Tractatus de Deo uno secundum naturam

The objective truth of things future under a condition is the proper term of middle knowledge.

« The object of middle knowledge is the objective truth itself of the acts which » freely would be elicited by a created will, if it were placed in certain circumstances; but such acts, future under a condition as free, » whether necessary in themselves or determined by » antecedent divine decrees, are not known by God. »

The manner in which free acts future under a condition become the object of divine knowledge is to be understood from the principles about God's own foreknowledge already demonstrated. For the present question can almost be settled from those things alone which were said above about the knowledge of free acts absolutely future.

1°. Wherever the Fathers treat of these conditioned free acts, they give no other reason why and how God knows them than the infinite perfection of the divine knowledge; and granting this, they hold it self-evident that nothing of the things which would be under a condition is withdrawn from divine knowledge: and so, on the side of the term, they presuppose a determinate objective truth and knowability. « Whoever takes away from him foreknowledge (of conditionals) takes away his divinity too; » « he has known beforehand the free choice (which would be of a man snatched by death) by foreknowing power; » « God knows such a future thing as well as the past; » « future sins (which a man would commit if riches were granted) are present to God; » « just as the power of God (to snatch a man by death), so the knowledge of evils (if the man lived longer) is denied only most perversely and most insanely » Hieronym. Nyssen. Nemes. August. ll. cc. (supra). Hence you see that the Fathers wholly hold in the same sense, with respect to God's knowledge, things future under a condition which will never actually be, and things absolutely future: they call both foreknowledge, foreknowledge of the future, presence of the future under the divine gaze. Where, then, do the so often recanted turns of argument lead, that the division into knowledge of vision and of simple intelligence seemed sufficient to the ancients? Clearly it seemed to the Fathers that men would never be found who, granting the vision of future things, did not also comprehend under it the knowledge of future things under a condition; therefore, on account of the obviousness of the matter, they did not think a distinction of foreknowledge into a twofold member necessary.

Indeed, the foreknowledge of free acts, whose eliciting cause in the first act is not determined to this second act but indifferent to either, cannot be understood without its being understood at the same time as knowledge of the future under a condition. From the explanation of this relation of conditionally future things to absolutely future things, the objective truth and knowability of such conditionals will be made clear.

While the will, placed under certain conditions of the first act, freely elicits this determinate second act, it is determinately true, and was true from eternity, that the will elicits this act, although it could not elicit it or could elicit another. Therefore also prior in reason, before the will is supposed to be actually placed in these conditions, it is determinately true: if that will were placed under these conditions, it would elicit this act, although it could not elicit it or could elicit another. Nor in any way can the determinate truth of an absolute proposition be conceived, e.g. Peter in these circumstances will sin freely, although he could indeed not sin, without there being understood at the same time, prior in reason, a determinately true conditional: if Peter were placed in these circumstances, he would sin freely. For it is evidently repugnant that it be true that Peter, these circumstances being verified, would in fact freely deny Christ, and that it not be prior in reason true that, if these circumstances were verified, he would deny Christ. Therefore, just as by the very fact that Peter, placed in the circumstances of this first act, really sins freely, he already before the actual existence of the sin had from eternity the objective truth of the absolute proposition: Peter placed in these circumstances will sin; so, antecedently to the hypothesis of the actual placing in these circumstances and of the really future sin, he had the objective truth of the conditional proposition: if Peter were placed in the circumstances of this first act, he would sin. Although, therefore, God had not permitted Peter to be placed in the circumstances of this first act, and so the sin would never have been absolutely future; the truth of the conditional proposition would nevertheless have remained: if Peter were placed in the circumstances of this first act, he would sin. Now the infinite perfection of divine knowledge, by its intrinsic nature, is determined to the knowledge of every truth. Therefore, just as God, by the infinity of his foreknowledge, knows from eternity which of all possible acts a created will in such circumstances will choose, because from eternity it is true that it will choose this such act, although it could equally choose another (th. XLII. XLIII. n. III.): so by the same infinity of knowledge he knows which act, among all possible ones, a created will would choose if it were placed in such circumstances, because it is true that it would choose this rather than another.

