The Ordinatio of John Duns Scotus :: Ordinatio. Book 1. Distinctions 26 to 48. :: Book One. Distinctions 26

From Appendix A: Thirty Eighth Distinction, Part Two, and Thirty Ninth Distinction Questions One to Five: On the Infallibility and Immutability of Divine Knowledge

In the second part of the thirty eighth distinction the Master [Lombard] treats of the infallibility of divine knowledge, and in the thirty ninth distinction he treats of the immutability of divine knowledge [Sent. I d.38 ch.2, d.39 chs.1-4]. As to this material, then, to the extent divine knowledge has regard simply to the existences of things, I raise five questions:

First, whether God has determinate knowledge of all things as to all conditions of existence; second, whether he has certain and infallible knowledge of all things as to all conditions of existence; third, whether he has immutable knowledge of all things as to every condition of existence; fourth, whether he necessarily knows every condition of existence of everything; and fifth, whether, along with the determinateness and certitude of his knowledge, there can stand some contingency on the part of the things in existence.⁷ And these questions can be asked together, because they are solved together by the same things.

As to the first question I argue for the negative:

Because, according to the Philosopher De Interpretatione 9.18a28-19b4, in the case of future contingents there is no determinate truth, - therefore neither is there determinate knowledge; therefore neither does the intellect have determinate knowledge about them.

This reason is confirmed by his proof in the same place, that then we need not bother about things or deliberate because, whether we deliberate or not, they will happen.

Further, if God’s power were limited to one side [sc. of opposed possibilities] it would be imperfect, because if God had power for this thing such that he did not have power for the opposite, he would have limited power and not be omnipotent; therefore, in the same way, if he knows one side such that he does not know the other, he will be limited in knowledge and not omniscient.

As to the second question I argue for the negative:

Because this inference holds, ‘God knows that I will sit down tomorrow, and I will not sit down tomorrow, therefore God is deceived’, - therefore by similarity this inference holds, ‘God knows I will sit down tomorrow, and I am able not to sit down tomorrow, therefore God can be deceived’. The first inference is manifest, because he who believes what is not in reality so is deceived; I prove - from this - that the further inference holds, because just as a conclusion about what is the case follows from two premises about what is the case, so a conclusion about what is possible follows from a premise about what is the case and a second premise about what is possible.

Further, if God knows I will sit down tomorrow and it is possible for me not to sit down tomorrow, - let the proposition ‘I will not sit down tomorrow’ be the case, and the result is that God is deceived; but from the positing of what is possible the impossible does not follow; therefore the proposition ‘God is deceived’ will not be impossible.

As to the third question I argue for the negative:

There can be no passage from a contradictory to a contradictory without some change; but if there is altogether no change, then in no way does it seem that what was true before should now be false. Therefore if God, while knowing a, is able not to know a, then this seems to be because of some possible change; but only in a as it is known by God, because nothing has being save within God’s knowledge, and consequently the change of a cannot be without a change in God’s knowledge, - which is the conclusion intended.

Further: anything that is not a and can be a can begin to be a, - because it does not seem intelligible that the affirmation of a negation that is the case can be the case if it does not begin to be; therefore if God does not know a and he can know a then he can begin to know a; therefore he can change to knowing a.

Further, third: if God does not know a and can know a, - I ask what this ‘can be’ is? Either it is passive, and then it is to a form, and change results. Or it is active, and plainly it is natural, because the intellect ‘as it is intellect’ is not free but acts naturally; such a power cannot act after it has not acted unless it changes; therefore, as before, change results.

As to the fourth question I argue for the affirmative:

Because God immutably knows a, therefore he necessarily knows a (let a be understood as the proposition ‘Antichrist will be’).

Proof of the inference:

First, because no necessity is posited in God save the necessity of immutability; therefore whatever is in him immutably is in him necessarily.

Second, because everything immutable seems to be formally necessary, just as everything possible - to which ‘necessarily’ is repugnant - seems to be mutable; for no ‘such possible’ exists of itself and it can exist from another. But what is able to be after not being (whether in order of duration or order of nature) does not seem able to be without some mutability; therefore etc .

Further, whatever can be in God can be the same as God, and consequently can be God; but whatever can be God, of necessity is God, because God is immutable; therefore whatever can be in God, of necessity is God. But knowing a can be in God; therefore of necessity it is God, and therefore he simply necessarily knows a.

In addition, every perfection simply - absolute perfection - is of necessity in God; to know a is a perfection simply, because otherwise God would not be perfect if he did not know a formally, because he is not imperfect save by lacking some perfection simply.

As to the fifth question I argue for the negative:

Because this inference holds, ‘God knows a, therefore a will necessarily be’.

The antecedent is necessary. - Proof of the consequence, because a rational act is not canceled on account of the matter it passes over to, just as ‘to say’ is not canceled if it passes over to this, that ‘I am saying nothing’: for this inference holds, ‘I say that I am saying nothing, therefore I am saying something’; therefore , by similarity, ‘to know’ is not canceled on account of the matter it passes over to. Therefore since the ‘to know’ of God is simply necessary, it is not canceled or deprived of having this necessity by the fact it passes over to a contingent thing.

Besides, everything that God knows will be, will necessarily be; God knows a will be; therefore etc . - The major is true to the extent it is of what is necessary, because the predicate is of necessity in the subject; and the minor is about what is in a subject simply, because it is true for eternity; therefore a conclusion about the necessary follows.

To the opposite [sc. against the arguments adduced for the first three questions]:

Epistle to the Hebrews 4.13: “All things are naked and open to his eyes;” and look at the Gloss there [Glossa Ordinaria, “because they are fully seen from every side”]. Therefore he has determinate and certain knowledge of all things as to everything knowable in them; and immutable knowledge, as is plain, because nothing in him is mutable (from distinction 8 n.293).

To the opposite of the fourth question:

If God necessarily knew a, then a would be necessarily known - and if necessarily known then necessarily true. The consequent is false, so the antecedent is too.

To the opposite of the fifth question:

Being is divided into necessary being and contingent being; therefore the intellect, when understanding these according to their proper ideas, understands this thing as necessary and that thing as contingent (otherwise it would not understand them as they are such beings), and consequently the knowledge does not take away contingency as to the thing known.

I. The Opinions of Others

A. First Opinion

As to these questions one position holds the certitude of divine knowledge - with respect to all things as to all conditions of existence - on account of the ideas that are posited in the divine intellect, and this on account of their perfection in representing, because they represent ‘the things of which they are’ not only in themselves but in every reason and relation of the extremes; and so they are in the divine intellect a sufficient reason, not only for simply apprehending the things patterned after the ideas, but also for apprehending every union of them and every mode of the patterned things pertaining to their existence.⁸

On the contrary:

The reasons of knowing the terms of some proposition that combines them are only a sufficient cause of knowing the combination if the combination is of a nature to be known from the terms; a contingent combination is not of a nature to be known from the terms, because it would then not only be necessary but also first and immediate; therefore the reasons of knowing the terms, however perfectly these reasons represent them, are not sufficient causes of knowing the contingent combination.

