BOOK V.

FREE WILL AND GOD'S FOREKNOWLEDGE.

SUMMARY.

CH. I. Boethius asks if there is really any such thing as chance.

Philosophy answers, in conformity with Aristotle's definition

(Phys., II. iv.), that chance is merely relative to human purpose,

and that what seems fortuitous really depends on a more subtle form

of causation.--CH. II. Has man, then, any freedom, if the reign of

law is thus absolute? Freedom of choice, replies Philosophy, is a

necessary attribute of reason. Man has a measure of freedom, though

a less perfect freedom than divine natures.--CH. III. But how can

man's freedom be reconciled with God's absolute foreknowledge? If

God's foreknowledge be certain, it seems to exclude the possibility

of man's free will. But if man has no freedom of choice, it

follows that rewards and punishments are unjust as well as useless;

that merit and demerit are mere names; that God is the cause of

men's wickednesses; that prayer is meaningless.--CH. IV. The

explanation is that man's reasoning faculties are not adequate to

the apprehension of the ways of God's foreknowledge. If we could

know, as He knows, all that is most perplexing in this problem

would be made plain. For knowledge depends not on the nature of the

thing known, but on the faculty of the knower.--CH. V. Now, where

our senses conflict with our reason, we defer the judgment of the

lower faculty to the judgment of the higher. Our present perplexity

arises from our viewing God's foreknowledge from the standpoint of

human reason. We must try and rise to the higher standpoint of

God's immediate intuition.--CH. VI. To understand this higher form

of cognition, we must consider God's nature. God is eternal.

Eternity is more than mere everlasting duration. Accordingly, His

knowledge surveys past and future in the timelessness of an eternal

present. His foreseeing is seeing. Yet this foreseeing does not in

itself impose necessity, any more than our seeing things happen

makes their happening necessary. We may, however, if we please,

distinguish two necessities--one absolute, the other conditional on

knowledge. In this conditional sense alone do the things which God

foresees necessarily come to pass. But this kind of necessity

affects not the nature of things. It leaves the reality of free

will unimpaired, and the evils feared do not ensue. Our

responsibility is great, since all that we do is done in the sight

of all-seeing Providence.