Scotus Academicus, Tomus secundus: De Deo Intelligente et Volente

This present Section embraces huge and almost innumerable waves of difficulties, like a second Ocean full of sandbars and rocks; and it is all the more dreadful and dangerous in that, up to now, many too-curious investigators of this divine Science, having fallen into open heresy and foul error, have made a lamentable shipwreck of the faith; so that each of them could justly exclaim with the Royal Prophet: I have come into the depth of the sea, and the tempest hath drowned me. Hence St. Augustine, the summit and eagle of theologians, fixing his mind's gaze upon this inscrutable and uncertain knowledge of future things, is so weighed down by the weight and majesty of its rays that he bursts forth into these words lib. 11. Confessionum, c. 19.:

What manner is that by which Thou teachest things to come, to whom nothing is future, or rather dost Thou teach present things about the future? For what is not, cannot by any means be taught. That manner is too far from my sight. It hath prevailed beyond me; I shall not be able to reach it; but I shall be able through Thee, when Thou shalt have given the sweet light of my eyes;

and so, even if sacred Scripture and the doctrine of the holy Fathers shine upon us and irradiate us, we undertake to unlock as best we can this inscrutable divine knowledge.

Four things are resolved in the following Questions, in the First of which it will be resolved whether God certainly knows future contingents; in the Second, by what means, known beforehand, He knows them; in the Third, whether this certainty of divine knowledge does not impede the contingency of things and human freedom; in the Fourth, finally, whether things are future because God knows them; or on the contrary, whether God knows future things because they are future.

Note 1. Being is commonly wont to be distributed generally into necessary and contingent. That is called necessary which has so firm an existence from itself that non-being is repugnant to it, in the way in which God alone and all those things which surround the divine Essence are said to be necessary; for non-being is repugnant to them. But that is called contingent which can be or not be, and just as it was produced from nothing, so it can cease and pass away into nothing, in the way in which all creatures are said to be contingent. Moreover, the contingency of things can be considered either in order to the first cause or to the second. In the former way all creatures and all their effects are absolutely contingent; for just as God freely produces creatures, so He freely concurs in the production of their effects. In the latter way, since the order of natural causes is twofold — some of which are natural and necessary, namely those which, with all things required for acting being posited, necessarily produce their effects, so that unless they are hindered by the First Cause through the denial of His divine concurrence, they cannot be moved away from the production of their effects nor be retarded; others, however, are free, namely those which, with all circumstances desirable for action being posited, can freely determine themselves to acting or not acting — the effects of the former causes, namely of the natural ones, are said to be necessary, that is, by order to the second cause, by which they are necessarily produced, although they are contingent absolutely by order to the first cause, which can impede their production; but the effects of the latter causes, namely of the free ones, are altogether contingent by order to both causes, as much the First as the Second. And it is especially about these that the present Question is moved, namely whether God certainly and infallibly knows all contingent effects according to whatsoever circumstances of them.

Note 2. That is called future which, although it does not really have actual existence, nevertheless will have it at some time according to the determination of the divine will and the certain connection which it has with the causes from which it can be produced. Hence there is a threefold genus of future effects, according to the threefold disposition of causes. For first, there are some causes from which the effect necessarily follows, unless they are hindered in their operations by the First Cause, such as, v. g., the vicissitudes of days and nights; the eclipses of the Sun, the Moon and certain other stars, which, since they have a certain and determinate connection with their causes, can even be known demonstratively. Second, there are some causes from which effects follow for the most part, inasmuch as those causes are more determined to one thing than to another, and from these conjectural knowledge about future effects can be had. Third and finally, there are some causes which are altogether indifferent to either effect, such as all free causes are, from which the future effect can scarcely be known. When, therefore, we ask whether God certainly knows future contingents, the discourse is especially about effects of the third genus.

Note 3. According to the Doctor, quaest. 14. of the Quodlib., artic. 2., Litt. S., this order can be distinguished in the divine cognition of created things: that after the divine Essence moves the divine intellect to the cognition of itself and of all those things which are formally in God, first it moves that intellect to the simple cognition of created being, inasmuch as it abstracts from existence and has only the notion of an intelligible and possible being, which motion is necessary, not contingent. Second, the divine intellect as it were exhibits and offers those possible creatures to the divine will, as if demonstrating to it that such creatures can exist or not exist; and in this sign the divine will decrees the future existence and production of such creatures for such a time: with that decree posited, the divine Essence immediately exhibits to the divine intellect itself the determinate future existence of those creatures, and so the divine intellect certainly knows the futurition of contingent things: not that it is moved by the things themselves; for then it would be degraded, if it were moved by something other than the divine Essence; but in the way in which the divine Essence moves to the cognition of future contingents: with this difference, however, that to the cognition of the former it moves antecedently to the operation of the divine will, but to the cognition of future contingents it moves only consequently to the determination of the divine will itself, from which all the contingency of things proceeds.

These things being presupposed, there is a celebrated controversy among Theologians and pagan Philosophers whether God certainly knows future contingents; for Cicero denied the foreknowledge of future things in l. 2. De Divinatione; and he was incited to this opinion especially by the fact that, as St. Augustine says in lib. 2. De Civit. Dei, cap. 6.,

He judged that both could not be true; but if one is confirmed, the other is taken away; if we choose the foreknowledge of future things, the free choice of the will is taken away; if we choose the free choice of the will, the foreknowledge of future things is taken away. He himself, therefore, as a great and learned man, and consulting most expertly for human life, chose from these two the free choice of the will; and that it might be confirmed, he denied the foreknowledge of future things: and thus, while he wishes to make men free, he made them sacrilegious.

The Stoics fell into the same error, as the holy Augustine, cited above, reports. And among the heretics, John Wycliffe, art. 27., and Luther, art. 36., as well as other sectaries of our time: although some of them subject all things to fate not so much on account of divine foreknowledge as on account of the efficacy and immutability of the divine will: against all of whom stands.

Only conclusion. — God certainly and infallibly knows all future contingents. This is of faith and is proved by open texts of Sacred Scripture. Ps. 138.: You have understood my thoughts, and you have searched out my cord, and you have foreseen all my ways: Daniel. 13.: Eternal God, who are the knower of hidden things, who know all things before they are made: Eccles. 23.: The eyes of the Lord are much brighter than the Sun, surveying all the ways of men, that is, they survey them more clearly than the Sun, and, beholding the depth of the abyss and the hearts of men in their hidden parts; for to the Lord God all things are known before they are created; and cap. 39.: The works of all flesh are before him, and there is nothing hidden from his eyes, from eternity to eternity he looks, and nothing is wonderful in his sight. — It is confirmed likewise from those texts which proclaim God's frequent predictions about future things. Hence also the foreknowledge of future things is wont to be called Divination, because, as Origen says in lib. 5. contra Celsum, the prediction of future things is the mark and character of Divinity: and Tertullian in the Apologetico cap. 20.: The truth of divination is a suitable testimony of divinity: which the Lord himself confirms in Isa. 41., where, to demonstrate the emptiness of the pagan deities, he says: declare the things that are to come hereafter, and we shall know that you are gods: and cap. 44.: I am the first and I am the last, and apart from me there is no God; who is like me? Let him call and declare and set forth in order to me, from the time I appointed the ancient people, the things that are to come and the things that shall be; let him declare them to them; whence the holy Augustine, cited above: To confess that God exists and to deny that he has foreknowledge of future things is the most manifest madness. — All the Prophecies which the divine Scripture itself contains prove the same thing; for the prophetic light is a certain participation in divine foreknowledge: whence Tertullian, lib. 2. contra Marcionem cap. 5.: The foreknowledge of God has as many witnesses as he has made Prophets.

