Scotus Academicus, Tomus secundus: De Deo Intelligente et Volente

Note 1. Future conditionals are of three kinds, the first of which have a necessary connection with the condition to be posited, v. g., if Peter runs, he will be moved; if God produces John, he will be a rational animal. The second have indeed a connection with the condition, but not a necessary one, rather a contingent one, yet nonetheless so fitting that the consequent is inferred from the antecedent, at least probably, by reason of such a condition, v. gr., if Peter is called by God, he will consent; if he has long remained in mortal sin, he will fall into other mortal sins. Finally, the third are futures in which there is no apparent connection of the antecedent with the consequent, and they are wholly disparate, such as are these propositions: if Judas betrays Christ, Nero will kill his own mother; if the Turk sits at Constantinople, Peter will be converted at Paris. But the present difficulty is not raised about the first futures, because although they appear conditional and are explained by the conditional particle (if), nevertheless in reality they are absolute and necessary. It remains, therefore, only to be discussed whether God certainly knows the conditionally future things of the second and third kind.

Note 2. This is the greatest difference between created and divine knowledge: that the latter, since it is infinite and in every way comprehensive, not only knows things before they exist, and sees the necessary and natural connection which some things have with others, for example risibility with rationality, the effect with its cause; but beyond this it also intuitively beholds the free connection which certain things, although wholly disparate, have with one another, not indeed from their own nature, but from the free ordination of God, who at His nod establishes and decrees the outcomes of certain things from the existence of others, for example the complete victory which Joash, King of Israel, was to win over the Syrians, if he had struck the ground with the javelin six times, as the Prophet Elisha said: if he had struck five or six or seven times, he would have struck Syria even to consumption. For in this way God had decreed that the devastation of Syria by King Joash would be general, if he had struck the ground with the javelin more than three times. But it is otherwise with limited and dim-sighted created knowledge, which, since it does not perceive that condition prescribed by God among disparate things, also judges that there is no connection between them, and hence that propositions conditionally inferred from disparate things are wholly false. This Nemesius, the Christian philosopher, expressly expresses, 44. cap. of the lib. De Natura hominis: for we, he says, knowing nothing at all of future things, and gazing only at present things, wrongly judge events; but for God even future things are just as present things.

Note 3. Regarding the resolution of the present Question, the opinion of the authors is chiefly threefold. Curiel, lib. 1. controversiarum, controv. 7., Corneio here art. 13. disp. 3. dubio 2., and Claudius Typhanius, the most recent writer of the Society, in the book De Ordine deque priori et posteriori cap. 25., teach that conditionally future contingents are not known by God with certainty, but only conjecturally. But Navarret devised another opinion, controv. 56. § 2.; for he affirms that in God there is not only no conjectural knowledge of such conditionals, but not even a formal one, but only a virtual and eminent one, for the reason that, he says, there is in God no formal and actual decree concerning such conditionally future things, but only an eminent and virtual one. But the other theologians with unanimous consent teach that God certainly and actually knows such conditionally future things, with whom, that we may think alike, let there be

Only conclusion. — God certainly knew the conditionally future contingents.

It is proved 1. by several, but chiefly three witnesses of Sacred Scripture, by which certain and infallible knowledge of these conditionally future things is attributed to God. The first text among the more distinguished is read in 1. Reg. cap. 23.¹ where David, when he had questioned and consulted God in these words, Lord God of Israel, your servant has heard a report that Saul plans to come to Ceila to destroy the city because of me: if the men of Ceila will deliver me into his hands. The Lord, answering, said, he will come down. Again David, if the men of Ceila will deliver me, and the men who are with me, into the hands of Saul? And the Lord said, they will deliver. By which words it is established, first, that David asked, not only about the present disposition of Saul and of the Ceilans, but about the future event, for he says "if they will deliver." 2. That event was only conditionally future, since in fact David did not remain at Ceila, nor did he wait there for the arrival of Saul. Hence this deliverance by the Ceilans was not absolutely, but only conditionally future. 3. God answered absolutely and without any modification of His assertion concerning Saul, "he will come down," and concerning the Ceilans, "they will deliver": therefore He foreknew both certainly and infallibly; otherwise He would have exposed His assertion to the danger of falsity, which it would be impious to assert.

