De Deo uno

For this and the following thesis: PETRUS LOMBARDUS, l. 1 d. 38; S. TH., 1 q. 14 a. 13; MOLINA, Concordia, q. 14 a. 13 disp. 48-52; BÁÑEZ, in 1 q. 14 a. 13; q. 19 a. 8; SUÁREZ, Opusculum de scientia Dei futurorum contingentium (ed. Venet. 1741, tom. 10); RUIZ, disp. 23-80; BILLUART, diss. 6 a. 3; 4; 6; diss. 8 a. 3-5; FRANZELIN, thes. 43-46; KLEUTGEN, nr. 530-552; DE SAN, nr. 191-243; BILLOT, thes. 22; PESCH, nr. 235-241; prop. 37-41; MUNCUNILL, nr. 340-431; 452-494; VAN DER MEERSCH, nr. 397-425.

336. The thesis concerns acts that are absolutely future, not acts that are conditionally future. How the expression “God knows something in a decree” is to be understood was explained above (nr. 292). Several explanations of this question have been proposed; we examine three of them in the three parts of the thesis.

1. God does not know free acts in a cause immediately ready to act.

337. BELLARMINE: “The matter is exceedingly difficult and perhaps incomprehensible in this life: in what way God foreknows future things … Yet it seems probable to us that God sees future free actions only in the human will … Since God, then, perfectly knows all the inclinations and the whole disposition of our mind, and is not ignorant of all the things that may confront it in each deliberation, and finally has a clear view of what is more fitting and apt for moving a mind of such inclination and disposition, He infallibly infers which way the mind is going to incline. Perhaps this is what those mean who teach that God knows all future things, both free and necessary, both absolute and conditional, because He knows every truth and because all things that are in any way future are in some way true: for it is true to say ‘this will happen’ when it really is future.

“This opinion, I say, seems to coincide with ours. For truth and being are convertible; hence it is not true now that something is future unless it now has some being, namely, in its cause. But what is freely and contingently future does not have being in its cause unless there is some determination in the cause. And since, when the contingent cause itself is considered precisely as such, there is no determination in it, the Philosopher rightly said that there is no determinate truth about future contingents; for he looked only to the contingent cause itself. Yet if someone joins to the contingent or free cause all the things that may arise and impede it, and sees the inclinations and aptitudes both of the cause itself and of all the objects and circumstances—a thing only God can do—some determination will result; and on its account it will be true to say: ‘This will happen at such a time’” (De gratia et libero arbitrio, l. 4 c. 15).

338. On this opinion, either it is supposed that the free act is so far determined in that complex of causes that the act as a second act follows with the highest probability or with moral certainty, or it is supposed that it is metaphysically impossible for the act not to follow. If the first is supposed, it remains metaphysically possible that the act not follow, and hence error is possible. Moreover, thus explained, the opinion is insufficient: God would then know with absolute certainty only that the act proceeds from these causes with probability or moral certainty. But, given that the act will occur at some time, it is metaphysically impossible that it not occur, and God must know this truth as well. For just as the being an act has insofar as it is in its causes is not identical with the being it has insofar as it is outside its causes, so the truth of an act insofar as it is in its causes is not identical with the truth it has insofar as it is outside its causes. But if the other is supposed, namely, that the act is contained in the complex of causes in such a way that it is metaphysically impossible for the act not to follow, then the act would already be determined in its causes, and it is no longer intelligible how it could still be free and undetermined before it exists outside its causes.

In brief: this opinion is ruled out because a contingent thing, insofar as it is in its causes, is not subject to certain knowledge, since it is not determinately true (I, q. 14, a. 13).

On Bellarmine's view, see also I. M. HELLIN, Determinacion negativa in san R. Bellarmino. Estudios Eclesiasticos 10 (1931) 161-199.

2. God does not know absolutely future free acts in a decree of physical predetermination.

339. BILLUART, Tractatus de Deo, diss. 6 a. 4: “In what means does God know absolute, contingent, and free future things?” He answers (§ 2): “I say: God knows absolute, contingent, and free future things in His decree determining their futurition, or in His essence determined by such a decree.” Diss. 8, a. 2: “From eternity God preordained all our free actions, not only virtually and mediately, by decreeing to provide concurrence for them, but immediately in themselves. Yet He did so in different ways for good and evil actions: positively as regards their being and goodness in the case of good actions, positively as regards their being but permissively as regards their evil in the case of evil actions.” Article 3: “From where is the infallible efficacy of the divine decrees concerning our free acts to be derived?” He answers: “The infallible efficacy of the divine decrees concerning our free acts, especially good ones, comes from God's most powerful will and His supreme dominion over human wills, not from foreseen consent; or, as others say, the divine decrees concerning our free acts are efficacious of themselves and intrinsically, not indifferent in themselves.”