The same truth is proved by reason. God certainly knows whatever is knowable; for since he is infinite and unlimited in every genus of perfection, his divine cognition must especially be infinite and unlimited: but future contingents are truly knowable, because they are truly future; and whatever is true is equally knowable. The minor is proved: whatever truly exists at the time at which it is, was truly future with respect to the whole time antecedent to its existence; for the future is nothing other than that very thing which is called present for that time at which it in fact exists, and future with respect to the preceding time, and past with respect to the subsequent time: therefore, just as its being present is true, or just as it is true that it is present with respect to the time with which it coexists, so likewise it is true that it is future for the antecedent time and past for the subsequent time.

It is proved 2. Of two contradictory propositions about a future contingent, even a singular one, one is determinately true, the other is determinately false: therefore they are likewise determinately knowable by God. The consequence is clear, for God can know whatever is knowable: but everything true is knowable, and consequently can be known by God. The antecedent is proved: first, because one is determinately conformed to the object and the other is not conformed; for from the fact that the thing either is or is not, at the time at which it is signified to be or not to be, the proposition signifying this is conformed or not conformed to the object, and so is true or false. Second, if an indeterminate and uncertain truth hung between both propositions, and only the disjunction, Peter will sin or will not sin, were true, it would follow that each member of this disjunction taken separately is false: but this is evidently impossible. For if Peter will sin is false, then the other, which says Peter will not, will be true, because it is conformed to the object. Third, it implies a contradiction to give a middle between two contradictories, because it implies a contradiction to give a middle between being and non-being, that is, between being and not being: therefore it also implies a contradiction that one of the two contradictories, which affirms or denies that a thing is, should not be judged true or false, whether it affirms or denies for the present time, or for the future, or for the past; for it would be no less contradictory for a thing to be future or not to be future, past or not to be past, than to be present or not to be present: therefore, since the signified thing is at once future and not future, and it is not only indeterminately future or not future, but is truly distinctly future or distinctly not future: the consequence is that if it is not future, the proposition which denies that it is future is true distinctly and determinately; but if it is future, the proposition by which it is affirmed to be future is determinately true, and the other by which it is denied to be future is determinately false. Fourth, every proposition revealed by God is determinately true and not only indeterminately true or false: but God reveals one of the two contradictory propositions about a future contingent: therefore that one is determinately true, and consequently is determinately knowable by God.

It is proved 3. God certainly knows future contingents when they receive existence at their determinate time and are produced by him: for he operates ad extra as an artisan; but an artisan knows the thing before he makes it, and so God also knows the things which he must produce, otherwise he would act without providence and wisdom: therefore he knows them even long before they are produced. The consequence is clear, otherwise divine knowledge would be mutable and would take increase according to the existence of things, which is altogether unbecoming of God. — St. Augustine presses this argument wonderfully lib. to Aurelius contra Priscillianistas et Origenistas cap. 8., where, after he had said these words of John: all things were made through him, he concludes:

Therefore God knew all things which he made before he made them; for we cannot say that he made things unknown to him and learned them only after they were made: that he did not know what he would make, but knew what he made. For if we said this of some artisan, we would think most foolishly. He knew, therefore, that they were to be made; he did not know them as made, in order to make them, not because he had made them. Accordingly, although they were already known, because they would not be made except by one who knows, nevertheless they did not begin to be made, which were known to be made before they were made.

They object 1. The heretics and philosophers, especially Wycliffe. If a proposition about a future contingent is determinately true or false, it follows that it is not indifferent, nor consequently contingent: for that is contingent which can be or not be: therefore either one proposition is not determinately true, or there is no contingency in things.

I distinguish the antecedent. That it follows that it is not indifferent to truth or falsity, I concede: that it follows that it does not signify a thing indifferent and contingently existing, I deny: for although the proposition is true or false, nevertheless it connotes a thing contingently, although determinately, future: for these two are not repugnant, that an effect be contingent and at the same time determinately future. For it is called contingent on account of the indifference of the cause in actu primo; but it is called determinately future on account of the determination of the same cause in actu secundo, because, namely, that cause which can operate and not operate will in fact operate, and will freely determine itself to the production of the effect at the time signified by that proposition.

They object 2. Several texts of Sacred Scripture, in which God speaks doubtfully about future things, which is an indication that he did not certainly know them, as Matt. 11.: They will perhaps fear my Son: and Jer. 26.: Do not withdraw a word, if perhaps they will hear.

I answer 1. that by this particle "perhaps" there is not signified a doubtful cognition about future things: but first, to show the free choice of man, by which the divine word can be heard or not heard; for the ambiguous word (forsitan), says Jerome on cap. 26. of Jeremiah, cannot suit the Majesty of the Lord, but he speaks in our manner of feeling, so that man's free choice may be saved. 2. To designate the greatest malice of man, from which scarcely anything good can be expected or produced. For so St. Augustine, in tractate 37. in Ioannem, interprets these words, if you knew me, perhaps you would know my Father also; he, he says, because he knows all things, when he says perhaps does not doubt, but rebukes: it is a word of doubt when it is said by a man doubting for this reason, because he does not know; but when it is said by God, since nothing is hidden from God, by that doubt unbelief is reproved, the Divinity does not opine. 3. That Sacred Scripture may signify that the outcome of future things is uncertain to men; whence St. Augustine in Psal. 2., explaining those words: Lest perhaps he be angry, says: perhaps is not properly said on account of uncertainty; but by reason of those who are admonished, who are wont to think with doubt of God's future wrath.

They object 3. If there were in God a certain and infallible knowledge of future contingents, vain and idle would be providence and the solicitude of men as much about temporal as about spiritual things; for whether we are solicitous about them or not, they will infallibly come to pass, since divine foreknowledge cannot be deceived.

I deny the consequence. For when God foreknows and predefines some future effect, he at the same time foreknows and defines the causes and means by which it must come to pass, and so he indeed knows that it will infallibly come to pass, but through such causes and such means: whence, since human industry and solicitude is one of those means and causes by means of which things, spiritual as much as temporal, must be done and come to pass, it must necessarily be employed as much in spiritual as in temporal things: according to that of 2. Peter 1.: Strive to make your calling certain through good works.

They object 4. With Marcion, in Tertullian lib. 2. cap. 5.

If God is good, prescient of the future and powerful to avert evil, why did he permit man, and indeed his image and likeness, yes even his substance, through the census, namely, of the soul, to slip from obedience to the law into death, circumvented by the Devil? For if he is both good, who would not will such a thing to happen: and prescient, who would not impede that it would happen, and powerful, who could drive it away, in no way would that have happened which could not happen under these three conditions of the divine majesty. But if it has happened, it is settled on the contrary that God is to be believed neither good, nor prescient, nor powerful.

Tertullian himself answers in the same place cap. 6. and following, that God was indeed prescient of the future transgression of Adam, which, although he could have prohibited it, he ought not to have, lest, namely, he should injure man's liberty; It was fitting, he says, cap. 6., that God be known as good, and this certainly also as rational.

