Cursus Theologicus, Tomus I: In Primam Partem

1 Although from what has been said in the two preceding disputations the impossibility of middle knowledge, that is, of conditional knowledge, is sufficiently established, as will be clear to the reader; nevertheless, so that this may be established more fully, and so that some objections, which press the adversaries, may be answered more expressly; and finally so that it may be openly set out how this knowledge leads to none of the several and diverse ends, for the sake of which it was devised; we therefore raise this disputation point by point.

Because from ignorance of terms, and also from a lack of a right understanding of the title of the difficulty, an ambiguity and a lesser apprehension of the matter under discussion are wont to arise; it has therefore been thought fitting, for the explanation of the title of this difficulty, and consequently of the whole disputation, to note briefly a few things.

§ I. Threefold observation for the explanation of the title of this difficulty, and of the whole disputation.

2 First therefore it must be recalled to mind, and noted with particular attention, what we touched upon at the head of the preceding disputation, namely that the knowledge of future conditional events, which we set out from sacred Scripture, from the Fathers, and from sufficient reason in the preceding disputation, is not the same as the middle knowledge, and conditional knowledge, which certain younger men teach, and which the disciples of D. Thom. commonly attack. For that knowledge of future conditional events which we admitted in the cited disputation, supposes a decree efficacious from itself and conditional, and existing in God, in whom future contingents are foreknown by him; and it does not constitute any middle knowledge between the natural and the free, but is simply free, since it presupposes the foreknown free and efficacious decree: and consequently it belongs to one of those two members into which the Angelic Doctor and his school divide divine knowledge adequately, namely into the knowledge of vision and the knowledge of simple intelligence. For, as we explained in disp. 9. num. 50. through 53. of this tract., that knowledge of future conditional events, however free it may be, pertains to the knowledge of simple intelligence.

Now the middle knowledge, or conditional knowledge, which those younger men build up, is agreed to accord to God before every efficacious decree of the divine will. Because they hold that God, through it, before every efficacious decree existing in himself, knows future conditional contingents. And although some of them say that there is presupposed for it God's decree objectively present and afterwards future, it is not however the decree actually existing in him, nor even the decree objectively present and, in the following sign, future, which is efficacious of itself: and consequently they constitute it as a certain mean between the knowledge of simple intelligence and of vision, or (as they themselves speak) between the free and the natural knowledge of God: from the fact that it participates in both extremes, inasmuch indeed that it is necessary on the part of the subject, that is of God, since it does not presuppose the free decree of his will actually existing in him; and it is free on the part of the object, because it terminates at free objects.

From which also it follows, first, that this middle knowledge, or conditional knowledge, is constituted by its authors as altogether necessary, in order that God may will, efficaciously and absolutely, the future existence of some created free act, without doing injury to its own liberty. Because unless through this knowledge God foreknows what the created free choice would will, if it were placed in this or that state and order of things, God could not, without injury to the liberty of that same free choice, decree absolutely that such an act would be present at some future time: and consequently He could not, without the said injury, predestinate or reprobate anyone, unless this knowledge went before and showed to what end the said free choice is to be inclined in this or that event.

Now the knowledge of future conditional contingents, which the school of D. Thom. admits, is not posited as altogether necessary, in order that God may will anything efficaciously; but rather it follows upon the efficacious decree, existing in God, which is efficacious of its own merits. And so God does not foreknow through it what will come to pass under the condition, because it will so come to pass, the middle knowledge, according to its authors, supposing the future event; but rather conversely the thing comes to pass conditionally because God foreknows it so: whence it is not posited as necessary for predestination or reprobation; but the whole business is resolved into the divine decree and its gentle, yet exceedingly strong, efficacy.

Secondly, it follows that this disputation about middle knowledge, or conditional knowledge, as distinct from the said knowledge of future conditional events which D. Thom. and his school admit, is not about the name alone, as Suarez wishes, lib. 2. de scientia conditionatorum, cap. 3. num. 4.; since, as is clear from what has just been said, the differences which we have established between the two kinds of knowledge are not about the name, but about the thing itself, and very much about the thing itself, as will become evident to the reader.

3 Secondly it is to be noted that although the future conditional events, whose condition is sometimes purified, or sometimes fulfilled, did not pertain to the preceding disputation, as we noted in its dub. 1.; yet they do pertain well to this one, so long as they are considered under the status of future conditional events, that is, so long as it is not known that the condition has been purified, nor that the future event has been transferred from the conditional status to the absolute status, by means of the divine decree existing in God. Because the authors of middle knowledge contend that any future absolute event can be considered in a twofold status. First indeed in the conditional: and then through middle knowledge God knows what the will, for example, of a man would will, if it were placed in this state or order of things; or what it would be if placed in the opposite, or what afterwards if it were placed in many other and diverse orders of things. Secondly indeed in the absolute status, not just any, but following upon the divine decree, inasmuch as after God has foreknown through this middle knowledge what the said will would will in each of those states, if it were placed in them, He has decided to place it (for example) in this state, in which He foreknows that it would agree with the divine call. And so this consent, which before was only foreknown in the conditional status through middle knowledge, now appears in the absolute status, and through the knowledge of vision, after God has had that decree of placing it in the said order of things: in such a way, however, that this decree could only have had infallible efficacy if middle knowledge went before, and the said event itself in the condition preceded it, which, just as it could have come to pass in the opposite manner, nevertheless in fact and actually so came to pass, and so indeed was foreknown.

4 We have said, So long as it is not known that that condition is purified, nor that the future event is transferred from the conditional status to the absolute status, by a divine decree existing in God: because a future contingent existing antecedently to the divine decree in God also has, according to the authors of middle knowledge, the relation and the mode of an absolute future, though not altogether immediately such, from the fact that the decree of God actually existing in it is lacking. And so this proposition: Antichrist will be, in which true absolute futurity is predicated of the Antichrist, is most true in that sign: and therefore it pertains, still in this status, and precisely, to middle knowledge, and consequently to this disputation: although, because I have said a good deal about absolute futures in this sense, and precisely, in disp. 7., we shall say almost nothing about them here.

From which also (let us say this in passing) it is clear how middle knowledge signified under this name extends more widely than that denoted by the name conditional knowledge itself. Because according to the former signification it extends to absolute futures before the divine decree, but not according to the latter signification; but only to future conditional events, expressing some condition taken up in the ways described.

5 Thirdly (so that the terms of the title of this disputation and of the difficulty may more clearly appear), it must be explained and noted why this knowledge, about which the present disputation is inscribed, is called Middle knowledge, or conditional knowledge — which indeed is gathered from the two notations adduced. For in the first place it is called middle knowledge because it is midway between the knowledge of simple intelligence and the knowledge of vision. Then because of the reason touched on in the former notation, namely because it participates in both extremes, as a mean universally shares in the extremes: and therefore it is necessary on the part of the subject, just as the knowledge of simple intelligence; and it is free and contingent on the part of the object, because it deals with free and contingent objects, just as the free knowledge terminates at future contingents (taken, however, in a different way).

Then too, because the first knowledge which God has of creatures is the knowledge of simple intelligence, through which He knows them as possible. The second indeed is this knowledge, through which God knows those same creatures; not indeed under the status of pure possibility, nor under the status of absolute futurity; but under the status of conditional futurity: and not in any way whatever, but antecedently to the efficacious decree of God concerning such a futurity. The third indeed is the knowledge of vision, through which, after the said knowledge held in the second place, and after the decree of God which follows upon it in the way just explained, God knows those futures which are absolutely future. And so that knowledge which holds the second place between the former knowledge and this third one is deservedly called middle knowledge, since it stands between the two. Just as also (a point connected with what precedes) this knowledge is called middle knowledge for another reason, namely by reason of the object around which it deals: from the fact that between the thing purely possible, and the same thing under the status of absolute futurity, it is itself the mean under the status of conditional futurity, according to which it pertains to this knowledge.

6 From which also it is understood why the said knowledge is now called conditional: not indeed because it is such on the part of the subject, since if it were conditional in this way it would not be formally in God, but would be in him only if some condition were posited, as we said in the preceding disputation concerning the efficacious and conditional decree of God; but because it is conditional on the part of the object: because its object, as it is signified under this name, is either a future conditional event, of which we treated most especially in the preceding disputation, that is, one whose condition will never be purified, and consequently will never in fact exist; or a future conditional event which, although it will exist at some time, because the condition will be purified, or will be fulfilled, yet as it pertains to this knowledge is considered under the conditional status, and antecedently to the efficacious divine decree, and consequently as not yet transferred from the conditional status to the absolute status, as has been explained.

From which at length it is again understood in what way the present disputation differs, from another standpoint also, from the two preceding ones. For in the first of those, it is about absolutely future contingents alone; in the second indeed most especially about conditional events whose condition will never be purified; in this one indeed it treats of conditional events, be the condition purified or not purified; although, as we have already touched upon, the decision of it is gathered from what was said in each of the two. And because many things pertaining also to the present subject have already been said in the preceding ones, only those things will be brought forward here which have not been explained elsewhere.

Wherefore, gathering all these things into one, the sense of the title is this: whether, in accordance with sacred Scripture, there is to be given in God, antecedently to his efficacious decree, existing as conditional in him, some knowledge through which He certainly and infallibly knows future conditional contingents: whether they be from among the conditional events whose condition will never be purified, and which are never transferred to the absolute status; or from among the conditional events in which the condition is purified, and which pass over to the absolute status.

§ II. The first opinion is proposed.

7 The first opinion holds the affirmative part. Thus do many Doctors, whom we shall cite in this disp. num. 131. And although this opinion may be proved by its adherents from many testimonies of sacred Scripture, because however they only advise that the knowledge of future conditional events is to be given after the efficacious divine decree, we deliberately omit those; and we select only the single testimony which in its outward appearance seems to prove this opinion: namely that which we have often cited in the preceding disputation from Matth. 11. and from Lucae 10., to wit: WOE to you, Chorazin, WOE to you, Bethsaida, because if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon which were done in you, they would of old have repented in sackcloth and ashes. Where Christ the Lord upbraids the Bethsaida people and the inhabitants of Chorazin for their lack of penance: because the Tyrians and Sidonians would have done that penance, if those miracles had been worked among them. Now this reproach would be empty, if the Tyrians and Sidonians were going to do penance only because God had efficaciously predetermined that they would do it, if they had seen those miracles; and consequently if Christ had foreknown this future conditional event in his efficacious decree, which he had as God. For then the Bethsaida people and the inhabitants of Chorazin could reply that they too would have done penance on seeing those signs, if the said efficacious and conditional will had been present toward them. Just as also the Tyrians and Sidonians would not have been converted, if the said will had not been present toward them: and so there would be no ground on which they were upbraided by comparison with them.

8 The force of this testimony is confirmed and explained. For if Christ were to have suffered external signs far greater among the Gentiles, namely the Tyrians and Sidonians, than among the Jews, of whom this testimony speaks, then the force of the reproach wherewith he upbraided the Jews would be weakened: therefore much more will it remain weakened, there having been established on God's part unequal gratuitous wills toward the Jews and toward the Gentiles: so that toward the former he had only an inefficacious will; but toward the latter an efficacious and conditional will of their conversion. Consequently it is clear. Because if once the said efficacious will is admitted, or required, it cannot fail to lead to the effect predetermined by it far more than all external signs and conceivable miracles: since all these have only a fallible connection with the effect, that is, with the conversion and penance of the sinner; but the efficacious will predetermining the said conversion has an infallible connection with it, precisely because it is efficacious.

9 It makes no difference if you object, saying that the inhabitants of Bethsaida and Chorazin are justly upbraided: because they placed greater obstacles to divine grace than the Tyrians and Sidonians did. Now these greater obstacles they placed by their own natural powers. For although no one can prepare himself by the powers of nature and by positive divine grace, he can nevertheless place obstacles in the way of the same.

Against this, Herice argues, tom. 1. in 1. part. tract. 4. disp. 7. cap. 3. num. 15. For this placing of a greater obstacle, on account of which the inhabitants of Bethsaida and Chorazin are justly upbraided, can neither be merely the denial of a fuller response to the more abundant calls of divine grace, where there was neither a command nor any fault on their part in not responding; nor can it be the commission of greater sins; ergo it is none of these. The consequence seems clear: because this greater placing of obstacles can come from no other source, as will become evident to the reader.

The antecedent, however, as far as the first part is concerned, is evident: both from the context of the same testimony, inasmuch as it threatens that it will be dealt with more harshly with the Bethsaida people and the inhabitants of Chorazin than with Tyre and Sidon. And it is clear that on account of a blameless denial of response to the aids of divine grace no greater punishment is inflicted; and consequently God is not to be dealt with more harshly in his judgment with one who does not respond. Then too, because precisely, if that placing of a greater obstacle consisted in this blameless denial of response to the aids of divine grace, it would follow that the said aids were not efficacious: from the fact that it does not stand with efficacious grace — so as thus to join the denial of the act, on account of which it is given, in such a way that efficacious grace and the denial of the act, in view of which it is efficacious, are composed together in one and the same potency, at once and at the same time; ergo Christ's rebuke of the Jews would be rendered empty if there were not in God an efficacious decree of their penance, just as there was concerning the Gentiles. For they could thus accuse Christ the Lord: that if the Gentiles, when the same miracles had been worked among them, had been roused by God with only sufficient aids, they too would not have responded. For in the opinion of the Thomists, just as an aid and an efficacious decree and the denial of the act cannot be composed together, so neither can a decree and an aid merely sufficient and the act of penance for which it is given.

10 As for the second part, namely that this placing of a greater obstacle is not the commission of greater sins, so that on account of those they would be justly upbraided beyond the Tyrians and Sidonians, the same antecedent argues the same thing. Because if once this efficacious decree is admitted, then just as God predetermines good acts, so He also predetermines bad ones as to the entity of the act, as the Thomists commonly teach; ergo the Jews could not be upbraided by Christ beyond the Gentiles on account of the greater obstacles they placed to grace, on account of the greater sins committed by them: since they could reply to Christ's reproach: that if there had been in God that efficacious predetermining decree of those greater sins of the Gentiles, which there was concerning the Jews themselves, then they would have perpetrated those greater sins no less than the Jews, nor would they have placed lesser obstacles to God's grace.

§ III. The true opinion.

11 Nevertheless it must be said, in accordance with sacred Scripture, that this middle knowledge, or conditional knowledge, is not to be admitted, or (which comes to the same thing) that there is not given in God a knowledge through which, before his efficacious decree, He certainly knows the said future conditional contingents. Thus do many and most weighty Doctors, whom we shall bring forward in this disp. num. 126. and thereafter. And although this assertion might be urged from many testimonies of Scripture, nevertheless, suppressing those, we select only the one. The truth of which seems to be unable to be preserved so well, if once this middle knowledge, or conditional knowledge, is admitted: and this is taken from Paul, first to the Corinthians 4., where he says thus: Let no one be puffed up for one against another, beyond what is written. For who makes you to differ? Or what have you that you did not receive? But if you did receive it, why do you glory as though you had not received it?

But in order that the force of the said testimony may be better weighed, it must be assumed that¹ which the adversaries constantly admit, namely that out of two prevented by an equal will of God toward them, and consequently with respect to those of whom God has no decree efficacious from himself touching their conversion, one can in fact be converted and is actually converted and consents to grace; whereas with the other it is otherwise.

12 With this supposition — whose truth or falsity we do not discuss at present — the said testimony can be weighed and pressed. For if God, antecedently to his efficacious and conditional decree, and therefore through middle and conditional knowledge, had foreknown, for example, that Peter was to be converted, but Paul contrariwise, if they were placed in such or such an order of things, and the will of God toward them were equal, then Peter could glory against Paul because he had separated himself from him by himself and by his own will: since, with a common and equal will of God toward each, and without there being a decree of God efficacious from himself concerning either of them, he separated himself from him, using for his own free choice that gratuitous will of God with which each was equally prevented; and consequently this separation would not have to be referred back to a diverse gratuitous will of God: since, once the efficacious will of God is excluded, before the foreknown consent of each, as it is excluded in this mode of speaking, all the gratuitous wills are equal, as is supposed.

13 It makes no difference if, together with the adversaries, you say that this separation of Peter from Paul, or that the latter consents to grace whereas the former does not, does not arise in Peter from the natural powers of his will alone, but at the same time from the gratuitous will of God: and thus it is to be attributed to God, who has the said will, although such a will is not infallibly efficacious; and consequently, although God infallibly foresaw the consent before the efficacious decree of his will, He will not thereby foreknow that Peter separates himself from Paul, but from grace, or from that gratuitous will of God, existing first and accepted first.

It does not depend on this, then. But in order that this — and at the same time what we intend at present — may be better grasped, it must be presupposed that for the present we are not disputing in what the efficacy of grace consists, nor how God influences in the supernatural order, nor what is derived from his efficacious will into the created will; but we set this aside: and we consider God before He efficaciously decrees the consent of the created will in that conditional status of which we made mention in the preceding §; whether afterwards He have such a decree, and whether grace proceed from him intrinsically efficacious or not; and we strive to show that if once in that former knowledge He knows future conditional contingents, and consequently Peter, for example, as corresponds to divine knowledge in that conditional status, is foreknown as consenting, but Paul contrariwise, then God would foreknow Peter's separation from Paul not by reason of the gratuitous will of God, but by reason of the innate liberty.

14 This being supposed, the preceding solution is refuted as follows. Because precisely, in that conditional status which is presupposed for this middle knowledge, God has not, in advance of Paul, an efficacious decree concerning Peter's conversion, by reason of which He would will the former to consent but not the latter, Peter can be seen to be, precisely in the first act presupposed for such a conversion, no more beholden to himself than Paul: because He has not toward him a gratuitous will greater than toward the said Paul; ergo He will foreknow that Peter's separation from Paul is to be referred back to the liberty of free choice, as into the first ground of the separation, and not into grace, or the gratuitous will of God. The antecedent does not need proof in the case of which we speak, and so it is admitted by the authors of the opposite opinion. The consequence, however, is proved. Because those things which coincide in something common to them and at the same time are distinguished and separated do not have their distinction and separation on account of that which is common to each, but on account of that which is peculiar to them; ergo, since Peter and Paul coincide, in the case of which we speak, in the gratuitous will of God toward them, and consequently are in this wholly equal, and are otherwise distinguished in their consent, it is necessary that this diversity and the separation of one from the other not be referred back to the gratuitous will of God, in which they coincide, but to the liberty of free choice itself, inasmuch as one of them, namely Peter, by his innate liberty has made good use of that gratuitous will of God; whereas the other, namely Paul, by his liberty has made bad use of the same.

15 It is confirmed, firstly. Because in the aforesaid event Peter and Paul are separated and are unequal in the second act, namely in the consent itself: ergo they must also be separated and be unequal in the first act; ergo, since this separation and inequality cannot arise in the first act from grace — since in it they are presupposed to be indistinct and equal — it must arise from free choice, or from something other than grace, on the part of that same free choice. This second consequence is clear from the first, and the first from the antecedent: because the separation and inequality in the second act is some effect arising from the first act; ergo whatever inequality and separation is found there must be presupposed, and shine forth, beforehand in the first act itself.

It is confirmed and explained, secondly, from the fact that D. August., lib. de praedest. Sanct. cap. 5., teaches. For explaining there that passage to the Corinthians 3., Let him who glories glory in the Lord, he says: But nothing is so contrary to this sense as that anyone should glory in his own merits, as though the grace which distinguishes the good from the wicked were not that which is common to good and wicked. Wherefore, since in the case of which we speak those things which are of grace are common to each of these two, of whom the one consents and the other does not consent, their separation cannot be referred back to the grace of God, or to the gratuitous will of God; but to that which is peculiar to each of them, namely that one by his innate liberty has made good use of the grace of God, or the gratuitous divine will, whereas the other has made bad use of the same; otherwise the reason brought forward by Augustine would not be legitimate; and consequently, if God before his efficacious decree foreknows this, He will certainly foreknow that one of them is separated from the other by his own powers.

16 It is confirmed and explained, thirdly, and at the same time a certain tacit solution is overturned. Because although that consent by which Peter was converted does not proceed from the liberty of his will alone, and consequently that gratuitous will of God does influence that separation, nevertheless if God before his efficacious decree foreknows such a consent, it is necessary that He also foreknow that the first root of this separation does not arise from the said grace, but from the innate liberty of Peter's free choice: ergo the force of the testimony of Paul brought forward by us is not preserved: since, as will become evident to the reader, it intends that the first root of the separation of one from the other is the divine grace, as has been explained; otherwise that reason of his would not stand; but one might be puffed up against the other and glory, on the ground that he himself was the first ground of his own separation from the other, although divine grace also concurred for this. The antecedent, in which the difficulty lies, is proved. Then, because, according to this mode of speaking, the concurrence of God promised from the force of that gratuitous will must be promised toward either of the two, so that if the created will should will to consent to grace, or to the gratuitous will of God, God would then concur to the consent; but if it should will to dissent, He would also influence together with it toward the dissent; ergo, that the will in act consents, is not to be attributed to grace, as to the first root, but to the created will, which had this peculiarity, that by its innate liberty it made good use of the said grace: ergo, precisely, because God before his efficacious decree, requiring Peter's conversion, foreknows that he will consent before Paul, then this consent of one above the other, and the separation of one from the other, will be foreknown as having its origin in the created will, as from the first root. Then too, because that gratuitous will of God toward him does not incline more to consent than that which is in God toward Paul; nor does it demand consent more in one than in the other; ergo, that which in Peter actually impels him rather than in Paul, and consequently that which is efficacious in the second act, must be referred back to the first root, in the liberty of Peter's free choice, who by his innate liberty has made good use of the said grace, although it also proceeds from the same grace: ergo, etc.

17 Then the same solution can be refuted by another route: presupposing, however, first what the adversaries teach, as is seen in Molina, namely that created free choice, prevented by the gratuitous and sufficient will of God, or holding itself on the part of the first act, has a peculiar proximate and innate power of acting, distinct from the power which is superadded to it by that gratuitous will of God, and which is not formally conferred on it by such a will, although it cannot influence a supernatural act by this power unless associated with grace.

But this being supposed, the said solution can be refuted otherwise, from what at least follows, namely that a man by his free choice, according to what he has of his own, associated yet with grace, is foreknown by God in the posited case as separating himself from another who does not consent; and this too is against Paul, who attributes this separation of one above the other, or that one consents while the other does not, to grace, and not to free choice according to what it has of itself, even if it be associated with grace: ergo, etc.

18 The consequence is proved. Then, because precisely, free choice has of its own some proximate active power, which is not conferred on it by that gratuitous will, although it cannot operate unless associated with it, it is necessary that that partial efficacy of the said free choice, as it precisely corresponds to its proximate and innate power according to what it has of its own, although associated with grace, and inasmuch as it is a part of one entire cause of its consent and separation, be foreknown by God as something which is not formally from that gratuitous will, but from the very nature of free choice; ergo Peter consenting will be foreknown as separating himself partially by what is his own, that is, by what has not been received through that supernatural and gratuitous will of God, but only through creation; although this partial separation of what is his own must necessarily be associated with the partial separation through grace. Then finally (by which the preceding proof is further explained), because that separation and inequality is not foreknown, according to the opposite opinion, as proceeding wholly and totally from grace as from the proximate principle, since grace is equal in both; ergo it is foreknown as proceeding partly from grace and partly from the will, according to what it has of itself, although associated with grace; and so the will of Peter will be able partially to glory against Paul, because he separated himself from him by what is his own, though associated with grace.

The falsity of the consequence, apart from the fact that it seems sufficiently clear from what has been said in it, can nevertheless be shown further in this way. Because if Paul says that a man is separated by grace, because the created will alone does not separate itself, but itself, according to what it has of its own, associated yet with grace, has itself proximately separated; then for the same reason it should be said that a man separates himself in part by what is his own, and that he is foreknown as such by God: because not only grace, but also the created will, according to the proximate power which it has of its own, concurs to this separation — which nevertheless, as is clear, is against the intention of Paul.

19 From which also the other solution of those who, feeling the force of these refutations, say this — namely that when it is commonly said that there stands the case of two prevented by equal gratuitous wills of God, so that the one consents but not the other, and consequently that in one that grace is rendered efficacious in fact in the second act, but not in the other, it is understood as being about equality in physical being, and not about equality in moral being; and so he who is converted, and is foreknown by God through conditional knowledge to be converted in the conditional status, can (let us say so) receive the same grace, wholly equal physically to that of him who is not converted, but not the same, or equal, morally in the first act. And they give the reason for this. Because precisely, since it is foreknown that he will consent with that gratuitous will of God toward him, in that order and series of things, and at that place and time; and at the same time it is foreknown that he will not consent with the same wills in another order and series of things, or at another place and time assigned to them, he has the greater grace morally in this, that God has toward him a gratuitous will equal in physical being at that time, occasion and order of things in which he is foreknown to be consenting, but not in others.