340. GOUDIN describes the physical motion of a creature corresponding to this divine decree as follows¹: “The Thomists think more profoundly about God and divine motion, teaching, with all antiquity, the foremost theologians and philosophers, and the principal academies of the world, that God not only cooperates with creatures and stirs free causes to act well by moral motions, but also physically, actively, and by a prior motion applies and moves all agents to each and every one of their actions. Thus, just as the heart breathes life, motion, and power into all the limbs, and when its influence is withdrawn all the faculties of life fall into paralysis, so divine providence breathes strength and efficacy into the whole world and all its active causes, applying their active powers by a certain prior, physical, and intrinsic impulse. If God withdrew it, all those powers would grow feeble, so that in the Church's sacred hymns He is rightly called Rerum tenax vigor [the steadfast strength of things]. This impulse they call physical premotion: motion, because all creatures are moved by it to act; prior, because it naturally precedes all actions; and physical, because it does not consist in those exercises and persuasions by which a human being can move another human being, or good angels can inwardly stir their charges to virtue, but in supplying an interior power and actively applying it, as will become clearer below. It is also customarily called physical predetermination, because by it the creature's active power is reduced from indifference and inactivity to a determinate act.” “Physical premotion² is an influx of the first cause received not immediately in effects but in secondary causes, by which God inspires them with actual efficacy and moves and applies them—not merely objectively and morally, by attracting and persuading, but also physically and actively, by inclining, applying, and determining them inwardly—to their ultimate activity, which is immediately followed by action. Hence it is called physical motion. But since the motion and application of an active power to act is prior in nature to the action itself, just as every road is prior to its terminus and every cause to its effect, that motion is called prior motion or premotion … By that influx God actively and properly makes the creature act, and makes it dependent on Himself—not as a co-cause on a co-cause, but as a secondary agent on the first agent, and as a subordinate and inferior cause on a superior cause by which it is applied and determined, and to which it therefore owes not only its effect but also its own cooperation in producing the effect.” “God³ not only gave and preserves the active powers of secondary causes and concurs simultaneously with them, but also applies them to act by a prior and physical application, rightly called physical premotion or physical predetermination.” When this physical predetermination moves and applies the will to supernatural acts, it is called intrinsically efficacious grace.

341. The doctrine can be stated as follows. The being and operation of creatures depend essentially on God, the first being and the first and most universal cause. Their power comes from Him and is preserved by Him, and He applies it to act; without this application, a creature's action is impossible. God moves all causes, necessary and free, to their second act. This motion is physical predetermination: pre-determination because it precedes the creature's own determination in nature and causality; pre-determination because it moves to a wholly determinate act (including free causes); physical predetermination because its causality is physical, not moral. This physical predetermination, received in the acting subject, is a created entity that gives the faculty the ultimate completion of its first act⁴; it is a virtuous motion⁵, an application of a power to act. Once this kind of physical predetermination to a free act is posited, the will infallibly performs that free act. It is metaphysically repugnant for the will not to act, not to perform this determinate act, or not to perform it freely; without physical predetermination, it is metaphysically repugnant for the will to act. This metaphysical repugnance arises from the internal nature of physical predetermination itself.

It is clear that, in a will predeterminated in this way, the second act is knowable with metaphysical certainty; the same holds for God's decree to predetermine a created will in this way. This, then, is the sense in which God is said to know absolutely future free acts in a decree of physical predetermination: by this decree God grounds the determinate truth of an absolutely future free act.

342. If we deny this doctrine, we do not deny it because it says that God knows a free act in His eternal decree, or that the truth of an act as absolutely future is grounded in the divine decree; we affirm that in the thesis's third part. Rather, we deny that such acts are known in a decree of physical predetermination, and specifically in physical predetermination as described above⁶.