It was fitting that there be something worthy which would know God. What so worthy could be provided for than the image and likeness of God? And this was good without doubt and rational. It was fitting, therefore, that the image and likeness of God be established with free choice and its own power, in which this very thing, the image and likeness of God, would be accounted, namely, the freedom and power of choice..... For of what sort would it be that man, possessing the whole world, would not first reign in the possession of his own soul, lord of others, servant of himself..... Therefore the whole freedom of choice was conceded to him in both directions, so that he might constantly meet as lord of himself, both by voluntarily preserving the good and by voluntarily avoiding evil; since also, with man otherwise placed under the judgment of God, it was fitting that he render that judgment just from the merits of his choice, namely a free one. Moreover, neither the reward of good nor of evil would be rightly weighed out to him who had been found good or evil by necessity, not by will. For this reason too the law was established not confining but proving freedom, by voluntarily rendering obedience or voluntarily committing transgression; so in both outcomes the freedom of choice lay open.

To these things Tertullian concedes that God had to commit man to his own choice, so that he might thence be rewarded with the prize, if he were an observer of the divine Law, and be subjected to punishments, if he turned out a transgressor. For he could not coerce man without rescinding the freedom of choice conceded to him, which he had permitted by reason and goodness. Which certainly was unbecoming of him.

They object 5. If God knew future contingents, it would follow that foreknowledge of things is to be admitted in him: but the consequent is false: therefore so is the antecedent. The minor is proved from St. Augustine, lib. 2. of the quaestionum ad Simplicianum, q. 2.: What, he says, is foreknowledge except knowledge of future things? But what is future to God, who surpasses all times? For if he holds the things themselves in knowledge, they are not future to him, but present; and through this it can be called not foreknowledge, but knowledge.

I answer. That St. Augustine by these words does not deny to God the cognition of future things, but only wills that divine cognition, since it has all things in its view, should rather be called knowledge than foreknowledge. With him St. Gregory agrees, lib. 2. of the Moralium cap. 25., where he proposes and dissolves the same question thus:

He is said, he says, to foreknow who sees each thing before it comes, and foresees that which is future before it becomes present, etc. But how is God prescient, when nothing is foreknown except things which are future? And we know that to God nothing is future; before whose eyes there are no past things, present things do not pass away, future things do not come to be, since, indeed, everything that was and will be for us is present in his view, and everything that is present he can know rather than foreknow. But soon, because he sees the things that are future to us, and yet they are not always present to him, he is called prescient, although he in no way foresees as future what he sees as present.

— With whom Boethius also agrees, writing thus:

But to God there is always an eternal and present state. His knowledge also, having surpassed every motion of time, remains in the simplicity of its own foreknowledge: and, embracing the infinite spaces of the past and of the future, it considers all things as if they were now being done, in its simple cognition. Therefore, if you wish to weigh the foreknowledge by which he discerns all things, you will more rightly judge that it is not foreknowledge, as it were, of the future, but knowledge of a never-failing instant.

They object some other reasons by which they strive to prove that divine foreknowledge greatly harms the contingency of things and the liberty of men; but we will expressly propose and solve them in the third following Question: but first let there be

Since every act of knowledge necessarily presupposes a formal object moving the intellect to form it, otherwise something would be known without a reason for knowing it: so whenever the knowledge is certain, it likewise requires a formal notion in the object that is altogether certain, otherwise the object would be known more perfectly than it is knowable. It is asked, therefore, in the present circumstances, what that certain and infallible formal notion may be which has so necessary a connection with the uncertain future contingent that it infallibly moves the divine intellect to the knowledge of it. In resolving this difficulty the most keen-sighted theologians labor diligently, and so that their various and manifold opinions may appear more clearly

Note 1. Future contingents are conceivable in two ways, namely either in themselves, or in their causes. In themselves, indeed, either by reason of the determinate truth which they have in themselves and in their objective or entitative being, or by reason of the presence and existence which they have; or in the divine Essence in which they are represented, or in the divine ideas. In their causes, however, either in the proximate and created causes by which they are to be produced, or in the uncreated cause, insofar as they are contained virtually in the divine Omnipotence, which can bestow on them true and real existence. Moreover, according to either mode they can be considered either antecedently to the divine decree, or in the divine decree itself, or after the divine decree: whence the various opinions of the theologians concerning the resolution of the present question can be reduced chiefly to three heads. For some affirm that future contingents are known by God in their objective truth; others, in the divine ideas; others, however, in their entitative being antecedently to the divine decree, namely through that infinite power of God's understanding which penetrates and knows what each created will placed under any state and condition will determinately will. Some judge that they are known in the divine decree foreseen before it is in fact formed. Finally, the rest contend that they are seen by God only in the divine Essence and Omnipotence, the divine decree about their futurity being first presupposed; but what is to be held more truly will appear below.

Note 2. In order that something may be able to have the character of a means leading to the knowledge of another thing, two things are chiefly required. First, that it precede by at least a priority of nature and causality the very thing which it makes known: for if it were purely concomitant and correlative to it, it could not lead to the knowledge of that thing; because since correlatives are simultaneous in knowledge and in nature, they would be known simultaneously, and either could be the reciprocal reason for knowing the other, as is evident in the case of mutual relations, namely Paternity and Filiation. Second, that which has the character of a means of knowledge with respect to another thing must have a necessary, or at least an infallible, connection with it; otherwise it would not be lawful to infer the one from the other: for since the knowledge of one thing from another, or in another, is equivalent to a virtual discourse; and since no discourse is legitimate unless the consequent has an infallible connection with the means and the antecedent: it is necessary that the means which certainly and infallibly leads to the knowledge of another thing have a necessary, or at least an infallible, connection with it.

Note 3. Propositions about a future contingent are determinately true, or false, from eternity for every real instant; so that no real instant can be assigned in which God has not determined Himself, absolutely or conditionally, concerning the futurity or non-futurity of all possible things. Whence, when it is asked whether God knows future contingents before or after the decree, by those particles before and after is signified not a real priority and posteriority, but a priority and posteriority of reason with some foundation in reality, namely by reason of dependence on, or independence from, the decree. Whence to affirm that God knows future contingents before the decree is the same as asserting that He knows them independently of the decree. Hence three signs or instants of reason can be distinguished in the divine Knowledge, in the first of which God knows Himself with knowledge wholly divine, namely by intuitively beholding His divine Essence and all His divine excellencies. In the second He knows all possible things through the knowledge of simple intelligence, antecedently to any decree of His will, namely by determining nothing concerning the futurity and existence of things. In the third, however, He knows future things with the knowledge of vision, namely with a decree about their production going before.

It is asked, therefore, whether in the second sign of reason, in which a decree about the futurity of things is not yet conceived as formed, God knows future contingents either in esse entitativo, which they will have in themselves, or in esse obiectivo which they have in Himself, or in the decree to be formed, but not yet formed and exercised, about their futurity, or in the divine ideas representing future things; or finally whether He knows them only after His divine decree has been formed, and insofar as they are contained virtually in the divine Omnipotence, or in the divine Essence representing them.

