Summa summae S. Thomae sive compendium theologiae

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.