De Deo uno

296. ST. BONAVENTURE:¹ God knows all things from eternity; and so in his knowledge all things are eternally present to him as the object of his knowledge. “Knowing all things as present can be understood in two ways: either the presence is noted on the part of the things known, and in this sense it is false, because he does not know all things as presently and simultaneously true; or the presence is noted on the part of the knower, and in this sense it is true. The reason is that God has the ideas of all things present to him at once, through which he knows future things with the same certainty as if they were present. And, further, he turns toward all of them simultaneously and as present, and thus knows them simultaneously and as present. Further, the present of his knowledge is the simplest present, which encompasses all times. From these three reasons taken together God is said to know all things as present”². The divine ideas represent the future not merely as possible but as truly future; this is proper to the divine idea. The divine ideas represent the future, however, not by reason of some decree of the divine will by which God decrees that those things will be future, but because divine truth is “a light supremely expressive.” “For since the divine intellect itself is the highest light, perfect truth, and pure act, just as divine power is sufficient in itself to produce all things in causing them, so divine light and truth are sufficient to express all things; and since expressing is an intrinsic act, it is therefore eternal; and since expression is a kind of assimilation, the divine intellect, expressing all things eternally by its supreme truth, eternally possesses the exemplary likenesses of all things, which are not other than itself, but are what it is essentially”³.

297. ST. THOMAS treats several times the question whether God’s knowledge concerns future contingents⁴ and always proposes the same view: “A contingent thing can be considered in two ways: in one way, in itself, insofar as it is already actual; and thus it is not considered as future but as present, nor as contingent toward either alternative, but as determined to one. For this reason it can in this way be infallibly subjected to certain knowledge, such as the sense of sight, as when I see Socrates sitting. In another way, a contingent thing can be considered as it is in its cause; thus it is considered as future and as not yet determined to one, because a contingent cause is related to opposites. In this way a contingent thing is not subjected with certainty to any knowledge. Hence whoever knows a contingent effect only in its cause has only conjectural knowledge of it. God, however, knows all contingent things not only insofar as they are in their causes, but also insofar as each of them is actual in itself. Although contingent things become actual successively, God does not know them successively as they are in their being, as we do, but simultaneously; for his knowledge, like his being, is measured by eternity, and eternity, existing all at once, encompasses the whole of time, as was said above. Hence all things that exist in time are eternally present to God—not merely because he has the forms of things present within himself, as some say, but because his gaze from eternity is directed upon all things insofar as they are present. It is therefore clear that God knows contingent things infallibly insofar as they are subject to the divine gaze according to their presence, and yet, in comparison with their proximate causes, they are future contingents”⁵. The explanation, then, is this: For certain knowledge to be possible, certainty in the thing known is required; certain and infallible knowledge is only of an object that has determinate truth. A future contingent does not have this insofar as it is in its causes; it has it only insofar as it is outside its causes, in itself; and precisely in this way it can be known by God.

God has three kinds of knowledge of future contingents: 1) in created causes, 2) by knowing his relation to the thing, 3) in the things themselves. The first plainly does not provide certain knowledge, nor does the second; for God’s relation to the thing that was to be future by his power, does not ground certain knowledge, since it does not confer certainty on the thing known: “A necessary first cause can coexist with a defect in a secondary cause, as the sun’s motion can coexist with a tree’s sterility”⁶. The infallibility of divine knowledge is explained only by the fact that God knows a future contingent insofar as it is in itself, “when its being is already determinate and can be known with certainty”⁷.

298. St. Thomas never explains the infallible knowledge God has of future contingents by the causality of the divine will; nor does he abandon this doctrine in the Summa contra gentiles. From that work people usually cite book 1, chapter 68, “That God knows the movements of the will,” where he says: “In knowing his essence, God knows other things as effects are known through knowledge of their cause. God therefore knows all things by knowing his essence to which his causality extends. It extends to the operations of intellect and will: for since each thing acts through its form, from which the thing has some being, the source-principle of all being, from which every form also comes, must be the principle of every operation, since the effects of secondary causes are referred more principally to first causes. God therefore knows the thoughts and affections of the mind.” In this passage, however, St. Thomas is not dealing at all with knowledge of future contingents; he had dealt with that in the preceding chapter, “That God knows singular future contingents.” There he had plainly proposed the very same doctrine found in his commentary on the Sentences through the Summa theologiae, which we have already seen: “A contingent thing is opposed to certainty of knowledge only insofar as it is future, not insofar as it is present. For when a contingent thing is future, it may not exist; and so the knowledge of one who judges that it will exist can be mistaken: he will be mistaken if what he judged would exist does not exist. But once it is present, it cannot fail to exist at that time.... Therefore all knowledge directed to a contingent thing insofar as it is present can be certain. The gaze of the divine intellect, however, is from eternity directed to each of the things that unfold in the course of time insofar as it is present, as was shown above (cap. 66).

It follows, then, that nothing prevents God from having infallible knowledge of contingents from eternity.”

