De Deo uno

PETRUS LOMBARDUS, l. 1 d. 38; S. TH., 1 q. 14 a. 8; SUÁREZ, De gratia, proleg. 2 c. 10; RUIZ, disp. 15; BILLUART, Tract. de Deo, diss. 5 a. 3; KLEUTGEN, nr. 497-511; DE SAN, nr. 165; 228; 229; BILLOT, thes. 23; PESCH, prop. 43; MUNCUNILL, nr. 432-451; VAN DER MEERSCH, nr. 383-390.

269. Everyone admits, and must admit, that God's knowledge is the cause of things. Sacred Scripture so clearly attributes the production of things to divine wisdom: Sap 7, 21; Prov 3, 19; Ps 103, 24; Ierem 51, 15. So too do the FATHERS; for example, St. AUGUSTINE, De diversis quaestionibus 83 q. 46: “Once it has been established and conceded (namely, that all things that exist were brought forth by God as their author and are contained and governed by his laws), who would dare say that God established all things irrationally? If this cannot rightly be said or believed, it remains that all things were established by reason” (ML 40, 30). De Trinitate, l. 15 c. 13: “For, as his Word says, your Father knows what you need before you ask him¹. He did not come to know these things at some point in time, so as then to know them; rather, he foreknew without beginning all future temporal things, and among them what we would ask of him and when, and what and concerning which matters he would or would not grant. But he knows all his creatures, spiritual and corporeal, not because they exist; rather, they exist because he knows them. For he did not fail to know what he was going to create. He created because he knew; he did not know because he had created. Nor did he know them as created in a way different from his knowing them as to be created: nothing was added to his wisdom from them. Rather, with them existing as was fitting and when it was fitting, that wisdom remained as it was” (ML 42, 1076). In general, the Fathers' teaching that God created the world by his wisdom contains the doctrine that God's knowledge is the cause of things. Nor is there any dispute about this among theologians. According to KLEUTGEN², it is “certain by faith.”

270. Knowledge, however, is a cause insofar as it is joined to the will. For knowledge as cognition does not make its object but presupposes it; and if knowledge as such were a cause, it would follow that everything God knows would exist—indeed, all of it would exist necessarily, and God's freedom in acting would perish. Hence in the sources of revelation the production of things is also attributed to the divine will.

271. In explaining this matter, ST. THOMAS lays down the principle: “God's knowledge stands in relation to all created things as an artisan's knowledge stands in relation to artifacts” (1 q. 14 a. 8). The artisan acts through the intellect, and thus his knowledge is the cause of the artifacts. But a form is not “a principle of action insofar as it is only in the intellect, unless an inclination toward the effect is joined to it, which comes through the will.” Thus the artisan's knowledge is the cause of artifacts insofar as it is joined to the will; the same must be said of God.

In De veritate, q. 2 a. 14, he explains the matter as follows: “It must be understood, however, that knowledge, insofar as it is knowledge, does not signify an active cause, just as a form, insofar as it is a form, does not; for action consists in something proceeding from an agent, whereas a form, as such, exists by perfecting that in which it is and resting in it. Therefore a form is not a principle of action except through a power. In some things the form itself is the power, but not according to the account of form; in other things the power is something distinct from the thing's substantial form, as we see in all corporeal things, whose actions proceed only through some of their qualities. Similarly, knowledge signifies that something is in the knower, not that something proceeds from the knower; therefore no effect ever proceeds from knowledge except through the will, which by its very account implies a certain influence upon what is willed. Likewise, action never proceeds from substance except through power, although in some things, as in God, will and knowledge are the same, while in others, as in all other things, they are not. Likewise, since God is the first cause of all things, effects proceed from him through secondary causes. Hence between God's knowledge, which is the cause of a thing, and the thing itself that is caused, there are two intermediaries: one on God's side, namely the divine will; the other on the side of the things themselves with respect to certain effects, namely secondary causes, through which things come forth from God's knowledge. Every effect, however, follows not only the condition of the first cause but also that of the intermediate cause. Thus things known by God proceed from his knowledge in the manner of the will and in the manner of secondary causes; they need not in every case follow the manner of knowledge.”