2°. Without regard to the relation to absolutely future things, the objective truth is usually declared in propositions stating free acts which would be under some condition. This is stated in two contradictory conditional propositions: if Peter were placed in these circumstances of the first act, in which it would depend on his freedom to sin or not to sin, Peter would sin; Peter would not sin. Of these two statements, I say, one is determinately true, the other determinately false. Nor indeed can both be true or both be false; for either he would sin or he would not sin, nor could he at once and in the same respect sin and not sin. What he would do would be determinately either this act of sin or determinately the negation of sin; for an indeterminate act cannot be. Therefore one of the two is determinately true and the other determinately false; although it is not evident to a finite intellect which of the two is true and which false. But the infinite intellect, from its absolute perfection, necessarily knows every truth as it objectively stands. Therefore it also knows which of those two is true and which false.

3°. If these things are so, does not created liberty itself seem to be taken away? For the explanation and reconciliation of which with the infallible providence of God we say that a more careful consideration of middle knowledge is chiefly necessary. This difficulty is excluded by all those things by which, in the theses above, we demonstrated the integrity of our liberty under infallible knowledge of vision. The truth, knowable from eternity, of free acts, both of those which would be under a condition and of those absolutely future, consists in the free choice of the will itself and in the existence of the free act; but in existence under the different state, absolute or hypothetical, just as the truth itself is different. Because the will freely posits this act, the positing of this act for this time is true and is known from eternity; and if the will, as it can, would posit another act, this other act would in the same way be known from eternity: because the will would freely posit this act, if it were placed in these determinate conditions, the positing of this act future under the hypothesis, if the will were placed in these conditions; is true and is known from eternity; and if under the hypothesis of these circumstances the will, as it could, would determine itself to another act, the positing of this other act would equally be true and would be known under the same hypothesis. Hence the relation which in the above theses we demonstrated between free acts absolutely future and knowledge of vision, the same obtains between acts which would be under a condition and middle knowledge. Prior in reason to the determination of divine knowledge toward this very act, the objective truth that an act would be future under such a condition must be conceived as the term of knowledge: therefore this knowledge of God is not the cause that the act would be; but the truth of a free act future under a condition is the reason why such is the determination of knowledge. Wherefore not only does it depend on my free choice to which of my free acts (among all those to which liberty extends, either by itself or raised and strengthened by grace) the eternal knowledge of vision is determined; but it depends on this same liberty of mine to which of all the acts open to me, under the hypothesis that I were placed in such conditions of the first act, middle knowledge is referred. Therefore the infallible knowledge of God, of what man would do under any condition if he were placed in it, is no more an obstacle to liberty than infallible vision of what man will in fact do when the condition is verified.

Someone might ask how an act which would be under a condition can be said to be in the power of free will, when this act and this free will are in fact never to exist, but would be only if the condition were posited. In this specious objection there is a fallacious confusion of the absolutely future with what would only be under certain conditions that are never to be verified. For the objection assumes the power of choice and the dependence of a really existing act, which indeed involves a contradiction, if free will is never to be. But we are concerned with the power of indifference which free will would have, if it existed and were placed in certain circumstances of the first act; and with the dependence of the act which in that hypothesis would be. We say that this power, this dependence of the act, and the free election which then would be, are known by God; not the power, dependence and election which really are and exist.

A similar fallacy lies in the other difficulty, which is commonly put: such a free act as would be under a condition is nothing in itself, as is plain, and nothing in its cause, unless a divine decree be admitted which, antecedently to the free choice of the created will, predefines this act, so that it would be, if the condition were verified. If therefore God is said to know the act in itself apart from such a decree, God is said to know nothing. This argument proves very well, what needs no proof, that such an act (in that sign by which it is known through middle knowledge) does not really exist, nor is it absolutely future; but it does not prove that such an act would also be nothing in itself, if the hypothesis of the first proximate act were verified. God is not said to know an act existing from eternity, nor existing at any difference of time; but he knows that that act really is nothing and really will be nothing, unless some hypothesis is verified; and that it would be something, namely the free act itself in itself, if the hypothesis were verified. The actual reality and the formal object of divine understanding, in this as in every other knowledge, and in this knowledge of which we now speak, is the divine essence itself, which as the infinite idea and representation of every truth exhibits to the divine intellect every truth not only of things really existing at some time, but also of possibles, and of those things which, possible in themselves, would really exist under some condition. This must not be understood as if the divine essence necessarily exhibited to the intellect these determinate contingent existences a priori, either as real or as future under a condition; for on that supposition they would already be necessary existences and not contingent: but the divine essence exhibits to the divine intellect every truth as it objectively stands; whence the truth of contingent existences, which either really at some time are or would be under a condition, cannot be determinately exhibited except consequent upon the supposition that they are or would be at some difference of time or under some condition. (Cf. th. XXXVII. XLII.)

