Summa summae S. Thomae sive compendium theologiae

Since the understanding of this whole dissertation depends chiefly upon a correct notion of the future, let this serve, as it were, as a preamble.

I say 1°: The future is rightly defined: That which is determined in its causes to have existence in the time that follows. The defenders of middle knowledge do not admit this definition — indeed they attack it with all their might — because they see that it overturns their system. Nevertheless

Proof 1° from authority. St. Augustine, bk. VI de Genes. ad litt., ch. 17, says: « For God to make future things is nothing other than to prepare their causes. » And Tract. LXVIII in Ioann.: « God makes future things by predestining them. » St. Thomas, q. 2 de veritate, a. 12, ad 7: « When it is said: This is future, the order that exists in the causes of that thing toward its production is designated. » In this Part, q. 16, a. 7, ad 3: « That which now is, was future from this, before it was, because it was in its cause that it should come to be, » not in the cause as merely potent precisely, for this denominates only the possible; not in the cause as actually influencing, for this denominates the actually existing. Therefore in the cause as determined to produce it in the time that follows. And from this the fundamental reason is drawn. Therefore.

Proof 2° from reason. To be future is a real denomination, not an intrinsic one — for this does not belong to a thing not existing — but an extrinsic one, and so one drawn from some extrinsic real form. But this can be nothing other than its cause, as determined to give it existence in the time that follows; for it cannot be the cause as merely able to produce, since this denominates only the possible, nor as actually producing, since this denominates the existent. Therefore.

It is confirmed. The future must be constituted by that through which it is drawn out from the mass of possibility, and is distinguished from the possible and the existent. But nothing else can be assigned by which it obtains this, than the determination of that cause. Therefore. — The minor is proved. The possible is indeed contained in a cause that is able, but undetermined to produce it; the existent is outside its causes. Therefore the future, which is midway between the two, is constituted in a middle way — not by a cause merely able and indifferent, not by a cause actually producing, but by a cause determined to give it existence for the time that follows.

The adversaries reply that the future is constituted by a relation to existence for the time that follows, that is, from the fact that it will be.

But on the contrary, I ask: whence does the future contingent — the very thing chiefly in question — have a relation to existence, that is, have it that it will be rather than that it will not be: from itself, or from a cause? Not from itself, otherwise it would not be a future contingent, but a necessary one, and it would be future in every sign of reason before the possible, or an existing God, were conceived. If from a cause, not from a cause merely able precisely to produce it — for since this is indifferent to producing or not producing, it does not give a relation to being rather than to non-being, but constitutes only the possible, as has been said; nor from a cause as actually producing, because, as I have also said, this makes it actually existent. Therefore from a cause determined to give it existence.

From what has been said it follows of itself that no future is contingent independently of the determination of the first cause; because, so long as the first cause remains undetermined, no second cause is determined — otherwise it would not be a second cause, but the first. And from this the system of middle knowledge is utterly overturned, as will be clear from what follows.

I say 2°: The future is one thing when necessary, another when contingent. The necessary is that which by its own nature demands to exist at some time, and is not naturally impedible, as tomorrow's sunrise. The contingent, if taken broadly, is indeed that which by its own nature demands to exist at some time, but by the concurrence of other causes is naturally impedible, as a long life from a robust temperament. The contingent taken properly and strictly is that which by its own nature is indifferent to being and not-being, as are those things which depend on free choice.

The properly contingent future is one thing when absolute, which does not depend on any condition, another when conditioned, which depends on some condition. The conditioned, again, is one thing when pertinent, another when impertinent, or disparate. Pertinent is that which has some connection, whether moral or physical, with the condition, as the conversion of the Tyrians, if the Gospel were preached to them; the salvation of Judas, if he were to do penance. Disparate is that which has no connection with the condition, as: if the goat should leap, the tree will flower; or that saying of Elisha to King Joas, IV Reg., XIII, 19: If thou hadst struck the ground five times, or six, or seven, thou wouldst have struck Syria even to consumption.

Although in what precedes we have proved that God knows all things, with none excepted; yet because there is a special difficulty concerning future things which depend on our free choice, by reason of the freedom that must be safeguarded, we therefore institute a special question concerning these.

I say: God certainly and infallibly knows all future things, absolute, contingent, and free, freedom remaining unharmed.

Proof of the first part, from Scripture and the Fathers. Psal. CXXXVIII, 3 and 4: Thou hast understood my thoughts afar off..., and hast foreseen all my ways. Ioann., VI, 65: Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that did not believe, and who he was that would betray him. The foreknowledge of future things is assigned as the surest token of divinity, Isa., XLI, 23: Shew the things that are to come hereafter, and we shall know that you are gods. Hence Tertullian, in the Apolog., ch. 20: « A fitting testimony of divinity, he says, is the truth of divination. » And Augustine, bk. V de Civit., ch. 9, against Cicero: « To confess that God exists and to deny the foreknowledge of future things, is the most manifest madness. »

Proof by manifold reason. 1° The knowledge of God, as having the will joined to it, makes future things, as I said above. Therefore he knows them. And granted that future things are not made by the knowledge of God, it is certain at least that they do not come to be, except with God willing or permitting. Therefore he knows them in his will as in their cause. 2° The future contingent, for example this one: The Antichrist will be, has a determinate truth. Therefore it is known by God who understands infinitely. — Proof of the antecedent. This proposition: The Antichrist will be, has its own assertoric truth [de inesse]; at some time it will be just as is signified by it. Therefore it is determinately true, no less than a proposition about the past which had its own assertoric truth, as this one: Peter sinned. 3° God knows things while he actually produces them outwardly. Therefore he knew them beforehand, otherwise his knowledge would be variable.

But when you hear that certain Fathers deny foreknowledge to God, understand this of foreknowledge as to the name; because, since the things that are future to us are present to God, as I shall presently say, he does not have, properly and strictly speaking, foreknowledge of them, but knowledge.

Proof of the second part. 1° God sees future things not only according to the state which they have in their contingent causes before they come to be, but he sees them in the now of eternity according to the state which they have in their presentiality¹. But the knowledge of a present thing is certain and infallible, nor does its contingency stand in the way of this at all; for when I see Socrates sitting, my knowledge is infallible and certain, yet no necessity is thereby imposed on Socrates. Therefore.

2° God foresees and provides for future things, not only as to their substance, but also as to their mode of necessity and contingency, as St. Thomas often insists. Therefore, from the fact that he knows future contingents certainly and infallibly, it not only does not follow that they will happen necessarily, but rather it follows for certain that they will happen contingently and freely, otherwise his foreknowledge would be deceived. Therefore this foreknowledge does nothing to harm the contingency of things.

3° The certain and infallible foreknowledge of future things, taken precisely under the office of foreknowledge, changes nothing in future things or in their causes, but has only to know what is going to happen, and how. Therefore, this notwithstanding, things that are contingent will happen contingently, and things that are necessary, necessarily; and it suffices for this certain and infallible knowledge that it have a certain and infallible medium in which the things that are future are represented to it. For the state of things in the mind of the knower is one thing, and in themselves another; and just as things that are necessary in themselves can be known contingently, so things that are contingent in their causes can be known with certainty, provided of course that the medium of knowledge is certain. Necessity or contingency is in things and from things; but the certainty or uncertainty of knowledge is in the mind, by reason of the medium. Therefore.

[That the explanation given here for establishing the agreement of divine foreknowledge with human freedom is according to the mind of St. Augustine, is plainly proved by the following words of his, by which he overturns Cicero's argumentation, bk. V De civit. Dei, ch. 9: « What is it, then, that Cicero feared in the foreknowledge of future things, that he strove to undermine it with a detestable disputation? Namely, because, if all future things are foreknown, they will come in that order in which they have been foreknown to be going to come; and, if they will come in that order, the order of things is certain to God who foreknows it; and, if the order of things is certain, the order of causes is certain — for nothing can come to be which some efficient cause has not preceded; but if the order of causes by which everything that happens comes to happen is certain, « by fate, he says, » all things that will happen will happen. » But if this is so, nothing is in our power, and there is no free choice of the will. « But if we grant this, he says, all human life is subverted; in vain are laws given, in vain rebukes, praises, » reproaches, exhortations are employed; nor has any justice established rewards for the good and punishments for the evil. » « Therefore, lest these unworthy, absurd, and pernicious consequences for human affairs should follow, he is unwilling that there be foreknowledge of future things. »]

Having set forth Cicero's opinion, the Holy Doctor replies, among many things, as follows: « We cannot deny that it is written in the Holy Scriptures, Ps. LXI, 12 and 13: God hath spoken once, these two things have I heard: that power belongeth to God, and mercy to thee, O Lord; for thou wilt render to every man according to his works. For what is said, he has spoken once, is understood immovably — that is, he has spoken unchangeably, just as he unchangeably knows all things that are future, and the things that he himself is going to do. For this reason, then, we could call it fate from fando, were this name not usually understood in another sense, toward which we do not wish the hearts of men to be inclined. But it does not follow that, if the order of all causes is certain to God, therefore nothing is in the choice of our will. For indeed our very wills themselves are in the order of causes, which is certain to God and is contained in his foreknowledge; since human wills too are the causes of human works. And thus he who foreknew all the causes of things, could certainly not have been ignorant, among those causes, of our wills also, which he foreknew to be the causes of our works. »

And further on: « If (Cicero) confesses that God exists, whom he denies to be foreknowing of future things, he also thereby says nothing other than what that one says, Psal. XIII, 1: The fool has said in his heart: There is no God. For he who is not foreknowing of all future things, is assuredly not God. Wherefore our wills too avail only so much as God willed and foreknew that they would avail; and therefore whatever they avail, they avail most certainly, and what they are going to do, they are altogether going to do: because he foreknew that they would avail and would act, whose foreknowledge cannot be deceived. »

And elsewhere, perhaps more expressly, bk. III de Libero arbitrio, ch. 3, n. 8: « Consider, I ask, with how great blindness it is said: If God foreknew my future will, then, since nothing can happen otherwise than he foreknew, it is necessary that I will what he foreknew; but if it is necessary, it must be confessed that I will this not now by will, but by necessity. O singular folly! How, then, can nothing else happen than what God foreknew, if the will — which he foreknew as future — should not exist?... Thus it comes about that we neither deny that God is foreknowing of all future things, and yet we ourselves will what we will. For since he is foreknowing of our will, it is that very will of which he is foreknowing. The will, therefore, will exist, because he is foreknowing of the will. Nor can the will exist, if it will not be in its power. Therefore he is also foreknowing of the power. Not, therefore, is power taken from me by his foreknowledge — which will indeed be the more certain to me for this very reason, because he whose foreknowledge cannot be deceived foreknew that it would be present to me. »

You have in these words of Augustine that the cause of the acts of the will is the foreknowledge of God, and accordingly that those future acts are seen as coming from God predetermining them in his foreknowledge; which is the very same opinion of the Thomists.

I say: Future things are present to God in eternity, not only objectively and intentionally, but physically and really — not, indeed, through an anticipated production of them in eternity, but through the virtual coextension of eternity itself with that portion of time in which they will at some time exist.

