Cursus Theologicus, Tomus I: In Primam Partem

40 By future conditional contingents, and discrete, we understand here in this difficulty only those discrete futures which we said pertain to the present disputation, namely, those which depend on a contingent and free cause both on the part of the condition and on the part of the future event.

§ I. A twofold position is set out.

The first position affirms it with regard to the conditional futures having a conjectural connection with the condition; but it denies it with regard to the discrete ones. Because it judges that God does not know those, on the ground that they are not knowable. Thus, with regard to the first part, the Doctors to be cited below in support of our assertion. And with regard to the second, those whom we mentioned in num. 9. Indeed, with regard to the first part, it will be clear from what is to be said in support of our assertion. With regard to the second, namely, with regard to the conditional and discrete futures, it is proved first by Corneius in this article, disp. 3, dub. 1. Because futures of this kind have no truth which can be known: therefore it cannot be shown by any reasoning that they are knowable with certainty, and, maintaining infallibility in the strict sense, both on the part of the subject and on the part of the material object. The consequence is evident. The antecedent, however, is proved. Because in propositions concerning the conditional future some dependence of the work on the condition is signified; but when the condition does not excite the will, but is wholly irrelevant and discrete, no such dependence is found, as is evident in this proposition: If Peter were sleeping at Rome, Paul would be doing penance at Salamanca: and so on.

And it is confirmed. For just as this proposition, The Antichrist is infallibly going to be, is, in the strict sense and in the proper sense of speech, false before the divine decree, because it denotes that in that respect the causes are infallibly determined to produce him; and yet it cannot be known in that respect whether he will have determinate existence, or will not have determinate existence, for the future time, because there is nothing infallible in that respect from which it could be known, as we said in disp. 7, num. 148 and following; so the aforesaid proposition, and others like it concerning the discrete conditional future, are false. Because it is signified by the force and strictness of speech that there is some connection between the condition and the future event, which yet, as is supposed, is false, and yet it cannot be known what will be in the future time, the condition being posited; because there is nothing from which it could be known.

41 It makes no difference if, with the authors of middle knowledge, you say that it is enough for this that the proposition be true, and that the future event be known, which, the condition being posited for the future time, namely, Peter's sleep, would be posited at the same time as Paul's penance. Because in reality, and in fact, penance and non-penance of the same Paul cannot be posited together in that event; nor can it be the case that either determinate penance of his, or determinate non-penance, is not posited: because these two are immediately opposed. And therefore, if in the same time in which the condition would be posited, determinate penance of Paul is posited, then that conditional proposition about the future will be true; and consequently known by God infallibly. And the reason of all these is. Because the particle if does not signify an illative sense in the aforesaid propositions; but only denotes the sole and pure concomitance of the condition with the future event.

Against this, however, is the following. Once it is admitted that the particle if denoted only the sole and pure concomitance of Paul's penance with this condition, namely, Peter's sleep, then at least it would have to be admitted that God does not know the discrete conditional futures which would not occur at the same time as their conditions, such as: If Judas had not been a traitor, Luther would have retracted his heresy: for future effects of this kind would have no concomitance, nor coexistence in the same duration of time with their conditions. Which yet the authors of middle knowledge will not admit, since according to their opinion such futures have their own objective truth: by reason of which they can sufficiently determine the divine cognition. And so in their opinion, too, that particle if will not signify mere concomitance in existence.

Then too: because according to the rules of Dialectic, as Soto noted, lib. 2, Summularum, cap. 8, lect. 1, this particle if is wont to be used in only three ways. First, illatively, as: If he is a man, he is an animal. Second, promisively, as: If you will serve Peter, I will give you a reward. Third, conditionally, as: He is a rational animal, if he is a man: and hence it will never signify mere concomitance. The consequence is evident. Because in all these three ways it signifies some connection between the consequent and the antecedent.

42 Secondly, and principally, the same position is proved with regard to this part. For propositions about the discrete conditional future either give an illative sense, and thus all of them are false; or they denote only sole and pure concomitance, and thus they too are false, nor have they anything from which the future event can be known with certainty, as we were saying a moment ago: therefore by no reasoning can they be known with certainty by God, nor can this be urged by any argument. The consequence is evident. The antecedent, however, as regards the first and the last part, is clear from what has been said.

With regard to the second, however, namely, that if that conditional proposition said only sole and pure concomitance, then it would be false, is proved. Because the condition of the one part of that proposition is no more a part of the other than conversely: since concomitance is mutual, and yet by the force of that proposition it is denoted that the first part of that proposition is the condition of the second, as when we say: If Peter were sleeping at Rome, Paul would be doing penance at Salamanca: and so on.