299. The question St. Thomas treats in chapter 67 is one question; that which he treats in chapter 68 is another. In chapter 63 he had set out the reasons given by those who wished to deny God knowledge of singular things: both singularity itself and the particular difficulties that seem to obstruct certain knowledge of some singular things. In third place there he listed the fact that some singular things are contingent, and he treats them in chapter 67; in fourth place he listed “that the cause of some singular things is the will. But an effect, before it exists, can be known only in its cause; for only in this way can it exist before it begins to exist in itself. The movements of the will, however, can be known with certainty by no one except the one willing, in whose power they are. It therefore seems impossible for God to have eternal knowledge of such singular things as derive their cause from the will.” He deals with this matter in chapter 68. The subject, then, is not acts of intellect and will insofar as they are future contingents, but the searching of hearts, as is also clear from the passages of Sacred Scripture he cites at the end of the chapter: Ps 7, 10; Prov 15, 11; Io 2, 25. The same is clear by comparing other passages in which St. Thomas treats a similar question: De Veritate q. 8 art. 12; 13; De Malo q. 16 art. 7; 8; Summa Theol. 1 q. 57 art. 3; 4. A creature’s thoughts and movements of heart can be known by an angel and by demons only through their effects, insofar as they are manifested outwardly; but in their very cause they are known only by the person to whom they belong, and by God.

300. PETRUS DE TARANTASIA O. P. “For contingents, even if as future they have no necessity because they depend on undetermined causes, nevertheless, insofar as they are already actual, they have necessity. God, however, sees contingents as present in eternity; and all time is present to eternity. Man, by contrast, sees contingents as future, since he is in the earlier part of time. Thus God sees them infallibly and determinately, whereas man cannot. For some things have a cause wholly determined to exist or not exist, such as eclipses of the heavenly bodies; others are not wholly so determined, but are more inclined to one side than the other, such as natural events in the lower realm, namely rain and the like; others, such as contingents, are determined to neither side. The first kind of beings can be foreknown with certain knowledge; the second with conjectural knowledge, as happens in the judgments of physicians and astrologers; the third cannot be foreknown at all, but only when it is actual, because only then is it first determined. God, however, sees all things as present; hence he sees all things as actually existing, and thus as determined, and so knows all things, whether they exist in their proper nature, are past, or are future”⁸.

301. RICARDUS DE MEDIAVILLA O. F. M. “God’s foreknowledge concerns all future things, as is clear for two reasons. As will be explained below, all future things are really present to eternity, insofar as eternity, by reason of its immensity, transcends our present. Hence Anselm ... says of God that all things are simultaneously present to him. A contingent thing, however, is seen clearly when it is seen as present; and therefore, because God sees all future things as really present to himself, he has certain knowledge of them. His knowledge of them is not merely knowledge but foreknowledge, insofar as they are future by comparison with our present”⁹. The other reason he adduces is that God knows which good things he wills to happen, which he does not will to happen, which things are evil and he does not will to happen, and which he does not will to prevent.

302. In 1 dist. 39 SCOTUS asks: 1) whether God has determinate knowledge of all things with respect to every condition of existence; 2) whether this knowledge is certain and infallible; 3) whether it is immutable; 4) whether he necessarily knows every condition of existence of all things; 5) whether some contingency on the part of things in existence can coexist with the determination and certainty of his knowledge. He cites three views that do not seem sufficient to him: 1) “The certainty of divine knowledge concerning all things, with respect to every condition of existence, is posited on account of the ideas placed in the divine intellect, and because of their perfection in representing: they represent the things of which they are ideas not only in their entirety, but also according to every aspect and relation of their extremes. Thus the divine intellect has a sufficient principle not merely for apprehending those things simply, but also for apprehending every union among them and every mode of the things represented by the ideas pertaining to their existence”¹⁰. 2) “Another view holds that God has certain knowledge of future contingents because the whole flow of time, and all things that are in time, are present to eternity”¹¹. 3) “A third view says that, although some things are necessary with respect to divine knowledge, it does not follow that they cannot be contingent with respect to their proximate causes”¹²

303. In seeking to answer the questions, he first investigates generally “how contingency is possible.” He replies: “No causation by any cause can preserve contingency unless the first cause is posited as causing immediately and contingently, and this by positing in the first cause perfect causality, as Catholics do”¹³. Since the first cause acts through intellect and will, contingency must be sought either in the divine intellect or in the will. “But not in the intellect insofar as it has its first act prior to every act of the will; for whatever the intellect understands in this way, it understands purely naturally and by natural necessity. Thus there can be no contingency in knowing something it does not know, or in understanding something it does not understand by such a first act. Therefore the first contingency must be sought in the divine will”¹⁴. According to Scotus, then, all contingency is grounded in the fact that the first cause wills contingently.

304. He next asks how certainty in divine knowledge can coexist with the contingency of things: “Having considered the contingency of things with respect to existence, and having considered it in relation to the divine will, it remains to consider the second main point: how the certainty of God’s knowledge stands together with this. This can be explained in two ways. First, the divine intellect, seeing the determination of the divine will—that is, that this will be the case at A because that will determines it to be the case at A—knows this because it knows that the will is immutable and cannot be impeded. Or otherwise: since this approach seems to posit a kind of reasoning in the divine intellect, as though it concluded that this would be the case by intuiting the will’s determination and immutability, it can be explained in another way: the divine intellect either presents simple terms to the will, whose union in reality is contingent; or, if it presents a proposition, it presents it as neutral to itself. The will, choosing one side—that is, the union of these things at some particular moment in reality—makes it determinately true: this will be the case at A. Once this is determinately true, the essence is the principle by which the divine intellect understands this truth, and it does so naturally, insofar as this is from the side of the essence. Thus, just as it naturally understands all necessary principles, as it were before an act of the divine will, because their truth does not depend on that act and they would be known by the divine intellect even if, impossibly, there were no willer, so the divine essence is the principle by which it knows them in that naturally prior instant, because they are then true. This does not mean that those truths move the divine intellect, nor do their terms move it to apprehend such a truth, for then the divine intellect would be debased, suffering action from something other than its essence. Rather, just as the divine essence is the principle for knowing simple terms, so too it is for knowing such propositions. At that point, however, they are not contingent truths, because nothing then exists by which they have determinate truth. Once the divine will’s determination is posited, they are true, namely, at that second instant; and the same thing that was the principle for the divine intellect to understand them at the first instant will be the principle for it to understand them, now true at the second instant, and they would have been known at the first instant if they had then existed at the first instant.

