A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty (1735)/Chapter 4
Fourth argument taken from the consideration of the divine prescience.IV. A fourth argument to prove man a necessary agent, shall be taken from the consideration of the divine prescience. The divine prescience supposes, that all things future will certainly exist in such time, such order, and with such circumstances, and not otherwise. For if any things future were contingent, or uncertain, or depended on the liberty of man, that is, might or might not happen; their certain existence could not be the object of the divine prescience: it being a contradiction to know that to be certain, which is not certain: and God himself could only guess at the existence of such things. And if the divine prescience supposes the certain existence of all things future, it supposes also the necessary existence of all things future; because God can fore-know their certain existence only, either as that existence is the effect of his decree, or as it depends on its own causes. If he fore-knows that existence, as it is the effect of his decree; his decree makes that existence necessary: for it implies a contradiction for an all-powerful being to decree anything which shall not necessarily come to pass. If he foreknows that existence as it depends on its own causes; that existence is no less necessary: for it no less implies a contradiction, that causes should not produce their effects (causes and effects having a necessary relation to and dependence on each other) than that an event should not come to pass which is decreed by God.
Cicero has some passages to the purpose of this argument. Says he,[1] Qui potest provideri quidquam futurum esse quod neque causam habet ullam, neque notam, cur futurum fit?—Quid est igitur, quod casu fieri aut forte fortuna, putemus?—Nihil est enim tam contrarium rationi & constantiæ quam fortuna; ut mihi ne in Deum cadere videatur, ut sciat, quid casu & fortuito futurum fit. Si enim scit, certe illud eveniet. Sin certe eveniet, nulla est fortuna. Est autem fortuna. Rerum igitur fortuitarum nulla est presentio. Also that illustrious reformer Luther says,[2] in his treatise against free-will: Concessa Dei præscientia & omnipotentia, sequitur naturaliter irrefragabili consequentia, nos per nos ipsos non esse factos, nec vivere, nec agere quicquam, sed per illius omnipotentiam. Cum autem tales nos ille ante præscierit futuros, talesque nunc faciat, moveat, & gubernet; quid potest fingi quæso, quod in nobis liberum fit, aliter & aliter fieri, quam ille præscierit aut nunc agat? Pugnat itaque ex diametro præscientia & omnipotentia Dei cum nostro libero arbitrio. Aut enim Deus falletur præsciendo, errabit & agendo (quod est impossibile) aut nos agemus & agemur secumdum ipsius præscientiam & actionem. And our learned Dr. South says,[3] the fore-knowledge of an event does certainly and necessarily infer, that there must be such an event; for as much as the certainty of knowledge depends upon the certainty of the thing known. And in this sense it is, that God’s decree and promise give a necessary existence to the thing decreed or promised, that is to say, they infer it by infallible consequence; so that it was as impossible for Christ not to rise from the dead, as it was for God absolutely to decree and promise a thing, and yet the thing not come to pass.
I could also bring in the greatest Divines and[4] Philosophers who are asserters of liberty, as confirming this argument; for[5] they acknowledge, that they are unable to reconcile the[6] divine prescience and the liberty of man together: which is all I intended to prove by this argument, taken from the consideration of the divine Prescience.