Book III, Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII. It treats the opinion of Cicero, who says that God does not know the future.
689B CAP. XIII. Tractat opinionem Ciceronis, dicentem Deum nescire futura.
Another opinion is Cicero's: that many things happen freely, but God does not foreknow them, for the reason given in the preceding chapter. For he did not know how there could be certain foreknowledge of all future things unless there were also absolute necessity in every respect, so that every kind of freedom would be removed. He believed that foreknowledge of future things and the freedom of those things were necessarily in conflict, and so, as he supposed, it was necessary to deny the one and affirm the other. It seemed to him more useful for civil society to deny foreknowledge than to deny freedom of choice. For this reason, in his book On Divination, he denies all divination and all foreknowledge. But this opinion must be execrated by the ears of unbelievers no less than of believers, and the sixth [chapter] of the first [part] refutes it sufficiently.1
689B ALia est opinio Ciceronis, scilicet quod multa eueniunt libere, Sed Deus illa non praescit, propter motiuum capitulo proximo recitatum. Nesciuit enim videre quomodo esset certa praescientia omnium futurorum, nisi et esset absoluta necessitas omniquaque, sicque libertas omnimoda tolleretur. Credidit enim quod praescientia futurorum et
689C libertas eorum necessario repugnarent; quare et necessario oportuit, vt credebat, vnum negare et alterum affirmare; videbaturque sibi vtilius pro conuersatione ciuili negare praescientiam quam arbitrij libertatem: Quare et in libro suo de diuinatione, omnem diuinationem et praescientiam omnem negat. Sed hanc opinionem non minus infidelium quam fidelium auribus execrandam satis reprobat sextum primi.
Notes
- 1
sextum primi: the reference is elliptical, with no noun supplied, and is kept as Savile prints it (conventions §5.4). It is most naturally read as Bradwardine's own work, the sixth chapter of the first book. The text does not name the work. For Cicero's denial of divination and foreknowledge (De divinatione II), compare also Augustine, City of God V.9, where the same charge is made.
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