Add. That God responds concerning the future event as He knew it, and affirms that that deliverance would be future, if David remained at Ceila: therefore He had determinately and certainly known that deliverance from the condition, as St. Jerome expounds those words, if the men deliver me and if Saul comes down, he will come down, he says, as if he were saying, if you stay here, he will come down; and what he says, if the men of Ceila deliver me and the Lord said, they will deliver, this is the sense, if Saul comes down and finds you here, they will deliver. — The second text is drawn from Sapientia 4. cap., where of the just man taken from this life by sudden death it is said: he was taken away, lest malice change his understanding, or lest fiction deceive his soul. By which words it is signified: first, that that change and deception would be future only under a condition not to be posited, namely if such a man had lived longer. Second, that God, at whose nod the life and death of men is loosed, certainly knew that change and deception would be future, if that just man had lived longer; otherwise He would rashly have snatched him from the living by sudden death, lest malice change his understanding. — The third text is read in Matth. 11. and Luca 10., where Christ, reproaching two cities of Israel on account of the hardness of their citizens, says: Woe to you, Chorazin, woe to you, Bethsaida, because if the mighty works which have been done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have done penance in sackcloth and ashes. But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. By which words it is established, first, that Christ speaks only of a conditionally future event, namely of the penance of the Tyrians and Sidonians, if Christ had worked among them those miracles which He had performed in the cities

Chorazin and Bethsaida: which penance in fact did not exist, nor was absolutely future, because the condition had not been posited, namely the working of the miracles. Second, Christ certainly knew that penance would be future, if such a condition had been posited; otherwise He would neither have reproached so sharply, nor so certainly have asserted that the Tyrians and Sidonians would do penance in ashes and sackcloth; otherwise He would have exposed His assertion to falsity. But if Christ as man knew that penance as conditionally future, much more did He know it as God, and since every knowledge of God is certain and infallible, He also certainly and infallibly knew that penance as conditionally future. — Finally, the fourth distinguished locus is drawn from 3. Regum cap. 11. and Exodi 34., where God forbids the children of Israel to contract marriages with the foreign wives neighboring upon them. You shall not go in to them, He says, nor shall any of them come in to yours, for most certainly they will turn away your hearts so that you follow their gods; the outcome of which prediction, although it really came to pass in Solomon, whose heart, when he was already old, as the sacred text in the same place declares, was corrupted through women so that he followed foreign gods; nevertheless such an event, predicted by God, was only conditionally future with respect to all those who could contract marriages with foreigners and yet did not contract them. — To all these texts many others can be added, but especially that of Ezechielis 3. cap.: You are not sent to a people of deep speech and of unknown tongue, etc. And if you were sent to them, they would hear you. Likewise that of Ieremiae 38. The Prophet says to King Zedekiah: if you go out to the princes of the King of Babylon, your soul will live, and this city will not be burned with fire, and you and your house will be safe. Which, however, in fact did not happen; for Zedekiah did not go out according to the counsel of the Prophet. Likewise Matthaei 24.: Unless those days had been shortened, no flesh would have been saved, but for the sake of the Elect they will be shortened. God therefore sees that many could have perished, if the persecution of Antichrist had lasted long, who nevertheless will not perish on account of the shortened days of that persecution. Finally, prima ad Cor. 2: We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, which is hidden, and which none of the princes of this world knew. For if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory. That is, they would not have committed so unspeakable a crime by crucifying Christ, if they had known Him. And since that knowledge in fact did not exist, neither likewise did the crucifixion fail to take place.