343. Argument 1. God does not know an absolutely future free act in a decree of physical predetermination if that predetermination removes freedom. But it does so; therefore.

Proof of the minor. A free faculty as such is not determined to one thing in the antecedent sign prior to its own determination⁷; but by physical predetermination the will is determined to one thing in the antecedent sign prior to its own determination and independently of it; therefore it does not remain free.

Proof of the minor. The will is determined to one thing because this is a pre-determination; this determination precedes the creature's determination in nature and causality because it is a pre-determination; whether the free creature receives this or that physical predetermination, or any at all, does not depend on the creature.

It is confirmed by the authority of ST THOMAS. In the doctrine of physical predetermination, a free act is determinate and knowable as true in the antecedent sign before its futurition⁸, namely, in the physical predetermination or its decree, whose effect is the creature's free determination. But according to St Thomas, a contingent thing is not subject to any cognition with certainty unless it already exists in act (I, q. 14, a. 13); therefore that doctrine conflicts with St Thomas's authority.

344. But the argument assumes something false: physical predetermination is not only to the substance of the act, but also to its mode, namely, that the act be performed freely. Yet once predetermination to a free act is posited, it is metaphysically repugnant for the act not to be performed freely. Therefore physical predetermination not only fails to destroy freedom but precisely establishes it. ST THOMAS, I, q. 19, a. 8: “Since, therefore, the divine will is most efficacious, it follows not only that the things God wills to happen do happen, but also that they happen in the way in which God wills them to happen. Now God wills some things to happen necessarily and others contingently, so that there may be order among things for the completion of the universe.” On the second objection: “From the very fact that nothing resists the divine will, it follows that not only do the things God wills to happen happen, but that the things He wills to happen contingently or necessarily do so.”

I answer. It is affirmed in this doctrine, granted; for the defenders of this opinion in no way intend to deny freedom. That it can be established logically, I deny. For to be undetermined and at the same time determined in the antecedent sign before one's own determination seems to involve a contradiction. The created will would be undetermined in the antecedent sign before its own determination because it is free, yet determined in that same sign because of physical predetermination. Nor does it help to appeal in this matter to God's infinite power, since not even God can do what is impossible.

But the words of ST THOMAS quoted above are entirely true. He adds to the first words quoted: “And therefore He has fitted necessary causes, which cannot fail, to some effects, from which effects necessarily follow; but He has fitted contingent and fallible causes to others, from which effects follow contingently.” Hence only this follows: if God wills an act to be performed freely, He does not physically predetermine that act.

345. Yet even if we do not positively understand how freedom remains, we should not immediately say that it does not remain. We likewise do not deny God's immutability or His freedom, even though we do not positively understand how the two are compatible. BILLUART: “You will reply: Even if these points, especially that celebrated principle of St Thomas—that God's predefinition and premotion are not only to the substance of the act but also to its mode—show that freedom is compatible with this predefinition and premotion, efficacious of itself⁹, the manner in which we can understand this agreement is still not sufficiently explained. I answer: It is a mystery. Although it can be known with certainty that mysteries exist, it is not easy to explain how they exist” (diss. 8, a. 4, § 2, reply to the sixth objection).

I answer. Being determined and being undetermined at the same time seems more like a contradiction than a mystery. Besides, physical predetermination to free acts has in no way been proved, nor can it be proved. It is indeed true, and the Bañezians commonly prove this at length, that the human heart is in God's hand; that God can turn a person's will in whatever direction He wills; that God can move a person so that he infallibly chooses freely as God wills; that God's will is most efficacious; and that no one resists God's will. The Molinists readily grant all these points. But none of them proves that God moves the will to a free act by physical predetermination.

346. But just as it was said earlier about God's foreknowledge, that it does not impede freedom, so too one can say this about physical predetermination and the divine decree: there is a consequent, not antecedent, necessity, or a necessity of the consequence, not of the consequent; only antecedent necessity, or necessity of the consequent, removes freedom.

I answer. These things could be said if the decree of predetermination and predetermination itself already presupposed the creature's free determination, as foreknowledge presupposes it. But predetermination and its decree do not presuppose this determination; thus there is antecedent necessity and necessity of the consequent, which remove freedom itself.