In addition, the ideas purely naturally represent what they represent, and under the reason under which they represent anything; the proof of the fact is that the ideas are in the divine intellect before any act of the divine will, so that in no way are they there by act of the will; but whatever precedes the act of the will is purely natural. I take then the two ideas of the extremes that are represented in those ideas, for example the ideas of man and of white; I ask whether of themselves they represent the combination of the extremes, or the division of them, or both? If only the combination, then the divine intellect naturally knows it (and so knows in a necessary way), and consequently in no way does it know the division. And I raise a question in the same manner if the ideas only represent the division. If they represent both, then God knows nothing by them, because to know contradictories to be true simultaneously is to know nothing.

In addition, the ideas are of possible things in the same way as they are of future things, because the difference between ‘non-future possibles and future possibles’ is only by act of the divine will; therefore an idea of a future thing does not more represent that thing to be of necessity future than an idea of a possible thing does.

Further, an idea of a future thing will not represent it more by positing it to exist in this ‘now’ than by positing it to exist in that.

B. Second Opinion

Another position is that God has certain knowledge of future contingents by the fact that the whole flow of time, and all things that are in time, are present to eternity.⁹

The proof for this is from the fact that eternity is immense and infinite, and consequently, just as the immense is present at once to every place, so the eternal is present at once to the whole of time.¹⁰

And the point is made clear through examples, and one example indeed is ‘about the stick fixed in water’, that although the whole stream flows past the stick (and so the stick is present successively to all the parts of the stream), yet the stick is not immense with respect to the stream, because it is not present to the whole; therefore in the same way, if eternity were something standing (like the stick), past which time flowed, such that there was never present to it at once save a single instant of time (just as there is not present at once to the stick save one part of the stream), eternity would not be immense with respect to time.

There is also the confirmation that the ‘now’ of eternity is together with the ‘now’ of time, not coequal with it; therefore as it is together with this latter ‘now’ it exceeds it; but it would not exceed it unless - as it is together with this ‘now’ - it were together with another ‘now’.

There is also this confirmation, that if the whole of time could exist at once extrinsically, the ‘now’ of eternity would be at once present to the whole of time; but although it is repugnant to time - because of its succession - to exist at once, nothing of perfection is, because of this, taken away from eternity; therefore eternity itself is now equally present to the whole of time and to anything existing in time.

This is confirmed by another example ‘about the center in a circle’, because if ‘time flowing’ were posited to be the circumference of a circle and the ‘now’ of eternity were posited to be the center, then, however much of flux there was in time, the whole flux and any part of it would always be present to the center. Thus therefore all things that have to exist in any part of time (whether they are in this ‘now’ of time, or whether they are past or future), all of them are present with respect to the ‘now’ of eternity, - and thus what exists in eternity sees them as present because of such co-existence, just as I can see as present what in this instant I am seeing.

Against this opinion I argue:

First, by bringing back against them what they themselves adduce about immensity [sc. in the first proof for this opinion] - because once it is posited that space can continually increase to infinity (so that just as time is in continual flux so God continually expands space by its coming to be), yet the immensity of God would not be a reason for him to co-exist with any place (in any ‘now’) unless the place is existent; for God by his immensity does not co-exist with anything save what is in him, although he could create space outside the universe, and then by his immensity he would co-exist with it. If then immensity is not a reason for co-existing with a place save an actual one and not a potential one (because a potential one does not exist), then by parity of reasoning eternity will not be a reason for co-existing with anything save what is existent; and this is what is argued, that ‘that which does not exist cannot co-exist with anything’, because ‘to co-exist’ states a real relation, but a relation is not real whose foundation is not real.

Again, if an effect has being in itself with respect to the first cause, it is simply in itself, because with respect to nothing does it have a truer being; hence that which is said to be such with respect to the first cause can be said simply to be such. If then something future is in act with respect to God, then it is simply in act; therefore it is impossible for it to be posited in act later.

Further, if my future sitting down (not only as to the entity which it has in knowable being but also as to that which it has in being of existence) is now present to eternity, then it has now been produced in that being by God, for nothing has from God existence in the flow of time unless it have been produced by God according to that being; but let God produce this sitting down (or the soul of Antichrist, which is the equivalent); then that which has already been produced by him will again be produced in being, and so it will be produced in being twice.

Further, this position does not seem to be of help for what it is posited for, namely for having certain knowledge of future things:

And first indeed because this sitting down, beside the fact that it is present to eternity according to its being in some part of time, is yet future in itself because of the fact it is future and needs to be produced by God. So I ask whether God has certain knowledge of it. If he does, then this is not from the fact that it already exists, but according to the fact that it is future, - and this certitude must be posited to come through something else, and this suffices for all certain knowledge of the existence of this thing. If he does not know it will be future with certitude, then he produces it without foreknowing it; but he will know it with certitude when he has produced it; therefore he knows in different ways things made and things to be made, which is against Augustine On Genesis V ch.18 n.36.

Second, because the divine intellect receives no certitude from any object other than its own essence; for then it would be cheapened. Hence now too the divine intellect does not have certitude about my making, which is posited to be in act, in such a way that the making causes about itself certitude in the divine intellect; for it does not move God’s intellect. Therefore, in the same way, all temporal things - if they are in their own existence present to eternity according to those existences of theirs - fail to cause certitude about them in the divine intellect, but the divine intellect must have certain knowledge of them through something else about them, and that something else suffices for us.

Besides, they posit that angelic time (the ‘aevum’) is altogether simple, co-existent with the whole of time;¹¹,¹² therefore an angel, who is in angelic time, is present to the whole flow of time and to all the parts of time; therefore an angel, it seems - according to this reason of theirs -, could naturally know future contingents.

C. Third Opinion

A third position says that although some things be necessary with respect to divine knowledge, yet it does not follow that with respect to proximate causes they cannot be 12 contingent.

And it is confirmed from Boethius Consolation of Philosophy V prose 6, where he speaks thus: “If you say, ‘that which God sees will come to be cannot not happen, - but that which cannot not happen happens of necessity’, and if you constrict me to this term of ‘necessity’, I will reply: the same future thing, when it is referred to divine knowledge, is necessary - but when it is considered in its own nature, it is altogether free, etc .”

In favor of this view the argument is also made that there can be imperfection in an effect from the proximate cause, although not from a remote or prior cause, - just as there is deformity in an act from a created will but not insofar as it is from the divine will; therefore sin is not reduced to God as to the cause, but it is imputed only to the created will. Although therefore there were, as far as concerns the part of God - who is the remote cause -, a necessity in things, yet there can, from their proximate causes, be contingency in them.

