Dist. 7, Part 2, Art. 1, Q. 3
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/2/d/7/q/bon-sent-II-d7-p2-a1-q3
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### Question III. *Whether in the demons there is foreknowledge concerning future things.*

In the third place it is asked whether there is in the demons foreknowledge concerning future things. And that there is, seems thus:

**For the opposite side:**

1. *From a likeness*: astronomers and mathematicians by the course of the stars foreknow and predict many future things, and we see that in many things they speak truly: therefore if the intellect and cognition in the demons is greater, it seems etc.

2. Likewise, this is shown *from effect*: for these magicians and diviners by pacts with the demons predict many true things; and they cannot do so except by revelation from the demons: therefore it seems that the demons themselves foreknow future things.

3. Likewise, this seems *from the lesser case*, because the active intellect in dreams and in ecstasy foresees many true future things, as is plain because we frequently dream what happens to us long afterward: but the demons are wholly abstracted from the senses: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, *by reason* it seems: because « *the soul is in a certain way all things* », for in it is « that by which all things come to be », so far as the possible intellect is concerned; and as for the active intellect, in it is « *that by which it makes all things* »: therefore if the active intellect were free, or the possible were reduced to act by the agent, then it would be not only in potency to knowing future things but also in act. And this is so in the demons, who were created in the actuality of full cognition, and whose active intellect is free from the body: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:**

**Fundamenta:**

1. That they do not foreknow future contingents, this seems thus. The more present anything is to someone, the more certain it is to him; but the will of each one is more present to himself than to another: therefore he is more certain to himself what he ought to will than another is. But no man certainly knows what he ought to will or to think tomorrow: therefore much less can any other creature, of itself, know it.

2. Likewise, every cognition of a creature depends upon the thing known, since the knowable does not stand in relation to a created knower after the manner of the *possible*, but rather after the manner of the *actual* and *motive*; but no cognition depending upon a knowable can be certain about an uncertain thing; but a future contingent is an uncertain thing: therefore it cannot be certainly known by an Angel.

3. Likewise, if he knows future things, it is either by *acquired* knowledge or by *innate* knowledge. If *acquired*; but this begins from the existence of a thing, since it is generated in the knower from the thing itself: since therefore the thing does not yet exist, he cannot acquire the cognition of it. If *innate*: then he cannot be ignorant of any of the things which are future: therefore he foreknew his own fall before he fell, which has been disproved above as impossible: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, if he foreknows future things, then he knows who ought to win, whether he himself, or the one whom he tempts: therefore since he himself refuses victory for the good, he would never tempt anyone except those whom he foreknew would yield to him; but he tempts others, as is plain in Job: therefore etc.

### Conclusion

> *The demons cannot have certain foreknowledge of future contingents, since this belongs to God alone, although by sharpness of wit, long experience, crafty stratagem, and another's teaching they can sometimes predict true things.*

**I respond:** It must be said that there is a threefold kind of future things. For some future things have a *determinate and infallible* cause, such as those that pertain to the motion of the higher bodies, in which there is determination and the removal of every impediment. Such things can be known with certainty not only by God and in God, but also by a creature; and this in their cause, as the time of an eclipse and the like. Some have a *determinate but fallible* cause, such as those that occur according to lower nature; which have a *determinate* cause because nature's intention moves determinately to one thing, but a *fallible* one because manifold impediments can occur: as for instance that a sown field, if the soil is rich and the disposition of the higher bodies is good, brings forth a rich crop. And these things can in some way be known and foreknown not only by God but also by a creature that knows the natures of higher and lower things, yet not so certainly as the former. Some, however, have an *indeterminate and fallible* cause, as those which are from our will, which is *indeterminate* because it is open to opposites, and *fallible* because even for one who wills to accomplish them many impediments can occur. And such things cannot be known with certainty by any creature in themselves, but only by God, or by divine revelation.

