Book I, Chapter 24

CHAPTER XXIV. He objects against the immutability of divine knowledge, and answers.

It is objected against the immutability of divine knowledge in this way. God knew that Christ suffers, and now he does not know it; therefore his knowledge is changed. Likewise, God did not know that this instant exists, and now he knows it. Likewise, God foreknew that Christ suffers or will suffer, and now he does not foreknow it. And likewise Judith 9: "You thought those things after those."1 To meet these objections one must know that God understands complexes2 otherwise than we do. We always understand such things by comparing them to the present instant. For every proposition is composed of noun and verb, speaking of the verb in the common way, as Priscian and the other Latins speak, so that it embraces present, past, and future. The Greeks do not speak so: according to Aristotle in Perihermenias 1, they call only the verb of present tense a verb, and the rest cases of verbs.3 As is clear there, every verb co-signifies time. "Runs" co-signifies the present time, namely that the running is now; "will run" or "was running" co-signifies what it embraces, namely the past or the future. This is evident, because "was running" signifies that the running was done earlier in time, and "will run" that the running will be done later; and as is clear in Metaphysics 5, 16,4 what is prior in time, in the past, is further removed from the present now, while in the future it is what is nearer to the now itself, the now being the principle and first being to which the other things are compared.

But because of the weakness of our intellect we cannot distinctly know all the particles of time, which are always flowing and continually succeeding one another. And so we take the present instant, which of the whole of time is the most actual and the best known to us, and we posit it as a sign and a certain fixed limit; by comparison with it, or rather with that limit, we understand things present, past, and future. Hence our propositions too, when they signify with time, necessarily signify in this way, namely relatively and by comparison to whatever present instant there is. And so this proposition, "Christ suffers," continually signifies something different, and different again, as different instants successively become present; and "Christ was suffering" and "Christ will suffer" co-signify in the same way. It is like the image5 in the fixed eye of a person who looks, from a certain position, at the parts of a river as they run continually past: it continually signifies one part of the river, and then another. And it is like such propositions in the soul of one who sees in this way: "this part is directly opposite me in this position," and "this part is higher, this lower," or "this part is earlier, this later." They are always ‖C1 representing6 now one thing and now another, by comparison with the various parts presented to the eye on various occasions. Margin: ‖C1 (variant) repraesentant.

Hence also this proposition, "Christ will suffer" or "suffers," which was once true, is now false; and this proposition, "Christ was suffering," which was once false, is now true. And because our knowledge, belief, and opinion come about through propositions of this kind, they vary in the same way as those propositions do. God, however, from his utterly infinite clarity comprehends all particulars and all the particles of time, just as they are, most truly through himself. For he does not need, in the manner of human weakness, to compare or relate past or future things to the present instant. He understands all things at once, and as present, with equal clarity. This is because he does not know through such changeable verbal propositions, but through his essence and his own will, which always represent all things uniformly and invariably. Suppose a point-like sight were posited, at rest in the center of the revolving heaven, which saw by extramission7 and actively, not passively, as God sees things. It would always see uniformly, without any change in itself, the individual parts of heaven revolving continually, and the same part now in the east, now at the meridian, now in the west. In the same way God, in every same way and on his own part intrinsically, sees something first as future, second as present, third as past. He does so because he does not see by being acted on in any way by the things seen, that is, passively, but rather by acting, that is, actively, as was shown above.

Augustine hints at this cause of the difference between God's knowledge and ours when he says, in On the Trinity 15, 13:8 God did not know created things E1 otherwise than things to be created, for nothing was added to his wisdom from them. Our knowledge is far unlike this knowledge, because in the wondrous simplicity of that nature, to be wise is not one thing and to be another; what it is to be wise, that is to be. Our knowledge, however, consists in very many things, and therefore it can be lost and regained, because for us to be is not the same as to know. Therefore the essence of God, or his will, which is the same, first showed to the divine intellect Christ about to suffer; so in every same way afterward it shows him Christ suffering, and now it shows him Christ having suffered. And therefore God's knowing these three things (or rather this one thing named in three ways) is the same knowing, and in entirely the same manner. It would be as if we had a single proposition signifying uniformly, naturally or by imposition, as God's essence or will signifies to him first Christ about to suffer, then suffering, and finally having suffered, and as if we always had a single knowledge conformed to that proposition. Then in the same way, without any change in our knowledge, we would know the same thing as future, present, and past. Margin: E1 (source) Augustine.