272. Which knowledge of God, then, should be called the cause of things? The answer is: practical knowledge, or also the knowledge of approval (as St. Thomas calls it in the Summa), or of good pleasure (as St. Thomas, with the Master, calls it in 1 d. 38 a. 1). More specifically, the question has been raised whether the knowledge of vision is meant; the answer seems to be no. For the knowledge of vision has actual things as its object, and, with respect to what is external to God, presupposes their truth as things existing at some time; it therefore cannot have the account of a cause with respect to them. God's absolute decree to create those things comes first. St. Thomas holds the same on this point, as is clear from his comparison with the craft in the artisan's mind. Moreover, vision is no longer open to opposites, as he says of the knowledge that is the cause of things. Further, the divine will intervenes between the knowledge that is a cause and the thing itself; this cannot be said of the knowledge of vision, which follows that will³.

273. The BAÑEZIAN theologians explain the matter as follows⁴: “The knowledge of simple intelligence is a cause directing things in the order of intention and productive in first act. The knowledge of vision is a cause directing and producing in second act in the order of execution—not precisely insofar as it is vision, but insofar as it is approval, as we explained in the first conclusion—so that it is true to say causally: things exist or are going to exist because God sees them. Here because refers to vision insofar as it has the will joined to it. Conversely, it is not true to say that God sees things because they exist or are going to exist, except perhaps in some more subtle sense, discussed in the solution of the objections. The conclusion is to be understood generally of all the things God makes, including those that are freely future.”

274. The point is explained and proved as follows: “The divine intellect, according to our way of conceiving, apprehends the manifestation of his glory as a good and proposes it to the will. The divine will assents to and intends this end. By virtue of this intention, the intellect, or divine knowledge, investigates the means and, among the innumerable means it can employ, discerns the most suitable; it presents them to the will as possibilities within its art, and the will wills and chooses them. Here the order of intention comes to a halt. From this it is clear, first, that the knowledge which up to this point directs by proposing the end and means is knowledge of simple intelligence, because up to this point, while it was directing before the will's choice, everything was still in a state of mere possibility. Although, through the subsequent choice, things became incipiently future in intention, they were not yet fully future in effect; nor did knowledge cooperate in this incipient futurity in any other way than by directing. It is clear, second, that because it proposes the means as possible for it and as contained within the power of its art, this knowledge is productive in first act, that is, it has the power to produce; and thus the first part of the conclusion is proved.

“Now, once the effective choice of the means has been made, the intellect, by virtue of that choice, commands their execution. Since God's command is most effective and does not require distinct executive powers, as I shall say at the end of the article, the things come to be at the very instant at which he commands; and since, as we have proved, this is an act of the intellect, it follows that by producing he sees and by seeing he produces. Thus the knowledge that is the effective cause of things in second act is the knowledge of vision, since it reaches things as existing or as fully future—not precisely insofar as it is vision, as was said, but insofar as it has the will joined to it, and is customarily called knowledge of approval. Hence I argue formally as follows: God is the effective cause of things in second act through a command; but a command is an act of the intellect pertaining to the knowledge of vision and not to the knowledge of simple intelligence; therefore. The first part of the minor is clear from what was said in the first conclusion. The second part is proved thus: This act of command presupposes an effective decree and is grounded in it, and it terminates in things as existing, since they are produced through it; therefore.”

275. Some points must be observed here. It is said that the cause is the knowledge of vision, not precisely insofar as vision, but insofar as approval; it would be simpler to say: the knowledge of approval is the cause. The knowledge of vision, however, is understood as God's knowledge insofar as it is vision (having things actual at some time as its object); it is difficult to understand what God's knowledge as vision, but not precisely as vision, could be. At least the terminology seems less apt. Further, is a command a kind of cognition?