Since, however, it would be too laborious, and foreign to our undertaking, to discuss each of those opinions individually, therefore, striving for brevity and deeming it worthwhile to strengthen our own opinion rather than to overthrow the foundations of others, let this suffice:

Only conclusion. — God infallibly and determinately knows future contingents in His Essence, the decree about their futurity being first presupposed. This is the common opinion among the faithful interpreters and followers of St. Thomas and of the Subtle Doctor: and the Subtle Doctor openly teaches it in 1. dist. 39. q. unica n. 23., where, after he had expressly proved that the divine will and the divine decree are the primary root and cause of the futurity and contingency of things, he proposes two ways in which the divine intellect can be said to have known those future contingents: First, that God sees in Himself the decree and volition about the things to be produced, and likewise sees that the divine will is immutable and cannot be impeded; and consequently sees that those things which He decrees to be future are truly future: He proposes, however, another way of speaking, namely that those future contingents are known only in the divine Essence, after the decree about their futurity has been formed, and this by a simple intuition. He rejects, however, the former way as less probable, because it seems to argue some discourse in God; for this knowledge, which God would thus have of future contingents, seems to be deduced in this manner: It is decreed that this be future; but what is decreed is invariable, because my will is immutable; therefore this will certainly be future; which inference is truly discursive and unbecoming to God. Whence the Doctor, proposing another more probable and truer way of speaking, says:

It can be put otherwise, that the divine intellect either offers simple things, one of which is contingent in reality: or if it offers a complex, it offers it as neutral: and the will choosing one part, namely the conjunction of these for some now, in reality makes that determinately true: this will be for that now. This being determinately true, the Essence is the reason for the divine intellect to understand that truth: and this naturally, as far as it is on the part of the Essence. So that just as it naturally understands all necessary principles, as it were before the act of the divine will, because their truth does not depend on that act, and they would be known by the divine intellect if per impossibile it were not willing: so the divine Essence is the reason for knowing those things in that prior instant of nature, because then they are true. Not indeed that those truths move the divine intellect, nor even their terms, to apprehend such truth: because then the divine intellect would be debased, since it would suffer from something other than its essence: but just as the divine Essence is the reason for knowing simple things, so also such complexes; but then they are not true contingents, because there is nothing then through which they have determinate truth. Once, however, the determination of the divine will is posited, they are now true, namely for that second instant, and this same will be the reason for the divine intellect which there was in the first (of understanding those things) which are now true in the second instant, and would have been known in the first instant, if they had been in the first instant.

By these words the Doctor lays open the whole order which the divine intellect and the divine will observe in decreeing and certainly knowing the futurity of contingent things; so that first the divine intellect offers to the will the concepts of possible things, which can exist or not exist, namely if the decree of the will comes or is denied: Then, the divine will freely determines itself to produce some of them, and decrees their futurity; which being done, the Essence, from its infinite power of representing any true being, immediately exhibits and represents to the divine intellect the futurity of those things as to be certainly known; and so, in the mind of the Doctor, the divine intellect does not know certainly and infallibly the futurity of contingent things except in the divine Essence and with the divine decree presupposed. — The Angelic Doctor embraces and defends the same opinion, as the more skilled modern interpreters of him contend; and Gonet confirms the matter with many texts and arguments of that Angelic Doctor, Disp. 1. De Scientia futurorum contingentium, art. 5., but especially from lib. 1. Contra Gentes cap. 68. in the second argument, where the Angelic Doctor reasons thus:

God, by knowing His essence, knows other things, just as effects are known through the knowledge of the cause; therefore God knows all things by knowing His essence, to which His causality extends; it extends, however, to the operations of the intellect and of the will; therefore God knows the thoughts and affections of the mind. And in argument 3. he speaks thus: Just as the being of God is first, and through this the cause of every being: so His understanding is first, and through this the cause of every intellectual operation. Just as, therefore, God by knowing His being knows the being of anything whatsoever: so by knowing His understanding and willing, He knows every thought and will, that is, nolition. Finally he concludes: And so causality remains in the first cause, which is God, with respect to the movements of the will, so that God, by knowing Himself, can know things of this kind.

From these passages that argument can be deduced according to St. Thomas: God knows the free acts of our will in His essence as in a cause: but the divine Essence is not their cause except as determined through the free decree of His will, since God is not a natural agent but a free one; therefore, according to St. Thomas, God knows the free acts of our will in His decree.

The Conclusion is proved. First, indeed, by the authority of the holy Fathers expressly affirming that the foreknowledge of future things is founded on the decree of the divine will; and this first from St. Dionysius, already often praised, affirming that God knows all things in His essence as in a cause; but the divine Essence is not the cause of futurity except insofar as it is determined through the free decree of the divine will. For God does not act from the necessity of nature, but from the good pleasure of His will, according to that saying of the Apostle to the Ephesians 1. He works all things according to the counsel of His will: therefore God knows all future contingents in His essence, the decree of His will being first presupposed. — It is confirmed from St. Hilary 9. De Trinitate: What God, he says, decreed to do, He knew in His will. Likewise from St. Augustine, lib. 26. Contra Faustum cap. 4., where, giving the reason why he does not know whether something will be future, he says: Therefore I do not know, because what the will of God holds concerning this matter is hidden from me: that, however, does not escape me, that it will without doubt be future, if the will of God holds this. Which consequence would be null, if the foreknowledge of good works were not founded on the decree of the divine will: therefore it is truly so.

It is therefore proved by reason. Future contingents cannot be known before they have the character of future; but they do not have it without the divine decree being presupposed; therefore they cannot be known before the divine decree. The major is evident, for a thing is knowable in the way in which it is, and so future things cannot be known determinately before they are conceived to have determinate futurity. The minor is proved; The decree of God is the first root and first principle of the determinate futurity of things: therefore antecedently to it things can neither be, nor be conceived as, determinately future. The Antecedent is proved: that is the first root and first principle of the determinate futurity of things which first leads them from the state of possibility to the state of futurity: but that is the divine decree itself: for since God is not a natural agent but a free one, He does not operate, nor does He produce anything, except from the free determination of His will; and consequently, since possible things are of themselves indeterminate to existing or not existing, they are not determined to future existence except through the divine will. — It is confirmed: creatures can be considered in a threefold state, namely of possibility, of futurity, and of existence; in which states they necessarily depend on God as on the first Principle; in the state indeed of possibility they depend on the divine intellect first producing them in esse intelligibili, and completely on the divine omnipotence, which can produce them; in the state of futurity they depend on the divine decree, determining the power of God to bestow on them existence at such a determinate time: in the state, however, of existence, they depend on the actual influx of God producing and conserving them in esse: therefore, just as it is repugnant that something be possible independently of the intellect and power of God, and existent independently of the actual influx of God: so likewise it is repugnant that something be, or be conceived as, future independently of the divine decree, whether absolute or conditional.

Proof 2. If contingent things were determinately future antecedently to the absolute or conditional decree of God, such futurity would belong to them either from themselves and from their own nature, or from the causality of God, or from the efficacy of another cause; but neither of these can be asserted. Not indeed the first; then because it would follow that those future things would be necessarily and ex natura rei, not indeed freely and contingently; and so God could not bring it about that future things were not; for what belongs to something from itself and from its own nature belongs to it necessarily, nor can it be impeded by God. Then because things have futurity from eternity from the same principle from which they have existence in time; but future contingents do not have existence in time from themselves, nor from their own nature; therefore neither futurity from eternity. Not even the second; for since God is not a natural agent but a free one ad extra, no causality can be in Him, nor any conceived, antecedently to the decree and free determination of His will. Not, finally, the third; for since secondary causes depend on the determination and concurrence, if no causality and determination concerning creatures existed in God, as in truth none exists before the divine decree about producing them, likewise no efficacy can be conceived in the secondary causes from which that determinate futurity of things could proceed.

