De Deo uno

360. God knows not only absolutely future free acts but also conditionally future ones; it must therefore still be shown in what means He knows them. The points established in the third part of the preceding thesis do not depend on this “explanation” of ours, since they rest only on the fact that God certainly knows conditionally future free acts. That fact is not removed because we cannot explain it, or because our explanation may not seem acceptable.

What is meant by conditionally future free acts, see above, nr. 255;

in the antecedent sign is that which is prior by nature or in conception, on which something else depends, and which can be fully conceived without conceiving the other;

the futurition of an absolutely future free act is the future positing of the free act itself; the futurition of a conditionally future free act is the conditional positing of the act;

what to know in means, see above, nos. 292f. The thesis therefore means that the truth of a conditionally future free act is not determinately grounded in what is prior, by nature or logically, to the choice itself. The thesis's form is indeed negative, but its second part sets out the positive opinion.

361. 1. The opinion that BELLARMINE considers probable for the knowledge of absolutely future free acts—namely, that they are known in a cause immediately ready to act—is consequently applied to conditionally future free acts, and would amount to knowledge in a sign antecedent to their futurition.

362. 2. By analogy with their explanation of the truth of absolutely future free acts, the BAÑEZIANS posit divine decrees of physical predetermination for conditionally future acts, subjectively absolute but objectively conditional.

BILLUART, diss. 6, a. 6, § 10: “Since up to this point we have proved that God does not know conditional future things by middle knowledge before the decree, but in the decree itself, subjectively absolute and objectively conditional, which determines the conditional futurition of things; and since our opponents attack such decrees with all their strength and deny that they exist in God, it remains, to complete this famous controversy, to show with unanswerable arguments that they must be admitted … A decree in God, also called predefinition and predestination (taking predestination in a broad sense), is nothing other than a free volition or determination of the divine will, efficacious and infallible yet gentle, concerning future events. It is twofold: absolute and conditional. An absolute decree depends on no condition, either on the subject's part or the object's part, and is expressed absolutely by the verb ‘I will’; for example, I will create the world; I will save Peter. A conditional decree depends on some condition and is expressed under it. This, in turn, is twofold: conditional on the subject's part and conditional on the object's part.

“A decree conditional on the subject's part occurs when the person making the decree does not in fact have the will to do something but would have it if a certain condition were posited, as when I say: I would like to hunt if I were not a cleric; I would like to go to Rome if I did not have gout. Such a decree is therefore only a wish: nothing is actually decreed, but the decision is deferred to the future if the condition is posited. A decree conditional only on the object's part occurs when the person making the decree has an actual volition to do something, but execution is suspended until a certain condition is posited: I will give Titius a thousand florins if he marries my daughter. I will give Caius my horse if he calls on me tomorrow.

“No one denies that there are absolute decrees in God concerning future events … Moreover, it is certain that there are no decrees in God conditional on the subject's part, since they involve the imperfection of potentiality and suspension, which are repugnant to God. The question, then, concerns only subjectively absolute and objectively conditional decrees that determine the conditional futurition of things. I say: Decrees in God that are subjectively absolute and objectively conditional, determining the conditional futurition of things, must be admitted.”

Such a decree, then, could be rendered as follows: “I absolutely decree physically to predetermine Peter to this free act if the Gospel were preached to him,” that is, “if I willed to send him a preacher”; or: “I absolutely will this, if I were to will that.”

363. Argument 1. In the antecedent sign before its futurition, a free act is not yet determined and is not yet determinately true; therefore it is not yet determinately knowable (ST, I, q. 14, a. 13).

Argument 2. (Especially against the Bañezian opinion.) Since those decrees, subjectively absolute and objectively conditional, are decrees of physical predetermination, they do not leave true freedom; and when sins are at issue, they either seem contrary to God's holiness or cannot be maintained logically, as was shown in the preceding thesis. It should again be observed that these decrees are not to be rejected precisely because they are “decrees,” but because they are decrees of “physical predetermination.”

It is also rightly said that such decrees—subjectively absolute and objectively conditional, of the kind the Bañezians posit to support their opinion—are not found in Sacred Scripture. Although the Bañezians compare their decrees with those found in Sacred Scripture and consider them to be of the same kind, there is this difference: in the decrees found in Scripture, the condition at issue does not depend on God alone, nor does God make those decrees in order to know or be able to know what would happen if the condition were fulfilled. For example, Genesis 18:26 says that He would not destroy Sodom if fifty just men were found there. But the decrees asserted here by the Bañezians are conditional on a condition that depends on God alone, and God makes them so that in them He may know the conditionally future free act. But again, the principal reason for rejecting them is that they are decrees of physical predetermination.