276. It is true that God's command is most effective, but in what sense? Something of how the author understands this appears from his answer to TOURNELY's objection. Tournely thinks the command superfluous, since God's will is effective of itself. He answers, among other things: “Not only is an intellect required to direct and move the will in the order of intention and toward willing, but also in the order of execution and toward doing.… In God, therefore, besides the effective will of the work, a command for its execution must, according to our way of conceiving, be distinguished—not because God experiences difficulty in executing it, but because of a distinction between objects. For the object to be carried out adds something to the object simply willed. And just as we assign an intellect directing in the order of intention, lest the will choose imprudently and blindly, so we must assign one directing in the order of execution, lest it execute imprudently and blindly.” In the obvious sense, these words seem to be understood so that the subject of “execute” is the will. Thus, just as the knowledge of simple intelligence directs the will in the order of intention, so the command directs the will in the order of execution. This can rightly be said, but it does not seem to be the author's view. For in the appendix he says: “The power immediately productive of things is the intellect, not the will, because the will produces through the command, which is an act elicited by the intellect.” If we apply this to the passage just quoted, its meaning is: In the order of execution a command is required, an act elicited by the intellect, to direct the intellect, lest the intellect execute imprudently and blindly. This is very difficult to understand. Moreover, this opinion conflicts with the teaching of ST. THOMAS (q. 2 a. 14, vide supra nr. 271): “No effect ever proceeds from knowledge except through the will, which by its very account implies a certain influence upon what is willed,” and “between God's knowledge, which is the cause of a thing, and the thing itself that is caused, there are two intermediaries: one on God's side, namely the divine will.…”. In Billuart's opinion, however, the will does not intervene between God's knowledge, which is the cause of the thing, and the thing itself that is caused. On the contrary, between the will and the thing willed by God there intervenes knowledge, an act of the intellect that is immediately productive of the thing.

277. Therefore, retaining the teaching of St. Thomas, we answer the argument as formally proposed (nr. 274, at the end): I distinguish the major: God is the effective cause of things in second act through a command insofar as it directs the will in execution, I grant; through a command insofar as it immediately produces the existence of things, I deny. The first part of the minor is granted or left aside; the other is denied. To its proof, “This act of command presupposes an effective decree and is grounded in it,” I distinguish: an effective decree by which things are incipiently future, I grant; by which they are fully future, or actually exist at some time, I deny (so according to BILLUART supra nr. 276; the command must still direct, lest it execute imprudently and blindly). This act of command “terminates in things to be produced through the will”⁵, I grant; in things already existing antecedently to the effective will, I deny. “Since they are produced through it”: I distinguish—produced mediately through the act of command as it directs the will, I grant; produced immediately through the act of command, I deny. Therefore the act of command, as an act of the intellect preceding the will through which things have existence, does not have as its object things insofar as they actually exist; it is not, therefore, knowledge of vision.

278. “It must therefore be understood that knowledge, according to the account of knowledge, does not signify any causality, for otherwise all knowledge would be a cause. But insofar as it is the knowledge of an artisan making things, it has the account of a cause with respect to the thing made by art. Thus divine knowledge's causality must be considered in the same way as an artisan's causality through his art. The process in producing an artifact is as follows: first, artisanal knowledge displays the end; second, the artisan's will intends that end; third, the will commands the act by which the work is brought forth, and the artisan's knowledge places the conceived form in the work. Knowledge, therefore, displays the end, while the will directs the act and informs the work produced. It is thus clear that whatever occurs in the effect through a defect from the form of the art or from the end is not traced back to the artisan's knowledge as its cause. It is also clear that the principal share in causality belongs to the will, which commands the act” (S. THOMAS, in 1 d. 38 q. 1 a. 1).

279. “You have a vivid example of the distinction between practical knowledge, which precedes, and the speculative knowledge of vision, which follows the existence of things, in the very account of divine history: God said, ‘Let there be light.’ And there was light. And God saw that the light was good, and he divided the light from the darkness. God therefore knew by the knowledge of simple intelligence that light could be made. Once joined to the will, this knowledge, no longer speculative but practical, commanded: Let there be light. With the light's coming to be, the speculative knowledge of vision follows: God saw the light. Moreover, St. Thomas also calls that creative knowledge knowledge of approval, insofar as approval as good pleasure that the thing should exist precedes it; but the speculative knowledge of vision that follows may also rightly be called approval, as the sacred text itself shows: God saw that the light was good”⁶.