From what has been said, therefore, this solution remains refuted. Then, because Peter and Paul in that event are found to be not only separated by the consent, that is, by the second supernatural act, according to what is moral in it; but also according to what is physical in it; ergo, since every separation in the second act must presuppose a separation in the first act proportionate to it, it is necessary that, just as in the second act separation and inequality are found in actual grace, considered both according to moral being and according to physical being, so this same proportionate separation and inequality be found in the first act; ergo, since this cannot be foreknown by God as proceeding precisely from grace, which is supposed to be physically equal, it must be foreknown as proceeding from free choice by what is its own, although associated with grace, inasmuch as by its innate liberty it has made good use of that grace which Paul did not use, but abused.

20 Then too, because the second act cannot pertain to the first act, as is clear from the terms themselves; ergo, that the second act is foreknown as about to follow, precisely because the will of Peter in such an order, series of things, and occasions is called by the same gratuitous will physically equal to the gratuitous will toward Paul (if it is true that it can be foreknown before the efficacious decree of God, the opposite of which is clear from what has been said in the two preceding disputations), cannot be reduced to this, that that grace be morally unequal in the first act: since this inequality arises only from the consent which by lot befalls to be future, and such a consent is itself the second act: above all, because in order that something pertain morally to the first act, it must morally exist; but that act, foreknown as future, says rather the negation of existence as long as it is future: and so also on this account it cannot pertain to the first act, neither on its own account, nor on account of the middle knowledge by which it is foreknown; since the latter is speculative in the opinion of the adversaries, and does not posit, but rather presupposes, its object. Then finally (which follows from the preceding). For when it is said that in the case described there intervenes a greater moral grace, precisely because it is given in such an order of things and with such or such circumstances, then is the consent of the will, as it corresponds to the power and efficacy of free choice according to what it has of its own, associated yet with grace, counted among these circumstances? or not? but only the consent as it is from grace? If the first, then the partial separation made through free choice according to what it has of its own is counted there as well, and consequently it is involved there that it is foreknown by God that Peter, for example, is separated from Paul in the sense described, according to what he has of his own. But the second cannot be said, because the consent cannot be foreknown as from grace without its also being foreknown as from free choice. Since according to this mode of speaking the consent as from grace is not efficacious of itself to influence causally the consent, as it is when it is from free choice according to what it has of its own, associated yet with grace; but they behave purely concomitantly. Indeed, if there is any order between them, the consent as from free choice must come first. For the concurrence offered on God's part is indifferent as to this, that if the created will should will to consent, God should concur to the consent; but if it should will not to consent, God should also concur to this volition.

21 From all of which the other solution also remains refuted, namely that it is false on another ground to say that he who is converted has not received more, or that there was not in God a greater gratuitous will toward him; since he has received a supernatural consent, and the concurrence of God concomitant with it.

Against this, press what we said above, namely that this inequality of receiving this concurrence cannot but arise as from a partial cause, or as from an indispensable condition, from free choice considered according to its native and proximate power, although associated with grace: since that God should influence in act and give the concurrence of the supernatural order depends indispensably on free choice's also giving its own concurrence, according to what it has of its native power, associated yet with grace; and the concurrence concomitant with God is not a cause, or a reason a priori, according to this mode of speaking, of the concurrence of free choice considered according to the said reason; but they behave purely concomitantly, inasmuch as neither is it without the other, nor conversely; ergo, although God should influence in act through the concurrence concomitant with it, created free choice will be foreknown by him as separating itself in that part of the concurrence which it gives of its own, associated yet with grace, and which operates at the same time with God, co-operating with him.

It is confirmed, firstly. For here too what I was just saying presses, namely that precisely, since there is an inequality on God's part in the second act, there must also be an inequality on the creature's part in the second act; ergo, since every inequality in the second act must be referred back to the first act, and according to the opinion of the adversaries there is no inequality in the first act on God's part, or on the part of his gratuitous will, it is necessary that this be reduced to the created will, which by its innate liberty associated its own concurrence with the concurrence of God.

22 It is confirmed, secondly, from Augustine, lib. de praedest. Sanct. cap. 6., where he says thus: Many hear the word of truth, but some believe, others contradict. These therefore will to believe, those will NOT. Who is ignorant of this? Who would deny it? But when it is prepared for some and not prepared for others, it is the will of the Lord: it must indeed be discerned what will come from his mercy, what from his judgment. Where, according to Augustine, the distinction of the believer from the unbeliever proceeds from the gratuitous will of God, with which the will is prepared, and not from the concurring concomitant. Let us grant, then, that if we speak of the created will in that former stage, before God has decreed efficaciously concerning it, what it will operate in such or such a conditional status, it cannot be known with certainty and infallibility by any intellect, even a divine one, what it will will: not applying these statements to supernatural operations; then, with an equal gratuitous will of God, one created will consenting is foreknown and another not consenting; and so it is foreknown as separating itself, and by what is its own, from the other, and able to glory against the other.

Yet it is to be noted that we have deliberately spoken in this difficulty only about the equality of the gratuitous will of God, and not about the aids of grace, which are received in the created will, so as to utter not the least word, as far as possible, about these, so that we may stand as far as possible apart from the not altogether perfect observance of the decree of our most holy Roman Pontiff, by which it is provided that treatises and disputations on the efficacy of the aids of divine grace are not to be committed to the press:

§ IV. The foundation of the first opinion is resolved.

23 To the foundation, therefore, of the opposite opinion it must be said that it can also be retorted against its own authors; and consequently that it must be resolved both by them and by us, though from a different standpoint. Since in their opinion the Bethsaida people and the inhabitants of Chorazin could also say, in reply to Christ's reproach, that just as the Tyrians and Sidonians would have believed on seeing those signs, because they were ready for them in that series and order of things and occasions in which it was foreknown by God that they would consent and believe, although there were many other occasions on which He foreknows that, those same signs having been worked, they would not be converted; so if the same signs had been worked among the said Jews on many other occasions and circumstances in which it was foreknown by God that they would believe, then they would believe no less than the Tyrians and Sidonians. Whence it seems that it can also be complained of against Christ that, when He had foreknown both in the Jews and in the Gentiles certain occasions and circumstances in which, when called, they would respond; and certain others in which they would not respond, on seeing the same signs and being roused by the same internal and sufficient graces, He nevertheless chose for the Tyrians and Sidonians those in which He foreknew they would believe, leaving aside those in which He foreknew the contrary; whereas in Bethsaida and among the inhabitants of Chorazin He chose those in which He foreknew they would not consent, leaving aside those in which He foreknew that they would consent.

24 To this accusation, and to the apparent complaint of the Jews against Christ the Lord, the authors of the opposite opinion can respond in no other way than by saying that it was enough for the Jews to have all the aids of grace that are sufficient, both for the occasions on which they are foreknown to be consenting and for those on which it was foreknown by God that they would not consent; and thus it is to be laid to their fault that, being so called, they did not believe; nor is God bound always to choose those occasions on which He foreknows the created free choice, excited by divine grace, will be consenting; but as universal provident He can leave that free choice, for many and most upright ends, in those occasions in which He foreknows it will not consent, and permit this defect; otherwise grace would in no way be given to those who do consent and are established in the occasions in which they are foreknown to be consenting, if God were once bound to place them in the said occasions and not in others; nor would those other occasions be among those in which created free choice can be placed, if God could not place it in them without injury to the said free choice.

As therefore the authors of the opposite opinion thus evade the force of this apparent, though not true, response and complaint of the Jews, so we too meet the same objection by the same (though proportionate) way, saying that the Jews could not justly complain against Christ, nor could his rebuke be rendered empty: since he provided them, on seeing the said signs, with aids sufficient for believing, although he made them unequal to the Tyrians and Sidonians in that greater gratuitous will with which he had pursued them, by efficaciously decreeing that, if those powers and signs had been worked among those same Tyrians and Sidonians, they would long ago, or long since, have done penance. For God is not bound, once sufficient aids have been given, to have an efficacious decree touching the conversion, that is, of the consent to be given by created free choice; otherwise He would not concur with it as with a fallible free choice; which, according to the common course, very often fails. Nor finally would any grace be given to those with regard to whom God has the said efficacious decree.

25 All these things will be more clearly revealed, if one considers what we said in disp. 8. num. 16. and thereafter, and what we shall say in the treatise on the Will of God, disp. 10. num. 78. and following, namely that by this efficacious decree liberty is not taken away from those with regard to whom it operates: just as neither by its absence is liberty taken away from those with regard to whom God does not have it; and consequently neither by such a removal is anything lacking from the requirements for sufficiency with regard to the consent to be given to God calling. And so the malice which all wicked men have may be blamed in them, even if they are compared with those who are not wicked but most holy, such as the Apostles were; although toward these the gratuitous will of God was more abundant. And this for no other reason than that the said more abundant will is not counted among the requirements for the sufficiency of the created free choice to be able to consent, but that this having been denied, free choice remains with the requirements that are sufficient with regard to consenting.

26 And this solution is drawn from D. Thom. from the passages adduced in the disputations cited above and to be cited, as also from D. August., lib. de Dono perseverant. cap. 9. Where, speaking of this future conditional event, namely of the penance of the Tyrians and Sidonians, if Christ had worked among them the signs and miracles which he worked among the Jews: and concluding that God foreknows with certainty the said² future conditional event in the way in which we shall say: and that from this it does not follow that there is any inconvenience in this argument, he says thus: What wonder is it, if Christ knew in the earlier centuries the whole world filled with such unbelievers as to be unwilling deservedly to preach to those whom He foreknew would believe neither through His words nor through His miracles? This indeed we cannot say of Tyre and Sidon, and in them we recognize that these divine judgments pertain to those causes of predestination, and yet, without prejudice to which of those hidden causes, I said in answer: I SAID these things. For it is easy indeed for us to accuse the unbelief of the Jews as coming from a free will. Where, as is clear, Augustine means, first, that God foreknew this future thing concerning the Tyrians and Sidonians according to the hidden causes of predestination, that is, of his own decree; but not antecedently to the said decree, and consequently not through middle knowledge. Then also, how, notwithstanding the fact that God had the said decree concerning the Tyrians and Sidonians, he nevertheless says: that it is easy to accuse the unbelief of the Jews, because God had toward them a gratuitous will sufficient with reference to believing: and consequently that it proceeded from their perverse will that they did not believe. And so the holy Doctor added: For it is easy indeed for us to accuse the unbelief of the Jews as coming from a free will.

27 Add that this solution becomes more illustrious, if it is considered that the argument which the adversaries bring forward to recommend middle knowledge from this testimony was in the mind of Augustine in reality the argument of the Pelagians, who for this very reason denied that God converts us efficaciously by reason of his efficacious decree, and makes the unwilling willing, because then He would admonish us in vain, when He himself does not give that grace, or does not have that efficacious gratuitous will, by which we are made willing. And so, on the occasion of this argument, the Divine Augustine composed the book On Correction and Grace; in whose cap. 6., at the beginning of it, he says thus: For the Pelagians were saying: why are we admonished, accused, rebuked, blamed for what we do when we have not received it? We have not received obedience, they say; why then are we admonished, as though we were able to give it to ourselves? And to this argument the Divine Augustine answers in cap. 7.: Perseverance is the gift of God; yet we justly admonish those who, while living well, did not persevere: for by their own will they were changed from a good life to a bad one. Nor will they be excused by saying: we did not receive perseverance, in which we might remain in the good. For if those who have not heard the Gospel are not freed from damnation, much less those who have not received perseverance in the Gospel.

The foundation of which response can be nothing else than this, namely that for anyone to be justly admonished rather than another, it is enough that he had the sufficient means by which he could persevere, obey, or believe; and in fact did not will it: for no one is reasonably admonished unless he was obliged and could do it: and nevertheless he did not do it. Now for these three things to be given, it is not required that God have an efficacious decree touching his conversion, as is clear from itself: since precisely, if God have the said decree, the conversion will infallibly follow; and so the non-conversion will not stand together with the power and the obligation to convert, together with the said decree. By these things also the confirmation of this argument, brought forward at the beginning of the difficulty, is sufficiently established.

28 We raise this doubt especially concerning the mind of Saint Augustine, because, as regards the present disputation and others that concern this same point, the greatest weight must be given to his authority. For although his authority is always to be held in high esteem, in the present matter especially care must be taken about it, as is clear from the definitions of the African Council, and from the Decretal Epistles of Innocent, and Boniface, as well as Celestine, and Saint Leo, and Gelasius, in which his opinion on this matter, against those impugning it, was approved: and so no one is permitted to depart from it, as Alvarez shows more at length in the first book on aids, disputation five, and Suarez in the book on grace, prologom. 6.

Hence what Molina says is not to be admitted, namely, that many of the faithful were disturbed by the disputations of Augustine and lapsed even into Pelagianism. By this he seems to insinuate that the opinion of Saint Augustine, and his doctrine against the Pelagians, is not to be held so important: in which, as we shall prove at once, he knew this middle knowledge and refuted it, although Molina persuades himself that it lay hidden from Augustine.

For the following openly tell against this. Then too what we said a moment ago. Then also the words of Saint Prosper at the beginning of the letter to Augustine, which stands before the books On the Predestination of the Saints, where he thus says: When this book of your beatitude has been set forth (that is, the book On Correction and Grace), just as those who formerly followed the holy and apostolic doctrine of your authority have become much more intelligent and better instructed, so those who were hindered by the obscurity of their own persuasion have drawn back, more averse than they were. From which words it is clear that the faithful were not disturbed but enlightened by the disputations of Augustine; but that those became more averse who formerly followed their own sense and measured the understanding of the truth by their own persuasion.

Deliberately, therefore, in the title we have inquired into the mind of Augustine, not anyhow, but as drawn from his testimonies, on account of the things which we shall say at the beginning of the following doubt.

§ I. The opinion affirming.

29 The affirming side is held by all the authors of middle knowledge, whom we shall bring forward at the last doubt of this disputation. And although many testimonies of Augustine, as well as of others, are adduced for it: yet since most of those prove only the knowledge of future conditionals, of which we treated in the preceding disputation, and consequently the knowledge of those in the divine decree, efficacious and infallible, they have nothing peculiar by which, even in outward appearance, they would recommend this middle knowledge; others, however, rest on this, that for the calling — lofty, secret, and congruous, which is rejected by no hard heart, and which Augustine often admits — there is required the knowledge of God with respect to that calling, which is prior to the free and efficacious decree of the same, lest created freedom be wounded: and we have said enough about this above, showing how the aforesaid decree in no way wounds the freedom of created free choice: we shall moreover show it again in the treatise On the Will of God, disput. 10. num. 78. and thenceforward: on this account we deliberately omit those testimonies and choose one or another, which seems to entail some difficulty.

The first of these is found in the first book To Simplicianus, question 2, where he says that when the calling is congruous, that is efficacious, it depends on the manner in which each one is disposed, so as to consent to the calling; and then he adds: Although many are called in one and the same manner, yet because they are not all disposed in one and the same manner, those alone follow the calling who are found apt for receiving it, and this is none the less true: it is therefore not of the one willing, nor of the one running, but of the merciful God who called in this manner, as was fitting for those who followed the calling. Here, as you see, Augustine does not have recourse, in order that the calling be efficacious, to the divine decree, but to this, that a person who is called be matched to the manner in which he is disposed: and so it necessarily presupposes, in order that that calling be efficacious, that God should will efficaciously to be efficacious — which he foreknows will be each man's future disposition, so as to adapt the calling to him: and for this reason the same Augustine adds: If God should will to have mercy on them, he could call them in such a way as would be fitting for them, so that they should be moved.

30 The second, however, is found in the same Augustine, second book On the Gift of Perseverance, chapter 14, where he says: To have, in a certain way in the very genius of the soul, a natural divine gift of understanding, by which they should be moved to faith, if, in accordance with their minds, they either hear words or behold signs. Here too the holy Doctor has recourse to the disposition of the one called, insofar as he is called as accords with his own mind. From which it seems to follow that the truth of this future contingent and conditional event — namely that Peter, for example, would be moved to faith from the natural gift of understanding excited by grace, if it were preached to him in accordance with himself — is known by God before his efficacious decree. For if that truth followed from the divine decree, it would then agree not only with some, but with all, concerning whom the aforesaid decree was made. Wherefore, since Augustine says that it is true only of some that they consent when thus called — those, namely, who in their very genius have naturally a divine gift of understanding, by which they may be moved to faith, if, in accordance with their minds, they either hear words or behold signs — the sign is that it is felt, that the event foretold is known by God not from the force of the efficacious decree and consequently to it, but antecedently to it, and by reason of the objective truth which it has: which, as is clear from what was said in num. 1. of this disputation, is to admit middle knowledge.

§ II. The mind of Augustine is revealed by one illustrious testimony of his own.

31 It must nevertheless be said, according to the mind of Augustine as drawn from his testimonies, that the aforesaid middle and conditional knowledge, or (which amounts to the same) infallible knowledge, is not to be granted, both on the part of the subject and on the part of the object, with respect to future conditional contingents which are prior to the efficacious decree of the divine will. So think several, and most weighty, Doctors, whom we shall bring forward at the last doubt of this same disputation.

This is proved first by that testimony of Saint Augustine in the first book On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter fourteen, which we touched upon above: where, disputing against the heretics who assert that before the efficacious decree of his will God foreknows what each one would have done, good or evil, if he should live long, and that on account of these good works thus foreseen he predestines or reprobates each one of those whom he has decided to create, and at the same time those whom he has snatched away by a premature death before they reached the age of adults, he thus says, explaining that of Wisdom 4: He was snatched away, lest wickedness should alter his understanding: for it was said according to the dangers of this life, not according to the foreknowledge of God, who foreknew that which was going to be, not that which was not going to be: that is, that he was going to give him an untimely death, so that he might be taken out of the uncertainty of temptations, not that he was going to sin, who would not have remained in temptation. Here, as you see, a twofold future is involved in this testimony, though at once saying so, namely that he was going to be snatched away by an untimely death, so that he might be taken out of the dangers of temptations; and another, namely that if this same one who was snatched away should remain in this life, he would then fall into sin. And of the first, which truly is future, because God truly decreed that man should be snatched away by an untimely death, so that he might be rescued from the dangers of temptations, he says that God certainly has an absolute foreknowledge: since, the aforesaid decree being posited, such an effect was absolutely going to be. But of the second future, which before the efficacious decree of the divine will has only the outward appearance of a future — in which sign the heretics asserted that it was going to be — Augustine teaches that it is not foreknown by God, from the fact that he foreknows as future only that which is future; whereas that future, in the manner in which the heretics constituted it (that is, before the aforesaid decree), is not going to be. And so the holy Doctor concludes: Because this he foreknew that which was going to be, not that which was not going to be.

32 The objection occurs twofold in Suarez, first book on grace, prologom., second chapter, fourth, num. 2. and 3., and in the second book On Conditional Knowledge, chapter second, num. 8. Here in the first tractate On the Knowledge of God, disput. 7. cap. 5. and 10., and others. ¹ First indeed Augustine impugns only the present evil use of middle knowledge, with which these heretics abused it, inasmuch as they asserted that from good or evil works, foreseen through it under a condition, God was moved, as on account of merits or demerits, to punish, or to bestow grace and eternal salvation; but not the aforesaid knowledge absolutely in this testimony, and taken in itself.

But this solution is not according to the mind of Saint Augustine. And this, so that it may be grasped more clearly. It must be assumed that the heretics, who admitted this middle knowledge, were among others Pelagians, who, in order that they might be saved — that is, how grace was not given gratis but from merits, and on account of good works foreseen before the decree conferring it — asserted that God foreknows what each one would have done on this or that occasion, and that on account of these good works foreseen grace and eternal salvation are bestowed on them by God, as something falling under the merit of the aforesaid works. And when the Catholics pressed these heretics with that argument, namely that to some little children dying before the use of reason baptism and eternal life are conferred, when yet no good or evil works would be future in them, they then had recourse to middle knowledge, asserting that God, through this knowledge, and consequently prior to his efficacious decree, knew what each one of those little children would have done, good or evil, if he should have remained longer in life and had reached the age of adults: and that to some of them he bestowed baptism and eternal salvation, because he foresaw that they would work well at the aforesaid age; but to others he denied the grace of baptism and eternal salvation, because he foreknew that they would work badly if they should reach the age of adults.

Wherefore Saint Augustine, disputing against these heretics, impugns this middle knowledge from a twofold basis. First indeed, and principally, because on account of good works future under a condition, yet never actually performed, God bestows no reward; just as on account of evil works foreseen in the same manner, yet never actually put into execution, he does not punish. Second, however, and less principally, because the aforesaid middle knowledge is impossible, and corresponds to no object which has as yet conditionally the being future: since before the efficacious decree of the divine will, in which sign this middle knowledge is placed by its authors, nothing is as yet future under a condition.

33 That this is the mind of Saint Augustine is clear from letter 105. to Sixtus, and 107. against Vitalis the Pelagian, and the second book Against Two Epistles of the Pelagians, chapter 7, and the first book Against Vincentius Victor, chapter 12, and the twelfth book On Genesis, on the letter, chapter 6.

From which testimonies the following refutation of the solution of the opponents, reduced however to this form, is derived. For Augustine refutes this error of the Pelagians from both of the bases just mentioned: he therefore not only refutes the evil use of middle knowledge (as the opponents speak), namely that from good or evil works future under a condition, and foreseen through this knowledge, yet never actually performed, God punishes or rewards; but he also removed the same middle knowledge from the midst. What is antecedent as to the first part, namely that Augustine refuted this error of the Pelagians on account of that evil use of middle knowledge, or on the ground that on account of good or evil works future under a condition, yet never actually to be performed, God neither punishes nor bestows goods, is clear. Then, from the second book already cited, Against Two Epistles of the Pelagians, chapter seven, where he thus says: And so you certainly despise the one of whom, when the truth is told, it was said not on account of the works but on account of the caller, while you say that Jacob was beloved on account of future works which God foreknew he would do; and so you contradict the Apostle who says: Not on account of the works, as though he could not say: Not on account of present, but of future works; but he says: Not on account of the works, in order that he might commend grace. Then also from the first book recently cited, On the Soul and its Origin, chapter 12, in these words: For if the sins which a man would have committed if he should live are condemned even though not committed, no benefit has been conferred on him who was snatched away lest wickedness should alter his understanding: since he will be judged according to that malice which was going to be future in him, not according to that innocence which was found in him, and of no dead man who has been baptized (even a little child) can there be security, because even after baptism men are able not only to sin in any way, but even to apostatize. What if therefore he who has been baptized is snatched away hence was going to be an apostate if he should live? shall we not judge that no benefit has been conferred on him, because he was snatched away lest wickedness should alter his understanding, and that, on account of God's foreknowledge, he is to be judged not as a faithful member of Christ, but as an apostate? For how much better would it be, if the sins not yet committed, not yet known, but foreknown and future, were punished, that those two should be cast out of Paradise before sinning, so that they should not sin in a place so holy and blessed?

34 As to the second part, namely that Saint Augustine also refuted the opinion of these heretics from another basis, namely from this, that its object, namely the future conditional prior to the efficacious and conditional decree of God, does not have the being future even under a condition, the same antecedent is urged from the same places. Then from this testimony of Saint Augustine from the book On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 14, about whose exposition we are engaged. For, as we have seen, there he concludes that the conditional is not known by God, namely that he who had been overtaken by an untimely death would sin gravely if he should live longer: on the ground that in that sign, in which the heretics were speaking about him, and which is assigned as middle knowledge, namely before the efficacious decree of the divine will, it does not have the being future: and so it cannot be in that manner not foreseen by God. To this refutation the opponents do not sufficiently respond, as will be clear to the reader. Then also: because in the same second book, Against Two Epistles of the Pelagians, chapter 7. cited a moment ago, after he had brought forward those words related in num. 33. by which he refuted the opinion of the heretics from that first basis, he immediately overturns it from this second one: and so, adding the example of two little children, who died before the adult age, one with Baptism and the other without it, he thus says: For in what manner did he foreknow those things which were going to be future for them while still in infancy? And he gives the reason: Because his foreknowledge cannot be deceived, he foreknew rather that they were not going to be future. Where, as is clear, he does not refute this middle knowledge, or the knowledge prior to the efficacious decree of the divine will, on the ground that on account of good or evil works foreseen through it under a condition God punishes or bestows a reward; but on the ground that divine knowledge cannot be deceived. And so, since in that former case those good or evil works are not future with an infallible futurition (of which we are speaking, and for the knowledge of which middle knowledge is introduced in that former case, but not for the attaining of a fallible and conjectural futurition) but rather are not future in that former case in a negative sense: therefore divine knowledge, which cannot be deceived, cannot foreknow that those things were then going to be future, but rather he foreknew that they were not going to be future. And therefore he concludes: Because his foreknowledge cannot be deceived, he foreknew rather that they were not going to be future, so as to signify plainly that those objects are not knowable as future in any way, on the ground that they have entirely no such being, but that God would have to be deceived if he knew them as future in some way: otherwise he would not have come: he foreknew rather that they were not going to be future. Then also from the same first book, On the Soul, chapter 12. cited above: where, once this knowledge has been refuted from that first basis already mentioned, he does not stop there; but he goes on further to overturn it from this second one. For the aforesaid knowledge, as it was asserted by the Semipelagians and Pelagians, namely as prior to the decree of the divine will, and consequently in the sense of middle knowledge, which consists in this, is not to be admitted. And so he adds: What of the fact that foreknowledge itself is thereby utterly emptied out, if that which is foreknown is not going to be? For in what manner is it rightly said to be foreknown as future that which is not going to be future? Where, from the defect of the knowable object in that former case, because, namely, it has then no being future at all, Augustine concludes that foreknowledge is utterly emptied out, or reduced to nothing.

