BOOK V
HERE she made an end and was for turning the
course of her speaking to the handling and
explaining of other subjects. Then said I:
'Your encouragement is right and most worthy
in truth of your name and weight. But I am
learning by experience what you just now said
of Providence; that the question is bound up
in others. I would ask you whether you think
that Chance exists at all, and what you think
it is?'
Then she answered: ' I am eager to fulfil
my promised debt, and to shew you the path by
which you may seek your home. But these
things, though all-expedient for knowledge, are
none the less rather apart from our path, and we
must be careful lest you become wearied by our
turnings aside, and so be not strong enough to
complete the straight journey.'
'Have no fear at all thereof,' said I.' It
will be restful to know these things in which
I have so great a pleasure; and when every
view of your reasoning has stood firm with
unshaken credit, so let there be no doubt of
what shall follow.'
'I will do your pleasure,' she made answer,
and thus she began to speak:
'If chance is defined as an outcome of
random influence, produced by no sequence
of causes, I am sure that there is no such
thing as chance, and I consider that it is but
an empty word, beyond shewing the meaning
of the matter which we have in hand. For
what place can be left for anything happening
at random, so long as God controls everything
in order? It is a true saying that nothing
can come out of nothing. None of the old
philosophers has denied that, though they did
not apply it to the effective principle, but to
the matter operated upon—that is to say, to
nature; and this was the foundation upon
which they built all their reasoning. If anything
arises from no causes, it will appear to
have risen out of nothing. But if this is
impossible, then chance also cannot be anything
of that sort, which is stated in the definition
which we mentioned.'
'Then is there nothing which can be justly
called chance, nor anything "by chance"? '
I asked.' Or is there anything which common
people know not, but which those words do
suit? '
'My philosopher, Aristotle, defined it in his
Physics1
shortly and well-nigh truly.'
'How? ' I asked.
'Whenever anything is done with one intention,
but something else, other than was
intended, results from certain causes, that is
called chance: as, for instance, if a man digs
[141:1]
—
Aristotle, Physics, ii. 3.
the ground for the sake of cultivating it, and finds
a heap of buried gold. Such a thing is believed
to have happened by chance, but it does not
come from nothing, for it has its own causes,
whose unforeseen and unexpected coincidence
seem to have brought about a chance. For if
the cultivator did not dig the ground, if the
owner had not buried his money, the gold
would not have been found. These are the
causes of the chance piece of good fortune,
which comes about from the causes which
meet it, and move along with it, not from
the intention of the actor. For neither the
burier nor the tiller intended that the gold
should be found; but, as I said, it was a
coincidence, and it happened that the one dug
up what the other buried. We may therefore
define chance as an unexpected result from the
coincidence of certain causes in matters where
there was another purpose. The order of the
universe, advancing with its inevitable sequences,
brings about this coincidence of causes. This
order itself emanates from its source, which is
Providence, and disposes all things in their
proper time and place.
'In the land where the Parthian, as he
turns in flight, shoots his arrows into the
pursuer's breast, from the rocks of the crag of
Ach'menia, the Tigris and Euphrates flow from
out one source, but quickly with divided streams
are separate. If they should come together
and again be joined in a single course, all, that
the two streams bear along, would flow in one
together. Boats would meet boats, and trees
meet trees torn up by the currents, and the
mingled waters would together entwine their
streams by chance; but their sloping beds
restrain these chances vague, and the downward
order of the falling torrent guides their
courses. Thus does chance, which seems to
rush onward without rein, bear the bit, and
take its way by rule.'
'I have listened to you,' I said,' and agree
that it is as you say. But in this close sequence
of causes, is there any freedom for our judgment
or does this chain of fate bind the very feelings
of our minds too?'
'There is free will,' she answered.'Nor
could there be any reasoning nature without
freedom of judgment. For any being that
can use its reason by nature, has a power of
judgment by which it can without further aid
decide each point, and so distinguish between
objects to be desired and objects to be shunned.
Each therefore seeks what it deems desirable,
and flies from what it considers should be
shunned. Wherefore all who have reason have
also freedom of desiring and refusing in themselves.