280. The Fathers' statements, “Because God knows, therefore it will be,” are easily understood from what has been said: they speak, namely, of God's knowledge insofar as it is the cause of things, that is, knowledge which directs God's operative will after the manner of an art. Moreover, they often say: “Because it will be, therefore God knows.” These words are readily understood of the knowledge of vision, if this, as we have said, is not the cause of what is known. They could not be understood, however, if, as the Bañezian theologians say, the knowledge of vision were the cause of what is known. Hence ALVAREZ said⁷: “This causal statement, ‘Because things are future, therefore they are known by God,’ is false; but this one is true: ‘Because God, by free knowledge, knew something to be future, therefore it is future.’”

281. ORIGEN, Contra Celsum, l. 2 c. 20: “Celsus thinks that what was foretold comes to pass because it was foretold by some prior knowledge. We, however, not conceding this, say that the foreteller is not the cause of a future event because he foretold what would happen. Rather, the future event—which would be future even if it had not been foretold—provided the foreknower with a reason to foretell it. And this whole matter is present in the foreteller's foreknowledge: since this thing can happen or not happen, one of these two will occur. We do not say that the foreknower takes away the possibility that it can happen or not happen, as though he were saying something like, ‘This will certainly happen, and it is impossible for it to happen otherwise’” (MG 11, 836; R 521). In ep. ad Rom., l. 7 nr. 8: “Something will not happen because God knows it is going to happen; rather, because it is going to happen, it is known by God before it occurs” (MG 14, 1126); cf. In Gen., tom. 3 n. 6 (MG 12, 64; R 471).

282. EUSEBIUS, Praeparatio evangelica, l. 6 c. 11: “If it is right to say that foreknowledge is not the cause of the things that happen (for God does not intervene in the sin of the person he foreknew when that person sins), then we shall say something still more astonishing, yet true: the future event is the cause of why there is such foreknowledge of it. For it did not happen because it was known; rather, it was known because it was going to happen (γίνεσθαι ἔμελλεν). A distinction is needed. If someone interprets ‘it will certainly happen’ to mean that the event foreknown must necessarily happen, we do not agree. We will not say that, because Judas the betrayer was foreknown to be going to appear, it was altogether necessary that Judas the betrayer appear. For if that were so, he would not be blamed by those who foresaw that he would betray; yet he is blamed, plainly because he could also have refrained from betraying” (MG 21, 492; R 663). A little earlier, he had said of good and evil acts: “Since God foresees each person's will, he knows that one will act wrongly and another rightly. Foreknowledge, then, is not the cause of future things.”

283. ST. EPIPHANIUS, Adversus haereses, haer. 38 nr. 6 et 7: “We do not act as we do because Scripture foretold it; rather, Scripture foretold what we were going to do, on account, plainly, of God's antecedent knowledge.… We must think the same about the punishment of the cross. Christ was not driven to the cross by the Jews or betrayed by Judas because Scripture foretold that it would happen in this way; rather, because Judas was going to betray him and the Jews were going to crucify him, both Scripture in the Old Testament and the Lord himself in the Gospel foretold that it would happen at some time” (MG 41, 662 s.).

284. ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, De prophetarum obscuritate, hom. 1 nr. 4: “Let us ask why he says⁸ Perhaps they will listen. If he had said They will listen without Perhaps, it would have been false, for they were not going to listen. If he had said truthfully, They will not listen, he would have sent a prophet to people who would not listen for no purpose. Nor was this the only reason; lest his foreknowledge be thought to exert some force or necessity that made them disobedient, he therefore spoke these words with a certain hesitation, so that no one might say, as they are accustomed to say about Judas: ‘God foretold it, so it had to happen altogether. He foretold, they say, that Judas would be a betrayer, and that is why he became a betrayer.’ What madness! What shamelessness! Foreknowledge was not the cause of his wickedness, my friend—far from it! It does not impose necessity upon future things; it merely foresees them. That man did not become a betrayer because Christ foretold it; rather, Christ foretold it because he was going to be a betrayer. So, lest they also say here that he said they would not listen and thereby shut off the way to repentance for them, he anticipated them and took away every pretext by saying to the prophet, Perhaps they will listen” (MG 56, 170 s.). In Matthaeum homil. 59 (in Mt 18, 7: “It is necessary that scandals come, but woe to the man through whom scandals come”): “When he speaks of necessity, he does not take away free choice or freedom of the will, nor does he say this by subjecting life to the necessity of anything; rather, he foretells what was going to happen altogether. Luke made this clear in other words, saying: It is impossible that scandals should not come⁹.… His prediction does not bring scandals about—far from it! Nor did they happen because he foretold them; rather, he foretold them because they were going to happen. Thus, if those who cause them had not wanted to do so, they would never have come; and if they were not going to happen, they would not have been foretold. But since some acted wickedly and suffered from an incurable disease, scandals came, and he foretold what was going to happen” (MG 58, 574 s.; R 1175).

285. ST. JEROME, Dial. adv. Pelagianos, l. 3 c. 6: “Adam did not sin because God knew that this would happen; rather, God, as God, foreknew what Adam was going to do of his own will” (ML 23, 575; R 1405). In Ezechielem prophetam, l. 1 (in 2, 5): “And you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord God: Perhaps they too will listen, and perhaps they will be quiet: for they are a rebellious house, and they will know that a prophet has been among them. Something similar is written in Jeremiah¹⁰: ‘Perhaps they will listen and repent.’ And in the Gospel¹¹: ‘Perhaps they will respect my son.’ God speaks these words in the manner of one who is uncertain, in order to show man's free choice, lest foreknowledge of future good or evil make unchangeable what God knows will happen. For it is not necessary that we do what he has foreseen simply because he knows what is to come; rather, as God, he knows what we are going to do of our own will” (ML 25, 393 s.).

286. ST. AUGUSTINE, De libero arbitrio, l. 3 c. 4: “Augustine: Why does our free choice seem to you contrary to God's foreknowledge? Is it because it is foreknowledge, or because it is God's foreknowledge? Evodius: Because it is God's. Augustine: Well then, if you foresaw that someone was going to sin, would it be necessary for him to sin? Evodius: It would indeed be necessary for him to sin; for otherwise my foreknowledge would not be foreknowledge, unless I foresaw it with certainty. Augustine: Therefore, it is not necessary that what God has foreseen happen because it is God's foreknowledge, but only because it is foreknowledge; if it did not foresee with certainty, it would not be foreknowledge at all. Evodius: I agree; but where is this leading? Augustine: Because, unless I am mistaken, you would not immediately compel someone to sin by foreseeing that he was going to sin, nor would your foreknowledge itself compel him to sin, although he would undoubtedly be going to sin; otherwise you would not foresee that this would happen. Just as these two things are not contrary to each other—you knowing through your foreknowledge what another will do of his own will—so God, while compelling no one to sin, nevertheless foresees those who will sin of their own will. Why, then, should the just one not punish what he foreknows without compelling it to happen? Just as you do not, by your memory, compel past events to have happened, so God does not, by his foreknowledge, compel future things to be done. And just as you remember some things you did, though you did not do everything you remember, so God foreknows everything of which he is the author, but is not the author of everything he foreknows. What he is not the evil author of, he is the just avenger of. From this, then, understand how justly God punishes sins, since he does not bring about the future things he knows. For if he ought not to repay sinners with punishment because he foresees that they will sin, neither ought he to repay those who act rightly with rewards, because he likewise foresees that they will act rightly” (ML 32, 1276; cf. R 1547).