35 This is confirmed first from the same Saint Augustine, book 26. Against Faustus, chapter 4. Where he posits as future only that which God in fact made future; but not that which would have been future of itself, but which God made so as not to occur. And thus he says: If I should hear that something was going to be future, but God made it so as not to occur, I would answer most confidently that what God made was rather going to be future, not that which, if it had been going to be future, he would have made this: for God certainly knew what he was going to do, and therefore at the same time he knew that that was not going to be future which he was going to make so as not to occur. Where Saint Augustine plainly affirms that the futurition of things depends on God's making, but does not precede his will, and consequently in the aforesaid words he also impugns this middle knowledge from the defect of its object: on the ground that before the efficacious decree, whether absolute or conditional, of the divine will, and consequently before God makes something future, whether absolutely or conditionally, nothing has the being future, as yet under a condition.

36 This is confirmed secondly from the same Saint Augustine, book On the Gift of Perseverance, chapter 17. Where, speaking of the beginning of our faith, and of other good works leading to eternal salvation, he says: If there is no predestination, which we defend, things are not foreknown by God: and consequently he holds that they are not foreknowable by God before his decree, nor do they have the being future antecedently to it: because it does not hold that those things are foreknowable in that former case, and foreknown by God. And for this reason Augustine often says that if he has predestined, he certainly has foreknown; but the good things which he has not predestined, he has not foreknown. Where he plainly rejects the knowledge prior to the decree of the divine will, or (which is the same) middle knowledge, or conditional knowledge, brought forward by the opponents, and not only its abuse (as they themselves speak): for in the aforesaid words he does not overturn it on the ground that from good works foreseen under a condition, yet never actually performed, God is moved to reward; but because if the aforesaid decree of the divine will does not exist, and consequently prior to it, God cannot have an infallible foreknowledge of such works.

Add that, as we shall say in disputation 11. num. 14. and the following, from the very fact that God foreknows, before the efficacious decree of his will, conditional good or evil works in the manner in which it is spoken by the authors of middle knowledge, he cannot in any way be moved to predestiny or to reprobate on account of the aforesaid works.

37 From this also the second solution of the opponents remains refuted, namely that in this testimony of the first book On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 14. which we have examined and elucidated in this first proof, Augustine denies only the absolute foreknowledge, or that of vision, and not the conditional, or middle knowledge. Because by no means does he deny that God foreknows those future conditionals; but that he foreknows them as absolutely, and in every respect, future. And finally he denies only that it should be called foreknowledge; but not that God truly has knowledge of them. Because foreknowledge signifies the relation to that which will at some time absolutely have the being future; knowledge, however, otherwise: and consequently, as was said in the first solution, to reject only that knowledge with regard to its abuse, namely with regard to this, that God punishes or rewards on account of good works conditional, as foreseen through this knowledge.

The opponents confirm this solution on the ground that, if Saint Augustine had excluded those conditionals from the divine knowledge, so as to deny absolutely the middle and conditional knowledge, he would also contradict the disciples of D. Thomas, who admit that God knows those future conditionals after his decree.

From what has been said, therefore, this solution remains refuted: since, as we have seen, on that ground Augustine teaches that these future things are not foreknown by God before the efficacious decree of his will, and consequently not through middle knowledge, because his knowledge cannot be deceived; and it would be deceived if he foreknew as future that which truly is then not future. This reasoning, however (as is clear), and that which we brought forward in its confirmation, prove not only that foreknowledge is denied by Saint Augustine, but also the knowledge of such future things; which in his opinion have true being future only in name, and not in fact, infallible.

38 Add first that neither the Pelagians nor the Semipelagians, against whom Augustine disputes there, asserted that God has an absolute foreknowledge of good or evil works which those who were snatched away by a premature death before that same age were going to perform in the adult age; nay, it could not occur to anyone to think so, since it is evident that such future things are not absolutely such things, but only conditional: wherefore, since Augustine refutes that knowledge of future things admitted by these heretics, on the ground that that which is not thus future cannot be known with certainty and infallibility, then either he spoke altogether beside the point, or he refuted expressly that conditional and middle knowledge which these heretics themselves were establishing (though not heretically in this particular).

Add secondly, and this same point will be explained more clearly. For it does not seem worthy of Augustine that, disputing against these heretics and denying absolutely this foreknowledge, he should have intended by this denial only that that knowledge should not be called foreknowledge, as the opponents teach. What concern would the Pelagian have, that it should not be called foreknowledge? if there were in God a true knowledge of those good or evil works, as of futures infallibly under a condition? and so it was unimpaired for God to use the aforesaid knowledge for bestowing or denying grace, just as if it were, or were called, foreknowledge: therefore, if the mind of Saint Augustine was to conclude against these heretics that there is not in God foreknowledge of such future things, he ought also to have denied the very relation of knowledge, and not only the name of foreknowledge.

Add thirdly that, if once the relation of knowledge is granted to God with respect to these future conditionals, and antecedently to the efficacious decree of the divine will, there is no reason why the name of foreknowledge should be denied to it. And so the same Augustine calls that knowledge, which God had of the future conversion of the Tyrians and Sidonians, conditional under a condition, and after the efficacious and conditional decree of his divine will, as we saw from the same Augustine in num. 26, foreknowledge and prevision: On the Gift of Perseverance, cap. 9. and 11. as the opponents themselves also admit.

39 It makes no difference if, together with Arrubal, who follows this second solution in disputation 44. and impugns the former, you say that Augustine calls that knowledge a foreknowledge improperly so called, inasmuch as it precedes the act of the divine will, and not inasmuch as it precedes in duration the thing known: which, indeed, is required for the relation of foreknowledge properly so called, and which is not found in the aforesaid future conditionals: on the ground that they will never have true duration; just as they will never have true being.

It does not, therefore, turn on this. For against this it is that, if it was permissible for Saint Augustine to call that knowledge a foreknowledge improperly so called, why was it not also permissible for the Pelagians to use the name of foreknowledge in this acceptation? or whence is it clear that they usurped the name of foreknowledge, according to which foreknowledge signifies knowledge which in duration precedes a thing which will at some time truly endure? since Augustine does not say this: nor could it have occurred to them, that those future things which they themselves admitted only under a condition as future, but never absolutely, should at some time truly have duration: and consequently neither could they have used the name of foreknowledge with respect to these future things, according to which foreknowledge signifies knowledge which in duration precedes some thing which will at some time truly endure.

40 Nor does what Francisco Suarez brings forward in support of this solution favour him, namely that, if Augustine excluded those conditionals absolutely from the middle knowledge of God, that is, from what precedes the divine efficacious decree, he would also contradict the Thomists, who admit that God knows those things after his decree.

It does not, therefore, favour him, as it seems to stand of itself. For the mind of Augustine was only this, that God does not know those conditionals before his decree: on the ground that the Pelagians did not admit knowledge of those future things which would follow after the decree of God, and would not be prior to it. For if they had admitted this, their opinion would have been emptied out, in which they asserted that grace is given on account of merits: since that decree was prior to all merits, and to all our will, even to that which is conditionally future: and consequently the knowledge which would follow this decree would know that which God had defined beforehand, and not something which on our part would be prior to grace. Wherefore, this decree being granted together with Augustine and the Thomists, the error of Pelagius is emptied out, and the reasoning of Augustine does not hold. For foreknowledge is not exhausted if God knows, infallibly and under a condition, as future that which he himself has first defined to be in this manner: but this decree being denied, divine foreknowledge is exhausted, and Augustine's reasoning holds: for that is foreknown as future on our part which will not be future, as yet under a condition, before the aforesaid decree, as we said from the same Augustine.

§ III. The mind of Augustine is further explained by another outstanding testimony of his own.

41 The second testimony is found in Augustine, in the same first book On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 9. But so that its force may be grasped more clearly, it is to be noted that on this same question about which we are engaged, Augustine was consulted by Saint Prosper in his letter to the same Augustine, which stands before the books On the Predestination of the Saints. For when the Semipelagians asserted that God has a decree by which he establishes that no one is saved except through the sacrament of Baptism, and that to this sacrament he has called all men, so that those who wish may become sons of God; but those who do not wish may be without excuse, and thus, indiscriminately, as far as is on God's part, he wills that all be saved — admitting a certain inefficacious will for the salvation of all, yet not efficacious before the prevision of works in a conditional state, which anyone was going to perform on this or that occasion, if he were called in this way or that: because by such a decree, as Saint Prosper testifies in the letter cited, they held that the freedom of free choice was removed.

Wherefore, although they admitted an efficacious decree, or an efficacious proposal of God founded on foreknowledge, or depending on and following foreknowledge, they did not admit foreknowledge founded on an efficacious proposal, or foreknowledge supposing the aforesaid proposal, as in some way the relation of knowing. And for this reason they asserted that, of little children not reaching the age of adults, some die without Baptism and are not saved; but others with Baptism and are saved; because God foresaw before every decree what good or evil they were going to do, if they should reach the age of adults: and of those of whom he foreknew that they would lead a good life, he decreed to bestow the grace of Baptism and eternal salvation; but otherwise as to others: so that they might be saved in this way, because the efficacious decree is founded on foreknowledge, and not the other way round.

42 Since therefore the Semipelagians asserted this constantly, Saint Prosper, among the other questions which he proposed to Saint Augustine for explanation, put this one, which we have just been discussing, and expressed it in these words: Whether the foreknowledge of God remains so according to the proposal, that those things themselves which are proposed are to be taken as foreknown? or does this vary according to the kinds of causes and the classes of persons? so that, since the callings are different in those who are to do nothing and are saved, the proposal of God alone seems to exist; but in those who are to do something good, the proposal can hold by foreknowledge. Or indeed uniformly — since foreknowledge cannot be divided from the temporal proposal by a distinction — yet foreknowledge is in some order founded upon the proposal: and just as there is no business of any kind which divine knowledge does not anticipate, so there is no good which has not flowed into our participation with God as its author.

Where, as you see, Saint Prosper expressly proposes this very question, which we have just been discussing, to Saint Augustine for explanation: namely whether the proposal, or the divine and efficacious decree, precedes, and is in some way the relation of infallibly knowing those future conditionals; so that the infallibility of foreknowledge is founded on the aforesaid proposal, or decree? Or conversely whether the infallibility of the divine decree is to be founded on some foreknowledge which precedes it? as is clear from those words: Whether the proposal can hold by foreknowledge (that is, can have infallibility), or whether uniformly (that is, in all cases) foreknowledge is founded upon the proposal (that is, follows upon the decree and proposal of God)? And since by the name of middle and conditional knowledge (of whose possibility we are inquiring in this doubt) is understood the knowledge which attains futures under a conditional state, and which is prior to the divine efficacious decree, and consequently does not found itself upon it, nor follow upon it, but rather the efficacy of the decree is founded upon this foreknowledge, inasmuch as no future contingent which is to be elicited by created free choice can be defined beforehand efficaciously by God, unless he first foresees what that free choice, if it were called in this or that disposition, would do or would not do: it follows that Prosper has put to Augustine for explanation this very question which we have just been handling; and consequently he has in fact inquired whether middle and conditional knowledge is to be admitted according to his own mind.

43 Not only D. Prosper, but Saint Hilary of Arles also, in the letter sent to Augustine which stands before his book On the Predestination of the Saints, proposed this very difficulty to Augustine for explanation: where he narrates how the Massilians established that the conditional foreknowledge of our future works cannot be otherwise than precede the efficacious decree of God concerning those same works, lest the freedom of created free choice be wounded otherwise; and he adds that the Massilians corroborate this their manner of speaking from the words of the same Saint Augustine in his previously written books, such as that in the book On Six Questions against Porphyry, that Christ the Lord willed then to appear and to preach his doctrine among those of whom, and where, he knew that those would be who would believe in him, if the Gospel were preached to them. The words of Hilary, with which he addresses Augustine, are these: But when it is said to them why the Gospel is preached to others, or somewhere, or is not preached, etc. they say that this is of divine foreknowledge, so that at that time, and in that place, and to those persons, the truth might be announced, or declared, when and where it was foreknown to be believed. And this they declare to be proved not only by the testimonies of other Catholics, but also by the testimonies of your holiness in the earlier disputation, as is that which your holiness said in the question against Porphyry, On the time of the Christian religion, the religion, that Christ willed then to appear to men, and his doctrine to be preached among those of whom, and where, he knew that those would be who would believe in him.

44 These things being supposed, the mind of Augustine is revealed by an elegant testimony drawn from the place cited, On the Predestination of the Saints, with which he thus answers this question and the objection drawn from his little book against Porphyry: But that which you recall that I said in my little book against Porphyry, under the title, On the time of the Christian religion, I said in such a way that I might pass over this more diligent and laborious disputation about grace, etc. And after he had repeated word for word what he had asserted in that little book, he added: Do you see that I willed to say this about the foreknowledge of Christ, without prejudice to the hidden counsel of God and of other causes, since it seems enough for the refutation of the infidelity of the Pelagians, who had put this question? For what is truer than that Christ foreknew who, and when, and in what places were going to believe in him? But whether they were going to have faith in him on their own account, once he had been preached to them, or were going to receive it as a gift from God — that is, whether God foreknew them only, or also predestined them — I did not then think necessary to inquire and to discuss. And so what I said, that he willed then to appear to men, and his doctrine to be preached among those of whom, and where, he knew that those would be who were going to believe in him, can also be said in this way: that he willed then to appear to men, and his doctrine to be preached among those of whom, and where, he knew that those would be who had been chosen in him before the constitution of the world. But since, if it were said in this way, it would make the reader attentive to those things which, from the admonition of the Pelagian error, must now be discussed more fully and more laboriously, it seemed to me that it was then enough to speak briefly, excepting (as I said) the depth of the wisdom and knowledge of God, and without prejudice to other causes, about which I thought it was not then, but at some other time, more opportune to dispute.

In this testimony three things are to be examined in particular. The first is that Augustine, explaining what he had said in the Questions against Porphyry, namely, that he willed then to appear to men, and his doctrine to be preached among those of whom, and where, he knew that those would be who were going to believe in him, says: that I willed to say this without prejudice to the hidden counsel of God, and excepting the depth of his wisdom and knowledge, that is, without prejudice to the divine counsel which involves, or presupposes, the efficacious decree, at least by way of the intention of the divine will, by which he defined beforehand efficaciously that future thing under a condition.

45 And the reason is this. For it was the customary phrase with Augustine and his disciples, against the Pelagians and Semipelagians, to explain by the name of the hidden counsel of God, and of the depth of his wisdom and knowledge, divine foreknowledge, and the decrees which presuppose the efficacious decree of the will of God, prior to the prevision of any future contingents, and following upon the aforesaid decree: on the ground that if God, after the prevision of the consent which is future under a condition, that this one or that one were called to faith on this or that occasion, should decree that this one should believe and that other should not believe; then there would be no place for this hidden counsel of God, nor would there be any depth of his wisdom and knowledge, if out of several who are called this one should believe and that other should not believe, and so of the others. For then the reason of the divine counsel, wisdom and knowledge could be assigned most easily, if it were said that he draws these to faith and not those, because these wished to believe, but not THOSE. And so there would be no place for this hidden counsel of God, nor any depth searchable by human genius in his knowledge and wisdom, against that of the Apostle: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how incomprehensible are his judgments, and his ways unsearchable!

Wherefore Augustine and his disciples, in order to set themselves against these heretics and to denote that God does not elect to faith, nor decree the consent of created will, after the prevision of that same consent, under a condition of being future; but before the aforesaid prevision, even as conditionally future, and on account of the highest and most hidden ends, and on account of his unsearchable judgments, decrees efficaciously that this one should be converted to faith, whereas that other should not, whether absolutely or under a condition; for this reason they called the divine decrees, and the divine knowledge, concerning the aforesaid future things by the name of the hidden counsel of God, and of the depth of divine wisdom and knowledge; and they said that the same decrees are the unsearchable ways of the Lord, and the judgments of truth, thinking that it is not of sound minds to reproach this hidden counsel of God, and that contrariwise the judgments of God are haughtily asserted to be penetrable; and finally, that according to the opinion of the Pelagians, there will be no hidden counsel of God, nor will the reason of the divine will remain hidden.

46 And so Saint Prosper, in the Excerpta of the Genoese, in the answer to dub. 4. refuting the opinion of the Pelagians who reprobated this manner of thinking highly of God and his knowledge, and consequently asserting that it was going to be future that these should believe, but not those, without a presupposed divine decree (which also to be the opinion of those same Pelagians Augustine taught, On the Predestination, cap. 18.) thus says: It is therefore not of sound minds to reproach this: and to reckon the unsearchable ways of the Lord, that is, the gifts of mercy and the judgments of truth, as penetrable to the haughtiness of the Pelagians. For according to themselves the counsel of God is not hidden, nor is the reason of the divine will in concealment.

Which Saint Prosper also confirmed in the first book On the Calling of the Gentiles, chapter 25, in these words: Against all the haughtiness which glories in free choice, to resist with the most unconquerable opposition that opinion of the Apostle who says: For who discerns thee? or what hast thou that thou didst not receive? From which he concludes: The depth, therefore, of that question which we confess to be impenetrable in the admiration of the Apostle, is not solved by the willing and the not-willing of free choice: for although a man may have a good will and a bad will, yet unless it is given he does not have a good will.

Wherefore it comes back to the same point, in Augustine's phraseology, namely that he said that he had spoken about the foreknowledge of God with respect to that future faith of those men, in such a place and at such a time, if the Gospel were announced to them, without prejudice to the hidden counsel of God, and excepting the depth of the wisdom and knowledge of God; and that he asserted that he had spoken about the foreknowledge of God which presupposes the divine efficacious decree of their conversion to faith, if they were called to faith in such a place and at such a time. For if he had said that God has foreknowledge of that future faith, if the Gospel were announced to them, in such a way that this foreknowledge preceded the efficacious decree, he would then have done an injury to the hidden counsel of God, and to the depth of his wisdom and knowledge: for then it would not be unsearchable by us, why out of several called to faith he should draw these and not those?

47 The second, however, which is to be examined in this testimony, is that with the Semipelagians, nay even with Augustine himself, it was the same to say that we have faith from ourselves and not from God giving it; as to assert that God foreknew our faith only, and did not predestine it, that is, did not define it beforehand by his decree, and not by any decree whatever, but by one which efficaciously anticipates our will. For these heretics did not deny the concomitant concurrence, even in that foreknowledge of God, as Prosper says in the letter so often cited: That grace is an attendant, not a forerunner, of human merits. Nay even Pelagius and Caelestius, who asserted that grace is given on account of the merits of our works, did not exclude in such works of ours the concomitant gratuitous concurrence of God, as is clear from Augustine, first book Against Two Epistles of the Pelagians, chapter 19, where he thus says: You have said that in a good work one is always assisted by the grace of God, as by his own will, whereas a man beginning a good work with no grace of God is divinely assisted in the very act itself. Wherefore, since with Augustine and all the Fathers it is certain that we do not have faith from ourselves but from God giving it, it will also be certain with the same Augustine and the other Fathers that God does not foreknow our faith only, that is, that he does not foreknow it before his efficacious decree; but that he also predestines it, or defines it beforehand by his efficacious decree before its prevision: since, as we said a moment ago, with Augustine it is the same to say that we have faith from ourselves and not from God giving it, as to assert that God foreknows it only, and does not define it by his efficacious decree. And for this reason the same holy Doctor said in this testimony which we are examining: But whether they were going to have faith in him on their own account, once he had been preached to them, or were going to receive it as a gift from God, that is, whether he foreknew them only, or God also predestined them? etc.

48 Wherefore the same Augustine, in the book On Correction and Grace, chapter 12, in order to explain how that promise, by which God promised Abraham spiritual children through grace and faith, did not rest on the foreknowledge of future consent, but on the efficacy of the divine power and decree, used this manner of speaking: namely that he did not promise them because he foreknew that they would of themselves be good, otherwise he would have promised not his own, but what belonged to them; but, conversely, that that promise rests on the efficacy of the divine decree, and that Abraham thus believed it, of which manner of speaking there is no other reason than this, namely that, as we saw a moment ago, with Augustine it is the same to say that God foreknows only and does not predestine beforehand, or does not define beforehand, the faith of anyone; and that he who believes has that foretold faith from himself.

The words of Augustine which explain this same point clearly are these: For on that account he did not promise them to Abraham, because he foreknew that they would of themselves be good. For if it is so, that which he promised is not his own but theirs. But Abraham did not thus believe, but he was not weakened in faith, giving glory to God, and believing most fully, because what God has promised he is able also to do. He does not say that he is able to promise what he has foreknown. Which he also taught in the first book On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 10, where, explaining this same promise, he says: He promised not on the power of our will, but on his own predestination: for if he had foreseen beforehand what he was going to predestine, he would certainly have promised it on the power of our will, as is also clear from what we said in the preceding doubt from num. 13. up to num. 23.

Wherefore, on account of this reason, Augustine, explaining in this testimony what he himself had taught against Porphyry, says: And so what I said, that he willed then to appear to men, and his doctrine to be preached among those of whom he knew that those would be who were going to believe in him, can also be said in this way: that he willed then to appear to men, and his doctrine to be preached among those of whom, and where, he knew that those would be who had been chosen in him before the constitution of the world. For when it is said absolutely that God foreknows some future contingent, it is always understood, according to the same holy Doctor, without prejudice to the hidden counsel and the depth of his wisdom and knowledge; that is, without prejudice to the divine, antecedent and efficacious definition, as we said from the same Augustine: and so it comes back to the same point to say that God foreknew who those were who were then going to believe in him, if the Gospel were preached to them; as to assert that God foreknew who those were who had been defined beforehand as going to believe, if the preaching of the Gospel were made to them.

49 Thirdly, finally, which is to be examined in this testimony from the first book On the Predestination of the Saints, is that with Augustine it is the same to say that God foreknows some free future, when and where he knew it was to be done; as to say that he foreknows that which he himself had chosen before the constitution of the world. And for this reason he subjoins in the same chapter in which this same testimony which we are examining is found: By predestination God foreknew those things which he himself was going to do. Whence it is said, He has done those things which are future, that is, he has made future those things which are future, in the manner in which they are future.

50 From this also it follows that of no account is the solution of a certain junior author who asserts that Augustine here is not speaking of future conditionals, but of absolute futures, which are seen through the knowledge of vision, and who supposes the efficacious decree of God, founded however on the conditional divine foreknowledge.

From what has been said, therefore, this evasion is excluded. Then because, as is clear from the letter of D. Prosper and Hilary, he was asked by them about the knowledge of future conditionals, and more particularly and more expressly by Prosper, whether foreknowledge is founded on the proposal, or conversely the proposal on foreknowledge. But if Augustine had not spoken of future conditionals, the interrogation of these Fathers which they were then intending would not have arisen.

Then also: because the Semipelagians, to whom this argument belongs, against whom Augustine meets the objection, did not say that the cause of the election of these was in them, from the foreknowledge of absolutely future good works, which are seen through the knowledge of vision; but only from the foreknowledge of the same works as future under a condition, as Augustine teaches in the same book, cap. 12, and in the book On the Gift of Perseverance, cap. 9. and the following, and as D. Prosper teaches in his Letter to Augustine, where, referring to the foreknowledge which the Massilians posited, he says: Let them fabricate futures which are not future, and let them be foreknown as a new kind of absurdity with them, and not to be done, and foreknown but not done. In which words he speaks plainly of the foreknowledge of certain futures fabricated by those same Massilians, that is, independent of the proposal and the election of God, which is of such a condition that it exists in God before the aforesaid foreknowledge; and for this reason they said that the divine proposal concerning the aforesaid futures is founded on this foreknowledge, namely the conditional one. For in the absolute foreknowledge, which is at the same time the knowledge of vision, and supposes the decree of God actually existing in it, it is evident that the opposite occurs. And so, because they themselves admitted the aforesaid conditional knowledge to be that on which the divine efficacious proposal was founded, the same Prosper took occasion to consult Augustine in the words cited above: Whether, namely, the proposal can hold by foreknowledge, or conversely whether that foreknowledge is in some way founded upon the proposal of God?

