Book III, Chapter 5

Chapter V

As a kind of corollary, it draws thirteen parts from what has been premised.

(1) 1 The first: that propositions about what is equally contingent 2 are converted through opposite qualities.

(2) The second: that some good consequence is neither necessary simply nor as of now, but equally contingent.

(3) The third: that some undetermined cause, that is, one not predetermined to acting, acts.

(4) The fourth: that every free act with freedom of contradiction, and only such an act, is equally contingent.

(5) The fifth: that everything equally contingent, and only what is equally contingent, is a free act with freedom of contradiction.

(6) The sixth: that contingency either way and necessity are not incompatible.

(7) The seventh: that contingency is properly said with respect to the present.

(8) The eighth: that freedom is properly said with respect to the present.

(9) The ninth: that no act of a creature is simply equally contingent, but only in a determinate genus, for example with respect to inferior causes.

(10) The tenth: that no act of a creature is free simply, with freedom of contradiction, but only in a certain respect, namely with respect to all second causes.

(11) The eleventh: that only an act of the divine will directed outward is simply equally contingent.

(12) The twelfth: that only an act of the divine will directed outward is free simply, with freedom of contradiction.

(13) The thirteenth: that the first and highest freedom of contradiction, and likewise a similar contingency either way, is in the divine will; and that these are the causes of similar freedom and contingency in all other things.

C1 The first follows manifestly from what was premised in the preceding chapter. For according to what was shown there, whatever is equally contingent to come about or to be from any cause whatever, while that total cause stands with all its naturally prior dispositions, can also equally happen not to come about and not to be, and conversely likewise; and this, I think, is the Philosopher's meaning in Prior Analytics 1 3, where he teaches this conversion of propositions about the contingent ‖C2 of this kind.

The second likewise follows. For according to what was alleged above, in the Categories and in On Interpretation 1, a statement is called true or false by the fact that the thing is or is not 4; and likewise statements are true in the way things are. And in reality, now, in fact, from this free cause, with the dispositions it now has, which naturally precede this free act, this act is really produced and follows; yet not necessarily, by antecedent necessity, neither simply nor as of now, as is clear from the definition of the equally contingent set down in the preceding chapter, together with the general rule about naturally antecedent necessity shown in the second of this 5; but only equally contingently. So likewise in the statement the consequence will hold. This consequence, therefore, "This cause is so posited; therefore this effect is produced," is now good, yet in no way necessary by naturally antecedent necessity, but only equally contingent.

Daily sayings and doings also show well enough that this consequence is equally contingent. For among all men, nations and tongues it is commonly said, "If you do this or that, I too will do this or that"; and "If this king or people does that to him, he too will repay that to him": so they speak and so they act, consequently. We also find many such consequences in the sacred writings. Hence in Genesis 13 Abraham said to Lot, "If you go to the left, I will take the right; if you choose the right, I will go to the left." And in Matthew 13 6: "Woe to you, Chorazin, woe to you, Bethsaida; for if the mighty works that were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have done penance in sackcloth and ashes." Many other such conditionals too are very frequently set down in Scripture, yet none of them is necessary in any way, but only equally contingent, like the thing itself.

Again, from a universal to its singular the consequence is good as of now, because as of now the consequent is understood and implied in the antecedent. Suppose, then, that every man who will contingently will to sit tomorrow is A, and that this man will contingently will to sit tomorrow; then this consequence is now good: "Every man who will contingently will to sit tomorrow is A; therefore this man is A." And yet it is not necessary in any way, but only equally contingent, as has been said:

for it is equally contingent that he, for now, be contained under the subject of that universal. The third also follows manifestly. For every determination of an active cause to acting precedes naturally the action to which it determines; but by what was premised in the preceding chapter, it is possible that some freely active cause should hold itself wholly equally with regard to all the dispositions naturally prior to the free act, and equally with regard to what is contingent, 7 at the time of rest and at the time of action; and at the time of rest it is undetermined; therefore also at the time of action. Nor does the later effect determine its efficient cause to act, on account of the cause aforesaid.

