Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On Grace and Free Choice · Book IV: Grace and Free Choice in Natural and Civil Works
Chapter 13: Response is made to the objection from the repugnance of foreknowledge and liberty
Our translation, from the Latin of the Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1870–74), vol. VI, De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio, Book IV. The Latin source text is public domain; this English rendering is released with the site. Scripture quotations follow Bellarmine's Vulgate citations, rendered in Douay-Rheims wording where he quotes exactly. Click “Show the Latin” for the original (raw OCR of the scan; scanning errors remain — the scan itself is the authority).
Besides the testimonies of the Scriptures and of St. Augustine, Calvin adduces an argument from the repugnance of the divine providence and human liberty. But since providence includes foreknowledge and predetermination, and each separately seems to fight with free choice, therefore we shall treat of each separately.
The objection drawn from the foreknowledge of God, then, is this: God necessarily foreknows all things future, nor can it in any way come to pass that he be deceived; therefore all future things will come to pass from necessity. Again: the foreknowledge of God is the cause of things; therefore things will be because God foreknows they will be, not contrariwise. For otherwise God would depend on created things, and his knowledge would be mutable and accidental. “All his creatures,” says Augustine, book 15 On the Trinity, chapter 13, “both spiritual and corporal, he does not know because they are; but they are, because he knows them.” But if the foreknowledge of God is the cause of things, certainly it follows that, the foreknowledge being posited, the things which are foreknown will necessarily be; for the foreknowledge of God cannot be hindered by any created cause.
I answer: the foreknowledge of God is most certain, and yet imposes no necessity on future things, nor fights in any way with the liberty of choice. The Theologians demonstrate this by many reasons; but in this place the reason of St. Augustine, from book 3 On Free Choice, chapter 3 [al. 4], will suffice us. If the foreknowledge of God imposed necessity on future things, it would do so either because it is foreknowledge, or because it is God’s. But neither can truly be said. For if the foreknowledge of God imposed necessity on things because it is foreknowledge, then not only the foreknowledge of God, but also the foreknowledge of men, would impose necessity on things. But that is false; for the foreknowledge of men is not the cause of things, nor does it place anything in things. So, if I by divine revelation should certainly foreknow that it will rain tomorrow, I shall not on that account be the cause of the rain; and yet without doubt it will rain — but no less contingently than if I had foreknown nothing.
Whence then (you will say) does it come to pass that the things certainly foreknown always come to pass, though they be done contingently, and thereby can not be done? The cause of this is that he who foreknows a future thing runs before the effecting of the thing with his understanding, and beholds it as already done before it is done. But that which has been done cannot not have been done, even though it was done freely and contingently. The foreknowledge of God, therefore, does not impose necessity on things because it is foreknowledge. But neither because it is God’s: for even as God foreknows what men will do, so also he foreknows what he himself will do. But the foreknowledge of God does not compel God himself to do anything; therefore neither does it compel men.
Moreover, my foreknowledge does not impose necessity on things, because it is not the cause of things; but neither is the foreknowledge of God the cause of things, as is clear, because an act cannot be the cause of its own object; but contrariwise, rather, the object is the cause of the act. Wherefore the ancient Fathers cited in chapter 9 — Origen, Athanasius, Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, and besides Justin (or whoever was the author) in the Questions of the Gentiles, question 58, and Epiphanius, in the heresy of the Gaianites — teach that things do not come to pass because God foreknew they would be; but that God foreknew because they were to be.
From these things I answer to the first objection: from the fact that God foreknows all things future, and his foreknowledge cannot be deceived, it does not follow that all future things come to pass from necessity — by the necessity, that is, of the consequent — but only by the necessity of the consequence; that is, it follows only that they come to pass infallibly, not that they absolutely could not have not come to pass.