51 Then finally. Because Augustine speaks expressly in this testimony which we are examining of this conditional future, namely that those men would believe, if the Gospel were preached to them: which, although afterwards the posteriority of the reason passes over into the absolute, yet as it is under a conditional state, according to which reason it is considered, as it is expressed in those words, namely, if the Gospel were preached to all of them at the time of the coming of Christ, they would believe, has the being of a conditional future, and is subject to the divine efficacious and conditional decree, as will be clear from what we shall say in the treatise On the Will of God, disp. 5. num. 73; and it pertains, according to the opponents, to the conditional knowledge, by way of a conditional future: not indeed insofar as a conditional future expresses a future of such a kind that its condition is never purified; but according as each and every conditional, whether it afterwards passes over into the absolute or not; and so they say that every absolute future, in that under a conditional state it precedes itself under the absolute state, pertains to this middle knowledge.

52 Nor let it stand in the way at last, if you say that those words of Augustine, namely: It can also be said that he willed then to appear to men, and his doctrine to be preached among those of whom, and where, he knew that those would be who had been chosen by him before the constitution of the world, must necessarily be understood of the absolute election, or of the absolute decree, by which that passage of Paul is usually understood; and hence that Augustine is speaking only of the knowledge of absolute futures.

It does not, therefore, stand in the way. For it is customary with Augustine, as is clear from some passages cited in this doubt, to understand by the name of predestination and election the efficacious decree of God concerning any good thing defined beforehand. And so, although that passage of Paul may also be understood of the absolute election, and not of any election whatever, but of election to eternal beatitude, it is not against this manner of understanding that it should also be understood, by reason of the matter to which it is applied, of conditional election, concerning some good work; because by this middle election God foresaw who those then would be who were going to believe in him, if the Gospel were preached to them at the coming of Christ the Lord; and especially because Augustine says that the words quoted in this objection do not contain a sense different from that which he had given in the question against Porphyry, because there he had spoken without prejudice to the hidden counsel of God, that is, to a decree efficacious of itself and from its own merits, as has been said. Wherefore, since the sense contained in the words against Porphyry concerns this conditional future, that if Christ should come at such a time and should appear to these men, and the Gospel were preached to them, they would believe, and consequently the heretics used this same sense to confirm their own error: it follows that this sense also, quoted in this objection and drawn from the same Augustine, must be understood as concerning future conditionals; although these same futures afterwards pass over, by the posteriority of the reason, into the absolute.

53 Add that, even granting but not conceding that Saint Augustine spoke in this testimony only of absolute future contingents, so that these alone are infallibly known to God after the efficacious and absolute decree of his will, it would follow that, according to the same Augustine, the same thing would have to be said, with the proportion preserved, of the conditionals; so that they could be certainly known by him only after the efficacious and conditional decree of God. And the reason is evident: since the absolute future contingent must have its dependence on the same cause on which the future contingent and conditional must have its dependence; and so if the former depends on the being future absolutely from the will of God, efficacious of itself and from its own merits, prior to it and independent of it, the conditional will also depend on the same decree, efficacious of itself, but conditional on the part of the object: since just as the futures themselves are distinguished only by the being absolute and conditional, so also the cause and the efficacious decree of God can be distinguished in this alone; and hence, just as the knowledge of those rests on the proposal, but not conversely; so also the knowledge and the infallible cognition of these.

§ IV. The testimonies brought for the first opinion are met.

54 To the first it is to be answered that, granting that Augustine admits an efficacious calling (about which we say nothing for the present, so as to obey in every point the decree of our most holy Lord, our Paul V), it is to be said that, since the same Augustine teaches that the calling is congruous when it is fitted to him who is called, this is not to be understood as meaning that this aptitude and congruity is something self-subsistent on our part; but something inspired, or given, by God, and proceeding from the efficacious proposal of God. And for this reason this calling is sometimes called congruous, and sometimes the calling from the proposal: because Augustine, as he himself explains, always speaks without prejudice to the hidden counsel of God, that is, to the divine proposal efficacious of itself, as we said in num. 45.

Wherefore the same holy Doctor, explaining this aptitude at the end of that question, thus says: Who embraces in his mind anything which, when it does not delight, does not delight? or who has the power either that something should occur which is able to delight him, or that it should delight him when it occurs? for therefore, when those things which further us toward God delight us, this is inspired and the grace of God is given, not by our nod, and it is not obtained by industry or the merits of works: for it is He who gives the nod of the will, who gives the industry of the study, who makes the works burn with charity, He bestows, He grants. But about this testimony, and a fuller understanding of it, it will be said elsewhere, God giving.

55 From this also an answer is to be given to the second, namely that, even granting the supposition just mentioned about the mind of Saint Augustine (about which we say nothing for the present), it must consequently be said that those who have that gift of understanding are not foreseen to be moved to faith infallibly, unless they hear congruous words or see signs: but that these are congruous depends on the efficacious proposal of God.

Nor does anything prove against this what is brought forward there for the exposition of the same testimony, namely that, if that truth arose from the efficacious proposal of God, Augustine would not then have said that some have the divine gift of understanding, etc., but this would have to be affirmed of all: for it does not hold that God should decree something efficaciously and that the opposite should at the same time occur.

It does not, therefore, prove anything. For although all those, concerning whom the aforesaid decree is, have that divine gift of understanding, etc., yet because those concerning whom such a decree is do not include all those who are called, but this decree is given concerning some and not concerning others; for this reason, although all those, concerning whom that decree is, have the divine gift of understanding, nevertheless not all of them simply enjoy it, but some; although these some are all those concerning whom the divine decree turns.

56 But since Saint Augustine and the other Fathers sometimes state absolutely that God foreknows the aforesaid conditional future contingents, and sometimes do not make explicit mention of the conditional divine decree, for this reason it is to be held, by way of a universal rule, that they speak without prejudice to the hidden counsel of God, and to the depth of divine knowledge and wisdom: in which manner we saw Augustine to have spoken. This rule the same Saint Augustine employed even more explicitly and more generally in the book On the Gift of Perseverance, chapter 18, in these words: Sometimes the signification of predestination is conveyed by the name of foreknowledge, as the Apostle says: He did not reject his people whom he foreknew. This which he says (he foreknew) is not rightly understood unless he predestined; but to have predestined is to have foreknown that which he himself was going to do. What therefore prevents us, when we read in some place of the foreknowledge of God, and the question is of the calling of the elect, from understanding the same predestination? Thus far Augustine, whose words are to be held as a universal rule, so that whenever the name of foreknowledge is found, and mention is made of the calling of the elect, or of any good effect efficaciously and infallibly future (for the reason is the same in both cases, as will be clear to the reader), predestination is always to be understood through foreknowledge, that is, the predefinition which is present, or the efficacious decree of God, which is such from its own merits, whether that effect is efficaciously future under a condition or without it.

57 We have said: and mention is made of any good effect efficaciously and infallibly future: not indeed because no efficacious decree of God permitting those evil works, as to their wickedness, is given; and moreover the decree by which he wills, and efficaciously defines beforehand, those things as to the substance of the act, in which decrees, conceived either virtually or as to our manner, they are to be distinguished, those evil works are known by God in the manner suggested above; but because D. Augustine in the aforesaid words mentions only good effects; although from them the same conclusion follows with regard to evil works, the proportion being nevertheless preserved.

It makes no difference if you say that it is enough for this purpose that the decree of the objectively future is given, and that this decree is foreseen by God to be in the future, if the will consents.

For against this everything presses which we said in disp. 7. from num. 48. up to num. 75., and also the fact that what D. Augustine understands here under the name of foreknowledge, and the name of predestination, cannot conveniently be understood as a decree which is only objectively present, as is clear from itself.

58 Because the authority of St. Augustine (as we touched upon in the preceding difficulty) is indeed great everywhere, it is nowhere greater than when he discusses divine grace and the other things belonging to it, such as the admission or the rejection of middle knowledge, of which we are speaking here; and accordingly the Fathers of the Councils of Palestine, Africa, Arles and Milan sought out and embraced the opinion of that same St. Augustine, and St. Hilary and Prosper adhered to it inseparably, as is clear from the Epistles of both; and finally all the Fathers who followed after Augustine revered his mind, and all the theologians alike yield the palm to him in this matter, as is doctrinally and widely proved by Alvarez, lib. 1. de auxiliis disput. 5, and Suarez, lib. 1. de Grat. prol. 6. cap. 6. Wherefore, although in the preceding difficulty we set forth Augustine's mind as drawn immediately from his own testimonies, it seemed good to us to investigate that same mind here point by point from elsewhere, from certain signs and indications, or effects, so that this matter may be treated better and more at its roots.

The reason, however, for which we are especially roused to this, is this. Because Augustine very frequently treats of this matter in his works, since, both when he was recent and when he was an old man, he fought with the Pelagians and Semipelagians and with the remnants of the Pelagians, and daily, having become in his later and last writings a teacher in his own person, he explained some things which he had not said clearly enough in his earlier ones. And therefore it can hardly be said how great a multitude of testimonies is brought forward on either side of this controversy, and much less how many ways the testimonies adduced on both sides are carefully set aside: so that unless they are inspected on purpose in their own source and together with the context of the same, the mind of St. Augustine cannot be discerned amid so dense a forest of interpretations, expositions, evasions and solutions: for on this side and that Augustine sounds and resounds, on both sides Augustine meets us: and when Augustine goes to meet Augustine, his features cannot be distinguished unless they are carefully inspected.

59 Whence, although in the preceding difficulty we contemplated the features and the words of Augustine by inspecting them attentively in themselves; nevertheless, so that Augustine may not perhaps seem to have been otherwise known, and to have appeared in himself and in his own writings to sound the opposite, we therefore add here another way, by which we may find once more, both by arguing to the contrary against the Adversaries and absolutely and simply speaking, the mind of Augustine which has already been found. But this way is none other than that which is commonly said to be from the effects, or as it were the effects, that is, a posteriori.

Wherefore the effects, or as it were the effects, of the Augustinian doctrine concerning the efficacy of the divine will and of its decrees, as well as concerning the certainty of divine predestination and reprobation, are to be carefully investigated and weighed by us, and brought forth from the treasure of antiquity into the open, so that from them we may dig out the wished-for mind and opinion of Augustine in this celebrated controversy about middle knowledge, and indeed his true resolution of it.

§ I. Decision of the difficulty as to its first part.

60 It must be said, therefore, first, that from the effects of the Augustinian doctrine (if once for all those things are true which the Adversaries teach concerning middle knowledge from the principles of their own opinion) it is very credibly and with great certainty inferred that, according to his own mind, middle knowledge, that is, conditional knowledge, or that knowledge which is in God before the decree, efficacious from itself and conditioned by his will, is to be rejected altogether.

This assertion is not better urged than from those things which Hilary, Prosper and Fulgentius wrote about Augustine's doctrine, whether to him or to others: these are contained in the seventh volume of the works of that same Augustine. For from them it is clear what the effects were which followed from Augustine's doctrine, not indeed by reason of a defect in it, but accidentally and on the occasion drawn from it. For, as is most clearly manifest from the Epistles cited, the doctrine of Augustine was such that from it several grave and learned men, whom Prosper there calls clear and excellent, were disturbed (though unjustly), and placed themselves in great danger of denying human freedom. And therefore Prosper in his Epistle to that same Augustine asserts that the remnants of the Pelagians took occasion from that doctrine to say that under the name of predestination a fatal necessity was introduced. And Hilary, writing to Augustine, says thus: The words of your Holiness are so framed that they say that a certain despair is exhibited to men.

61 Hence the following reason is deduced in support of the assertion. Because it is incredible that they should take occasion for that danger and despair from a doctrine which extols human free choice very clearly and manifestly and most brilliantly; nay rather it is evidently credible that they took it from a doctrine which proceeds by a way entirely opposite, and which commends in such a way the efficacy of the divine will, and the infallibility and certainty of absolute predestination and of its decrees, in advance of the foreknown consent of the created will, that the aforesaid free choice seemed to be overthrown and an all-round necessity to be introduced; whereas the doctrine by which middle knowledge is taught is prior to the free decrees of the divine will, and to the certainty of predestination, and is of such a condition that unless God provides through it what human will will be going to do on this or that occasion, it cannot, without harm to its freedom, decree anything absolutely, or predestine anyone, or reprobate anyone: this greatly favours — or, as we should say better, as far as can be conceived, favours in the highest degree — (according to the opinion of the Adversaries, and to what they teach about middle knowledge) created freedom, and renders it altogether clearly, and with the greatest perspicuity, unharmed; on the contrary, the doctrine which denies this middle knowledge, and which posits decrees that are efficacious from themselves, by which before the foreknowledge of any created consent God decrees efficaciously and foredefines the aforesaid consent, and reprobates or predestines whom He pleases, highly commends the certainty of divine predestination, and the efficacy which the divine will has from itself and intrinsically, with at least some apparent prejudice to human freedom, as the Adversaries confess: therefore, if those things are true which those same Adversaries teach concerning middle knowledge, then it is a very urgent sign that the doctrine from which those men, of whom Hilary and Prosper speak, were so disturbed and fell into the aforesaid danger, is not that which establishes middle knowledge; but rather that which denies it, and which admits decrees efficacious from themselves in advance of the foreknown consent of created freedom; and hence it will also be a very efficacious sign that the doctrine of Augustine, from which, on the testimony of Hilary and Prosper, they took occasion, just spoken of, is not that which admits middle knowledge and denies decrees of God efficacious from themselves in advance of the foreknown consent of created freedom, but rather its opposite.

62 It is confirmed, firstly, that the opposing doctrine which teaches middle knowledge is such that its authors boast of and proclaim that through it free choice has vindicated its freedom, and can most conveniently be left off altogether; since, according to it, as very nearly all the Adversaries confess, God cannot decree anything efficaciously concerning the free consent, as it were such a consent of the created will, unless (so to speak) He waits to see what the aforesaid will, if it be placed in this or that condition, will be going to do from its own freedom; and that this should be foreknown through middle knowledge; so that nothing other than this, and in no other way than this, can be foredefined by God around the aforesaid consent, except what has been foreknown through this knowledge, and in the manner in which it was foreknown by the created will according to its own freedom, will be brought forth. Which, according to the opinion of the Adversaries, very clearly, and with the greatest perspicuity, favours created freedom, so that it is obvious to everyone. On the contrary, the doctrine denying the aforesaid middle knowledge is such that its authors have very often asserted, as long as it was allowed them, that through it free choice is bound, and altogether overthrown, and that a necessity arising from the absolute and altogether efficacious will of God is imposed upon it; therefore it cannot be said that the Augustinian doctrine favours the opposing doctrine; nay rather it will be very certain that it is altogether opposed to it, and coincides with the Thomistic doctrine which we defend.

The consequence is evident. Both because Augustine did not undergo a slight danger to his life, and a great danger to his fame and honour, on account of that doctrine which he then taught. For who can persuade himself, upon well-considered reflection, that Augustine could have suffered (if those things are true which the Adversaries teach about middle knowledge) hatred of life and of honour as the destroyer of human freedom, if his doctrine were the same as, or similar to, that which the authors of that same middle knowledge teach as favouring human freedom? by which, as they themselves proclaim, the freedom of human free choice plainly remains, and with most manifest perspicuity, unencumbered and unfettered. Both also on account of those things which we have just indicated. Because if the doctrine of Augustine were similar to that which the opposing opinion teaches, then those aforesaid men (who, on the testimony of Hilary and Prosper, were clear and excellent, and of such authority that these two Fathers thought themselves unequal to contradict them: and for that reason had recourse to Augustine) would not only be suspect in the faith, but would manifestly have to be pronounced mad and foolish: since, from a doctrine which commends the freedom of human free choice so clearly and openly, according to what the Adversaries say, that it was obvious to everyone, they took occasion to feel that the aforesaid freedom was perverted and that the danger of despair was introduced.

63 All of which the first patron of middle knowledge, as he himself believes, Molina, foresaw and openly confessed in his first concordia printed at Lisbon: although afterwards, seeing by experience how much prejudice to his own opinion followed from it, he glossed this over in the Lyon edition. And although very many others among the Adversaries, as it were joining their forces, contend that this doctrine about middle knowledge taught by them is Augustinian; yet out of the many whom we have seen, and whom we daily see coming to light, we have found no one who flatly asserts that Augustine, who treated with the Pelaginians and their remnants concerning the grace of God, and who strove to reconcile it with created freedom, made use of middle knowledge: for they fear, and rightly so (as we believe), that they would constitute those famous men of whom Prosper makes mention, who were disturbed by St. Augustine's doctrine as being destructive of freedom and had already fallen into the danger aforesaid, not as reckless but as mad and foolish accusers and calumniators of St. Augustine.

64 The aforesaid reasoning is confirmed and explained, secondly, by comparing the effects which followed from the Augustinian doctrine with those of the doctrine which removes middle knowledge and admits absolute predeterminations of all future effects; so that God cannot know anything as future, whether absolutely or conditionally, except after the decree which is efficacious from itself, whether absolute or conditional, of His will. Because the effect which followed from the Augustinian doctrine in this respect was twofold. The first is that which we have just touched upon, namely that those clear and excellent men (to use the words of Prosper quoted above) were scandalized by the Augustinian doctrine and incurred the danger of despair, and rising up against it as the destroyer of human freedom, they began to complain of Augustine: and had they not been deterred by the authority of the Roman pontiffs from Augustine's doctrine, they would have risen up against it even more seriously.

The second, however, is that the men of Marseille, shuddering at an absolute and antecedent election which would not depend on the created consent foreknown through this middle knowledge, were disturbed when they heard that this was the doctrine of Augustine: and anxiously they strove, while Augustine himself was still alive, to establish, by heaping up certain testimonies of his and of others, that he and others stood with the Catholics for the opposing opinion: as Prosper attests, who, writing to Augustine in the place cited, says: And this is attested not only by the testimonies of other Catholics, but also by the more ancient disputation of your Holiness: whereas the aforesaid effects of the doctrine which denies middle knowledge and admits absolute, and efficacious from themselves, predeterminations, and therefore admits in God only the knowledge of future things after the efficacious decree of His will, followed from it; therefore it is a sign that this doctrine, which denies middle knowledge, is conformed to the doctrine of St. Augustine, and that the opposing doctrine is adverse to it. The consequence seems to follow with great credibility and certainty from the two premises laid down. The major, however, is established by those things which we have brought forward from St. Prosper.

65 The minor, however, as to the first part, that is, as to the first effect, is proved. For Molina, who in our own time first sent middle knowledge to press, and other distinguished theologians who followed him, were scandalized by the doctrine which denies the aforesaid knowledge and posits in God only the knowledge of future things after the determination which is efficacious from itself of His will, and therefore commends the absolute certainty of divine predestination, and rose up against it and ceaselessly rise up: and as long as they were not prohibited from it by the decrees of the pontiffs, they condemned it as the destroyer of human freedom: and had they not afterwards been prohibited by a pontifical decree, they would have risen up against it still more seriously, as far as it could lawfully be done.

As to the second part, however, that is, as to the second effect, the same minor is explained and urged. For certain of the Adversaries, bitterly and harshly opposing that doctrine which constitutes an absolute and antecedent election, and absolute and antecedent decrees, and removes middle knowledge from the midst, strove with great anxiety to bolster it with the authority of the ancient theologians, especially of the Thomistic family, and to draw over to the contrary opinion some of the opponents themselves, as we shall say in the last difficulty. All of them, however (as we say in passing), being greatly pained by what was objected to them, namely that Augustine stood for the doctrine which denies middle knowledge, assert that they prove the opposing opinion by heaping up many of his testimonies (though these do not indeed persuade of the intention, as we saw in the preceding difficulty); therefore, etc.

§ II. Resolution of the difficulty as to its second part.

66 It must be said, secondly, that from the effects of Augustine's doctrine and from other signs it is sufficiently inferred that he absolutely and simply speaking stood against middle knowledge. This assertion is proved by the reason given for the preceding one, and expounded in this way. For Prosper, relating the disturbance with which those famous men were disturbed by Augustine's doctrine, says that they proclaimed that all effort is removed and all virtues taken away, if God's ordinance anticipates human wills, and that this under the name of predestination, that is, anticipating our wills, introduces a certain fatal necessity; therefore that doctrine of Augustine from which they took occasion for this disturbance was a doctrine admitting decrees efficacious from themselves in advance of the consent of the human will, and not a doctrine teaching middle knowledge in order to reconcile the efficacy of grace with the aforesaid freedom.

The consequence as to the first part is evident. Because if that ordinance of God were not efficacious from itself, but were made efficacious by reason of the human consent, it would not be an ordinance of God anticipating human wills, which, as it stands from itself, would seem to introduce a certain fatal necessity. As to the second, however, it is also clear. Because middle knowledge does not anticipate human wills, but rather follows upon them, since this knowledge is purely speculative: and it is not because it is thus foreknown through this knowledge that the consent of the human will is going to be future; but rather, because it is going to be future, it is foreknown through that knowledge.

67 The same assertion is proved, secondly, with three things noted beforehand. The first is, that when Molina first published his book on the agreement of grace with free choice, in which he gave to press a new name for middle knowledge and a peculiar method of reconciling the efficacy of the divine predeterminations with created freedom, he was immediately accused in law before the Supreme Pontiff, and although he was accused on other matters, we shall say nothing whatever about those here (as we obey the decree of our most holy Lord Paul V in every respect); but only about what happened with regard to the middle knowledge which that same Molina sent to press.

Now, the cause having been referred to Clement VIII, there were appointed by him at least thirty very grave men, among whom were some Cardinals, some Bishops and some Regulars, so that all of these might assist with the Supreme Pontiff sitting in judgement, as counsellors and as witnesses; and when the affair had been protracted and treated through a certain number of sessions, so that arguments from reason and similar replies were brought forward, and it had been found out that nothing could be concluded by this road, because with dialectical and metaphysical terms and distinctions everything was made obscure and uncertain, Clement the Supreme Pontiff decreed (with the Holy Spirit suggesting it, as it is right to believe) that henceforth this Catholic cause should not be treated by Catholic reasons supplied by the natural light through the natural sciences; but only by the testimonies of St. Augustine and St. Thomas, inasmuch as these are drawn from nothing else than from the clearest sources of Sacred Scripture, traditions, Councils and the Holy Fathers, or rightly deduced from them. For he judged it alien to Christian gravity that Christian dogmas should be deduced at the outset from foreign principles, such as Dialectic, Philosophy and Metaphysics; but only from their own and divine principles, such as Sacred Scripture, traditions, Councils and the testimonies of the Fathers. And so in the subsequent sessions, of which there were many and which were famous, this was constantly observed.

68 Secondly, it is to be noted that when they saw that by virtue of this decree the Fathers of the Society were left destitute of natural reasons and restricted to the testimonies alone of St. Augustine and of his most faithful disciple St. Thomas Aquinas, they were compelled to turn themselves to this, so that they might strive to show that middle knowledge was according to the mind of each of the two holy Doctors, although Molina in his book (for the defence of whose doctrine they had come together) openly confesses the opposite, namely that the aforesaid middle knowledge is not according to the mind of St. Augustine, but was unknown to him. And so from then on they anxiously took care that the aforesaid middle knowledge, and the efficacy of the divine predeterminations to be regulated by it, should be very well known to St. Augustine and to the Angelic Doctor; very often asserted and most clearly taught, or at least not contrary or dissonant with the doctrine of these Fathers.

Whence, with the utmost care (as was right), they brought forward very many and diverse testimonies of St. Augustine and of St. Thomas during that whole, not unimportant period, as we shall say, before the Supreme Pontiff and the thirty very grave men already mentioned, in favour of middle knowledge. And it is very credible that the most select testimonies, and those which can be found in all the works of each of the two holy Doctors, were produced by them, and were brought out, expounded and weighed with an outstanding acuteness of intellect for the purpose of proving their intention. Because the men appointed for this from the Fathers of the Society were the most grave and most learned theologians, endowed with the greatest acuteness of intellect, among whom was eminent Fr. Gregory of Valencia, a most erudite man and very well versed in the reading of the Holy Fathers, as his outstanding works throughout the whole summa of St. Thomas sufficiently attest. And with him were associated other excellent theologians of the same Society, as Fr. Peter Azor, Fr. Vasquez, Fr. Salas and others, and men were daily sent to him, as was lawful, whether manuscript or also printed books on this matter, accurately composed by the eminent theologians by whom the sacred Society was then flourishing, and has always flourished and will flourish.