Proof. This same truth is proved by the authorities of the holy Fathers, some of whom everywhere suppose that God has conditioned knowledge in the administration of His providence and of the predestination of the Elect, whereby it comes about that He removes some from life in the state of grace, lest, if they lived longer, they should fall into sins and so incur eternal damnation. Thus in the first place Gregory of Nyssa, in the Oratione de infantibus, qui praematura morte substrahuntur e vivis, says: It belongs to divine providence and to its perfect wisdom not only to heal diseases already contracted, but also to provide that no one at all remain in unlawful things. And he renders the reason for this, so as to assert that God most certainly knows what would become of that infant, if he drew out his life to a longer age: for it is fitting that by Him who knows the future no less than the past, the progress of the little one to perfect age should be prevented, lest that evil which that prescient power and faculty has known in him who was going to live should be so brought to completion, and, as if one was going to live with that will and choice, life should become the matter of wickedness. By which words St. Gregory shows that the inference does not rest in God's knowledge as probable, nor as suspended and doubtful with an uncertain outcome, not only concerning what could have been, but concerning what in fact would have been, if the infant had lived longer. With him agrees Cyril of Alexandria, libr. 3. contra Iulianum, where, treating of the fall of Adam and of the punishment soon after subjected to it, he praises the opinion of Porphyry: Porphyry, he says, writes thus in the lib. ad Nemertium: But God, who knows future things, snatches some from life while still young on account of piety, others on account of the losses which were to be brought by them upon His own necessities, and others again He removes beforehand on account of the great calamities which were to come. To these St. Chrysostom assents, libr. 1. ad Stagyrium, where, resolving what is wont to be objected against divine providence, especially why some are punished before they have reached that age in which they can discern good from evil, as though they had committed great crimes; he answers that God knows many of them would otherwise be evil, and therefore, as with certain fetters, He restrains them with those punishments.

The same truth is proved by reason. Whatever is true is known by God: but future conditionals are true: therefore God knows that they are true. The major is evident; for God, since He is endowed with infinite power of understanding, most evidently beholds and knows whatever is knowable; but what is true is knowable, and so if conditionally future contingents are true, they are knowable, and consequently are known by God. Thus the minor is proved. First indeed, conditionally future things are no less true than those which are absolutely future: but absolutely future things are determinately true, as has been proved: therefore conditionally future things are also true.

The major is proved. The precise and immediate contradiction between conditionally future contingents and their contradictory enunciations is no less than between absolutely future ones: v. g., the contradiction of these propositions is no less: if Saul is called by Christ in such a manner, he will be converted and become a vessel of election, and if he is called in such a manner he will not be converted, than it is between these two propositions: Saul called by Christ in such a manner will be converted, and called in the same manner he will not be converted: therefore since by reason of this contradiction one proposition enunciating an absolutely future thing is determinately true and the other determinately false, so likewise of two contradictory propositions concerning a conditionally future contingent, one will be determinately true and the other determinately false, and consequently that which they enunciate will be determinately true or false.

It is confirmed. A conditional proposition does not differ from the absolute one concerning the same object except by the condition, which, if it is posited, the proposition will be absolute: therefore as the absolute one is determinately true or false, so the same conditional concerning the same conditionally future object is distinctly and determinately true or false. This consequence is evident, because the condition by which alone the conditional proposition differs from the absolute one does not prevent it from being equally conformed to its object, and consequently from being equally true. — Second, that knowledge is certain and infallible which is founded on a certain and infallible medium: but the knowledge which God has of conditionally future contingents is founded on a certain and infallible medium, namely on a decree conditional on the part of the decree, but absolute on the part of the subject: therefore in like manner the knowledge must be certain and infallible. The major is evident. But the minor will be proved in the following Question. — Third, every possible knowledge which involves no imperfection is not to be denied to God: but this certain knowledge of conditionally future contingents is neither impossible nor unworthy of God: therefore it is to be attributed to Him. The major is evident: for God, since He is the most excellent of all beings, must necessarily include all possible perfections which involve no imperfection in their concept. The minor is proved; first indeed that this knowledge is possible; for what is true is also knowable by God: but those future things are true, as has been proved: therefore in like manner they are knowable by God. Second, that it is also not unworthy of God; for it is the highest perfection to know whatever is knowable, indeed it would be an imperfection to be ignorant of it: therefore since those contingents are knowable, it is not an imperfection, but the highest perfection, to know them.