Proof 1° From the Fathers. St. Augustine, book II ad Simplic., q. 2, Pope St. Gregory, book XX Moral., ch. 33, and many others, deny: 1° that there is foreknowledge in God in the strict sense. 2° They deny that anything is future to God. 3° Finally, they deny, as something most absurd, that God knows something anew in time which he did not know before. But if future things were present to God only objectively and intentionally, and not physically and really, 1° he would have, with respect to them, foreknowledge in the strict sense, as is clear in the case of the Prophets, who, notwithstanding the objective presence they have of future things, nevertheless have, with respect to them, foreknowledge in the strict sense; 2° future things would be absolutely future to God, since it is not objective presence but only real presence that removes the character of true futurition; 3° finally, he would know something anew in time which he did not know before, namely, things physically existing. Therefore.

As for St. Thomas, he is entirely of this opinion here, art. 13; in I Sent., dist. 38, art. 5. o, and elsewhere many times.

Proof 2° By reason. 1° Eternity is a duration infinite, indivisible, and wholly simultaneous in its character as duration, as is clear from its definition commonly received from Boethius¹. But by reason of its infinity it contains all durations — past, present, and future; by reason of its indivisibility and simultaneity it contains them, although they flow successively, in an indivisible manner in the same now, without any succession. Therefore all times, and the things measured by time, are really present to God by reason of eternity. Hence eternity is compared to a tree planted in the middle of a river of such extent that it contains the whole river, coexisting all at once and together with all the flowing parts of the water, and not awaiting their passage in order to possess and measure them. Or, with St. Thomas², God in eternity is compared to a man standing on a high watchtower from which he sees the whole road and all who pass along it; for although one walks after another, and the one before does not see the one behind, yet he who is on the watchtower sees them all at once and has them present to himself. Likewise God has present to himself, in the watchtower of eternity, all things, even past and future, although they succeed one another and cannot exist simultaneously in their own proper duration.

2° Since the knowledge of God is most perfect, it must be invariable³. But it would not be invariable if he did not see future things really present in his eternity. Therefore. — Proof of the minor. If things were not really present to God in eternity, he would begin anew to see them really present in time, namely in the very manner in which they would be produced. Therefore, as Augustine argued, he would know them twice — now as future, afterward as really present — and something new would occur in time within that knowledge, and thus it would be changed, just as God's will would be changed if he began now to will something which he had not willed before. Therefore.

You will object: It is unintelligible that something should exist in eternity which does not exist in itself; for to exist in itself is prior to existing in another. But future things do not now exist in themselves. Therefore they do not exist in eternity.

It is answered commonly, by distinguishing the minor. Future things do not now exist in themselves in their own proper duration, I concede; they do not now exist in themselves in the higher duration of eternity, I deny. For eternity, according to its virtual extension, contains that portion of time in which the Antichrist, for example, will exist in his own proper duration.

Some, in order to render this difficulty more intelligible, observe that eternity does not measure created things immediately, presupposing them as already passively changed and produced in themselves, but precisely as they are contained in the divine action and are regarded as its term. Hence the effect of God's action can be considered in two ways: in one way, as passively changed and produced, and thus it founds its own proper duration, and is not from eternity; in another way, as it is precisely the term connoted and regarded by the eternal action, and under this aspect it is drawn to a higher measure and is from eternity, because it is measured by the same measure by which the action of which it is the term is measured — not as changed by that action, but as connoted by it.

Therefore, according to this observation, the minor of the argument is to be distinguished thus. Future things do not now and from eternity exist in themselves as effects passively changed and produced, I concede the minor; as terms connoted by an actual action, I deny the minor

If instes: The effect, precisely as the term connoted by the eternal action, is nothing real outside its causes. Therefore.

I answer. I distinguish Nothing is real outside its causes in this sense, that it is not passively changed, I concede; in this sense, that it is only possible or future with respect to God, I deny. For, taken in this way, it is no longer considered within the divine essence merely as able to produce or as willing to produce, but as actually producing; from which it is understood to have created being outside its causes — not indeed as passively changed, nor yet as only possible or future in first act, but in second act, as it is connoted by the action actually existing as its term, and thus we say it is really present in eternity. According to this understanding, which is that of John of St. Thomas, and which Contenson also follows, the difficulty seems to vanish and to be reduced to a question of name, and at the same time many difficult objections are forestalled, which we therefore omit.

I say 1°: God does not know absolute free future things in his essence insofar as it has the character of an intelligible species prior to the decree, as Honoré Tournely most recently devised. Because in a cause indifferent to futurition and non-futurition, a future effect cannot be known as future rather than not future — this is clear from the terms themselves. But the essence of God, insofar as it has the character of an idea or species prior to the decree, is indifferent to the effect's being future or not future; for he is the cause of things in second act, free and through his own will, such that they are not future except because he wills them, and therefore, prior to the decree, it indeed represents them as possible, but not as future. Therefore.

Nor does it matter that the divine essence is infinite in representing; for it cannot for that reason represent what is not representable, and prior to the decree nothing is representable as future, because it is not future.

Nor does he know them in the supercomprehension of second causes prior to the decree, as Molina holds, for the same reason. Because neither the comprehension nor the supercomprehension of any cause can apprehend in it what is not contained in it. But in a second cause, prior to the decree of the divine will, the effect is not contained as determinately future, but indifferently as to being or not being; for a second cause cannot be determined to futurition rather than to non-futurition prior to the decree, or determination, of the first cause. Therefore. This is clear from what was said in art. I of this Dissertation, and will become still clearer from what is to be said.

Nor in his own decree foreseen as future: 1° because the decree of God, being eternal, cannot be conceived, with foundation in the thing or virtually, as future; for eternity, since it is whole and indivisible, knows neither past nor future. 2° Granting freely that the decree could be conceived as future, at least so that in it God might know future things, there would have to be given a medium in which this decree, as future, might be represented; for since in that prior moment it is not understood as existing, it cannot be known in itself. But prior to the decree there is no medium that represents it as future. Therefore. — Proof of the minor. In that prior moment God is indifferent to positing or not positing that decree, since the decree is that by which he determines himself. Therefore.

Nor in the truth, whether formal or objective, of future things prior to the decree, as most professors of the Society [of Jesus] now maintain, who argue thus. God is omniscient, and no truth is hidden from him. But, prior to the decree, one of two contradictory propositions is determinately true, the other false. Therefore God knows this truth from eternity prior to the decree. They distinguish, moreover, a twofold truth, one formal, of propositions, the other objective, of things; for, as they contend, if it was true from eternity that which now is, then the proposition affirming the future thing was equally true: this truth they call formal, the first objective, because it is the object of this second one. Some, therefore, say that future things are foreknown by God in formal truth, some in objective truth; but each manner of speaking falls back almost into the same thing. I shall, then, have settled the matter if I prove both that there is no truth, whether formal or objective, of future things prior to the decree, and that, even granting there were, there would be no medium in which future things could be known. And so

It is proved 1°. Prior to God's decree, nothing is determinately future. Therefore there is no truth of the future, whether formal or objective. — Patet conseq., because truth follows upon being as its property. — Proof of the antecedent. The future is that which is determined in its causes to have existence in the time that follows; this is clear from what was said in art. I of this Dissertation. But prior to every determination of the first cause, no second cause is determined; otherwise the first would be the second, and the second the first.

It is proved 2°. Granting freely that there is present in propositions about a future contingent a formal truth independent of God's decree, this would nevertheless not be the medium in which God could know the things that are future. Therefore. — Proof of the antecedent. That which depends on another for its truth, and borrows it from that other, cannot be the medium for knowing that other thing; for the medium of knowing another must itself be known prior to that other; but it is contradictory that what depends on another for its truth, and borrows it from that other, should be known prior to that other, for it is knowable in the very manner in which it is true. But the truth of a proposition about the future, if it is granted, depends on the future event, and is borrowed from it. Therefore it cannot be the medium in which God knows the future event. — The minor is proved. An event is not truly future because the proposition enunciating it as future is true; rather, on the contrary, the proposition is true because the event is truly future; for it is from the fact that the thing is or is not that the proposition is said to be true or false, as the common principle holds. Therefore the truth of a proposition about the future, if it is granted, depends on the future event and is borrowed from it.

On account of this argument, which seems to us invincible, most of our adversaries, abandoning formal truth, take refuge in objective truth, and say that, from the fact that the event now exists in time, it was truly future from eternity, and that in that truth of futurition, or in that future being, God knows as present the existence which it will someday have.

But the argument made presses equally against objective truth. That which depends on another for its truth and borrows it from that other cannot be the medium for knowing that other thing. But, according to the adversaries' own doctrine, the objective truth of futurition depends on the truth of present being, no less than the formal truth of a proposition depends on the objective truth of futurition. Therefore, just as the formal truth of a proposition cannot be the medium in which God knows the objective truth of futurition, so the objective truth of futurition cannot be the medium in which God knows the present being that it will have in time. — The minor is proved. The adversaries say that the event was truly future from eternity because it now is, or because it will at some time be in time — that is, from that present being which it has when it is, or will have in time when it will be, it was truly future for the whole preceding duration. Therefore, according to the adversaries' doctrine, the objective truth of futurition depends on the truth of present being, just as the formal truth of a proposition depends on the objective truth of futurition.

As for the objections against this last part of the conclusion, since nearly all of them tend toward proving the truth of propositions about a future contingent prior to the decree, and are usually proposed and resolved in Logic, we omit them here, and all the more because, even if they proved what the adversaries claim, they would gain nothing against our assertion, as is clear from the second proof.

I say 2°: God knows absolute contingent and free future things in his decree determining their futurition, that is, in his essence as determined by such a decree.

It is proved 1° From the Fathers. Hilary, book III de Trinit., says: « What God decreed to do, he knew in his own will. » St. Augustine, book de Praedest. sanct., ch. 10: « By predestination God foreknew those things which he himself was going to do. » And below: « When God promised Abraham the faith of the nations, he promised not from the power of our will, but from his own predestination; for he promised what he himself was going to do. » Here the discussion is, as is clear, about free future things, namely about the conversion of the nations.

It is proved 2° From St. Thomas. The holy Doctor repeatedly establishes two principles from which our conclusion is drawn. The first, that God sees nothing outside himself, but all things in his essence as in their cause. So here q. 14, a. 5; I Contra gent., ch. 68, and elsewhere. Compare art. 4 of the preceding dissertation. The second principle, that God is the cause of things through his will. So here q. 14, a. 8; below q. 19, a. 4, and elsewhere. From which two principles, I say, it is concluded that God knows any future things whatsoever, even contingent and free ones, in his will, which is our conclusion.

But the adversaries object that St. Thomas, treating expressly, here at q. 14, a. 13, and in I Sent., dist. 38, q. 1, a. 5, of the knowledge of future contingents, makes no mention of the decree, but has recourse to their presence in eternity.

I answer. St. Thomas, in grounding the certain foreknowledge of future things in their presence in eternity, does not exclude the decree; rather, he supposes and asserts it. For indeed future things are not present in eternity except because they are future in their own proper duration, and they are not future in their own proper duration, according to St. Thomas, except through the will of God — or, as we said in the preceding article, they are not present in eternity except insofar as they are the terms of the divine will determining them, and at the same time actually producing them; consequently, to see future things as present in eternity is, on St. Thomas's way, to see them in the divine will. And this is all the more true because, according to the holy Doctor, God does not see things immediately in themselves, but in himself as in their cause, and he is the cause of things through his will. The decree, therefore, and the presence of things in eternity, are not two media in which God knows future things, as some falsely imagine, but only the decree of the divine will, that is, the divine will itself, as willing and at the same time actually producing, is the medium in which God knows future things; the presence of things, however, is not the medium, but the very object, or the mode of the object, as it is represented in the will that actually produces, and thus it is the aspect under which, not in which, the thing is known.

