking to the order of the object, is actually something real does not stand, unless it is founded in something pertaining to the order of the thing; otherwise it could not found that objective reason actually real: but that which pertains to the order of the thing cannot be actually something real unless either according to the being which it actually has in itself, or according to the being which it actually enjoys in its cause, as is manifest: therefore neither can the aforesaid future, according to objective being, be actually something real, unless it either actually has being in itself according to its entitative being, or actually has being in the first cause, by virtue of its determination toward producing it.

Most of all because, since that entitative being pertaining to the order of the thing, in which the real objective being is founded, cannot be the being of essence alone (otherwise the future would be future from its own essence and nature), it will be the being of existence: and consequently the being of existence, so that it may be actually something real and then, subsequently, so that it may befall that same future either in itself existentially, or in its cause: for in these two ways alone can something actually exist.

Add, that although true and real objective being does not expressly say, under this precisive determination, an order to its causes, nor demand that it be existing in the actually exercised act; nevertheless, in whatever sign in which it has true real objective being, it must according to that being be precontained in its causes; therefore, although in that prior sign in which future contingents precede the efficacious decree of the divine will they may have real objective being indifferent either way, so as to be no more determined to one part than to the other, or a real objective being with a fallible futurition, and consequently not determinate at all; yet not a real objective being with a determinate futurition, or (which is the same as what belongs to the present) with an infallible futurition.

119 The consequence seems to follow openly from the antecedent. Because the aforesaid futures, prior to the efficacious determination of the divine will, have in their secondary causes, as really contained in that same omnipotence, an being indifferent either way: and they can have a greater determination in them with respect to their own futurition, from the fact that they are more inclined to produce it than not to produce it; yet before the aforesaid decree their futurition is not infallibly contained in those same causes; since the divine decree is that which ultimately determines, and (so to speak) confers infallibility upon them toward the infallibility of that same futurition: and for this, namely, that they themselves, such as they are in the aforesaid causes, may have a determinate and infallible future being: therefore, if for this, namely, that something have a true, determinate, and infallible real being, even according to objective being, there is further required, for that same prior sign, that it have the aforesaid being in its causes, although this be not expressed, it plainly follows that future contingents do not have the aforesaid being of an infallible and determinate futurition before the infallible determination of their causes, and consequently before that of the divine will; but indeed they do have a real objective being indifferent either way, or a future thing determinate with a fallible determination, which is therefore not able to found a certain knowability.

120 The antecedent, however, is proved. Then, because the aforesaid futures, in that same sign in which they have real objective being by the way of essence, not in any way whatever, but presupposing an order to existence in a determinate future time, must be precontained in their cause, and have being in it, namely possible being; because objective being under this precisive determination demands, as its foundation, to be precontained in its cause in the aforesaid way. And likewise the same future thing, insofar as it is indifferent either way, yet with some determination toward this part rather than that one, though not wholly infallible according to real objective being, must in the same prior sign be precontained in its cause in such a way that the aforesaid objective being be true and real: therefore, likewise, for this, namely, that the same future thing according to the aforesaid objective being have by far a greater determination toward being than toward not being, or have an infallible determination toward being rather than toward not being, it will be necessary that, for that same prior sign, it have determinate and infallible being in its cause, according to the real being exercised of the aforesaid cause, as it demands in the other two states; for the aforesaid being is no less real within the line of the objective than is a fallibly future being, or a possible being.

And so, if the real objective being of the same thing according to the two aforesaid states demands the aforesaid containment and determination in its cause, even though it does not state this, the same must also be said of the real objective being with infallible futurition of the same thing. Most of all because, as we shall weigh in the treatise On the Will of God, disputation 10, n. 78 and following, the determination of the causes arising from the efficacious decree, by which God establishes that he concurs with the free causes, their nature being preserved, does not remove, but rather posits, indeterminacy and freedom by the way of the second act: and consequently it does not stand in the way of the contingency of acts which are freely future.

Then also: because since every being real and objective must intrinsically include the fact that it is such by participation, or essentially, or that it is created or uncreated, even though it does not say so, it must be that for any sign whatever it really has being being in itself, as in the divine essence, which is a being by essence, this occurs: or without any being by participation from another: and consequently that it be contained in it, as in a cause, and have being in it, even though that is not then expressed: otherwise, just as it would escape the character either of a created being, contained and having being in its cause, or of a being by essence, so it would escape the character of a real being.

121 It is confirmed. Because, that the reading for tomorrow be determinately future for a given day, for instance today, so that the futurition of it is really and in fact infallible, determined toward being rather than toward not being, and consequently the aforesaid determination according to objective being is true and real today, cannot arise precisely from the fact that it will be verified on the day of tomorrow that the existence and actuality of the aforesaid reading is real: therefore it must arise from the fact that the aforesaid futurition, rather than non-futurition, has determinate being in its causes for the present day, or has true and real being exercised of them. The consequence seems manifest. Because there is no source from which it has real objective being, or in which the aforesaid being is founded, unless either in the being of existence, or of actuality and presentiality, which it will have for the day of tomorrow, or in the aforesaid determination and being which it has in its causes.