Against this an argument was given in distinction 2 nn.80, 85-86, where it was proved from the contingency of things that ‘God is understanding and willing’, because there can be no contingency in the causation of any cause with respect to its effect unless the first cause is contingently disposed to the cause next to it or to its own effect. Which proof, briefly, is from the fact that a moving cause - to the extent it is moved - is, if it is necessarily moved, necessarily a mover; therefore any second cause that produces insofar as it is moved by a first cause, if it is necessarily moved by the first cause, necessarily moves what is next to it or it necessarily produces its effect. The whole ordering of causes, then, right up to the ultimate effect, will produce necessarily if the disposition of the first cause to the cause next to it is necessary.

Further, a prior cause has respect to its effect naturally prior to a later cause [d.8 n.287]; therefore in that prior stage, if it have a necessary disposition to the effect, it will give it necessary existence. But in the second instant of nature the proximate cause cannot give it contingent existence, because it is already pre-understood to have from the first cause an existence repugnant to contingency; nor can you say that in the same instant of nature the two causes give existence to the caused thing, because the cannot be founded on that existence a necessary disposition to a cause perfectly giving existence and a contingent disposition to some other cause.

In addition, whatever is produced by posterior causes could be produced immediately by the first cause - and then it would have the same entity as it has now, and then it would be contingent as it is contingent now; therefore it has its own contingency even now from the first cause, and not only from the proximate cause.

Besides, God has produced many things immediately (as he created the world and now creates souls), and he has produced them all contingently.

II. Scotus’ own Response to the Questions

As to the solution to these questions one must proceed as follows: one must see first how there is contingency in things, and second how there stands along with this the certitude and immutability of divine knowledge about them.

A. How there is Contingency in Things

1. Contingency in things is Evident and Manifest

As to the first point I say that the disjunction ‘necessary or possible’ is a property of being, speaking of convertible property [sc. property convertible with or true of being as such], just as there are many such unlimited properties in things [d.8 n.115]. But properties convertible with being - as more common - are said immediately of being, because being has a concept simply simple; and therefore there cannot be a middle term between being and its property, because there is no definition of either that could be the middle term. Also, if there is some non-first property of being, it is difficult to see by what prior thing, as by a middle term, it could be proved of being, because it is not easy to see an order in the properties of being; nor, if that order were known, would the propositions taken from the properties as premises seem to be much more evident than the conclusions.

But in the disjunct properties, although the whole disjunct cannot be demonstrated of being, yet - commonly - when the extreme that is less noble is supposed about some being, one can prove about some being some extreme that is more noble; just as this inference holds ‘if some being is finite, then some being is infinite’ and ‘if some being is contingent, then some being is necessary’, because in such cases a more imperfect extreme could not be in a being in particular unless the more perfect extreme, on which it would depend, were present in some other being.

But it does not in this way seem possible to demonstrate the more imperfect extreme of such a disjunction; for it is not the case that, if the more perfect extreme is in some being, therefore the more imperfect one is in some being (and this unless the disjunct extremes are correlatives, as cause and caused); so therefore one cannot demonstrate of being - through some prior middle term - the disjunction ‘necessary or contingent’. Nor even can this part of the disjunction - the part that is ‘contingent’ - be demonstrated of anything if ‘necessary’ is supposed of something; and so it seems that the proposition ‘some being is contingent’ is true first and not demonstrable by a demonstration ‘why’.

Hence the Philosopher, when arguing against necessity in the case of future events, does not make a deduction to something more impossible than the hypothesis, but to something impossible more manifest to us, namely that we need not bother about things or deliberate [see the opening arguments above].

And so those who deny such things need punishment or perception, because - according to Avicenna Metaphysics I ch.9 (74vab) - those who deny a first principle need to be flogged or exposed to fire until they admit that to be burned and not to be burned, to be flogged and not to be flogged, are not the same thing.¹³ So too, those who deny that some being is ‘contingent’ should be exposed to torments until they concede that it is possible for them not to be tormented.

2. The Contingency in Things is because of the Contingent Causation of God

On the supposition, then, of this as it were manifest truth, that some being is contingent, -one must ask how contingency can be preserved in beings.

And I say - because of the first reason made against the third opinion (which is made more plain in distinction 2 in the question ‘On the existence of God’ [nn.80, 85-86]) - that no causation of any cause can be preserved as ‘contingent’ unless the first cause is posited as immediately causing contingently, and this by positing perfect causality in the first cause, the way Catholics do [d.42 n.9].

3. The Cause of Contingency in Beings is on the Part of the Divine Will

Now the first thing is a causer by intellect and will, and if a third executive power (different from these) is posited, it does not help the issue at hand, because if the first thing necessarily understands and wills, it necessarily produces. One must then look for this contingency in the divine intellect or in the divine will. But not in the intellect as it has first act before every act of will, because whatever the intellect understands in this way it understands purely naturally and by natural necessity, - and so no contingency can be something in his knowing, or something in his understanding, which he does not know and does not understand by such first intellection.

The first contingency, then, must be looked for in the divine will, - and in order to see how it should be posited, one must first look in our own will, and at three things there: first, at what things there is liberty for in our will; second how possibility or contingency follows this liberty; and third, about the logical possibility of propositions, as to how possibility for opposites is expressed.

a. How our Will can be Cause of Contingency in Things

[What things there is liberty for in our will] - As to the first point, I say that the will, as to its first act, is free for opposite acts; it is also, by means of those opposite acts, free for opposite objects to which it tends, - and, further, to opposite effects which it produces.

The first liberty necessarily possesses some imperfection annexed to it, because it possesses passive potentiality and mutability in the will. The third liberty is not the second, because even if, per impossibile, it were to effect nothing outwardly, still - insofar as it is will - it could tend freely to objects. But the middle reason of liberty [sc. the second liberty] is without imperfection (nay it is necessary for perfection), because every perfect power can tend to everything that is of a nature to be object of such power; therefore a perfect will can tend to everything that is of a nature to be will-able. Therefore liberty without imperfection - insofar as it is free - is for opposite objects to which it tends, and accidental to this liberty as such is that it produce opposite effects.

[How contingency follows the liberty of our will] - About the second point I say that concomitant to this liberty is a single manifest power to opposites. For although there is not in it a power to will and not will at the same time (because this is a nothing), yet there is in it a power to will after not willing, or a power for a succession of opposite acts; and this power is manifest in all mutable things, on the succession of opposites in them [sc. a white thing in moment a can be black in moment b].