Moreover, it is false that St. Thomas, in the passages cited, makes no express mention of the decree. For here, q. 14, a. 13, he says: « All things that are in time are present to God from eternity, not only for the reason that he has the ideas of things present with himself, as some say. » Now the practical ideas of things are ideas determined by the decree of the will. And in the later passage, in 1: « God from eternity not only sees the order of himself to the thing, from whose power the thing was going to be future. » Behold the decree. « But he was beholding the very being of the thing. » Behold the presence of things in eternity.

The fundamental reason for our conclusion is no other than that proposed above from St. Thomas. This, namely: God knows other things besides himself in himself as in their cause. But he is the cause of contingent future things through the decree of his will. Therefore. — Major is established from what was said in art. 4 of the preceding dissertation. — Minor from art. 3 of the same dissertation. And it is common and repeatedly handed down in the Scriptures. To the Ephesians, I, 11: He worketh all things according to the counsel of his own will. Wisdom, XI, 26: How could anything endure, unless thou hadst willed it? Apocalypse, IV, 11: Thou hast created all things, and for thy will they were, and have been created.

Conditioned future things are of a threefold kind. Some have a necessary connection with the condition: as, if Peter sins, he will lose grace. If fire is applied to tow, it will burn it. Some have with the condition only a contingent connection: as, if the Gospel is preached to the Tyrians, they will be converted. Some, finally, have no connection at all with the condition, but are altogether disparate: as, if King Joas had struck the ground seven times, he would have destroyed Syria. No one doubts that necessary conditioned future things are known with certainty by God, since these are known even by us. The difficulty, then, remains concerning contingent and disparate conditioned future things.

I say: God knows with certainty contingent and disparate conditioned future things¹.

Proof 1°. God foretold with certainty in the Scriptures many conditioned future things, which have of themselves no connection with the condition, or only a contingent one. But it is impious to say that God affirmed something to be certainly future, which He did not know would certainly be future. Therefore. — Proof of the major. I Reg., XXIII, 12, to David asking the Lord whether the Ceilites would deliver him to Saul, if he remained among them, the Lord answered: They will deliver thee up, namely, if you should remain. III Reg., XI, 2: The Lord said to the children of Israel: You shall not go in unto them (the daughters of the nations)... for they will most certainly turn away your hearts, that you may follow their gods. IV Reg., XIII, 19, Eliseus said to the king of Israel: If thou hadst smitten the ground five, or six, or seven times, thou hadst smitten Syria even to utter destruction. Matth., XI, 21, Christ said: Woe to thee, Corozain, woe to thee, Bethsaida! for if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought in you, they would long ago have done penance in sackcloth and ashes. Add the promises which God made concerning the transmission of original justice to the posterity of Adam, if he himself did not violate the covenant; concerning the establishment of the kingdom in the house of David, if his posterity kept the law, and many other things. Therefore.

Proof 2° by reason. There are no conditioned future things, in the opinion of the Thomists, except through a decree of God absolute on the part of the subject, and conditioned on the part of the object, as we shall explain below. But such a decree is certain and infallible. Therefore God, in it, knows these future things with certainty and not conjecturally.

You will ask, whether God knows with certainty absolutely all conditioned future things.

I answer affirmatively, because by this very fact that they are supposed to be future in some way, they are decreed by God; for nothing is future, even conditionally, in our opinion, except through a decree; and in the decree He knows them with certainty.

§ I. — Preliminary remarks.

Note 1°. In the preceding article we said, from the common sense of the theologians, that God knows with certainty free conditioned future things. There remains a question, and one most celebrated in the schools among all: By what medium does God know them? The Thomists, consistently with their principles, say that they are known by God in His decree subjectively absolute, and objectively conditioned, which is thus expressed: I will that this be done, if such a condition be posited; e.g.: I will that the Tyrians be converted, if the Gospel be preached to them. For just as no future thing is absolute except from a decree of God simply absolute, so too no conditioned future thing except from a decree of God objectively conditioned; and just as God knows absolute future things in His absolute decree, so too He knows conditioned future things in His conditioned decree. That there are such decrees, conditioned on the part of the object and absolute on the part of the subject, we now suppose and shall prove below.

The Fathers of the Society [of Jesus] abhor this as subversive of liberty and injurious to the sanctity of God. But, if you press them to assign another medium, you will scarcely find one you can trust; so much do they fight among themselves, some contending for the super-comprehension of secondary causes, others for the divine essence as it has the character of an intelligible species, others for a future decree, others for formal truth, others for objective truth.

But in this they unanimously agree, from the time of Louis Molina, that God does not know free conditioned future things in any actual absolute decree, but before it: and hence they call that knowledge middle, either because, as they themselves say, it mediates between the knowledge of simple intelligence and of vision, and partakes of both; for it is necessary on the part of God, since it precedes His decree, like the knowledge of simple intelligence; it is free on the part of the object, because it concerns contingent future things, like the knowledge of vision; — or because it bears upon conditioned future things which hold a middle place between the merely possible and absolute future things; or finally, if it please the gods, because it is a middle term divinely devised for routing the heresies of the Lutherans and Calvinists, as some boast.

Note 2°. Middle knowledge, therefore, according to its assertors, is that knowledge by which God, before the actual decree determining the conditioned futurition of free acts, explores and foresees with certainty what the created will would do from its innate liberty, if it were placed in such or such circumstances, with an indifferent help offered: whether it would consent to that help and act well; or dissent from it and act ill. This having been foreseen, if He wills it to consent and act well, He decrees to place it in such circumstances in which He has foreseen it would consent, and to offer it an indifferent concurrence; but if not, He decrees to place it in other circumstances; and in such an absolute decree, they say, God knows with certainty the consent that is absolutely future, but this certainty, as is clear, does not arise from the efficacy of the decree itself, but from the previous conditioned knowledge itself.

I said: Before the actual decree determining the futurition of conditioned things. Because these theologians do not refuse to admit a general decree in God, to concur with free causes, if they will, or when they will, determine themselves to act. For, they say, God does not foresee the future consent, the condition being posited, except by means of concurrence.

Note 3°. Concerning the rise and origin of middle knowledge its patrons again quarrel among themselves. Some hold it to be a happy and not sufficiently praiseworthy offspring of Molina, unheard of in the schools until then. Others, more cautious, lest it be disapproved for its very novelty, contend that it is very ancient and drawn from the Fathers themselves: so the moderns, with Suárez. But as to the truth of the matter, we say that it is neither the offspring of Molina, nor drawn from the Fathers, but from the Semi-Pelagians themselves, as is clear from the letters of Prosper and Hilary to Augustine.

Note 4°. Now the Semi-Pelagians abused middle knowledge, inasmuch as they said that God foreknew through it, in the human will, that by which He would be moved to confer grace on these rather than on those; for they thought that God could not, without an unjust acceptance of persons, decree grace to one in preference to another, unless there were at least some beginning of faith on the part of the human will, by which He would be moved to it. Whether they placed this beginning of faith in nature alone, or in nature aided by some interior help, I do not now discuss: of this elsewhere. And when they were pressed with the example of infants who are snatched away by an untimely death, to some of whom the grace of baptism is conferred, and not to others; they said that God had foreknown what good or evil they would have done, had they arrived at an adult age, and that He was likewise moved thereby to confer the grace of baptism on these rather than on those. This use, or rather abuse, of middle knowledge its modern assertors reject; for they do not wish the foreknowledge of a good work conditionally foreseen to be for God the motive cause why He confers grace on these rather than on those: as is clear, they say, in the case of the Tyrians and Sidonians, whom God foresaw would be converted if the Gospel were preached to them, and yet He was unwilling that it be preached.

But in this they agree with the Semi-Pelagians, that they admit it in order to reconcile human liberty with the infallibility of the divine decrees. For since, no differently than the Semi-Pelagians, they think that human liberty would be destroyed if God infallibly predefined our wills, and yet it cannot be denied that God by His eternal and infallible providence disposes all things, even free acts, they say that God, before He decrees anything absolutely, has foreseen what the created will, placed in these or those circumstances, would do, good or evil, from its innate liberty, under an indifferent concurrence offered to it; this having been foreseen, He decrees absolutely and infallibly who will act well or ill; because those whom He wills to act well He places in those circumstances in which He foresees they will, from their innate liberty, act well, but if not, in others; and thus He disposes infallibly of all things as He wills, without prejudice to liberty. Middle knowledge explained in this sense, revived by Molina, the Society of Jesus made its own from the year 1598, in which our own accused it of Semi-Pelagianism, in the famous Congregations de Auxiliis, before Clement VIII, and afterward before Paul V.

Note 5°. Outside the schools of the Society, there are few who defend this middle knowledge. Among these few there has appeared quite recently Honoré Tournely, doctor of Paris, in his Praelectiones de Deo, quaest. 16, art. 5. But he smears it with so many colors, wraps it in so many equivocations, restricts it with so many explanations, that you would scarcely recognize it. You would think that he himself blushed to defend this cause openly.

§ II. — Middle knowledge is refuted by the authority of Scripture.

The Apostle, I Cor., IV, 6 and 7, says: Let no one be puffed up for one against another, above what is written. For who distinguisheth thee? What hast thou that thou hast not received? But if thou hast received it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it? From which I argue thus. According to the Apostle, the distinguishing of one from another must be traced back, not to the human will, but to God distinguishing one from another by His grace. But middle knowledge supposes one to be preferred to another, namely Peter distinguishing himself from Judas by his own will. Therefore. — Proof of the minor. Suppose that Peter and Judas, in equal circumstances, are prevented by equal grace: God sees Peter consenting to that grace and thereby distinguishing himself from Judas not consenting, not by reason of the grace; for it is equal and indifferently offered to both. Therefore by reason of the determination of his own will to accept the grace.

It is confirmed. That Peter, in preference to Judas, consents to grace in equal circumstances, he has this either from God giving this consent, or from his own will. If he has the consent from God giving it, then before God decrees that He wills to give this consent, this consent is not future, nor can God see it as future; and thus middle knowledge perishes. But if Peter has this consent from his own will, then he has what he has not received, and by it distinguishes himself from Judas, against the Apostle.

Far more other passages of Scripture could be adduced against middle knowledge, but, studying brevity, we note only these. The Apostle, Ephes., I, 4, says that God chose us, not because we were going to be holy, but that we might be holy; I Cor., XII, 6, that God works all things; Philipp., II, 13, that He works the very willing. But if He chose us that we might be holy, then, before He chose, He did not know that we would be holy, even under the help of grace, so that Tournely's evasion may be forestalled. If He works all things, and the very willing itself, then He gives the very willing and consenting; if He gives it, how can He know it as future, before He has decreed to give it?

Tournely replies that He works the willing because without grace, which He grants gratuitously, we do not will the good. But I ask: either grace determines my will to will and consent, or the consent of the will determines grace to concur with me. If the former, we have what we intended, and God cannot foreknow this consent as future, except in the will to give that determining and efficient grace; if the latter, then the consent of grace is not from grace, but from me.

§ III. — Middle knowledge is refuted by the authority of SS. Augustine and Thomas.