The antecedent, however, is proved, and explained, from the difference which obtains between the actuality of the essence and that of existence, compared with the present instant and the instants succeeding it, and between the same compared with the preceding instants. For by the aforesaid actuality, both for the present instant and for the instants succeeding it, the thing is drawn out from the indeterminacy and indeterminateness of the causes, and is placed in a certain state determinate to one of the two parts, namely in the state in which it has being in act in itself: and therefore for these instants the aforesaid actualities can be for it the reason of determination to one of the two parts. But with respect to the preceding instants the aforesaid actualities do not draw the thing out of the indeterminacy of the causes, nor confer upon it so that it have being in itself, but on the contrary they leave it in the power of the causes, which is indifferent to either part: and therefore they cannot be for it the reason of determination to one of the two parts. And then, because the aforesaid actualities are posterior to the thing considered with respect to the preceding instants, and prior in some sense of cause to it, as it has being with respect to the succeeding instants, they can therefore be for it the cause of determination with respect to the succeeding instants; but otherwise with respect to the preceding instants, because a cause must always in some way precede its effect.

§ VI. Primum, et secundum argumentum, necnon et eius confirmatio in favorem primae sententiae adducta diluuntur.

122 To the first it is answered by denying the antecedent. In order to answer its proof, a certain doctrine of St Thomas must be set forth beforehand, bk. 1 of the first part, q. 19, a. 7, ad 2, namely that a thing can be said to be future in a threefold way. First indeed, with respect to the secondary causes alone, and not with respect to the first: in which way the death of Hezekiah was foretold to Isaiah in ch. 38 as future: because, attending to the secondary causes, namely to the illness by which he was afflicted, it was necessarily future, as the same Angelic Doctor also explains in bk. 2 of the second part, q. 171, a. 2, ad 2. Then a thing is said to be future with respect to the first cause alone, and not with respect to the secondary causes, as occurs in the resurrection of Lazarus and the other miraculous works. Lastly, with respect to all causes, namely the first and the secondary, as in the case of Antichrist and the like.

From which it follows that a future thing in the first way is not future absolutely and completely: because there is lacking to it that which is most of all required for absolute and complete futurition, namely the efficacious decree of the divine will about its existence for the future time, even though in some way it has conjoined the decree of that same will of God, not indeed in the way in which a future thing of the second and posterior sort is future, but inasmuch as God wills both of these things: namely, that something be future at some time according to the inferior cause, that is, according to the inclination and determination of the aforesaid cause; but that it be not future according to the superior cause.

123 Hence, to the aforesaid proof it is answered that Augustine and Anselm are speaking of futures taken in the second and third ways, and consequently of them not as precisely conceived prior to the efficacious determination of the divine will, but as predefine by the aforesaid decree. Taken in this way, they have from the supposition of their own futurition an infallible determination toward being: for from the supposition of the efficacious divine decree about the futurition of a thing for some determinate time, it is necessary, or (as we may put it better) infallible, that the aforesaid future thing have being for the aforesaid future time: but they do not speak of futures in the first way of the three enumerated. For however much they may be supposed to be future, they will never in fact have existence, nor are they understood to be completely future, and consequently they will not in fact have existence precisely because the efficacious divine decree about them is lacking.

That this is the expressed mind of Augustine will be plainly clear to one who reads that entire chapter 4, as also the same will be clear to one who looks into Anselm in that passage. Then, because he speaks of a future thing which is foreknown by God to be future: and according to his opinion there, the foreknowledge of futures in God presupposes the will, such as they are, to be future. Then also: because, a little further on, explaining how these futures have these two things from the will of God, namely both that they be future and that they occur freely from the will, he thus says: Since what God wills cannot fail to be, when God wills the human will to be forced or prevented by no necessity from willing or from not willing; and wills the effect to follow the will, then the will must be free, and must be what he wills.

Then finally: because afterwards in the same place he says that this whole necessity befalls free futures, not as they are in the future time, but as they are present according to real being in eternity: and it is manifest that nothing has this presentiality in eternity, any more than real being, except from the determination of the divine will. His words are: Whatever he says about those things which are done by free choice, or which Sacred Scripture declares to be necessary, he speaks according to eternity, in which every true thing is present immutably, and not according to time, in which our wills and actions are not always; and just as while they are not, it is not necessary that they be, so often it is not necessary that they be at some time.

124 Now, to that which was there added in the first place toward the explaining of each of the two testimonies, namely that just as a past thing, from the supposition of its own pastness, has also independently of the divine decree a certain and necessary determination, on account of which it cannot fail to be past, so too a future thing, from the supposition of its own futurition, will have in the same proportional manner a certain and necessary determination, on account of which it will be determinately and necessarily — this is sufficiently manifest from what has been said, if we speak of futures taken in the second and posterior way, which have conjoined the efficacious determination of the divine will, and are so conceived. For although from the supposition of their own futurition they will of necessity secundum quid, or infallibly, be future, yet a dependence on the divine decree is always involved and supposed in them, even with respect to any intellect whatever; otherwise they would not be conceived as completely future.

If, however, we speak of futures taken in the first way, then the best solution is that which Curiel employs in bk. 1 of the Controversies, controversy 7, on Wisdom, ch. 4, article 3, n. 65, namely that this supposition, or rather this derivation of the contingent effect from the supposition itself, can be explained in a twofold way. First indeed in this way: That which is future, supposing that it be future, will of necessity be. Second, however, in this way: That which is future, supposing that it be future, is of necessity future. The difference, however, between these two ways of explaining, in deriving the effect from the supposition, is not small. Because in the first, by those words, will of necessity be, what is signified is that that which is said to be future, supposing that it be future, is determinate, and of necessity will have its present being at the time for which it is said to be future. In the second, however, it is signified: that that which is said to be future, supposing that it be future, has of necessity the mode of being future, as this is distinguished from the mode of possible being and of past being.

