Tractatus de Deo uno secundum naturam

God foresees all the free acts of creatures.

« God sees by knowledge of vision in his eternity also all the free acts of creatures existing at any difference of time. Yet their existence does not depend on knowledge of vision as on a cause; but rather existence in time through the determination of the created free will is a condition, without which those acts could not be the object of knowledge of vision. »

I. That future things, even free ones, are most perfectly known to God: a) all of Scripture demonstrates this by a real argument. «For the foreknowledge of God has as many witnesses as he has made prophets » Tertull. contr. Marc. II. 5. Hence there would be no need in theology for singular proofs for the confirmation of this truth, since this divine foreknowledge is presupposed throughout all revelation as one of the foundations of our faith. For just as by omnipotence in miracles, so by foreknowledge in prophecies of future things — namely of those that depend on the created free will — God willed to furnish arguments on which the credibility of the whole revelation chiefly rests. Hence Christ himself, and the prophets and Apostles and all subsequent asserters of Christian truth, in countless appeals to prophecies made and fulfilled, attest and vindicate this foreknowledge of God, and suppose it as known to all and indubitable.

This perfection of knowledge of future things is so vindicated in the Scriptures that it is proper to God alone and is the most certain argument of divinity, and so surpasses all the power of created and finite understanding. «Who is like me? Let him call and declare and set forth the order for me, from when I established the ancient people; let them announce to them the things coming and those that are future.... from then I made you hear and I declared; you are my witnesses. Is there God apart from me?» Is. XLIV. 7. 8. Cf. XLI. 22. 23; XLV. 21; XLVI. 9. 10; XLVIII. 4–8. «Therefore the truth of divination is a sound testimony of divinity» Tertullian. Apolog. c. 20.

b) In explicit words, Scripture ascribes to God the fullest knowledge of future free things in many places. For these things, which depend on the created free will, are directly and immediately spoken of in the passages cited above at th. XXXVII. n. 2°. Ps. XXXII. 15; CXXXVIII. 3. sqq.; Dan. XIII. 42; Eccli. XXIII. 28. 29; XXXIX. 21. sqq.; XLII. 18. sq.

c) In these passages it is taught at the same time that God's eternal knowledge is such that the objective truth of acts existing in time is from eternity under the gaze of God, no differently than when they already actually exist in themselves. «The sun, illuminating all things, has looked... the abyss and the heart of man it has searched... for the Lord has known all knowledge and has looked into the sign of the age, announcing things that have passed and things that are to come, revealing the traces of hidden things; no thought escapes him, and no word hides itself from him. He has set in order the marvels of his wisdom, who is before the age, and unto the age; nothing is added to it, nor is it diminished » Eccli. XLII. 16. sqq. Hence nothing is said to be wonderful in his eyes, because «he regards from age to age» ib. XXXIX. 25. That God surveys all the ways of men and gazes upon the hearts of men is itself confirmed from the eternity and immutability of the divine knowledge. «For before they were created, all things were known to the Lord God, and so also after they were made perfect» Eccli. XXIII. 28. 29.¹ Susanna likewise calls God to witness her innocence, in that «he knows all things before they come to be» Dan. XIII. 42. But concerning this eternal presence before the divine eyes we have already spoken at th. XXXII.

II. The second part of the present thesis is of great importance, since in it a foundation is laid, from which we can understand the reconciliation of created liberty with the eternal and immutable foreknowledge of God.

First it must be laid down that all knowledge, if considered formally, prescinding from the effective will, presupposes its own proper object, that is, the objective truth of which it is the knowledge. This is plainly evident in speculative knowledge, which does not make intelligible things; but through it, things which are intelligible in themselves are actually understood. For how can knowledge and understanding be conceived, unless the knowable and the intelligible are presupposed? Although, therefore, every possible being depends, as on a principle, on the first and infinite actual necessary Being, and every objective truth on the first truth, and every knowable thing on the first intelligible; understanding, considered formally, nevertheless presupposes, as its principal object (infinite truth), and likewise a secondary object depending on that first truth. Just as, therefore, the knowledge of possible essences (which is that of simple intelligence) presupposes possible essences, so the intuition of existences which are at some time in act (knowledge of vision) presupposes those existences themselves for some difference of time. For unless it is presupposed in reason that it is true that these or those things exist at such a time, it is plainly contradictory that God's knowledge be referred to them as actually existing at such a time. But in this very relation, or connotation, of the term as something that at some time actually exists, lies the reason of knowledge of vision. From these things it seems clear that knowledge of vision cannot be the cause of existence; rather, the existence of the object is indeed not a cause, so that God's knowledge, which is the divine essence itself, is simply what it is, yet is a condition without which God's knowledge with respect to this term would not be knowledge of vision. We have said that it is a condition sine qua non rather than a cause, although the Fathers, as we shall soon see, have also said that the existence of the term is a cause, so that the knowledge has the character of vision and of foreknowledge. For the Fathers did not by this expression mean that the secondary object effects something in God himself; they only meant that the truth of an existence that is at some time actual is a term, from whose connotation it comes about that the knowledge, remaining unchanged in itself, has the character of foreknowledge and of vision. Hence, to avoid all ambiguity, we shall better say condition sine qua non than cause.

