Sentences, Books I–II

Chapter 1 (175).

1. Whether God's knowledge can increase or diminish, or in any way change: either seems capable of proof. Moreover, it is often asked whether God's knowledge can increase or diminish, since either seems capable of proof. That divine knowledge can increase or change is argued as follows: God can know something he never knows. There is someone who will not read today, yet it may happen that he does read today, for he can read today. But nothing can happen that God cannot know. God can therefore know that this man will read today; he can know something he does not know; therefore his knowledge can increase or change. — It likewise seems possible that the man will not read; therefore God can fail to know that he will read today. He can then fail to know something he knows; therefore his knowledge can diminish or change.

2. Reply with a distinction. We say that God's knowledge is altogether immutable and can neither increase nor diminish. For, as Augustine says in Book XV of The Trinity¹, «God's knowledge is wisdom itself, and wisdom is God's very essence or substance; for in the wondrous simplicity of that nature, to know is not one thing and to be another, but what it is to know, that is to be.» Therefore the Word knows all that the Father knows, just as the Son's being is not from himself, so neither is his knowing. The Father, as it were, speaking himself, begot the Word equal to himself in all things; for the Word would not have expressed the Father wholly and perfectly if anything in it were less or greater than in the Father. The Word is therefore wholly what the Father is, yet is not the Father, for the one is Son and the other Father. The Father and Son know one another: the Father by begetting, the Son by being born. Each sees all things that are in their knowledge, wisdom, and essence all at once—not piecemeal or separately, as if their gaze shifted here and there, then back again, or from one thing to another, so that they could not see some things without failing to see others. Rather, they see all things together, and there is nothing they do not always see and know. His knowledge, then, cannot be lost or changed. — «Our knowledge, however, can be lost and acquired, because for us being is not the same as knowing. Just as our knowledge differs from God's knowledge, so our word, born from our knowledge, differs from the Word born from the Father who is Knowledge.»

3. This authority clearly shows that God's knowledge is altogether unchangeable, as God's essence is altogether unchangeable, and that the Father and Son, with the Holy Spirit, know and see all things together. Therefore, just as the divine essence cannot increase or diminish, neither can divine knowledge. And yet it is allowed that God can know what he does not know, and fail to know what he knows: something that is not might become the object of his knowledge, or something that is might cease to be its object, without any change in that knowledge itself.

Chapter 2 (176).

1. Objection: whether God can come to know or foreknow something at a new time. Some raise the following objection: If God can know or foreknow something he has never known or foreknown, then he can come to know or foreknow something in time.

2. Our reply. God can indeed know or foreknow everything he can do, and he can do something that will never happen; therefore he can know or foreknow something that will never happen, and that neither exists nor has existed. He does not know or has not known it, nor does he foreknow or has he foreknown it, because his knowledge concerns only things that exist, have existed, or will exist, and foreknowledge concerns only future things. Although he can know or foreknow something that never exists and never will exist, he cannot begin to know or foreknow it; rather, he knows or foreknows it now in the same way that he could have known or foreknown it from eternity.

¹ minui V, minui vel mutari R. 15 quia] quae BCLM.]

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If you say that he can now know or foreknow something he did not know or foreknow from eternity, meaning that he did not know or foreknow it from eternity, as though both could be true at once, that is false. But if you mean that he can now know or foreknow something he did not know or foreknow from eternity in the sense that he has from eternity the power to know and foreknow, and now knows or foreknows something, that is true. He cannot therefore begin to will something at a new time; and yet he can will what he has never willed.

Chapter 3 (177).

Whether God can know more things than he knows. Some also say that God can know more things than he knows. They say that he can do certain things without being able to know all that he knows, and so can make things unknown to him. For if all the things that now exist were joined by certain other things that do not now exist, and he knew them all, without doubt he would know more than he now knows; and he could know them all without any change in his knowledge. It is therefore clear that God's knowledge is wholly immutable, cannot increase or diminish, and has all things present to it.

Chapter 4 (178).

1. What seems contrary to the statement above that God always knows all things together. What was said above¹, namely that God always sees all things together, seems opposed to what Jerome says in his Commentary on Habakkuk²: «It is absurd to lower God's majesty to the point that he knows at every moment how many gnats are born or die, how many fleas and flies there are, how many fish swim in the waters, and the like. Let us not be such foolish flatterers of God that, while we drag his providence down even to the lowest things, we insult ourselves by saying that he has the same providence for irrational creatures as for rational ones.»

Here Jerome seems to say that God has no knowledge or providence of these very small creatures; if so, then he does not know all things together and always.

2. How Jerome's foregoing words should be understood. We should know that Jerome's statement denies that God knows these things successively or piecemeal. He does not know them at different moments of time in the way that some of them perish and others begin at different moments. Nor does he provide for these and other irrational creatures in the same way that he provides for rational creatures. Does God, indeed, as the Apostle says¹, care for oxen? Just as God does not care for oxen, neither does he care for other irrational creatures in that special way. Yet Scripture² says that he cares for all things. He therefore has providence and care universally for all that he has made, so that each thing receives what is due and fitting to it. But he has a special providence and care for rational creatures: to them he gave precepts, prescribed a law for right living, and promised rewards. He does not have this kind of providence and care for irrational creatures. That is why the Apostle says God does not care for oxen. Still, he provides for all and cares for them—that is, governs all things—making his sun rise for everyone and giving rain³. God knows how many fleas, gnats, flies, and fish there are, and how many are born and die; but he does not know this at separate moments, rather he knows all things together and always. Nor does he know them in such a way as to have the same providence for irrational and rational creatures, that is, to provide for them in exactly the same manner. For he gave precepts to rational creatures and assigned angels to guard them.

3. Brief summary of what has been said, with some additions. God knows together and immutably all things that were, are, and will be, both good and evil; he also foreknows all future things, both good and evil.

4. What predestination is and how it differs from foreknowledge. Predestination concerns saving goods and human beings who are to be saved. For, as Augustine says in his book On the Predestination of the Saints⁴, «predestination is the preparation of grace, which cannot exist without foreknowledge; foreknowledge, however, can exist without predestination. For by predestination God foreknew the things he himself was going to do; but God also foreknew things he would not do, namely all evils.» He predestined those whom he chose, while the rest he reprobated, that is, foreknew as going to sin and to eternal death.

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