305. An example: just as, if the power of sight in my eye were always the principle by which I see an object, and someone representing it made first this color and then that color present, my eye would see now one, now the other, and yet by the same act of vision—the only difference being the priority and posteriority of seeing, because the object was presented earlier or later. If one color were made present naturally and another freely, there would be no formal difference in my vision: on its own part, my eye would naturally see both. Nevertheless, it could contingently see one and necessarily the other, insofar as one is contingently present to it and the other necessarily. Whichever of these two ways we suppose the divine intellect to know the existences of things, it is clear in either case that the divine intellect is determined to the existing thing to which the divine will is determined, and that there is certainty of infallibility: the will cannot determine without the intellect’s determinately apprehending what the will determines. It is also immutable, since both will and intellect are immutable.... Yet the contingency of the object known remains alongside these things, because the will, although willing this determinately, wills it contingently”¹⁵.

In brief, the doctrine is this: by a free or contingent determination of his will, God grounds the determinate truth of a contingent thing; God knows this determinate truth because the divine essence is the principle by which every truth is known¹⁶.

306. Scotus presents this doctrine as different from the explanations given up to that time. It was immediately adopted by his disciples and other theologians of the Order of Friars Minor. From then on, when different positions on this subject were listed, Scotus’s position was treated as distinctive and different from the position of others, especially St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas. His disciples developed their master’s doctrine. Scotus had explicitly spoken of the determination of the divine will as the foundation of all contingent truth. If, indeed, every contingent truth is grounded in this way, the explicit conclusion readily follows that the divine will determines contingent secondary causes, including the created free will itself, to act. The Scotists had already drawn this conclusion explicitly in the fourteenth century: Hugh of Novocastro, Francis of Marchia, William of Rubione¹⁷, Peter of Aquila, John of Ripa, and Francis of Perugia¹⁸.

307. The explanation Scotus proposed seemed new to the theologians of his time, and they immediately subjected it to criticism. Such were Thomas Anglicus O. P., Aureolus, Thomas de Wilton, and Ockham. It was objected that this explanation could not be applied to all contingents—specifically, not to the free acts of creatures and to sinful acts. For, as a consequence of this doctrine, the creature’s true freedom would have to be denied, and God would have to be called the author of sin. These, then, are the same “difficulties” that two centuries later would be raised against the doctrine of the Bañezians. As early as the fourteenth century, defenders of Scotus’s doctrine attempted in various ways to resolve these difficulties: because the divine will’s determination is contingent and the source of all contingency, acts of free choice also remain contingent; if a created cause determined the created will, its freedom would not be preserved, but it is preserved if the first cause, God, determines it, since the divine will does not change the nature of actions and determines to a free act; under the divine determination the possibility of the opposite act remains, although it will never be actualized; and freedom consists in the possibility of performing another act. The same solutions are already found that defenders of physical predetermination would propose two centuries later¹⁹. Likewise, to the difficulty that God would be the cause of sin, the reply is that God determines the positive act, but not its deformity, in which the formal character of sin consists.

308. THOMAS BRADWARDINUS, who follows Scotus in explaining God’s knowledge of future contingents, arrives at a doctrine that does not preserve the creature’s true freedom. Strictly speaking, the creature is free not in relation to the first cause but in relation to secondary causes²⁰. Bradwardine’s doctrine was immediately attacked by theologians of the fourteenth century.

309. The Thomists retain St. Thomas’s doctrine, explaining the infallibility of divine knowledge of future contingents by the fact that God knows what is future for us as present to him, and thus no longer undetermined but determined to one. So CAPREOLUS, In 1 d. 38 q. 1 a. 2 concl. 1: “A contingent thing, insofar as it is future, cannot be known infallibly, but it can be known insofar as it is present”²¹. God knows them in this way (concl. 2). The reason why this knowledge of God is infallible and most certain is indicated solely by citing St. Thomas’s texts: the future contingent is known as present; only insofar as it is in itself is it determinately true (concl. 4)²². The effect, however, remains contingent because its proximate cause is contingent (concl. 5)²³. According to Capreolus, contingency in things is not derived only from secondary causes (a. 1 concl. 1)²⁴, but the root of contingency is the divine will (concl. 2)²⁵; for God wills some things to happen necessarily and others contingently, and therefore fits necessary causes to some effects and contingent causes to others.

310. DIDACUS DEZA O. P., professor at the University of Salamanca from 1477 to 1486, proposes precisely the same doctrine. In 1 d. 38 q. 1 a. 3: “A contingent thing insofar as it is future, especially if it is contingent toward either alternative, cannot be known certainly and infallibly; it can be known in this way only insofar as it is in itself and present to the knower.” “From eternity God knows future contingents with certainty and determinately, not as future, but in themselves, insofar as they are eternally present to God.”