Finally; This same truth is proved from the brief but efficacious overthrow and refutation of the other opinions. If future contingents could be known by God before the decree, then chiefly first either in His Ideas, as Egidius Romanus teaches in 1. dist. 38., asserting that God knows future contingents before the decree in His ideas, or in His essence precisely, insofar as it has the character of an idea or of an impressed species; or secondly in the supercomprehension of secondary causes and of free choice, as Molina asserts in Disputation four, saying that God, antecedently to His decree and the determination of His will, by His infinite power of understanding penetrates and knows what each created will placed under any state and condition will in fact will, and toward which part it will incline; which penetration and most perfect knowledge of the human will he therefore calls supercomprehension, so that the divine knowledge may be distinguished from the angelic, which, although it comprehends the will of man, nevertheless does not know in it our free acts; or thirdly; He would know them in the decree as future and to be formed in the following sign or instant of reason, as Suarez teaches lib. 2. De Scientia Dei, cap. 8.; or finally in the objective truth of those future contingents, which Vasquez and some other recent authors say they have independently of the divine decree; but neither of those can truly be affirmed; therefore it remains that those future and free contingents be known in the divine Essence, with the divine decree presupposed.

The minor is proved with respect to the first part. God cannot know creatures either in His ideas, or in His Essence having the character of an idea, except in the way in which they are represented in it; but antecedently to the decree creatures are not represented in the divine Essence as future, but only as merely possible; therefore in it they cannot be known as determinately future, but only as merely possible. The major is evident. The minor likewise; then because all things antecedently to the divine decree are in the state of mere possibility, and are indifferent to futurity or non-futurity; then because the divine Essence antecedently to the decree represents naturally and necessarily, and such representation belongs to the natural knowledge and that of simple intelligence, not indeed to the free knowledge and that of vision; and so such knowledge would be necessary, not indeed free. Nor does it matter that the divine Essence antecedently to the decree has infinite power in representing; for from that it follows only that it represents all things which are representable, and in the way in which they are representable. Whence, since antecedently to the divine decree about the futurity of things nothing is representable as future, but only as possible: therefore neither can they be known in them certainly and infallibly. The foundations of Molina will be proposed and solved, by overthrowing middle knowledge, of which he boasts so greatly, but vainly, as devised by himself. — The third part of the same aforementioned minor likewise appears false: then because the decree of God cannot be conceived as future: therefore neither can God know future contingents in His decree as future in the following sign: then because, in order that God might foreknow His decree, He would have to distinguish, in our manner, instants of reason in the indivisible instant of eternity: but this is repugnant to the perfection of the same divine intellect, namely that it should distinguish those things which in reality are not distinct a parte rei: then because if God, in a sign of reason antecedent to the existence of His decree, knows it as future, He will know it as future necessarily and not freely: but this is absurd and repugnant to divine freedom: The sequel of the major is clear: because what is known as future must be known as determined in its cause to exist in the following instant: but in that sign, in which God would know His decree as future, that decree would not be determined freely but necessarily; otherwise it would have to be determined through another decree, and so on to infinity; for every free determination of the divine will is a decree: therefore, etc.; then finally because if the divine decree had the character of future, it would have it either in its actual entity, or in its termination: not the first, for this is repugnant to divine immutability: not even the second, because in the termination futurity is not understood unless futurity is also understood in the term; but in the term of the divine decree no futurity is understood prior in reason to the decree being posited: then because the term, or object, of the divine decree is the futurity of created existence: but created existence has this futurity prior in reason to the decree being posited: then because if such an object had the being of futurity before the decree, it would have that being either from itself, or from another: but neither can be said, as was proved above: therefore it can in no way have future being antecedently to the decree.

— Fourthly, finally, the same minor is clear with respect to the last part, namely that future contingents cannot be known in their objective truth antecedent to the decree: then because objective truth consists in the connection of the predicate with the subject; but in the sign antecedent to the divine decree no such connection can exist, since there is no cause, neither divine nor created, which joins them together: not indeed a created one, as is clear; not even a divine one, because this would be either the divine intellect or the divine omnipotence; but not the intellect, for that is not the cause of the futurity of things: nor even the omnipotence, which does not operate concerning creatures except consequently to the divine decree: therefore likewise in that sign there is no determinate objective truth of things contingently future: then because every determinate objective truth is necessarily founded in some being; for truth is a property of being: but there is no being in which that objective truth of contingent things could be founded before the decree: for it would be founded either in esse which they have in themselves, or in esse which they have in their causes. Not the first, for contingents, as long as they are future, have no being in themselves. Not even the second, for since the secondary causes, from which they could proceed, are indeterminate and impedible, neither can they have certain and determinate being in them.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF SUAREZ ARE SOLVED.

He objects 1. Suarez: God conceives by reason that His will can will, before He conceives it as willing: therefore He can also conceive by reason that it will will, before conceiving it as now willing. It is confirmed by the example of an Angel, whom if God had created from eternity as operating, God could know him by reason beforehand as about to will for another sign, because He would first have known that he could will, before that he de facto wills. — I deny the consequence: For more is required to conceive something as to be posited, than to conceive it as positable: for to this latter is required something determining the positable itself to being posited: but with respect to the divine decree nothing can be conceived that would determine it to being posited, or from non-future to being future. — To the confirmation: I deny the parity; for on the hypothesis that God had created the Angel from eternity as operating, v. g. as loving, He would de facto indeed first know such dilection as posterior, and in a certain way future with respect to the nature of that Angel, because in creatures being is prior to operating; and this especially since the substance of the Angel and its dilection are measured only per accidens by eternity, as by a measure not proper and essential to them: but it is otherwise with God, in whom being is not prior to operating, and whose essence as well as operation and decree are measured by eternity, as by a measure proper and essential to Him.

He objects 2. For the divine decree to be known as in the future, it suffices that in some sign it abstract from actual existence; and in this way it truly abstracts in the first sign of eternity, in which it is not yet conceived as posited: therefore in this first sign, by reason before it is posited, it is conceived as future: the minor is evident, for in that sign of reason the divine will is not yet conceived as determined to create, v. g., man; for it is conceived as determining itself to this creation only in a posterior sign. — I answer 1. by denying the major: for that something in some sign be seen as future, it does not suffice that for that sign it abstract from being; for precisely from the fact that it abstracts from being, it is not deemed more future than not future; since even non-futures and mere possibles abstract from being. Therefore beyond the abstraction from being, there is required for the notion of future that something be given from which it can be determined from possible to futurition: but nothing before the divine decree can so determine: therefore neither can it have the notion of future. — I answer 2. That would indeed be true if that instant were a real sign and in quo, but not if it were a sign of reason and a quo, as in fact it is. For that sign in quo the divine will is conceived as indifferent to forming the decree about creating or not creating man is not a real sign, but one of reason, and therefore does not suffice for the true notion of future; otherwise the Son could be said to be future with respect to the Father, because in the sign of origin and of reason the Father is conceived before the Son.

He objects 3. In that prior sign, in which God precedes His free decrees and is conceived as having the knowledge of simple intelligence, this proposition, God will not decree in the following sign to create the world, is false: because it is not conformed to its object and consequently its contradictory, namely, God will decree in the following sign to create the world, is true: therefore the decree about the creation of the world in that prior sign is determinately future, and consequently is knowable as such by the divine intellect. — I answer 1. God does not precede His free decrees by some priority and instant in quo, but only a quo. Second, it is false that of contradictory propositions one is determinately true and the other false in a sign preceding the divine decree, because nothing is future before that decree. Third I say: indeed one or the other of the contradictories must be verified for any instant of real duration; but not for any instant of nature, or of reason; for in that prior sign one can prescind from both; which is evident by the example: for in the prior sign, in which humanity is prior to risibility, there is neither risibility, otherwise the nature itself would not be posterior, nor non-risibility, otherwise it could not belong to humanity:

Finally he objects: God for that sign of reason in which He is not yet conceived as having the free decree, comprehends His essence and will: but He cannot comprehend it unless in it He knows His decrees as future in the following sign; since comprehensive knowledge is most perfect, it must extend to everything that is contained in its object: therefore since the decrees are directly contained really in the will and essence of God, God cannot know His essence and His will without likewise knowing His decrees.