But I do not lay down that this is
equal in all beings. Heavenly and divine
beings have with them a judgment of great
insight, an imperturbable will, and a power
which can effect their desires. But human
spirits must be more free when they keep themselves
safe in the contemplation of the mind of
God; but less free when they sink into bodies,
and less still when they are bound by their
earthly members. The last stage is mere
slavery, when the spirit is given over to vices
and has fallen away from the possession of
its reason. For when the mind turns its eyes
from the light of truth on high to lower darkness,
soon they are dimmed by the clouds of
ignorance, and become turbid through ruinous
passions; by yielding to these passions and
consenting to them, men increase the slavery
which they have brought upon themselves, and
their true liberty is lost in captivity. But God,
looking upon all out of the infinite, perceives
the views of Providence, and disposes each as
its destiny has already fated for it according to
its merits: "He looketh over all and heareth
all."
1
'Homer with his honeyed lips sang of the
bright sun's clear light; yet the sun cannot
burst with his feeble rays the bowels of the
earth or the depths of the sea. Not so with
the Creator of this great sphere. No masses
of earth can block His vision as He looks over
all. Night's cloudy darkness cannot resist Him.
With one glance of His intelligence He sees
all that has been, that is, and that is to come.
[144:1]
—
A phrase from Homer (Iliad, iii. 277, and Odyssey,
xi. 1O9), where it is said of the sun.
He alone can see all things, so truly He may
be called the Sun.'
1
Then said I,' Again am I plunged in yet
more doubt and difficulty.'
'What are they,' she asked,' though I
have already my idea of what your trouble
consists?
'There seems to me,' I said,' to be such
incompatibility between the existence of God's
universal foreknowledge and that of any freedom
of judgment. For if God foresees all things
and cannot in anything be mistaken, that, which
His Providence sees will happen, must result.
Wherefore if it knows beforehand not only
men's deeds but even their designs and wishes,
there will be no freedom of judgment For
there can neither be any deed done, nor wish
formed, except such as the infallible Providence
of God has foreseen. For if matters could ever
so be turned that they resulted otherwise than
was foreseen of Providence, this foreknowledge
would cease to be sure. But, rather than knowledge,
it is opinion which is uncertain; and
that, I deem, is not applicable to God. And,
further, I cannot approve of an argument by
which some men think that they can cut this
knot; for they say that a result does not come
[145:1]
—
This sentence, besides referring to the application of
Homer's words used above, contains also a play on words
in the Latin, which can only be clumsily reproduced in
English by some such words as ' The sole power which
can see all is justly to be called the solar.'
to pass for the reason that Providence has foreseen
it, but the opposite rather, namely, that
because it is about to come to pass, therefore
it cannot be hidden from God's Providence.
In that way it seems to me that the argument
must resolve itself into an argument on the
other side. For in that case it is not necessary
that that should happen which is foreseen, but
that that which is about to happen should be
foreseen; as though, indeed, our doubt was
whether God's foreknowledge is the certain
cause of future events, or the certainty of future
events is the cause of Providence. But let our
aim be to prove that, whatever be the shape
which this series of causes takes, the fulfilment
of God's foreknowledge is necessary, even if
this knowledge may not seem to induce the
necessity for the occurrence of future events.
For instance, if a man sits down, it must be
that the opinion, which conjectures that he is
sitting, is true; but conversely, if the opinion
concerning the man is true because he is sitting,
he must be sitting down. There is therefore
necessity in both cases: the man must be
sitting, and the opinion must be true. But he
does not sit because the opinion is true, but
rather the opinion is true because his sitting
down has preceded it. Thus, though the
cause of the truth of the opinion proceeds from
the other fact, yet there is a common necessity
on both parts. In like manner we must reason
of Providence and future events. For even
though they are foreseen because they are about
to happen, yet they do not happen because
they are foreseen. None the less it is necessary
that either what is about to happen should
be foreseen of God, or that what has been
foreseen should happen; and this alone is
enough to destroy all free will.