Hence the distinction between the composite and divided senses cannot be applied in this doctrine to save freedom. Necessity in the composite sense with something that logically presupposes the creature's own determination does not destroy freedom, because it is consequent necessity. For example, in the composite sense with my own choice I cannot fail to choose; or in the composite sense with God's knowledge I cannot fail to choose. The first does not destroy freedom but is its very exercise; the second does not destroy it because it presupposes the creature's free determination. But necessity in the composite sense with something that does not presuppose one's own determination and is prior in nature to one's own determination is antecedent necessity, which destroys freedom.

347. But the Bañezians posit an antecedent supposition that causes the act and its mode (freedom). Such an antecedent supposition, which is the cause and origin of freedom, no more destroys freedom than the supposition of the act itself, which is the effect and sign of freedom¹⁰.

I answer. If supposition means physical predetermination or its decree (as it does for GONET, l. c.), there is antecedent necessity, which destroys freedom. The positing of the free act itself does not destroy freedom, because it is precisely the exercise of free choice. But the supposition that is physical predetermination is indeed said to be the cause of freedom; in fact, it destroys freedom. For it is (1) a supposition independent of the creature's use of free choice; (2) in the antecedent sign before the creature's choice, it determines the creature to one thing; and (3) once this supposition is posited, the act cannot fail to follow and no other act can follow. Before its futurition the act is already determined; there is antecedent necessity, and freedom is absent.

348. Argument 2. A particular difficulty in the Bañezian doctrine arises in the foreknowledge of a sinful act.

BILLUART (diss. 8, a. 5): “I say, first, that no evil as such, whether of nature, guilt, or punishment, is willed or caused directly and of itself by God … I say, second, that God wills and causes evil of nature and of punishment indirectly and accidentally, namely, on account of the good upon which it follows, and hence He can be called its author. But God in no way wills or causes the evil of guilt, even accidentally; He only permits it. Hence in no sense can He be called its author … The evil of guilt is a defect and proceeds from a defective principle. But God is not, and cannot be, a defective principle, since He is most perfect act … Yet because in sin, an accidental concrete, there are two things—an act and a defect, being and deformity or evil—and since God is not the cause of the evil, as was just said, the question now is how He relates to the act. The act is sometimes called the material of sin. This material can be taken in two ways: materially, for the physical entity itself considered precisely as such, or formally, for the entity itself as deprived of deformity. Therefore, when theologians say that the material of sin is caused by God, they mean the material taken materially, not formally. There are three opinions about the question proposed. The first holds that God does not positively concur in the act of sin, but only permissively; the second, that He concurs positively by simultaneous concurrence; the third, that He concurs by prior and predetermining concurrence, and thus predefines it from eternity. To resolve this, I say, third, that the first opinion must be rejected altogether; the second does not seem admissible, and only the third does … It remains, then, to adopt the third opinion: namely, that God physically premoves to the entity of sin and defined by a positive and effective decree that He would thus bring it about.”

After resolving the objections, he continues: “It is asked in what means God knows future sins. I already answered above, in the preceding dissertation, a. 4, reply to the second instance of the third objection, that God knows future sins in a twofold decree, permissive and effective. Since in sin there is something from God, namely, the act or effect, and something from man, namely, the defect, God does not see it in the effective decree alone, as He does a good act that is wholly from God; rather, He sees it in a decree partly permissive and partly effective, by which He decrees not to prevent the defect on the part of the created will and to move it according to this defective disposition.” Compare Scotus's explanation below, nr. 409; BÁÑEZ, nr. 329.

349. God, then, predetermines—or decrees from eternity to predetermine—the creature to a determinate act in which the creature will fail. Since this failure of the creature is a privation, it does not require predetermination; God permits this failure. But a human being will infallibly fail if he does not have predetermination to a good act. If God decrees to give a person predetermination to the material of sin¹¹, to the entity of the act, and at the same time to permit the formal aspect of sin, its evil (or not to give predetermination to a good act), then a sinful act, formal sin, infallibly follows. Thus, in the effective decree physically to predetermine to this act, God knows the entity of the sin; in the permissive decree of the failure (or of not giving predetermination to the good), He knows the evil.

According to this doctrine, then, God predetermines a person to the material aspect of some formal sin in such a way that the person can neither omit the act nor perform it without formal sin; in other words, so that this person infallibly commits formal sin. Hence the argument is as follows:

350. God predetermines a creature in this way either antecedently or consequently to some free evil will of the creature. If antecedently, this seems contrary to God's holiness; if consequently, the system itself is abandoned. Therefore this doctrine does not explain the foreknowledge of sin.