A1 The same is plain through Stephen, bishop of Paris, 8 who condemned a certain erroneous article that so asserts, that no agent is open to either alternative, but rather is determined. Again, unless it were so, no cause would act unless it were first determined by such a determination that, once it is posited, the effect would necessarily follow; and so there would be no free act, as the preceding chapter demonstrated. Hence another article too was condemned at Paris by the same Stephen, which said: "What of its own nature is not determined to be or not to be, is not determined except by something that is necessary with respect to it."

The fourth is evidently concluded from the definitions of the free act with freedom of contradiction and of the equally contingent. And the fifth likewise follows from the same.

The sixth is inferred at once, since by what has been shown beforehand in this chapter, and in the preceding, and in the third, what is contingent either way is some existing thing; and by the Philosopher in On Interpretation 1, last: "That which is, when it is, is of necessity" 9. But so that this may be explained more clearly, we must begin a little further back. It must be known, then, ‖6 according to what was premised in the preceding chapter of this, that the contingent can be taken in two ways. In one way, per se, properly and in the first degree of contingency, of which kind is the first and immanent act of a rational agent free by way of contradiction, namely willing; and such contingency and the necessity that follows are not incompatible, as was already shown. In the other way the contingent can be taken as such in a manner per accidens, or through another, secondarily and denominatively, and in the second degree, such as is the transitive and extrinsic act of the aforesaid agent descending from the first, for example, moving the hand or a staff, and striking; where, further, several modes could be assigned according to nearness and remoteness; and this is called equally contingent for the reason that it is derived from a contingent of this kind. Now such an effect is necessary with respect to its total cause,

as the preceding chapter teaches, and likewise contingent in the manner stated; hence it also appears evidently that contingency so taken and antecedent necessity are not incompatible. From this it is further clearly gathered that one such exterior effect, contingent in the second degree, can be said, with respect to one and the same cause of it, namely the willing, to be necessary by antecedent necessity, and also, denominatively or in a way transumptively, by consequent necessity, because, namely, its cause, that willing, is necessary in that way. For which reason that same effect, with respect to one and the same cause of it, can likewise be called necessary and contingent: necessary indeed by naturally antecedent necessity, and contingent likewise in the manner stated. All this can appear more clearly from the 26 premised of the second.

The seventh follows in this way. The equally contingent, as the third of this shows, is some existing thing; and as the preceding chapter showed, the equally contingent, taken per se, primarily and properly, is the act of a cause actually and presentially acting. John Duns Scotus also says on Sentences 1, dist. 39 10: "A cause is not contingent merely because it pre-existed before this instant in which it causes, and then, as pre-existing, could cause or not cause; for just as this being, when it is, is necessary or contingent, so a cause, when it causes, then causes necessarily or contingently: since therefore in this instant the will causes this willing, and not necessarily, therefore contingently." And on dist. 2 of the same he says: "I call contingently caused that whose opposite could come about when it comes about." Hence Stephen, bishop of Paris, also condemned the article asserting that no agent is open to either alternative, but rather is determined.

The eighth is demonstrated from the seventh joined to the fourth; it can also be demonstrated from the definitions of freedom of contradiction and of its free act, which the corollary of the preceding chapter showed. Again, necessity and freedom are in a way opposed; therefore they are apt to occur in this way, about the same subject and the same time 11; but necessity is properly said with respect to the present, as is clear from that definition, or rule about naturally antecedent necessity, premised in the second of this. Again, according to what was alleged in the second of this, "Everything that is,

when it is, is of necessity; and everything that is not, when it is not, is of necessity not"; although earlier it was not necessary that it be so now, or not be, nor is it now necessary that it will hereafter be or not be so; therefore necessity is said most of all with respect to the present. Again, nothing is properly said to be necessarily existent because earlier it could not, or now cannot, or in the future will not be able not to be; but on account of something positive, namely on account of the vehemence of being, as the seventh part of the 13th of the first teaches. Again, fire, in the first instant of its being, if it were created all at once, would shine of necessity (if the illumination is sudden, as some suppose), and not on account of anything of it that preceded in time, or even would follow, but only for this reason, that it would be an irrational active thing, which acts by necessity of nature when it can. Again, God exists of necessity, begets the Son, and understands; yet not on account of any relation whatever to past or future time, but properly in his ever-present eternal now, just as he had done also before time. Necessity, therefore, is properly

said with respect to the present, and so too freedom.