'Yet how absurd it is that we should say that
the result of temporal affairs is the cause of
eternal foreknowledge! And to think that
God foresees future events because they are
about to happen, is nothing else than to hold
events of past time to be the cause of that
highest Providence. Besides, just as, when I
know a present fact, that fact must be so; so
also when I know of something that will
happen, that must come to pass. Thus it
follows that the fulfilment of a foreknown
event must be inevitable.
'Lastly, if any one believes that any matter
is otherwise than the fact is, he not only has
not knowledge, but his opinion is false also, and
that is very far from the truth of knowledge
Wherefore, if any future event is such that its
fulfilment is not sure or necessary, how can it
possibly be known beforehand that it will
occur? For just as absolute knowledge has no
taint of falsity, so also that which is conceived
by knowledge cannot be otherwise than as it is
conceived. That is the reason why knowledge
cannot lie, because each matter must be just as
knowledge knows that it is. What then
How can God know beforehand these uncertain
future events? For if He thinks inevitable the
fulfilment of such things as may possibly not
result, He is wrong; and that we may not
believe, nor even utter, rightly. But if He
perceives that they will result as they are in
such a manner that He only knows that they
may or may not occur, equally, how is this
foreknowledge, this which knows nothing for
sure, nothing absolutely? How is such a fore-knowledge different from the absurd prophecy
which Horace puts in the mouth of Tiresias:
" Whatever I shall say, will either come to
pass, or it will not "?
1
How, too, would God's
Providence be better than man's opinion, if, as
men do, He only sees to be uncertain such
things as have an uncertain result? But if
there can be no uncertainty with God, the most
sure source of all things, then the fulfilment of
all that He has surely foreknown, is certain.
Thus we are led to see that there is no freedom
for the intentions or actions of men; for
the mind of God, foreseeing all things without
error or deception, binds all together and controls
their results. And when we have once
allowed this, it is plain how complete is the
fall of all human actions in consequence. In
vain are rewards or punishments set before
good or bad, for there is no free or voluntary
action of the mind to deserve them - and what
we just now determined was most fair, will
prove to be most unfair of all, namely to punish
the dishonest or reward the honest, since their
own will does not put them in the way of
[148:1]
—
Horace, Staires, II. v. 59.
honesty or dishonesty, but the unfailing necessity
of development constrains them. Wherefore
neither virtues nor vices are anything, but
there is rather an indiscriminate confusion of
all deserts. And nothing could be more
vicious than this; since the whole order of all
comes from Providence, and nothing is left to
human intention, it follows that our crimes, as
well as our good deeds, must all be held due to
the author of all good. Hence it is unreasonable
to hope for or pray against aught. For
what could any man hope for or pray against,
if an undeviating chain links together all that
we can desire? Thus will the only understanding
between God and man, the right of
prayer, be taken away. We suppose that at the
price of our deservedly humbling ourselves
before Him we may win a right to the inestimable
reward of His divine grace: this is the
only manner in which men can seem to deal
with God, so to speak, and by virtue of prayer
to join ourselves to that inaccessible light,
before it is granted to us; but if we allow the
inevitability of the future, and believe that we
have no power, what means shall we have to
join ourselves to the Lord of all, or how can
we cling to Him? Wherefore, as you sang
but a little while ago,
1
the human race must be
cut off from its source and ever fall away.
'What cause of discord is it breaks the
[149:1]
—
Supra, Book IV. Met. vi. p. 135.
bonds of agreement here? What heavenly
power has set such strife between two truths?
Thus, though apart each brings no doubt, yet
can they not be linked together. Comes there
no discord between these truths? Stand they
for ever sure by one another? Yes,' tis the
mind, o'erwhelmed by the body's blindness,
which cannot see by the light of that dimmed
brightness the finest threads that bind the truth.
But wherefore burns the spirit with so strong
desire to learn the hidden signs of truth?
Knows it the very object of its careful search?
Then why seeks it to learn anew what it
already knows? If it knows it not, why
searches it in blindness? For who would
desire aught unwitting? Or who could seek
after that which is unknown? How should he
find it, or recognise its form when found, if
he knows it not? And when the mind of man
perceived the mind of God, did it then know
the whole and parts alike? Now is the mind
buried in the cloudy darkness of the body, yet
has not altogether forgotten its own self, and
keeps the whole though it has lost the parts.