Further, in practical knowledge itself a distinction is needed, so that it may be rightly understood how it is the cause of things. For insofar as it is knowledge, it also presupposes its own formal term; insofar, however, as it is practical, it precedes the term of efficiency. Let there be distinguished, therefore, in God: a) the imitability of the divine essence through participated perfections, according to all the species, orders, and grades of possible beings, which imitability is the exemplar idea itself. Since this exemplar idea is the divine essence itself, it is indeed one in itself; nevertheless, on account of the connotation of the copies and of the manifold imitations, by a distinction of reason, there can be called many divine ideas and reasons of all operable things outside God. These we shall call the objective exemplar ideas and reasons. b) Let there be distinguished the formal understanding of all these operable things according to all the reasons by which they can be wisely produced and in a manner worthy of God. This can be called the formal idea, and it is practical knowledge in the first act. c) Let this same understanding be considered as it shines before the effective will, and as the free effective will is joined to it; thus it will be practical knowledge and effective idea in the second act. Then, in the objects themselves, the state of possibility, insofar as they are operable, is distinguished from real existence.

With these things laid down, we now say: the exemplar reasons in God precede as the principle from which the possibles and the operables themselves depend; the understanding, or practical knowledge in the first act, considered formally, does not precede but presupposes them, the exemplar reasons as its formal object, and likewise the operables as the secondary object of the understanding. It is also manifest that the proper object of practical knowledge is not existence already in act; rather, it is things as possible and operable outside God, or, which comes nearly to the same thing, existence as to be effected. Existence in act, however, is the effect of the effective will, to which the knowledge of the operable and to-be-effected existence shines forth; and in this way actual existence depends on knowledge, which is practical in the second act. But knowledge whose object is already actual existence is not effective and practical, but only the intuition of that existence itself.

The order, therefore, in which, according to our manner of understanding, with a foundation in the thing, the individual items succeed one another and one is prior in reason to another, is as follows: 1° the divine essence as imitable outside God; 2° all possibles; 3ⁱᵒ the divine understanding of the imitability of the essence, and in this the understanding of all possibles as they are operable by God himself; 4° the understanding of operables and of existences to be effected, shining before the effective will, and the free will, joined to the understanding, commanding existences for some difference of time; 5° the truth of existence for that difference of time; 6° the knowledge of vision of this existence.

From these things it again appears that practical knowledge, which as a cause precedes the truth of real existence, is not knowledge of vision; rather, knowledge of vision is posterior in reason to practical knowledge, which is joined with the effective or at least permitting will, and therefore also posterior to the truth of existence in all its objects.

III. If this is the character of knowledge of vision with respect to its object existing in general, even in those things which depend on the will of God as on the single efficient cause; then all the more evidently in the free acts of creatures, which depend on the free determination of the created will, the truth of the existence of the act for some difference of time is prior in reason, and is presupposed to the divine vision. Therefore acts are not future because they are seen by God from eternity; rather, acts are the object of vision from eternity because they are future. Indeed, as Vasquez rightly remarks (disp. 68. c. 6. n. 36.), «by the common teaching of the Fathers, and if the matter were well grasped by reason, this thing would be beyond controversy, if the mind were intent on inquiring into the truth rather than on contention.» We have spoken of the intrinsic reason of the matter; it remains that we briefly embrace the most brilliant teaching of the Fathers.

The Fathers teach that a free action is not future because God foreknew or even foretold it as future; rather, because it is future, it is constituted a fitting object to be foreseen and foretold by the divine knowledge and truthfulness. For since all things are presented to the divine sight as they objectively stand for any time, hence God, just as he knows that a man can choose one among many, so he sees the choice itself determinately, of what sort it is and of what it is the choice.