According to him, the claim that they cannot be known infallibly in their causes is to be understood not only of created causes but of the first cause itself: “Since in the causes of a future contingent there is no power or efficacy having a necessary relation to that future contingent—for otherwise it would not be future and contingent but necessary, since necessity and contingency in the effect arise from the necessity or contingency of the cause—it follows that a future contingent does not have necessary, determinate, and infallible being in its causes, and therefore cannot be known with certainty, determinately, and infallibly in its causes. And according to the mind of St. Thomas this is true not only of the secondary and proximate causes of a future contingent, but also of the first cause, which is God. For the argument already given applies to the first cause just as it does to the proximate causes: God’s power and efficacy have no necessary and determinate relation to the existence and production of future contingents any more than to their nonexistence; considered in themselves, they are related to them freely and toward either alternative. It is therefore concluded, according to the foregoing argument, that future contingents cannot be known with certainty and determinately not only in their proximate causes but even in the first cause, God, since their cause is not necessary and determinate but free to either alternative, and consequently they are not in God necessarily, absolutely, and determinately.” He then shows that this is St. Thomas’s mind.

311. To the objection, “Although God’s power and efficacy, considered in themselves and absolutely, have no necessary relation to the existence or nonexistence of future contingents, nevertheless, when the disposition and determination of divine knowledge and will concerning future contingents to be produced—which was in God from eternity—are considered, it seems that from eternity God’s power and efficacy had a necessary and determinate relation to their existence and production; it follows that future contingents could have been known from eternity with certainty and determinately by the divine intellect in their first causes,” he replies: “Just as God’s will determined from eternity that certain future contingents would be brought into being, so too it determined that they would be produced contingently and fallibly; thus it fitted them with proximate causes that are contingent, liable to impediment, and subject to failure, from which the effects themselves could contingently occur or not occur, be produced or not be produced.... It follows that future contingents cannot be known with certainty and determinately in the first cause, even when it is determined, insofar as its causality is concerned”²⁶.

312. FRANCISCUS DE SYLVESTRIS FERRARIENSIS presents as St. Thomas’s doctrine, in his commentary on Contra Gentiles 1, 67, the claim that a contingent thing can be known with certainty only insofar as it is present, and that this is how God knows it. To St. Thomas’s argument, “Just as an effect follows with certainty from a necessary cause, so it follows from a contingent cause if it is not impeded; but since God knows all things, as is clear from what was said above, he knows not only the causes of contingents but also what could impede them; therefore he knows with certainty whether contingents exist or not,” Sylvester adds this note: “Observe ... that this knowledge by which the causes of a contingent thing are known, together with the fact that they will not be impeded or will be impeded, is not knowledge of a contingent thing insofar as it is contingent, but insofar as it has necessity. This is understood of the effects of natural causes. For perhaps, in the case of the effects of the will, knowledge of the causes and impediments is not enough for certainty of knowledge unless the cause itself is known as actually and ultimately operating without impediment; this is to know the effect as already in its being, not merely as it is in its cause.”

Scotus had taught that if the first cause moves necessarily, the secondary cause also acts necessarily, and there would then be no contingency in the world. Sylvester replies: “A moving cause, insofar as it is moved, can at once be moved necessarily by the first cause and yet not move necessarily, because the action of the first cause is modified in the secondary cause according to the mode of that secondary cause.” In support of this view he appeals to St. Thomas himself, In 1 d. 38 a. 5, and De Veritate q. 5 a. 9 ad 10, that the power of the first cause is received in the secondary cause according to the mode of the secondary cause.

313. CAIETANUS raises a difficulty in explaining 1 q. 14 a. 13, in the response to objection 1: “Things known by God are contingent on account of their proximate causes, but necessary in relation to God’s knowledge.” This can be understood as follows: “A thing contingent in itself has a necessary relation to the first cause, but a contingent relation to its proximate causes.” Scotus argues against this. His first argument is: “A cause that moves insofar as it is moved, if moved necessarily, moves necessarily; but every secondary cause moves or acts insofar as it is moved by the first; therefore, if it is moved necessarily by the first, it also moves necessarily; and thus there is no contingent cause.” Caietanus replies: “To the first argument, his Achilles, which he has repeated so often, we answer on two grounds. First, we distinguish ‘insofar as it is moved by another’: does this indicate a cause exclusively, or a co-cause? If exclusively, the proposition contains a contradiction in its predicate: for if the secondary cause is a cause, then it does not move solely because it is moved, but also contributes something of its own. And if it moves solely because it is moved, it contributes nothing of its own, and so it is not a cause. If, however, it indicates a co-cause, though a principal one, we deny the assumption: it can be moved necessarily and yet not move something else necessarily, because the motion of the prior cause is modified in the secondary cause according to the mode of the secondary cause. Thus, although the second cause is moved necessarily by the first, once the motion is received in the second cause, if we suppose that cause to be contingent, it is modified by the contingency of the recipient. And because it is modified prior in nature to impelling the cause to act, this motion, already modified to a contingent cause, moves the second cause to act not necessarily but contingently. And if the second cause is posited as a natural cause that is nevertheless liable to fail, that motion, now modified to the nature of the secondary cause, will move it to act not necessarily but for the most part, according to the proper mode of the secondary cause and not of the first. Thus the whole Scotist edifice is overthrown from a single point. Again, we distinguish ‘moved by another’ in a different way: either by a motion preceding its own action, as water heats after being heated by fire, or by a motion cooperating intrinsically in its own action. Even if the proposition were true or defensible in the first way, it cannot be upheld in the second, because a cause cooperating intrinsically cooperates with each thing according to its mode. Such is the cooperation of the first cause, of which it is written that it reaches mightily from end to end and orders all things sweetly: that is, it cooperates with each according to its mode.”