To the second objection I answer: some knowledge of God is the cause of things, but not the knowledge, or foreknowledge, of which we speak. For there is a twofold knowledge in God. One, of simple intelligence, by which God knows all things which in any way can be; the other, of vision, by which he knows only those things which in very fact are, or will be, or have been. For vision is terminated at the existence of the thing, not at mere possibility. And although in God all things are together — or rather all things are one — yet according to our mode of understanding, the simple intelligence is prior to the vision, since between them stands the will. And so, first, God understands all things which in any way can be; then, by his will he decrees, out of these, which he wills at some time really to exist; last, those things which he willed to exist he beholds existing in their own time — and if that time has not yet come, he foresees and foreknows them. From which it follows that the knowledge which is the cause of things, according to the doctrine of St. Augustine, book 15 On the Trinity, chapter 13, is not the knowledge of vision, but the knowledge of simple intelligence. For the knowledge of vision presupposes the existence of things, as the knowledge of simple intelligence presupposes the possibility of things; for cognition always presupposes its object.
Now foreknowledge is not simple intelligence, but knowledge of vision, as is known — since foreknowledge is not of a possible thing, but of a thing certainly future at some time. And thereby foreknowledge is not the cause of things; nor are things future because God foreknows them, but God foreknows them because they are future, as the ancient Fathers cited above have rightly taught. And the whole matter can easily be explained by an example from human affairs. For among men, they who contrive some work by art — as a house, or a citadel, or something of that kind — first conceive in mind the form by which the thing can be made, but do not yet know that it will be; then, after they have learned that the thing can be made according to the conceived form, and will duly succeed if they will to put their hand to the work, they determine altogether to make it — and then at last they can foreknow that the thing will be. But the cause of the work is not that foreknowledge of the future thing, but that form conceived at the beginning, to whose likeness the work is built.
Since, then, foreknowledge is not the cause of things, and presupposes the decree of the will — which truly is the cause of all things — the whole difficulty is brought back to the concord of human liberty with the decree of the divine will, which is the other part of providence.
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT XIII. Respondetur ad objectionem ex repugnantia prxscientix et libertatis. Praeter testimonia Scripturarum, et S. Augustini, adducit Calvinus argumentum ex repugnantia providentiae divina), et liberta¬ tis humanae. Sed quoniam providentia inclu¬ dit praescientiam et prsedeterminationem, et utraque seorsim pugnare videtur cum libero arbitrio, ideo seorsim de utraque tractabi¬ mus. Igitur objectio ducta a praescientia Dei ta¬ lis est, Deus necessario praenoscit omnia fu¬ tura, nec potest ullo modo fieri, ut ipse fal¬ latur, igitur omnia futura ex necessitate evenient, llursus praescientia Dei est causa rerum, igitur ideo res erunt, quia Deus prae¬ scit esse futuras, non contra. Alioqui enim Deus penderet a rebus creatis, et ejus scien¬ tia mutabilis et accidentaria esset. « Univer¬ sas (inquit Augustinus lib. xv. de Trinit. cap. 13.) creaturas suas tam spirituales, quam corporales non quia sunt, ideo novit, sed ideo sunt, quia novit ». Quod si prae¬ scientia Dei est causa rerum, certe sequitur, ut posita praescientia, necessario res, quee praesciuntur, sint futura). Neque enim prae¬ scientia Dei impediri potest ab ulla causa creata. Respondeo : praescientiam Dei esse certis¬ simam, et tamen nullam imponere rebus fu¬ turis necessitatem, neque cum arbitrii liber¬ tate ulla ratione pugnare. Demonstrant hoc Theologi multis rationibus. Sed hoc loco sa¬ tis nobis erit ratio S. Augustini ex lib. m. de libero arbitrio cap. 3. Si praescientia Dei rebus futuris necessitatem imponeret, vel id faceret, quia praescientia est, vel quia Dei est. Neutrum autem vere dici potest, Nam si praescientia Dei, quia praescientia est, impo¬ neret rebus