Yet there is also another power (not as manifest) without any succession. For by positing that a created will only has being in one instant, and that in that instant it has this volition, it does not then necessarily have it. Proof: for if in that instant it did necessarily have it, then, since it is not a cause save in the instant when it would cause it, the will simply - when it is causing - would necessarily cause; for it is not a contingent cause now because it was pre-existent to the instant in which it causes (and then ‘as pre-existing’ it was able to cause or not cause), because just as this being, when it is, is necessary or contingent, so a cause, when it causes, causes then necessarily or contingently. So from the fact that in this instant it causes this willing, and not necessarily, then for that reason it causes contingently. This power, then, of the cause ‘for the opposite of what it causes’ is without succession.

Also this power, a real one, is a power of what is naturally prior (as first acts) to opposites that are naturally posterior (as second acts); for a first act, considered in the instant in which it is naturally prior to a second act, so posits the second in being - as its own contingent effect - that, as naturally prior, it could equally posit some other opposite in being.

Also concomitant to this real active power (naturally prior to what it produces) is logical power, which is non-repugnance of the terms. For to the will as first act, even when it is producing this willing, the opposite willing is not repugnant; both because the will is a contingent cause with respect to its effect, and so the opposite in idea of effect is not repugnant to it; and also because it is, as it is a subject, contingently disposed to this act as this act informs it, because to the subject the opposite of its ‘accident per accidens’ is not repugnant.

Concomitant to the liberty of our will, therefore, insofar as it is for opposite acts, is a power both to opposites successively and to opposites at the same instant, - that is, that either of the two can be present without the other, and so the second power is a real cause for act as it is naturally prior to logical power; but the fourth power - namely to opposites simultaneously - is not concomitant to it, because this fourth power is a nothing.

[About the logical distinction of propositions] - From this second point the third is plain, namely the distinguishing of this proposition ‘a will that is willing a is able not to will a’. For this is false in the composite sense, so as to signify the possibility of this proposition ‘a will that is willing a is not willing a’; it is true in the divided sense, so as to signify a possibility for opposites successively, because a will that is willing for moment a is able not to will for moment b.

But if we also take a proposition about the possible which unites extremes for the same instant, to wit this one, ‘a will that is not willing something for moment a is able to will it for moment a’, this proposition too must be distinguished according to composite and divided senses; and in the composite sense it is false, namely that there is a possibility that the will is simultaneously willing for moment a and not willing for moment a; the divided sense is true, namely so as to signify that in the will in which ‘willing for moment a’ is present there can be present ‘not willing for moment a’ - but it will not thus stand simultaneously, but ‘not willing’ will stand in this way, namely that then the ‘willing’ is not present.

And to understand this second distinction - which is more obscure - I say that in the composite sense there is a single categorical proposition, whose subject is this ‘a will not willing for moment a’ and whose predicate is ‘willing for moment a’; and then this predicate is being attributed as possible to a subject it is repugnant to, and consequently what is being indicated as possible to the subject is impossible to the subject. In the divided sense there are two categorical propositions, asserting of the will two predicates; in one proposition, about actual presence in the subject, there is asserted of the will the predicate ‘not willing a’ (which categorical proposition is understand by implicit composition of the terms); in the other categorical proposition, about possible presence in the subject, there is asserted as possible of the will the predicate ‘willing a’. And these two propositions are verified, because they are signified as attributing to the subjects their own predicates for the same instant; and this indeed is true, for to this will there does in the same instant belong not willing a, along with the possibility of the opposite, willing a, just as actual presence is signified along with possible presence.

An example of this distinction is found in the proposition ‘all men who are white run’ -which, once the case is posited that all the white men are running (and none of the black men or the men colored in between), is true in the composite sense and false in the divided sense; in the composite sense there is one proposition, possessing one subject, which is determined by the term ‘white’ [sc. ‘all the white men’]; in the divided sense there are two propositions, asserting two predicates of the same subject [sc. ‘all men are white’ and ‘all men run’]. Similarly in this case ‘man who is white is necessarily an animal’; which in the composite sense is false, because the predicate does not belong necessarily to the whole of this subject [sc. ‘white man’¹⁴]; in the divided sense it is true, because two predicates are indicated as said of the same subject (one necessarily [sc. ‘man is necessarily an animal’] and the other absolutely, without necessity [sc. ‘man is white’], and both predicates belong and both these categorical propositions are true.

But against this second distinction there is argument in three ways, that it is not a logical one and that it is not the case that some power is for any instant for the opposite of what is in it at that instant.

The first argument is from the proposition in De Interpretatione 9.91a23-24: “Everything that is, when it is, necessarily is.”

The second is from this rule of the art of disputation [‘ars obligatoria’]: “When a false contingent is posited of the present instant, one must deny that it is.” Which rule he proves [Giles of Sherwood] by the fact that what is posited must be maintained as true; therefore it must be maintained for any instant for which it is possible; but it is not ‘a true possible’ for the instant for which it is posited, because if it were possible for that instant then it would be able to be true by motion or by change; but in neither way, because motion is not in an instant, and change is not in any instant for the opposite of what is then in it, because change and the end of change would be simultaneous.

Further, third: if for any instant there is power for something whose opposite is present, that power is either along with act or prior to act; not along with act, as is plain - nor prior to act, because then it would be for act in a different instant from that in which the power is present in it.

To the first of these I reply that that proposition of Aristotle can be categorical or hypothetical, just as also this one, ‘that an animal runs, if a man runs, is necessary’. This proposition, indeed, according as it is conditional, is to be distinguished according as ‘necessary’ can state the necessity of the consequence [sc. the whole ‘if... then... ’ conditional] or the necessity of the consequent [sc. the ‘then.’]; in the first way it is true, in the second way it is false.

According as it is categorical, the whole remark ‘.runs if man runs’ is predicated of animal along with the mode of necessity, - and this categorical [sc. ‘that an animal runs if man runs is necessary’] is true, because a predicate so determined [sc. ‘.runs if man runs’] is necessarily present in the subject, although it is not a predicate absolutely; and therefore to argue in that case from the predicate so determined to the predicate taken absolutely is the fallacy of in a certain respect and simply [sc. to argue: ‘that an animal runs if man runs is necessary, therefore that an animal runs is necessary’].

I say the same here, that if this proposition [sc. of Aristotle’s above] is taken as it is a hypothetical of time, the term ‘necessity’ indicates either the necessity of concomitance or the necessity of the concomitant; as it indicates the necessity of concomitance it is true [sc. ‘it is necessary that everything is when it is’], - as of the concomitant it is false [sc. ‘everything that is is necessary when it is’]. But if the proposition is taken as it is a categorical then the phrase ‘when it is’ does not determine the combination implicit in the phrase ‘[everything] that is’ but it determines the principal composition, which is signified by the phrase ‘is [necessary]’ - and then the predicate ‘is when it is’ is denoted as being said of the subject ‘that is’ along with the mode of necessity, and thus the proposition is true [sc. ‘it is necessary that everything that is is when it is’]; nor does the inference follow ‘therefore it is necessary’ [sc. ‘everything that is is necessary when it is’], but there is a fallacy of in a certain respect and simply in the other part [sc. from ‘is necessary when it is’ to ‘is necessary’].¹⁵ No true sense of this proposition, then, denotes that the being of something - in the instant in which it is - is necessary, but only that it is necessary in a certain respect, namely when it is; along with this there stands the fact that, in the instant in which it is, it is simply contingent, and consequently that in that instant the opposite of it could be present.