Just as on the opposing side too, many outstanding testimonies of Augustine and of the Angelic Doctor were brought forward: because for this purpose eminent and very grave theologians of the Dominican family were appointed, among whom stood Fr. Thomas de Lemos, a man endowed with the greatest wisdom and distinguished in the doctrine of St. Augustine and of St. Thomas, whom were accompanied by the distinguished Masters Fr. Francis de Avila and Fr. John González, insigne theologians, whom others no inferior supported, of whom the Dominican family always abounds, both by word of mouth and by writings: and from the whole order, especially from Spain, where this controversy first arose, many most learned manuscripts were sent by other very expert Masters.

69 Thirdly, it is to be noted that while each side on both sides alleged what served it, and produced diverse testimonies of St. Augustine and of the Angelic Doctor in its favour, a long and lasting time was spent in the discussion, the probation and (so to speak) the contestation of this cause. For on this account very many sessions were held under each of the Supreme Pontiffs Clement VIII and Paul V, with those thirty very grave men present, and out of all of them, with one or two exceptions, all the others advanced that opinion: namely, that neither Augustine nor the Angelic Doctor taught in any way that middle knowledge, that is, conditional knowledge, by which God foreknows a consent, for example, of the human will, as infallibly future, before He actually has an efficacious decree about its being future; but rather that each of the two holy Doctors opposed the aforesaid knowledge, and taught absolute predeterminations of God independent of the aforesaid knowledge, and preserving created freedom.

All of which we have not invented from our own resources, but have received from men far more grave, beyond all exception: whose truth no sane person can suspect. Since, however, a contrary report was spread by some, we have therefore taken care that, so as to flee, as far as is possible in this matter, every moral danger of deception, a peculiar diligence and care be applied in the Roman curia to examining this: and by this diligence applied we have found that the matter stands as we received it from those very grave men, which was also most recently attested at Rome by a certain distinguished theologian, who was most attentively present at all the congregations which we have enumerated, carefully noted everything done in them, and, so that it might not be lost by forgetfulness, faithfully committed it to writing, since he was adorned not only with the greatest wisdom but with such outstanding virtues that after his death he worked many miracles; and so that his testimony may remain yet more firm and beyond all exception great, we testify that that most grave man, eight days before his death and before he had fallen into the illness by which he ended his life, and consequently while he was flourishing most in sacred theology and holiness, frankly declared that what we have said is false.

And therefore we must stand by those things which we have said, because in these matters, in which the question is not so much one of right as of fact itself, and in which, with sufficient diligence applied to the evidence of the fact, metaphysical certainty cannot obtain (as has happened here after the very great diligence we have applied), a prudent human judgement cannot be derived from anywhere else (whatever be the case before God about the thing itself, which is not plainly known to men) except from moral conjectures, such as from the testimonies of men far more grave than all exception, or from ocular witnesses.

70 From all of which the following reason is deduced. Because it is very difficult to believe that those thirty very grave men, together with the Supreme Pontiff, so intently, and for so long a time, and through so many sessions, with all passion (as it is right to believe concerning those aforesaid men) set aside; and that on both sides, after examining the more select testimonies of Augustine for either side, not only with that thoroughness which was applied to the same testimonies by the outstanding theologians who took the part of each opinion, but also by adding to them often new force from a greater thoroughness which could occur to each of these thirty men according to the acuteness of his own intellect and learning: it is therefore very difficult to believe that these thirty very grave men together with the Supreme Pontiff should have investigated Augustine's mind in this way as to the middle knowledge in question, and yet have none the less not attained it; so that all of them, with one or two exceptions, should have agreed together with the Supreme Pontiff that the aforesaid middle knowledge is not to be granted; therefore it is a very urgent sign that Augustine did not approve, but rather reproved, the aforesaid knowledge.

71 It is confirmed and explained. Because if those men, who assisted together with the Supreme Pontiff as counsellors and as witnesses, were few in number, some suspicion might perhaps arise as to whether they had perhaps grasped Augustine's mind; and even if they had not been few in number, if nevertheless there had been disagreement among them, so that a large part of them stood for middle knowledge according to Augustine's mind, while another, somewhat larger part opposed the aforesaid knowledge, asserting that it was against Augustine's mind, then someone might justly and sanely doubt whether it was those or those others who had touched on Augustine's mind in this matter.

Then, although the aforesaid counsellors agreed against middle knowledge, with one or two exceptions: yet if they had been of the Dominican family, or of the Society of Jesus, it would perhaps seem to someone (though unjustly) that so much credit should not be given them in this matter: on the ground that each man many times judges for that side for which he is partial. And likewise if these Doctors had not most carefully sifted Augustine, whether by themselves or by others, namely by those outstanding theologians mentioned above, both of the Society and of the Dominican family, who were assigned to this purpose, and who with all care, so far as morally possible, as was right, proposed to bring forward once again and once again the more select testimonies of Augustine in their favour, expounding and weighing them; then it might perhaps seem to someone that so firm a stand could not be made by the opinion of such great men, on the ground that the cause had not been examined altogether, but that something else of greater weight than what had been adduced was left for each of the contending parties to allege, and that something was left to be examined: but those men who assisted together with the Supreme Pontiff were not few in number, but were of quite a considerable number, namely up to at least thirty; and a large part of them did not stand for middle knowledge according to Augustine's mind, and another and still larger part stood against it, and according to the mind of that same holy Doctor; but all of them, with one or two exceptions, felt that Augustine opposed it, and afterwards, with one or two excepted, they were not of the Dominican or Jesuit family, and finally, having examined all, or the more select, testimonies which could be adduced for either side, they judged as is clear from what has been said: therefore there is no ground from which the opinion advanced by them can be invalidated; and consequently it will be very difficult to believe that they did not touch on Augustine's mind as to this; and accordingly it must be said beyond doubt that that middle knowledge aforesaid is opposed to Augustine, as they themselves felt.

72 All the aforesaid things are confirmed by the fact that certain learned and religious men (whom we have known and consulted as Lectors of Theology at Salamanca and at Alcalá in their colleges) disclosed to us that they had at some time been addicted to middle knowledge, and (so to speak) imbued with its odour and affected by its colour, and had devoted themselves to the reading of Augustine on purpose; so that from him, as from a source, they drew his mind, and confirmed that middle knowledge by his own testimonies; yet from the aforesaid reading they plainly learned that Augustine is very much opposed to the aforesaid knowledge and stands for the opposing opinion. And therefore they laid down that old opinion about middle knowledge which they had imbibed, and embraced another opposed to it which they had previously rejected; because they plainly saw that it is this, and not that, which Augustine professes everywhere.

73 Because Augustine and Thomas are the two lights of the Church, by whom true Theology shines forth to us, therefore, after we have explained what is to be said about the possibility of middle knowledge according to Augustine's mind, it is necessary that we explain what is to be thought on this very matter according to the mind of the Angelic Doctor. In the heading, however, we inquire not about the mind of St. Thomas in just any sense, but about his mind as drawn from his own testimonies and (so to speak) proved a priori. For as we hunted down Augustine's mind in the double difficulty, in one of them indeed as it were a priori, but in the other as it were a posteriori, so we shall take care to do the same for this very matter of the mind of the Angelic Doctor.

§ I. Affirmative opinion.

The affirmative side is upheld by Suarez, prol. 2. de scientia conditionata cap. 6, Herice, tractatu 1. in 1. part. disp. 7. cap. 6, and others among the more moderns. It is proved, first, that St. Thomas, 3. part. quaest. 1. art. 3. ad 4, says: predestination supposes the foreknowledge of future things; but this foreknowledge, which predestination supposes, cannot, on the way of the holy Doctor, be other than middle knowledge; therefore, etc. The minor is proved. Because absolute foreknowledge of future things follows rather upon predestination, according to the opinion of St. Thomas, infra quaest. 23, and the common way of his disciples.

74 Secondly, that the same holy Doctor, in the aforesaid quaestione, art. 2 and 6, in order to give the reason of the decree by which God provided that the Incarnation should neither be ordered to be carried out immediately at the beginning of the world, nor be deferred to its end, says: that it is to be taken from the foreknowledge of the future free effects which would be in the human race, if in one of those last times Christ were to assume flesh, or were not to assume it: but this knowledge cannot be other than middle knowledge, that is, conditional knowledge: therefore, etc.

The minor is proved. Because there belongs to the aforesaid knowledge that which is proper to middle knowledge, namely, that it is understood before the decree about the time of the future Incarnation, on which the aforesaid effects would have depended if they had been ordered into execution; and that it is terminated in the conditioned effects: and so many of those effects did not in fact come about: because the condition was not fulfilled, that faith should be abolished in the world, if the Incarnation were deferred to the end of the world itself: which yet afterwards did not come about, for want of the fulfilment of the condition.

75 Thirdly, it is proved from the same St. Thomas, quaest. 24. de verit. art. 14, where he says: All external movements, however, are governed by divine providence, according as He Himself judges that someone is to be moved to good by these or those actions. In these words the holy Doctor is speaking of that judgement of God by which He knows the will to be moved to a good, and by which He governs it so that it is moved: but that this judgement is not absolute foreknowledge of the movement is clear from the fact that absolute foreknowledge supposes a decree of moving; whereas the judgement, by which the human will is duly moved and directed, precedes the decree, since through it God sets before His will the manner in which the human will is to be governed by Him, so that afterwards through the decree He carries that out: therefore such foreknowledge will be conditional foreknowledge, whose property it is to precede the decree and to move about future things.

76 Fourthly, it is proved from the same St. Thomas, 3. part. quaest. 1. art. 5. ad 2, where, asking why the Incarnation of Christ was made at such a time and not earlier, he brings forward first a certain answer of Augustine, epistola 49. de 6. quaestionibus Paganorum, quaest. 2, namely, that He then willed Christ to appear, when and where He knew those who were going to believe in Him. That same Augustine reproves this answer, lib. 1. de Dono perseverant. cap. 9, by the example of the Tyrians and Sidonians, who were going to believe in Him: and yet Christ willed not to preach to them, and willed not to appear at that time: where Augustine gives another solution in the same book, chapter 11, which St. Thomas also approves, namely: That it is not of one willing, nor of one running, but of one pitying God, who came to the help of those whom He foreknew would have believed, if His miracles had been worked among them, and with such miracles as He willed; but He did not come to the help of others, about whom in His predestination, hidden indeed but justly, He judged otherwise: therefore St. Thomas holds with Augustine that, before the efficacious decree of assisting and predestining, God foreknew that some would believe through His miracles, if these were worked among them, and not by the force of the decree: because the decree of predestination to assist was not yet understood even then: therefore, prior to the decree of God, there is given in this a foreknowledge of the future conditioned.

77 Lastly, that St. Thomas, 2. 2. quaest. 174. art. 1, and quaest. 12. de Verit. art. 10, distinguishing the prophecy of predestination from that of foreknowledge, teaches that each prophecy looks to the future: but their fulfilment takes place in two ways. In one way, from the divine operation alone, such as the conception of Christ and the raising of Lazarus: and according to this it is the prophecy of predestination: because, as Damascene says, lib. 2. fidei cap. 3, those things which God predestines are not in us. Some, however, are fulfilled by the operation of other causes, whether natural or voluntary: and these, in so far as they are fulfilled by other causes, are not predestined, yet they are foreknown: whence it is said that the prophecy of these is according to the foreknowledge: therefore St. Thomas holds that those future things which do not depend on God alone, but are fulfilled by other causes, in so far as they are thus fulfilled, are not predestined, and are not decreed or established by the will of God. For predestination, taken in the common sense (as it is understood here), and the fore-definition of it coincide. Therefore, since according to that same Angelic Doctor those things are foreknown by God, it plainly follows that, according to his mind, some foreknowledge of future things must be admitted which is completed through our free choice and is not founded on the predefinition and decree of God; and consequently middle knowledge, which consists in this, as is clear from what has been said.

§ II. True opinion.

78 It must be said, however, that according to the mind of St. Augustine the Doctor, as drawn from his testimonies, middle knowledge, that is, conditional knowledge, or that which is found in God before the efficacious decree of His will and moves about things that are future in some way, is to be admitted for no reason. And so too all the Doctors whom we shall bring forward in favour of our opinion in this same disputation, in the last difficulty. It is proved, first, from St. Thomas, quaest. 6. de Verit. art. 3. ad 4, where, when he was asking whether predestination has certainty, and had objected to himself in the fourth argument, on the side of the negative, in these words: But on the contrary, all certainty which is with the supposition of something is not absolute certainty, but conditional, just as it is not certain that the Sun causes fruit in a plant, unless with this condition, that the generative virtue in the plant were well disposed; because the disposition of the Sun towards the aforesaid effect presupposes the virtue of the plant as it were a secondary cause. If, therefore, the certainty of predestination were with the presupposition of a secondary cause, it is not absolute certainty, but only conditional: just as in me there is the certainty that Socrates moves if he runs, and that this man will be saved if he prepares himself: and so there is not in divine predestination any other certainty about those who are to be saved than there is in me, which is absurd. Since, therefore, the holy Doctor had thus objected to himself, he answers in these words: To the fourth it is to be said that the secondary cause, which must be supposed in order to induce the effect of predestination, is also subject to the order of predestination: but it is not so in the lower powers with respect to some higher power of an agent: and therefore the order of divine predestination, although it is with the supposition of the human will, nevertheless has absolute certainty, even if the contrary appears in the example introduced. In these words, according to the holy Doctor, a manifest overthrow of middle knowledge, that is, of conditional knowledge, is contained. For the adversaries, positing it, strive to deny the absolute efficacy of the decree: and so far they admit only a decree which rests on conditional knowledge and awaits the operation of the secondary cause. St. Thomas, however, posits absolute certainty in the order, or causality, of divine predestination, that is, of the causally determining decree. For predestination imports causality, as the adversaries themselves also confess: and so he says that future things which depend on free secondary causes, such as the effects of predestination, are known by God's knowledge with absolute certainty and by an absolute decree, without that knowledge awaiting those things which happen from secondary causes, so as to see there the future effects according to a conditional certainty that is prior.

79 Secondly, it is proved. For the same holy Doctor, in this quaestione, art. 8. ad 1, and in the places cited in disp. 5. num. 29, and subsequently cited, expressly asserts that God does not foreknow something because it is future; but on the contrary, it is future because God foreknows it, namely by His own knowledge, conjoined with efficacious will, as we said there: therefore, according to the holy Doctor, prior to such foreknowledge, according as it has efficacious will conjoined to it, no futurition in things can be determinately and infallibly known by God: since before this, according to this doctrine of St. Thomas, there is no determinate and infallible futurition in things; and consequently middle knowledge, that is, conditional knowledge, cannot be given prior to the aforesaid decree, through which certain future things would be known, since before it there is no future thing which has the character of a determinate and infallible future.

80 Thirdly, it is proved by those several and diverse testimonies of St. Thomas with which we showed in disp. 7 and 8 that future things absolutely so called cannot, according to his own mind, be infallibly known by God before the efficacious decree of His will, nor their presence in eternity. For as is clear from them, in the order to this knowledge St. Thomas has recourse only to their real presence in eternity, in which the efficacious decree of God about such presence is also involved, as is clear from itself and from what is said there: and so there too he denies that any other objective presence is possible, as we expounded in the place cited: from the fact that, according to the holy Doctor and truth itself, just as no future thing can have a determinate and infallible being except either in itself or in its causes, which are (so to speak) made infallible in the order towards the production of such a thing; so likewise no future thing can be infallibly known by God except either if it has in itself really being, not indeed in its own duration, but in the common and surpassing duration, that is, in eternity, or in its causes, which are (so to speak) made infallible in the order towards its production: and since, according to the holy Doctor, in order for the infallible knowledge of conditioned future things one cannot have recourse to their presence in eternity, since according to his doctrine those things alone which are going to have existence in some difference of time are present in it; and one cannot have recourse to any objective presence prior to the decree, since, once future things absolutely so called cannot have any objective presence before the efficacious decree of God proportionate to them, neither will conditioned future things have it before the efficacious decree proportionate to them, that is, before the condition: it follows that, according to the mind of that same holy Doctor, for the aforesaid knowledge one can have recourse only to the efficacious decree, and under the condition under which God decrees their conditioned existence.

81 It is confirmed and explained. For according to the doctrine of the holy Doctor and of all theologians, conditioned future things will never be anything in themselves, even if they existed, should the condition be posited; and so they will not be able to found the knowability according to real being which they have in themselves: and then, in so far as they are precisely contained in their own proximate secondary causes, prior to the divine decree they do not have infallible being, nor can they found infallible knowledge, as we saw from that same holy Doctor in this article and in the places recently cited: therefore they can found it only by reason of the divine decree, efficacious and infallible: because no other head remains from which they may found it, as is clear from itself and from what has been said.

§ III. Solutions of the arguments of the affirmative side.

82 To the first it will be answered, by granting the major and denying the minor. Because there St. Thomas is speaking of absolute futures and of the knowledge of those, such as was original sin, whose foreknowledge the predestination of Christ supposes according to the doctrine of the holy Doctor. And in answer to the proof to the contrary it is to be said for the present, with Alvarez, lib. 1. suarum responsionum cap. 2, that there are two kinds of future things; one, which are the effects of predestination, for example, our Lord Christ; and the other, which are the effects of another providence, such as several of the natural effects, for example human nature, and the permission of original sin. Whence, although the former effects and the foreknowledge of them are not supposed in the predestination of our Lord Christ, the latter are so well; yet neither these nor those can be known as future before the efficacious decree involved in the predestination of Christ, or of that providence of which they are the effects.

We have said, for the present: because a deeper exposition of this testimony of St. Thomas depends on those things which we have to say more widely in the tractates on Predestination and on the Incarnation; yet whichever exposition be adopted, foreknowledge of future things must always suppose the efficacious decree of God.

83 To the second the major is to be granted and the minor denied. For those who were going to believe in fact, on Christ's arrival, could be known by God in the decree of the predestination of that same Lord Christ, provided it be explained in its own place: but that utterly the knowledge of God, and reverence, and the honesty of morals would be abolished, if the Incarnation were deferred to the end of the world, was known by God in the efficacious and conditional decree which He had concerning this.

84 To the third it will be answered, first, that St. Thomas is to be understood as speaking of the judgement which supposes the efficacious decree of the intention of the end: because in the doctrine of the holy Doctor, providence supposes the aforesaid intention of the end.

Secondly, it is answered that when the Angelic Doctor says that all external movements are governed by divine providence, according as He Himself judges that someone is to be moved to good by these or those actions, He is speaking of the imperative judgement, which is the same as providence itself, and supposes both the intention of the end and the choice of means, and what this involves, and as it were infers an efficacious decree about the execution of such a movement. Whence that is false which is added in the same argument, namely that the foreknowledge of which the holy Doctor speaks there is not absolute foreknowledge: and likewise that is false which is adduced there in support of this proof, namely that the aforesaid judgement is that by which God sets before His will the manner in which the human will is to be governed by Him, so as afterwards to carry it out by decree, if the sense of this is that the judgement of which St. Thomas speaks in the aforesaid words is before every efficacious decree of the divine will: but otherwise if the sense of it is that it is before some decree of God, that is, before the decree which corresponds, setting aside the perfections, to the act of the use of our will, whether that virtually or only on the part of our mode of conceiving, from the preceding decrees (about which a distinction is made elsewhere). Whence, although God through the knowledge of simple intelligence had a judgement prior to every decree, by which He judged the possibility of this movement to good by these or those actions; nevertheless the judgement by which He judged such a movement to be future, and which is practical and the cause of its futurition, must follow upon the efficacious decree of the divine will, as has been said.

85 To the fourth it will be answered, that those words of Augustine, and consequently the words of the Angelic Doctor, who embraces his opinion, are to be understood according to the rule which we have laid down in this disputation from num. 44 to 47, and num. 56, namely, either with prejudice to the hidden counsel, and the height of the wisdom and knowledge of God, or without prejudice of the efficacious divine decree. Whence, at least for the present, it is to be said that God knew all those future things of which there is mention in this argument in some one of these decrees, that is, either in the decree of the Incarnation, in which He knew the faith to be absolutely future of those who were going to believe absolutely, after the preaching of the Gospel of Christ and the ratification of His miracles had been actually made in their presence, or in the other conditional decrees, by which, those future things being considered in a state of condition, God decreed that some would believe, if they had seen the miracles of Christ; but that others would not believe, even if they had seen them. Nor is that true which is said in this argument, namely that the faith cannot be absolutely future of those who were going to believe in fact to be known in the decree of the Incarnation, on the ground that the aforesaid decree is posterior to such faith. For, as will be clear from what has been said elsewhere and from what is to be said in tom. 5. tract. de Incarnat., the decree of the Incarnation is absolutely and simply prior to such faith, even as it is present in eternity.

86 To the last it will be answered, that when St. Thomas distinguishes the prophecy of predestination from that of foreknowledge, He is not speaking of predestination taken generally, in so far as it is the same as the predefinition and the decree that is prior concerning any thing whatever; but strictly speaking, of the predestination of that which is from God alone, as He Himself explains in the same place in the answer to the third and the fourth. Whence predestination can be taken in a threefold sense, namely, either most universally, in so far as it means only this, that a creature is transmitted to some end, whether that end be natural or supernatural, which acceptance is not proper, but abusive and loose, as the same holy Doctor notes, infra quaest. 23. art. 2. ad 2. In a second sense it is taken more strictly, in so far as it means the transmission of the rational creature alone to a supernatural end: and since this transmission takes place by the grace of God, and grace is from God alone, therefore, as we shall explain in tractate 5. disp. 1, it is called properly predestination, although it also touches our own free acts, by which we are transmitted to that end. In this sense the same holy Doctor teaches, quaest. 10. de Veritate art. 10. ad 4, that our merit is not subject to the predestination of God, except according as it is from grace, which is from God alone. Whence that which is from our own free choice is said to be subject to predestination accidentally.

Lastly, predestination is taken most strictly for the predestination, or the predetermination, of that which is done by God alone and has a necessary effect, no freedom of ours intervening: in which sense the Angelic Doctor teaches, infra quaest. 23. art. 1. ad 1, that Damascene speaks when he says that God does not predetermine those things which are in us, that is, by a predetermination which imposes a necessity. Whence, when the Angelic Doctor says in the argument adduced in that place, that some things are foreknown by God which are not predestined, this must be understood of predestination taken in those last two senses, as He Himself explains there; but not of predestination taken in the first sense, in so far as it is the same as the efficacious decree, prior, of the divine will.

87 Because the mind of St. Augustine and of St. Thomas, with regard to this part, coincides with the mind of those other Holy Fathers who followed upon St. Augustine, and consequently it is of great importance to examine the mind of each of them; therefore, since we have already examined both what Augustine thought (so to speak, on the a priori side and then on the a posteriori side) and what the Angelic Doctor teaches, we must also approach the mind of that same Angelic Doctor a posteriori, so that thus from every quarter his mind may remain more transparent and clear.

§ I. Resolution of the difficulty, and its first foundation.

It must be said, therefore, that according to the mind of the Angelic Doctor, middle knowledge cannot be given, this conclusion being taken from certain signs and a posteriori. The prior and fundamental reason of this assertion is drawn from what was said in dub. 3, assertion 2, num. 67, and thereafter. For the reason then given for showing Augustine's mind on this point proves the present assertion, as will be clear to the one who looks into it.

88 It is proved, secondly. Because the Fathers of the Council of Trent did not approve, but rather rejected middle knowledge, in the way we shall say below: therefore it is a sign that it does not exist according to the mind of the Angelic Doctor. The antecedent will be clear from what we shall say in the following difficulty. The consequence, however, is proved. Because whatever was done in that Council, about which St. Thomas treated in his works, was all of it derived from the doctrine of the Holy Doctor. And so the doctrine of St. Thomas was like the Lydian stone, in which true gold was distinguished from false: so that that was reckoned to be true doctrine which cohered with the mind of the Angelic Doctor and was approved by him; but that was false which was out of tune with him, or which was at some time reprobated by him. And this indeed is clear from that oration which was delivered by the orator of that same Council before the Fathers on the day of the Holy Doctor, where these words occur: St. Thomas could not be present at the Church's Councils, being prevented by death; but behold, surviving and destined to live forever, he is with you: the good things, the treasures of his spiritual doctrine, he has handed down to you by hereditary right. Accordingly, no councils have been held without the sacred Doctor since his happy passage. For to pass over the other things, that which we hear, that which we see, that which we handle with our hands: why should we not with open voice testify to his praise? weigh your assemblies, which are very numerous; and to that honorable college of Doctors, every counsellor who approaches adds his weight, who does not adorn his opinion with the authority of St. Thomas as with a shining gem? But in that most distinguished recess of the Fathers, this Doctor, when asked for his opinion, gives it most frequently, and if any doubt or controversy has arisen, you think he is to be referred to with common votes as to the Lydian stone; and whoever shall have obtained him as the patron of his own judgment will not be subject to the uncertain chance of judgments, but that the decision ought to be given according to him.