De civitate Dei, l. 5 c. 10 nr. 2: “It is not the case, then, that nothing is in our will because God foreknew what would be in our will; for he who foreknew this did not foreknow nothing. Moreover, if he who foreknew what would be in our will foreknew not nothing but something, then plainly, with his foreknowledge, something is in our will. Therefore we are in no way compelled either to reject freedom of the will while retaining God's foreknowledge, or—an impiety—to deny the one who foreknows the future while retaining freedom of the will. Rather, we embrace both and faithfully and truthfully profess both: the former, so that we may believe rightly; the latter, so that we may live rightly. One lives badly if one does not believe rightly about God. Therefore, far be it from us to deny his foreknowledge in order to wish to be free, for with his help we are, or will be, free. Hence laws, reprimands, exhortations, praise and blame are not without purpose: he also foreknew that these would come to be, and they are of the greatest value to the extent that he foreknew they would be of value. Prayers too avail for obtaining what he foreknew he would grant to those who pray; and rewards for good deeds and punishments for sins have been justly established. For a person does not sin because God foreknew that he would sin. Rather, there is no doubt that he sins when he sins because the one whose foreknowledge cannot be mistaken foresaw that it was not the deed, nor chance, nor anything else, but the person himself who would sin. If he does not want to, he certainly does not sin; but if he does not want to sin, God also foreknew this” (ML 41, 153; cf. R 1742).

287. THEODORET, In Rom. 8, 30: “Those whose purpose he foreknew he predestined from the beginning; he also called those predestined, then justified those called through baptism, and glorified those justified, naming them his children and giving them the grace of the Holy Spirit. Yet no one should say that foreknowledge was the cause of these things. For foreknowledge did not make them such; rather, as God, he foresaw from afar the things that were going to happen.… As God, the God of all things sees all things from afar; yet he does not impose a necessity on this person to practice virtue and on that one to act wickedly” (MG 82, 141; R 2162).

ST. JOHN DAMASCENE, Dialogus contra Manichaeos, 79: “The foreknowledge of almighty God does not have its cause in us; but foreknowledge of what we ought to do (that is, what we are going to do) arises from us. For if we were not to do it (that is, if we were not going to do it), he would not foreknow it either, and it would not be future. God's foreknowledge is indeed true and inviolable, but it is not itself the cause why something future happens altogether; rather, because we ought to do this or that (that is, because we are going to do it), he foreknows it” (MG 94, 1577; R 2382).

288. From the examples cited, it is evident that the discussion concerns that knowledge of God whose object is things as existing at some time; therefore, it concerns what is called the knowledge of vision. We must therefore say: God knows things by the knowledge of vision because they will be. Those Bañezian theologians who do not wish simply to deny this proposition think such statements should be understood as referring mostly to sins, “insofar as they are formally sins, the knowledge of vision is not their cause”¹². But it must be said that a general principle is usually established, which is indeed often applied to sinful acts because the difficulty was being raised specifically about them, but is also explicitly applied to good acts (ORIGEN, EUSEBIUS, EPIPHANIUS, JEROME, JOHN DAMASCENE). Hence BILLUART (l. c.): “When the holy Fathers sometimes speak of non-sinful acts, they mean only that knowledge is not a cause that introduces necessity into what is known, such that something is compelled to happen because God knows it.” But this “solution” is impossible. The difficulty the Fathers had to solve was this: If God foreknows an act, the act must necessarily happen and cannot be omitted; therefore man no longer acts freely. The Fathers' solution is: God sees the act because it is going to happen; God's vision already presupposes the truth of the free act that is to come; therefore this vision cannot take away the act's freedom. But if the Fathers had said only that God's vision is not a cause that introduces necessity, they would not have offered a solution to the difficulty; they would only have asserted the contrary of what the difficulty itself had said.

BILLUART adds another answer to this difficulty, based on the Fathers' teaching: “The holy Fathers spoke in this way, attending only to the account of knowledge, to which the account of causality does not belong unless the will is joined to it; that is, they spoke of the knowledge of vision as vision, not as approval.” This distinction has already been discussed above (nr. 275). In fact, if the knowledge of vision is not the cause of things, that difficulty has been “solved” by the Fathers—or rather, there is no longer any difficulty.