125 Since, therefore, when we say that futures taken in the first way of those three modes mentioned in n. 122 are not of necessity future from the supposition of their own futurition, and likewise, still from the supposition of the aforesaid futurition, no necessity arising from the supposition is found in the propositions about the aforesaid future, we are not speaking of them when the derivation of the effect from the supposition is explained in the second of the two ways just enumerated. For then the effect is not something future for the future time, but something present, namely the mode of being present, on account of which a thing is said to be future: which, as we have said, consists in a certain determination, termination, and inclination of the causes toward its production: and so from the supposition that the future effect has, for some time, this determinate and impedible being, and therefore not infallible, in its proximate causes, it cannot fail, as far as the force of the aforesaid causes and the same circumstances go, and for the aforesaid time, to have that being. But we are speaking of them when the derivation is explained in the first way. For then, even once the supposition of their own futurition, corresponding to it according to the determination of the impedibility and non-infallibility of their proximate causes, has been made, it does not well follow that the aforesaid futures will of necessity be, for the future time, in fact existing.

126 The reason, however, for which then the effect is not inferred of necessity from the supposition, as it is inferred in the case of present and past things, is manifest from what has been said. Because then the supposition of the futurition is not something determinate immutably with respect to this, namely that the future thing have present being at the time for which it is said to be future; but it is a certain determination and inclination of the causes which is simply indifferent, and is still impedible in the composite sense: whereas the supposition of presentiality and of pastness is something determinate altogether with respect to this, namely that the thing have being in the present time, or have had its present being in the past. By these things that which was added there for the explaining of Anselm's testimony is sufficiently manifest.

127 To the second, the antecedent having been granted, the consequence must be denied. Because the argument proceeds from the composite sense to the divided: as it does not hold: In the future time, of two acts which are immediately opposite and repugnant, it will be necessary that one of them distinctly, and in the particular, inhere to a subject capable of it: therefore, in the present time as well, it is necessary that the potency be in such a subject distinctly, and in the particular, toward one only of those two acts, and not toward both. And the reason in both cases is the same. For the argument is taken, namely, from the incompossibility of the acts, to the incompossibility on the part of the potency, which is an argument from the composite sense to the divided.

And to the first proof the antecedent must be denied. Because although, when the time arrives for which a thing is said to be future, it cannot remain suspended between being and not being, or remain with indifference toward both; but then of it there will be verified that it has either determinate being or determinate non-being; nevertheless, in the preceding time, in which the thing has its futurition as present, the contingent futurition can well, prior to the divine decree, agree with it together with indifference toward either, from the fact that it has an impedible, or non-infallible, futurition.

To the second proof, however, the antecedent must be denied in the sense already stated in n. 101, namely with respect to our concepts without a foundation in the thing. And the proof involved there is manifest from what has just been said, and will appear still more fully from what is to be said at once. Hence, although that which is future completely, that is, after the efficacious determination of the divine will, by which he decrees that it be for the future time, and consequently after the determination of the other causes, has afterwards existing being: and conversely, that which afterwards is existing was first of all future for every sign in which of reason, yet with a foundation in things, because the efficacious decree of the divine will is always involved there: nevertheless, if that which is said to be future be considered before the aforesaid determination of the divine will, or that determination be not conceived, then as far as the force of that concept goes, as it is under this precisive determination, it has no source from which its infallible determination toward being is to be taken.

128 But, when it is considered as present, it has a source from which the aforesaid determination is taken, namely from its presentiality itself, which, while it is, from the supposition that it is, is not indifferent toward being and toward not being: just as a future contingent, before the efficacious determination of the divine will, as to its existence for the future time, is indifferent toward having, or not having, existence for such a time; so that in fact it often does not have it, from the fact that God is understood in the following sign to decree that it be not, or (as we may put it better) from the fact that the decree concerning the non-being of that which previously existed, and was not understood according to our imperfect mode of conceiving, is now understood to be.

To the last proof it must be said that before the efficacious decree of the divine will, no future contingent is said to have a determinate and infallible order toward being rather than toward not being: because that determinate and infallible order cannot extend to the being of the thing for the future time, unless there be a passage through the determination of the causes, and most of all through the determination and efficacious decree of the divine will, so that unless the aforesaid determinations intervene, the aforesaid relation cannot be given: through which the thing is conceived, for instance, to be rather than not to be, as to be had infallibly.

As for the confirmation, it is manifest both from what we have just said in the solution to the first, and also from those things which we asserted in the last reason in favour of the assertion from n. 119 through n. 122.

§ VII. Tertium argumentum primae sententiae solvitur.

129 Since, however, the solution of this argument contains a doctrine worthy of note, we therefore propose it in a particular section. To the third, then, the principal argument, Curiel answers well in the cited controversy, art. 3, from n. 84 through 88, and Cornelio in the place cited above, nn. 45 and 46, by denying the antecedent. Because although out of two propositions which in fact, and in every real instant, are contradictory, one of them must be verified on the part of the thing with respect to any thing whatever, and consequently one of them must be determinately true, it is not nevertheless necessary that it be understood to be verified in any sign of reason whatever.

This can also be explained by the following example. For just as from these two propositions about the aforesaid contradiction, Peter is white, Peter is not white, it is necessary that one of them, in any real instant, be, speaking absolutely and simpliciter, determinately true and the other false; yet not with respect to any sign whatever, or reduplication: and so with respect to that sign of reason in which Peter is precisely conceived according to his essential predicates, neither of them befits him: because essentially he is neither white nor not white: so also from these two propositions contradictory for any real instant, namely Saint Peter will deny Christ three times, Saint Peter will not deny Christ three times, one of them, namely the affirmative, is determinately true for any even real instant; but then there already exists the decree about the permission of such a denial: from the fact that such a decree is from eternity: and therefore no real duration can precede it, not even any sign of reason in which with a foundation in the thing, as we said in n. 48. But neither of the two must be verified with respect to any preceding sign of reason, in the sense explained in n. 101, with respect to the efficacious determination of God, as is manifest from what has been said.