The *reason* for this is that the cognition of *the creature* depends *on the thing*; since therefore the thing is uncertain both *in itself* and in *its cause*, the creature cannot

know or foreknow it with certainty. But the divine cognition does not depend on any thing — rather, all things which it knows it knows according to the mode of its own truth; and since its truth is most certain, it most certainly knows contingent things as necessary; and this was better explained in the first book. And just as it knows most certainly, so it can certainly demonstrate and reveal; therefore this foreknowledge of future things is either God's or from God. And therefore, when such future things are predicted, the prediction is called *divination*, because such an act is divine; and since the proud demons most of all desire to be honored as God, they most of all strive to make it appear that they have this in themselves. — And therefore to say that the demons by themselves foreknow future contingents with certainty is to attribute to them what is God's. Hence there is here *unfaithfulness*, and to unfaithfulness *idolatry* is frequently annexed; therefore divination is forbidden. — Although, however, the demons cannot of themselves know future contingents with certainty, they nevertheless frequently predict true things, because they in some way foresense the event of the future. This happens in a fourfold manner, as Augustine says in the second book of his *On Genesis according to the Letter*: « *Either by sharpness of sense or wit, or by much experience, or by crafty stratagem, or by another's teaching* ». By *sharpness of sense*, as when they see diligently and consider toward what our affection is inclined, or what things are leading or holding back; by *experience of seasons*, since they see such things follow from such; by *crafty stratagem*, when one proposes to do something and predicts that something will be done; by *another's teaching*, when by God's just judgment it is permitted to be learned from the Angels. — And so it is plain that the demons, although they can foresense future contingents probably, cannot foreknow them with certainty, as the reasons brought forward show.

**To the arguments:**

*To 1.* To the objection about the astronomers or mathematicians, that they frequently speak truly, it must be said that this is only by conjecture, either according to the *law of the stars* or according to *diabolical commerce*: according to the *law of the stars*, as when a star rules which has an impression on the various humors, and so disposes the man to various manners and affections; according to *diabolical commerce*, as when they wish to stretch the power of the stars beyond that which they can do; for then, unless the devil were present, they would say what is false as often as what is true; but now, with the full help of the demons, they frequently predict what is false and are deceived. But so great is the astuteness of the demons that they know how to hide their fraud, making it appear that the error or failure was in the astronomer's consideration, not in the art or in the assisting devil. — In this then stands the answer: that the astronomers, regarding contingents which have a fallible and indeterminate cause, do not foreknow true things except by conjecture; and the devil, by a greater conjecture, foresenses those things, but does not foreknow them with certainty.

*To 2.* To the objection about magicians and diviners, that they speak truly, it must be said that this is true; but yet, since they sometimes speak falsely, it is clear that they rather speak the truth by chance than with certainty, by conjecture rather than by knowledge. For whoever once predicts a future thing in the name of the Lord, and it does not come to pass, as is said in the *Law*, is a *dreamer* and not a prophet of the Lord; and therefore he is commanded to be killed.

*To 3.* To the objection about dreams, in which future things are foreseen, it must be said that whatever the philosophers may have thought about this — whose positions it would be long to recount here — what Sacred Scripture says about them must without doubt be held. For it reproves those who place confidence in dreams; whence in Ecclesiasticus chapter thirty-four: *As the heart of a woman in travail, so thy heart suffers fantasies, unless a visitation be sent from the Most High*; therefore it must be understood that *dreams arise from five causes*. Some from the disposition of the body, some from solicitude of mind, some from diabolical illusion, some from angelic revelation, some from divine visitation. The first two kinds of dreams are presages of future things which have their cause in us — as dreams that come from bodily causes are signs of sickness; dreams that come from solicitude of mind are signs of those things to the doing or desiring of which our affection is inclined; of others they are not signs of themselves — rather, if they are applied to other things, they offer occasion for erring rather than for foreknowing. Dreams which are from diabolical illusion have no force, just as neither do the divinations of soothsayers. But dreams which are from the *good Angels*, or from *God*, are true signs in us. And so from this it is not had that the foreknowledge of future contingents is had otherwise than from God, except by some conjecture.

*To 4.* To the objection that *the soul is in a certain way all things*, it must be said that the intellect

agent is not a being fully in act with respect to all things, because it is not fully an agent; and therefore it needs to be aided by the knowable in order that it may be in act, or by God, who is wholly act with respect to all beings and true things. And because the future contingent has no being except an indeterminate one, therefore it cannot aid the intellect in attaining certain cognition of itself. — To the objection that *the agent is in act with respect to all those things to which the possible is in potency*, this must be solved *by exception*, not only in men but also in the Angels. For there are some things to which *even the divine* agent is *possible in potency*, because they are above the power of a creature. Hence that proposition has no truth except about those things only which are within the power of the created intellect, in respect to which the intellect stands both in the character of *agent* and of *possible*; but not in respect to those things which are above. And thus the point is plain.