I suppose as certain that Hilary and Prosper, in their letters to Augustine, proposed to him middle knowledge on the part of the Semi-Pelagians. For Prosper writes in his Letter to Augustine that this is the opinion of the Semi-Pelagians, namely, « that God predestined to his kingdom those whom he foresaw would depart from this life with a good end. » And when they are pressed with the example of little children, « who, before the discernment of good or evil in the use of this life is taken from them, some are received among the heirs of the heavenly kingdom through regeneration, while others, without baptism, pass among the debtors of perpetual death: such, they say, are lost, and such are saved, as divine knowledge foresaw they would have been in their more mature years, if they had been kept to an age of activity. » Likewise, when they are pressed with the example of so many nations, to some of whom the Gospel has been announced, and to others not: « those foreseen by the Lord, they say, as going to believe, and for each nation the times and the ministries of teachers were so dispensed that the belief of good wills was going to arise. » Behold, in these two examples, most plainly, a foreknowledge of conditioned futures prior to the decree.

Hilary writes the same thing in his letter to St. Augustine, and St. Prosper, toward the end of the letter, expressly asks Augustine to explain how the decree preceding our wills (which the Semi-Pelagians were unwilling to admit) does not injure liberty; or rather whether the decree rests upon foreknowledge: and finally, that he answer the objection drawn from his own testimonies and those of the other Fathers.

From all this it is clear that Prosper and Hilary proposed to Augustine, on the part of the Semi-Pelagians, middle knowledge, or the knowledge of conditioned futures prior to the decree. Now it falls to us to prove that St. Augustine disapproved of it, not only as to its abuse, that is, insofar as it presents to God a motive for conferring or denying grace — this the Molinists concede — but that he also disapproved of it as to its substance, that is, that he taught that there is in God no knowledge of contingent futures, whether absolute or conditioned, independently of an absolute and actual decree, abstracting from the abuse or use to which it can be applied. This we prove in many ways from the books On the Predestination of the Saints and On the Gift of Perseverance, in which the holy Doctor responds to Prosper and Hilary.

It is proved 1°. St. Augustine, in the book On the Predestination of the Saints, chap. 9, responding to the objection of the Semi-Pelagians drawn from what the holy Doctor had said in the book On the Six Questions of the Pagans, against Porphyry, or Letter XLIX, q. 2, where he seemed to have hinted at middle knowledge by saying that Christ willed his teaching to be preached to those whom he knew would believe, writes that he had said this without prejudice to the hidden counsel of God.

And in the book On the Gift of Perseverance, chap. 9, expounding this passage of Matth., XI, 21: If in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles, etc., which is the chief foundation of the adversaries, and where, according to them, mention is made of a conditioned future, the holy Doctor says: « These things certainly we cannot say of Tyre and Sidon (namely, what he had said of the pagans in the work cited against Porphyry, that Christ was unwilling to appear to them because he foreknew they would not believe), and in them we recognize that these divine judgments belong to those causes of predestination, without prejudice to whose hidden causes I said I was then answering that. » Hence St. Thomas, III p., q. 1, a. 3, ad 2, proposing to himself this difficulty, why Christ did not come in earlier ages, and reporting the answer that Augustine had given in the cited book On the Six Questions of the Pagans, says that St. Augustine rejected this opinion here, in chap. 9 of the cited book On the Gift of Perseverance.

Now it is certain and most evident that St. Augustine, in these two cited passages, is speaking of conditioned futures. As to the latter passage, the adversaries admit it, and as to both it is clear; for he speaks of the futures of which he had spoken in the often-cited book On the Six Questions of the Pagans, namely, who would believe, who would not believe, if Christ had appeared in these or other circumstances. It is likewise certain that here he either rejects the knowledge of conditioned things such as he had admitted in the book On the Six Questions of the Pagans, as St. Thomas holds, and as is clear from these words: « Of Tyre and Sidon we cannot say, » what he had said of the pagans in the book On the Six Questions of the Pagans — or at least that he does not admit it except insofar as it presupposes predestination or the decree; for he holds that this had once been said by him without prejudice to the hidden counsel of God. But it is equally certain that St. Augustine, in the earlier book On the Six Questions of the Pagans, did not teach middle knowledge as to its abuse, that is, as presenting to God a motive for conferring grace, or a good work without grace; both because that question was not being treated against the pagans, and because that would have been erroneous and Semi-Pelagian, and yet Augustine does not say that what he said there was erroneous, but only that he had not explained the more hidden causes of that statement. Therefore it is certain and most evident that Augustine, in the books On the Predestination of the Saints and On the Gift of Perseverance, rejected middle knowledge, not only as to its abuse, but also as to its substance.

Proof 2°. Augustine, in the book On the Gift of Perseverance, chap. 17, responding to the question of Hilary: « Whether the things that are foreknown by God are also predestined by him, so that foreknowledge rests upon the decree? » — which is the very question of middle knowledge as to its substance — lays down as a principle and general rule that if our good works are not predestined by God, « they are either not given by God, or he did not know that he would give them; but if they are both given, and he foreknew that they would be given by him, then assuredly he predestined them. » And in On the Predestination of the Saints, chap. 10: « By predestination, he says, God foreknew the things that he himself was going to do. » Now, this general principle being laid down, middle knowledge cannot stand, according to which good things are foreknown by God and yet are not predestined.

Proof 3°. Augustine, in the same book On Perseverance, chap. 18, responding to the objection of the Semi-Pelagians drawn from the testimonies of the other, more ancient Fathers, which Hilary and Prosper themselves had proposed, after showing that the more ancient Fathers, by the name of foreknowledge, had not understood a mere foreknowledge prior to God's decrees, but one including the decree and resting upon it, concludes in the following chapter by laying down this other general rule: « What, then, prevents us, when we read in some treatise-writers on the word of God the foreknowledge of God, and it is a matter of the calling of the elect, from understanding by it the same predestination? » By this second principle it is likewise plain that middle knowledge is utterly overturned, according to which there is given a foreknowledge of a good pertaining to the calling of the elect, namely, of a consent to grace conditionally future, which is not predestination.

Proof 4°. If Augustine approved of middle knowledge, as to its substance, such as the Molinist schools now teach, I ask why he did not propose it to the Semi-Pelagians, to restrain their complaints and to allay the scandals arisen on the occasion of his teaching. For we have seen above, on Prosper's report, that they complained, « that all industry is removed and virtues are taken away, if God's ordinance (as Augustine taught) precedes human wills, and that under this name of predestination a fatal necessity is introduced, » and a little before, « that this proposal of God's calling brings to the fallen an occasion for losing the care of rising again, and to the saints an occasion of lukewarmness. » Why, then, I ask, did Augustine not employ middle knowledge to allay these complaints and resolve these objections? For nothing would have been more expeditious for removing those inconveniences, since it was devised for that very purpose. Yet it is agreed, and Tournely, Gabriel, Daniel, along with other Molinists, admit, that he nowhere admitted it in his responses to Hilary and Prosper. Therefore it is most certainly true that Augustine did not approve of it; or, if he did approve of it, he is most greatly to be blamed, for having failed to remedy so many evils and scandals by so easy and ready a remedy, for having neglected to defend his own cause and that of religion, and for having fostered dissensions in the Church out of mere love of contention — which indeed it is impious to suspect of so great a Doctor.

As to St. Thomas,

1° The holy Doctor nowhere makes mention of middle knowledge, but only of the knowledge of simple intelligence, which regards merely possible things, and of the knowledge of vision, which beholds future things, the decree being presupposed.

2° As often as the holy Doctor proposes to himself the arguments that the adversaries heap up concerning the concord of liberty with the divine decrees, he never has recourse to a middle knowledge exploring the consent or dissent of human liberty prior to the decree, but, with Augustine, has recourse to the most efficacious power of the divine will itself. Thus hic q. 19, a. 8: « Since the divine will, he says, is most efficacious, it follows not only that the things which God wills to come about do come about, but that they come about in the manner in which God wills them to come about. Now he wills some things to come about necessarily, and some things contingently and freely¹. » Likewise elsewhere.

3° He rejects middle knowledge who denies its object. But St. Thomas denies the object of middle knowledge. Therefore. — Proof of the minor. The object of middle knowledge is a conditioned future prior to God's actual decree. But, according to St. Thomas, there is no future prior to God's actual decree. Therefore. — The Minor is St. Thomas's, hic q. 16, a. 7, ad 3. Nor is it valid to say that St. Thomas is to be understood of absolute futures, not conditioned ones; for the reasoning is the same for conditioned as for absolute futures, due proportion being kept, as will be evident in the following §.

4°. He rejects middle knowledge who teaches that creatures cannot be known by God immediately in themselves, but in his very essence; for by middle knowledge, if it were given, God would not see man's conditionally future consent in his essence as able to produce it, because from that nothing is said to be future, but only possible; nor in the essence as determined through the decree, because it would be prior to that decree, but immediately in itself — and this is what the adversaries contend to be the case. But St. Thomas perpetually teaches that creatures are not known by God immediately in themselves, but in his very essence. So hic q. 14, a. 5, and elsewhere many times. See the preceding dissertation, art. 4. The authors report several other principles of St. Thomas by which middle knowledge is overturned. Consult, if you please, Gonet².

[Advocates of middle knowledge invoke, in its favor, the patronage of St. Thomas himself. The name of this knowledge, indeed, he did not use, but these affirm that the thing is evidently included by the Angelic Doctor in the knowledge of simple intelligence, and they attempt to prove this from the breadth of the words with which he explains the object of simple intelligence. For thus he says, 1a p., q. 14, a. 9: « But those things which are not in act are in the potency either of God himself or of a creature; whether in active potency or in passive, or in the potency of opining or imagining or of signifying in any way whatsoever. Whatever, therefore, can be made or thought or said by a creature, and also whatever he himself can make, God knows all these, even if they are not in act. »

No one, unless he deliberately deceives himself, can persuade himself that the teaching of St. Thomas in any way favors middle knowledge, since he positively rejects it in the same article, immediately after the words cited: « But of those things which are not in act, he says, a certain diversity must be noted. For some things, although they are not now in act, nevertheless either were or will be [whether taken absolutely, or with a condition attached]: and God is said to know all these by the knowledge of vision. Because, since the understanding of God, which is his being, is measured by eternity, which, existing without succession, comprehends the whole of time, the present gaze of God is borne upon the whole of time and upon all things that exist at any time whatsoever, as upon subjects present to him. But there are some things which are in the potency of God or of a creature, which nevertheless neither are, nor will be, nor were [whether absolutely, or through the lack of the condition attached]. And with respect to these he is not said to have the knowledge of vision, but that of simple intelligence. This is said for the reason that the things which are seen among us have being distinct outside the one seeing. »

It is clear to one who reads well and understands what he reads that here the holy Doctor teaches that there pertain to the knowledge of simple intelligence those things which do not have being distinct outside the one seeing, and to the knowledge of vision those things which have being distinct outside the one seeing. Now either conditioned futures are truly future, because the condition will be fulfilled, or they are truly not future, because the condition will not be posited. If the former, they have being outside the one seeing, and therefore are objects of the knowledge of vision; but if the latter, they do not have being outside the one seeing, and consequently are objects of the knowledge of simple intelligence. And in the reply to the third, in the same article, he adds: « It is not necessary that whatever God knows should be, or have been, or be going to be; but only those things which he wills to be, or permits to be, » that is, the things which he knows by the knowledge of vision, as the holy Doctor explains in the words transcribed from the body of the article.