When, therefore, it is assumed at the outset, "God knew that Christ suffers, and now he does not know it," the first of these must be distinguished according to composition and division,9 in that it can speak of the dictum or of the thing of the dictum. In the composite sense, and of the dictum, it seems to require a further distinction. For "proposition," "complex," or "dictum" can be taken for a proposition, complex, or dictum outside the divine mind, or in the divine mind itself, insofar as a complex and complex knowledge can be assigned there by way of likeness, as the eighteenth chapter urged. In the sense of composition, then, and of the dictum, taken outside the divine mind, it is true: for God knew such a proposition, "Christ suffers," namely at the time of the Passion. And if one argues in this sense, "God knew it, and now he does not know it; therefore God, or at least his knowledge, is changed," one must say that this does not follow. Rather, it is because the proposition has changed from true signification to false, and from truth to falsity. It is just as, when an eye is fixed and gazes in the same position at the parts of a river continually succeeding one another, it does not follow that the eye itself is changed because it earlier saw a part which it does not now see. Rather, it suffices that that part is changed. Likewise it does not follow, "God was formerly Lord of the Flood, and now is not; therefore God is changed." Perhaps it is the Flood itself that is changed, just as among mere creatures too it does not follow in such relatives. And if it is still argued that at least it follows that God knows fewer things than he knew, one must say that this does not follow. For just as this proposition was formerly known and is now not known, so its contradictory was formerly not known and is now known. Perhaps the sophistical slanderer will press the point still further. "Suppose," he will say, "that its contradictory is not, nor is any such proposition true. Then the compensation of this one for that one ceases; therefore he will then know fewer things than before."

Again, of any contradiction one part is better, worthier, and nobler, as is clear from what precedes; and knowledge of better, worthier, and nobler things is better, worthier, and nobler, as is clear from the Philosopher in On the Soul 1, 1, and in Metaphysics 1 in the Prologue, Metaphysics 6, 3, and from Averroes there, and on On the Heavens 2, Commentary 60.10 Therefore the whole divine knowledge is more perfect on this occasion than on that.

To the first of these it must be said that it is quite possible that he knows fewer extrinsic complexes to exist in being than before, but not fewer intrinsic ones in knowable being. Indeed it is possible that he knows no true complex, and not even any extrinsic incomplex, to exist in being, because it is possible that all things be destroyed. So too he did not know them before the world, when none of them existed; and yet if it were so, he would not then have less knowledge than before. For he does not know through such created truths, but only through truths intrinsic to himself and eternal, as the preceding chapters have taught; and those truths remain always equal, in every way wholly unchanged. But perhaps he will reply again and say: let A be such a proposition (or, speaking by way of likeness, something like a proposition) in the divine mind, "Christ suffers," and B its contradictory. Then A was formerly true and is now false, and conversely for B. Therefore those truths intrinsic to God are changed, and so God himself is necessarily altered.

It must be said that A does not signify as that created proposition does, "Christ suffers." For then it would continually signify or co-signify in different ways, or different things, according to the diversity of the instant or time in which it would be, as was shown above. But it always, immovably, co-signifies altogether the same time or instant. And so, just as at the time of the Passion it signified as present that Christ was then suffering, so now it signifies in entirely the same way that Christ then suffered. It is equivalent to these two propositions of ours: "Christ now suffers," which was true at the time of the Passion, and "Christ was then suffering," which is true in *D1 the present. But he will not stop yapping, and will say: "A is now true, and B likewise; for it is true that Christ is not suffering; therefore contradictories are true together." Here one must say that, as many instants as there are in the whole of time, so many imaginary affirmative and negative propositions, distinct and corresponding to those instants, does God have about anything whatever, like these: "Christ suffers in this instant," "Christ suffers in that instant," and so on for the rest. For God understands all intelligible propositions, true or false. Margin: *D1 (variant) tempore.