To the second: that rule [of the art of disputation or ‘ars obligatoria’] is false and the proof is not valid, for although what is posited should be maintained as true, yet it can be maintained for that instant without denying that the instant is one for which it is false, because this inference does not hold, ‘it is false for that instant, therefore it is impossible’, as the proof insinuates; and when it says ‘if it can be true for the instant for which it is false, it can be made true for that instant either[by motion or change], etc .’, I say that neither by this way nor by that, because the possibility for its truth is not a possibility along with succession (as one thing after another thing), but it is power for the opposite of that which is in something insofar as the power is naturally prior to the act.

To the third I say that there is power before the act; not ‘before’ in duration but ‘before’ in order of nature - because that which naturally precedes the act, as it naturally precedes the act, could be with the opposite of the act. And one must deny that every power is ‘with act or before act’, understanding the ‘before’ of priority in duration; but it is true when understanding by the ‘before’ priority of nature.

A fourth objection is raised against this [sc. the second distinction]:

That ‘if it is able to will a for this instant and it does not will a for this instant, then it is able not to will a for this instant’, because on a proposition about presence of the predicate in the subject there follows a proposition about possible presence; and then it seems to follow that it could will a and not will a at the same instant simultaneously.

To this I reply - according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 9.5.1048a21-24 - that what has a power for opposites will do as it has the power to do; but not as it has a power of doing such that the mode is referred to the term of the power and not to the power itself, because I have a power at the same time for opposites but not for opposites at the same time.

Then I say that this inference does not hold ‘[a power] is able to will this in moment a and able not to will this in moment a, therefore it is able to will and not will this in moment a’, because the power has ability for either of the opposites disjunctively at any instant, though not for both of them simultaneously; for just as there is a possibility for one of them, so there is for the not being of the other of them - and conversely, as it is for the latter so it is for the not being of the former. So it is not simultaneously for the being of this opposite and for the being of that, because a possibility for simultaneity would only exist if it were for both concurrently in the same instant, which is not got by the power’s being for each divisively at the same instant.

An example of this is plain in permanent things: the inference ‘this body can be in this place at instant a, and that body can be in the same place at instant a, therefore these two bodies can be together at instant a’ is a non sequitur; for this body is able to be there in the way that that body is able not to be there (and conversely), and so the inference ‘if there is a power for each at the same instant or place, then for both’ does not hold, but it is fallacious whenever any one of the two excludes the other. For in this way too the inference ‘I am able to carry this stone all day (let it be something portable, proportionate to my strength), and I am able to carry that stone all day, therefore I am able simultaneously to carry both’ is a non sequitur; it is a non sequitur because here either of the two for which there is power divisively excludes the other. But simultaneity can never be inferred solely from the identity of this one instant or place, but there is need along with this for the two things said to be simultaneous to be conjoined with respect to a third.

b. How the Divine Will is Cause of Contingency in Things

Following on from what has just been said about our will, one must look at certain things about the divine will; and first, what it has liberty for; second what is the contingency with respect to willed things (the third, namely as to logical distinction of propositions, is the same here as there).

[What the divine will has liberty for] - As to the first point I say that the divine will is not indifferent as to diverse acts of willing and not willing, because this in our will was not without imperfection of will. Our will also was free for opposite acts so that it might be for opposite objects, because of the limitation of each act with respect to its object; therefore, once unlimitedness of the same volition to diverse objects is posited, there is no need, on account of liberty for opposite objects, to posit liberty for opposite acts. The divine will is also free for opposite effects, but this is not the first liberty, just as it is not the first in us either.

There remains then the liberty that is per se a matter of perfection without imperfection, namely to opposite objects such that, just as our will can, by diverse volitions, tend to diverse willed things, so the divine will can, by a single, unlimited, simple volition tend to any willed thing whatever, - so that, if the will or the volition were for only one will-able thing and could not be of the opposite (which is, however, of itself something will-able), this would be a mark of imperfection in the will, as was proved earlier about our will.

And although one can distinguish in us the will as it is receptive and as it is operative and as it is productive (for it is productive of acts, and by what it has it operates formally by willing, and it is receptive of its own volition), yet it seems to have liberty insofar as it is operative, namely insofar as ‘having freedom formally’ it can thereby tend to the object; so let liberty be thus posited in the divine will per se and first, insofar as it is an operative power, although it is not receptive nor productive of its own volition. And yet some freedom insofar as it is productive can be preserved in it; for although production in being of existence is not necessarily concomitant with its operation (because operation is in eternity and production of being is in time), yet production in willed being is necessarily concomitant to its operation; and this power of the divine will does not then indeed produce first as it is productive, but produces in a certain respect (namely in willed being), and this production is concomitant with it as it is operative.

[What the contingency of willed things is] - As to the second article, I say that the divine will has respect to nothing else as object than to its own essence; and this when considering it as it is a naturally prior tendency to the opposite. And not only is it naturally prior to its own act (as to its volition), but also insofar as it is willing, because just as our will, as naturally prior to its own act, elicits the act in such a way that it could in the same instant elicit the opposite, - so the divine will, insofar as it is naturally prior by volition alone, tends with such a tendency to the object contingently that it could in the same instant tend to the opposite object; and this both by logical potency, which is the non-repugnance of the terms (as was said of our will), and by real power, which is naturally prior to its act.

B. How along with the Contingency of Things there stands the Certainty of Divine Knowledge

Having looked at the contingency of things as to existence, and this when considering it with respect to the divine will - it remains to look at the second principal point, how the certitude of knowledge stands along with it.

This can be posited in two ways:

In one way by the fact that the divine intellect, when seeing the determination of the divine will, sees that this thing will be at time a, because the will determines it will be at that time; for it knows the will is immutable and cannot be prevented.