I answer 1. That inference would be true if some priority in a real instant were given between necessary and free acts; and it would be true that God in a real instant would first know Himself, before He formed the decrees; but since that supposition is false, that also which is inferred from it is false.

I answer 2. That although God in that prior sign, in which only natural acts are conceived, and free acts are not yet conceived, comprehends His essence; yet He is not said to know His decrees as future; for since the divine will in that sign is conceived as indifferent and indeterminate toward the production of things, it cannot be a means for determinately knowing those decrees; for in an indifferent and indeterminate principle, a certain and determinate effect cannot be known.

The foundations of others are set forth, and are resolved.

The Assertors of the last opinion object: the reason and force of contradiction necessarily brings it about that one of two contradictory propositions is determinately true and the other determinately false, as these propositions, If Paul be called at such a time and occasion, he will truly consent: And if he be called at such a time and occasion he will not consent, are truly contradictory for that prior sign antecedent to the divine decree; therefore for the sign prior to the divine decree, one of them is determinately true and the other determinately false, and consequently it is knowable by God before the decree.

I answer 1. By distinguishing the major: the reason of contradiction requires that one of the contradictories be determinately true and the other determinately false for every real instant, I concede: for every instant of reason, I deny: and the minor being conceded, I deny the consequence.

I answer 2. By denying the minor: namely that those propositions in the sign antecedent to the divine decree are contradictory, because for a contradiction, the essence of the proposition must necessarily be supposed. But since before the decree nothing at all is future, or not future; therefore neither is there then the essence of a proposition which would enunciate the thing as future or not future for that sign, and so neither is there a contradiction.

They insist: Truth and falsity are properties of the proposition, as is taught in Logic: therefore they must belong to the proposition for every imaginable sign in which this proposition can be conceived: but those propositions can be conceived antecedently to the divine decree: therefore in that sign they are true, or false.

I distinguish the major. truth and falsity are properties of the formal proposition, I concede: of the material, I deny: but in that sign antecedent to the divine decree they are not propositions formally, but only materially. Or otherwise, truth and falsity are respective properties of the proposition, I concede: absolute, I deny: for just as equality together with inequality are properties of quantity, not indeed absolute, but respective; because one quantity is said equal or unequal by order to another which it exceeds, or by which it is exceeded: so likewise truth or falsity are said to be respective properties, because they are taken by order to the object, so that from the conformity or difformity which they have to it, they are true or false. Whence if the object in some sign of reason is not determinately future, or not future, even the propositions will not be determinately true or false, but indifferent to truth and falsity.

You will object 1. In general against the Conclusion: if divine Knowledge of contingently future things were founded in the divine decree and presupposed it, it would follow that the Knowledge of Vision is formally distinguished, and is a divine attribute distinct from the Knowledge of simple intelligence: but the consequent is false: therefore also the antecedent. The sequence of the major is evident, for the distinction of the sciences is sought from the part of the means and motive; but the motive of each science would be diverse: for that one would know possible things in omnipotence, but this one would know them in the decree.

I deny the sequence of the major, and I distinguish its proof. The sciences are distinguished by diverse motives and means in quibus, I concede; a quibus, I deny: that is, they are indeed distinguished by diverse means in which they are formally represented, but not by those a quibus such representation is, as it were, causally. But those sciences behold their objects in the same means, namely in the divine Essence, which represents possible and future things, the former indeed to be seen through the knowledge of simple intelligence, the latter through the knowledge of vision. Therefore although the motives a quibus are diverse, namely because things are not completely possible except through omnipotence, nor are they future except through the divine decree; yet they should not be distinct sciences, because both Omnipotence and the Decree of God are only, as it were, conditions applying His intellect to seeing possible and future things through that distinct Knowledge of simple intelligence and of vision.

You will object 2. God knows future sins: but He does not know them through His decree: therefore He does not know future things through the decree. The minor is evident; for God does not decree future sins, otherwise He would be the author of sin. — I distinguish the minor. God does not decree future sins by an absolute and positive decree, I concede; by a permissive decree, I deny: and so the divine decree is twofold, one indeed Positive, which decrees to concur positively to the physical entity of any action, whether good or evil: the other Permissive, by which He has determined to permit the malice of sin, namely by not suspending His concurrence to that physical action from which such malice follows; because it is of the notion

of universal Providence, that it permits some defects both in the natural and in the moral order, so that from this the beauty of the universe may shine forth more, and the order of justice may appear. Whence St. Augustine in the Enchiridio, c. 5: Nothing is done unless the Omnipotent wills it to be done, either by Himself doing it, or by permitting it to be done: by the former decree He does not decree sin, but only by the latter.

You will press: For something to have the notion of a means leading to the knowledge of another, it must have a certain and infallible connection with it; but the permissive decree does not have a certain connection with future sins: therefore through it God cannot certainly foreknow sin. The major is evident: The minor is proved: The permissive decree imports two things, namely the purpose of concurring to the entity of sin, and of conferring on the part of the first cause everything that is necessary for the second cause to act. Moreover, it also imports the suspension of efficacious help for resisting temptation, or for performing the commanded act of virtue: but the permissive decree in neither of these ways has a necessary connection with future sin: not indeed because of the suspension of help, otherwise it would follow that the human will with only the general concurrence would be determined to evil, and could not produce any moral good; nor yet because of the purpose of concurring to the entity of sin, otherwise God would be the author of sin, because He would cause that from which the malice would necessarily be caused: therefore through the permissive decree He cannot know future sin.

I deny the minor. and also the minor of that proof, for God in both ways sees future sin: first indeed by reason of the denied efficacious help, because to such denial sin infallibly follows, not by a physical consequence and of causality, but by a consequence, as it were, logical and of inference. For since that will cannot overcome grave temptations without efficacious help, it follows that at its denial the will is overcome and consents to sin. God likewise sees the same in the purpose of concurring to the physical entity of sin, because since this entity has a connection with the sinful moral act, it follows that in concurring to this entity God also sees that moral deformity which is connected to it. Yet it does not thence follow that He is the cause of sin, because He does not per se concur to that deformity; for the reason that that is not an effect, but a defect, as we will open more fully in the following Disputation on the divine will:

This celebrated question was debated not only by the theological Doctors and by all the more recent among the holy Fathers, but also by the more skilled pagan philosophers, some of whom, as was observed in the previous Question, being unable to reconcile divine foreknowledge with the contingency of future things and with human freedom, denied to God the foreknowledge of future things: others, however, said that there is no contingency in things, and no freedom in men, but that all things come to pass by a certain blind necessity. From which it is evident how difficult is the resolution of the present Question, and how far it escapes the weak grasp of the human mind, unless it is first illumined and strengthened by the light of faith. In order, therefore, that this hidden truth may shine forth more evidently

To be supposed 1. The foreknowledge which God has of things that are to be freely future is not productive of those future things, nor does it influence their futurition in any way; rather, it presupposes them, just as the effect follows the cause. For this divine foreknowledge is a purely speculative act, immanent in God and not operative ad extra, by which God Himself merely contemplates and sees the object presented to Him by the creature, an object He certainly would not see, if it were not offered by the creature: indeed He would see the opposite, if the opposite were done by the creature. So that in that divine foreknowledge God is like a mirror representing diverse objects and the free gestures of men, and the movements opposed to them; or like a man who from a lofty tower should behold all those things which are done on the low-lying plain, and should see some men falling into a pit, others fighting with an adversary, others dancing, others doing something else: which diverse vision certainly would in no way be the cause of those diverse actions; rather, those diverse actions would be the cause of that diverse vision. And so, keeping the proportion, we must reason in the same way about divine foreknowledge; for since the divine intellect is of itself indifferent to knowing the futurition of a thing, or its non-futurition, it is as it were determined to see the futurition by the thing itself, which is truly going to be future, the divine decree being supposed: whence future things could rather be called the causes of divine foreknowledge, than foreknowledge be called the cause of future things; as the Greek holy Fathers openly teach: Origen indeed, in l. 3. in Epist. ad Rom., explaining those words of cap. 8., Whom He foreknew and predestined, says thus: In the foreknowledge of God lies neither the cause of our salvation nor of our perdition. For a thing will not therefore be, because He knows it to be future; but because it is future, it is known by God before it comes to be. For even if we imagine that God does not foreknow something future, without doubt it will be.