314. He discusses the question of how freedom can stand with the certainty of divine providence in 1 q. 22 a. 4. St. Thomas solves the first objection—that divine providence imposes necessity on things because it cannot be frustrated—in this way: “The effect of divine providence is not merely that something happen in any way whatever, but that something happen either contingently or necessarily. Therefore what divine providence disposes to happen infallibly and necessarily happens infallibly and necessarily; and what divine providence intends to happen contingently happens contingently.” To this Caietanus adds: “In the response to the first objection a very difficult doubt arises, perhaps insoluble by the human intellect. To make clear where the doubt lies, and so that it may be better understood, one must observe that it is one thing for A to happen contingently, another for A to happen necessarily, and yet another for A to happen infallibly or inevitably. The first and second both imply a relation of the effect to a cause placed in act: the first means that its cause has power toward either alternative, while the second means that its cause cannot fail to exercise its causality. The third, however, is more general than either, since both contingent and necessary things follow divine providence once it is in act infallibly or inevitably, while the former follow it contingently and the latter necessarily. Although the intellect may be satisfied by these points as it considers the response in the text concerning the preservation of contingency, it nevertheless wavers over how this infallibility is connected with free choice—or, to speak more accurately, with the free occurrence of the very operations we call free, and likewise with the indeterminate occurrence of other contingents. For in a free operation one must consider the will itself, its cause, and its outcome, or execution, here and now, such that the opposite does not occur. It is not difficult to preserve the nature of such a cause, namely, a free one, together with the infallibility described, since this infallibility neither gives nor takes away anything from a cause open to either alternative; rather, it is compatible with the cause having an indifferent power for what is infallible and for its opposite. For this reason divine providence does not remove contingency from things. But to preserve this infallibility together with the indifference or freedom of execution or outcome—this is the task, this the labor. For if it is infallible that I will write at first light on the next day, although I have the power for either alternative, that is, to write then or not to write then, this power and freedom will nevertheless not be actualized as a refusal to write, but as an affirmation, so that it is inevitable that the affirmation occur. And if this is so, since divine providence has from eternity been in act, determined with respect to all things, and is immutable, infallible, etc., it follows that as a matter of fact all things happen inevitably, although some contingently and others necessarily.... And if all things in fact happen inevitably, why do we deliberate and strive to pursue some things rather than others, or to avoid them? For this seems to destroy the moral order and every effort of the Church and exhortation to the good no less than the denial of contingency. For although the denial of avoidability and the denial of contingency are not equivalent, as is already clear from what was said, they seem equal with regard to the proposed difficulties. No one deliberates about what is inevitable, and no one strives, exhorts, or prays about inevitabilities.”²⁷

315. “I have found nothing written by St. Thomas about this doubt, because I do not recall that he raised it anywhere; rather, he always strove to preserve contingency. Nor have I so far found anything on this question in other doctors except the common discussions of the composite and divided senses, of the necessity of the consequence and of the consequent, of the freedom of the divine choice in eternity, and of the nature of causes in the universe that are open to either alternative.

But, as is clear from what has been said, none of this settles the intellect, for, as has already been said, the question concerns not God considered in himself but God as he actually is; and likewise it concerns not the very natures of causes or things, nor necessity and contingency, but the compatibility of inevitable outcomes with the contingency and freedom of those same outcomes.” He concludes: “The best and most salutary counsel in this matter is to begin from what we know and experience with certainty in ourselves: namely, that everything subject to our free choice is avoidable by us, and therefore we are worthy of punishment or reward. How, while preserving this, divine providence, predestination, and so on are preserved, we should believe as Holy Mother Church believes. For it is written: ‘Do not seek things higher than yourself; many things have been revealed to you beyond human understanding.’ This is one of them.”

Caietanus does not hold the doctrine according to which God, by his will, predetermines the created will to one freely performed act, nor does he ground the truth of contingents in a divine decree of predetermination. Like Conrad Köllin O. P., he was still far from a full understanding of Thomistic principles²⁸.

316. Against Caietanus’s doctrine that the motion of the first cause is modified in the second cause, the Scotist LYCHETUS attempts to show that such modification, in whatever sense it is understood, is impossible and cannot be reconciled with the absolute independence of the first cause: the first cause would be determined by the second cause, “which no sane person would say; for it is contrary to the nature of the first cause that it could be determined or modified in acting by a second cause”²⁹.

317. The theologians of the Order of Preachers who taught at the University of Salamanca in the sixteenth century before Báñez, together with St. Thomas, explain the infallibility of God’s knowledge of future contingents by saying that God knows them insofar as they are outside their causes and present to him in eternity. They debate in what sense this presence is to be understood, whether as real and ontological or in some other way; most understand it, with Caietanus, as real and ontological. The other explanations they consider are chiefly Durandus’s explanation (God knows future contingents in secondary causes that are complete and unimpeded) and Scotus’s view (God knows them in the first cause itself). They do not accept these, however, because they do not sufficiently explain the certainty of divine knowledge³⁰.