§ II. The last foundation of the true opinion.

89 The assertion is proved, thirdly. For the most faithful and most well-known disciples of St. Thomas, both the older and the younger, that is to say the Dominicans, never found this middle knowledge in their Holy Doctor; as regards the older, this will be clear from what is to be said in the last difficulty of this disputation, and as regards the younger it is clear from all the Dominicans who in our own age have committed their writings to the press, such as Bannez, Navarrete, Nunno, Nazario, Gonzalez, Ripa, Zannardo, Ledesma, Alvarez, and Martinez, and from all those who publicly teach sacred Theology throughout the whole world: therefore it is a sign that this knowledge does not exist according to the mind of the Holy Doctor. The consequence is evident. Because it is incredible that all the approved and most renowned disciples and interpreters of St. Thomas, who are said to swear to his words, who daily turn over his writings with the utmost affection of soul, compare them, ponder them, chew the cud of them, and devote themselves with assiduous study to attaining his meaning, and join prayers to their reading, and who still within the walls of their own household strive after the true doctrine of St. Thomas with the greatest zeal, so that not one of them would have dared to defend in any way the opposing doctrine, to their greatest disgrace, anywhere found, nor received from their elders, this doctrine about middle knowledge, if it were truly in the Holy Doctor; especially since St. Thomas so very often hinted at it, or brought it into the open, if it were in his mind: indeed, very very often, or (better to say) on countless occasions, the opportunity of treating of it presented itself; as in the matter of the knowledge of God, of the will, of predestination, of the Incarnation, of grace, of the angels, and very many other things: as the Adversaries, admitting it in all these places and in many others, use it, to unravel many and grave difficulties.

90 It is confirmed, firstly. Because the aforesaid disciples of St. Thomas not only assert that they did not find, nor received from their elders, this doctrine about middle knowledge, but rather affirm that the opposing doctrine has always reigned in his school. And so, when Molina first brought it to light, they not only did not favour it, but even accused it in juridical form before the Supreme Pontiff: yet it is incredible that the aforesaid disciples of St. Thomas, distinguished by number, by antiquity, by wisdom, by religion, and by many other titles, most devotedly and most piously by the bond of the Angelic Doctor's profession, and very well versed in his writings, should not only have failed to find his opinion on this so celebrated and so often repeated difficulty, but that even all of them should have been deceived and so blinded as to accuse the true doctrine of St. Thomas before the Pontiff: therefore, and so on.

It is confirmed and explained, secondly. For as regards the mind of St. Thomas about middle knowledge, faith is rather to be given to the Dominican Fathers than to his adversaries: therefore, since those of them stand openly against it, it will be a sign that the Holy Doctor also stands against it. The consequence seems transparent. The antecedent, however, is proved. Because the Dominican Fathers, whenever in other matters they deliver their opinion in common about the mind of the Holy Doctor, have never been found openly to have departed from his true understanding, and consequently they are not to be believed to have departed from it in this matter either; whereas the adversaries are wont many times over in other matters to produce St. Thomas on their own side, although it is very certain that he himself stands for the opposite view, as is evident in the matters about the existence of created things and its distinction from essence, about the principle of individuation, about intension and remission, and elsewhere often.

91 It is confirmed and explained, lastly. Because the Dominican Fathers, being led by no passion against their adversaries, nor compelled by any necessity imposed from without (as they say), bring forward St. Thomas on their own side and against middle knowledge. But the adversaries, although they are not led by any passion against the Dominicans, are yet as it were compelled by a necessity, and they prop up the doctrine about middle knowledge by the authority of St. Thomas: therefore, as regards this question, that is, whether the aforesaid knowledge is or is not according to the mind of the Holy Doctor, faith is rather to be given to the former than to the latter. The consequence needs no proof.

The antecedent, however, as regards the first part, that is, as regards the Dominican Fathers, is shown by the following dilemma. For when Molina first published his middle knowledge, either this knowledge was commonly received in the school of those same Dominicans, that is, of the Thomists, as the doctrine of St. Thomas, or it was commonly rejected as something contrary to that same doctrine? The first cannot be said: because, had the aforesaid Fathers greatly (as it were) rejoiced in the increase and spread of the doctrine of the Angelic Doctor, they would not have assailed it so boldly, nor accused this knowledge before the Supreme Pontiff, if by their common reckoning it was then held to be Thomistic; otherwise they would indeed have brought not the Adversaries, but rather themselves and their own doctrine before the Pontiff, and so would have been rejected by him as madmen; since they were accusing that very doctrine which they themselves acknowledged was the doctrine of St. Thomas.

If, however, it be said that it was the second, then, being led by no passion against the Adversaries, they made answer against St.

Thomas against this middle knowledge. For what passion could render the Dominicans less worthy of credit in this, when they reject this middle knowledge published by the Adversaries in the public press, as something at variance with St. Thomas, when those same Dominicans had previously held it as certain among themselves? especially since the Fathers of the Society up to those times had followed the way and the doctrine of the Dominicans, and hence it is incredible that they were not on that account loyally (as was right) disposed towards them. For the same reason too, no necessity imposed from outside appears, by which they were compelled to affirm the doctrine about middle knowledge to be against St. Thomas: indeed, if they once felt it that way before, they could have been moved to this by no other necessity, except that which (so to speak) arises from within, that is, from the fact that they previously felt that very thing in the truth of their hearts.

92 As regards the second part, however, that is, that the Adversaries, being led by no passion against the Dominicans, prop up middle knowledge by the authority of St. Thomas, the same antecedent is clear enough. Because, as will be evident to the one who looks into it, that is, more clearly than the light of noonday, to think the opposite would be to squint in the same light: indeed, such a passion cannot be believed, let alone even faintly suspected, of men so learned, so grave, and so religious.

As regards the last part of that same antecedent, that is, that the Adversaries, being as it were compelled by some necessity imposed from outside (as they say), prop up the doctrine about middle knowledge by the authority of St. Thomas, this can be taken from the fact that many external things could and ought to have moved them to this very thing. For they saw that it was being brought by the disciples of St. Thomas before the judges of the faith, as being in some way suspect; they experienced how much prejudice the aforesaid knowledge would suffer, as it ran counter to them, from the authority of St. Augustine and of St. Thomas; they beheld Clement VIII refer the whole weight of this cause to the authority of each of the two Doctors; they heard badly of Molina, who asserted in his first Concordia that this knowledge was new and had been unknown to the ancient Fathers; they saw that under the title of novelty this knowledge was held in contempt by all the more serious theologians, and had to be assailed with keenness, and that it would stir up many adversaries against itself: by no other road could they have freed their middle knowledge from all these known dangers and storms, nay, from total ruin, than by fortifying it with the authority of each of the two Doctors and corroborating it; and so they were as it were compelled (against that which the very authors of this knowledge used to confess before this storm arose) to proclaim on every hand that it is frequently and clearly found in each of the two Doctors, Augustine and St. Thomas, and to bring forward the testimonies of each of them to prove that point. Who then does not see how, although the testimony of the Adversaries is always weighty, nevertheless with respect to this particular point it is not so firm for the purpose of establishing the mind of St. Thomas, as is the testimony of the Dominicans, which, for none of the aforesaid objections, could rationally be rejected?

93 All of which can be made clear by the elegant testimony of Master Alfonso Curiel, who, although in his own controversies he favours this middle knowledge sufficiently and is strongly inclined to it (although afterwards he retracted it, as we shall say in the last difficulty), nevertheless in the aforesaid place confesses that such a doctrine is at variance with the mind of St. Thomas, and even with that of his disciples. Which testimony cannot fail, as things stand, to have force. First, because of the outstanding wisdom and authority of this Doctor, known to the whole world. Secondly also, because the religious profession, whether that of the Dominicans or that of the Fathers of the Society, cannot in the least make him suspect, on account of a pious affection which he had towards his own men: indeed, he was bound to neither of them. Lastly, because in that place he leans rather towards the opinion of the adversaries; and consequently, if he truly could fortify it with the authority of St. Thomas, he would in fact do so, and yet would have to confess, against himself and against the opinion which he there chose in preference, that it is at variance with the doctrine of St. Thomas.

94 This difficulty can be resolved in two ways. Firstly indeed, by bringing forward the testimonies of the Fathers and theologians who came forth in the course of time under the title just set out. Secondly, however, by producing signs and probable conjectures, by which a posteriori (as they say) it is shown that middle knowledge did not have that perpetual flux and approval from the older scholastics down to these our own times. Of these two ways, we shall use the latter one for the knot of this difficulty, because it is better adapted to treat that matter more clearly and more agreeably: whereas of the former we shall have to make use below in the last difficulty, briefly indeed, and in summary.

§ I. The first assertion.

It must be said, firstly, that middle knowledge did not flow on perpetually from the time of Augustine down to these our own times; so that it was not approved with sufficient common consent by theologians, both ancient and later, existing in the course of this period of time. This assertion is set up among others against Suarez, vol. 1, de Gratia, proleg. 2, and his other followers, inasmuch as he contends that middle knowledge flowed on perpetually from the time of Augustine down to his own times, and was approved by both earlier and later theologians. And so in the same place, cap. 1, num. 12, he says thus: This opinion, then, namely that which establishes middle knowledge, far surpasses in the authority of theologians, not only the later but even the ancient scholastics, the opposite view: wherefore no one can call it new, unless he has either not read the ancients, or has preferred to dispute about the names rather than about the things. Moreover, our assertion is supported by Vasquez, 1, part, q. 14, disp. 67, cap. 4, at the end, in these words: That the ancient scholastics who have written up to now have had in mind only simple knowledge, of understanding and of vision, matters little: for they did not debate at all, or take account of, this knowledge under a condition, and so forth. What then if we posit another, of which they themselves made no mention, nor did they deny? Herice, 1, part, disp. 7, cap. 10, in these words: Who does not know that this middle knowledge lay hidden from the scholastics, and was drawn out from the darkness in which it lay hidden by ours, that is, by the Fathers of the Society, by their diligent use of the Fathers and their constant reading? Fonseca, 6, Metaphys., cap. 2, q. 8; Molina in his concordia, given to the press in the year 1588, where he very openly confesses with some fear, however, that this knowledge was entirely new, and was known neither to the theologians nor to the Fathers, and least of all to Augustine.

And most recently Granado of the same Society, 1, part, q. 14, art. 13, tract. 5, disp. 3, sect. 2, where, after he has said that this middle knowledge is to be given, he adds: Nor is it a wonder if, with the passing of time, something new has been thought out by the later theologians. And lastly the same assertion is supported by several very weighty theologians, whom we shall mention in the last difficulty: although both we and those Doctors, by a different route than the Fathers of the Society recently mentioned, proceed in denying that perpetual flux and that common approval of the scholastics with respect to middle knowledge, as will be clear from what is to be said.

95 The assertion is proved. For it is incredible that the Dominican theologians, most pious and most wise, should have fallen into that delusion and folly, so that when the doctrine about middle knowledge was first published by Molina, they should have accused it before the judges of the faith, if this doctrine had been derived perpetually from the ancient theologians from the time of Augustine down to the times of Molina, and had consequently been known to all the academies, and sufficiently commonly received by the same, and handed down to their hearers (among whom are also to be counted the Dominican Fathers preceding Master Bannez, whom some of the Fathers of the Society call the first discoverer of the divine predefinitions efficacious in themselves). Indeed, if things had been so arranged, they would have deservedly brought that doctrine before all the theologians of the whole world, to be derided by all, and held as fools, or rash and most shameless accusers; and all would at once have cried out against them, and imposed a great silence upon so great and such folly and shamelessness, with great confusion and disgrace to themselves. Whence either all those, together with the same Fonseca, Molina, Vazquez, Granado, Herice, and the other Fathers of the Society who hold for our assertion, were ignorant of the antiquity and of the doctrine most celebrated in the academies before them, and handed down perpetually, and flourishing at that time, and besides all the rest, theologians of every profession who did not at once rise up against the Dominicans, as against malicious dissemblers in a matter so grave, or as ignorant and fools, would have had to be accused and condemned; or it must be granted that the antiquity and perpetuity of the doctrine about middle knowledge, intended by Suarez, is incredible.

But since that first alternative is very injurious to the whole family of Preachers, and likewise in great part to the Society of Jesus, and even to the theologians of the whole world, and is incredible of itself, it will follow that this second one is to be chosen; and consequently that the doctrine about middle knowledge did not flow on perpetually from antiquity down to these times, so that it was sufficiently commonly approved both by the later and by the ancient theologians.

96 It is confirmed, on the supposition of what we said in dub. 3, that is, that when the doctrine of Molina, with respect to this knowledge, was brought before Clement VIII, the aforesaid Pontiff then appointed thirty very weighty men for the discussion of this cause, who together with himself were to assist him. On that supposition the following confirmation is framed. For if the doctrine about middle knowledge had been sufficiently commonly approved by the ancient theologians, and had flowed down perpetually in the Church from the aforesaid antiquity down to our own times, it would follow that the Roman Pontiff (as is his custom), on the advice of the Cardinals, and also of the theologians, would have admitted, and would have decreed to be treated at length and earnestly with his own person assisting, the denunciation or accusation made against this doctrine about middle knowledge, which was set forth so clearly and so frequently (as Suarez wishes) by the holy Fathers in so grave a matter, and was received sufficiently commonly and perpetually in the Church of God by its Doctors and theologians: in no way could he have rebuked such accusers as manifest calumniators, and as men thinking ill, in so grave a matter, of the antiquity and the quite perpetual doctrine of the Fathers and theologians, and still flourishing strongly at that time, ¹ which indeed, as is clear of itself, cannot be said.

And also those thirty very weighty men (of whom we spoke in dub. 3) who, by order of Clement VIII, came together at Rome, with the intervention of the Pontiff himself, over several sessions, to examine this controversy: and all of them, with one or two exceptions, after a mature discussion came to that opinion, that they judged the aforesaid doctrine about middle knowledge to be opposed to the doctrine of the Holy Fathers, Augustine and St. Thomas, and that they had proceeded with folly, and with great ignorance of an antiquity and a doctrine then flourishing exceedingly, in a matter so grave: indeed, they were ignorant of that which is contained so frequently and so clearly (as Suarez wishes) in the books of the aforesaid Fathers and of all those theologians, and (which is still worse) they understood their doctrine so un favourably, that they thought this middle knowledge to be opposed to them; but this cannot be admitted, as is clear of itself; therefore it will necessarily have to be confessed that this doctrine about middle knowledge did not flow on perpetually and continuously from the aforesaid time down to these our own times, so that it was sufficiently commonly approved both by the later and by the ancient theologians.

§ II. The second assertion.

97 It must be said, secondly, that this doctrine about middle knowledge was not approved by the Fathers of the Council of Trent, but rather, as we have already explained, was at least virtually reprobated. The assertion is proved on the supposition that the Council of Trent was, among other things, principally summoned in the year of the Lord 1545, at the instance of Charles V, Roman Emperor, and of the other Catholic princes, by Paul III, Supreme Pontiff, for the sake of putting an end to the heresy of Luther, who was destroying the freedom of created choice. And Luther was moved to destroy it by this enthymeme: God from eternity foresaw absolutely and efficaciously decreed those things which come to pass in time: therefore all things happen from absolute necessity: and consequently without any contingency and without freedom. On these suppositions, then, the following argument is framed. For the Fathers of the Council of Trent, summoned above all to compose against Luther the freedom of created choice concordantly with the divine knowledge and the predefinitions of the divine will, did not use this middle knowledge: therefore it is a very urgent sign that they did not admit the aforesaid knowledge, and therefore that they at least virtually reprobated it. The first consequence is clear from the antecedent. For if they had admitted it, they would certainly have used it for the aforesaid task. Then, because as many as admit it use it for the aforesaid concordance: and consequently the same thing would have happened to the aforesaid Fathers, if they had admitted it. And also because all who establish it believe that created freedom, or divine freedom, is not thereby removed; but rather that without any ambiguity, and very clearly, by it is explained how neither the knowledge nor the decrees of God remove the freedom of created choice, as we explained from their opinion in the preceding difficulties. And so, if the Fathers of the Council had admitted this knowledge, and had felt that created freedom was so clearly reconciled by it with the divine acts, it seems very credible that they would have used it for this task, which was at hand, and for which above all they were summoned. Whence the argument in this part is a negative argument, considering all that has already been said, and at least a virtually positive argument, for believing that the aforesaid Fathers of the Council did not admit such a knowledge, but rather rejected it as false.

98 The antecedent, however, is proved. First, because Molina himself confesses in his first concordia that, inasmuch as he asserts that his mode of reconciliation by means of the aforesaid knowledge was not handed down by anyone, as is clear from what he teaches at the end of 1, part, q. 23, art. 4 and 5, disp. 1, num. ult. Then also because, out of those Fathers and theologians who were present at the Council of Trent, fifty of them, and some others besides, committed their opinion in this most grave controversy to writing, and handed it down to the press and to posterity, as will be clear to those learned and versed in the reading of the Doctors; but in none of these authors is any use of middle knowledge found for this concordance, as will be evident to those who look into it; therefore it is a very urgent sign that in that Council human freedom was constituted and reconciled, without any use of this knowledge, with the doctrine of the divine decrees efficacious in themselves: otherwise, how could all those aforesaid writers, who were present at the Council and who undertook so grave and difficult a controversy, have been able to pass over the use of that thing which they saw had been employed by the Fathers of the Council, as the best, for its resolution, and that especially, when they themselves exercised the task, as it were, of explaining and making manifest to all the mind and doctrine of the Council.

99 Furthermore, because, the Council of Trent having been successfully concluded, as out of the Trojan horse there emerged many most eminent Doctors and Masters, who returned to their own seats, academies, and chairs, and who could not have restrained themselves from carrying with them middle knowledge and its use for that sodesired and difficult concordance, which they had seen employed in that Council for composing so very difficult an affair, and from proposing it to their hearers, and from commending it to them as it were a second sword, with which the heads of Goliath and Holofernes, to wit, Luther and Calvin, had been cut off and gloriously amputated; and so they would have imbued all the Catholic academies with the same doctrine, so that it would have been most well known and constant, not only to the advanced but even to the beginners in theology. But when it is certain and established that the doctrine of that knowledge, and its use, as something new, or (better to say) as something not received, had moved the theologians, and had displeased many, and very weighty ones, so that they brought the book of Molina, in this respect, before the supreme judge and head of the Church, as containing (in their judgement at least, about which however we say nothing at the present moment, in order fully to obey the decree of our most holy Lord) a suspect doctrine: it follows thence that no such knowledge was used in the Council of Trent for the resolution of this controversy.

100 It makes no difference if you say that Father Salmeron was present at that Council, and yet is cited for this knowledge by Father Herice, tract. 1, disp. 7, cap. 10: for it is probable that that knowledge made its appearance in that Council. For this probability utterly vanishes once the argument has been made. Clearly, if this knowledge had been employed by the Fathers of the Council for the resolution of so grave and difficult a controversy, how could it come about that none among so many and such great theologians as came out of that Council should have made an honourable mention of it, whether in their writings or in word, except for the single man Salmeron? Indeed, it seems incredible that, if this knowledge had been admitted by those Fathers for the solution of the aforesaid difficulty, so very celebrated, that outcome should have happened which afterwards did happen, namely, that all of them should have reckoned that it, as being new, was approved by theologians so far as it is what it is, and that all should have been moved to its outcome, as it is well established that they really were moved.

Whence it is incredible that Salmeron should have learned this knowledge in the Council of Trent: but if he did know it, it must be said that he received it from his associates, the Fathers of the Society, afterwards for many years, to wit from the year 1563, in which the Council was finished, down to the year 1585, in which Salmeron himself died at Naples, and that he was introduced to it by them; and that at length, much later, in his posthumous writings, published with the care and at the expense of the same Society, in the year 1602, it was found.

101 Now that we have explained the preceding doubts, whether from the time of Augustine up to the present day the doctrine which establishes middle knowledge, approved continually and sufficiently commonly both by the ancients and by the later theologians, has come down to us, and we have established the part that denies it, it remains for us to explain in professed terms whether, even if it be granted that it did not have this, nevertheless from the time of Augustine up to the year 1560, in which year Fonseca says that he first discovered it, to wit, the knowledge handed down by the ancient Fathers and lying in darkness, and publicly taught in his College of Coimbra or York (although, as Herice attests in the place just referred to, he did not venture to commit it to the press), such knowledge was not, from the time of Augustine up to the aforesaid times, repudiated by the ancient scholastics, but lay hidden from them throughout that whole period, and was afterwards known to the later theologians and drawn out from the hiding-places and the entrails of Augustine and the Fathers; or whether on the contrary it was both known and repudiated by those same ancient scholastics.

And although the decision of this doubt is sufficiently clear from what was said in doubts 3, 4 and 5, where we proved that the aforesaid middle knowledge is contained in the Fathers as approved by them themselves, and consequently could not be drawn out from their bosom or their hiding-places as their own proper mind, and likewise from what was asserted in the immediately preceding doubt, it is not a little indicated that this same doctrine was repudiated by the ancient theologians; nevertheless, so that this matter may be explained more fully and appear more clearly how these three things cannot be consistent with one another, which certain of the Adversaries pile up in favour of middle knowledge, namely that it was handed down by Augustine and the Fathers, that afterwards it lay entirely hidden from the scholastics, and that at length it was dug out of the bosom of the Fathers by the later theologians; on that account we raise this doubt in detail. We shall treat of it, not, so to speak, a priori, and by examining the testimonies of the scholastics (for we shall discuss this, briefly and as far as will suffice, in the following doubt), but rather a posteriori, and from the sign.

Herice therefore, 1. part. disp. 7. cap. 10., defends the part that affirms this, and thus says, as we reported above: Who does not know that this knowledge lay hidden from the scholastics, and was dug out by ours (namely by the Fathers of the Society) from the darkness in which it lay, by diligent reading and constant perusal of the Fathers? This too Fonseca defends, as we saw recently. Now the foundation of their view can be nothing else than some of the testimonies which we adduced above from Augustine and the Fathers in favour of middle knowledge, together with the solution; and the further fact that in the ancient scholastics, and in the later ones who are not of the Fathers of the Society, no mention of this knowledge is found. For from these two principles it seems right that it follows, that this knowledge was dug out by the Fathers of the Society from the hiding-places of the Fathers, in which it was concealed.

§ I. The first assertion, and its first foundation.

102 It must be said first, however, that if it were once true that this middle knowledge is found in Augustine and the other Fathers as their own proper mind (the opposite of which we have shown in doubts 2, 3, 4 and 5), then it could not be said that the aforesaid knowledge was unknown to the scholastics who came before them and to the others who existed from the time of that same Augustine up to the year 1560; and consequently it cannot be said on any grounds that it was the later theologians of the Society who first dug it out of the entrails and hiding-places of the Fathers. This assertion is against Fonseca, Herice, and the other followers of theirs. They maintain it also the disciples of St Thomas and Suárez in the place cited, and many others referred to below.

But in order that the first and principal foundation of this assertion may be grasped, it is to be observed first that which no one can deny, namely that that treasure of middle knowledge, if it truly were the proper mind of Augustine and the other Fathers, was bound to be found in them by the Angelic Doctor: who indeed was an assiduous reader of the works of the Augustinians, a profound meditator, and one who was inseparable from the same Augustine as his disciple and a penetrator of his doctrine. For if it is once said that the Angelic Doctor did not find the aforesaid knowledge in Augustine as his own proper mind, this very fact will be morally evident proof that it is not to be found in him. And so not only Suárez, but also Herice and very many others of the Fathers of the Society, the later Molinists, strenuously contend, gathering testimonies from all sides, that the Angelic Doctor, with the intervention of this middle knowledge, harmonized created freedom with the efficacy and certainty of the acts of the divine intellect and will.

103 Secondly, it is to be noted that, once it is admitted, as it ought truly to be admitted, that this middle knowledge was discovered by St Thomas in the entrails of Augustine, if indeed it truly were in them, as the adversaries unduly claim, it is necessary also to confess that, at least in the time of St Thomas, the doctrine of Augustine concerning this controversy was known, both from the same Angelic Doctor and from others with whom the aforesaid Angelic Doctor discussed this matter, and in whose presence he publicly disputed, and that it came to light through him and through others of his contemporaries at the universities, and was committed to the press or to writing.