364. How, then, is the matter to be conceived? A conditionally future free act is determinately true and has determinate truth, since it is determinately known by God¹. But it is not true, nor is it known, in the antecedent sign before its futurition, as has just been proved. Therefore it is true, and can be known, only in the futurition itself. As every truth must be grounded in God, so too must the truth of a conditionally future free act. Hence it must be shown how this truth, which is distinct from the truth of possibles, is grounded in God; by that very fact we learn (in accordance with what was said above, nos. 292f.) in what means God knows it. But its foundation is not God's essence simply, as it is the foundation of the truth of possibles; rather, it is God's essence together with a relation of reason to the conditionally future act. The truth of the conditionally future free act is grounded in God precisely through that by which its being conditionally future—its futurition—is grounded in God, namely, through God's concurrence conferred hypothetically. For a conditionally future free act, as an act conditionally future, is nothing other than divine concurrence conferred conditionally, considered in its term. By this hypothetical concurrence, or by God's hypothetical will to concur in this way, the being and truth of the conditionally future act are grounded in God; and in this conditionally conferred concurrence God knows the truth of the conditionally future free act. God's knowledge of this conditionally future free act—“If Peter were in these circumstances, he would do this”—can therefore be rendered as follows: “If I placed Peter in these circumstances, I would concur in this act.” Thus the truth of a conditionally future free act is grounded in God, not in something prior to the conditional positing of the act, but in something absolutely simultaneous with it, so that neither is freedom harmed nor is the creature independent of the first cause. As said above, the determinate truth itself of the conditionally future free act is not proved in this way; rather, on the supposition that it is true, it is shown how this determinate truth is grounded in God.

Objections

365. 1. A difficulty arises concerning that conferred concurrence and God's knowledge in that concurrence.

In the antecedent sign before that concurrence is conferred, God either knows the creature's determination or does not know it. If He knows it, the creature's determination would have to be presupposed in the antecedent sign before the divine concurrence, and the creature's essential dependence on the Creator in acting would be removed. If He does not know it, God concurs blindly, which is unworthy of God. Therefore the explanation is impossible.

I answer. As to the major: I grant that the disjunction is complete, and I choose the second member. As to the second member of the minor, I distinguish: God would concur blindly in some improper sense, namely, blindly in the same sense in which a human being blindly determines himself (for before performing an act even a human being neither knows nor can know which act he is going to perform): I grant. But I deny that anything unworthy of God follows from this, since in that sign the determination is not knowable. He would concur blindly in the proper sense, which would introduce a privation in God; I subdivide: if God concurred with the creature as one creature with another—namely, by cooperating extrinsically, contributing part of the effect, and cooperating in something that follows the creature's determination—I grant or pass over. If He concurs in a way essentially different, namely, by working intrinsically as the human being himself does, producing the whole act and precisely producing the choice itself, I deny or ask for proof. With the same distinction, I distinguish the consequence: the explanation would be impossible if God concurred with the creature as one creature with another: I grant or pass over. If He concurs in a way essentially different, and precisely different in those respects from which the need for prior knowledge in cooperating agents arises when one creature cooperates with another, I deny or ask for proof.

Since we form our concepts of dependence and cooperation according to the dependence and cooperation found among creatures, and know the creature's dependence on God and God's cooperation with the creature only by inference, we must think of God's cooperation with the creature by means of the concepts we form from creatures—that is, according to the mode of dependence and cooperation found among creatures. We then deny the imperfections proper to the cooperation of creatures, but even in this denial our concepts remain essentially the same. Among the imperfections to be denied in God's cooperation with a creature in a free act of will are these: in the cooperation of creatures, individual cooperating creatures never physically produce the whole effect, but only parts of the total effect; and there is never cooperation in physically producing the very determination of the will, but only in producing something that already presupposes it. Because of these imperfections in the cooperation of intelligent creatures, the total effect must be known beforehand. And because we think of God's cooperation with the creature according to the mode of such cooperation, the proposed difficulty must arise. But we know that this difficulty arises precisely from, and is grounded in, that imperfect mode of thought. Therefore it cannot be proved to be present objectively, and for this reason our explanation cannot be shown to be impossible. At the same time, we know that the “difficulty” remains and must remain as long as we have to think about God's cooperation by means of such concepts. It cannot be “solved” directly unless we immediately perceive the creature's dependence on God and God's cooperation with the creature in themselves. The proposed solution is nothing other than an application of what was said in nr. 118².