318. FRANCISCUS DE VITORIA O. P. adopts knowledge through presence as St. Thomas’s explanation. Concerning God’s cooperation in a sinful act, he says: “God has a will with respect to sin as a universal agent, not as a particular agent. I mean that this is the difference between universal and particular agents: a particular agent cannot act without the influence of a universal agent, according to the true philosophy—or the more probable philosophy, which philosophers commonly hold—that no motion at all can occur without the influence of the heavens; universal agents, however, do not depend on anything else in their actions. Assuming this, I say that God, who is the universal cause, influences all things so that they act: if they are voluntary agents, they act if they will, and if they do not will, they do not act. For if the sun were the first voluntary agent and gave me an influence by which I could move myself to kill someone, it would not therefore be guilty, nor would it move me, etc. For while that influence remains, I could kill or not kill. In this way, then, God concurs in sin and does not sin in any way, nor does he move anyone to it, because, as has been said, while this general concurrence remains, it is entirely true that we can act and not act with complete freedom. Try it when you wish to sin, to see whether you cannot refrain from willing, even though God’s general concurrence is in you. This is because it is already a natural law that absolutely no agent, acting well or badly, acts without God’s general concurrence. In this way we must concede that God concurs in sin, just as the sun concurs, according to the philosophers”³¹.

319. DOMINICUS SOTO O. P. says of Scotus’s view that God knows future contingents because he knows the determination of his will in himself, “that he does not know them in this way either, because if he knew them in this way, he would not know them so certainly”³². He explains St. Thomas’s doctrine as follows: “I myself see each of you in your distinct place; in the same way, God sees all future things at the instant in which each is later to exist. And just as if Peter and I were both looking and I had sharper sight than Peter, I would see someone coming from farther away than Peter would, so too, if I see things at a spatial distance, I would see one coming sooner than another who does not see at so great a distance as I do. This, then, is how St. Thomas conceives it: God sees all things from eternity in the way they will exist in their own times”³³.

320. MELCHIOR CANO O. P. states the conclusion: “God knows them (future contingents) infallibly, because we too know present things infallibly”³⁴. First, concerning Durandus’s opinion, he says that St. Thomas did not deny that there could be another way to preserve the infallibility of divine knowledge; then he adds: “Second, I reply that there is no other way of preserving God’s knowledge—the infallibility of God’s knowledge of future contingent things—except by positing the existence of things. This is what St. Thomas holds.” To the argument that an unimpeded contingent cause behaves like a natural cause, he replies: “I distinguish: if that contingent cause is free, I deny it; if it is natural, let it pass”³⁵.

PETRUS DE SOTOMAYOR O. P.: “God knows all future contingent things by seeing them in themselves, in the proper essences and existences they will have”³⁶.

321. MANCIO O. P. argues against Scotus’s view: “Certainly one could hold this about contingents brought about by God alone; but it is not so easy to understand this about things he brings about together with free choice. For why does the divine will determine itself to concur with you and not with me, unless because it knows that you will want it to concur with you, but I will not? For God’s concurrence does not necessitate, but it is in my power whether God concurs with me or not. I then ask: how does he know that you will want him to concur with you?”³⁷. Against Durandus he says, among other things, that Durandus’s argument applies to a natural cause. “For in the case of a free cause, even if God knows that it will not be impeded, he does not thereby immediately know the effect; for a free cause has this property: once impediments are removed, it is in its own power to act or not”³⁸.

322. BARTHOLOMAEUS DE MEDINA O. P. argues against Durandus that a future contingent cannot be known with certainty in secondary causes, especially when free causes are involved. He goes further and asks how God can know that a cause will not be impeded. “If he replies that God knows this through another cause that he knows will not be impeded, I will ask again: how does he know this, since it is a future contingent? And since there cannot be an infinite regress, one must necessarily arrive at St. Thomas’s explanation: he sees this future contingent as present in his eternity”³⁹. To the argument, “God knows future contingents because he willed to produce them by a determinate will, and therefore he knows them through their cause,” he replies: “God decreed through his knowledge and will to produce future things; nevertheless, he would never see them by the knowledge of vision unless they were present to him in eternity, just as he would not know things unless they were as they are in reality; otherwise God’s knowledge would be false”⁴⁰. Nevertheless, God’s knowledge has its infallibility and certainty not from the things themselves but from itself; “but for it to be certain about contingent things, it is required as a condition that they be outside their causes and present to God in eternity; otherwise they cannot be known with certainty. Just as, for divine knowledge by which God knows that a human being is capable of laughter to be certain, it is necessary that the human being really be capable of laughter; otherwise God’s knowledge would be false”⁴¹.

323. To make still clearer how far the Thomist school of Salamanca before Báñez was from the doctrine of physical predeterminations and predetermining divine decrees, it is useful to cite some other texts. Dominicus Soto says, in the common definition of a free cause (“a free cause is one which, all the requirements for acting being posited, can both act and not act”), that divine concurrence also belongs among those prerequisites⁴²; Medina holds the same, according to whom concurrence itself is in the power of freedom⁴³. Melchior Cano: “This opinion is partly pleasing, namely, in saying that concurrence does not necessitate us, but just as we use a habit when we will, so in a certain way we likewise use divine concurrence when we will”⁴⁴. “God concurs with me in such a way that it is within my power whether such concurrence is posited or removed; and in this consists the freedom of the will”⁴⁵. Mancio: “It is asked whether it is in a person’s power not to use special help. It seems not, for otherwise we could frustrate God.... The reply is that we should reason about special concurrence as we do about general concurrence. Just as it is in my hands to use or not use general concurrence, it is even in my power that God concur with me or not concur. Yet God would not be frustrated, since he gives concurrence only to one whom he knows will use it. The same must be said of special concurrence. Thus, if God moves you to contrition, you grieve over your sins; and God’s concurring in the grief comes before your grieving. Nevertheless, it is in your power to be moved or not to be moved by God, and that God concur with you or not”⁴⁶.