Again, an active free thing created in some instant with everything necessarily required for willing can freely will for that moment; for nothing is lacking to it on account of which it could not. Also because Christ according to his soul did so, since he did not advance in merit, as the premises of the third of the second urge; and because an irrational active thing can do so, as was argued above. And for this reason John Scotus holds ‖A1 the same conclusion on Sentences 1, dist. 39, in the place cited before; who, distinguishing freedom in many ways, says: "There is also another freedom, not so manifest, without any succession: for supposing that a created will has being only in one instant, and that in that instant it has willing, it does not necessarily have it then." Proof: "For if in that instant it had it necessarily, since it is a cause only in that instant when it causes it simply, the will, whenever it caused, would cause necessarily."

Again, an old will, which has long lain idle, can in some first instant freely produce its free act, as it seems that the Blessed Virgin consented for the first time in that instant in which the Word was made flesh and dwelt in her 12; so that if in the same instant she had been created with all the naturally prior dispositions co-operating in that act, in the same instant she would likewise have freely produced it. Again, otherwise a will would be said to will freely now because earlier in time it could freely, for now, will or not will. But this is not true: for that it earlier could will now is either something or nothing. If nothing, nothing comes of it; it is the cause of nothing, of no freedom, nor of any truth at all. If it is something, then the total cause on account of which the act is called, and is, free is something existing presentially 13. Again, if past time is necessarily required, this is either only on account of time itself, or on account of something that is lacking or resists, which must be brought in time and also removed. Not in the first way, because past time is nothing at all, and also because all time of itself does no more toward willing than toward not willing, nor toward freedom in agents acting freely than toward necessity in the actions of others; nor in the second way, for let all and only the necessarily required things be had in the instant. Again, if

past time is necessarily presupposed for free action, it is some cause of it, as was shown in the fourth of the first; which is false, as induction fully teaches. Again, past time is wholly nothing; therefore it causes nothing at all. Again, even if time did not exist, and never had existed, God and an angel could freely will and not will. Again, otherwise God did not freely create heaven and earth; for there was no earlier time in which he could create or not create, nor did he from eternity freely will so to create on account of a lack of preceding time, time, I mean, true and possible, or imaginable. For time could in no way have temporally preceded that eternal willing of God, since even if time had been coeternal with God, it still would in no way have temporally preceded it. Again, if not, this would most seem to be so, because the necessity which descends from the presence of a thing would be simply incompatible with freedom 14; the opposite of which the corollary of the first of this shows.

The ninth, as to its first part, follows evidently. For if some act of a creature were simply equally contingent, this would seem most of all true of the free act of a rational and free creature, as what was had in the preceding chapter teaches; but every free act of such a creature proceeds from naturally antecedent necessity and is necessary in that way, as the second of this shows; therefore, by the definition of the equally contingent set out in the preceding chapter, no free act of a free creature is simply equally contingent without being necessary with respect to the divine will, naturally willing it beforehand.

This same appears through Stephen, bishop of Paris, condemning a certain error that says that, in order for all effects to be necessary with respect to the first cause, it is not enough that the first cause itself be not hinderable, but it is required that the intermediate causes not be hinderable; and the first cause itself is not hinderable, as the tenth of the first teaches. And that every such act is equally contingent in a determinate genus, namely in the genus of inferior causes, is plain from the same together with the third of the second. For with all the inferior causes, naturally prior and producing such an act, being posited, it does not necessarily follow that it is produced, but the opposite too can equally stand.

Therefore the Philosophers too, who for the most part consider natural causes, say simply: "It is contingent to either alternative, that is, equally, to do this or that"; and they understand this thus, as contingent with respect to these causes. So too in the common way of speaking, "contingent to either alternative," or "equally," although uttered simply, is taken and signifies in this way. Hence some also say that contingency, freedom, possibility, impossibility and necessity are spoken of only with respect to inferior causes, and not at all with respect to superior ones. Therefore Stephen of Paris15 also, condemning an article which affirmed that what is impossible simply cannot be done by God, or by another agent, adds: "An error, if it is understood of the impossible according to nature." What is impossible according to nature, that is, according to inferior causes, is therefore more customarily called impossible simply; so too, then, the possible, the necessary and the contingent.

