GOD
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GOD
garding the people of Tyre and Sidon, who would have
done penance had they received the same graces as the
Jews (Matt., xi, 21). This school therefore maintains
that to the actual as such and the purely possible we
must add another category of objects, viz., hypothet^
leal tacts that may never become actual, but would
become actual were certain conditions realized. The
hypothetical truth of such facts, it is rightly con-
tended, is more than mere possibility, yet less than
actuality; and since God knows such facts in their
hypothetical character there is good reason for intro-
ducing a distinction to cover them — and this is the
scientia media. And it is clear that even acts that
take place and as such fall finally imder the knowledge
of vision may be conceived as falling first under the
knowledge of simple intelligence and then under the
scientia media; the progressive formula would be:
first, it is possible Peter would do so and so; second,
Peter would do so and so, given certain conditions;
third, Peter tvill do or does so and so.
Now, were it not for the differences that lie behind, there would probably be no objection raised to scien- tia media; but the distinction itself is only the prelude to the real problem. Admitting that God knows from eternity the future free acts of creatures, the question is how or in what way He knows them, or rather how we are to conceive and explain by anal- ogy the manner of the divine foreknowledge, which in itself is bryonil our jjowers of comprehension? It is adniittcil tliat God knows thcin first as objects of the kiunvl('di;e of simple intclliKt'iice; but does he know them alsoasiiliji'Ctsof the sricntia mprfm, i. e. hypothet- ically and inilrpcndcnlly of any decree of His will, determining their actuality, or does He know them only in and through such decrees? The Dominican contention is that God's knowledge of future free acts depends on the decrees of His free will which prede- termine their actuality by means of the prcemolio physica. God knows, for example, that Peter will do so and so, because He has decreed from eternity so to move Peter's free will that the latter will infallibly, although freely, co-operate with, or consent to, the Divine premotion. In the case of good acts there is a physical and intrinsic connexion between the motion given by God and the consent of Peter's will, while as regards morally bad acts, the immorality as such, which is a privation and not a positive entity, comes entirely from the created will.
The principal diificulties against this view are that in the first place it seems to do away with human free will, and in the next place to make God responsible for sin. Both consequences of course are denied by those who uphold it, but, making all due allowance for the mystery which shrouds the subject, it is diffi- cult to see how the denial of free will is not logically involved in the theory of the prccmotio physica, how the will can be said to consent freely to a motion which is conceived as predetermining consent; such explan- ations as are offered merely amount to the assertion that after all the human will is free. The other diffi- culty consists in the twofold fact that God is repre- sented as giving the prcemotio physica in the natural order for the act of will by which the sinner embraces evil, antl that He withholds the supernatural prcemolio or efficacious grace which is essentially required for the perfonnance of a salutary act. The Jesuit school on the other hand — with whom probably a majority of independent theologians agree — utilizing the scien- tia media maintains that we ought to conceive God's knowledge of future free acts not as being dependent and consequent upon decrees of His will, but in its character as hypothetical knowledge or being ante- cedent to them. God knows in the scientia media what Peter would do if in given circumstances he were to receive a certain aid, and this before any absolute decree to give that aid is supposed. Thus there is no predetermination by the Divine of what the human
will freely chooses; it is not because God foreknows
(having foredecreed) a certain free act that that act
takes place, but God foreknows it in the first instance
because as a matter of fact it is going to take place;
He knows it as a hypothetical objective fact before it
becomes an object of the scientia i^isionis — or rather
this is how, in order to safeguard human liberty, we
must conceive Him as knowing it. It was thus, for
example, that Christ knew what would have been the
results of His ministry among the people of Tyre and
Sidon. But one must be careful to avoid implying
that God's knowledge is in any way dependent on
creatures, as if He had, so to speak, to await the
actual event in time before knowing infallilily what
a free creature may choose to do. P>om eternity He
knows, but does not predetermine the creature's
choice. And if it be asked how we can conceive this
knowledge to exist antecedently to and independently
of some act of the Divine will, on which all things
contingent depend, we can only .say that the objective
truth expressetl liy the hypothetical facts in question
is somehow reflected in the Divine Essence, which is
the mirror of all truth, and that in knowing Himself
God knows these things also. Whichever way we
turn we are bound ultimately to encounter a mystery,
and, when there is a question of choosing between a
theory which refers the mystery to God Himself and
one which only saves the truth of human freedom by
making free-will it.self a mystery, most theologians
not unnaturally prefer the former alternative.
(ii) The Divine Will. — (a) The highest perfections of creatures are reducible to functions of intellect and will, and, as these perfections are realized analogically in God, we naturally pass from considering Divine knowledge or intelligence to the study of Divine volition. The object of intellect as such is the true; the object of will as such, the good. In the case of God it is evident that His own infinite goodness is the primary and necessary object of His will, created goodness lieing but a secondary and contingent object. This is what the inspired writer means when he says: "The Lord hath made all things for himself" (Prov., xvi, 4). The Divine will of course, like the Divine intellect, is really identical with the Divine Essence, but according to our finite modes of thought we are obliged to speak of them as if they were distinct; and, just as the Divine intellect cannot be dependent on created objects for its knowledge of them, neither can the Divine will be so dependent for its volition. Had no creature ever been created God would have been the .same self-sufficient being that He is, the Divine will as an appetitive faculty being satisfied with the infinite goodness of the Divine Essence itself. This is what the Vatican Council means by speaking of God as "most happy in and by Himself" — not that He does not truly wish and love the goodness of crea- tures, which is a participation of His own, but that He has no need of creatures and is in no way dependent on them for His bliss.
(|3) Hence it follows that God jjossesses the perfec- tion of free will in an infinitely eminent degree. That is to say, without any change in Himself or in His eternal act of volition. He freely chooses whether or not creatures shall exist and what manner of exist- ence shall be theirs, and this choice or determination is an exercise of that dominion which free will (lib- erty of indifference) essentially expresses. In itself free will is an absolute and positive perfection, and as such is most fully realized in God. Yet we are obliged to describe Divine liberty as we have done relatively to its effects in creation, and, by way of negation, we must exclude the imperfections associated with free will in creatures. These imperfections may be re- duced to two, viz., potentiality and mutability as opposed to immutable pure act, and the power of choosing what is evil. Only the second need be noticed here.