Proof of the minor. If antecedently, this seems contrary to God's holiness. For (1) to predetermine a creature independently of its evil will in such a way that it cannot avoid formal sin seems not merely to permit formal sin but to will it; for to permit formal sin in another presupposes that other's evil will. (2) To move someone, independently of his evil will, to desire something that under these circumstances cannot be desired without formal sin is morally wrong. Therefore, under these conditions, predetermining someone to the material of sin seems morally wrong.

If consequently to a foreseen free evil will, then it must already be granted that God certainly foreknew this evil will without a decree of physical predetermination; the system is abandoned.

351. BILLUART (l. c.): “You will object first: He is rightly considered the author and cause of sin who, by a prior concurrence efficacious of itself and infallible, moves and determines to the act of sin. But according to this third opinion God moves and determines to the act of sin by a prior concurrence efficacious of itself and infallible. Therefore … (The first reply is a retortion: the same applies to the opposing opinion. On this retortion, see below, nr. 356.) I answer, second, that although God physically premoves to the act of sin, He does not reach its evil but abstracts from it, because He premoves to the act of sin by a general motion in the physical order, as the first efficient principle; consequently He reaches only what in it is an effect and physical entity. But evil is not some being, nor does it belong to the physical order; rather, it is a defect, a privation, indeed a mere nothing, and consequently does not arise from a physically efficient principle but from a morally defective one, namely, the created will insofar as it is from nothing. This is illustrated by various examples. Thus the soul, by moving and premoving a crooked leg, causes the whole motion, but is not the cause of the defect of limping, which is attributed solely to the defect or crookedness of the leg.”

It should be said that the example illustrates the opposite more aptly. For one who moves a leg, which is by itself indifferent to walking straight or limping, in such a way that it limps is considered not merely to permit the limp but to will it. But one who moves a leg that is already crooked and can only limp need not will the limp, but can permit it. Similarly, if God moves a created will that is still indifferent, and can perform a free act in accord with or contrary to the order, physically in such a way toward a determinate act that it cannot perform this act without formal evil, He seems not merely to permit the evil but to will it. But if God moves a will that is already “crooked” antecedently to the divine motion, one could say that He permits the evil.

352. A little later BILLUART further explains that “God, as the first and universal principle of all being and good, moves the created will to an act that is being and good; but because the will of itself is in an improper disposition and deviates from the order of the first mover, it distorts His motion¹², whence an inordinate action follows. Thus God, as the efficient principle in the physical order, is prior in good things, while the created will, as the defective principle in the moral order, is prior in evil things. Hence some of our people have rightly observed that although the decree by which God determined from eternity to concur in the sinful acts of both angels and human beings, and the motion by which He moves them to this in time, may in a certain sense be called predefinition and predetermination, because He predefines the entity of the act and premoves to it, yet in another sense they may be called postdefinition and postdetermination, because God from eternity did not predefine the entity of the act to which evil is joined, nor premove to it in time, unless the created will first deviates from the order of the first agent and is in an improper disposition to receive the divine motion, from which an inordinate action follows—an action that otherwise would have been good and orderly.”

Therefore, because the created will first deviates and is in an improper disposition, God decreed to predetermine that will to the entity of the act to which evil is joined; if the will had not deviated first, God would not have so decreed. Hence the questions arise: Does God know this deviation of the created will in the antecedent sign before His decree? Is this deviation of the will by an act of will or without an act? And if it is by an act of will, did it have physical predetermination to that act? But if not by an act of will, whence comes that deviation and indisposition of the will? Does the system hold together?

353. BILLUART: “If you ask what this improper indisposition is, by which the will does not receive divine motion to a perfect act but to an imperfect one (on II Sent., dist. 37, q. 2, a. 1, reply to the second objection), I answer that, generally speaking, it is the defectibility of the created will insofar as it is from nothing. It has this from itself, not from God … This defectibility is increased in fallen nature by the very corruption of nature …”

But defectibility is not yet a deviation from the order of the first agent; it signifies only the possibility of deviation. Whence, then, does the deviation come? Was it also present in our first parents in the state of grace before the first sin, and in the angels?