They object 1. Against those who think thus, they reply that nothing can be inferred from the cited texts of Scripture in confirmation of our Conclusion, since these things are brought forward by Scripture either only by human exaggeration, or according to only probable knowledge which God has of future things of this kind, considering namely the inclination of secondary causes, by which, with those conditions posited, they were of themselves more inclined to these foretold effects than to the opposite ones. And they confirm this from the following words of Matth. 11., where, when Christ had reproached Chorazin and Bethsaida, He adds: And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted up to heaven? You will descend even into hell, because if the mighty works which have been done in you had been done in Sodom, perhaps they would have remained to this day, where the particle "perhaps" seems to denote only a conjectural and probable knowledge, not an infallible and certain one.

I answer 1. That this reply is of no moment, and is impugned by St. Augustine himself, who in the book de bono perseverantiae cap. 9., treating of the Tyrians and Sidonians, says, but can we say that even the Tyrians and Sidonians, when such mighty works had been done among them, refused to believe, or would not have believed if they had been done? Since the Lord Himself bears witness for them that they would do penance with great humility, if those signs of divine powers had been done among them. By which words St. Augustine confesses that the Tyrians would certainly have believed, if they had seen such signs. Then, if Christ's knowledge of the future penance of the Tyrians and Sidonians had been only conjectural, He would have had no cause to reproach the hardness of the Jews so sharply, nor was it fitting for Christ, in order to reproach the unfaithful Jews with their grave sins, to assume doubtful things exposed to falsity.

Add. What we have already said: that the particle "perhaps" does not signify the doubt of God asserting, but is taken up to disclose the contingency of the event and the freedom of choice. Finally, the certain truth of those contingents is evident also from this, that they are sometimes predicted and foretold by the Prophets; but prophetic prediction, which is not comminatory, is in every way certain and infallible; otherwise there would in no way be prophetic certainty.

They object 2. St. Augustine in the lib. De Praedestinatione Sanctorum cap. 14., where, explaining that text of Sapientia 4: He was taken away, lest malice change his understanding, says: It was said according to the dangers of this life, not according to the foreknowledge of God, who foreknew what was to be future, not what was not to be future. By which words St. Augustine seems to signify that God does not certainly and infallibly know this conditioned future, namely that the man would sin, if he had lived longer; but that He had of him only a conjectural knowledge founded on the danger, nor would he be changed on account of the vehement occasions which He absolutely foresaw. Likewise he often affirms that it is a fiction that things which are not future are foreknown by God; thus in lib. 2. contra duas Epistolas Pelagii, how, he says, did He foreknow those future things, namely the works of infants dying before adult age, which they would have done if they had grown up.... because His foreknowledge cannot be deceived, He did not foreknow things not future. Likewise in the libr. De Praedestinatione Sanctorum cap. 12.: Whence it came into the mind of such men, that is, the Semipelagians, that the merits of infants, future things which are not future, should be punished or honored. With him agree St. Prosper in the Epistle to St. Augustine, where, speaking of the same Semipelagians, he says: they invent future things which are not future. And St. John Damascene in the Dialogo adversus Manichaeos, refuting the error of those who said that God ought not to have created men or angels whom He had beforehand foreknown would sin, says: but in what way can He foreknow what is not future? For if He had foreknown that someone would sin, He would not have created him; this foreknowledge would not be foreknowledge, but imposture; just as cognition is of those things which are, so foreknowledge is of those which will certainly be future: therefore, according to the mind of SSt. Augustine, Damascene and Prosper, there is not given in God a certain, but only a conjectural, knowledge of conditionally future things.