Whosoever, therefore, seeks the truth, is not
wholly in ignorance, nor yet has knowledge
wholly; for he knows not all, yet is not
ignorant of all. He takes thought for the
whole which he keeps in memory, handling
again what he saw on high, so that he may add
to that which he has kept, that which he has
forgotten.'
Then said she,' This is the old plaint concerning
Providence which was so strongly urged Philosophy
by Cicero when treating of Divination,1
and you yourself have often and at length questioned
the same subject. But so far, none of you have
explained it with enough diligence or certainty.
The cause of this obscurity is that the working
of human reason cannot approach the directness
of divine foreknowledge. If this could be
understood at all, there would be no doubt left.
And this especially will I try to make plain, if
I can first explain your difficulties.
'Tell me why you think abortive the reasoning
of those who solve the question thus; they
argue that foreknowledge cannot be held to be
a cause for the necessity of future results, and
therefore free will is not in any way shackled
by foreknowledge.2
Whence do you draw your
proof of the necessity of future results if not
from the fact that such things as are known
beforehand cannot but come to pass? If, then
(as you yourself admitted just now), foreknowledge
brings no necessity to bear upon
future events, how is it that the voluntary results
of such events are bound to find a fixed end?
Now for the sake of the argument, that you may
turn your attention to what follows, let us state
that there is no foreknowledge at all. Then
are the events which are decided by free will,
bound by any necessity, so far as this goes?
[151:1]
—
Cicero, De Divinatione, II.
[151:2]
—
Referring to Boethius's words in Prose iii. of this book, p.145.
Of course not. Secondly, let us state that
foreknowledge exists, but brings no necessity to
bear upon events; then, I think, the same free
will will be left, intact and absolute. " But,"
you will say, " though foreknowledge is no
necessity for a result in the future, yet it is a
sign that it will necessarily come to pass."
Thus, therefore, even if there had been no
foreknowledge, it would be plain that future
results were under necessity; for every sign can
only shew what it is that it points out; it does
not bring it to pass. Wherefore we must first
prove that nothing happens but of necessity, in
order that it may be plain that foreknowledge
is a sign of this necessity. Otherwise, if there
is no necessity, then foreknowledge will not be
a sign of that which does not exist. Now it is
allowed that proof rests upon firm reasoning,
not upon signs or external arguments; it must
be deduced from suitable and binding causes.
How can it possibly be that things, which are
foreseen as about to happen, should not occur?
That would be as though we were to believe
that events would not occur which Providence
foreknows as about to occur, and as though we
did not rather think this, that though they
occur, yet they have had no necessity in their
own natures which brought them about. We
can see many actions developing before our
eyes; just as chariot drivers see the development
of their actions as they control and guide
their chariots, and many other things likewise.
Does any necessity compel any of those things
to occur as they do? Of course not. All art,
craft, and intention would be in vain, if everything
took place by compulsion. Therefore, if
things have no necessity for coming to pass
when they do, they cannot have any necessity
to be about to come to pass before they do.
Wherefore there are things whose results are
entirely free from necessity. For I think not
that there is any man who will say this, that
things, which are done in the present, were not
about to be done in the past, before they are
done. Thus these foreknown events have their
free results. Just as foreknowledge of present
things brings no necessity to bear upon them as
they come to pass, so also foreknowledge of
future things brings no necessity to bear upon
things which are to come.
'But you will say that there is no doubt
of this too, whether there can be any foreknowledge
of things which have not results
bounden by necessity. For they do seem to
lack harmony: and you think that if they are
foreseen, the necessity follows; if there is no
necessity, then they cannot be foreseen; nothing
can be perceived certainly by knowledge, unless
it be certain. But if things have uncertainty of
result, but are foreseen as though certain, this is
plainly the obscurity of opinion, and not the
truth of knowledge. For you believe that to
think aught other than it is, is the opposite of
true knowledge. The cause of this error is
that every man believes that all the subjects,
that he knows, are known by their own force or
nature alone, which are known; but it is quite
the opposite. For every subject, that is known,
is comprehended not according to its own force,
but rather according to the nature of those who
know it. Let me make this plain to you by a
brief example: the roundness of a body may be
known in one way by sight, in another way by
touch. Sight can take in the whole body at
once from a distance by judging its radii,
while touch clings, as it were, to the outside of
the sphere, and from close at hand perceives
through the material parts the roundness of the
body as it passes over the actual circumference.