43 The second position denies to God a certain and infallible cognition on the part of the material object, that is, an altogether infallible one, both with respect to the conditional futures which have a discrete relation to their conditions, and with respect to those which are connected with them conjecturally and probably, or by some other lesser connection. Thus do the Doctors adduced for the contrary position in dub. 2. And indeed with regard to the discrete futures it is proved by the arguments of the preceding position. With regard to both classes of futures, however, it is proved first from this: For the aforesaid futures can be known with certainty neither by the knowledge of simple intelligence, nor by the knowledge of vision; therefore by none; and consequently it will be contradictory that it be shown by a sufficient reasoning that those are knowable by God through a cognition infallible from every point of view.

This second consequence follows from the first. Because if any reasoning proved the aforesaid futures to be altogether certainly knowable by God, it would surely prove them to be knowable by one of these knowledges: since, as we hinted above and shall prove at length in the following disputations, it is contradictory that there be any middle knowledge by which they may be known. The first consequence, however, follows from the antecedent.

The antecedent, however, is also evident as regards the first part. For the knowledge of simple intelligence terminates only in things purely possible, and altogether necessary, which the aforesaid futures are not. As regards the second part, too, it is evident. Because the knowledge of vision terminates only in things existing in some difference of time, that is, in things which are really and physically present in eternity; whereas the aforesaid futures will not exist in any difference of time: and consequently they are not from eternity physically and really present to eternity.

44 Secondly. Because the aforesaid futures can be known with certainty only either according to the being which they have in themselves, or according to the being which they have in their causes; but in neither of these two ways; therefore in none: and consequently neither can it be proved by any reasoning that God has a certain and infallible cognition of them. This second consequence follows from the first: the first, however, from both premises. The minor, too, is evident. For the aforesaid futures will never have being in themselves: since they will never exist; and thus they can never be known according to the being which they have in themselves. Just as, likewise, they cannot be known with certainty according to the being which they have in their causes: since in those they have only an uncertain and indeterminate being, namely, contingent being. The major, too, is evident. For there is no other kind of being except either in itself or in its cause, as is clear from what we said at greater length in the preceding disputation.

45 It makes no difference if you say that they have being in themselves, not according to real exercised being, but according to real objective being.

Against this, however, is the fact that, for the same reason, it seems that it can be said that absolute contingent futures have determinate objective truth in any given respect: because although in any given respect they do not have determinate being, either in their causes or in themselves according to exercised being; yet they do have it according to objective being: but this seems to have been attacked more than sufficiently from disp. praecedent., num. 96 up to num. 122: and so on.

46 Thirdly, it is proved. Because the knowledge of these conditional things speaks of an imperfection in God; therefore neither can it be posited in Him, nor urged by any reasoning. The consequence is plain: and the antecedent is proved. Because a judgment which is practical by its very nature, and does not attain its effect, is imperfect; but such is this knowledge of conditional things: for through it both the things themselves and the mode by which they are to be done are known infallibly; and yet they will never be posited to the external by it: and so on.

§ II. The true position.

47 Nevertheless, it must be said that it is proved by a sufficient reasoning that God has a certain and infallible cognition of the aforesaid conditional things, so that from every point of view, namely, both on the part of the subject and on the part of the material object, it is infallible. This assertion is maintained by the authors cited in the two preceding difficulties in support of our position. By no means, however, will it be better proved than by adducing the fundamental reasoning by which it is argued that the aforesaid futures are altogether certainly, and infallibly, attained by God. Which is indeed hinted at by St Thomas in the places to be cited in the following difficulty: and it can be reduced to this brief form.

For God has an efficacious decree, conditional on the part of the object, concerning any conditional future whatsoever, however discrete, by which He efficaciously decrees that, the condition being posited, it will determinately be for the future time, or determinately will not be for the same time; no otherwise, proportion being preserved, than He efficaciously decreed concerning any absolute future that it will determinately have existence for the future time, or will determinately not have it; even though it escapes us whether He has determined its being or its non-being, unless it is divinely revealed to us, or we see the effect posited to the external, or we have certain reasons, or probable conjectures, by reason of which we persuade ourselves that something will determinately have being for the aforesaid time; therefore God in this decree will know most certainly, and altogether infallibly, that is, both on the part of the subject and on the part of the material object, all the aforesaid futures.