I deny the consequence. For St. Augustine in the cited places speaks only of foreknowledge that is not conditioned but absolute, which the Pelagians and Semipelagians admitted as independent of the divine decree, and prior to it, as St. Prosper reports in the same Epistle, and according to which foreknowledge they wanted God to be moved by foreseen works to grant the first grace and the first calling to faith; which absolute foreknowledge Augustine and Prosper rightly call fictitious; but they do not speak of conditioned foreknowledge which supposes a conditioned decree, such as we defend; otherwise they would openly contradict themselves. Indeed St. Augustine, for in the lib. De Correptione et Gratia cap. 8., speaking of those who have not been snatched away by God, lest malice change their understanding:

Let them answer, he says, if they can, namely the Pelagians, why God did not then snatch those men, when they were living faithfully and piously, from the perils of this life, lest malice should change their understanding and lest deception should beguile their souls? Did He not have this in His power, or did He not know their future evils? Surely nothing of these things is said except most perversely and most madly.

To these words St. Augustine affirms that God could, by such foreknowledge, prevent that change for the worse from taking place in reality: but He could not prevent it by absolute foreknowledge, for this presupposes the thing as absolutely future: therefore by conditional foreknowledge, which, he says, cannot be denied to God except most perversely and most madly. St. Prosper agrees with him in Response 8. ad excerpta Genuensium:

When some perish, he says, let us not doubt that it is attributed to their own merits that they perish; whom God could certainly justly damn if He willed. And when some are delivered, let us not dare to define that they were worthy of being delivered: whom God could certainly justly damn if He willed, etc. But concerning the Tyrians and the Sidonians, what else can we say than that it was not given to them to believe; whom the very Truth says would even have believed, if they had seen such signs as were wrought among the unbelievers?

And shortly after he says that not only the Tyrians and the Sidonians, but also Chorazin and

Bethsaida could have been converted, and believers made out of unbelievers, if the Lord had willed to work this in them. In a similar way St. John Damascene is to be interpreted, for he speaks only of absolute foreknowledge, as is evident from his very words, This foreknowledge would not be foreknowledge, but imposture; but he does not speak of conditionally future things, with which alone we are concerned here.

They object 3. If future conditionals presupposed some certain knowledge in God, this would hold especially because they are foretold by Him and announced beforehand by the Prophets: but it does not follow from this that that knowledge is certain. Proof: God foretold many things in Sacred Scripture, per se or through the Prophets, only by conjecture drawn from the disposition of secondary causes, v. g. Isai. 38.²: Set thy house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live: and Ionae 3. Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown: neither of which, however, came to pass: therefore certainty and infallibility of divine cognition is not gathered from the predictions.

I deny the minor. For all divine predictions are true and infallible, according to the sense intended by God who foretells them, although in some a condition is not expressed but understood, and most of all in threatening predictions. For, as St. Thomas teaches 2. 2. q. 174. art. 1.³ prophecy is threefold, namely of Foreknowledge, of Predestination, and of Commination; between which he places this distinction, that the first and the second terminate at future things in themselves; whence from them the truth of future things is evidently gathered from themselves. But the third does not regard future things as they are in themselves, but the disposition and ordination of causes to them; and it presupposes a condition, namely if sinners repent and are converted to God, and strive to placate Him by penance, according to that of Ieremiae 18. If that nation shall repent of the evil which I have spoken against it, I also will repent of the evil which I thought to do to it. For those comminations are made only that men may forestall divine vengeance by their repentance, according to that of Ezechielis 18. Is it my will that the impious man die, says the Lord, and not that he be converted from his ways and live? But once repentance is posited, the punishment which God had foretold He would inflict does not follow, under the tacit condition, if the sinner did not repent.