104 Thirdly, it is to be noted that from the time of St Thomas up to the present century, that is, from the year of our Lord 1240 up to the year 1600 roughly, or up to the year 1560 in which Fonseca attests that he found it, an unbroken succession of the most eminent theological writers flourished most abundantly, as is clear from what Bellarmine teaches in his book on the ecclesiastical writers. For up to the year 1300 flourished Alex. de Ales, Albertus Magn., ipse D. Thom. Doct. Angel., S. Bonavent., Petrus de Tarantasia, Udalricus Argentinensis, Rupertus de Ruffia, Aegidius Roman., Ricardus de Mediavilla, et Johannes Parisiensis. Ab anno Domini 1300 usque ad 1400, Johannes Scotus, Petrus Aureolus, Anton. Andreas, Durandus, Franciscus, Maironis, Hervaeus, Guillelmus, Okamus, Monaldus, Nicolaus de Lyra, Alvarus Pelagius, natione Lusitanus, Episcopus Silvensis, Petrus Palud., noster Guido, Adam Godam, noster Johannes Baccon, Rober. Olcoth, Thomas Argentinensis, Gregorius Ariminensis, Nicolaus Gorranus, Alfonsus de Bargas, Henricus de Usia. From the year of our Lord 1400 up to the year 1584, Johannes Capreolus S. Thom. fidelissimus interpres, discipulus, ac defensor, noster Thom. Uvaldens., Augustinus de Roma, Alfonsus Tostatus, S. Antoninus Florentinus, Joannes Basolis, Dionysius Carthusianus, Gabriel Biel, Marsilius, Thomas Caietanus, Franciscus Ferrariensis, Jacobus Almainus, Adrianus Sextus Summus Pontifex, Franciscus Liquetus, Sylvester, Joannes Echius, Conradus, Joannes Roffensis, Thomas Morus, qui insignem epistolam, et responsionem ad epistolam Lutheri scripsit, et pro Christo Domino occisus fuit: Joannes Gocleus, Franciscus a Victoria, Dominicus de Soto, Ambrosius Catharinus, Joannes Vincentius, Dominicus Bannez. Qui omnes de concordia creatae libertatis cum actibus intellectus, et voluntatis divinae scripserunt, scriptaque sua praelo mandarunt, vel ad primum librum Sententiarum, ubi distinctione 35. de Scientia Dei, et distinctione 45. de Voluntate Dei tractat Magister, vel ad secundum Sententiarum, vel tandem speciales tractatus de illa ediderant toto illo temporis spatio, scilicet ab anno 1240. usque ad annum 1560. vel usque ad annum fere 1600; quibus etiam annumerandi sunt alii multo plures, iique gravissimi, ac doctissimi Theologi, qui se ad scribendum non applicuerunt, quosque eodem tempore fuisse nullus negare poterit, siquidem experientia compertum est, adhuc nostro tempore, ubi commoditas imprimendi, et libido (si sic licet loqui) scribendi invaluit, multo plures ex gravissimis Theologis variis de causis ab scribendo, et sua opera praelo tradendo abstinere.

105 Lastly, it is to be noted both that among these Doctors there arose, in the time of St Thomas or thereabouts, Alens., Albert., Bonau., Angelicus ipse Aquinas, et Scotus, from whom Alensis flourished in the year 1245, Albert. Magn., S. Thom. et D. Bonav. in the year 1265, and Scotus in the year 1300; and that from these, as from fountains, there emerged the three classes of theologians which afterwards flourished and flourish, namely the Thomistae, Scotistae, et Nominales, who produced many weighty volumes in which they worked out every question, down to the most minute one pertaining to theology, and left them transmitted to posterity; and that the doctrine taught always by these preceptors and common Masters was preserved both in writing and by tradition, the Thomistic indeed among the Preachers and others, the Scotistic among the Friars Minor, and that of the Nominalists among various other Doctors.

Furthermore, what must be weighed among the Doctors referred to, over and above their already abundant number, is how great their diversity was: for some were Italians, others French, others Spaniards, others Germans, others English, others Flemings, others Swabians, of whom some were Carmelites, more Augustinians, more Franciscans, and very many Dominicans. Lastly, some of the Doctors named lived at Paris, others at Bologna, others at Salamanca, others at Louvain, others at Tübingen, others at Dillingen, others at Oxford, others at Cambridge, and then others again at other Christian academies, so that they imbued and illustrated their doctrine by their voice and their writings that the whole of their learning came, by some right of succession and inheritance, to almost the entire Church, in accordance with that saying: How much he charged our fathers to make known to their children, that another generation may know the children who shall be born and rise up; and they shall tell their own children.

106 These things having been supposed, the following conclusion is deduced from them in support of the assertion. For if the Angelic Doctor found this middle knowledge, with a view to reconciling the efficacy of the acts of the divine intellect and will with created freedom, as his own proper mind of the same Augustine, and it was likewise known to those Doctors and Masters with whom he himself publicly disputed and lived, such as Bonaventure and others (in accordance with what we said in the first observation above); then it was necessary that in that common and most famous university, where all these Doctors lived, this knowledge should be present as the mind of Augustine and the Fathers, most well known, and that public mention and knowledge of it should be had by them; hence it was also necessary that either this same mind of Augustine and the Fathers should be passed on by the succeeding Doctors and Masters as something approved by those same Masters and derived to their own disciples too, or at least that they should make public mention of it: since it is incredible that they should have so neglected the mind of Augustine as expounded by St Thomas that they not only did not embrace it, but did not even make mention of it.

The same is said, in proportion, of the disciples of these other Doctors, and so of the rest in the course of time already described, as succeeding one another there: for the mind of Augustine, taught publicly by St Thomas, would have been proclaimed by his disciples, especially by the Dominicans, who had received it from him there both by living voice and in writing, and would have been diffused by all the Doctors of that university, because of the enduring memory of the Angelic Doctor, which prevailed there with the stronger right; and consequently, if this middle knowledge was once of the mind of Augustine and the Fathers, and was taught by St Thomas, and was received, or at least known, by his contemporaries, it could not have been unknown to all these theologians of that university; hence it was also necessary, according to the Adversaries, that the aforesaid mind of Augustine and of St Thomas should be middle knowledge, known to nearly all the other Doctors of the other universities throughout that whole period.

107 This final conclusion follows clearly from the two last observations adduced in support of this argument. For from the very fact that this was the mind of Augustine and of St Thomas, publicly taught by the same Angelic Doctor and by Bonaventure and the other contemporary Masters, or at least known to them, it was necessary that, for no brief time, throughout the whole Dominican family dispersed over almost all the universities and over so many parts of the Church, the voice should be the same, and the consensus the same in this respect: since all Dominicans regarded the Angelic Doctor as an oracle, and the Holy Spirit as, so to speak, his instrument; and consequently because this same mind was diffused by them in the universities and in other places. The same is said of the Franciscan Fathers, though in proportion, as also of all the disciples of St Thomas and of the other Doctors of that university, who had come thither from diverse and very many places and were afterwards dispersed again through the same places, and betook themselves to various universities in order to teach theology publicly there (as commonly happens). Yet while that whole time elapsed from St Thomas up to the year 1560, there passed away (as we said in the third observation) so many, and such eminent theologians, scattered through so many provinces and so many universities, whom we said to have written on this matter, and who could have had knowledge of this, of the Parisians, and especially of St Thomas, in accordance with the doctrine of Augustine; and that they received the aforesaid knowledge is more than credible, on account of the extreme gravity of this difficulty, or of this reconciliation of human freedom with divine knowledge and will, which always weighed on the minds of all and is always on the lips of all theologians: as is sufficiently clear from what we see has happened in our own time about this same difficulty; hence it is incredible that this knowledge of middle knowledge, taught by St Thomas out of the mind of Augustine according to the Adversaries, and either wholly acceptable to the whole university of Paris or at least known to it, by which, according to the same Adversaries, this reconciliation of created freedom with the acts of the divine intellect and will is so clearly established, should not have reached the aforesaid Doctors scattered through almost all the universities: hence it will also be incredible that the knowledge of the aforesaid middle knowledge, which the mind of Augustine and St Thomas, so celebrated, and so well fitted to resolve so celebrated a difficulty, would have been transmitted in an unbroken succession through all the aforesaid theologians, succeeding one another in turn, who sent their writings to the press about this controversy. Indeed, it is even incredible that they themselves, being so learned and so practised, should not have drawn it out from the writings of Augustine, of St Thomas and of the other Doctors of Paris. Especially since what is taught publicly in the scholastic manner about some controversy is always so distinctly and clearly set forth that anyone who is not slow-witted can easily follow the meaning of the Master.

108 This is confirmed first by what we said in the last observation. For since out of St Thomas and out of those Doctors and Masters enumerated in the aforesaid observation there emerged those three so celebrated schools, namely those of the Thomists, the Scotists and the Nominalists, which preserved even the most minute particulars of what they received from their own fountains, and which were scattered through all the universities, it follows that, if St Thomas, the prince of his Thomistic school, once handed down this middle knowledge from Augustine, and Scotus taught it, or at least had knowledge of it, namely he who was St Thomas's contemporary, or very nearly so (which we say in like manner of Alexander of Hales), this same mind and opinion must have been known to the aforesaid schools and preserved in them. Especially since this does not pertain to the most minute questions, but to a most celebrated controversy, which has always pressed, presses, and will press upon the wits of all ages.

109 This is confirmed secondly. Because if this middle knowledge is once found in St Thomas as his own and as the mind of Augustine, it will follow that all those most grave theologians whom we have mentioned, who existed from the time of St Thomas up to the time of Fonseca, in whose hands the works of St Thomas were handled frequently, especially the Dominicans, who assiduously occupy themselves with the reading of St Thomas by the bond of their profession and by many other titles, and strive to defend his doctrine with the most ardent affection of heart and with all their strength, and to teach it continually throughout all the universities of the Christian world and to transfuse it into the minds of all, either did not understand their own holy Doctor, or so neglected his opinion about this controversy, which so presses upon the minds of all, that they did not even wish to make any mention of it; since this is utterly incredible, it follows likewise that there can be no doubt that this doctrine about middle knowledge (if it truly were of the mind of Augustine and St Thomas) was transmitted continually, in word and in writing, through the aforesaid theologians and Doctors down to the time of Fonseca; and consequently it is evident from all of these things that those things which the adversaries assert cannot be consistent with one another, namely that this middle knowledge is of the mind of Augustine and of St Thomas and of the other Fathers, and nevertheless that from the time of Augustine up to the year 1560 it lay hidden from the ancient scholastics, and was dug out by the later ones, that is by the Fathers of the Society, from the entrails of the Fathers, in which it was hidden.

§ II. The second foundation is proposed in support of the same first assertion.

110 In order, however, that the second and fundamental argument in favour of this same first assertion be set out, it must be presupposed that, although the harmony and the reconciliation of human freedom with divine knowledge and with the predeterminations, applied to supernatural predestination and to the acts ordered towards its end, namely supernatural beatitude, is proper to the Christian Religion and to the Church, and before the Incarnation regarded the Synagogue, which according to the sacred scriptures acknowledged supernatural beatitude to be obtained by supernatural works; nevertheless, because the weight of this difficulty does not arise from the supernaturality of divine providence or of our works, but from the indispensable dependence of the aforesaid works in being, in being made, and in being preserved upon divine providence, and from the great certainty and infallibility of the latter with respect to the freedom of our acts, even if they are considered within the natural order (both of which the natural light shows), it follows that the divine providence, involving the infallible knowledge of God and the unimpeded decrees of his will, has afflicted and weighed upon the whole span of every man's life.

111 Hence, weighed down by the weight of the aforesaid difficulty, the pagan Philosophers of old denied divine providence with respect to these lower things, and thus (as Augustine said of Cicero) that they might make men free, they made them sacrilegious.

Others, however, on the contrary, so as to profess God to be all-knowing, all-determining and all-providing, left men almost without experience of brute liberty. Of their number were Simon Magus, the Manichaeans, and other ancients, whom the Lutherans and Calvinists follow, with new errors added. And in the same way our Uvaldensis speaks, tom. 1. doctrinal fidei antiquae lib. 1. art. 1. cap. 26.: From the beginning of the rising Church men have gathered together most wise questions about this highest foreknowledge of God, wonderful as they are, and indeed many have failed while searching, searching out their investigations. And in the same book and article, cap. 22., treating of the heresy of Wycliff and exposing its antiquity, he says: In the time of Saint James there broke out, through certain — pseudo — men among the people of the Jewish dispersion, who was then faithful; for they said that God necessitated men to sin through certain private inspirations, which they called the hidden temptations of God; against whom James wrote, saying: No one when he is tempted, etc. And finally the ancient Fathers and Doctors, especially St Augustine, did not sweat a little in the explaining of this controversy; nor did they fight manfully against the heretics in its defence; nor did they achieve so signal a victory over the same in it.

112 These things having been supposed, the following argument is formed in support of the assertion. Because it cannot rightly be consistent with itself that this middle knowledge should have lain hidden from the scholastic Doctors who lived from the time of Augustine and of the Fathers older than he, up to the year already named, that is, 1560; and that nevertheless the aforesaid knowledge be contained in the bosom and the hiding-places of the Fathers; hence such knowledge did not lie hidden from the aforesaid scholastics, and was dug out of the ends and hiding-places of the holy Fathers by the later Scholastics and theologians. The conclusion seems clear. The antecedent, however, is argued from the following discourse. For it is incredible that a great multitude of grave and wise men should fall into so great a laziness and inertness, and lie there in it for so long a time, as to let slip and perish, so to speak out of their hands, that thing which they long sought after and investigated with great labour and anxiety in order to resolve a most grave difficulty and a most pressing controversy, which weighed so heavily on all the ages of men, and which, once found and frequently needed, they let slip, so to speak, and suffer to perish, so that no memory or knowledge of it is preserved for several centuries, at least by use itself and by tradition, as daily experience sufficiently attests in the case of other things necessary or very useful for human life; whereas the more grave wits of all the ages labored strenuously to reconcile the efficacy and the certainty of the divine acts with human freedom, as for a very difficult thing, and one most necessary for the shaping of human manners, as is clear from the observation recently proposed; hence it will be incredible that that way of reconciliation, which the ancient Fathers attained, and which was committed to posterity by the press or by their writings, and which was frequently necessary and very useful both for meeting heretics who denied divine providence and human freedom, and for quieting the temptations by which, on this point, even very Catholic and pious men are often afflicted, as also for understanding better many other difficulties, should have lain given up to oblivion through so many centuries, down to our own times, or down to the period already assigned, that is, up to the year 1560; hence, according to the Adversaries against whom we fight, if this way and this method of reconciliation which the Fathers used, and which they left to posterity, were to be brought about through the intervention of middle knowledge, it is incredible that it lay hidden through all the aforesaid centuries from all the theologians and scholastics; and consequently these two things cannot be consistent with one another, namely that the aforesaid knowledge was unknown to the ancient scholastics from those times onwards, and that it is truly contained in those same Fathers.

113 This argument is confirmed. Because if what the aforesaid authors intend is true, then both that very long oblivion of this ancient doctrine, and that the volumes of Augustine and of the other Fathers, in which this doctrine is said to be found frequently, were read by no diligent, learned and careful man through so many centuries, or understood by no one, are necessary; which is utterly incredible in itself, and very injurious to the venerable antiquity of the scholastics, as also to the many Fathers who lived after the time of Augustine and of the other Fathers, among whom were Anselm and Bernard, who published special books on foreknowledge, predestination, the grace of God, and the free choice of man, to be reconciled with them. Who, therefore, even if he strives studiously to persuade himself of it, will be able to believe that these (to pass over the other Fathers) and the other scholastics never found this treasure, discovered by Augustine and the other ancient Fathers and recorded in their writings (as the Adversaries say), and so necessary for establishing and defending the doctrine of the faith and for the shaping of men's manners, either by the reading of the ancient Fathers, or by any tradition, or by any special illumination of God?

114 It is confirmed, then. For did the Fathers of the Council of Trent find this treasure of middle knowledge in Augustine and the Fathers, or not? That they did not find it cannot be said, if (as the Adversaries, though unduly, will have it) this treasure was hidden in the hiding-places and the entrails of the Fathers, and if according to the opinion of those same Adversaries it is altogether necessary for reconciling the freedom of created choice with the acts of the divine intellect and will. Since when those Fathers were gathered together in the Holy Spirit to set forth this agreement, and intended and ought to explain it from the mind of the holy Fathers, and when so grave and so great a necessity was pressing upon them, and finally when the whole Church of God urgently poured forth prayers to God for this light, it is incredible that the Holy Spirit should have denied them a true knowledge, in this respect, of Augustine and the other Fathers; and consequently that they should not have found that treasure of middle knowledge, which is held to be uniquely necessary for the aforesaid agreement, if it truly were found in the holy Fathers.

If, however, the first alternative is said, we ask again whether those Fathers learned it in the special council by some revelation, so that they were previously entirely ignorant of this middle knowledge, or whether they had knowledge of it beforehand. The first cannot be said: for, as is clear from what was said in doubt 6, the aforesaid Fathers of the council did not use this middle knowledge in order to reconcile created freedom with the acts of the divine intellect and will. But if they had recognized it there by some special revelation, there could be no doubt that they would have used it for the aforesaid¹ purpose; hence necessarily the second must be said; and consequently, by the same reasoning, this knowledge would be as well known to the other theologians of that age from the year 1545, in which the council began, onwards, as to the others older than they, existing from the time of Augustine. This final conclusion, as to its first part, that is, as regards the theologians contemporary with the Fathers of the council, is sufficiently established. For those Fathers were gathered from almost the whole Church; and so that which was known to them as theologians of that age, namely that this treasure of middle knowledge is to be found in Augustine and in the holy Fathers older than he, could not have been unknown to other contemporary theologians, with whom they lived in the same universities and in other places, and conversed frequently.

115 As to the second part, however, that is, as regards the other theologians from the time of Augustine onwards, this too is established. First, because, if this middle knowledge was known both to the Fathers of the council and to their contemporaries as being the mind of Augustine and of the Fathers older than he, it would be so for this reason, that they received it from their own masters; since, according to the common course of things, what is contained in Augustine and commonly known is commonly received from the masters, as is clear from the other truths contained in Augustine and commonly known. And since the same reasoning holds of these masters of those Fathers and theologians, their contemporaries, and so of the others ascending up to St Thomas, and indeed even up to Augustine, it follows that the aforesaid knowledge, if it was once the mind of Augustine, was not a little known to the ancient theologians. Especially because the nearer this ascent approaches the time of Augustine, the greater force it has in this respect, namely that the mind of Augustine was better known to the theologians of that age.

Furthermore: because what the Fathers of the Council of Trent and the other theologians contemporary with them found in Augustine, to wit, middle knowledge, could not have arisen from elsewhere, unless they themselves were learned men, who consequently were able to apprehend the mind of St Augustine; hence, since so many most learned men preceded them, as is evident from itself and is further established from what was said for the first foundation of this assertion, it follows that this middle knowledge, if it was once of Augustine, was known to the older theologians; and consequently it cannot be consistent that middle knowledge should be of the mind of Augustine and of the Fathers, and that the later theologians of the Society were the first to deduce it, lying in darkness, from that same Augustine and from the Fathers.

116 All of these things can be elucidated, if we compare the time in which Fonseca attests that he first found it in the Fathers with the time in which the Council of Trent, where this controversy had already been discussed, was held. For, as Fonseca likewise attests, this knowledge was discovered by him in the aforesaid Fathers in the year of our Lord 1560, in which year the Fathers of the Council of Trent were still assembled at the same council. For that council began under Paul III in the year 1545, and was not dissolved at all until the year 1563, up to which year it continued under different popes, namely Paul III, Julius III and Pius IV. Indeed it is most difficult to believe that, at the time when the Fathers were gathered in the Council of Trent by the Holy Spirit, chiefly among other things to reconcile against Luther created freedom with the divine acts, the true understanding of Augustine and of the Fathers should have been denied them (from whom, as from the organs by which the Holy Spirit speaks, this knowledge, if it truly were in them as the same Adversaries will have it, had to be learned, being altogether necessary for such a reconciliation); that, the same Fathers of the council being left behind where so great a necessity was pressing, where heavenly light was so earnestly begged for, where the cause of the whole Church was being pursued in common, where the Holy Spirit had promised to set himself, then that same divine Spirit should have flown to the college of Coimbra or York of the Fathers of the Society (so to speak), and there should have disclosed to some peculiar theologian among them (although otherwise most learned) a true understanding, so recondite as they themselves say, of Augustine and of the Fathers, in this respect, and should have revealed that treasure hidden in them and discovered by no one after the aforesaid time: truly this is most difficult to believe, and is outside the common course and manner of divine providence, as is evident from itself.

§ III. A corollary worthy of note.

117 From which, as we say this incidentally, it follows that Molina did not speak well in his original harmony when he said that this middle knowledge is very necessary for reconciling created freedom with the acts of the divine intellect and will, and that it was first discovered by him, and was unknown to the Fathers. We do not rise against the necessity and the novelty of this middle knowledge (if it truly is new, as Molina, Granado and other Jesuits frankly confess) on the ground that any new doctrine merely on the title of novelty deserves so little, since we know that, for new things, a new doctrine deduced from common principles must be newly devised and applied; but on the ground that in this controversy this novelty cannot be admitted. For since in this doubt have been set out the antiquity and the difficulty of this controversy, and of this reconciliation, and since the Philosophers of old, and afterwards in the earlier centuries of the primitive Church the more grave Fathers and Doctors, namely Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Hilary and Prosper, contended to overcome it against the heretics, who favoured human liberty too much, whom the Fathers, convicted in fact of falsity and of heresy, condemned in the councils of Orange and of Milan, approved by the Holy Apostolic See; it would follow that all those Fathers, among whom Augustine excelled, and the whole Church of God, ignorant of the middle knowledge newly introduced by these later men according to their own mind, and consequently also ignorant of the harmony of human freedom with the acts of the divine intellect and will (since this harmony, that is, the aforesaid knowledge, is judged impossible by the aforesaid later men), had in fact not satisfied the heretics who alleged the aforesaid incompatibility of freedom with the divine acts, and consequently that the heretics, considered with respect to the force of argument in this controversy, would have been superior and victorious, but with respect to authority and power only inferior, and would have remained vanquished: but this seems injurious both to those Fathers and Doctors, and to the whole Church of God, and to antiquity, as also to divine providence, which always seasonably assists the Church militant and struggling with the heretics. Hence it was rightly, and piously, said by Master Luna, in the manuscript additions to 3. part. art. 3., that he would rather be ignorant of middle knowledge with Augustine than to hold it with Molina.

118 We do indeed confess that divine providence distributes its gifts in such a way that it always reserves what is to be conferred for as long as the Church struggles on earth. For it is for this reason that the Moon is compared to one receiving increments of light day by day until it reaches its fullness, according to that saying, Beautiful as the moon. Nor do we deny that the sacred Society of Jesus is most apt for this through its own members. But it does not seem compatible with divine providence, which touches from end to end and strongly and sweetly disposes all things, that it should have denied to its own Church, and to the aforesaid Fathers in the councils already mentioned, fighting against the heretics in so pressing a necessity, for the sake of its own divine glory and the defence of the Catholic faith, the one unique way of reconciling; otherwise those same Fathers, and the whole Church, would have remained humbled and genuinely confounded before the heretics, and derided by them, and God would have left his own doctrine and the Catholic faith destitute of the necessary defence in so grave a matter. Yet Christ the Lord promised to that same Church: For it will be given to you in that hour what you shall say. But what hour can that be, unless the one in which the adversaries press, and the Church anxiously asks of the Father of lights, who gives to all abundantly, and who gives food in due season, for the bread of sacred doctrine and the way of escaping the deceitful snares and traps of the heretics? What, beyond doubt, was that hour in which heresies were pressing and the Fathers of the Church were gathered in the councils by papal authority, to meet the heretics and to dissolve their fallacious arguments.

Hence it does not seem how that word which was said of the Church by Christ the Lord, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, would have been fulfilled, if the heretics had prevailed, considered with respect to the force of argument, over the whole Church gathered in the councils; and finally, by what means could it be consistent with the sweetness and the right ordering of divine providence, that this method of reconciliation, uniquely necessary, which the whole Church had hidden in the time of such great necessity and danger, should afterwards have been opened to the later Jesuits?

§ IV. The two later assertions.

119 It must be said secondly that, if we speak absolutely and simply, without any supposition having been made, then it must necessarily be admitted that the ancient scholastics knew middle knowledge, that is, conditional knowledge. Thus the disciples of St Thomas.

This assertion is to be understood with the precision which the word knew conveys. For we do not mean by it that the aforesaid theologians recognized and approved the aforesaid knowledge, but only that they recognized it. Whether, however, they approved it or reprobated it, we shall state in the following assertion. And from what we asserted above in the preceding disputations it is not a little clear.