A man himself is differently comprehended by
the senses, by imagination, by reason, and by
intelligence. For the senses distinguish the
form as set in the matter operated upon by the
form; imagination distinguishes the appearance
alone without the matter. Reason goes even
further than imagination; by a general and
universal contemplation it investigates the
actual kind which is represented in individual
specimens. Higher still is the view of the
intelligence, which reaches above the sphere
of the universal, and with the unsullied eye of
the mind gazes upon that very form of the kind
in its absolute simplicity. Herein the chief
point for our consideration is this: the higher
power of understanding includes the lower, but
the lower never rises to the higher. For the
senses are capable of understanding naught but the
matter; imagination cannot look upon universal
or natural kinds; reason cannot comprehend
the absolute form; whereas the intelligence
seems to look down from above and comprehend
the form, and distinguishes all that lie below,
but in such a way that it grasps the very form
which could not be known to any other than
itself. For it perceives and knows the general
kind, as does reason; the appearance, as does
the imagination; and the matter, as do the
senses, but with one grasp of the mind it looks
upon all with a clear conception of the whole.
And reason too, as it views general kinds, does
not make use of the imagination nor the senses,
but yet does perceive the objects both of the
imagination and of the senses. It is reason
which thus defines a general kind according to
its conception: Man, for instance, is an animal,
biped and reasoning. This is a general notion
of a natural kind, but no man denies that the
subject can be approached by the imagination
and by the senses, just because reason investigates
it by a reasonable conception and not by the
imagination or senses. Likewise, though imagination
takes its beginning of seeing and forming
appearances from the senses, yet without their
aid it surveys each subject by an imaginative
faculty of distinguishing, not by the distinguishing
faculty of the senses.
'Do you see then, how in knowledge of all
things, the subject uses its own standard of
capability, and not those of the objects known?
And this is but reasonable, for every judgment
formed is an act of the person who judges, and
therefore each man must of necessity perform
his own action from his own capability and not
the capability of any other.
'In days of old the Porch at Athens
1
gave us men, seeing dimly as in old age, who could
believe that the feelings of the senses and the
imagination were but impressions on the mind
from bodies without them, just as the old
custom was to impress with swift-running pens
letters upon the surface of a waxen tablet which
bore no marks before. But if the mind with
its own force can bring forth naught by its own
exertions; if it does but lie passive and subject
to the marks of other bodies; if it reflects, as
does, forsooth, a mirror, the vain reflections of
other things; whence thrives there in the soul
an all-seeing power of knowledge? What is
the force that sees the single parts, or which
distinguishes the facts it knows? What is the
force that gathers up the parts it has distinguished,
that takes its course in order due,
now rises to mingle with the things on high,
and now sinks down among the things below,
and then to itself brings back itself, and, so
examining, refutes the false with truth? This
is a cause of greater power, of more effective
force by far than that which only receives the
impressions of material bodies. Yet does the
passive reception come first, rousing and stirring
[156:1]
—
Zeno, of Citium (342-270 B.C), the founder of the
Stoic school, taught in the Stoa Poekile, whence the
name of the school. The following lines refer to their
doctrine of presentations and impressions.
all the strength of the mind in the living body
When the eyes are smitten with a light, or the
ears are struck with a voice's sound, then is
the spirit's energy aroused, and, thus moved,
calls upon like forms, such as it holds within
itself, fits them to signs without and mingles the
forms of its imagination with those which it has
stored within.
'With regard to feeling the effects of bodies,
natures which are brought into contact from
without may affect the organs of the senses,
and the body's passive affection may precede
the active energy of the spirit, and call forth
to itself the activity of the mind; if then, when
the effects of bodies are felt, the mind is not
marked in any way by its passive reception
thereof, but declares that reception subject to
the body of its own force, how much less do
those subjects, which are free from all affections
of bodies, follow external objects in their
perceptions, and how much more do they make
clear the way for the action of their mind?