And because, according to the Philosopher in the first book of the Elenchi, contradiction is the opposition of one and the same, not of the name only but of the thing and the name, in the same respect, in relation to the same thing, in the same way, and at the same time,11 if A and B are contradictories they must refer to the same time. Therefore, if A in the divine mind affirms for the instant or time of the Passion, B must in that case deny for the same one, and then B is false. But if one takes another proposition similar to B, which denies that Christ suffers for some instant or time, say for the present, that one is true; let it be C. But C does not contradict A, because they do not affirm and deny for the same instant or time. In the same way these do not contradict: "Christ was suffering then," and "Christ is not suffering now." Nor are C and B interchangeable, because they deny for different instants or times, as these do: "Christ is not suffering now," "Christ was not suffering then."

By this the answer is clear, if the first objection is taken in the sense of composition and of the dictum outside the divine mind. I think this is the meaning of those who say that God is an infinite sea, absorbing every contradiction, and that in the divine eternity all true things, future, present, and past, are true together. Some attempt to refute them, on the ground that contradictories would then be true together, and the same proposition would be true and false together. But these objectors do not conclude, because God does not know anything through created affirmative and negative propositions. Those necessarily contradict, since whenever they exist, they exist together in the same instant, and affirm and deny for it; and each of such propositions alternates successively from truth to falsity, or the reverse. But whatever God knows, he knows complexly through propositions uncreated from the beginning. Although these may seem to contradict in a certain respect, because in the manner of contradictories they affirm and deny the same of the same, they do not contradict simply: they do not so affirm or deny for the same time or instant, nor does any of them ever put on falsity after truth. The joining of the extremes in the divine mind is not changeable, according to the changeableness of time or instant, but always joins steadily for the same, as was shown above.

By these same things the answer to the second argument set out above is clear. For God will always steadily know every part of an intrinsic contradiction which he has once known. If, however, one speaks of a part of an extrinsic contradiction, God's knowledge, by a nature of this kind, is neither perfected nor made imperfect. It is caused by no such part, just as it is not caused by later things known, as the preceding chapters have taught. By these things the answer is clear concerning this proposition, "God knew that Christ suffers," if it is taken in the composite sense and of the dictum. If it is taken in the divided sense, and of the thing of the dictum, it would perhaps seem to require a further distinction, like this one: "The sufferer was being healed,"12 since "to suffer" can supposit or apply for suffering now or earlier. In the first way it is not true, for God never knew that Christ now suffers. In the second way it is true; for God knew that Christ suffers earlier, namely at the time of the Passion.

If, then, one argues in this sense, "God knew that Christ suffers, and now does not know that Christ suffers, therefore God knew something which he now does not know," there is a manifest equivocation. In the major, "to suffer" is taken for suffering earlier; in the minor, for suffering now; for in the second premise all the verbs are of present tense, and not ampliative to the past or future.13 If, however, the minor is taken in agreement with the major, one must say, in real and not verbal terms: "God does not know that Christ has suffered," and the argument will fail in matter, not in form. For this minor will be false, since it is altogether the same in reality that God formerly knew Christ then to be suffering and that God now knows Christ then to have suffered. By these things also, I think, a correct solution can be had of that ancient Oxford sophism, "God knows whatever he knew." The second argument too can be solved by the same things. The third argument, the chief one, on foreknowledge, can be solved by a similar logic; and this seems to be the logic of Peter Lombard, in the first book of his Sentences, Distinction 44, the last chapter, and Distinction 41, 6, and of Algazel, Metaphysics 3, sentence 6. The saying of Judith, in the third argument,14 can be understood of the order of the effects of the divine thinking, not of an order of thoughts in God.