And as for the proof to the contrary, it must be said that those propositions, in that sign, neither are propositions formally, nor do their terms signify formally, but only materially, insofar as their terms are otherwise imposed in order to signify: and consequently that no true contradiction is found there, which is found only in propositions formally such. The reason for this is. Because, as St Thomas teaches above in q. 13, a. 1, at the beginning, words which are formally signifying must be signs of concepts which are in the intellect: otherwise the words of a parrot would be formally signifying, and not only materially. Since, therefore, by no intellect, not even a divine one, prior to the free decrees of God, can anything be determinately conceived concerning the futurition or non-futurition of the Antichrist, as has been shown: therefore those propositions cannot be signs of concepts, and consequently neither formally signifying nor contradictory. Although, granted this (so that a tacit objection is dissolved), that the disjunctive proposition affirming that the Antichrist will be or will not be is a true proposition, for the reasons which we gave above from Aristotle and St Thomas.

130 Second, it is answered by denying the antecedent. And as for the proof, that it is the law of contradictories that one be true and the other false determinately, formally; yet not determinately materially, that is, that in fact neither of them should ever be true, nor both false, but only one: so that if one is true, the other is false. But that in the individual this one determinately is true rather than the other does not arise from the contradiction, but from the determination of the causes, especially the divine one. Indeed (as we may put it better) it is precisely from the contradiction that it follows that one be determinately, formally, true and the other determinately false, that is, that this one or the other be true, and again that this one or the other be false, because the divine will, though it be not determinate in the preceding sign with respect to having a determinate decree about the creation of the world, or about having a determinate decree about not creating it; is nevertheless determinate in that same sign with respect to having one or the other vaguely: from the fact that, as we shall say in the treatise On the Will of God, disputation 5, n. 73, it cannot remain suspended.

Hence, just as when it is said that an eye is required for seeing, such a proposition is determinately true of the eye, not indeed materially, but formally taken, that is, not of a determinate right or left eye, but of the eye, whether right or left, according to which notion the eye is determinately taken formally, and of it there is determinately verified what is required for seeing: so, when it is said that one of the contradictories must be determinately true and the other determinately false, this must be understood of them determinately formally, and not determinately materially, as has been explained.

131 Third, finally, it is answered together with Aristotle and St Thomas, by noting that when it is said that neither of the propositions about a future contingent is determinately true or determinately false prior to the divine decree, then that word determinate can be taken in a twofold way, namely as modifying the proposition of which the argument is about; or as modifying the truth and falsity which is attributed to it. And when it is taken in the first way, the sense is: that neither, determinately, that is, taken per se and in the particular, is true or false, but that one of the two contains under a disjunction the truth or the falsity. When, however, it is taken in the second way, the sense is: that neither of them, taken per se, is determinately, that is, immutably and necessarily, or infallibly, true, but the other of them under a disjunction. Between these two senses, however, there is a great difference. For according to the first, the truth or falsity of any one of these propositions taken per se is denied. But according to the second, only determinate, that is, immutable and necessary, or infallible, truth or falsity is denied to them.

132 Hence, then, to the argument it is answered by denying the antecedent, if it is understood with respect to determinate truth, according as it says unavoidable, or infallible, truth; otherwise, however, if it is understood with respect to mutable, or fallible, truth. For when a future contingent, prior to the efficacious determination of the divine will, has some determination in its causes, insofar as they are in some way inclined to its production, though not completely, from the fact that in that prior sign the efficacious determination of God is lacking, it follows that by virtue of the aforesaid inclination it is true that it will be: and from the fact that the efficacious decree is lacking, through which alone the futurition of any thing is made infallible, it cannot be infallibly true that the aforesaid future thing will be. And finally, because the divine will, prior to its decree, is indifferent as to whether it efficaciously wills the futurition of the aforesaid future or nills it, which, as far as the force of the already explained inclination of the causes goes, was going to have existence: it follows that the truth of the proposition about such a future thing is variable not only in potency, but also in act. For if God in the following sign (so to speak) decrees not the efficacious futurition of the aforesaid future, then that proposition which in the preceding sign was true passes over into false, indeed even into infallibly false, and so it was true before only with fallible and mutable truth.

133 Against this the proof brought forward there has no force. For the law of the contradictories of a future contingent, considered with respect to any sign whatever, is not that any of them, taken determinately, should be determinately, or infallibly, true, or determinately, or infallibly, false; but it is sufficient that one of them, determinately formally and in the sense assigned in the second solution, be infallibly true: or that any of them, taken determinately, or in the particular, should be in the particular true, or in the particular false; although not with infallible and immutable truth, even from the supposition, for instance, of its own truth, but with mutable and fallible truth.

That this solution is sufficiently consonant with Aristotle and with St Thomas in the places cited is manifest from what we reported from them: most of all from the reason which we brought forward, namely, that if propositions about a future contingent were (as the adversaries will have it) determinately true, then contingency would be removed and all things would occur necessarily. This reason, however, proves only if they are true with infallible truth, and not with fallible, contingent, and mutable truth, as is clear to one who examines.

