Cursus Theologicus, Tomus I: In Primam Partem

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.