But in article 16 of the same question, inquiring whether God has speculative knowledge of things, he concludes as follows: « It must be said that God has speculative knowledge only of himself; for he himself is not something operable. But of all other things he has knowledge both speculative and practical. Speculative, indeed, as to the manner; for whatever we know speculatively in things by defining and dividing, all this God knows more perfectly. But of those things which he indeed can make, but makes at no time, he does not have practical knowledge, according as practical knowledge is said to be from an end. But he has practical knowledge in this way of the things which he makes at some time. Evil things, however, although they are not operable by him, nevertheless fall under his practical cognition, just as good things do, insofar as he permits, or impedes, or orders them. »

From the Angelic Doctor, therefore, we conclude that all things which are future in any way whatsoever are known by God by the knowledge of vision, which is practical, namely such as makes its own object, insofar as it has the will joined to it, and therefore knows because it makes, or by making such things, knows them. But the things which are not future, in whatever way their futurition is impeded, God knows by the knowledge of simple intelligence, which is speculative only.

From the passages cited above it evidently appears that the Angelic Doctor, far from leaving room for middle knowledge, whether implicitly or explicitly, explicitly expunges it, so determining the objects both of the knowledge of simple intelligence and of the knowledge of vision, that not even an intermediate object which God might know in some other way could be conceived. In vain, therefore, do the assertors of middle knowledge attempt to draw St. Thomas to their side.]

§ IV. — Middle knowledge is refuted by various arguments.

The first, fundamental argument. There is no object of middle knowledge. Therefore there is no middle knowledge. — Proof of the antecedent. The object of middle knowledge, according to its assertors, is a free conditioned future prior to God's decree actually exercised and independently of it. But prior to God's decree actually exercised and independently of it, there is no free conditioned future. Therefore. — Proof of the minor., wherein lies the difficulty. If something among contingent things were conditionally future prior to God's decree, it would have this either from itself, or from the force of the condition, or from an indifferent concourse offered, or finally from some other cause. But not from itself, otherwise it would not be a contingent future, but a necessary and natural one; and moreover, just as nothing can give itself to be, so neither can it give itself to be conditionally future. Not from the force of the condition. For either the condition is disparate, as in this proposition: If you had struck the earth seven times, you would have struck Syria unto its consumption, and then it is more than manifest that that condition, namely the sevenfold striking of the earth, does not by its own force infallibly bring about the future consumption of Syria; or the condition is proportionate or pertinent, as: if preaching takes place, conversion will follow; and then too it is manifest that such a condition does not render conversion infallibly future, since preaching often takes place without conversion, and besides it would follow that preaching alone would suffice for conversion, which is condemned in Pelagius. Not from the concourse offered; because that general and indifferent concourse has no infallible connection with the event, for instance with consent, since it can stand together with either consent or dissent, according to its own authors. Not, finally, from some other cause; because all other causes are indifferent and undetermined as to futurition or non-futurition, prior to God's decree determining one or the other, since they do not determine themselves independently of the determination of the first cause — otherwise they would not be second causes but first causes, and the first would be a second. There remains, then, only God's decree by which a contingent thing becomes conditionally future, and is known as such by God.

It is confirmed the first minor from what was said in art. I of this dissertation, on the notion of the future. For just as an absolute future is that which is absolutely determined in its causes to have existence in a following time, so a conditioned future is that which is conditionally determined in its causes to have existence in a following time. Hence whatever arguments prove that nothing is absolutely future prior to God's actual absolute decree, likewise prove that nothing is conditionally future prior to God's actual decree that is subjectively absolute and objectively conditioned.

They answer that between the conditioned future and the absolute future there is this difference, that the absolute future indeed requires a decree actually existing in God; but the conditioned future requires a decree not one that is in act, but one that would be, if the condition were posited. For they hold that there is always imported, on the part of the condition, a subjectively conditioned decree which is not, but which would be, if the condition were posited. Hence in that proposition: « If Peter should be in those circumstances, he will do penance, » there is always understood, they say, also: if God should will to offer him his concourse. Now they prove their assumption by this argument: a cause ought to be proportioned to its effect, so that for an effect which is, there is assigned a cause which is; for an effect which will be, a cause which will be; for an effect which would be, a cause which would be, if the condition were posited. But conditioned futures neither are nor will be, but only would be, if the condition were posited. Therefore it suffices if there be assigned to them a decree, not one that is in act, but one that would be, if the condition were posited.

But on the contrary. This answer, which Tournely urges, q. 6, a. 3, toward the end, and on which the adversaries chiefly rely, is a mere evasion. Hence, I I deny the difference alleged in the first proposition between the absolute and the conditioned future; and as to its proof, I I distinguish the minor. Conditioned futures neither are nor will be, etc., as to the actual exercise of the existence to which they are future, I concede the minor. They are not, nor will they be, etc., as to the actual truth or nature of conditioned futurition, I deny the minor. And in this lies the great delusion of the opposing opinion. — Explicatur solutio. It is indeed true that conditioned futures are not in act, that is, they do not exist in reality with that existence which they are at some point to have as future: nor do absolute futures so exist either; otherwise they would not be future, but present. For conditioned futures, then, taken in this sense, there must be assigned a cause which would be, if the condition were posited, just as for absolute futures taken in this sense, there must be assigned a cause which will at some time be. Nevertheless they are in act as to the truth or nature of conditioned or absolute futurition; for they are truly in act future conditionally or absolutely, and for that actual futurition, absolute or conditioned, which is not a being of reason, nor pure possibility, there must be assigned a cause which is in act; and just as for absolute futurition the adversaries themselves, in their objection, assign an absolute decree actually existing, so for actual conditioned futurition there must be assigned a conditioned decree actually existing. Hence I argue thus, ad hominem. Although absolute futures do not exist in act, yet because they are in act absolutely future, for the truth of this absolute futurition you assign a cause which is in act, namely an absolute decree actually existing. Therefore likewise, although conditioned futures are not in act, yet because they are in act conditionally future, there must be assigned to them a cause which is in act, namely a conditioned decree actually existing.

The second argument, akin to the preceding, or rather a fuller explanation of it. Middle knowledge is that by which God, independently of any decree posited, sees the infallible connection between the human will and this act rather than another, given certain circumstances. But there is no such connection prior to God's decree being posited. Therefore there is no object of middle knowledge. — Proof of the minor. There is no infallible connection between things that are connected neither through themselves nor through another. But, prior to God's decree being posited, the will is not infallibly connected, either through itself or through another, with this act rather than with another. Therefore. Not through itself; for the will is indifferent to this or that, and besides, if it were connected through itself with one act, the connection would be natural and necessary, and thus the future would be necessary, which is against the hypothesis. Not through another; for what would that other thing be? Not the divine will, because no decree is supposed in it by which it in fact wills those things to be connected; not the decree si, or the concourse si offered, for each of these is indifferent to this act or the opposite one; not the circumstances, for these are disparate or contingent, and therefore not infallibly connected of themselves with one act.

§ V. — The gravest untoward consequences of middle knowledge.

The first untoward consequence. Middle knowledge takes away from God the character of first cause and first mover. — Proof. It belongs to the character of a first cause and first mover that it move the other causes, and that none of them be moved except as moved by the first. But in the system of middle knowledge, the second cause moves itself without being moved by the first; for it determines itself, not being determined by God. Therefore.

The second untoward consequence. Middle knowledge takes away from God the character of universal cause, since in that system some being — namely the creature's determination — escapes His causality. For it is not caused by prevenient grace, since this, as Tournely and other Molinists admit, moves only morally toward the determination; nor by cooperating grace or simultaneous concurrence, both because then it would no longer be merely simultaneous but also previous — for a cause is prior, at least in nature, to its effect — and also because simultaneous concurrence does not act upon the will so as to determine it, but only upon the effect: it does not make us will, but acts along with us when we will, as is clear in two men drawing a ship together, where neither flows into the other, but each acts partially upon the passive drawing of the ship.

The third untoward consequence. Middle knowledge curtails God's omnipotence and the supreme dominion He has over our wills. — Proof. It is the constant teaching of Augustine and of all, as I think, who hold the Catholic view, that God can turn the wills of men to good in whatsoever circumstances: « Who, » says the Holy Doctor in the Enchiridion, ch. 97, « would be so impiously foolish as to say that God cannot turn to good the evil wills of men — which ones He will, when He will, where He will? » This he repeats many times and proves from the fact that God is omnipotent. But in the system of middle knowledge, God cannot, without destroying liberty, incline the will to consent in those circumstances in which it is foreseen as about to dissent, nor decree anything with certainty about our free acts, unless He has first explored what we ourselves are going to will. Therefore. — If you say that God can place the will in other circumstances in which He will obtain consent: granting this now (of which presently), at least in the former circumstances He will not be able to obtain it, and so He will not be able to turn the will to good when and where He will, nor will He have dominion over the will itself, but only over the circumstances.

Nay more, in that system it is not repugnant that there be a man whom God, even by His absolute power, could not convert in any circumstance. For it is not repugnant by the nature of the case that there be a man who in no circumstances would be willing to be converted, that is, to consent to prevenient graces moving only morally: for these, whether jointly or separately, have no infallible connection with consent, and will never by their own force overcome the resistance of the will. But a grace efficacious of itself, which by its own force would soften that stubborn heart and most invincibly convert it, the defenders of this system abhor as the destruction of liberty. It remains, therefore, that God does not have the most omnipotent freedom of inclining hearts, as Augustine speaks, that is, that He cannot turn the heart of man whithersoever He will, as Scripture says — in one word, that He is not omnipotent.

The fourth untoward consequence. The system of middle knowledge does not seem to withdraw sufficiently from the error of the Semi-Pelagians. This I say not by asserting, but by arguing. — Proof. St. Augustine, de Praedest. sanct., ch. 2, locates Semi-Pelagianism in this, that it as it were makes a compact with God, so as to claim part for man and part for God, and, what is worse, that man takes the first part and gives the latter to God: « Wishing, » says the Holy Doctor, « that what he believes be from himself to himself, man as it were makes a compact with God, so as to claim part of faith for himself and to leave part to Him: and, what is more arrogant, he takes the first part himself and gives the following to Him, and in that which he says belongs to both, he makes himself the prior, and God the posterior. » But the defenders of middle knowledge seem to hold the same as to substance, and to differ only in manner of speaking. Therefore.

Proof of the minor. And 1°, that they make a compact with God, though a little otherwise than the Semi-Pelagians. For these made a compact with God in such a way as to ascribe the beginning and the end of a good work to free will, but to attribute the intermediate works to God. The defenders of middle knowledge in any good work attribute part to God, part to man, inasmuch as they constitute God and man two partial causes, by a partiality of causality, each of which pays out something from its own store, namely its proper influx or concurrence, like two men drawing one ship, as Livinus de Meyer, a most vehement defender of middle knowledge, proves at length, dissert. I de mente conc. Tridentini.

That they make man prior in a good work and God posterior is evident; because they say that God shows Himself ready to concur indifferently to this act or its opposite, but that man determines this indifference and is the cause why God concurs to this act rather than to the opposite. But a cause is prior to that of which it is the cause. Therefore in this — that here and now He concurs to this act rather than to the opposite — man is prior to God, and if it be a good work, greater praise is owed to man than to God, since God offers only an undetermined concurrence to good or to evil, while man determines it to good.

The adversaries reply that they withdraw from the Semi-Pelagians in a twofold manner: 1° because they admit, even for the beginning of faith, a concomitant and physically cooperating grace, which those did not admit; 2° that they further require prevenient and exciting moral graces, which those did not admit.