134 It makes no difference if you object that the last two of these solutions coincide: therefore, etc. The antecedent is proved.

For when in the second it is said that one of those propositions is determinately formally, and not determinately materially, true, only the infallible truth is treated of, and not the fallible and already explained, avoidable truth: for indeed the efficacious and infallible decree of God, from whose defect it is not understood for that sign, that that proposition is true, is either the root of the truth of the proposition about the future, or it can only be the root of infallible truth: therefore, when in the last solution only the infallible truth of any one of those propositions taken determinately materially, or, as it is, for instance, the determinate proposition affirming that St Peter will deny Christ three times, is denied, it follows that the second and the third solution coincide.

For it is answered by denying the antecedent. And as for the proof, it must be said that in the second solution the aforesaid proposition taken determinately materially is denied in such a way, namely that in that prior sign before the decree it has, for instance, determinate infallible truth; so that it does not matter whether it has determinate fallible truth, but rather it is supposed that it does not have it: from the fact that, as we shall say at the close of this doubt, this second solution must be accommodated to propositions about the future which concern those contingents that do not yet have a sufficiently fallible determination in their causes toward being rather than not being: and yet the aforesaid propositions about the future concern those same contingents, without their being determinately true or determinately false. Because, as we shall already say, they do not enunciate that determination about them, but that they will have existence for the future time. And therefore, just as the aforesaid contingents in that prior sign have precisely this, namely that they are indifferent, as to being or not being at the aforesaid time: so the proposition enunciating about them that they will have, for the same time, for instance, being, is only indifferent as to whether it be true or false.

But according to the last solution, thus is it denied to any one of those propositions, taken per se and in the particular, or determinately materially, that it have determinate and infallible truth, so that it is admitted, or positively permitted, that it have fallible and avoidable truth: for in that same solution it is expressly asserted that what is required of contradictory propositions is either that any of them, taken determinately formally, be infallibly true, or that any of them, taken determinately materially, have fallible truth. And so this last solution, in that what it adds beyond the second is, as we shall say in the place cited, must be applied particularly to those contingents which have a fallible determination in their causes toward being, even though they do not have an infallible determination in them because of the defect of the efficacious and infallible decree of God, which determines that one of those propositions, taken in the particular, and determinately, and as having a determinate sense, for instance the affirmative, be determinately and infallibly true.

135 As for the confirmation, it is manifest from what has been said how it is sufficient for the truth of that disjunction that one of those propositions, taken formally, be determinately true; or that it be determinately, that is, in the particular, true with fallible, though not infallible, truth. Hence, just as a disjunction is necessary if it consists of incompossible parts, even though neither of them is necessary, so the whole disjunction is true with determinate, and over and above infallible, truth, even though no part is determinately true: because both parts are incompatible in falsity.

§ VIII. Fit obviam caeteris argumentis pro prima sententia allatis.

136 To the fourth it is answered, first, by granting the major and denying the minor, on the ground that that proposition, for the sign prior to the decree, has only materially, and not formally, the character of a proposition, and that those words or terms signify nothing formally, as we have already said. And as for the proof, it must be said that it makes no difference that in fact, perhaps later on (so to speak), it may happen that things are so arranged that in the following sign there is given the decree on account of which it is verified for the future time that the Antichrist is. Because this concomitance and this arrangement happen materially, and not formally: as if a parrot were to utter that proposition, then there would be only materially a proposition, or a conformity, on that occasion, and consequently it would happen only materially with respect to the aforesaid proposition that things should afterwards be so arranged that it be truly verified for the future time that the Antichrist is. Hence, for a proposition about a future contingent ² to be formally a proposition for any prior sign, and to be formally conformed with its object for that same sign, it is required that for that prior sign its object have determinately the character of the future in the determination of its causes, especially the first: because if this be lacking, there will be no reason on account of which it looks to that thing as formally future, and consequently as formally conformed with it.

137 Second, it is answered by granting also the major, and denying the minor, understood with respect to determinate conformity; otherwise, however, if it is understood with respect to indeterminate conformity. And the reason is. Because in order that one thing be conformed with another, it is necessary that that other thing have being, and that it have it such as it is enunciated of it. Wherefore, since prior to the efficacious determination of the divine will creatures do not have determinate being future, nor determinate being not future, positively (so to speak) taken, as we shall explain below, even though they must be future or non-future, it follows that none of those propositions about a future contingent, taken materially, or none in the particular, is in that sign determinately conformed or determinately deformed with respect to its object: for in it the object of those propositions neither has determinate being future nor determinate being not future, even though it is determined toward having one or the other.

And as for the proof to the contrary, it must be said that it makes no difference that things are so arranged afterwards that it is verified for the future time, by virtue of the decree existing in the following sign, that the Antichrist is, for this, namely, that that proposition be conformed with its object in every preceding sign, or for this, namely, that the object be such as it is enunciated of it; but it is required that, if in some sign something befitting it for the future time be enunciated, then from that time on, or by the force of that sign, it be such for the future time as it is enunciated by that proposition: otherwise it will not be conformed with its object in that sign.

138 And the reason is manifest. Because just as the fact that things should be so arranged afterwards that it be verified for the future time that the Antichrist is is not sufficient for it that the Antichrist should really have, with respect to the sign prior to the decree of God, the character of a determinate future, as is manifest from what we said in favour of the assertion; but there is required in that sign something present in which such a determination be founded, so as to be sufficient for it that the proposition affirming this be true, and conformed with such an object rather than deformed with it: because it does not stand that this proposition about a future contingent, namely Antichrist will be, be determinately conformed with its object, and the Antichrist not have the character of a determinate future.