Celsus objected to the Christians that, if Christ is God and cannot be deceived, and he foretold that the crime of Judas would be future, it follows that God himself is the cause of the crime, and that Judas necessarily committed it. For, he says, «it was God who foretold it, and it had altogether to come to pass (πάντως ἐχρῆν γενέσθαι) what had been foretold.» Origen's reply (c. Cels. l. II. n. 20. T. I. p. 405.) places the whole question we are discussing in the clearest light. «Celsus thinks that what has been foretold comes to pass because it has been foretold; but we (Christians) by no means concede this, and we say that he who foretold it is not the cause of the future thing, on the ground that he foretold it would be future; but that the thing which would certainly be future even if it had not been foretold has furnished the foreknowing one with the cause of foretelling it. The whole matter, of course, turns on the foreknowledge of the one who foretells in this way: it is possible for this thing to come to pass, and it is possible also for it not to come to pass; of these two, however, one will be this determinate thing. But we do not concede that contingency, by which it can come to pass or not come to pass, is taken away from the one who foreknows...² If, moreover, (Celsus) takes that word altogether (it had to come to pass) in the sense of necessarily, we shall not grant this to him; for it could also not have come to pass. But if he means altogether in the sense that it will be true that this thing is contingent, although it could also not come to pass, this does nothing against our teaching.» Eusebius, in slightly different words, reports and approves this doctrine of Origen in the Praepar. Evang.l.VI.p.287. sqq.«We do not say that foreknowledge is the cause of the things that come to pass (he is speaking of free acts); but, what may seem more wonderful, yet is true, we say that the future is the cause of such foreknowledge of it³: for it is not because it is known that it therefore comes to pass; but because it is future, it is known.... If Judas can be an Apostle just as Peter can, God can know of Judas that he remains an Apostle just as Peter does. If Judas can be a traitor, God can know of him that he will be a traitor. But if in fact Judas will be a traitor, God, foreknowing that which will be out of the two mentioned possibilities, foreknowing the truth in that very thing⁴, will foreknow that Judas will become a traitor... As if the knowledge of God said: since this man can do this and can do the contrary, and both are possible, I know that he will do this.»

The sense in which the free determination of the creature itself can be said not to be the cause of God's knowledge, but the cause why God foresees this rather than that, Damascene declares still more distinctly in the dialogue against the Manichaeans, n. 79. «The foreknowing power of God does not have its cause from us; but that he foresees these things which we are about to do is from us.» For if we were not going to do them, neither would he have foreseen them, since they would not be future. And the foreknowledge of God is indeed true and infallible, ἀπαράβατος; but it is not itself the cause that what is future should altogether come to pass; rather, because we are going to act this or that, he foreknows it.» According to this relation of the term to the knowledge, which without such a term would indeed be an equally perfect knowledge, but would signify not this term but another, the expressions of the Fathers must be understood, when they say that we and our free action are the cause why God foresaw it, or even that God is forced by us to foresee sins. Thus speaks, for example, the Venerable Bede, Variar. qq. q. 13. «What, then, has God compelled us to, that we should seem evil to him from eternity? Far from it! For rather we have compelled him to see us as evil.»

Moreover, this doctrine and opinion is most common among the Fathers: a thing is not future because God foresees the future, but because it is future, therefore God foresees it. «Just as these two things are not opposed to each other, says St Augustine, so that by your foreknowledge you know that another is going to act by his own will; so God, compelling no one to sin, nevertheless foresees those who will sin by their own will.... Just as your memory does not cause the things that have passed to have happened, so God by his foreknowledge does not cause the things that are future to be done» Aug. de lib. arbit. l. III. c. 4. See also August. Civ. Dei V. 10. n. 2; in Io. tract. 53. n. 4. 6; Hieronym. in Ierem. XXVI. T. IV. p. 1025; in Ezech. II. T. V. p. 25; Gaudent. Brix. in Pascha serm. 3. p. 247; Chrysost. in Matth. hom. 59. al. 60. n. 1; Boëth. de Consol. l. V. pros. 6.

The principle on which the doctrine rests, and which is presupposed as a kind of foundation, is that set forth by us: that the truth of the existence of acts for some time is prior in reason, and that the knowledge of vision can be referred to those same acts only when this objective truth is presupposed. The Fathers also expressly declare this itself; thus the author of the Quaestiones ad orthodoxos, among the Works of St Justin, q. 58. «The cause of the betrayal, he says, was Judas himself, which God, foreknowing that it was to be, foretold in Scripture; and foreknowledge is not the cause of the future, but the future is the cause of foreknowledge. For the future does not follow upon foreknowledge (futuritio is what the Scholastics call it), but foreknowledge follows upon the future»⁵