354. BILLUART: “Third objection: It seems harsh and foreign to divine goodness and justice that God should from eternity define and in time premove a man balanced between a good and an evil action toward the evil rather than the good, and thus punish him eternally for sin. Therefore … I answer, second: I deny the assumption of the antecedent. The Thomists have never said or dreamed that God moves a man balanced between a good and an evil action toward the evil rather than the good. On the contrary, they have consistently said and say that it arises from the creature that he is determined rather to an action joined to evil than to its opposite, and that God never determines to the material of sin unless the creature has first in some way determined itself to the formal aspect; for God, as universal provider, moves each thing according to its need and disposition. Consequently, He moves to an evil action only a will that is badly disposed of itself and demands to be moved in this way, so that the improper disposition of the will objectively determines God to move to an evil act.”

Therefore, the creature whom God predetermines to the material of sin was not balanced between a good and an evil action, but is badly disposed and demands such predetermination; for it first determined itself in some way to the formal aspect of sin. The questions already raised recur: Does God know the evil disposition, and how does He know it? How did the creature determine itself? By an act, or without an act, and so on? Does the system hold together?

355. At the end of his answer to the second objection, BILLUART says: “If you say that an acting free agent cannot be moved physically unless it is also moved morally and by the presentation of an object, otherwise it would act without knowledge and necessarily, I answer: that is so. But in evil acts this moral motion, because it is defective, is not from God but from the defective cause, namely, either the devil, a human being, or one's own concupiscence, although God effects what has being in it. The mode of moral motion is distinguished from the causation of the entity as such. Once that defective moral motion is posited, and some inconsideration or inadvertence on the recipient's part intervenes, God's physical influx into the will itself begins, toward what has being in its act.”

Is this inconsideration or inadvertence necessary or free? Is it in some way culpable, or is it without any fault on the creature's part? Apply this to human beings or angels before sin. Is it by an act or without an act? Is it by physical predetermination or without it? Does the system hold together?

356. A common reply to our argument is retortion, namely, that the same difficulty occurs in every doctrine that attributes to God concurrence in the act of sin and a decree of such concurrence. But the retortion does not hold. The difficulty in the Bañezian doctrine does not arise from God's concurring in the act of sin at all, but from physical predetermination, efficacious of itself, by which the creature is already determined to one thing in the antecedent sign before its own determination, and from the absolute decree of this predetermination. The concurrence taught by the Molinists, however, is not by its nature a predetermination to one thing, and their absolute decree to actualize the determinate present order presupposes knowledge of conditionally future things. Therefore there is an essential difference precisely in those points that are the foundation of our argument.

3. God knows absolutely future free acts, given His knowledge of conditionally future free acts, in a decree to actualize the conditions.

357. MOLINA¹³: “According to what we explained in the preceding disputation's first conclusion¹⁴, we must say that through the divine ideas, or the divine essence known as the primary object, all contingent combinations are naturally represented with certainty to God, who comprehends both his own essence and each thing contained in it infinitely more perfectly than in itself in a most profound and eminent way, before every act and free determination of the divine will—not only according to possible being, but also according to non-absolute future being, under the condition and hypothesis that God establishes this or that order of things and causes, with these or those circumstances, by creation. But when the free determination of the will is added—not a determination by which it determines created free choice to one side of the contradiction (as Scotus and others hold), but one by which, leaving that free choice free and wholly indifferent to reach out its hand in whichever direction it wills, it determines to create this or that order of things, causes, and circumstances, in which these or those free causes exist—He knows all contingent combinations with certainty according to absolute and simple futurity, without any longer having a hypothesis or condition. Thus we differ from Scotus because we think that the reason God knows with certainty which side of the contradiction will be future in each of the contingent combinations that depend on created free choice is not a determination of the divine will by which He bends and determines created free choice to one side or the other. Rather, it is the free determination by which He decides to create free choice in this or that order of things and circumstances. Nor do we think this determination alone is a sufficient reason for His knowing with certainty which side of the contradiction will be future in each of these combinations. The reason is this together with His comprehension in His essence of every created free choice through natural knowledge. By this comprehension, before the determination of His will, He knows with certainty what such free choice will do by its own freedom, on the hypothesis and condition that He creates it and places it in that order of things, although it can, if it wills, do the opposite. And if it were going to do so, as it can, God would by that same knowledge and comprehension of free choice in His essence have known this, and not what He in fact knows the free choice will do. Thus, since positive contingent combinations that depend on free choice cannot exist in the nature of things unless free choice is created, God's knowing absolutely and without a hypothesis that they will be future depends on the free determination of His will by which He decides to create free choice at such and such a time, in such and such an order of things and circumstances. But since free choice, created and established in that way in that order of things, remains free to incline to one side or the other, unless God by the loftiness, excellence, and perfection of His natural knowledge, through which He comprehends all things in His essence in a most eminent way, penetrated it so as to see which way it would incline by its innate freedom, while it could, if it willed, incline to the opposite—and if it were going to do so, as it can, God would see that—He would not know determinately which side of the contradiction would be future in such contingent combinations. Therefore both things are necessary for God to know this with certainty, and both belong to Him by His perfection, which is not only infinite and immense but also unlimited in every respect. By reason of this perfection, just as it falls under His omnipotence to be able to make creatures endowed with free choice and masters of their acts, as we perceive in ourselves by experience, so it also falls under His immense and in every respect unlimited knowledge, by which He comprehends in a most lofty and eminent way whatever falls under His omnipotence, to penetrate created free choice in such a way that He surely discerns and sees which way it will incline by its innate freedom.”

