Book I, Chapter 19

CHAPTER XIX. He raises objections and replies.

So that what has been said above may appear more clearly, it must be probed by a brief scrutiny of the dispute. It is argued that things understood, being posterior, are the cause of the divine understanding.1 For whatever moves an intellect to understanding is the cause of that understanding, and so of its knowledge. But everything understood by God moves the divine intellect; for every object understood moves the one who understands, and his intellect, as is plain in On the Soul 3, almost throughout. And in Metaphysics 12, 37, the new translation says: "But the intellect is moved by the intelligible."2 And the translation which the Commentator expounds says: "But the intellect comes from the thing understood," which Averroes explains thus: that is, the essence of the intellect is in the thing understood.

Likewise, whatever is naturally prior to another, and is necessarily required before it, is some cause of it, as appears from what was said above. But the intelligible and the knowable stand in just this relation to God's intellect and knowledge, as chapters 13 and 17 showed beforehand. Likewise, a thing's being or not being is the cause of truth, and truth is the cause of knowledge, not the converse. Likewise, cognition of incomplex things is the cause of complex knowledge,3 and therefore God's complex knowledge is caused by the things known. Likewise, it seems that divine knowledge is not the cause of the things known, because then, since He always knows all things equally, all things would always be caused equally. And then, since He knows non-beings equally as beings, these too would be caused equally as beings. Likewise, the posterior is not the cause of the prior; but understanding and knowledge are posterior to the intelligible and the knowable. For this follows: "There is understanding and knowledge, therefore there is the intelligible and the knowable," and it is not convertible, at least formally. Therefore, by that logical rule in the Categories, the intelligible and the knowable is prior to understanding and knowledge; so these are posterior to them. Likewise, as the intellect is naturally prior to the will, so also to know is prior to willing: for no one can will except what is already known. So to know, and to foreknow, any complex is prior to willing it, or to willing that it be so.

Moreover, God would then foreknow future things by such a train of reasoning: "Whatever I will to happen, will happen; I will this to happen; therefore it will happen." And so He would be in some way potential, and not supremely actual, against the first Supposition and the third part of the first corollary of this book. Besides, Origen says on the Epistle to the Romans that something will not be because God knows it to be future; rather, because it is future, it is therefore known by God before it happens. Likewise Augustine, replying to the seventh question of Orosius, says: "In God, will cannot precede wisdom; therefore to be wise rationally is prior to willing rationally." Likewise Ecclesiasticus 1: "Who has searched out the wisdom of God that precedes all things? Wisdom is prior to every created thing." Therefore God's wisdom and His knowledge precede His will.

Further, there is an objection against the claim that some truths are naturally prior to the divine will. For then, by the same reasoning, certain necessary and impossible things would be prior to it, which seems contrary to Anselm, Cur Deus homo 1, 17, who says: "All necessity and impossibility lies under His will, but His will is subject to no necessity or impossibility. For nothing is necessary or impossible except because He so wills; but that He should will or not will something on account of necessity is alien to the truth."

Regarding the first of these, it must be known that one thing's moving another can be understood in two ways: B1 properly, namely, or metaphorically. Properly, as in movers and things moved really and properly, as the Philosopher speaks in the book of the Physics, almost throughout. Metaphorically, as an end is said to move; and every apparent good or evil moves to pursuit or flight, as is said in On the Soul 3, Ethics 7, Metaphysics 12, and in many other places. Hence in On Generation 1, 7, he sets out this distinction in these words: "For there is the efficient cause, that is, that whence the principle of motion comes, properly speaking; but that for the sake of which, that is, the final cause, is not efficient; therefore health is not something efficient, except by metaphor." Speaking properly, then, it is not true that every thing understood moves the one who understands. For I understand many things that altogether are not, and so altogether cannot properly move. I also understand many existing things which do not properly move me: I understand the Phoenix of Arabia, and the marvels of India, and how could these move me properly while I am in Oxford? For according to the Philosopher, Physics 7, in every motion the mover and the moved are together, either in themselves or at least through a medium which is immediately moved by the first mover and immediately moves the last thing moved by the power of the first mover, as is plain in On the Soul 2, 74. But these things neither move me immediately, nor suffice to alter the whole medium. Speaking metaphorically, however, it is true that every thing understood moves the one who understands. This is not because the thing itself moves him properly, but because its likeness, intention, or image, in the memorative or imaginative power, or in the intellect itself, moves the one who understands in some way to understand. So also, according to the authority of the Philosopher, an end, and a health that does not exist, move a man's will; yet not these properly but very metaphorically, because the cognition of them alone moves someone to will, and the will so moved moves him to pursue further. For this reason the end too is often called by the Philosopher the first mover.