To the first, I deny that the Semi-Pelagians did not admit a concomitant grace or simultaneous concurrence. This is clear from these words of Prosper to Augustine: « Nor do they consider that they subject the grace of God — which they will to be the companion, not the forerunner, of human merits — even to those very wills which, according to their fancy, they do not deny to be prevented by it, » namely by offering, not by conferring. Nor was there any reason why they should deny a simultaneous concurrence, provided it were granted to be determinable by the will to this act rather than to the opposite. For this being posited, their palmary dogma, assailed by Augustine, Prosper, and Hilary, always stands: namely, that man makes a compact with God, claims part for himself, leaves part to God, and makes himself prior, God posterior, as Augustine speaks; or, as St. Prosper says, « that man is therefore helped because he willed, not therefore wills because he is helped; » or, as Hilary speaks, « that some sort of beginning of the will is from us. » Since therefore these things, notwithstanding the simultaneous concurrence, seem to follow from the adversaries' manner of speaking, they do not seem to withdraw sufficiently from the error of the Semi-Pelagians.

To the second: granting now (a matter treated in the tract on Grace) that the Semi-Pelagians did not admit the interior prevenient moral graces which the Molinists admit, these moral graces move the will to consent only objectively and by the showing of the good, but do not effect it, rather awaiting it from the free will itself; and so they do not prevent man from making a compact with God, attributing part to himself, part to God, and making himself prior, God posterior. Consequently, by these graces they are not sufficiently distinguished from the Semi-Pelagians.

§ VI. — Middle knowledge assailed historically.

The suit against the novel dogmas of Molina, set in motion by our men before the general Inquisition of Spain and ripe for judgment, Clement VIII, importuned by the prayers of the Society, calls to Rome; he appoints congregations and institutes censors to weigh Molina's opinions, over whom he sets the Most Eminent Cardinals Ludovico Madruzzi and Pompeo Arigoni.

That these censors, with one or another excepted, constantly condemned Molina's middle knowledge is clear from the following. In the congregation held 6 March 1598, they say that « the absurdities which follow upon middle knowledge are too grave to be tolerated in a Catholic way; » in the congregation of 19 March 1601, that « it seems to be the same as that which the Massilians devised to do away with the grace effective of a good will, and to attribute to free will what they would withdraw from grace, lest they injure it. Whence it seems indeed to have been assailed by Augustine... together with the error of the Massilians. » The same they define on 29 October 1604, and thus conclude, « and therefore it is above all necessary that it be exterminated. » See Serry, book II, ch. 2 and 18, and book III, ch. 39.

These things the Jesuit Fathers formerly denied; now, compelled by the truth, they concede them with Fr. de Meyer, but they contend that these censors were precipitate in passing a censure from which, once passed, they stubbornly refused to draw back their foot, that they labored under ignorance of the facts and of Molina's doctrine, and were more than fairly devoted to the party of the Dominicans against the Jesuits.

But that these are the consolations of bad litigants — while they lose their case, to revile their judges — everyone knows. And indeed anyone will easily detect the ill-built and ungenerously flung calumnies, if he notices that the Molinists did not always keep the same manner of speaking toward the said censors. For while, less informed, they contended that « the greater and better number of them were for middle knowledge, » they proclaimed them as « most illustrious and most learned men, most commended for probity, offices, experience, and doctrine. » So the Jesuit Sherlogue, under the masked name of Paulus Leonardus, on middle knowledge, part I, sect. 3, with whom, concerning Coronel, Secretary of the Congregations, agree Peter of St. Joseph, a Molinist, and the Jesuit Ortega. But now, since it is certain to them that all — with one exception, Bovio — went into the condemnation of Molina, by the judgment of Livinus de Meyer, they are stripped of all their virtue and have passed over into others' vices: so that a good or bad disposition toward the Molinist cause is, with some, a most certain token of merit or demerit, nay confers all merit or demerit. See more fully on this matter the Thomae Triumphum, art. 6, § 6, and its Apolog., art. 19.

That Clement VIII always disapproved Molina's doctrine and had it in his purpose to condemn it is proved, among many other things, by the bitter expostulations of the Society's writers against him: namely, that he was ill-disposed toward the Society; that he was circumvented by the Spaniards in favor of the Preachers; that he was less skilled than the dignity of the matter required; that he was not sufficiently instructed in the mysteries of the Molinist doctrine, and especially of middle knowledge — and other similar accusations against that excellent and most erudite Pontiff, which are read in John Martines de Ripalda, Annat, [and] Paulus Leonardus. See Serry, book III, ch. 45, and book V, sect. 6, ch. 5. But R. P. N., professor of the Society at Douai, far surpasses all, in whose dictations we read this: « It ought not to seem strange that Clement VIII by private judgment adhered to the Dominicans, since from their Order he had been raised to the Pontificate. » At these things, though I be silent, the stones will cry out.

Paul V, successor of Clement VIII, in a council held with twelve cardinals on 8 March 1606, had determined to pass a definitive sentence against Molina, and had planned a bull of condemnation; but for certain causes then occurring he signified, by a rescript given, that he was deferring its promulgation to another time.

That the matter is so, many things prove, which for brevity's sake we now omit. Let one or another suffice.

1° As soon as the rescript of Paul V, by which the promulgation of the judgment was suspended to another time, began to be made public, the Preachers being dismayed, the Spanish Jesuits sang triumph; holidays for three days were granted to all the students, festive displays of fireworks, stage plays, triumphal arches, on whose front was engraved in golden letters: Molina the victor! and amid these solemnities sacred rites were offered in thanksgiving; whence, I pray, such sadness for the Preachers, such joy for the Jesuits, from the suspension of the promulgation of the judgment? — unless because the latter certainly augured it unlucky for themselves, the former favorable to themselves.

2° Of the peace entered into between the Dominicans and Jesuits by the help of Philip III, king of Spain, the second condition was that both parties, « with joined petitions, should supplicate the Supreme Pontiff for the definition of the controversy of the Auxilia. » The Order of Preachers stood by the condition, as is clear from the petitionary libel presented to that end to Paul V, 12 June 1612, by the general Chapter assembled at Rome. The Jesuits, on the contrary, resisted. The same supplication the Dominicans repeated more than once before the Holy Pontiffs Gregory XV, 1620, Urban VIII, 1627, Innocent XI, 1681, and most recently before Benedict XIII, the Jesuits always striving against it and demanding that the judgment be wrapped in eternal silence, as was especially evident in these last preceding years, in the reign of Benedict XIII. By which argument indeed, even if others were lacking, it becomes plain which party was superior in right in the controversy, and which the suspended judgment favors. See the Thomae triumphum and its Apologiam, in the places cited above.

You will say: All that we have said in this § and much else that the Dominicans peddle about the Roman censors, about Clement VIII, about Paul V, and about his censure, rest upon the acts of Pegna, Coronel, Lemos, and other prelates or theologians who were present at the Congregations de Auxiliis. But that no faith is to be given to these acts, nor can they be alleged by anyone, Innocent X declared in the general congregation of the universal Inquisition, on 23 April 1654. Therefore whatever arguments of fact can be drawn thence against middle knowledge are of no weight.

I answer. I distinguish the minor. Innocent X declared that no juridical or legal faith is to be given to these acts, I concede; historical [faith], I deny. Likewise: that they cannot be alleged by anyone in a court to make certain and juridical faith, I concede; outside a court, for the truth of history, I deny. That this is the true and genuine sense of Innocent's decree, no one will deny who knows the style and usage of the Roman Curia in decrees of this kind. Seek more in our earlier Work.

[The first narrative of this controversy and of the Congregations de Auxiliis was composed, under the supposed name of Augustinus Le Blanc, by Jacobus Hyacinthus Serry, of the Order of Preachers, whom Livinus de Meyer, of the Society of Jesus, endeavored to refute under the feigned name of Theodorus Eleutherius. Each, carried away by more than fair zeal for his own side, contended perhaps to prove too much: the former, that middle knowledge had been altogether condemned; the latter, that the same doctrine had escaped unharmed and free. Those who afterward wrote compendia of this history, indulging a like zeal, that is, the same fault, keenly defended their own sides, celebrating as historian the one who favored them.

Every spirit of contention set aside, for the sake of making known the truth alone, as far as can be done, we here briefly note the things that seem certain among the many asserted on this side and that, leaving aside those about which there was heated litigation.

Already from the cradle of the Society of Jesus many Dominican Fathers complained that its theologians were spreading a new doctrine, and one not sufficiently withdrawing from Pelagianism. No less did the Fathers of the Society complain of the Dominicans, that especially by their system concerning predetermination they favored the defenders of Calvin. In the year 1581 Prudentius de Monte Major, in public theses at Salamanca, defended the doctrine of middle knowledge. Several of the same Society had already preluded to it, but he became more famous than all these. He was at once assailed by the celebrated Dominic Báñez, of the Order of Preachers, moderator of the primary chair in the same university. He denounced sixteen propositions to the tribunal of the Inquisition, which Monte Major did not acknowledge as his own. These the commissary of the Holy Office condemned, the censorial judgment of the doctors of Salamanca having first been required. Thence most bitter dissensions.

Among the Belgians, in the years 1586 and 1587, Lessius and Hamelius defended the aforesaid doctrine. The Academies of Louvain and Douai, led here by Estius, there by Baius, condemned thirty-four of their propositions. The war arising thence, Sixtus V, the Supreme Pontiff, endeavored to check by his supreme authority, by a brief given on 15 April to his Apostolic Nuncio in Belgium, in which he declared that the cognizance of the whole controversy was reserved to the Holy See.

Molina, principal professor of theology in the academy of Évora, in Portugal, published his celebrated work de Concordia liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis. He proposed it as a commentary on some articles of the first part of the Summa theologica of St. Thomas, namely on divine foreknowledge, predestination, and reprobation. This work, approved by Bartholomaeus Ferreira, at once experienced various enemies, among whom the above-praised Báñez held the first parts. The tribunal of the Holy Inquisition, to which this work was denounced, left it unharmed and permitted its publication in the year 1588.

Molina's work, published in Spain, stirred up most bitter complaints among the theologians of both Orders, and the altercation broke out so far that propositions excerpted from Molina by the Dominicans, and from Báñez by the Fathers of the Society, were denounced to the Spanish Holy Inquisition. Informed of these by the supreme Inquisitor, the Supreme Pontiff Clement VIII, before the judgment of the Inquisition had been passed, called the case to the Holy See, in the year 1594, having first imposed silence on both parties, and afterward permitting disputation, yet prohibiting sharper notes and censures. At length, the arguments of both parties having been demanded and received, and consultors designated, he instituted the celebrated Congregations de auxiliis, so named because in them was chiefly agitated the question concerning the help of grace. For nine years and eight months the deliberation was protracted, namely from 2 January of the year 1598 to 28 August 1607, through one hundred and eighty-one sessions, which it will help to distribute into five series, that the state and progress of the case may be better discerned.

From 2 January 1598 to 22 February 1599, the case was treated in eleven congregations. The written judgments of the censors were brought forth, concerning the absolute prohibition of Molina's book. Meanwhile, on the arrival of the Spaniards of the Society, complaints were raised about such a censure. Hence, at the command of the Supreme Pontiff, new sessions were appointed.

From 22 February 1599 to 20 April 1600, eight congregations were held. There were present Cardinal Bernerius, of the Order of Preachers, and Cardinal Bellarmine, of the Society. There disputed, on the part of the Dominicans, Didacus Alvarez and Michael a Ripa, and on the part of the Jesuits, Michael Vasquez and Petrus Arrubal. Amid these things Cardinal Madruzzi, the president, dies, 20 April 1600, and so the discussions are broken off.

