Cursus Theologicus, Tomus I: In Primam Partem

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.