Things understood by God, therefore, move the divine intellect not properly but only metaphorically. For their ideas and likenesses in God, that is, the divine essence, which most distinctly represents all intelligibles, move—or moves—the divine intellect in some way to understand all intelligibles. And since God has these ideas and likenesses from Himself alone, and in no way from the posterior things understood, He is not said to be moved by them to understand, except perhaps very metaphorically, and less properly, as has been said. The second is resolved by this same point: for the intelligible is not always, according to itself and properly, prior to understanding, since many non-beings are understood only according to their idea and likeness, as has been said. The third is to be answered likewise. For no created truth is the cause, properly speaking, of divine knowledge; the cause is the first uncreated truth, by which all other true things are true, as was shown above; or else the divine will, which is the infallible cause of all created truth, as the preceding chapters taught. Nor is this truth caused in God by posterior true things; it is in Him wholly from Himself. So posterior true things do not properly cause divine knowledge, though perhaps they may be said to, very figuratively, namely because the idea or image of this truth in the divine mind in a way causes God's knowledge. Nor is a thing's being or not being the cause of such truth in God, as the major premise supposes; rather the contrary. The fourth is resolved by what has been said: although cognition of incomplex things in God is the cause of His complex knowledge, yet since that cognition is in Him only from Himself, and is not acquired for Him from incomplex things known, it does not follow that these properly cause God's complex knowledge. The fifth is resolved thus: divine knowledge of cognition alone, or of simple awareness, is not a sufficient cause of things; but with it there is required also knowledge of approval, and the good pleasure of the will, or some such act in the divine will. The sixth is resolved by this same point.

The seventh is to be answered through the answer to the first and the following arguments. For the intelligible and the knowable are not prior to understanding and knowledge properly and in themselves (for many non-beings are understood and known), but only metaphorically, that is, according to their likenesses and ideas.

For the eighth, it must be known that the divine intellect is, in a certain way, naturally prior to its willing. And so it necessarily, simply and wholly absolutely cognizes, by simple awareness, as incomplex, all complex things that can be thought, true or false, possible or impossible. It does not, however, do so by adhesive complex awareness, which is compared above to our complex and composite knowledge. For in this way He does not know such things before, through His will, they become true antecedently and causally, as the fourteenth of this book reveals.4 In the same way you too, equally, in time, know by simple incomplex awareness a complexion of this kind, "You do this or that," "You will this or that," before it is so, just as when it is so. But you do not have adhesive complex knowledge except when it is so, and after it is so, at least in the natural order, just as such propositions too are true. Nor does the ninth proceed. For God does not know future things only argumentatively and not intuitively, as an astronomer-calculator shut in a room knows a future or present eclipse above his own horizon or below it, by sure demonstration, not by clear intuition. Rather, it is as one who sees the sun sees it through its species received in the eye, which is naturally prior to the vision and the cause of it, without any argument. For in order that he may see the sun it is not necessary that he argue in this way: "Whoever has the species of the sun in the eye sees the sun; I have it so; therefore I see it." As soon as the species of the sun is had in the eye, he sees the sun. So too the divine will, with respect to some future thing, as its own species, so to speak, represents to the divine intellect that this future thing will be; and the intellect, through that species, comprehends this most immediately, without any reasoning, as the bodily eye comprehends the sun through the species of the sun.

That passage of Origen seems to be resolved by the preceding chapter. Perhaps someone will object that Peter Lombard explains it otherwise;5 but the sixteenth of this book answers that. Again, it is perhaps objected that certain other Doctors still explain it otherwise, saying that when it is said that "because it is future, it is therefore known by God," the cause of the consequence is denoted here, not of being. But if Origen speaks only of the cause of consequence, not of being, why does he say, "Not because of this will something be, because God knows it to be future"? Since it nevertheless follows very well: "God knows this to be future; therefore it will be."