The consequence is evident. For the aforesaid conditional decree has a certain and infallible connection with the aforesaid future, so that it does not stand in the composite sense, nor can it stand that God should have efficaciously pre-defined that, the condition being posited, it will have being freely for the future time, and that at the aforesaid time it will infallibly not be; just as, once God efficaciously pre-defined the absolute and free conversion of Peter, such a conversion will infallibly be; therefore from this very fact, that God knows with certainty His own efficacious and conditional decree, He cannot but know with certainty and infallibility the future event, the condition being posited. The antecedent, however, will be treated in the following difficulty, and will be argued at greater length in the treatise De Voluntate Dei, disp. 5, num. 74.

48 It is added that, as we shall say in the following difficulty, even if God had no positive efficacious decree concerning all and each, or any, of these conditional futures, He could nevertheless know them with certainty and infallibility: not indeed in their objective truth, and in that respect which, on the part of our mode of understanding, precedes the respect in which God was going to decree positively and efficaciously concerning them, if He willed, and hence not even by middle knowledge, that is, conditional knowledge; but in the following respect, and in the way which will be explained at the place recently cited, num. 67 and following. Let those things be seen which we shall say about the composite and divided sense in the treatise De Voluntate Dei, disp. 10, num. 84.

49 It makes no difference if you object to what adversaries so often hammer home, namely, that the immediate cause of a free effect is the created free choice, which can differ from God moving and exciting it; therefore in such a determination of the divine will about the futurition of such a contingent effect, it will not be certainly knowable, because the divine will remains unimpedible through the concurrence of the created will: whereas in an unimpedible cause there is no knowable effect, unless the determination of the other is known.

For an answer is made from St Thomas, 3, contra Gent., cap. 94, where he raises the same argument, and it is fifth in order, and it stands thus: Divine providence does not exclude intermediate causes: but among causes some are contingent and able to fail; the effect of providence is therefore able to fail, therefore the providence of God is not certain. To this argument, and at the same time to the fourth which the holy Doctor had brought from Cicero, he answers thus: But what Cicero objects on the basis of the premises appears frivolous. For since not only the effects, but also the causes and the modes of being, are subject to divine providence, it does not follow that if all things are done by the providence of God, there is therefore nothing in us. For thus are they provided by God, that they may be done freely by us. Nor can the defectibility of secondary causes, through which the effects of divine providence are produced, take away the certitude of providence, as the fifth reasoning proceeded, since God Himself works in all things, and according to His own arbitrary will, as has been shown above. Whence it pertains to His providence that at times the defectible causes should cease to fail, and at times He should preserve them without defect. Where, as you see, with a single word he emptied the whole difficulty which greatly presses the adversaries. For although the created will can fail from that order which divine providence establishes, and can will the opposite of what God provides for, yet because God (as the Angelic Doctor says) works in all things according to the arbitrary direction of His will, and hence can efficaciously will that the created will will, and will freely, therefore, by reason of the highest efficacy of His decree, He at times preserves the defectible causes without defect; and consequently in this decree He can know most certainly all free effects, whether absolute, if the decree is absolute, or conditional, if the decree is conditional.

§ III. The foundations of both positions are met with.

50 To the foundations of the first position a single word is the answer: they prove that discrete futures are not known with certainty and infallibility by God, by reason of the connection which in themselves they have with the condition; whereas they are known by reason of the connection which they have with it from the divine decree. For from this very fact, that God has decreed that, such a condition being posited, however discrete in itself, some effect should follow for the future time, already from the divine ordinance that antecedent and consequent are joined together between themselves by an infallible connection.

To the first argument on behalf of the second position, an answer is made by denying the antecedent, as regards the first part of it. And to the proof it must be said that, although the knowledge of simple intelligence terminates in things purely possible, and altogether necessary, it is not so as to rest adequately in them; but when it is understood to express its greater perfection, insofar as it has, so to speak, an ordering to creatures, it can and must terminate in all conditional contingent futures, which are never to be placed in actuality under existence. For the knowledge of simple intelligence attains the exercise of existence, not only under the state of pure possibility, but so far as it is under any state of potentiality, and of being contained within causes, however free the cause be, and determined and disposed freely for the production of the effect: although it does not attain the aforesaid exercise, as actually exercised, or so that both, namely, the aforesaid knowledge and the exercise of existing of the created effect, coexist in the same measure of duration, namely, in the now of eternity.

51 Wherefore, because conditional futures have only by the force of the infallible decree that they be infallibly future under a condition, and not absolutely, so that they exist at some time, they do not say that the exercise of existence is altogether exercised, but exercisable, if such a condition were to obtain; and consequently they say that it is under some state of potentiality, and of being contained within causes, though free, and determined in a free manner for the production of the effect; and on this account the aforesaid conditional futures can belong to the knowledge of simple intelligence.