Or in a second way. Because the former way seems to posit a certain discursiveness in the divine intellect (as if it concludes from intuiting the determination of the will and its immutability that this thing will be), one can posit in a second way that the divine intellect either offers [sc. to the will] the simple terms of which the union is contingent in reality, or - if it offers the proposition uniting them - if offers it as neutral to itself; and the will, by choosing one side, namely the conjunction of these terms for some ‘now’ in reality, makes the following to be determinately true: ‘this will exist at moment a’. But when this ‘determinately true’ is in existence, the essence is the reason for the divine intellect of understanding this truth, and this naturally (as far as it is on the part of the essence), so that, just as the divine intellect naturally understands all necessary principles in advance as it were of an act of the divine will (because the truth of them does not depend on the intellect’s act and because they would be known by the divine intellect if, per impossibile, there was not something willing them), so the divine essence is the reason of knowing them in that prior stage, because they are then true; not indeed that the truths - nor even their terms - move the divine intellect to apprehend such truth (because then the divine intellect would be cheap, because then the truth would be revealed by something other than its own essence), but the divine essence is the reason of knowing the terms just as also for knowing the sort of propositions that join them; but then they are not true contingents, because there is then nothing by which they may have determinate truth; but when the determination of the divine will has been posited, they are then true in that instant, and the same thing - the same as was in the first moment - will be the reason for the divine intellect of knowing the things that are now true in the second instant and that would have been known in the first instant, if they had then been in the first instant.

An example: it is just as if ‘a single act always in place’ in my seeing power is the reason of seeing the object, if now this color is present by another thing presenting it and now that color, - my eye will see now this, now that, and yet there will, through the same vision, be only a difference in priority and posteriority of seeing, because it is of the object that is first or later presented; and if one color were made present naturally and the other freely, there would be no difference formally in my vision so to prevent the eye, for its part, from seeing both naturally, yet it could see one contingently and the other naturally, insofar as one is made present to it contingently and the other necessarily.

In whichever of these ways the divine intellect is posited as knowing the existence of things, it is plain that - according to each of them - there is a determination of the divine intellect to the existent thing to which the divine will is determined, and that there is a certitude of infallibility (because the will cannot be determined without the intellect determinately apprehending what the will determines), and also an immutability (because both the will and the intellect are immutable, from distinction 8 n.293), - and this in response to the first three questions [at the beginning]. And yet along with these [sc. determination, infallibility, immutability] there stands contingency of the known object, because the will, when it determinately wills this, contingently wills it - from the first article [sc. of Scotus’ own response to the questions].

As to the fourth question [sc. whether God necessarily knows every condition of existence of everything], it seems one should perhaps distinguish this proposition ‘God necessarily knows a’ according to a composite and a divided sense - as that in the composite sense necessity of knowledge is indicated as it passes over to the object, and in the divided sense necessity of knowledge is indicated absolutely, which knowledge however does pass over to this object; in the first way it is false, in the second way true.

However such a distinction does not seem a logical one, because, when the act passes over to the object, there seems to be no distinction as to the act absolutely or as to it as it passes over to the object, - to wit, if I say ‘I see Socrates’, because there may be a distinction either as to sight as it passes over to Socrates or as to sight absolutely, which sight is however of Socrates; and just as there is in the former case [sc. in the proposition ‘God necessarily knows a’] no distinction in a proposition about mere assertion [sc. ‘God knows a’], so neither does there seem to be a distinction when the modal term is appended [sc. ‘(God) necessarily (knows a)’], but a distinction only seems necessary if the act passes over to the object necessarily; and so this proposition ‘God necessarily knows a’ should, it seems, simply be denied, because of the fact that the predicate as so determined [sc. ‘necessarily knows’] does not necessarily belong to the subject, although the non-determined predicate [sc. ‘knows’, without the ‘necessarily’] does belong to it.

An objection against this is that a rational act is not canceled by the matter it passes over to; for a ‘to say’ which passes over to ‘[I say] that I am saying nothing’ is as simply a ‘to say’ as when it passes over to ‘[I say] that I am saying something’; and therefore the inference ‘I say that I am saying nothing, therefore I say [something]’ follows just as does the inference ‘I say that I am sitting, therefore I say [something]’. Therefore, in the case of God, ‘to know’ is not so canceled by the matter it passes over to that it prevents an equal necessity [sc. that it prevents adding ‘necessarily’ to ‘God knows’].

In response to this objection. Although the proposition [about God’s knowledge] is not so canceled that it stands only in a certain respect, yet it can fail to have necessity as it is signified to pass over to the matter (although it has necessity in itself), and this if an act that is most powerful in itself has respect to diverse objects; it is just as if I had an act of speaking that was the same as a motive power, and if the act could pass over to diverse objects contingently - although I would have the act necessarily (just as I would also have the power necessarily), yet I would not necessarily have the act as it is a passing over to such an object; nor does the inference hold ‘I am speaking necessarily, therefore I am necessarily saying this’, nay there could be a necessity of the speaking in itself along with a contingency in respect of the object; yet saying this object would be a saying simply, such that it would not be a saying in a certain respect.

III. To the Principal Arguments

To the principal arguments, in order.

To the first one for the first question, I say that there is not a like truth in propositions about the future as about those of the present and the past. In present and past ones, indeed, there is determinate truth, such that one extreme has been posited, - and, as understood to be posited, it is not in the power of the cause that it be posited or not posited, because although it is in the power of the cause ‘as it is naturally prior to the effect’ to posit or not to posit the effect, yet not as the effect is understood to have already been posited in existence. But there is no such determination on the part of the future, because even if one side is determinately true for some intellect (and even if one side is true in itself, determinately, although no intellect should apprehend it), yet not in such a way that it is not in the power of the cause at that instant to posit the opposite. And this lack of determination suffices for deliberating and bothering about things; if neither side were future, there would be no need to bother or deliberate - therefore, the fact that one side is future, while yet the other side could happen, does not impede deliberation and bothering about things.

To the second argument I say that for knowledge to be of one part such that it could not be of the other does posit imperfection in it - and similarly in the case of will, if one posit that it is of one will-able object such that it could not be of another will-able object; yet for knowledge to be of one side such that it is not in fact of the other (and likewise in the case of the will) posits no imperfection, the way a power in act is determinately of one opposite - which it produces - and not of the other. But a power is dissimilar to knowledge and will in this respect, that a power seems to be asserted of one opposite only because it only has power for it, and knowledge and will [are asserted of one opposite] such that they only know it or will it; but if things are taken in like manner on each side, there is equal determination on each side, because each of them in act is of one opposite and not both. Any of them can also be of each, but that the power is of one, this seems to signify a potential disposition of the power to it, - that knowledge or will are of it, seems to signify an actual disposition of them to it; but nothing bad seems to follow if things are taken in like way both here and there, because then, just as ‘to know’ is to knowledge and ‘to will’ is to will, so is ‘to produce’ to power (but not ‘able to produce’), and just as ‘able to produce’ is to power so is ‘able to know’ to knowledge and ‘able to will’ to will.