The same Justin Martyr, in question 58 ad Orthodoxos, where, giving the reason why the foreknowledge of God was not the cause of the sin of Adam and of the Angels, speaks thus: Foreknowledge is not the cause of that which is future: but that which is future is the cause of foreknowledge. For indeed the future does not follow upon foreknowledge, but foreknowledge follows upon the future; and the one who foreknows is by no means the cause of the future.

Similarly, Saint Athanasius in the sermon de Cruce Domini says that they did not dare such things against Christ as serving the Prophetic words; but they perpetrated them of their own accord, spontaneously and willingly, so that the Prophet is not the author or cause of those things: but their own will, or rather they themselves were the cause that the Prophets foretold such things about them. The Latin Fathers think the same, and above all St. Jerome on cap. 26. of Jeremiah: For it is not, he says, because God knows that something is future that it is therefore future: but because it is future, God knows it as the foreknower of future things: and Augustine, lib. 5. De Civitate, cap. 10.

For a man does not therefore sin because God foreknew that he would sin: rather, for this reason it is not doubted that he sins, when he sins, because He, whose foreknowledge cannot be deceived, foreknew not fate, not fortune, not something else, but that the man himself would sin; who, if he be unwilling, certainly does not sin; but if he should be unwilling to sin, this also He foreknew.

Doubtless because God accommodates Himself to the freedom of the creature, so that He foreknows nothing other than what it will freely have done or omitted, so much so that the free determination of the creature is, as it were, the rule and measure of that divine foreknowledge. Finally, St. Anselm in the Elucidatorio, around the middle: All the things which men were going to do as future, God foreknew as future, and foretold through the Prophets that they were to be done. Foreknowledge, however, brought no necessity upon them that they should be done; rather, they themselves brought the necessity, when they fulfilled their own will. By which it plainly appears that divine foreknowledge is not the cause of future things, nor are things therefore future because they were foreknown by God: but they are therefore foreknown, because they are future.

To be supposed 2. That a twofold necessity can be distinguished, namely antecedent and consequent, or of the consequent and of the consequence. That is called antecedent which does not presuppose the use of freedom, nor the exercise of the will, as, v. gr., a man is necessarily risible, because he is rational, independently of man's freedom. The consequent necessity is that which arises from a supposition following the use of freedom, and depends in some way on our will, so that such necessity would not have to follow from it, unless our will freely determined itself. Whence just as the will can absolutely not determine itself to the act which it freely produces, so it can bring it about that such a supposition never exists in the nature of things. Thus it is necessary that something be future ex hypothesi and on the supposition that it will be future. For it cannot simultaneously be future and not future in the composite sense. For just as it implies a contradiction for the same thing to be and not to be at the same time, so likewise it implies a contradiction for the same thing to be future and not future. The former necessity excludes the freedom of the act, because it certainly follows from a supposition antecedent to the use of freedom, such as, v. g., is the necessity of dying; for when the necessity is antecedent, then it is not in the power of the will to bring it about that, given such a supposition, the act which necessarily follows from it does not exist. The latter necessity, however, namely the consequent, does not destroy, but preserves the whole use of freedom, such as is the necessity of speaking while someone in fact freely speaks, because it neither takes away nor impedes the free potency; but rather presupposes it and its free exercise. Whence although while the will wills it cannot not will, because whatever is, when it is, necessarily is, nevertheless it can absolutely not will, because it was free to will or not to will.

To be supposed 3. From the Doctor, on the first book of the Sentences, dist. 39, single question, number 26, this is the difference between the determinate truth of propositions about the past, about the present, and about the future: that, says the Doctor, there is not a like truth in those about the future as in those about the present and the past. In present and past things, indeed, there is determinate truth, so that one of the extremes is posited, and, as it is understood to be posited, it is not in the power of the cause that it be posited, because although it is in the power of the cause, as it is naturally prior to the effect, to posit the effect or not to posit it, nevertheless the effect is not understood to be already posited in esse. Such, however, is not the determination on the part of the future, because although for some intellect one part is determinately true, and even one part is determinately true in itself, even if no intellect should apprehend it, nevertheless not so but that it is in the power of the cause, for that instant, to posit the opposite. By which he indicates that the necessity of the consequent is greater in the past and the present than in the future, because the past and the present are already outside their causes, so that the will cannot in any way take away or impede their position: the position of the future, however, since it is not yet outside its cause, can still be judged capable of having that supposition taken away and impeded, at least hypothetically: for when the will is not yet determined to willing, it is still judged able to suspend and not elicit the future volition; but where it has in fact willed, or wills, it can no longer suspend that volition. Hence consequent freedom is less with respect to a present or past act than with respect to a future act. Whence if, notwithstanding the consequent necessity, my actual speech is free, much more will my future speech also be free, notwithstanding such necessity.

First conclusion. — The certainty and infallibility of divine foreknowledge does not destroy the contingency of things. This is common among Theologians and

Proof 1. Divine foreknowledge does not produce, but presupposes, its object: therefore it does not destroy, but presupposes, the contingency of things. The antecedent is clear from the authorities of the holy Fathers cited in the first supposition, which is also urged by reason. The knowledge which is the cause of a work is that which directs the will and power of the artisan, from the knowledge of the one operating, in producing his work; but that which does not direct the artisan to produce the work, but the work would come to pass just the same, even if it did not exist, manifestly is not the cause of the work, but rather presupposes that work: such, however, is divine foreknowledge, which although in time it precedes existing things, nevertheless does not precede, but presupposes, their futurition represented in the divine Essence and decreed by the divine will: therefore it does not produce the futurition of a contingent thing, but presupposes it, and so does not destroy its contingency.

Proof 2. The contingency of things stands with their determination, made by the divine will, to one of the two parts of a contradiction: therefore much more will it stand with the infallibility of divine Knowledge, which presupposes that determination. The antecedent is clear. First, because a future contingent will come to pass through contingent causes and causes not operating necessarily: therefore although its existence is determined by the divine will, it will be no less contingent. — Secondly, a cause does not take away from something that which belongs to it from its formal notion, unless it confers on it something opposed: but the divine will determining a future contingent confers on it nothing intrinsic which is opposed to its contingency: therefore this determination does not destroy the contingency. — Finally, the determination of a future contingent is wholly free, and about a thing truly contingent; for in the same instant of eternity in which the divine will determined the thing as future, it could have not determined it as future: therefore that futurition was determined not necessarily, but freely. — The first consequence is also clear: for if the divine determination, which precedes and produces the futurition of things, does not destroy it, much less will knowledge, which presupposes that contingent futurition, destroy it. Add that, once the determination of the divine will about something future is made, that thing would come to pass infallibly, even if per impossibile God did not know it: therefore much less does the certainty of divine knowledge destroy the contingency of future things, than the determination of the will decreeing that futurition.