And although the proof of this assertion is sufficiently clear from what was said for the preceding one, and from what we brought forward in the second doubt of this disputation; nevertheless, for the sake of greater clarity, we shall deduce the following argument in its support from those things. Because it is certain and clear that, whoever unfolds the works of St Augustine and of St Prosper, his contemporary, with ordinary care and ordinary ability — especially the passages which we referred to in the cited doubt, in which the Pelagians and the Semi-Pelagians admitted middle knowledge, that is, conditional knowledge, although they afterwards differed from the Catholic authors, who recently began to admit it again, in its use; — hence, since it is incredible that those most grave theologians, whom we have numbered at 104, who published so many treatises on the reconciliation of created freedom with the efficacy of the acts of the divine intellect and will, did not consult St Augustine in the more common and more perspicuous passages, nor St Prosper; it follows that the aforesaid scholastics knew this middle knowledge. The conclusion seems sufficiently clear.

The antecedent, however, is clear from what was said in the place cited. Because, in order that the Pelagians and the Semi-Pelagians might save predestination, and likewise that grace be given on merits, even to little children who died before the use of reason and with Baptism, they said two things. The first, in which they expressly confessed middle knowledge, was that, before the decree of the efficacious will of God, he foreknew that those children dying with Baptism, if they should reach adult age, would work well. The second (which is not relevant at present) was that, on account of works thus foreknown, they were predestined by God, and the grace of Baptism was given to them. These two things, however, are so clear and so obvious to everyone in Augustine and in Prosper that it conflicts with reason that anyone should unfold the aforesaid passages with ordinary care and ability and not grasp them, as will be clear to one who looks into the matter.

120 It must be said thirdly that the aforesaid ancient scholastics not only recognized middle knowledge, but also, with everything weighed, reprobated it: and consequently they knew it as a knowledge to be reprobated. Thus all Thomists in common. This assertion is sufficiently clear from what was said for the preceding one, and from what we said in the preceding doubts of this disputation. Because, as we recently asserted, this middle knowledge was known to the aforesaid ancient theologians: and all, or nearly all, of them reconciled created freedom with the efficacy of the acts of the divine intellect and will without the intervention of the aforesaid knowledge; hence, weighing everything, they reprobated it. The minor is clear. Because in none, or nearly none, of the aforesaid scholastics will the aforesaid reconciliation be found with the intervention of middle knowledge, as will be clear to one who looks into the matter, and as will be made still clearer from what we shall show in the following doubt.

The conclusion, however, is proved. Because since this controversy about reconciling created freedom with the acts of the intellect and of the will of God is so very difficult, and has so pressed upon the wits of all the ages, it seems incredible that the ancient scholastics, conscious of middle knowledge, did not use it for this reconciliation, if they truly felt that such knowledge was to be given; since all who admit it believe that it very perspicuously and expeditiously saves created freedom and harmonizes it with the aforesaid acts of God, and therefore it is incredible that they did not use it to save this most grave difficulty. Just as it would be incredible that the Fathers of the Society, when granting it, should pass it over in silence when they treat of this reconciliation, so as in no way to assert that it is necessary or useful for this harmony; and consequently all those men, with the single exception of Vásquez, use it for the aforesaid reconciliation. Hence this omission and this silence, which in other matters would be only negative proof, has here, all things weighed, and proceeding morally and in a human manner, the force of positive argument, and also of positive reprobation of this middle knowledge.

121 The same assertion is proved secondly from what we said above. For when this middle knowledge was first published by Molina and publicly approved by him, it at once moved the minds of nearly all, and so displeased the Dominican theologians that they referred it to the judges of the faith: hence it is a sign that the aforesaid middle knowledge (otherwise known) was commonly reprobated by those same theologians. The conclusion is clear. Because since it had already been known to them, as is clear from the preceding assertion, it would not have so moved men's minds unless it had been reprobated at the same time, and, as a doctrine commonly rejected, already abandoned. For it is clear that whenever something is said about some very grave difficulty, which has pressed on all minds, this common reprobation of the theologians, which existed at that time, sufficiently indicates that there was the same consensus among the ancient theologians from whom they had successively received theological doctrine, as may be seen by an induction made in other similar difficulties.

122 And this second argument can be confirmed and elucidated not a little, if we compare what happened when Master Báñez, of the Dominican family (whom some of the Adversaries, though unduly, now call the discoverer of the absolute divine predeterminations, efficacious from themselves, and prior to the foreseen consent), sent his commentaries on the first part of St Thomas to the press: where he rejects middle knowledge; and what happened when Molina committed his middle knowledge to the press. Because the aforesaid doctrine of Master Báñez preceded Molina's harmony by the space of five years: as is clear from the commentaries of both authors first committed to the press. For Báñez's commentaries on the first part, where Knowledge, Will, Providence and Predestination are treated, were printed at Salamanca in the year of our Lord 1584, and came out. Molina's harmony, on the other hand, first came out at Lisbon in the year 1589 at the earliest: but experience itself has established that throughout that whole five-year period the aforesaid commentaries of Báñez contained, as anyone could see, no new, let alone dangerous, doctrine, and were much less referred to the judges of the faith, as Molina's harmony was, in respect of his middle knowledge, which we shall say at number 124; on the contrary, they were in very frequent use and held in great approval among theologians; hence there can be no doubt that this five-year silence, joined to the very frequent use and approval of those commentaries, is the greatest sign of a doctrine that is not new, but one that ran on continually among the ancient theologians and was received in all the Christian universities; and that therefore it did not excite admiration on account of its novelty (since no passion arises from what is customary); just as, for the opposite reason, from Molina's doctrine about middle knowledge a not small affect of admiration at once arose (not because the knowledge of such a knowledge was new; but because favouring it, admitting it, and introducing it into the schools as something to be received was quite new).

123 This same point is explained further. Because the whole order of Preachers, abounding in so many most grave and most learned theologians, not only did not repudiate but even embraced the aforesaid commentaries of their own Báñez, which admit absolute and efficacious divine predeterminations, prior to the foreseen consent of created will, while preserving its freedom, and deny middle knowledge; and they admitted them not just any how, but as a doctrine thoroughly Thomistic, revealing the mind of St Thomas, finding them confirmed by the common judgment of all; hence it is morally an evident sign that the doctrine of those commentaries was by no means newly introduced into the Dominican family, but had been accepted and used continually by their forefathers down to those times; unless someone wishes to say that all those Masters of the Dominican family, so many in number and so great in wisdom, gravity and holiness, and moreover so diverse, namely as being dispersed throughout the whole Christian world, denied themselves and abandoned their own knowledge, which they had received from their forefathers and which they had taught up to that time, in order to subscribe with unanimous consent to the doctrine of Báñez as it came forth anew, and to commend it under the false title of Thomistic doctrine. Who does not see how incredibly this is said?

124 It is added, firstly, that, if the doctrine of the absolute divine predeterminations, efficacious from themselves and held prior to the foreseen consent of created freedom, and denying middle knowledge, was new, and newly introduced by Báñez; what other doctrine, we ask, was used about this controversy by the theologians, both Dominicans and others, before that year 1584 in which Báñez's commentaries appeared (a controversy which was always agitated, as was shown above)? But they will not dare to say that it was the doctrine about middle knowledge; for when the knowledge predicted by Molina was first published, all theologians were moved, as about something new, in the sense stated at number 122, especially the Dominicans, contemporaries of Báñez, and several of them older than Báñez himself, so thought of it that they judged it to contain, in some measure, suspect doctrine (in their own opinion, of which nevertheless we made nothing, as we did at number 92) to be referred to the supreme judge of the Church. Indeed the Fathers of the Society themselves, with whom we are now disputing, expressly assert and glory in the Lord that they discovered this middle knowledge of that kind, or dug it out from the ancient hiding-places of the Fathers; but that they did not receive it from other theologians, especially from the Dominicans who immediately preceded them; hence the aforesaid theologians, both Dominicans and others, used another doctrine distinct from middle knowledge before that year 1584 in this most grave controversy; but such a doctrine was not different from, or adverse to, that which Báñez taught on this matter. Then, because no trace remains in the Dominican family of the doctrine opposed to the aforesaid doctrine preceding that year 1584 and used among so many and so great theologians and Dominicans and handed on to their disciples, neither in the manuscripts, nor in the writings committed to the press, nor in the voices of the disciples who followed those ancient Masters; on the contrary, the doctrine of predeterminations, absolute in themselves, prior to the foreseen consent of created will, and denying middle knowledge, is received, commended and proclaimed as ancient and uniquely Thomistic by all the Dominicans unanimously and by many other theologians. Then too, because otherwise this doctrine of Báñez would not have been so readily, and with such unanimous consent, admitted by the aforesaid Dominicans; since experience shows that they never admit with unanimous consent a doctrine contrary to their own school; nay, they guard the sound doctrine so zealously that, if anyone among them ever deviated from it, they would refer him to the judges of the faith.

125 All of these things, as well as those which in the preceding doubts we deduced from moral conjectures, although they do not demonstrate by metaphysical demonstration that which we intend, so that the opposite involves a contradiction, yet they do prove that, if this matter is to be treated morally and in a human manner, and according to moral conjectures, and according to that which commonly, and for the most part, occurs, then it must be said that this doctrine about middle knowledge is neither held nor approved among the Fathers, nor among the aforesaid ancient scholastics, nor among the Thomists, whether ancient or later; but rather is reprobated by all of them. But with these things standing, we do not on that account, or on account of the other things which we have said, visit any censure upon the opposite opinion. Because, so that it may not be unworthy of it, it is enough that so many of the later Adversaries of the Society of Jesus, and some other theologians of this age, who nevertheless are outside the school of St Thomas, defend it.

126 So that all the things which we have said in this disputation may be had at hand, it was well chosen to raise this difficulty point by point.

§ I. The difficulty is resolved.

It must therefore be said, that it follows very well from what we have maintained, that the doctrine denying middle knowledge is to be preferred to the doctrine affirming it. The assertion is proved. For from what has been said it is clear, that the doctrine denying middle knowledge rests upon the weightiest testimonies, upon which the opposite opinion truly does not rest: therefore the former is to be preferred to the latter (in accordance with what we have said), as will be clear to one who considers. The antecedent is proved. Because the opinion denying middle knowledge rests upon Holy Scripture, as we proved in the first difficulty of this disputation, and that opinion is taught by Augustine, Prosper, and Hilary, whose mind and consensus on this point were the same, as was said in the second and third difficulties. And then the same opinion is maintained by St. Thomas, as we showed in the fourth and fifth difficulties, and by all, or almost all, the ancient Fathers and theologians from the time of Augustine down to the year 1560, more or less, and especially by the Fathers of the Council of Trent, as we left it proved in the sixth and seventh difficulties, and also by those thirty very weighty men (one or two excepted) deputed by Clement VIII, among other things, to examine this controversy, for whom also the Supreme Pontiffs Clement VIII, and also Paul V, subscribed as their peculiar Doctors. And finally by all the theologians of the Dominican family, both the older and the younger, as is clear from what was said in the two difficulties immediately preceding: therefore the aforesaid opinion, denying middle knowledge, rests upon the weightiest testimonies of all, upon which the opposite opinion truly does not rest: indeed, it is diametrically opposed to the opinion which denies it.

127 It is confirmed. For if we speak in particular and by name, not indeed of the Holy Fathers, who, as is clear from what has been said, are on our side, but of the scholastic theologians who are not numbered among the Holy Fathers, then it will be found that several, and very weighty, theologians, both within the Dominican family and outside it, deny middle knowledge, and that the opinion establishing it has on its side not so many and such great men: therefore the opinion denying the aforesaid knowledge is to be preferred to the opinion affirming it. The consequence seems certain. The antecedent, however, as regards the second part, will be clear from the first part of it, and from what we shall say in the following §.

The first part, however, is proved. For the opinion denying middle knowledge is taught from among the Dominicans by Cajetan in this article, by Ferrara, firstly, against the Gentiles, chap. 67, by Capreolus in 1, dist. 38, q. 1, art. 2, by Deza in that same distinction, inasmuch as all of them teach that future contingents are only certainly knowable, either according to their real and physical presence with eternity, or by reason of the decree of the divine will efficacious in itself; by Durandus in the same place, q. 3; by Albertus Magnus, q. 1, art. 3; by Bannez in the present place; by Navarrete in the first volume of the Controversies, controversy 56; by Alvarez in the second book on the auxiliary graces, seventh disputation, and in his replies to the objections against the concordance of free choice with divine foreknowledge, providence, and predestination, first book, chapters 1 and 2; by Ledesma in the book on the auxiliary graces, second disputation, on this middle knowledge in the second part of that same book; by Nunno in the third part, q. 62, art. 5, q. 2; by Nazarius, Ripa, Zanardus, Gonzalez in their commentaries on this article; by Joseph of St. Mary, of that same order of Preachers, in the book on free choice in the common, q. 4, art. 5, folio 626; by Martinez in the first part of the second, q. 9; by Catherinus in the treatise on predestination, second part, near the end. And finally by all the later Thomists, especially those who hold chairs both outside and within the walls of their own household. Now those who are outside the Dominican family teach it: Scotus in the first, distinction 39, question 1, up to the fifth question, and especially in the § on the contingency of things, where he teaches: that propositions about the future contingent, before the act of the divine will, are not determinately true, but as it were neutral: but the divine will, choosing one part, makes that part determinately true: and from that point onwards they are certainly known by God: which does not happen in necessary propositions, which, because in that first instant before the determination of the divine will they are true, inasmuch as in their own truth they do not depend on the divine will, are therefore known by God in that first instant: and Scotus adds: But then, that is, in that first instant, they are not true contingents: because there is then nothing by which they have determinate truth, whereas once the determination of the divine will is posited, they are already true, namely for that second instant, and this same relation will hold for the divine intellect in understanding those things which are already true in the second instant: and consequently all the true disciples of Scotus are obliged to maintain this very opinion, as in fact they do maintain it; and the same is taught by Estius in 1, dist. 41, § 7.

For the same opinion Alvarez is cited in the place just referred to, Ricardus, distinction 38, q. 5, art. 1, our Thomas Uvaldensis, and Thomas of Argentina, Driedo in his concordia, first part, chap. 4, printed at Louvain in the year 1550.

The same opinion is openly maintained by Zumel in this article, disputation 8, and in the second volume of the little treatises, from disputation 1; by Cabrera in the third part, disputation 1, § 22, from num. 338, and q. 18, art. 2, disputation 2; by Machin the Archbishop, and by our Corneio in his commentaries on this article; by Gaspar Ram. in the treatise on the divine premotions, reflections 2 and 3 throughout; by Leonardus Coquaeus, Doctor of Paris, in his commentaries on the book of St. Augustine, de Civitate Dei, which are found in the works of Augustine himself printed at Paris in the year of the Lord 1613, under the sign of the ship, where he shows himself in many ways to be an assiduous reader and a profound searcher of the Augustinian works, and there also in lib. 12, cap. 9, tract., on the predestination of the angels, he maintains this opinion.

129 Father Henriquez of the Society of Jesus, in the last book, de fine hominis, chap. 4, num. 2, in the text, says thus: It is necessary, in the sign of reason, to suppose a certain free conditional predetermination of God, which, once posited, he knows what he would have done in such a concurrence and occasion of things. And this very thing is confirmed by the common opinion of the theologians, chap. 5, at the end, saying: Rightly, the concord opinion of the theologians teaches that God has an efficacious predetermination of the good from perfect providence from eternity, in which and by which, as it were by a reason, he certainly knows all things. And in chap. 6 he proposes and solves the most powerful argument of the contrary opinion in these words: Some object: if the efficient cause, and the supposition from which the effect follows infallibly, is already posited in act, and it is not, nor ever was, in my freedom, how can it come about that an effect and act so predetermined by God with a preceding will, and commanded to execution with a preceding efficacious aid, should now remain in the freedom of our will? To which he answers, firstly: The antecedent is the cause of the thing, not indiscriminately, but of the thing with its own free mode: and so it produces a free effect: otherwise God would not attain to the mode which his providence and his gentle motion intends, namely, that the effect be freely put into act through the proximate cause: these things he says. Hieronymus de la Rua, a most learned man, vol. 2 of his theological controversies, seventh controversy, in the second part of that work, dub. 2, fol. 449, and thereafter; Master Alfonso Curiel, who, after having leaned in his controversies rather towards the opinion affirming middle knowledge, afterwards retracted in the last matter, in the last year in which he presided over his primary chair in this celebrated University of Salamanca, namely in the matter on the knowledge of Christ, on the eleventh question of the third part of St. Thomas (which matter we have from him as delivered among us, and which we ourselves heard him deliver), the opinion which he had taught in his controversies, impugning it, and embracing the opposite, and our opinion. Blasius Verdu, in the special controversy on this matter, in which middle knowledge is assailed with very many and very keen words. Our Complutenses, in the second part of their Logic, namely in the book Perihermen. The same opinion is also cited by Suarez, proleg. 2 of de gratia, chap. 1; by Jansenius, chap. 47 of his concordia evangelica; and also by Roa, de providentia, et praedestinatione.

130 Item, the same opinion is maintained with open force by the Academy of Louvain, which, as Alvarez well noted in the book of replies, chapter 1, constantly denied and impugned middle knowledge with unanimous consent, in which single testimony very many and very weighty Doctors are contained: indeed, such a common consensus of theirs sufficiently denotes that the opinion denying middle knowledge was not newly introduced by them, but that they received it from their predecessors. Especially those who derive it from the doctrine of Augustine.

The same opinion is most recently embraced by Villegas in the Complutensian Academy, the most distinguished occupant of the primary chair of sacred Theology, in his book of controversies, third controversy, second disputation, cap. 2, and fourth disputation, chapters 1, 2, and 3, where, in some of these chapters, he cites on its behalf Master Alensis, Bonaventure, Aegidius, Henry, Auriolus, Rub. Marsilius, the Carthusian, Mairon, Baco, Basolius, Liquetus, Abulensis, and others.

And lastly, this very thing is maintained by very many other of the wisest and most weighty Masters, both of other academies and of this most celebrated academic University of Salamanca, whose names are set out one by one, and who could indeed add great authority and splendour to this our opinion and work: but since they live among us, and have not otherwise committed their writings to the press, we refrain from naming them individually, though invited to do so. Although we cannot pass over in silence that great man, who while we were at work on this undertaking has just now been snatched from the living, to the greatest grief of all, and to the loss of this whole University, indeed of the whole world, namely Master Basilius Pontius of Legion, the most august offspring of the Augustinian family, and in this most celebrated Academy the most deserving moderator of the primary chair of sacred Theology. Who, after a long and mature discussion of this matter and an attentive meditation, publicly retracted the opinion admitting middle knowledge, which he had taught before: and although he was always a great man, yet, greater by himself now, he has embraced the opposite opinion, which is the one we maintain.

§ II. Objection against the decision of the difficulty, and its unravelling.

131 It makes no difference if you object that more testimonies of Scripture, and more of the Holy Fathers, such as Augustine, Chrysostom, etc., and many and weighty Doctors, both from the Society and from others, are brought forward for the opposite opinion: and so on. The antecedent, as regards the testimonies of Scripture and of the Holy Fathers, is clear from what was said in this disputation at number 7 and at number 126. As regards, however, the Fathers of the Society, it is proved. Because that opinion is held by Cardinal Toledo, Bellarmine, Fonseca, Molina, Valentia, Vazquez, Lessius, Granado, Benedictus Pereira, and others whom Suarez cites and follows, vol. 1, de gratia, proleg. 2, cap. 2. As regards the last part, however, the Adversaries themselves suggest the same antecedent, on the ground that among others outside the Society they defend that opinion, Algarb. the Bishop, Diotalenius, Pesantius, Lorca, Stapleton, Mendoza, Ludeu.¹ Tenas, Cordubensis, Zumel, Sotus, Driedus, Uvaldensis, and from among the ancients, Marsilius, Okam, Gabriel, Gregorius, Argentinas, and Joannes Arboreus, all of whom are cited by Father Suarez in the place referred to in favour of his own opinion. For it is answered that, as far as the testimonies of Scripture and of the Holy Fathers are concerned, it is sufficiently clear from what has been said in this disputation that, almost throughout the whole of Scripture and the Holy Fathers, they are for us and fight against the Adversaries. As regards the Fathers of the Society, however, we do not deny that several of them, who have written within the last forty or fifty years, maintain middle and conditional knowledge. As for very many others of them, and those same older ones, who have not committed their writings to the press, it is clear from what Molina, Vazquez, and Granado report that they do not maintain the aforesaid opinion. We add, however, firstly, that not all of those who confess middle knowledge treat the matter ex professo, but only some of them, cursorily and in passing, and on the faith of their parents, expounding some places of Scripture, assert that; and that it is not altogether certain that all those who are cited for this knowledge build it up, but rather that there is in God infallible knowledge of future contingents and of conditionals, because they do not explain whether the aforesaid knowledge is to be posited in God before or after the decrees of the divine will, as Cardinal Toledo, and Barrad., and certain others outside the Fathers of the Society who are wont to be cited for middle knowledge.

132 We add, secondly, that even from among those Doctors who teach middle knowledge expressly and ex professo, several of them refute their own testimony in their own words elsewhere, a weighty testimony indeed, inasmuch as they say that the aforesaid knowledge was not known to the Fathers or to the ancient scholastics, such as Fonseca, Vazquez, Molina, Granado, and the other followers of theirs.

133 We add, lastly, that, as we said at num. 92 of this disputation, although the testimony of the Fathers of the Society is always to be held of great weight, yet it is not of so great weight as it is in other things, or as the testimony of the Dominicans. Not indeed because we would now decide that the Dominicans are superior theologians to the Fathers of the Society, for the Lord is the weigher of this, as well as of the spirit; but precisely because, as we said in the place cited, no necessity from outside leads the Dominicans, and, following in the footsteps of their own elders, they deny middle knowledge: whereas the Fathers of the Society, by a necessity from outside (as they say), arising, are as it were compelled to maintain the doctrine establishing middle knowledge, on the very ground that they could probably do so, as we explained more fully in the place cited, and in this they followed in no respect the footsteps of their own elders: and consequently, from these two considerations their testimony falls short to some degree (if it is permissible so to speak).

134 To that, however, which is brought in the same objection concerning the scholastic Doctors who are not of the Society, it must be said that the four first authors, together with Mendoza, are among those who wrote within the period just mentioned, or almost within it, and not among the older and more weighty ones. We add, then, that Louis Tenas in no way maintains this knowledge in the argument cited, as will be clear to one who looks into it. Cordubensis, however, Zumel, Driedo, Uvaldensis, Argentina, are rather for us than against us, as Alvarez notes in the place cited; while Sotus asserts that there are many conditional promise-propositions, of whose truth we cannot be certain; but God alone knows whether they are true or false; and although he does not expressly make mention of the divine decree, he nevertheless does not deny it, nor can it be gathered that he denies it, as Diotalevius has badly inferred, from the fact that, making no mention of the divine decree, he asserts that in those conditional propositions there is truth, not by force of the illation, but from the circumstance that in fact the antecedent is not true without the consequent. Therefore it cannot be gathered from this that, according to Sotus's opinion, the antecedent is not in fact true without the consequent, since this can proceed from nowhere else, except because God by his decree, efficacious in itself, has predetermined this very thing thus. And so, although such a proposition is not true by force of the illation of the terms, and therefore not by force (as they say) of an illation intrinsic, absolute, and natural, founded on the aforesaid connection, yet it is well founded by force of an illation in the divine decree, and by the supposition of that decree: which illation can indeed be called extrinsic, inasmuch as it does not proceed from the force of the intrinsic connection of the terms.

135 To that, lastly, which is brought concerning Marsilius, Okam, Gabriel, and Gregor., it is answered, with Alvarez in the place cited, that none of the aforesaid Doctors is flatly for the contrary opinion. As for the passage of Joannes Arboreus, it must be said that his doctrine is not to be admitted. For in the place cited he reports the opinion of St. Augustine, and rejects it, and follows the opinion of Origen. And so in this part he is of no authority; since it is clear that the opinion of St. Augustine about predestination and grace has been approved by many Supreme Pontiffs. From all of which it follows that Francisco Suarez did not treat this matter so well, when in proleg. 2 of de gratia, cap. 1, num. 12, speaking of the opinion establishing middle knowledge, concludes: This opinion, then, far surpasses in the authority of theologians, not only the later but even the ancient scholastics, the opposite view. For the opposite of this is more than sufficiently clear from what has been said. Whence it is also clear that Diego de Baeza did not speak so well, vol. 3 of his commentaries on the Gospel history, lib. 14, cap. 16, when he said that outside the Dominican family those who have subscribed to the doctrine denying middle knowledge are rarely found, and that he himself finds only the Reverend Master Zumel, and the most Reverend Master Joannes Machin, and Master Cabrera; and that if we wished to enrol the Order of Our Lady of Mercy as the most beloved daughter of the best of parents, Dominic, since she was born under the auspices of St. Raymond the Dominican, one author would still remain known who writes against the doctrine of the Society in his books, namely Cabrera. From what has been said, therefore, it is clear that it was not well said: since we have brought forward so many from among the Fathers, and from among the ancient and later scholastics, on our side, and against middle knowledge.