From 27 April 1600 to 20 March 1602, seventy-seven congregations were assembled. The censure, long since drawn up into twenty propositions of Molina, the consultors again approved, subscribed to it on 29 November 1601, and offered it to the Supreme Pontiff on 5 December. But this censure, the Fathers of the Society protesting, the Supreme Pontiff did not admit, and he willed the whole matter to be agitated and discussed anew in his own presence, the theologians of both parties being heard.

From 28 March 1602 to 22 January 1605, in sixty-eight congregations the entire case of Molina was reviewed. Over these presided Pope Clement VIII himself, and there attended, as supreme Inquisitor, Cardinal Camillus Burghesius, who afterward was raised to the chair of Peter under the name of Paul V. Several most learned men from among the cardinals and diverse religious orders were called in. On the part of the Preachers there took part Hieronymus Xavieres, Master general of the Order, and on the part of the Society, Claudius Aquaviva, Praepositus general. There disputed in succession Gregory de Valentia, Petrus Arrubal, Ferdinandus Bastida, Ioannes de Salas. In the first fifty-eight sessions various heads of Molina's doctrine were discussed; in the last ten was agitated the most celebrated dispute concerning middle knowledge. The matter seemed about to be shortly concluded, when Clement VIII dies, on 4 March 1605. Leo XI is elected, to whom, having shortly after fulfilled his fate, Paul V succeeded on 16 May of the same year.

From 14 September 1605 to 1 March of the following year, there are numbered, under Paul V, seventeen congregations, in which was again agitated the controversy concerning grace efficacious of itself and physically predetermining. The disputations being finished, Paul V willed the individual votes of the consultors, secured with a seal, to be communicated to himself alone, and these, at his command, were more than once returned to the anvil. At length, toward the end of July of the following year 1607, they were exhibited to the cardinals who had taken part in the sessions, who were afterward to render judgment on them at an appointed time. Thereupon the Pontiff convoked the same cardinals on 28 August of the same year, and inquired whether it were expedient to impose a final end upon the present controversy. What the opinion of those deliberating was, or what was decided by the Pontiff and cardinals, the secret of inviolable silence being kept, is still unknown, nor can it be certainly ascertained from any records.

Whatever be the case, Paul V, the Superiors of both Orders having been summoned after the third day, put the whole suit in suspense by a rescript given in confidence. In that Rescript, 1° he permitted each party to defend and champion its own opinion; 2° he forbade that anyone should brand with any censure the doctrine opposed to his own, nor that they should decree odious names against one another; 3° a little later it was provided by the same Pontiff that no book on this matter should be committed to print without the license of the Holy See.

And this was the outcome of the Congregations de auxiliis.

From what has been said above it is clear, and is admitted on both sides by the adversaries, that in the whole course of the Congregations almost all were constantly inclined toward censure. This alone we wish to retain. Since the opinion of Molina is opposed to the doctrine of the Thomists and of the Angelic Doctor himself, and it was but little short of being condemned by a formal and solemn judgment, thence at least a moral argument is drawn in favor of the Thomists.

Advancing further, Serry, whom some follow, contends that Paul V, having followed the votes of the greater part of the cardinals, committed to the consultors the care of drawing up the pontifical bull, which they, having elaborated it with diligent study, offered to him; and that thus the judgment of the Apostolic See against the doctrine of Molina was drawn up and sanctioned, to which the promulgation alone is lacking, which the Supreme Pontiff deferred, moved only by reason of opportunity: whence, they say, this doctrine is to be held as condemned. Others deny this, with Livinus de Meyer, affirming that bull to be wholly fictitious, and asserting that Paul V, in the last congregation of cardinals, inquired only whether it were fitting to settle so great a suit by a decretory judgment.

Even if it were certain that this judgment had been prepared by the Pontiff's command, it could have obtained juridical value only by a certain promulgation, and, as we have already said, only a moral argument in favor of the adverse doctrine is legitimately drawn from the pontifical intention.

When very many acts or writings pertaining to this case were invoked — of which the chief are the relations of Coronel, Jacobus Le Bossu, Pegna, Lemos, and also the autograph of the alleged Pauline constitution — and most bitter contentions were thence renewed, what is to be thought of these documents Innocent X teaches, by a decree given on 23 April 1654, of which this is the tenor:

« Moreover, since both at Rome and elsewhere there are circulated certain alleged manuscripts, and perhaps printed, of the Congregations held before Clement VIII and Paul V of happy memory concerning the question de auxiliis gratiae — as well under the name of Franciscus Pegna, formerly Dean of the Roman Rota, as of Fr. Thomas de Lemos, of the Order of Preachers, and of other prelates and theologians who took part in the said congregations; and also a certain autograph or copy of the alleged constitution of the same Paul V concerning the definition of the aforesaid question de auxiliis, and of the sentence or sentences of condemnation of Ludovicus Molina, of the Society of Jesus: His same Holiness by this present decree of His declares and decrees that to the aforesaid alleged acts — both for the opinion of the Friars of the Order of St. Dominic, and of Ludovicus Molina and the other Religious of the Society of Jesus — and to the autograph or copy of the aforesaid alleged constitution of Paul V, no faith whatsoever is to be given, nor can or ought they to be alleged by either party or by anyone else, but that concerning the aforesaid question the decrees of Paul V and Urban VII, His predecessors, are to be observed. »

The things said above, which seem rather to pertain to the tract on grace, have been placed here, that the historical argument invoked by our Author against middle knowledge may be more exactly weighed.]

§ VII. — The foundations of middle knowledge are overthrown.

You will object 1°, with Tournely and the other Molinists, from Scripture, that celebrated passage Matth., XI, 21: Woe to thee, Corozain! woe to thee, Bethsaida! for if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought in you, they had long ago done penance in sackcloth and ashes. From which they argue thus. Christ reproaches the Jews, in comparison with the Tyrians and Sidonians, that they did not do penance upon seeing His miracles and hearing His preaching, which the Tyrians and Sidonians would have done, if they had seen the same miracles of Christ and heard His preaching. But this reproach would have been unjust, if God had known the future penance of the Tyrians in His absolute and efficacious decree, on the hypothesis of the miracles and preaching of Christ, and not first by a decree through middle knowledge. Therefore. — Proof of the minor. That reproach is unjust to which a just answer can be made. But in the view of the Thomists, the Jews could have justly answered this reproach of Christ by saying: Lord, if Thou hadst efficaciously decreed our penance, given the preaching of Christ, as Thou hadst decreed the penance of the Tyrians under the same condition, we should have done penance as they would have done. Unjustly, therefore, dost Thou reproach us in comparison with them. This argument, which the Molinists so extol, and which they use everywhere as a sword and shield, the following considerations prove to totter on every side. Whence

I answer 1°. I turn the argument back. According to the system of congruous grace, which the Fathers of the Society more commonly maintain, and which all by their own principles are bound to maintain, the Jews could equally have answered Christ reproaching them in comparison with the Tyrians: Lord, if Thou hadst placed us in other circumstances in which, through middle knowledge, Thou hadst foreseen us as about to do penance, we should have done it, just as the Tyrians would have done it, whom Thou hadst placed in those opportune circumstances, on the hypothesis that among them had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought among us. Or more briefly, which is the same: If Thou hadst given us congruous grace, as Thou hadst decreed to give it to the Tyrians, we should have done penance no otherwise than they.

Tournely rejoins that, in the view of the assertors of middle knowledge, the answer of the Jews would not be just, since in the circumstances in which they were, nothing was lacking to them of the things necessary for conversion. But the Molinist doctor either deceives or is deceived: for there was lacking to them congruous grace, that is, a grace greater morally and in the character of a benefit; and congruous grace is no less necessary in this system for conversion than grace efficacious of itself in the Thomistic system. This argument, therefore, which the Congruists so magnify, must be solved by them equally as by us, and by anyone thinking about grace in a Catholic way, since it is a Catholic truth that those who are converted are prevented by a more powerful grace — whether physically, or morally, or congruously — than those who are not converted.

I answer 2°, directly to the argument. I deny the minor. To the proof, I again deny the minor, and I say that, in our view, the Jews had no cause of just excuse in comparison with the Tyrians, for not having believed and not having done penance, for a twofold reason: 1° because, although they did not have the efficacious grace giving [them] to act, that is, the decree unto it, they had at least sufficient graces giving [them] to be able; but to one able to do that to which he is obliged and not doing it, it is [reckoned] a sin; 2° because that they did not have efficacious grace was their own fault, namely because they showed themselves more unworthy of it than the Tyrians would have shown themselves, on account of their greater blindness, greater hardness, and ingratitude.

I insist. That a comparative reproach be just, there must be equality between the extremes of the comparison: e.g., if Peter, armed with stronger and fitter weapons, conquers, but John, equipped with weaker or less fit ones, is conquered, the king would unjustly reproach John in comparison with Peter for not having conquered. But in the view of the Thomists, there would be no equality between the Jews and the Tyrians, since the latter would have had efficacious grace, the former not. Therefore.

The retortion of the argument concerning congruous grace being premised as above, I respond according to both reasons given in the preceding solution. 1° I distinguish the major. That a comparative reproach be just, there must be equality between the extremes of the comparison, as to the debt and the power of fulfilling it, I concede the major; as to actual fulfillment, I deny the major. For then there would be place for no reproach. Now in the Jews and the Tyrians there was an equal debt of doing penance, an equal power, since both would have had sufficient helps giving [them] to be able; but in the example adduced, the weapons stand on the part of the first act or of the power. 2° I distinguish the same major. There must be equality between the extremes of the comparison, if the defect of equality does not arise from the fault of that extreme to which the requisites for equality are lacking, I let it pass; if it arise from its fault, I deny the major. Thus John conquered would be justly reproached, if he had refused weapons equal to those with which Peter conquered. Now, that the Jews did not receive such helps as the Tyrians would have received was their own fault, namely on account of the greater impediments which they set against the reception of grace, as has been said. What Tournely opposes to these things remains partly solved from what has been said, and will return below, on the decrees.

Tournely objects, 2°, from the authority of Augustine: St. Augustine, book de Praedest. sanctorum, ch. 10, says that God foreknows the things He does not predestine: « He can, » he says, « foreknow the things He does not Himself do, such as all sins whatsoever. » That knowledge, therefore, does not rest upon a decree of God, nor does it suppose one. But knowledge which does not suppose an absolute and actual decree of God is called middle knowledge. Therefore.

I answer that the words of Augustine are not reported in full. For the Holy Doctor says: « By predestination, indeed, God foreknew the things He was Himself going to do; but He is able to foreknow also the things He does not Himself do, such as all sins whatsoever. » Now by the former words the throat of middle knowledge is sought. For I subsume: But all our goods God does. Therefore all our goods He foreknows in His predestination or decree. This being posited, middle knowledge collapses. But the things God does not do, such as sins, He foreknows not in an effective or approbative decree, but in a permissive one, according to that other saying of St. Augustine, de Dono perseverantiae, ch. 6: « Nothing comes to be (nor accordingly can be known as to be done) except what either (God) Himself does, or permits to be done. »

Tournely insists again: Augustine, book I ad Simplicianum, q. 2, n. 13, says: « If God willed to have mercy even on those (who, namely, being called, do not come), He could so call them in the manner that would be fitting for them, that they would both be moved, and understand, and follow... On whom He has mercy, He so calls him, in the manner He knows to be congruous, so that he does not reject the one calling. » From which he forms the argument thus: God could not call those who do not come in the manner that would be fitting for them that they should come, unless He certainly knew in what manner they are to be called so that they may come. But that knowledge is not the absolute knowledge of vision, since it is not concerned with those who are absolutely going to come, but with those who would come, if they were called in such a manner. Therefore it is conditioned, and indeed prior to every predefining decree, since it is supposed that there is not in God a will of so calling them.