“The knowledge by which God knows absolutely, without any hypothesis, what will in fact be future through created free choice is always free in God and depends on the free determination of His will, by which He decides to create such free choice in this or that order of things” (Disp. 52; pag. 341).

358. Explanation and argument. The doctrine is this: God knows what the creature would choose under these or those circumstances, as was proved positively and independently of any particular theological opinion in thesis 8. God freely decrees to actualize these or those circumstances. By that very fact, it is no longer merely true that “Peter would act in this way,” but that “Peter will act in this way.” The truth of an absolutely future act as absolutely future and actual is grounded in this divine decree; in other words, God knows this truth in this decree. In this way the matters requiring explanation are reconciled: there is certain and infallible knowledge of an absolutely future free act; created freedom is truly preserved, since the explanation rests on the fact that conditionally future free acts are known, and nothing is present that determines the will to one thing in the antecedent sign before its own determination; God's perfect dominion and causality are preserved, since the entire actual order, in all its actuality and everything realized in it, depends on God's free decree, and God cooperates in every action of creatures, so that nothing having being—not even the creature's own free determination—escapes God's universal causality.

359. Objections to this doctrine often arise because no attention is paid to God's absolute free decree, which the Molinists posit and on which the whole actuality of the present order is founded.

Other arguments commonly adduced to prove a divine decree concerning motion that is efficacious by its nature, intrinsically (physical predetermination), are invalid. Let one example suffice.

BILLUART (diss. 8, a. 3): “In Esther 13:9 and 11, Mardochai, praying to God to turn the heart of King Ahasuerus, hostile to the Jews, says: Lord, almighty King, all things are placed in Your power, and there is no one who can resist Your will if You have decreed to save Israel … You are Lord of all, and there is no one who can resist Your Majesty. And in ch. 14:12ff. Queen Esther prays thus: Lord, King of the gods and of all power … turn his heart to hatred of our enemy¹⁵. And in ch. 15:11 it is added: And God turned the king's spirit to gentleness. These words clearly refer the infallibility and efficacy of God's decree or will to His omnipotence, not to Ahasuerus's foreseen consent. Hence Augustine, considering these words in To Boniface 1, ch. 20, says: He turns and transfers the king's heart from indignation to gentleness by a most hidden and efficacious power.”

I answer. Therefore God's will is most efficacious, and God can bring about whatever He wills, including the free acts of creatures, as He wills: I grant. That God effects or can effect such free acts through a created being efficacious by its nature and intrinsically, such as physical predetermination: I deny. There is not even a hint of this in the passages, and the same must be said of the other passages. Nor does it follow, merely because God is said to work inwardly in a person's mind, will, or heart—a point the Molinists plainly grant—that God works by physically predetermining. This is precisely the question on which the resolution of the controversy depends.

In all arguments of this kind, whether from Sacred Scripture, the Fathers, or reason, one must always consider whether physical predetermination, as described above, is really proved. Hence the general reply to such objections is always: “God does this by physically predetermining”: I deny.