But since, according to Augustine, On Genesis according to the Letter 4, 6, when the matter is granted one should not labor over words, because, as Solomon says, "he who pursues only words will have nothing" A1 (Prov. 19); since according to Pythagoras, as Boethius cites him in his Music 2, 1, wisdom, which he was the first to call Philosophy, is knowledge of that thing which is properly and truly said to be. "Knowledge," he says, "of the thing, not of the word." And according to the same Boethius, in his Arithmetic 1, A2 1: "Wisdom is the knowledge and complete apprehension of those things which truly are." He does not say of words, but of things. A3 And therefore, according to Averroes on Physics 1, comment 1: "It was Aristotle's custom to have little concern for names." So too Avicenna, Metaphysics 6, 2, says: "We do not care about names, once we have their meanings distinguished." Therefore, since from what has gone before it is established how the matter stands, I leave a quarrelsome dispute, and one merely about a name, (to use the Apostle's words) B1 to the proud who know nothing, who are languishing over questions and wars of words, men corrupted in mind and deprived of truth, 1 Tim. 6.

Therefore, to any one of them who disputes against me merely over names, as the Philosopher says in On the Heavens and the World 2, 8016: B2 "This is the custom with all of us, to raise the question not against the matter but against the one who says the contrary," I say that, as Themistius recounts on On the Heavens and the World 3, Protagoras B3 had said to Socrates: "If your contradiction, or else ‖B4 question, were according to the understanding of my meaning, the conclusion would certainly be drawn against me; but since you do not understand the meaning of my speech, I do not reckon the conclusion drawn against me." Nor, however, is anyone so foolish and mad as to deny that the name of contingency, freedom, possibility, impossibility and necessity can be extended to superior causes, since names are by convention.17 Who, moreover, would deny that it is contingent for God freely to do this or that; that God can do something, give light to the blind or raise the dead; that it is impossible for God to make contradictories true at once, or not to beget the Son; or that it is necessary that God be, that God understand and utter his Word? C2 Therefore Stephen, Bishop of Paris, also condemned an article asserting that the possible or impossible simply, that is, in every way, is the possible or impossible according to Philosophy; for this, for the most part, considers the possible and impossible according to secondary natural causes. The tenth18 follows likewise quite clearly from the fourth of those set out, together with this ninth. It also follows from the definition of a free act by freedom of contradiction, touched on beforehand in the last chapter, together with that definition, or general rule, about naturally preceding necessity, set out earlier in the second of this book. The eleventh also follows manifestly: for according to what has been set out earlier in this chapter and the last, some act of will is simply and equally contingent, and by the ninth corollary set out earlier no act of a created will is such,19 therefore it is an act of the uncreated, divine will; and not toward the inside, because he cannot not love himself, nor can he not will anything essential within himself, since then he could fail to be God; therefore only toward the outside. This is likewise evident from the definition of the contingent, so often recalled in the last chapter. ‖D2 For given in God the simple cognition of Antichrist, and the volitive power with all the dispositions naturally prior to the willing by which he wills that Antichrist will be, it does not follow necessarily that God so wills; but the opposite of this can equally stand, as has been shown in the last chapter about the rational agent. For if this followed necessarily, then since it is necessary, simply and absolutely, that all things naturally preceding that willing be so posited in God, it would be necessary, simply and absolutely, that God so will; and so by the tenth of the first book it would be absolutely necessary that Antichrist will be, and this by a natural or violent necessity naturally preceding; so that nothing would be free or contingent, the opposite of which the preceding points have taught. The twelfth follows most clearly from the fifth joined with the eleventh; it also follows from the definition of a free act by freedom of contradiction, shown in the last chapter, together with the tenth now set out.

The thirteenth, as to its first part, plainly follows from what has been set out, and can be shown by the corollary, and as the corollary of the [tenth] of the first book.20 And the first part being granted, who will deny or doubt the second? For who does not know that the first in any genus is the cause of all the others, insofar as they are contained in that genus? Who, moreover, having considered the earlier points, does not know that if the divine will were neither free nor contingent, but absolutely necessary, all other things would likewise be absolutely necessary? And this is perhaps what the seventh opinion, recounted above, dreamed.