324. DOMINICUS BÁÑEZ O. P. notes that St. Thomas teaches two things “that present great difficulty, and on which all theologians do not agree. The first is: All things that are, have been, or will ever be are already present to God in his eternity.... The second is: The infallibility and certainty of divine knowledge concerning future contingents is measured by the fact that God knows the future contingents themselves in themselves and outside their causes, insofar as they are present to him in eternity”⁴⁷.

325. He gives the third conclusion: “God knows future contingents in their causes, but in causes that are determined and complete. The first part of the conclusion is explicitly taught by St. Thomas in the text, when he says: ‘God knows contingents not only in their causes,’ etc. It is also proved by reason: God knows all things, even contingents, according to every mode they have; therefore he knows contingents according to the mode they have in their causes. Confirmation: God knows that the Antichrist does not exist now and will exist later; therefore he knows that the Antichrist now has being in his causes. The second part of the conclusion—that God knows contingents in determined, complete, and unimpeded causes—is inferred from the preceding conclusion (namely, if he knew them in undetermined and impedible causes, his knowledge would be conjectural, fallible, and uncertain, which is incompatible with God). It is also proved as follows: God knows future contingents in their particular causes, insofar as those particular causes are subject to the determination and disposition of divine knowledge and will, which is the first cause. But the particular causes of future contingents, insofar as they are subject to the determination and disposition of divine knowledge and will, are determined, complete, and unimpeded in producing their contingent effects. Therefore God knows future contingents insofar as they are in determined and unimpeded causes. The minor is most certain, and the major is proved as follows: God knows all created causes through his essence, insofar as it is the first cause that gives being, power, and determination to all causes; therefore...”⁴⁸.

326. Fourth conclusion: “The infallibility and certainty of divine knowledge concerning future contingents is measured not only by the fact that they are known by God as present in eternity, but also by the fact that they are known in their causes in the sense explained in the preceding conclusion. Thus, even if God did not know future contingents as present in his eternity but only in their causes, his knowledge would be certain and infallible. I understand this conclusion, like the preceding one, to concern all future contingents, including those that depend on the will alone. Thus ‘contingent’ here includes the free. The conclusion is proved, first, because it follows most clearly from the second part of the preceding conclusion. For knowledge acquired through determined and complete causes is certain and infallible; but God knows contingents through determined and complete causes, as we said in the preceding conclusion; therefore.... It is also proved as follows: God knows future contingents through their reasons, which are in God—that is, through their proper ideas, which in God are the ideas of future contingents. But an idea represents certainly and infallibly by way of an exemplar and efficient cause, as will be said in the next question 15 art. 3; therefore, through the idea as a cause, God has infallible knowledge of a future contingent. The major is asserted by St. Thomas in this article and explained by Caietanus in the second doubt of this article.”

327. Against this argument Báñez argues from Scotus that an idea represents naturally and necessarily; therefore it represents only what belongs to things naturally and necessarily, not contingent and accidental predicates. Báñez replies: “An idea taken completely and fully is not only a form that is a principle of knowing, but also a principle of acting and, as will be said in the next question, article 3, a principle by way of an exemplary cause. From this it follows that an idea, insofar as it is a principle of acting, intrinsically includes the free determination of the divine will. For it cannot be a principle of acting unless the will is joined to it, and then only with respect to those effects that God’s free will decreed from eternity to produce in time. Thus an idea is representative by way of an exemplary cause of future contingents insofar as it represents the divine essence as the will of God—or, to speak more precisely, as the form known by the divine intellect in the mode of God’s will. For when God knows his essence as will, he knows every determination and disposition of the divine will concerning the creatures to be produced. It follows that, with respect to creatures’ actual existence and other contingent predicates, an idea does not represent naturally and necessarily, speaking absolutely, but only in the composite sense, that is, given the free determination of the divine will concerning those created effects”⁴⁹.

328. But if it is sufficient for certain and infallible knowledge to know future contingents in their causes, “why, then, does St. Thomas in this article make such an anxious effort to explain that God knows future contingents insofar as they are present to him in eternity? The reply is that in this article St. Thomas wished to explain fundamentally every way in which we can preserve the infallibility of divine knowledge concerning future contingents. Indeed, if we once admit that future contingents are present to God in eternity, it is very easy to understand how divine knowledge is altogether infallible and certain. A second reply is that in this article St. Thomas wished to show us that God has not only infallible and certain knowledge of future contingents but also intuitive knowledge. Thus St. Thomas teaches us that God knows future contingents not by the knowledge of simple intelligence or by abstractive cognition, but by the knowledge of vision and intuitive cognition.

329. This is the second argument (namely, against his own explanation of the infallible knowledge of future contingents). It follows at least from those conclusions and their proofs that God cannot have certain knowledge in their causes of sins that depend solely on the free will of the agent. The inference is proved as follows: the divine will does not determine the created will to sin, but leaves it indifferent and free; but a certain knowledge of a future effect cannot be had through an indifferent and undetermined cause; therefore.... The inference is denied in reply. In answer to the proof, I say first that future evil of sin is known by God through the idea of the good to which it is opposed. Second, I say that the created will will infallibly fail with respect to any matter of virtue unless it is effectively determined by the divine will to act well. Consequently, from knowing that his will has not determined the created will to act well in, for example, the matter of temperance, God knows evidently that the created will will sin and fail in the matter of that virtue. Thus God knows other future contingents in their causes insofar as they are determined by the first cause; but he knows future evil of sin in its cause insofar as it is not determined by the first cause to act well”⁵⁰.