By this argument many different manners of
understanding have fallen to widely different
natures of things. For the senses are incapable
of any knowledge but their own, and they alone
fall to those living beings which are incapable
of motion, as are sea shell-fish, and other low
forms of life which live by clinging to rocks;
while imagination is granted to animals with the
power of motion, who seem to be affected by
some desire to seek or avoid certain things.
But reason belongs to the human race alone,
just as the true intelligence is God's alone.
Wherefore that manner of knowledge is better
than others, for it can comprehend of its own
nature not only the subject peculiar to itself,
but also the subjects of the other kinds of
knowledge. Suppose that the senses and
imagination thus oppose reasoning, saying, " The
universal natural kinds, which reason believes
that it can perceive, are nothing; for what is
comprehensible to the senses and the imagina-tion cannot be universal: therefore either the
judgment of reason is true, and that which can
be perceived by the senses is nothing - or, since
reason knows well that there are many subjects
comprehensible to the senses and imagina-tion, the conception of reason is vain, for it
holds to be universal what is an individual
matter comprehensible to the senses." To this
reason might answer, that " it sees from a
general point of view what is comprehensible
to the senses and the imagination, but they
cannot aspire to a knowledge of universals,
since their manner of knowledge cannot go
further than material or bodily appearances;
and in the matter of knowledge it is better to
trust to the stronger and more nearly perfcct
judgment." If such a trial of argument
occurred, should not we, who have within us
the force of reasoning as well as the powers of
the senses and imagination, approve of the cause
of reason rather than that of the others? It
is in like manner that human reason thinks that
the divine intelligence cannot perceive the
things of the future except as it conceives them
itself. For you argue thus: " If there are
events which do not appear to have sure or
necessary results, their results cannot be known
for certain beforehand: therefore there can be
no foreknowledge of these events; for if we
believe that there is any foreknowledge thereof,
there can exist nothing but such as is brought
forth of necessity." If therefore we, who have
our share in possession of reason, could go
further and possess the judgment of the mind
of God, we should then think it most just that
human reason should yield itself to the mind of
God, just as we have determined that the
senses and imagination ought to yield to
reason.
'Let us therefore raise ourselves, if so be that
we can, to that height of the loftiest intelligence.
For there reason will see what it cannot of
itself perceive, and that is to know how even
such things as have uncertain results are perceived
definitely and for certain by foreknowledge;
and such foreknowledge will not be
mere opinion, but rather the single and direct
form of the highest knowledge unlimited by any
finite bounds.
'In what different shapes do living beings
move upon the earth! Some make flat their
bodies, sweeping through the dust and using
their strength to make therein a furrow without
break; some flit here and there upon light wings
which beat the breeze, and they float through
vast tracks of air in their easy flight. 'Tis
others' wont to plant their footsteps on the
ground, and pass with their paces over green
fields or under trees. Though all these thou
seest move in different shapes, yet all have
their faces downward along the ground, and
this doth draw downward and dull their senses.
Alone of all, the human race lifts up its head
on high, and stands in easy balance with the
body upright, and so looks down to spurn the
earth. If thou art not too earthly by an evil
folly, this pose is as a lesson. Thy glance is
upward, and thou dost carry high thy head,
and thus thy search is heavenward: then lead
thy soul too upward, lest while the body is
higher raised, the mind sink lower to the
earth.
'Since then all that is known is apprehended,
as we just now shewed, not according to its
nature but according to the nature of the
knower, let us examine, so far as we lawfully
may, the character of the divine nature, so that
we may be able to learn what its knowledge is.
'The common opinion, according to all men
living, is that God is eternal. Let us therefore
consider what is eternity. For eternity will, I
think, make clear to us at the same time the
divine nature and knowledge.
' Eternity is the simultaneous and complete
possession of infinite life. This will appear
more clearly if we compare it with temporal
things. All that lives under the conditions of
time moves through the present from the past
to the future; there is nothing set in time
which can at one moment grasp the whole
space of its lifetime. It cannot yet comprehend
to-morrow; yesterday it has already
lost. And in this life of to-day your life is no
more than a changing, passing moment. And
as Aristotle
1
said of the universe, so it is of all
that is subject to time; though it never began
to be, nor will ever cease, and its life is co-extensive with the infinity of time, yet it is not
such as can be held to be eternal. For though
it apprehends and grasps a space of infinite lifetime,
it does not embrace the whole simultaneously;
it has not yet experienced the future.
