Aquinas on God’s Knowledge of Future Contingents

AQUINAS ON GOD'S KNOWLEDGE OF FUTURE CONTINGENTS WILLIAM LANE CRAIG Oatholio University of Louvain Louvain, Belgium IF A THEOLOGICAL fatalist is someone who believes that God's foreknowledge of future events is incompatible with contingency and human freedom, then Thomas Aquinas was a theological fatalist. Unlike Augustine, Boethius, and Anselm, he did not believe that one could accept that God foreknows future events and yet adhere to the contingency of the future states of affairs in question. The reason for this seems w have been that one version of the fatalistic argument, which did not confront his predecessors, namely, that version based on the una1tera;bility of God's knowledge in the past, seemed to Thomas to escape all previous refutations which tried to show the compatibility of genuine foreknowledge and future contingency. Accordingly, he had to find another way out of the fatalistic dilemma. God's Knowledge of Non-Existents Aquinas's pos~tion on God's knowledge of future contingents will be more understandable if we consider it within the context of God's knowledge of things that do not exist.1 Thomas maintains that God has knowledge, not only of all existents, hut also of all non-existents because in knowing His own essence He knows them as pl'oducib1e in His power. Since He 1 Thomas .Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, q.2, a..8; Summa contra gen.tile.~, I. c.66; Summa theofogiae, I, q.14, aJI. 33 34 WILLIAM LANE CRAIG has complete knowledge of Himself and since He is the First Cause or ·ground of being for all thait ·exists, in knowing Himself as the First Cause God knows all His e:ffects.2 But since His power is infinite, it is not exhausted by what exists; the divine essence can be mirrored as the exemplar for innumeraible oreatures. Hence, in knowing His power and essence, God knows all rthe beings that could exist hut in fact do not. Thomas writes, ... through His essence God knows things other than Himself in so far as His ess~ce is the likeness of the things that proceed from Him.... But since ... the essence of God is of an infinite perfection,. whereas every other thing has a limited being and perfection , it is impossible that the universe of things other than God equal the perfection of the divine essence. Hence, its power of representation extends to many more things than to those that are. Therefore, if God knows completely the power and perfection of His essence, His knowledge extends not only to the things that are but also to the things that are not.8 There is, however, an important distinction to be made with regard to things that do not exist. For some beings do not exist simplic.iter, whereas other beings do not exist yet or any longer. Beings which existed in the past or will exist in the£uture do not now exist hut nevertheless have a share in existence which pure possibiles do not enjoy. Accordingly God's 2 Aquinas, De veritate q.2, a.3-5; Summa contra gentiles I, c.49; Summa theologiae, I, q.14, a.5. s .Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles I, c.66.4. (.All citations of this Summa will be from the Pegis translation.) "... deus cognoscit alia a se per suam essentiam inquantum est similitudo eorum quae ab eo procedunt ... sed, cum essentia dei sit in:finitae perfectionis . . . quaelibet autem alia res habeat esse et perfectionem terminatam: impossibile est quod universitas rerum aliarum adaequet essentiae divinae perfectionem, extendit igitur se vis suae repraesentationis ad multo plura quam ad ea qua sunt. Si igitur deus totaliter virtutem et perfectionem essentiae suae cognoscit, extendit se eius cognitio non solum ad ea quae sunt, sed etiam ad ea qua non sunt." .All texts of Thomas's works other than the Summa theologiae are from S. Thomae Aquinatis Opera Omnia, 7 vols., ed. Robertus Busa (StuttgartBad Cannstatt: Friedrich Frommann Verlag, 1980). GOD'S KNOWLEDGE OF FU'.I'URE CONTINGENTS 35 knowledge or these two classes of non-exi&tents differs, as Aquinas explains: Yet we have to take account of a difference among things not actually existent. Some of them, although...