330. Concerning the concurrence of the first cause, he says: “The concurrence of the first cause is so effective in determining secondary causes that at the same time it is gentle, conforming itself to the natures of secondary causes, so that with a necessary cause it produces necessity, and with a contingent cause, contingency. There are two reasons for this. First, God is the author of all nature. Therefore he can move any nature according to its mode, so that both the efficacy of the first cause and the secondary cause’s proper mode of acting are preserved at once. The second reason is the one St. Thomas gives below, q. 19 art. 8, namely, the supreme efficacy of the first cause, which can produce the effect it intends not only with respect to its substance, but also with respect to every mode in which it wills to produce it, whether necessarily or contingently. Thus the first cause determines my will to read not just in any manner, but to read freely. It follows that, in the composite sense, it is just as necessary that I now read freely as that I read at all. For both fall under the most efficacious determination of the first cause, which determines my will to will to read freely. This doctrine is drawn from the cited article 8, ad 2.... Although we cannot fully explain a priori how the concurrence of the first cause is effective and necessary while at the same time conforming to the nature of a contingent and free cause, we know a posteriori with absolute certainty that it is so. For if the concurrence of the first cause were not effective in determining all secondary causes, no secondary cause would produce its effect, since no secondary cause can act unless it is effectively determined by the first. But if the concurrence of the first cause were effective in such a way that it did not accommodate itself to the natures of lower causes, the concurrence of the first cause would remove all freedom and contingency from secondary causes. Therefore let us say what is written in Wis. 8: God reaches mightily from end to end and orders all things sweetly”⁵¹.

331. In Caietanus’s doctrine he “dislikes the claim that the power of the first cause is modified by the second cause but not impeded. I consider this false if it is understood of the most universal first cause, such as the divine will. On the contrary, the divine will modifies all things, since it is the most universal and efficacious cause of anything whatever, both with respect to its becoming and its being and its mode.... It would posit the greatest imperfection in God to claim that, just as the very same concurrence of the sun produces distinct effects because it is modified by distinct lower causes, so the concurrence of the divine will remains indifferent on its own part, but is modified and determined to distinct effects by distinct lower causes”⁵².

This doctrine of Báñez becomes common among theologians of the Order of Preachers, and from this time onward they regard it as the doctrine of St. Thomas⁵³.

332. Scotus’s disciples present their master’s doctrine in full; for example, Nicolaus de Orbellis († ca. 1475)⁵⁴, Nicolaus de Niisse († 1509)⁵⁵, and Petrus Tartaretus (late fifteenth century). To the difficulty of how freedom remains when the determination of my will necessarily follows the determination of the divine will, he replies: “Just as God willed me to read after lunch purely contingently, so I will to read after lunch purely contingently”⁵⁶. Thus he reduces the matter to the claim that the divine will’s determination is contingent. Similarly, Franciscus Lychetus († 1520), in response to a difficulty arising from a sinful act, eventually says: “I could say one thing: although the divine will is the most universal cause of all things and simply the first, nevertheless, with respect to the created will (even though with respect to other causes it is called the first cause and the first determiner of the secondary cause, so that a secondary natural cause acts because the divine will has so determined it to act), by reason of its supreme freedom it is not the first determiner of the created will to act. Rather, from its sheer contingency, so that the created will might be perfectly preserved, it has always determined to cooperate with the created will in such a way that it left it in its freedom, so that it can determine itself to act. Thus I would not consider it objectionable that in a certain way the created will determined itself first—understanding ‘prior’ in this way: that the divine will waits for it throughout any length of time on the way, not meaning that the creature acts in the first instant A and the divine will begins to act later, in the second instant B”⁵⁷.

333. IOANNES ANTONIUS DELPHINUS O. F. M. († 1560) proposes a doctrine according to which the free determinations of the created will are not second acts, but propensities and inclinations of the wills themselves toward willing or not willing something; these are not distinct from the will itself. The second act follows this free determination. He explains God’s foreknowledge and its harmony with created freedom as follows. The divine will “first determines that human wills will exist and that it will move them, as first cause, to certain operations. Second, the divine intellect fully understands that these wills will exist and will be moved by the first cause, namely, God. Third, in the divine essence, which is an infinite mirror representing all things, it sees the determinations of those wills, whether consent or dissent; sometimes⁵⁸ these are not at all distinct from the wills themselves. Fourth, in accordance with those acts of consent or dissent, the divine will clearly and deliberately determines whether it will cooperate with the human wills, moved by itself and accordingly consenting or dissenting to its motion, in bringing about and producing certain operations, or whether it will not cooperate. Fifth, the divine intellect infallibly comprehends all those deliberate operations”⁵⁹. This doctrine about the nature of free determination is already found in Aegidius Romanus⁶⁰; Gregory of Valencia defended the same doctrine for a time⁶¹, and more recently it is found in De San and others⁶².

334. After Molina had proposed his doctrine, many Scotists thought it agreed with Scotus’s own mind, and that he should be understood as speaking not of absolute but of conditional divine decrees⁶³.

Finally, in the seventeenth century, some Scotists thought that Scotus should be understood as speaking neither of predetermining divine decrees nor of decrees that follow a conditionally foreseen determination of created freedom, but rather of co-determining decrees that are absolute and efficacious. The author of this explanation seems to have been Ioannes de Trapani⁶⁴; Vulpes and Mastrius followed him.

335. MOLINA⁶⁵ employs, to explain certain divine knowledge of absolutely future free acts, the knowledge God has of conditionally future free acts: God knows what a free cause would do in a certain order; he freely decrees to create that order; in this determination of his will lies the principle of certain knowledge of the absolutely future free act.