Hence the first root, and rule, of the truth and conformity of the aforesaid propositions is the efficacious decree of the divine will, in such a way that if the aforesaid decree be about the futurition, then the affirming proposition be determinately conformed: but if it be about the non-futurition, such a proposition will be deformed. And finally, if in some sign there be not present the decree about the futurition, or about the positive (so to speak) non-futurition, then the aforesaid proposition neither has determinate conformity nor determinate deformity, and consequently is neither determinately true nor determinately false: but only non-conformed, or non-deformed, or non-determinate-true, or non-determinate-false.

Wherefore, for the form of the proof of the aforesaid minor, the major must be distinguished: When the thing is so situated in that sign, and by the force of that sign in which it is enunciated, it passes over: When it is not so situated in that sign, and by the force of that sign, it is denied. And in the same proportional manner the minor must be distinguished. And as for the proof involved there, it must be said that although it be enunciated of the Antichrist that he will be for the future time, it is enunciated nonetheless by the force of that sign, or in that sign prior to the decree: and yet by the force of that sign, or of those things which such a sign entails, the thing is not so situated as it will be, and consequently in that sign the thing is not so situated for the future time.

139 It makes no difference if you press, first, that it does not rightly follow from the fact that for that sign, for instance, the Antichrist is neither determinately future nor determinately not future by a positive (so to speak) non-futurition (of which we are speaking here, as will be explained more fully at once) that the negative proposition, namely Antichrist will not be, is not determinately true, and the affirmative false. Because precisely because it does not have positive futurition, it was false that he would be; just as it was true that he would not be: for in order that it be true that he will be, it is required that he have futurition; and in order that it be false, it suffices that he lack it. Just as in order that in that sign it be false that the Antichrist is, it is enough that he then not be: and in order that it be true, it would be required that he then be.

Then also; at least it follows from what has been said that the aforesaid proposition is true before the divine decree, if it be put in this form: Although in this sign before the decree there is not anything on account of which the Antichrist will be for the future time; nevertheless he will in fact be by virtue of those things which will afterwards be given. The sequence is manifest. Because for the truth of this proposition there is lacking only that the decree be desired, so that if such a decree were given, and consequently by virtue of it the Antichrist were determined to be, then the proposition would not be true.

This, therefore, does not hold. Because as against the first proof it will be manifest in n. 148. To the second, however, it is answered that the aforesaid proposition is chimeric and consists of mutually repugnant statements, and so destroys itself. For from the head in which it is said that in that sign there is nothing on account of which the Antichrist will be for the future time, it is supposed that the existence of the Antichrist for the future time is not in that sign, still according to objective being: and consequently that he does not exercise the character of object with respect to the aforesaid proposition. Because in order that he be in that sign according to objective being, and exercise the character of object, it would be required that there be in that same sign something on account of which he would then have that determinate real objective being: and consequently it is suggested in the same place that such a proposition is not determinately true: for a determinately true proposition, and one whose object must be, in the same sign. As in general when things are said to be in some way conformed, or deformed, in some sign, they must be supposed with being in it, and to have in some way conformity or deformity in the aforesaid being. Yet from the head in which it is said that the Antichrist will have existence for the future time, what is required for the truth of this is that that proposition and the existence of the Antichrist according to his real objective being be simultaneously in that sign: and thus that something then be there on account of which such an existence will be for that same future time. But these things will be explained more fully in the solution to the first confirmation of this argument.

140 Third, it is answered by granting the major, and denying the minor with respect to unavoidable and infallible conformity; otherwise, however, with respect to fallible and avoidable conformity. Nor does the proof convince any further. Because before the divine decree, at most it can be verified fallibly that the Antichrist will be for the future time: since before the aforesaid decree it was entirely open to God to decree that he would not exist for the aforesaid time. And if he had decreed this in the following sign, then that proposition which in the preceding sign was at most fallibly true on account of the greater inclination of the causes would afterwards, or in the following sign, be false. And so it follows only that before the aforesaid decree a fallible conformity of the aforesaid proposition with its object was given: and consequently that that proposition, taken determinately, was not determinately true with infallible truth, but with fallible truth.

We have said: That that proposition, taken determinately, was not determinately true with infallible truth: because when the aforesaid proposition is taken indeterminately, or truth is taken determinately, that is, for truth or falsity indeterminately, then it can be infallible in a proportionate manner.

141 As for the first confirmation, the minor must be denied. As for the proof, it must be granted that the determination of the causes of the present, and caused by the efficacious decree of the divine will, is not that which is enunciated of the subject, and consequently is not the object of the conformity of that proposition about the future: but that it is, however, the first root, and the first requirement, and the first rule of such conformity, for the reasons given in favour of the assertion. And so unless the aforesaid decree be present, no true and determinate conformity, or determinate deformity, can in any way be between it and its object.

This can also be explained by the example of intellection and free volition. For in the intellection proposing the object with indifference, is the root, and the requirement, and (so to speak) the first rule of the freedom which is in the volition of a freely proposed object; and yet that knowledge which thus proposes the object indifferently is not the root and rule of free volition by way of the object willed by it, but is something altogether prerequisite in order that that object be willed according to its own goodness. Thus, then, the efficacious decree of God is not the root and rule of the conformity of the proposition about the future with its object, as though something were necessarily enunciated by it: and consequently neither as the object of the conformity, but as something altogether required, and by way of the first root of the aforesaid conformity: which, precisely because it is created and accidentally, cannot fail to take its origin from the divine decree transferring that future from the state of the possible, or of the fallibly future, into the state of infallible futurition.