What we should rightly call eternal is that
which grasps and possesses wholly and simultaneously
the fulness of unending life, which
acks naught of the future, and has lost naught
of the fleeting past; and such an existence
must be ever present in itself to control and aid
itself, and also must keep present with itself the
infinity of changing time. Therefore, people
who hear that Plato thought that this universe
had no beginning of time and will have no end,
are not right in thinking that in this way the
created world is co-eternal with its creator
2
[161:1]
—
Aristotle, De Cæelo, 1.
[161:2]
—
Boethius speaks of people who 'hear that Plato
thought, etc.,' because this was the teaching of some of
Plato's successors at the Academy. Plato himself
thought otherwise, as may be seen in the Timæus, e.g.
ch. xi. 38 B., 'Time then has come into being along
with the universe, that being generated together, together
they may be dissolved, should a dissolution of them ever
come to pass; and it was made after the pattern of the
eternal nature that it might be as like to it as possible.
For the pattern is existent for all eternity, but the copy
has been, and is, and shall be, throughout all time
continually.' (Mr. Archer Hind's translation.)
For to pass through unending life, the attribute
which Plato ascribes to the universe is one
thing; but it is another thing to grasp simultaneously
the whole of unending life in the
present; this is plainly a peculiar property of
the mind of God.
'And further, God should not be regarded
as older than His creations by any period of
time, but rather by the peculiar property of His
own single nature. For the infinite changing
of temporal things tries to imitate the ever
simultaneously present immutability of His life:
it cannot succeed in imitating or equailing this,
but sinks from immutability into change, and
falls from the single directness of the present
into an infinite space of future and past. And
since this temporal state cannot possess its life
completely and simultaneously, but it does in
the same manner exist for ever without ceasing,
it therefore seems to try in some degree to rival
that which it cannot fulfil or represent, for it
binds itself to some sort of present time out of
this small and fleeting moment; but inasmuch
as this temporal present bears a certain appearance
of that abiding present, it somehow makes
those, to whom it comes, seem to be in truth
what they imitate. But since this imitation
could not be abiding, the unending march of
time has swept it away, and thus we find that it
has bound together, as it passes, a chain of life,
which it could not by abiding embrace in its
fulness. And thus if we would apply proper
epithets to those subjects, we can say, following
Plato, that God is eternal, but the universe is
continual.
'Since then all judgment apprehends the
subjects of its thought according to its own
nature, and God has a condition of ever-present
eternity, His knowledge, which passes over
every change of time, embracing infinite lengths
of past and future, views in its own direct
comprehension everything as though it were
taking place in the present. If you would
weigh the foreknowledge by which God distinguishes
all things, you will more rightly hold
it to be a knowledge of a never-failing constancy
in the present, than a foreknowledge of the
future. Whence Providence is more rightly to
be understood as a looking forth than a looking
forward, because it is set far from low matters
and looks forth upon all things as from a lofty
mountain-top above all. Why then do you demand
that all things occur by necessity, if divine
light rests upon them, while men do not render
necessary such things as they can see? Because
you can see things of the present, does your
sight therefore put upon them any necessity?
Surely not. If one may not unworthily compare
this present time with the divine, just as
you can see things in this your temporal present,
so God sees all things in His eternal present.
Wherefore this divine foreknowledge does not
change the nature or individual qualities of things:
it sees things present in its understanding just as
they will result some time in the future. It
makes no confusion in its distinctions, and with
one view of itS mind it discerns all that shall
come to pass whether of necessity or not. For
instance, when you see at the same time a man
walking on the earth and the sun rising in the
heavens, you see each sight simultaneously, yet
you distinguish between them, and decide that
one is moving voluntarily, the other of necessity.