To the second argument for the second question I say that although on the two propositions about presence of the predicate in the subject the conclusion about the presence of the predicate follows (not indeed syllogistically, because the discussion is not syllogistic, reducible to many syllogisms), yet from the one proposition about presence and from the other about possibility a conclusion about presence follows neither syllogistically nor necessarily; the reason is that ‘to be deceived’ is to think a thing other than it is, at the time when it is believed to be. Now this is included in the two premises about presence, one of which signifies that he believes this and the other denies that this is the case, and this at the same instant, - and therefore the conclusion about being deceived follows. But it is not so on the other side, because the premise about presence affirms one opposite for that instant, and the other about possibility affirms a potential for the other opposite, not at the same instant conjointly but divisively, - and so it does not follow that at any instant there can be a conjunction in reality of the opposite of what is believed; and therefore a possibility of deception, which includes this conclusion, does not follow. The same reasoning holds of a mixed argument of a premise about a contingent and one about presence, that it does not hold unless the major is about presence simply.

This response is also plain, because if an argument is made from the opposite of the conclusion and from the premise about possibility, the opposite is not inferred save of something of necessity, and so the major should be really the same as that about the necessary in order for the conclusion to be inferred; for this inference does not hold ‘God cannot be deceived, and it is possible that a will be, therefore God does not know that a will be’, but what follows is ‘therefore he does not know necessarily that a will be’; the point is clear, because if my intellect always followed change in the thing, such that when you are sitting I believe you are sitting and when you rise up I believe you rise up, I could not be deceived, and yet from these premises ‘you are sitting at moment a’ and ‘I cannot be deceived’ all that follows is ‘therefore I do not know necessarily you are sitting at moment a’. So it is in the issue at hand: although the divine intellect does not follow the thing as an effect the cause, yet there is concomitance there, because just as it is possible for the thing not to be, so it is possible for the divine intellect not to know it - and so the conclusion never follows that the divine intellect knows the thing other than it is; and therefore the things required for deception can never stand together at the same time, but just as the known thing is able not to be, so God is able not to know it, - and if it will not be, he will not know it.

As to the second, about the positing of the possible in actual presence, I say that from this positing in itself nothing impossible ever follows; yet the proposition about presence, insofar as the one about the possible is posited, can be repugnant to something to which the one about the possible, when posited in existence, is not repugnant, because the antecedent can be repugnant to something to which the consequent is not repugnant - and then from the antecedent and from what is repugnant to it something impossible can follow that does not follow from the consequent and from that same repugnant one, because this is not incompossible with it. Nor is it surprising that the impossible may follow from incompossibles, because according to the Philosopher Prior Analytics 2.15.64b7-10, 15-16, in the case of a syllogism ‘from opposites’ an impossible conclusion does follow.

I say then that when the proposition ‘it is possible for me not to be sitting’ is posited, nothing impossible follows from it alone; but from it and another one - namely ‘God knows that I will be sitting’ - the impossible does follow, namely that God is deceived; and this impossible does not follow from the impossibility of what is posited in being, nor even from any incompossibility that is absolute in it, but from itself and from something else at the same time, which is impossible. Nor is it unacceptable for what is impossible to follow from a proposition about presence, insofar as one about possibility and one about presence are posited - because along with ‘I am sitting’ there stands ‘it is possible for me to be standing’; but the former one about presence, to the extent the latter [about possibility] is posited, is repugnant to the one about presence [sc. ‘I am standing’] - and from two propositions about presence something incompossible does follow, namely ‘someone standing is sitting’. Nor yet does the inference follow ‘therefore the one that was posited about possibility in being was false’, but either it was false or the other (along with which the first’s about presence [sc. ‘I am standing’] is taken) is incompossible with the first’s about presence.

As to the first argument for the third question, I concede the major, because there is no transition without change - but in the minor I say that here there is no transition (nor can there be), because transition is impossible without succession, such that opposite succeed to opposite; but such succession is impossible in the issue at hand; for just as it is impossible to know and not know at the same time, so too that [God] sometimes knows and sometimes does not know cannot stand together, - without which transition successively from opposite to opposite there is no change.

And if you ask ‘if it is at any rate possible for him not to know b, which he does know, he would be differently disposed, - what is that?’, I say that it is b in known being; yet he is not differently disposed than he was before, but differently than he now is disposed, such that the ‘differently’ would not be of some opposite succeeding to opposite, but it would be of the other of the opposites which can be present in the same instant in which its opposite is present, - and this does not suffice for change.

To the second: the inference ‘he does not know a, he can know a, therefore he can begin to know a’ is not valid, and this when there is power precisely for something naturally prior to the opposite of the posterior, at the same instant at which and in which this ‘posterior’ has contingent being, as in the issue at hand; only it holds because of matter in creatures, where there is potentiality for opposites successively - but although it is not the case, yet there is still a possibility for each of them in the same instant.

To the third, one can concede, as concerns this argument, that this power for opposites is an active power, - namely that the divine intellect, insofar as it is in act by its essence and by actual infinite intellection, is an active power with respect to any objects that it produces in understood being.

And when it says ‘therefore it cannot act about anything about which it did not act before unless it changes’, I say that the consequence is not valid when it requires an object about which to act; just as in the case of created agents, it is not necessary that the agent - which acts de novo - be changed if the passive thing on which it acts comes to be de novo next to it. So it is in the issue at hand. The divine will, determining a ‘will be’ for something shown by the intellect, makes a proposition stating it to be true and so intelligible; from this it is present to the intellect in idea of object. And just as the will can make and not make the willed object, so can it be true and not true, and so can it be known and not known by the natural intellect; not indeed because of some contingency that is prior in the natural agent, but because of contingency on the part of the object, which is contingently true by act of the will that verifies it.

And if you object that still it cannot be without change, at least in the understood object (just as neither can a passive natural object come near to a natural agent without change in the passive object, and perhaps in the agent that brings it near) - I reply that this object is not changed in this being, because it cannot be under opposites successively; yet it is contingently in this being, and this contingency is on the part of the will producing it in such being, as was made clear in the first article of the solution.

To the arguments for the fourth question.

As to the first, I deny the consequence.

As to the first proof, I say that if there is in God no necessity but that of immutability (that is, no other mode of necessity among those posited by the Philosopher, Metaphysics 5.5.1015a33-35, than the fourth one, according to which it is a ‘not happening to be otherwise disposed’, - because the other modes of necessity require imperfection, as the necessity of coercion etc .), yet there is not there only a necessity of immutability such that the immutability is of itself necessary, because immutability only takes away a possible succession of opposite to opposite; but necessity simply takes away absolutely the possibility of this opposite and the nonsuccession of the opposite to it, - and the inference does not hold ‘the opposite cannot succeed to the opposite, therefore the opposite cannot be present’.

To the second proof, I say that although every being of existence ‘able to come to be’ is changeable, when positing that creation according to the understanding of Avicenna - even from eternity - is change, yet in understood being or willed being (which is to be in a certain respect) there is no need for every possibility that is repugnant to ‘necessity of itself’ formally to entail mutability, because this being is not real being but is reduced to the real being of something in itself necessary, because of which other’s necessity there cannot here be mutability, although the ‘necessity of itself’ of this other does not formally belong to the former; and so it is not of itself necessary formally, because it does not have the being of the extreme which it has regard to really - nor yet is it changeable, because it has, according to that ‘diminished being’, regard to the immutable extreme, and change in something according to which it has regard to another cannot exist without change in it.