It can still be objected more sharply in this way. If a thing is naturally future before God knows it, and the thing's being future is the cause of divine foreknowledge, then by like reasoning present things are also naturally present before God knows this, and the things' being present is the cause of such knowledge of God, plainly against the fifteenth and sixteenth. But here it must be known that a thing's being future in the divine will and predestination, causally, and not in its own nature externally, is the cause of divine knowledge or foreknowledge. For He in no way needs external things in order to know, as the earlier arguments urged; He has all future things within Himself, cognitively, causatively, intuitively, or scientifically, from Himself alone; and so He knows them. Likewise He knows present things in like manner, inwardly in every respect. For otherwise He would know inwardly future things first, present things second, and past things third; and so He would be changed inwardly, the opposite of which the fifth teaches. In every way, then, and in the same manner,6 things are inwardly first future in the divine will, second present, third past; and always similarly and equally present to Him and known with Him, and causes of His knowledge, always alike and equal. D1 Hence Hermes too, in On the Eternal Word 15, speaking of the world and worldly things, says: "They were not when they were not, but already then they were in Him, whence they were to be born,"7 with whom many philosophers D2 and theologians agree. Hence the Wise Man too says: "To the Lord," he says, "to God all things were known before they were created; so too after completion He looks upon all things";8 so, he says, and not otherwise inwardly in any way.

You may perhaps reply further, and say: If God's willing is the cause of the existence of things outside, in work and effect, it is the immediate cause of such existence of things, as the corollary of the tenth of this book teaches. And it is likewise the cause of God's complex knowledge of the existence of things of this kind. Therefore such external existence of things, in work and effect, is naturally prior to the divine knowledge mentioned above, and therefore also some cause of it, by what was laid down in the thirteenth and seventeenth of this book, plainly against the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth of this book.

Or perhaps you will say otherwise: God's complex knowledge is the cause of the existence of things outside, but not in the same order as the divine will, since it is posterior to that will causally and naturally, according to what was set out in the preceding chapter, nor is it a prior cause in nature, as the same seems to show. It is therefore a cause of things that is naturally posterior to the divine will, and therefore also an intermediary between that will and this sort of its effect, against the corollary of the tenth, cited above.

But who does not see the fault of the first of these? For who does not know that this nowhere follows: "A and B are effects, or things caused, of cause C, and A is immediate; therefore A is prior to B, and its cause"?

For why could not one cause have two immediate effects, neither of which would be the cause of the other? Nor does the divine will alone cause God's knowledge. For it seems that no one need doubt that the divine intellect causes its own act of understanding, and its scientific understanding. Why then could the divine intellect, looking immediately upon the act of the divine will by which it immediately produces external things, not know more immediately, or at least as immediately, through that act, that so it will be, is, or was outside? This is especially so since that act of the divine will suffices for the divine intellect for knowing, namely in such a way that posterior things, in their own natures, do nothing at all toward God's knowledge, as the earlier arguments urged. Indeed the divine Intellect seems in some way more immediate to the divine will, and act to act, than God's will or willing is to external things. Nor does God's complex knowledge seem to be a cause of things externally, except insofar as it includes simple, incomplex awareness, and God's good pleasure or will.

That passage of Augustine will be resolved thus: he is speaking there of God's wisdom with respect to what is within, by which He has knowledge of those things that naturally precede the divine will, of which sort is the begetting of the Son. For He does not beget with will preceding, but by nature, as Augustine teaches in On the Trinity 15, 20; and God's will is not the cause of the knowledge of such things, as the immediately preceding chapter of this book shows.9 For Orosius asked whether the Father begot the Son by will or by necessity. Augustine replies that it was neither by will nor by necessity, because there is no necessity in God, and will cannot precede wisdom, which is the Son.

The other passage of Ecclesiasticus could be glossed in the same way. For it seems that he is speaking there of the Son, who is Wisdom, of the Wisdom of God the Father, and therefore he says there, "The fountain of wisdom is the Word of God in the highest." It can be said otherwise, that he seems to mean that God's wisdom precedes everything outside God, namely all created things, not everything within Him. For he says there, "Wisdom is prior to every created thing." And further on, at 24, more expressly, in the person of divine wisdom he says: "I came forth from the mouth of the Most High, the firstborn before every creature; I made in the heavens that an unfailing light might arise, and like a cloud I covered all the earth."

Anselm, however, seems to be speaking of the necessity and impossibility that are posterior to the divine will, in things creatable or created. By this necessity, according to him there, it was in a way necessary for Christ to die, and impossible for him not to die. Hence immediately after the passage cited he adds: "Therefore, since He does what He wills, and nothing but what He wills, just as no necessity or impossibility precedes His willing or not willing, so none precedes His doing or not doing, although He wills many things immutably and does them."