Book III, Chapter 26

Chapter Xxvi

It treats the thirty-third opinion, more famous than the rest, which affirms that something has always been future and is still future; yet that it is in no way necessary that it ever was, or now is, future; and that something that never was future and is not now future, it is possible, with every possibility opposed to necessity,1 that it always was, and now is, future; and exactly the same about God's foreknowledge. Of everything past or present, however, it says that it is necessary that it has been, and that it is necessary that God always foreknew that it was future, or knows that it is now present, and that it is also necessary that God knows that it is past and has been; and he rebukes him2 for the inadequacy of his answer, in that it does not sufficiently clear away the difficulty.

Besides these there is also the thirty-third opinion, which affirms that something has always been future and is still future, yet that it is in no way necessary that it ever was, or now is, future; and that something that never was future and is not now future, it is possible, with every possibility opposed to necessity, that it always was, and now is, future; and exactly the same about God's foreknowledge. Of everything past or present, however, it says that it is necessary that it has been or is, and that it is necessary that God always foreknew that it was future, or knows that it is now present, which too is necessary: that God knows that it is past and has been. And this is the more common and more famous opinion among the more recent philosophers and theologians, especially among our own countrymen,3 and it is almost the only one approved by them with one accord.

Of these men, before all else, I humbly beg on the bent knees of my heart the kindly patience of charity. Charity does not seek its own, to the prejudice of truth, and is not provoked if someone has striven to make the truth plain, but rejoices together with truth made plain by anyone at all, believing all true things and bearing all things. I ask that, if not I, but the Spirit of truth in me and through me, should deign to bring forth some truth perhaps opposed to this opinion, they may in no way be jealous, in no way be provoked, in no way be indignant, lest they be convicted of resisting, perhaps, not me but rather the Holy Spirit. For whatever is true, by whomever it is said, is said by the Holy Spirit, as the twentieth of the second recounted from blessed Ambrose;4 but it is said5 so that the true sons of ‖A1 charity may rejoice together in the truth, and believe it, and uphold it.

For it is no moderate danger, in the knowledge of the truth, to refuse to abandon one's former falsehood, though recognized as such, when pride alone forbids. Hence the Apostle, 2 Thessalonians 2: B1 "They did not receive charity for the truth, that they might be saved, and therefore God will send them a working of error, that they may believe a lie, and that all may be judged who did not believe the truth but consented to iniquity."6 But not so we. Following the salutary counsel of the same Apostle, laying aside, according to our former way of life, the old man, who is corrupted according to the desires of error, let us be renewed in the spirit of our mind and put on the new man, who is created according to God in the justice and holiness of truth. Wherefore, laying aside falsehood, let us speak truth in all things, singing with the Prophet, "Open the gates, and let the just nation that keeps the truth enter in." The old error has gone and withdrawn; yet I believe in truth that I shall assert nothing at all new that the reason and authority of the ancients will not confirm.

May it please, then, the reasonable charity of this opinion not to turn a deaf ear but graciously to give ear7 to some reasons. First, it seems that the answer of this opinion by no means suffices; second, that its hypothesis does not stand. For, the hypothesis of the opinion being granted, the difficulty is not adequately resolved. The difficulty of the question bites and goads everyone most of all for this reason: in their free acts they would not wish to be subject to any higher and prior necessity, but to be simply lords, wholly and absolutely free with respect to their free acts, and to have them in their own simply free power. But this answer neither avoids every kind of necessity nor saves every kind of freedom. For although what is future could be not future, and conversely, and what is foreknown by God could be not foreknown, and conversely, yet this is not antecedently and sufficiently in our power, nor in the power of all inferior causes, as the seventh, eighth, and ninth of this book show. For the superior cause, namely God, does not follow, in the manner of the question,8 by knowing or willing some inferior causes, or all of them, as the fifteenth and the twentieth of the first, with their sequels, and the thirtieth of the second show. On the contrary, all of them, and each singly, in all their movements and cessations without exception, necessarily follow His will, as the thirtieth and the thirty-second of the second teach, and the second of the third9 with the tenth of the first.

Since, therefore, by the corollary of the ninth of the first, all future things will come about from the divine will, which is the first and highest cause (by the thirtieth of the second), and in no way can be frustrated but is wholly efficacious (by the tenth of the first), and since it is neither antecedently nor sufficiently in our power, nor in that of any inferior causes or of all of them (by the eighth and ninth of this book), it follows that no future thing is, simply, that is, sufficiently and antecedently, placed in our power; nor do we have, with respect to any future thing, complete and simple freedom. In all things we are necessarily subject and servile to a necessity naturally preceding, namely the divine will, as the fifth and sixth of this book, with what follows, teach.