necessitatem, non solum prae¬ scientia Dei, sed etiam praescientia hominum imponeret rebus necessitatem. Id autem fal¬ sum est. Nam praescientia hominum non est causa rerum, neque aliquid ponit in rebus, ut si ego divina revelatione certo praenoscam futurum esse, ut crastina die pluat, non propterea ero ego causa pluviae, et tameil sine dubio pluet, sed non minus contingen- ter, quam si nihil ego praescivissem. Unde igitur (inquies) fit, ut quae certo prae¬ noscuntur semper eveniant, cum tamen con- tingenter fiant, ac per hoc possint non fieri? Causa hujus rei est, quia qui futurum prae¬ noscit, praecurrit ihtelligentia rei effectionem, et intuetur eam jam factam antequam fiat. Id autem quod factum est, non potest factum non esse, tametsi libere et contingcnter fa¬ ctum sit. Praescientia Dei igitur non imponit rebus necessitatem, quia pra)scientia est : sed neque, quia Dei est: nam quemadmo- CAPUT XIV. dum Deus praescit, quid homines facturi sint, sic etiam praescit, quid ipse facturus sit. Non autem cogit praescientia Dei ipsum Deum ut aliquid faciat, igitur neque homines cogit. Praeterea praescientia mea non imponit rebus necessitatem, quia non est causa re¬ rum ; at neque praescientia Dei est causa re¬ rum, ut patet, quia non potest esso actus causa sui objecti, sed contra potius objectum est causa actus. Quare veteres Patres citati cap. 9. Origenes, Athanasius, Chrysostomus, Hieronymus, Augustinus, et praeterea Justi¬ nus (aut quicumque fuit auctor) in quaestio¬ nibus Gentilium, quaest. 58. Epiphanius haer. Gaianorum, docent non ideo res evenire, quia Deus praescivit futuras, sed ideo Deum praescivisse, quia futurae erant. Ex his ad primam objectionem respondeo : ex eo quod Deus omnia futura praenoscit, nec potest ejus praescientia falli, non sequi, ut res omnes futurae ex necessitate eveniant, necessitate consequentiae, sed solum neces¬ sitate consequenti : hoc est, tantum sequi, ut infallibiliter eveniant, non autem ut ab¬ solute non potuerint non evenire. Ad alteram objectionem respondeo : ali¬ quam scientiam Dei esse causam rerum, non autem scientiam, sive praescientiam, de qua loquimur. Duplex enim in Deo scientia est. Altera, simplicis intelligentiae, quaDeuscog- noscit res omnes, quae quoquo modo esse possunt; altera, visionis, qua cognoscit ea solum, quae reipsa sunt, vel erunt, aut fue¬ runt. Yisio enim terminatur ad existentiam rei, non ad solam possibilitatem. Et quam¬ vis in Deo sint omnia simul, vel potius om¬ nia sint unum: tamen juxta modum nostrum intelligendi, simplex intelligentia prior est visione, cum inter eas media sit voluntas. Itaque primum Deus intelligit res omnes, quae quoquo modo esse possunt; deinde, voluntate decernit ex his, quas velit reipsa aliquando existere ; postremo, resilias, quas voluit existere, intuetur in suo tempore exi- stentes, et si tempus illud nondum advenit, praevidet ac praenoscit. Ex quo sequitur, ut scientia, quas est causa rerum ex doctrina S. Augustini lib. xv. de Trinit. cap. 13. non sit scientia visionis, sed scientia simplicis in¬ telligentiae. Scientia enim visionis praesup- ponit existentiam rerum, sicut scientia sim¬ plicis intelligentiae praesupponit rerum pos¬ sibilitatem; semper enim cognitio preesup- ponit objectum. Porro praescientia non est simplex intelli- 27 gentia, sed scientia visionis, ut notum est, cum praescientia non sit rei possibilis, sed rei certo futurae in aliquo temporu, ac per hoc praescientia non est causa rerum, nec ideo res sunt futurae, quia Deus eas praeno¬ scit, sed ideo Deus eas praenoscit, quia sunt futurae, ut veteres Patres supra citati recte docuerunt, et potest res tota exemplo rerum humanarum facile explicari. Siquidem apud homines ii, qui rem aliquam ex arte moliun¬ tur, ut domum, vel arcem, aut aliquid ejus¬ modi, primum mente concipiunt formam, qua possit res fieri, sed nondum sciunt esse futuram'; deinde postquam cognoverunt rem illam secundum formam conceptam posse fieri, et rite successuram, si velint admovere manum ad opus ; decernunt omnino eam facere, et tum demum praescire possunt rem esse futuram. Caeterum causa operis non est prtesciciitia ista rei futurae, sed forma illa initio concepta, ad cujus similitudinem opi¬ ficium extruitur. Cum igitur praescientia non sit causa re¬ rum, et praesupponat decretum voluntatis, quod vere causa est omnium rerum, tota dif¬ ficultas revocatur ad concordiam libertatis humanae cum decreto voluntatis divinae, quae est pars altera providentiae,