I answer. The major and minor being conceded, I deny the consequence, and I say that that knowledge is the knowledge of simple intelligence, by which God knows, in the treasuries of His omnipotence, infinite modes and graces by which, if He willed, He would compel rebellious wills to Himself.

Other Molinists insist: Augustine, ibid. ad Simplicianum, n. 13 and 14, says: « Although many are called in one manner, yet, because not all are affected in one manner, those alone follow the calling who are found fit for receiving it. Those are elect, who, being congruously called... On whom He has mercy, He so calls him, in the manner He knows to be congruous to him, so that he does not reject the one calling... Since therefore one is moved to faith in this way, another in that, and the same thing said in one way often moves, said in another way does not move, and moves one, does not move another, who would dare to say that there was lacking to God a manner of calling by which even Esau would have applied his mind to that faith, and joined his will to that in which Jacob was justified? » And in the book de Dono persev., ch. 14, n. 35, speaking of the Tyrians to be converted, if they had seen the miracles of Christ, he says: « From which it appears that some have in their very natural talent a divine gift of intelligence, by which they may be moved to faith, if they hear words or behold signs congruous to their minds. » From which the Molinists infer that predestination and vocation, according to Augustine, come about according to middle knowledge, by which God, before He calls and predestines, foreknows and explores what modes, what circumstances are congruous for obtaining man's consent, and what the man himself would will in these circumstances — especially since, in the view of the Thomists, it cannot come about that, of many called in one manner, that is, with equal grace, one is converted, another not.

I answer. I deny the consequence. For these authorities in no way favor middle knowledge; because, if God knows the consent as conditionally future from the congruity of the means, He knows it by that knowledge by which He knows what is congruous to each one that he may consent; but this He knows, as I have already said, by the knowledge of simple intelligence, and not by middle knowledge, whose sole object is the free consent, foreseen in nothing other than in its own futurition, and not in the congruity of grace. For the defenders of middle knowledge do not say that the future consent is foreknown because the congruous grace is foreknown, but on the contrary, that the grace is foreknown as congruous because the future consent is foreknown in its objective truth. Therefore these authorities in no way aid middle knowledge.

You will say: They aid at least the congruous grace such as the defenders of middle knowledge now advocate.

I answer. I deny the assumption. For St. Augustine in these passages speaks only of grace or external calling that is congruous. This is clear both from his cited words: « Since the same thing said in one way often moves, said in another way does not move; » and: « If they hear words or behold signs congruous to their minds; » and from the various examples of external vocation which he there brings forward: as that Nathanael believed at a single word of Christ; the disciples, when the miracle was wrought at Cana of Galilee, believed; at the cross and death the disciples, terrified, wavered, [while] the thief believed; many despised Christ working miracles, who, when the disciples wrought such things, believed — and the like, in which St. Augustine records nothing beyond signs, miracles, and words. Now, it is more certain than certain that the Holy Doctor never taught or held that external vocation is congruous and efficacious in the elect for this one reason, that it corresponded to their talent, propensity, and natural dispositions: otherwise he would have taught pure and unmixed Pelagianism, namely that external vocation alone, interior grace being excluded, suffices for faith. Of the congruity, therefore, which grace, not nature, makes, is Augustine to be understood.

The Holy Doctor teaches therefore, and we with him, that God, according to the ordinary laws of His providence, in order to dispose man to the reception of interior and efficacious grace, uses certain aids or exterior graces, such as preachings, exhortations, reproaches, examples, miracles, etc., in which there is a certain external force of moving and persuading morally and objectively, and of which some are fitter and more congruous for moving certain men, according to their fixed natural dispositions and other circumstances; so that it often happens, as Augustine says and experience attests, that « the same thing said in one way moves, said in another does not, and moves one, does not move another. » But that these exterior graces, precisely from this — that they are attempered and congruous to the talent, natural affections, or other circumstances — obtain their effect and work consent without the help of an interior grace efficaciously inclining the will, Augustine never dreamed: unless, as I said, you would have him teach a most rotten heresy, ascribing salvation to exterior graces alone. When therefore he said that, of many called in one manner exteriorly, some follow, others do not; likewise, that the Tyrians would have believed upon seeing the miracles of Christ, because the natural gift of intelligence was not extinct in them: this he undoubtedly said without prejudice to that interior grace by which God makes this external vocation congruous and works consent, and by which it comes about, in our view, that of two equally called exteriorly, one is converted, the other not. And so the sense of his words is: Although many are called in one manner exteriorly, yet, because not all are affected in one manner by grace, those alone follow the vocation who are found fit for receiving it, that is, are made fit through grace; and He calls His elect in the manner He knows to be congruous to them that they may follow, inasmuch as He perfectly knows the force and efficacy of His grace, by which it comes about that the vocation is congruous to them and that they themselves consent. So answered our Lemos in the second Congregation before Paul V, 20 September 1605, when Bastida objected this passage of Augustine from book I ad Simplic., q. 2.

And that this is his mind Augustine openly signifies in several places. Thus de Praedest. sanct., ch. 8, n. 15: « When the Gospel is preached, » he says, « some believe, some do not believe; but those who believe, with the preacher sounding from without, hear from the Father within and learn... This is, [that] it is given to them to believe. » And in the book de Correptione et Gratia, ch. 14, n. 43, he says that external correction becomes inwardly salutary inasmuch as God « works within, holds the hearts, moves the hearts, and draws them by their own wills, which He Himself works in them. »

For the solution of certain instances, whether from St. Thomas or from other Fathers, it must be observed that predestination is taken in two ways: strictly, for a decree specially ordaining a rational creature to a supernatural end; broadly, for any effective decree of some good. When therefore the Fathers sometimes say that foreknowledge extends more widely than predestination, they generally take predestination in the first sense, according to which it is true that foreknowledge, even in goods, extends more widely than such predestination, because the goods of the natural order do not come about through it, but through the decrees of natural providence, in which accordingly they are known.

The considerations from reason which Tournely objects are drawn from the impossibility and uselessness of decrees subjectively absolute and objectively conditioned, from the injury to both human liberty and divine holiness, [and] from the insufficiency of sufficient grace in our system. The first we shall dissolve in the following §, the rest in the following dissertation, on the decrees of the divine will. Those that remain, of lighter moment, I shall dispatch briefly. And so

Objection 3° from reason: God certainly knows this conditioned future: « If I efficaciously decree the consent of Peter, Peter will consent. » But this He does not know in an actual decree, since it is supposed not yet to be posited. Therefore before the decree, through middle knowledge. Similarly God knows before the decree this conditioned future: « If God commands death to Christ, Christ will choose it; » for this is true even in the sign prior to the decree. Therefore.

I answer that this conditioned future — « If I efficaciously decree the consent of Peter, Peter will consent » — is not a contingent future, about which the question proceeds, but a necessary future, not by a necessity of the consequent, but of the consequence; and accordingly is known by the knowledge of simple intelligence: as in these propositions: « If I see Peter sitting, Peter sits. If God foreknows Peter about to consent, Peter will consent, » although the extremes are free, yet the connection between them is infallible and necessary, and accordingly pertains to the knowledge of simple intelligence. The same could be said of that other: « If God commands death to Christ, Christ will choose it, » by reason of the impeccability of Christ. Or it must be said that in it there is involved, on the part of the condition, a decree as presupposed; for from this — that Christ is impeccable — it is implied that God imposes a precept on Him, [yet] not without at the same time decreeing to move His will to the fulfillment of this precept. The things that can be opposed concerning the truth of propositions about the future independently of the decree, or concerning the law of contradictories, are solved in Logic, and we anticipated them above, when [we treated] of the knowledge of absolute futures.

§ VIII. — There are asserted in God decrees subjectively absolute and objectively conditioned, in which He knows conditioned futures.

A decree subjectively absolute and objectively conditioned is when the person decreeing has an actual will of doing something, yet the execution is suspended until a certain condition is placed, as when someone says: « I will to give a thousand florins to Titius, if he takes my daughter to wife. I will give my horse to Caius, if he meets me tomorrow. »

I say. There must be admitted in God decrees subjectively absolute and objectively conditioned, determining the conditioned futurition of things.

Proof 1° from Scripture. God in the Scriptures promises that He will do many things, if a certain condition be placed. E.g., He promised Adam that his posterity would be born in original justice, if he himself did not sin. He promised the children of Israel that He would lead them in and preserve them in the land of promise, if they observed the law. He promised David and Solomon that their sons would sit for an age upon the throne of Israel, if they obeyed His commandments. Likewise He promised Abraham that He would spare Sodom, if there were in it ten just men, and many other similar things. When therefore God promised these things, either He had the will of fulfilling the promise once the condition was placed, or not. If the first, we have our point; for there is there a will or decree conditioned on the part of the object and absolute on the part of the subject. If the second, then God lied, promising that He would do what He in truth did not will to do.

Likewise. Many conditioned futures are revealed as certain in the Scriptures, e.g., that king Joas would have smitten Syria unto destruction, if he had smitten the ground seven times with the arrow; that the Tyrians and Sidonians would have been converted, if Christ had been announced to them. But they could not be said in the Scriptures to be certainly future, if the condition were placed, except from a decree of the divine will.

If you say that in all these futures the condition depends not on God decreeing, but on the human will; and that the adversaries do not altogether shun conditioned decrees, provided the condition does not depend on the one decreeing — for they admit a decree of saving all men, if they themselves will, a decree of concurring with man, if he himself will;

I answer. I deny the assumption. In the first place, the condition required for the conversion of the Tyrians — namely to send them preachers, to work miracles — depended on God alone. In the others, the conditions depended on the created will in such a way that they depended equally, at the least, even in the adversaries' view, on the will of God, since without His concurrence at any rate none could have been placed.

Proof 2° by reason. There are certainly many conditioned futures, as is clear from Scripture, nor do the adversaries deny it. But these are not [given] except through decrees subjectively absolute and objectively conditioned. For as we have proved at length in § 5 of this article, they are not conditioned futures of themselves, otherwise they would not be free, but necessary, against the hypothesis; and, on the other hand, nothing can extract itself from the mass of possibility and give itself some actuality, such as is the order to existing under a condition; nor [are they conditioned futures] from a condition to be placed, since between it and the future there is no connection, or only a contingent one, as between the preaching of the Gospel and the conversion of the Tyrians, between the striking of the ground and the devastation of Syria; nor from second causes, for with the decree or determination of the first cause set aside, second causes are undetermined and indifferent to placing or not placing the effect; nor finally from a decree that would be if the condition were placed, because for an actual futurition a cause must be assigned that is, and not one that would be; and moreover, as we were just saying, since between the decree and the condition there is no connection by nature, it cannot be said that a decree is to be placed, if the condition were placed, unless it were so constituted in the divine will. Therefore. See more in the place cited.

Likewise. God certainly knows conditioned futures. But He does not know them except in His decree subjectively absolute and objectively conditioned; for He does not know them either in the super-comprehension of causes, nor in the decree as future, nor in a formal or objective truth, as we have proved at length in what precedes. Therefore there remains only the decree, in which He knows them.