Scotus Academicus, Tomus secundus: De Deo Intelligente et Volente

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