366. 2. Then the final answer is the same as the Bañezian one: it is a mystery. But if this must be admitted, the arguments brought against them in this and the preceding thesis no longer seem effective.

I answer. The parity between those “mysteries” must be denied. For the Bañezians are concerned with physical predetermination, a created entity received in a subject and prior by nature to the subject's determination. In that case, before its determination the subject would already be determined to one thing on the one hand and, because it is free, undetermined at the same time on the other. This does not seem to be a mystery but a contradiction: the same thing is affirmed and denied of the same thing in the same respect. In our explanation, however, the question is not about some created entity distinct from the creature's free act and prior to it by nature, but about God's very intrinsic cooperation in producing that whole act, which is the creature's free determination; moreover, it can be shown that the difficulty arises from our way of thinking. If the Bañezians merely affirmed that God, as first cause, cooperates intrinsically in the created will to produce a free act, that could be granted. But if they add that God acts by physically predetermining, it must be denied, because created freedom is not preserved.

367. 3. But in the doctrine proposed, although created freedom is preserved, divine dominion does not seem to be preserved sufficiently; for in the explanation given, it is the creature, not God, that determines what will be. But this seems contrary to God's supreme dominion; therefore.

I answer. As to the antecedent: that dominion of God which is established by revelation and reason is not preserved, I deny; the dominion some people have invented for themselves, I set aside.

As to the proof: I distinguish the major. The creature determines what is actual: I deny. What would be the case under certain conditions: I subdivide. Independently of God: I deny; with essential dependence on God: I grant. I contradict the minor: it is contrary to God's supreme dominion if the creature determines what is actual: I grant; what would be the case under certain conditions: I subdivide. If the creature determines this independently of God: I grant; if with essential dependence on God: I deny.

God's dominion must be conceived as it truly is, not as someone might imagine it. We know best what it truly is from the sources of revelation. In them, God's dominion never appears as requiring that the creature be determined by a physical created entity that, prior by nature to the creature's self-determination, determines it to one thing; on the contrary, revelation teaches the creature's freedom. Any conception of God's dominion that cannot be reconciled with the creature's freedom is therefore erroneous. So too would be erroneous any conception of God's dominion from which physical predetermination, efficacious by its nature or intrinsically, logically followed, since, as stated, it would not leave created freedom intact. God's dominion is greater than to need physical predetermination.

Hence it is not right to say that the Molinists do not proceed scientifically: in order to resolve a difficulty—namely, the difficulty concerning created freedom—they call evident principles into question, such as the principle of universal divine causality, of absolute independence, and the like. The Molinists do not call evident principles into question; rather, they say that those principles are conceived or applied incorrectly if physical predetermination logically follows from that conception or application. They say this not in order to resolve a difficulty, but because what is contained in the sources of revelation must be the theologian's foundation and norm. It is therefore certain that a “principle,” or an application of a principle, that does not agree with some revealed truth is false. But revelation establishes the reality of freedom with certainty. Hence physical predetermination cannot be admitted; hence the principle of God's absolute independence and universal causality, if conceived or applied so that physical predetermination logically follows, is either conceived falsely or applied falsely. This is the path followed by the Molinists, not to establish their own system, but to show that the Bañezian system cannot be admitted.

Rather, a methodological defect seems to underlie the system of Bañezianism. “Our opponents invent a priori some conception of God as supreme Lord and first free agent, with which the existence of created freedom conflicts; hence they commit a methodological error like that of the Occasionalists, who form a conception of God as first cause with which all created causality conflicts, or even of the Pantheists, who posit an idea of the absolute being that excludes the coexistence of contingent beings”³.

368. 4. The explanation given in this thesis of conditionally future free acts seems readily applicable to absolutely future free acts as well. Thus one would arrive at the system of con-determination (above, no. 334) for these acts, and the explanation proposed in the third part of the preceding thesis would not be needed.

I answer. If the only question here were how to reconcile divine foreknowledge with created freedom, perhaps one could say that. But divine providence is also at issue, and it necessarily requires that God already know in the antecedent sign before the absolute decree of this present order what would be future in such an order. Therefore the system of con-determination could be admitted if it presupposes and employs middle knowledge; but if it neither presupposes nor employs it, it is insufficient.