4°. Finally, concerning those divine decrees subjectively absolute and objectively conditional, which some say are needed by God for the knowledge of free acts future under a condition, what we think ought to be held can sufficiently be seen from what was said in th. XLIII.

Thus a) a decree conditioned by its object and antecedent is no less repugnant to the holiness and goodness of God, by which he would decree that an act inseparable from the depravity of sin should come to be under a hypothesis, than are simply absolute antecedent decrees predefining acts inseparable from the reason of sin. Now the Fathers for the most part treat of this middle knowledge of God insofar as it has for its term sins which would be committed under some hypothesis. It must therefore wholly be held that, apart from such decrees, there is some knowledge of free acts which would be under a condition. If this must be conceded, then in all acts future under a condition there is the same ground of knowability in themselves.

b) Generally, decrees of this kind which are absolutely antecedent and predefining a free act are repugnant on the side of the term, because an act which is called free would then no longer be free. For predefinitions of this kind, antecedent to all foreknowledge and to all knowledge of conditionals, necessarily establish in the proximate first act of the created will something intrinsic, to which it is absolutely repugnant that the will should not elicit the predefined act; and this being posited, the active indifference of the will toward either in the first act is removed, and so liberty with respect to the second act is excluded. The repugnance of predefining acts inseparable from the reason of sin, and the exclusion of liberty if absolutely antecedent predefinitions are posited prior to the knowledge of conditionals, you have proved in the thesis XLIII recalled above.

c) Christ the Lord reproaches the Galileans, Matth.XI.21., for their impenitence, because the Tyrians would have repented if the aids had been granted to them which the Galileans resisted. But there is no room for this reproach, if, in addition to the same aids to which both could consent and both could resist, there is added for the Tyrians a decree independent of their will, by which they would be predetermined to repentance, so that by the force of this predetermination it would be repugnant for repentance not to follow; while meanwhile this predetermination, without which the second act of repentance is said to be impossible, is denied to the Galileans; nay, to them is given a predetermination to the entity of the acts of impenitence¹. Therefore, in order that this reproach of Christ, the eternal truth, may hold, it is necessary to say that, under those conditions under which the Tyrians as well as the Galileans could have resisted, God knew that the Tyrians would not have repented but would have consented: therefore God does not know, in such a predefining decree, the free consent that would be under those conditions; but only because it is true that they would freely consent.

Moreover, if it is asserted that the created will can will nothing unless it is predetermined to the act and applied by the operation of God, to which it cannot resist; I do not see why some theologians of this opinion have thought necessary those divine decrees subjectively absolute and objectively conditioned, as they themselves call them. For that opinion being admitted, it is evident that there is in God, without any actual decrees, this and no other knowledge of simple intelligence in relation to the acts of created wills: those acts to which I shall will to predetermine the created will will be; those to which I shall not predetermine will not be; just as by the same knowledge of simple intelligence God knows, e.g., that if I shall will to illumine the created mind with such a light and to excite the will by such a supernatural motion, there will be such a thought and such an undeliberate affection; and without this light and this motion there will be no supernatural thought or affection. The dispute about such decrees therefore seems of little profit, but the whole of it comes back at last to this, whether the proximate first act is indifferent (active indifference) toward either, as we have sufficiently declared above. If this is admitted, then under the condition that, if the will were placed in this such first act, the free second act does not follow infallibly except upon the supposition that the will would freely determine itself to it. Therefore this determinate free second act, which would be under a condition, e.g. that Peter, if placed in such a first act, would sin infallibly in such a way that the opposite is repugnant, is knowable only in itself, namely that the free determination itself which would be in those circumstances is known: nor is anything left except either that this conditional truth of the act be admitted in itself, or else, against the doctrine demonstrated above from Scripture, the Fathers, and the Christian sense and consent, that infallible knowledge of free acts which would be under a condition be denied to God. See Suarez Opusc. de scient. futur. l. II. c. 4. n. 13. sq.; c. 7. n. 15. sq.; Lessium de gratia effic. c. 20. n. 7. 8; Didac. Ruiz de scient. Dei disp. 75; Bastidam in Congreg. XXXV. (apud Livin. de Meyer. Hist. de Auxil. l. V. c. 47.).