Dist. 38, Art. 1, Q. 1
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/1/d/38/q/bon-sent-I-d38-a1-q1
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### Article I.
#### *On the causality of divine foreknowledge.*

### Question I.
#### *Whether divine foreknowledge is the cause of things.*

That it is the cause of things is shown thus.

1. Augustine in *On the Trinity* XV: "Things are future for this reason, that God knows them."

2. Likewise, by reason thus: everything which precedes another, and, when it is posited, [the other] is posited, is itself the cause of that — this is plain by the definition of cause; but divine foreknowledge precedes every future thing, and again posits the future, with respect to which it is; therefore foreknowledge is a cause.

3. Likewise, every thing is either from God, or from nature, or from free choice, and I take these causes broadly, as comprehending chance and fortune; but no thing can be from nature nor from free choice, except by God's operation: therefore every thing — that is, every future — is from God. But it is not from God acting except according to art and cognition: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, everything that is known is in some way in itself, or in its cause; therefore what is foreknown by God is in God as in [its] cause: but everything which is in God is from God: therefore every future thing foreknown is from divine pre-cognition as from a cause: therefore etc.

5. Likewise, everything that is known is known either through a cause, or through a *species*, or through an effect: if therefore God foreknows, then [it is] in some one of these modes. Not through an effect, since the effect comes after; not through a *species* or likeness, since that is simultaneous with, or even after, the thing of which it is the likeness: therefore through a cause, therefore divine foreknowledge is the cause of the foreknown.

**On the contrary:**

1. God is the cause of nothing except through [his] will; but he foreknows many things to which his will does not extend: therefore etc. Proof of the middle [proposition]: he foreknows you to lie, and yet it is not to be said that he wills you to lie: therefore he is not the cause of that.

2. Likewise, if foreknowledge is a cause, [it is so] either by reason of [its being] knowledge, or by reason of [its] precedence. By reason of that which is *prae* ["before"], not, because it expresses nothing but order. By reason of knowledge likewise, not, because God knows many things which he will never make: therefore in no way is it a cause.

3. Likewise, if foreknowledge is the cause of the foreknown, since he foreknows evils, God will be the cause of evil; but this is false.

4. Likewise, if it is a cause, since he communicates to someone foreknowledge of a thing-to-be-created, consequently he communicates causality with respect to it; but this is impossible: therefore etc.

5. Likewise, Anselm in *On the Concord of Foreknowledge and Free Choice* says, that "it is just as much to say: 'if God foreknows [it], it will be,' as this: 'if it will be, of necessity it will be'"; but here no causality is noted: therefore neither there.

### Conclusion.

> *Foreknowledge and divine knowledge always import some causality, but not always with respect to the foreknown.*

**I respond:** It must be said that foreknowledge expresses pre-cognition of the future. There is therefore [room] to speak of foreknowledge either as regards the thing signified, or as it is signified through that name. If as regards the meaning of the name, so it does not signify in the character of cause; if as regards the thing imported, so it expresses a cause; yet not always with respect to the foreknown or the future.

For the future is in a threefold difference. There is [a future] of which God is the whole cause, as are those things which are created; [another] of which the creature, as the will, is the whole cause, as are defects and sins; [another] of which God and creature are at once the cause, as are natural works and moral works, since God cooperates with the creature.

According to this it must be understood, that with respect to the first kind of future divine foreknowledge is a cause, and the whole cause; but with respect to the second kind of future it is neither a cause nor the whole, since it does not have an efficient cause, but a deficient one, yet it is the cause of its opposite: with respect to the third it is a cause, but not the whole. It is therefore to be conceded, that divine knowledge or foreknowledge is in some manner a cause with respect to future things. Yet if it is taken in its generality, it must be said that divine foreknowledge always imports some causality, but not always with respect to the foreknown — as for instance when the foreknown is an evil. And in this sense the arguments proceed which show that it is not a cause.

**To the arguments for the affirmative side:**

*To 1.* To that which is first objected, that it is the cause of the foreknown by the word of Augustine; it must be said that Augustine speaks of the knowledge of things or goods which proceed from God.

*To 2.* To that which is objected, that the cause is what precedes and posits another; it must be said that to posit another is twofold, namely according to production, or according to consequence; and what posits according to production is truly a cause in being, but what posits according to consequence is not a cause in being, but only in consequence.

*To 3.* To that which is objected, that what is from free choice is from God; it must be said that this is true of what is from free choice as efficient, but vices and sins are from it as deficient.

*To 4.* To that which is objected, that of necessity every future is known by God through a cause; it must be said that, as was touched above concerning the cognition of evil, in every cognition there is assimilation; but nothing is assimilated to God except what is from him: and therefore in every cognition of God there is causality. And when indeed it is with respect to that which expresses being simply, with respect to that it is cause and idea; but when with respect to a privation it is pre-cognition, then the character of causality and of idea is with respect to the opposite. It must therefore be said that, in order that something be cognized, it is necessary that it itself or its opposite have being in reality, or in [its] cause. Now not only the opposite of evil, but also the will itself, which is the principle of evil, is in God as in [its] cause; yet evil is not in God as in [its] cause, neither *per se* nor *per accidens*, since the *ratio* of causing is changed, as will be said afterwards. — The example of this is plain. If a craftsman were to work upon knotty material, which would not be fit for the reception of the form, he would foreknow that a defect will be in the image, but not from himself. Likewise it is to be understood in [the case of] God and free choice, which makes a fault in the work, when it does not conform itself and obey God working; and therefore it suffices that the opposite of the evil, or that from which the evil is, be in God, as in [its] cause, in order that [the evil] be foreknown.