From these things it can be judged how weighty is the difficulty usually urged against the proposed doctrine, namely that it follows that what happens in time and is not from eternity would be the cause of God's knowledge, which is from eternity. For first, the object and terminus, according to what has been declared, is not the cause of the knowledge itself, insofar as it is the absolute perfection of God. Next, it is not a cause in the proper sense, which would effect the terminating of the knowledge by some physical influx and action upon God; but it is only a terminus which, on account of the infinite perfection of the knowledge that comprehends every truth as it is objectively, necessarily underlies the knowledge of simple intelligence for the state of possibility, and the knowledge of vision for the state of real existence. Admirably St Albert the Great says: «Origen (in the place cited above by us) intends that the future, because it is future, is knowable by God, that is, has an aptitude for being known; and so he says that the future is no cause of knowledge in the knower, but states a reason of aptitude in the knowable» Albert. Summ. P. I. q. 61. m. 3. The same is found in Alexander of Hales, P. I. q. 24. m. 3. Moreover, it is not simply true that the object of knowledge, as regards its esse as knowable, begins in time. For the object is the truth of existence under such a difference of time; but that such an act exists at such a time was from eternity a truth; therefore the object of eternal knowledge, as regards its esse as knowable, does not begin in time. It indeed depends on the free determination of the creature, which begins in real existence in time, that this rather than that should be true from eternity; yet the knowable truth itself, that such an act will be future and another will not be, is not temporary. Hugh of St Victor declares this subtly (de Sacramentis fidei P. II. c. 17. 18. T. III. fol. 227.): «Now, however, what has been foreknown from eternity is from eternity future; but what is future is not itself eternal, for if it were eternal it would not be future but present. And it was not foreknown before it was future; but it was foreknown and it was future before it was... And these two ran together from eternity: that which was future (e.g. the obstinacy of Judas), and that which could be but was not future (e.g. the conversion of Judas). And if what could be, and yet was not future, had been made to happen (the conversion), it would have been future and foreknown, which (in the present hypothesis) was not future; nor would the foreknowledge of this future have been changed, but would never have been had, because it would not have been future.» In the same way St Thomas speaks in many places: «Just as our sight is never deceived in seeing contingent things as they are present, and yet from this it is not removed that those things happen contingently; so God infallibly sees all contingent things... because they are not future to him, but he beholds them as being when they are: whence from this it is not removed that they happen contingently... The intuition of divine knowledge is directed to the thing according as it is in its presentiality, as it is now determined to one, and so far as this goes can no longer be varied. But if the thing itself receives another disposition, that will again be subject in the same way to the divine vision» de veritat. q. 2. a. 12. et 13. What was disputed above concerning the mode in which all temporal things are present to the eternal gaze of God must be recalled here th. XXXII.

Corollary 1. God's knowledge is indeed determined by the divine essence itself as by its formal object, so that it comprehends in it every truth according to the threefold reason declared in th. XXXVII. But since contingent existence is so true that its opposite could be true, the divine essence of itself does not exhibit existence rather than non-existence, but exhibits one or the other, according as one or the other is objectively true. It therefore depends on an object that exists or does not exist, and consequently, in free acts, on the free determination, so that the divine essence represents existence rather than non-existence as true. This, however, is not a dependence of imperfection, nor one in the proper sense as an effect on a cause; it is the absolute perfection of the first truth, intrinsically determined to represent every truth as it objectively stands.

Corollary 2. Since practical knowledge precedes the supposition of the existence of things, of which it is the cause (together with the effective will), either alone or at least as the first cause, by way of art, it is said of it most truly by Augustine (see p. 349.), and after Augustine by St Thomas and all the others: things are not known because they are; but they are because they are known (knowledge in the manner of art and of directing wisdom). « Because he knew, he created; not because he created, he knew ». Therefore one must speak in a far different manner of practical knowledge and of knowledge of vision. To declare this distinction, St Thomas, 1. q. 14. a. 8., treating of practical knowledge, objects to himself an objection from Origen, who seems to deny that God's knowledge is the cause of things, and rather to affirm that the existence of things is the cause of knowledge in God: « it will not be something because God knows it will be future; but because it is future, it is known by God. »

St Thomas answers, as to the first part, which denies it, that Origen does not speak of practical knowledge; as to the second part, which affirms it, that Origen is not to be understood as speaking of a cause that produces God's knowledge, but according to «the cause of consequence»: that if a thing is future, then without doubt it is known by God. « We must say that Origen spoke attending to the notion of knowledge, to which the notion of causality belongs only when the will is joined to it. But when he says that God foreknows some things because they are future, it must be understood according to the cause of consequence, not according to the cause of being» ib. ad 1. Cf. de verit. q. 2. a. 14. ad 1. This is just what we said above: that the truth of real existence for some difference of time is not a cause but a condition and a term, without which God's knowledge would not be the vision of this term.