Proof 3. Just as our intuition is related to those things which we see, in the same way divine knowledge is related to those things which God intuits: but our intuition imposes no necessity on the things seen by us: therefore neither does the divine intuition impose any necessity on the contingent things known by Him. Whence Boethius, book 5 De consolatione, prose 6: What, then, do you demand that those things which are illumined by the divine light become necessary, when not even men make all the things which they see necessary? Does your intuition add any necessity to the things which you discern as present?

You will say 1. What God necessarily knew will necessarily come to pass: but God necessarily knew future things, v. g., that the Antichrist will be: therefore he will necessarily come to pass. The major is clear: for in a good argument, in which the antecedent is necessary, the consequent also is necessary: but the antecedent of this consequence, God knew that the Antichrist would be: therefore he will be, is necessary, namely, God knew, because that knowledge is eternal and absolute, since it is the very substance of God, and therefore is necessary: therefore also the consequent, namely, the Antichrist will be, is likewise necessary. But what is necessary is not contingent, because necessary and contingent are opposite modes of being; for the necessary is that which cannot not be, the contingent, however, that which can not be: therefore if divine knowledge is necessary, future things will not be contingent.

I distinguish the major. That they will necessarily come to pass, with absolute and antecedent necessity, I deny: with hypothetical and consequent necessity, I concede. Similarly, regarding the proof, I say that the antecedent of that consequence, God knew that the Antichrist would be: therefore he will be, is not necessary with simple and absolute necessity, but only with consequent and hypothetical necessity; for just as God freely decreed that the Antichrist would be, so likewise He could freely decree that the Antichrist would not be; and therefore just as He knows that the Antichrist will be, so likewise He could know that the Antichrist would not be; and consequently His divine knowledge about the future Antichrist is necessary only with the necessity of the consequent, and from the presupposed free divine decree about the futurition of the Antichrist. Nor does it matter that that divine knowledge is simpliciter necessary as to entity, because it is really the same as the divine Essence, which is the supremely necessary being: for it is not less free as to its termination upon secondary objects, upon which it terminates as they are. Whence it sees contingent things as contingent, and necessary things as necessary.

You will say 2. If divine foreknowledge cannot be deceived and is altogether certain, the things which God foreknew will necessarily come to pass: therefore either divine knowledge is not infallible and certain, or the things which are foreknown by God are not contingent, but necessary.

I distinguish the consequence of the antecedent. That they will necessarily come to pass with simple and absolute necessity, which would destroy the contingency of things, I deny; with conditioned and consequent necessity, which does not destroy, but presupposes, the contingency of things, I concede.

Second conclusion. — Divine foreknowledge does not hinder human freedom. This is of faith, and it is clear from all those texts of Sacred Scripture by which human freedom is established, but especially Deuteronomy, cap. 30: I call heaven and earth to witness today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose therefore life, that both you and your seed may live. Iosue 24.¹ A choice is given you: choose today what pleases you, whom you ought especially to serve. By which words Iosue entices the children of Israel to obey the true God freely, to whom all responded: We will serve our God, and we will be obedient to His precepts.

Psal. 94.: Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. That is, if you perceive the internal voice and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, acquiesce to it and do not resist. It presupposes, therefore, that it is in their power either to obey the divine admonition or to resist it. — Ecclesiastici 15. vers. 14.: God from the beginning constituted man, and left him in the hand of his own counsel. And vers. 17.: He has set before you water and fire: stretch forth your hand to whichever you will. Before man are life and death, good and evil: that which shall please him shall be given him, etc. From which I argue thus: that which stands with freedom does not hinder our freedom: but the certainty and infallibility of divine foreknowledge stands with freedom: therefore it does not destroy it.

Proof 2. and this by the reason of St. Augustine lib. 5. De Civit. Dei, cap. 9. where he teaches that although God necessarily foresees the things which we are about to do, nevertheless they are to be done by us not necessarily, but freely, because in foreseeing our wills He also foreknew that they would operate spontaneously; for, answering Cicero, who says: If there is a certain order of causes, by which everything that comes to be comes to be, all things come to pass by fate, he says:

It does not follow that if the whole order of causes is certain to God, therefore nothing happens in the free choice of our will; for our wills themselves are in the order of causes, which is certain to God and is contained in His foreknowledge, since human wills are the causes of human works; and so He who foreknew all the causes of things certainly could not be ignorant, among those causes, of our wills too, which He foreknew as the causes of our works.

It is evident, therefore, that divine knowledge does not hinder freedom, but rather presupposes and establishes freedom. For if it hindered it, it would destroy itself, because it would know that something would be free which would not be free, nor would it know a free thing as being truly free.

Proof 3. That which presupposes freedom does not destroy it: but divine foreknowledge presupposes freedom: therefore, etc. The minor is proved. For knowledge presupposes the knowable: therefore knowledge of the future presupposes the future. The antecedent is evident: the consequence is proved from all those sayings of the holy Fathers in the first supposition. It is confirmed moreover from St. Jerome, Dialogo contra Pelagian.: Adam did not sin because He had known this as future; but God foreknew, as God, that he was going to do it by his own will. D. Leo, serm. 16.: The Lord did not thrust the impious hands of the raging men upon Himself, but admitted them; He did not, by foreknowing what was to be done, act that it should be done. St. John Damascene, Dialogo adversus Manichaeos:

That foreknowledge was by no means the cause to the Devil of his becoming evil is evident from this: for neither does a physician, while he foreknows a future disease, supply a cause to the disease. But the cause of the disease indeed consists in a perverse and immoderate manner of life, while the foreknowledge of the physician is a proof of his own learning. The cause of the foreknowledge, moreover, is this, that it was going to be so.

And Augustinus lib. 5. De Civit. Dei, cap. 6:

Therefore it is not for this reason that there is nothing in our will, because He foreknew what would be in our will. For it is not because He foreknew this that He foreknew nothing. Moreover, if He who foreknew what would be in our will foreknew not nothing, but something: assuredly, with Him foreknowing, there is something in our will. Wherefore we are in no way compelled, either, retaining the foreknowledge of God, to take away the free choice of the will, or, retaining the free choice of the will, to deny that God is the foreknower of future things (which is impious): but we embrace both, and we confess both faithfully and truthfully, the former that we may believe rightly, the latter that we may live rightly.

By which it is evident that divine foreknowledge presupposes our free acts, and so does not hinder them.

You will say. Divine foreknowledge presupposes the decree: but what is decreed by God is necessary, not free: therefore divine foreknowledge presupposes a necessary thing, not a free one. The major is clear from the preceding Question. The minor, however, is proved: that is necessary which cannot not be; but what is decreed by God cannot not be: therefore it is necessary.

I distinguish the major. That what is decreed is necessary with consequent necessity, I concede; with antecedent, I deny. For just as God decreed that the thing would be future, so likewise He could freely decree that it would not be future. And so although the thing decreed by God as future cannot not be future, because what is truly future cannot not be future, just as what is truly present cannot not be present: nevertheless this necessity is only consequent upon the free determination of God about future things. This consequent necessity, moreover, does not destroy freedom, but presupposes it; for God does not decree the future acts of our freedom, except where, in the instant of His eternity to which all things are objectively present, He sees it freely determining itself to its acts; for He does not predetermine it physically, but condetermines it, as we have proved in morals and in physics.