142 It makes no difference if you object that, if the efficacious decree of the divine will is required for the truth of the affirmative proposition about a future contingent, then precisely because the decree is lacking, the affirmative proposition about the aforesaid future will be false: for that which is lacking to it is the first requirement, and the first root, of its conformity and truth: just as precisely because the intellection proposing the object with indifference is lacking, the volition must have the opposite of freedom, namely necessity.

For it is answered that from this, at most, it is gathered that the aforesaid proposition is not true and not conformed, from the fact that the first requirement of conformity and truth is lacking; but that it is not positively deformed, or false: for true and false with respect to any proposition whatever are not immediate contraries: and so a middle can be given, namely, neither true nor false.

Nor does the example brought forward stand in the way, but rather it helps. Because just as, when the intellection proposing the object with indifference is wholly lacking, then if in its place another intellection proposing it with determination and necessity is not substituted, no necessary volition is given, nor even free volition; but if there be posited an intellection proposing it with determination, of necessity, then a necessary volition will be given: so, in that prior sign before there is the decree of the divine will about the futurition of the Antichrist, the proposition affirming of him that he will be, although it does not have determinate truth and conformity, yet will not have that deformity which is the opposite contrary to conformity, and consequently will be only non-conformed, or non-true, and non-deformed, or non-false, but not conformed, or deformed, true, or false. If, however, in the following sign there had been the decree of the non-futurition of that same Antichrist, then that proposition in that later sign would be deformed. So that, because God had a decree about the futurition of the Antichrist, therefore after the aforesaid decree such a proposition is determinately true.

143 And although through what we have now said this remains sufficiently explained, it can nevertheless be added that, just as necessity and freedom are immediately opposite with respect to the act of volition, absolutely and existing for any real duration, and so absolutely and in any real instant a volition cannot be given which is not either determinately necessary or determinately free, yet not for any sign whatever, and under any precisive determination: and so it is sufficiently probable that the same volition, according to its substance, can pass from necessary to free, and conversely, and consequently that in that prior sign, in which it is considered according to its essentials precisely, it is neither determinately free nor determinately necessary, even though of the same one it can be verified that it is not free, or not necessary, insofar as by this is signified that it does not yet have necessity or freedom: so, then, in due proportion with respect to the proposition about a future contingent one must philosophize, insofar as this must be, for every real duration, either determinately true or determinately false, but not for every sign of reason, and prior to the decree. Because then, and under the aforesaid precisive determination, it is only non-conformed, or non-deformed, from the fact that no object is given for that prior sign with which it may be conformed or deformed: and consequently it will be only non-true, or non-false, insofar as with respect to the aforesaid sign it does not yet have truth or falsity.

Just as this very thing, with due proportion, must be said of any proposition, whether about the present, or about the past, or about the future, if the aforesaid proposition be considered in that sign in which it precedes its own property, namely truth or falsity. For then it is not formally true, or formally false, nor formally conformed, or formally deformed; but only not yet true, or not yet conformed; and not yet false, or not yet deformed. All of which things must be admitted with greater reason in the propositions already stated than in that example of the volition which is able to pass from necessary into free, and conversely; without its being changed according to its substance: from the fact that our assertion is far more certain than that doctrine contained in the aforesaid example.

144 As for the second confirmation, it is answered from what has been said, that the de inesse proposition is not the rule and measure of the truth of the proposition about the future enunciated for every sign, unless there be present that first prerequisite, and the source of the conformity of one proposition with another, namely the efficacious determination of the divine will. And therefore in that prior sign, in the sense explained above, before the possibility of the Antichrist there was no futurition of him, as we showed above, and as is manifest from itself: and nevertheless for the future time the de inesse proposition corresponding to it is true, namely that the Antichrist is.

As for the third confirmation, it is manifest from what has been said how true and false determinately and immutably are immediate opposites with respect to a proposition for any real instant whatever, but not for any sign of reason whatever.

145 As for the last, it is also manifest from what has been said how, for the character of the proposition, it is sufficient either that it be indeterminately true or false in the sign prior to the divine decree; or that it be fallibly and in the particular true, or fallibly and in the particular false; or finally, that in any real duration, and consequently with the decree of God standing, it be determinately and infallibly true, or determinately and infallibly false.

146 It makes no difference if you object that, although a proposition can in general be indeterminately true or false, nevertheless precisely because it is this proposition in the individual, it must have determinate truth or determinate falsity. Because as often as any determination agrees under a disjunction, and indeterminately, with any essence in general, so often does it agree determinately with the individuals contained under that essence, as is manifest in number, which, taken in general, agrees at least by way of the property of being even or odd indeterminately, and under a disjunction: and yet to each number in the particular there must belong what is to be determinately even, or determinately odd.

For it is answered by denying the antecedent. And as for the proof, it must be said that it is true in absolute properties, as happens in the example brought forward; but not in relative properties, of which it is to signify true or false. For this property belongs to the proposition about a future contingent with reference to its object, namely the future: and therefore because for that sign of reason it does not have determinate fore, nor determinate non-fore, but only has indeterminately that he will be, or indeterminately that he will not be; from the fact that the divine will is determined, for that prior sign, toward having some act vaguely and indeterminately taken, by which it decrees fore, or not fore, of, for instance, the Antichrist; therefore this proposition Antichrist will be, for that prior sign, and taken in the individual, signifies truth or falsity indeterminately, but not determinately.