In like manner the perception of God looks
down upon all things without disturbing at all
their nature, though they are present to Him
but future under the conditions of time. Wherefore
this foreknowledge is not opinion but
knowledge resting upon truth, since He knows
that a future event is, though He knows too
that it will not occur of necessity. If you
answer here that what God sees about to
happen, cannot but happen, and that what
cannot but happen is bound by necessity, you
fasten me down to the word necessity, I will
grant that we have a matter of most firm truth,
but it is one to which scarce any man can
approach unless he be a contemplator of the
divine. For I shall answer that such a thing
will occur of necessity, when it is viewed from
the point of divine knowledge; but when it is
examined in its own nature, it seems perfectly
free and unrestrained. For there are two kinds
of necessities; one is simple: for instance, a
necessary fact, "all men are mortal "; the other
is conditional; for instance, if you know that a
man is walking, he must be walking: for what
each man knows cannot be otherwise than it is
known to be; but the conditional one is by no
means followed by this simple and direct
necessity; for there is no necessity to compel
a voluntary walker to proceed, though it is
necessary that, if he walks, he should be proceeding.
In the same way, if Providence sees
an event in its present, that thing must be,
though it has no necessity of its own nature.
And God looks in His present upon those
future things which come to pass through free
will. Therefore if these things be looked at
from the point of view of God's insight, they
come to pass of necessity under the condition of
divine knowledge; if, on the other hand, they
are viewed by themselves, they do not lose
the perfect freedom of their nature. Without
doubt, then, all things that God foreknows do
come to pass, but some of them proceed from
free will; and though they result by coming
into existence, yet they do not lose their own
nature, because before they came to pass they
could also not have come to pass.
'"What then," you may ask, " is the difference
in their not being bound by necessity,
since they result under all circumstances as by
necessity, on account of the condition of divine
knowledge? " This is the difference, as I just
now put forward: take the sun rising and a man
walking; while these operations are occurring,
they cannot but occur: but the one was bound
to occur before it did; the other was not so
bound. What God has in His present, does
exist without doubt; but of such things some
follow by necessity, others by their authors'
wills. Wherefore I was justified in saying
that if these things be regarded from the view
of divine knowledge, they are necessary, but
if they are viewed by themselves, they are
perfectly free from all ties of necessity: just
as when you refer all, that is clear to the
senses, to the reason, it becomes general truth,
but it remains particular if regarded by itself.
" But," you will say, " if it is in my power to
change a purpose of mine, I will disregard
Providence, since I may change what Providence
foresees." To which I answer, " You can
change your purpose, but since the truth of
Providence knows in its present that you can
do so, and whether you do so, and in what
direction you may change it, therefore you
cannot escape that divine foreknowledge: just
as you cannot avoid the glance of a present eye,
though you may by your free will turn yourself
to all kinds of different actions." "What?"
you will say, " can I by my own action change
divine knowledge, so that if I choose now one
thing, now another, Providence too will seem
to change its knowledge?" No; divine insight
precedes all future things, turning them
back and recalling them to the present time
of its own peculiar knowledge. It does not
change, as you may think, between this and
that alternation of foreknowledge. It is constant
in preceding and embracing by one
glance all your changes. And God does not
receive this ever-present grasp of all things and
vision of the present at the occurrence of future
events, but from His own peculiar directness.
Whence also is that difficulty solved which you
laid down a little while ago, that it was not
worthy to say that our future events were the
cause of God's knowledge. For this power of
knowledge, ever in the present and embracing
all things in its perception, does itself constrain
all things, and owes naught to following events
from which it has received naught. Thus,
therefore, mortal men have their freedom of
judgment intact. And since their wills are
freed from all binding necessity, laws do not
set rewards or punishments unjustly. God is
ever the constant foreknowing overseer, and
the ever-present eternity of His sight moves in
harmony with the future nature of our actions,
as it dispenses rewards to the good, and punishments
to the bad. Hopes are not vainly put in
God, nor prayers in vain offered: if these are
right, they cannot but be answered. Turn
therefore from vice: ensue virtue: raise your
soul to upright hopes: send up on high your
prayers from this earth. If you would be
honest, great is the necessity enjoined upon
your goodness, since all you do is done before
the eyes of an all-seeing Judge.'