Dist. 38, Art. 1, Q. 2
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-q2
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### Question II.
#### *Whether divine foreknowledge is caused by things.*

In the second place it is asked, whether divine foreknowledge is caused by things. And that it is so, is shown in this manner.

1. Origen on the *Epistle to the Romans* says: "Because something is going to be, therefore it is known by God, before it comes about." Since therefore [this saying] either states a cause of being or [a cause] of consequence. If of consequence, just as there follows: this is future, therefore foreknown, so [the converse follows]: therefore, just as he says: because it is future, therefore it is foreknown, so he ought to say conversely: because it is known, therefore it is future; and this he denies in the *littera*: "Not on this account will something be, because God knows it": therefore [Origen] states a cause of being.

2. Likewise, by reason it appears [that things are the cause]: since, on the supposition that God foreknows nothing, something can [still] be understood as future, but not conversely: therefore this [the future] is the *ratio* and cause of that [foreknowledge].

3. Likewise, this argument is good: this man is lying, therefore God foreknew that this man would lie: therefore there is there some local relation, and none can be found except [that] of cause to effect. But God is not the cause of falsehood: it remains therefore that the future is the cause of foreknowledge.

4. Likewise, whatever two [things] so stand to each other that they mutually follow upon one another, either both are caused by a third, or one is the cause of the other; but these two so stand to each other, namely this man's lying and God's foreknowing, and one cannot say that both are caused by a third: therefore one is the cause of the other.

**On the contrary:**

1. Augustine: "For the things that are created, God did not know on this account, that they were made."

2. Likewise, by reason it appears that [foreknowledge] is not caused by things, since every cause is nobler than its effect: if therefore divine foreknowledge is caused by some thing, since divine foreknowledge is uncreated, and the thing is created, therefore the creature is nobler than the uncreated.

3. Likewise, divine foreknowledge is eternal: therefore since the thing is temporal, if it is caused by things, the temporal is the cause of the eternal; and since the cause is prior to the effect, therefore the temporal is prior to the eternal.

4. Likewise, if things are the cause of foreknowledge, [it is] either by reason of [the term's] principal signification, or by reason of [its] connotation; if by reason of the principal signification, since that is the divine essence, then things are the cause of God; if by reason of the connotation, since the things connoted are the things themselves, then they are the cause of themselves.

### Conclusion.

> *Divine foreknowledge in some measure has a cause in things only according to the* ratio *of inferring and of speaking.*

**I respond:** Some have wished to say that *cause* is so called in two ways: properly, and commonly; properly, that which gives being to another; and in this sense things are in no way the cause of divine foreknowledge. In another way *cause* is called commonly that without which the thing is not, and so it is called *causa sine qua non* [a cause-without-which-not]; and in this manner, since the foreknowledge of God does not exist without things being future, therefore in this manner [things] are called a cause. — But since the noun *cause* always imports a [certain] dignity in respect of that of which it is called *cause*, and a certain superposition; therefore it does not yet seem altogether sound to say that it is *causa sine qua non*. And besides, that does not resolve [the appeal] to the authority of Origen, since he denies the converse.

And therefore otherwise it must be said, that *cause* can be taken in a threefold manner, namely according to the *ratio* of being, according to the *ratio* of inferring, and according to the *ratio* of speaking. I say therefore, that according to the *ratio* of being, foreknowledge can be the cause of some foreknown things, although not of all, but in no way conversely. According to the *ratio* of inferring, [foreknowledge and the future] are mutually causes, since they mutually antecede and consequent each other; and the antecedent is the cause of the consequent. According to the *ratio* of speaking, the future is the cause of foreknowledge, and not conversely. For *praescientia* is called knowledge before the thing. It is clear therefore that it imports an order to something posterior; and since, if the known were always present, it would be knowledge, but not *fore*knowledge; that foreknowledge be so called, comes from the futurity of the thing. And so Origen understands it, and the first [argument] is plain.

3. To that which is objected in the third [argument] concerning the local relation, it must be said that it is a *locus a convertibili* [a topic from a convertible].

4. To that which is objected in the last [argument], it must be said that it has an instance in the matter at hand; and since in God alone is the instance, therefore it is to be brought forward. The reason of this is, that God's foreknowledge is with respect to the true, and with respect to every truth; therefore it posits and is posited. And since [foreknowledge] can be with respect to a truth that is not from him

according to that which underlies [it], nor conversely: therefore neither is it the cause, nor is it caused. Therefore foreknowledge is with respect to the true, because [it is] divine; with respect to every truth, because nothing is hidden from God: therefore it posits and is posited. Again, since [foreknowledge] is knowledge, which states simple cognition, therefore it does not cause; since [it is] divine, therefore it is not caused. Therefore it posits and is posited, and neither causes nor is caused.