They object 4. Future conditionals do not have determinate truth: therefore they cannot be known distinctly and determinately by God. The consequence is clear, for God knows things as they are, and consequently those which are not determinately true cannot be determinately known by God. The antecedent is proved: if they had determinate truth, it would be especially either in themselves, or in their causes: but neither can be said. Not indeed the first: for in that manner they have truth in which they have being, but they do not have determinate being, because they will never exist: therefore neither do they have determinate truth in themselves. Nor the second either, for even with the condition posited their productive causes are still indifferent and undetermined to producing or not producing them: therefore they do not have determinate truth, nor consequently determinate knowability.

I distinguish the antecedent. That they do not have determinate absolute truth, I concede: determinate conditional truth, I deny: for once the condition is posited, the created will was going to determine itself: with the decree to be posited, absolutely indeed on the part of God decreeing, but only conditionally on the part of the thing decreed; which decree does not hinder freedom, nor predetermine it, but only codetermines it. And so those future contingents have determinate conditional truth, in their causes, namely in the created will and in the divine decree.

They press. Determinate truth presupposes determinate being, for truth is a property of being: but the being of those conditionally future things is not determinate: therefore neither is their truth determinate. The minor is proved: the being of those things is not determinate which will never have determinate existence, but will be merely possible things and pure nothing: but such are for the most part future conditionals; for many of them will exist nowhere, therefore, etc.

I distinguish the minor. That their being is not determinate absolutely, I concede: conditionally, I deny: nor does it follow from this that they are pure nothing, for they have true objective real being in the divine mind, from the presupposed conditional decree, concerning their conditional futurition; whence just as absolutely future things have absolute being represented in the divine Essence; so likewise future conditionals have conditional being represented in the same divine Essence by virtue of the conditional decree.

They insist. If future conditionals had determinate truth, they would be of eternal and perpetual truth: but this cannot be said: therefore, etc. — The minor is clear: for propositions are of eternal truth for this reason, because they are formed about beings determinately true, even insofar as they abstract from all existence; but propositions about conditionally future things would be such, if they had determinate truth, therefore, etc.

I distinguish the antecedent. That they would be of eternal truth through the necessary inference of the consequent from the antecedent, such as are absolute futures, which will have true being, by reason of the presupposed absolute decree, I deny: that they would be of eternal truth conditionally and by reason of the prevision by which God sees that they are in fact future or not future, namely because of the condition to be posited or not to be posited, I concede: nor does this involve any contradiction.

They press again. If propositions about conditionally future things were determinately true, they would likewise be necessarily true: but the consequent is false: therefore so is the antecedent. The consequence of the major is proved: for the conditional particle (If) either signifies a necessary connection of the consequent with the antecedent, or not: if the first, that proposition is necessarily true: if the second, it would follow that there is a true antecedent and a false consequent; and so every conditional proposition would be false, because it would infer from the antecedent a consequent legitimately following, when yet it would not so follow from it. The minor is also clear; for propositions about conditionally future things are not necessarily true, but contingent, because they enunciate things that will be future contingently.

I distinguish the major. That they would be necessarily true by reason of the necessary inference of the consequent from the antecedent, if the conditional particle (If) be taken illatively and signify a necessary connection of the consequent with the antecedent, I concede: if it be taken only conditionally, or promissively, I deny: and so the conditional particle (If) can have a threefold signification: for it can be taken: first, Illatively, when the consequent states a necessary connection with the antecedent, v. g. If Peter runs, he is moved: second, Promissively, when the consequent has a connection with the antecedent by reason of the will of the one promising, v. g. If you conquer, I will give you the crown of life: third, it is taken Conditionally, when the consequent is really posited together with the antecedent, although from its nature the antecedent could stand without it; for the reason that the consequent does not have a necessary connection with that antecedent, but only a contingent one by reason of the contingent condition; which condition, however, is certainly known by God as to be posited or not to be posited. And therefore this connection of the antecedent with the consequent is indeed certainly known by God, although it is not necessary.