Add, that according to that former solution brought forward in n. 129, the aforesaid proposition in that prior sign is not formally a proposition, nor does it consist formally of subject, copula, and predicate as such, as was explained there.

147 Curiel answers the first confirmation in the cited controversy, n. 86, by taking non-future in a twofold way. First, negatively, from the fact that it does not have the mode of being future, even though it can have it, as happens in the case of the possible: which yet does not have all the requirements in order to be future, and can have them. Second, contrarily, from the fact that it imports something repugnant to the mode of being future: as that which is possible to occur, and which God has decreed not to be done, has something on account of which its being future is repugnant to it. When, therefore, it is said of something that it is not future, because it is considered prior to the determination of the divine will about its production, non-future is taken in the first way. When, however, in the negative proposition opposed to the affirmative, it is denied that it be future, it is taken in the second way. And just as the argument does not hold from the negation of some requirement, that something be future, to the positing of something repugnant, that it be future; so neither will the argument hold, by which from the cognition of something under the character of non-future in the first way it is gathered that it is not future in the second way.

But in this solution, unless it be explained further, the mind does not seem to rest at all. For if it stops precisely at this, that, non-future being taken positively and contrarily, nothing can be non-future except after the decree, it will follow that prior to the divine decree all the negative propositions contrary to propositions about a future contingent will be false: as likewise, for the same reason, all the affirmatives about that same future will be false: for neither the futurition nor the positive non-futurition can be, according to our opinion, before the divine decree, but they must follow after it: and this is not to be granted for the reasons which we gave in nn. 141 and 142: therefore, etc.

Hence, to this confirmation it is answered, from what was said in the place cited, that it does not convince the intention. Because the present decree of the divine will is not the object of that proposition, but is only the first requirement, and the first fontal reason of the conformity with the object, and of the object itself, as well as of that predicate which is enunciated of the subject through it, namely existence for the future time. And likewise the second confirmation does not convince the intention, on the ground that the object of that negative proposition, namely Antichrist will not be, is in no way the negative non-futurition of that same Antichrist; but is that which we have just suggested, and explained more fully in the place cited.

148 From this it is also manifest with respect to that which is brought forward at the close of this confirmation, namely that, just as for it to be false in that sign prior to the decree that the Antichrist is, it is sufficient that he not be in that sign: since for the truth it was required that he be, so for it to be false in that same sign that he will be, it will suffice that he not have positive futurition: for this futurition was required for its truth. From what has been said, then, it is manifest on this point. Because with respect to that affirmative proposition enunciated in that sign, namely the Antichrist is, the being of the Antichrist for that sign has the character of the enunciated object; and the not-being of the same, according to that notion according to which it can be given in that sign, has the character of the object of the negative proposition, as two things immediately opposite to one another. And therefore, just as if the being of the Antichrist were given in that sign, it would measure both propositions, rendering the one (namely the affirmative) true and the other (namely the negative) false, so the same must be said, in due proportion, of the not-being which is given for that same sign.

But the object of the other proposition, namely Antichrist will be, is not the determinate and positive futurition which befalls the Antichrist in that sign of reason before the decree. For this is nothing else than that he have determinate being in the present, and in that sign, in his causes, and especially in the first; but that, for the future time, he will be positively, as likewise the object of the negative proposition is that, for the future time, he will positively (so to speak) not be: from the fact that for the following sign there will be the decree by which God determines that he will, or will not, have existence for the aforesaid time. Wherefore, when by the force of the preceding sign, or in the aforesaid sign, that object is not given, namely that the Antichrist will be for the future time, nor is that given which was explained in the way described, namely that he will not be, it follows that the aforesaid proposition, from the defect of its object, and consequently from the defect of the rule that measures it, is neither determinately true nor determinately false, even though it is non-true and non-false.

149 Hence, to falsify any one of these propositions taken determinately, or to verify it, it is not enough that the Antichrist in that sign before the divine decree be not future negatively, that is, that he lack those things which are required for futurition, even though he lack nothing on account of which his existence for the future time is repugnant to him. Because the object of the aforesaid propositions is only that which the Antichrist will have for the future time, namely that he exist positively, or that he positively, and in the sense stated, not exist; and so although the aforesaid proposition may lack positive being conformed, or deformed, with its object, except dependently on the divine decree; nevertheless on that account, before it, or from the fact that the divine decree is not understood, it will not be false by the force and the strict sense of the expression.

We have said: By the force and the strict sense of the expression: because if another sense were given, which yet is not proper to it by the force and the strict sense of the expression, namely, that the causes are determinate for this, namely that the aforesaid future thing be for the future time, or that it have determinate being in its causes, on account of which it will be in the future time, then the affirmative proposition will be false, just as the negative, explained in the same proportional manner, will contain truth; but the aforesaid propositions thus expounded are rather by the force and the strict sense of the expression propositions about the present than about the future.

150 But at the close of this doubt you will perhaps ask. Which of those three solutions, by which we have dissolved many of the arguments of the contrary opinion, is to be preferred to the others. It is answered from what we indicated above, namely, that speaking of propositions which enunciate, before the efficacious decree of God, that something will be, for which yet there is no determination in their causes, not even an impedible one, and consequently neither the thing itself, of which it is enunciated that it will be, has futurition in them by reason of a greater inclination which is in them with respect to the production than to the non-production of such a thing, then the first and the second solution is to be chosen. If, however, we speak of propositions which enunciate, before the aforesaid decree, that something will be, for which indeed the causes are sufficiently determinate in order to be produced, even though such a determination be impedible, then the later solution is to be chosen.