This is explained from the very root. For the knowledge of simple intelligence, as it is divided most formally against the knowledge of vision, as a member of the division adequate with respect to the knowledge of God, does not consist in this, that it be necessary or free: for the knowledge of vision is also necessary with respect to the divine essence, and free with respect to creatures; but, placed first by itself, it consists in this, that the knowledge of simple intelligence, as it is divided against the knowledge of vision, is abstractive; whether it be necessary or free: and the knowledge of vision is visual, or intuitive, whether it be necessary or free. Because therefore conditional futures cannot be known by the intuitive knowledge of God, for the reason that this terminates only in what is physically and really present in eternity, and hence only in what is absolutely going to issue at some difference of time; on this account they are not known by the knowledge of vision, but by the knowledge of simple intelligence, that is, by the abstractive knowledge of God.

52 We have said that the knowledge of simple intelligence terminates in the aforesaid futures insofar as it expresses its greater perfection, which belongs to it insofar as it has, so to speak, an ordering to creatures, because, as St Thomas often notes from Dionysius, the highest touches the lowest of the lowest, and the lowest of the highest; as is clear from the rational soul, which, according to the highest reason of the intellect, touches the purely intellectual nature, which is the Angelic nature: and thus it knows first principles without discourse and ratiocination, just as an Angel does; whereas the knowledge of vision is on the part of our mode of understanding higher, and even more eminent, than the knowledge of simple intelligence: for in creatures intuitive knowledge is more perfect than abstractive knowledge. Wherefore the knowledge of simple intelligence, that is, abstractive knowledge, insofar as it in some way touches the knowledge of vision, for the reason that it in some way terminates in existence, as exercised (that is, not as purely possible, but as approaching closely to the exercise of existence, that is, to an existence which, though it would never be, yet would be if some condition were given); or insofar as it terminates in conditional futures, has being that touches the lowest of the highest, namely, of vision, on the part of our mode of understanding; and thus it will also express the highest of the lowest, namely, of the knowledge of simple intelligence; and consequently, when it is understood to terminate in conditional futures, it expresses that greater perfection of its which belongs to it, insofar as it is understood to look towards creatures.

53 To the second argument the answer is made that conditional futures are known according to the being which they have in the efficacious and conditional divine decree concerning them, and according to the being which, conditionally and in the sense hinted at above, they have in their proximate causes, in so far as they are subject to the aforesaid decree, or in so far as they are also contained in it (in the way touched at another place); and then that they are also known according to the being which they have in themselves, according to real being, not indeed exercised, but which would be exercised if that condition were given, that is, according to real objective being. Whence the solution given there is legitimate, understood in this sense. And to the proof to the contrary the answer is made that there is a disparate relation between the absolute contingent futures, antecedently to the divine decree, and the conditional futures after it. For the former, before the decree of God, have nothing from which they can claim for themselves a sufficient determination, nor any foundation for a determinate real objective being, which indeed always requires to be founded and derived from some real actual and exercised being, which the thing has either in itself or in its cause. But these latter, although before the divine decree they are in the same condition as the absolute futures before it, yet after the aforesaid decree, and by reason of the being which they have in it, can import a sufficient determination, and obtain a true real objective being, foun-

ded in real exercised being, which they have in the same decree.

And this can be explained by the example of possible creatures, which although they have no real exercised being, yet precisely because they have being in the divine omnipotence, a true real objective being befits them: because a sufficient foundation is given, precisely by the fact that they have that exercised being in God, for this, that they may terminate, without any fiction of the intellect, propositions of eternal truth: and nothing else is desired for the aforesaid real objective being. Concerning these matters, however (so that some tacit objection remains solved), let those things be seen which we said in disput. praeced., num. 143.

54 To the third argument the antecedent must be denied. For it pertains rather to the divine perfection, and to this, that He be all-knowing, that He infallibly touches all conditional futures. And to the proof it must be said that, although for the reason of an absolute practical judgment, both on the part of the subject and on the part of the object, it is required that it attain its effect absolutely, otherwise it would be imperfect within the compass of a practical and efficacious judgment; yet for the reason of a practical judgment, however most perfect, which is only absolute on the part of the subject and conditional on the part of the object, that is, which connotes a decree absolute on the part of the subject and conditional on the part of the object (about which the following difficulty treats), it is not necessary that it attain its effect absolutely, but rather it implies it: and it is enough that it attain it, if the condition were truly posited.