Cursus Theologicus, Tomus I: In Primam Partem

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.