As to the second argument, I say that something can be present in God in two ways: either formally, - or present subjectively, the way logically any predicate is said to be present in its subject. I concede the major in the first way, because everything such is God and is necessarily the same as God; in the second way I do not concede it, because a relative appellation can be in God according as God is said to be ‘Lord’ from time, and yet this appellation does not signify anything the same as God (such that it is necessarily the same as God or is God himself), because then it would not be from time. Now I say that for God to know b, by reason of the fact that it is a ‘to know absolutely’, is to know formally - but, by reason of ‘to know’ as it is of this term, it is only in God in the second way; for it is of this term because this known thing has a regard to divine knowledge, and hereby some relative appellation is in God as a predicate in a subject.

To the third I say that no ‘perfection simply’ in God depends on a creature, nor does it even necessarily simply co-require a creature, in any being whatever; and so for God to know b, as he is understood not only ‘to know’ absolutely but also insofar as he passes over to the b, is not a perfection simply. Then I say that the major of the argument is true of the perfection of that knowledge when the perfection is taken absolutely; but in this way the minor is false and its proof only proves that on a perfection simply follows necessarily that it is of such an object, because it follows necessarily that it have such a respect to such a perfection simply - although however neither from such respect of something else to it, nor from a relative appellation of it, is there a perfection simply in it.

To the arguments for the fifth question.

As to the first, I say that the antecedent is not necessary simply. And when the proof is given that ‘a rational act is not canceled by the matter’, the response to that proof is in the argument made against the solution to this question.

As to the second. The mixed argument is not valid unless the minor is about presence simply, and this not only in that it is true for all time, but in that it is necessarily true; and perhaps it must be that it signify that what is taken ‘under’ is per se contained under the middle term (it is enough for the issue at hand that it should be necessarily true). And that this is required is plain in this instance ‘everything at rest is of necessity not in motion - a stone at the center of the earth is at rest, therefore of necessity it is not in motion’; the conclusion does not follow, and yet the minor is always true, - not however necessarily true. So it is in the issue at hand: for although the minor about presence is always true, it is not however necessarily true; for God can know a as he cannot will a, because of the contingency that is first in the will to secondary objects and is, from this, concomitantly in the intellect, as was expounded above.

IV. To the Arguments for the Second Opinion

To the arguments for the second opinion.

To the first I concede that immensity is present to every place, but not to every place actual and potential (as is argued in the first reason against this opinion), and so neither will eternity because of its infinity be present to any non-existent time.

And from this is plain the example about the stick and the stream. For because the stick does not have that whereby it can be present to all parts of the water, therefore it cannot be immense with respect to them; but the ‘now’ of eternity does have this, as far as concerns its own part, because it would be present to all parts of time if these parts existed.

The other example ‘about circle and circumference’ is like the opposite one [sc. about the stick and stream]. Because if we imagine a straight line having two end points a and b, let point a be stationary and point b be moved round in a circle (as in the case of a compass where one leg is stationary and the other moves), and let b when moved around cause a circumference as imagined by geometers, who imagine that a moving point causes a line; on this supposition, if nothing were to remain of the circumference from the moving of b, but there is only this point b in the circumference (so that whenever the point ceases to be anywhere there is then nothing of the circumference there), then the circumference is never simultaneously present to the center, but only some point of the circumference would be present to the center; but if the whole circumference were simultaneous, the whole would be present to the center. So here: since time is not a standing but a flowing circumference, of which circumference there is nothing but an instant in act - so nothing of it will be present to eternity (which is as it were the center) save the instant which is as it were the present; and yet if per impossibile one were to posit that the whole of time were standing simultaneously, the whole would be present to eternity as to the center.

From this is plain an answer to the other argument. When it is said that the ‘now’ of eternity, as it co-exists, does not equal the ‘now’ of time - this is true, because the ‘now’ of eternity is formally infinite, and therefore it formally exceeds the ‘now’ of time; not however by co-existing with another ‘now’. Just as: the immensity of God - present to this universe - is not co-equal with this universe, and so exceeds it formally; but yet it is not anywhere save in this universe.

From the same point is plain a response to the next: because if the whole of time were simultaneous, eternity would embrace it, - and so I concede that eternity, as it is of itself, has infinity enough for embracing the whole of time if the whole were simultaneous; but however much immensity is posited on the part of one extreme, because of which it could co-exist with however much in the other extreme, since co-existence states a relation between two extremes (and so it requires both), one cannot, because of the immensity of one extreme, conclude to coexistence with the other extreme save only with what exists of the other extreme.

[Additional note: Hence there is in the argument a fallacy of the consequent, since the argument goes ‘nothing is lost to eternity from the fact that the whole of time is not simultaneous, therefore it can, because of its infinity, be simultaneous with all the parts of time’. For that it is not present to every part of time can be understood for two causes: either because the whole of time is not, or because something is lost to eternity; and in the antecedent one cause is denied - therefore the fallacy follows. Example: although nothing is lost to someone who is white when there is someone else who is white, yet he is never alike unless there is someone else who is white.]

And therefore all these arguments proceed from what is insufficient, namely from the immensity of eternity, - from which there does not follow a co-existence that states a relation to the other extreme unless something is had in the other extreme that could be the term of co-existence with this foundation; and such cannot be a non-being, of the sort that all time is save the present.

V. To the Authorities of the Saints

All the authorities of the saints, that seem to signify that all things are present to eternity, must be understood of presence in the idea of knowable; and not merely ‘knowable’ as by abstractive knowledge (as a non-existent rose is present to my intellect through an image), but by true intuitive knowledge, because God does not know made things differently from to be made things, and so things to be made are perfectly presently known by the divine intellect just as made things are.

VI. To the Arguments for the Third Opinion

To the first argument for the third opinion: Boethius expounds himself in the same place directly; for there he at once immediately distinguishes between the necessity of the consequent and the necessity of the consequence, and from this I concede that contingent things ‘related to divine knowledge’ are necessary by the necessity of the consequence (that is, this consequence is necessary, ‘if God knows that these things will be, these things will be’); but they are not necessary with absolute necessity, nor with the necessity of the consequent.

To the other one for the third opinion, I say that contingency is not only a privation or defect of entity (as deformity is in the act that is a sin), rather contingency is a positive mode of being (as necessity is another mode), and a positive being - which is in the effect - is more principally from the prior cause; and therefore this inference does not hold ‘just as deformity is in the act itself from the second cause, not from the first cause, so also is contingency;’ nay, contingency is from the first cause more originally than from the second, - for which reason no caused thing would be formally contingent unless it was contingently caused by the first cause, as was shown above.

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