Well, this is my 100th post, and I've been holding off posting to see if something incredibly profound could sprout out of my brain onto this page, but this doesn't seem to be happening. So I'll just be posting on some work that I've been doing of late.
Thomas Aquinas, that great doctor of the Church, wades into the problem of divine foreknowledge and essentially reaffirms Boethius' take on the issue (rather than, e.g., Augustine's). His point is this: human beings are rational beings. To reason is to deliberate, and in deliberation, our wills can be directed towards opposite things. In short, we have free will (in a libertarian sense). Of course, Aquinas inherits both philosophical and theological prejudices against women and their rational capacities, so when I summarize Aquinas' view by saying 'we' have free will, perhaps it would be best to say "Aquinas thought men had free will." It's a sad truth, but we won't be able to move beyond it until we realize what a patriarchal mess we've inherited.
Moving on. The future outcome of free choices is contingent, that is, not settled, determined, or necessary in any way. And Aquinas firmly argues that, 'in its causes', the future CANNOT be foreknown as certain.
Nevertheless, he does seem fairly enamored with the Boethian suggestion that divine foreknowledge isn't foreknowledge at all, but is rather knowledge. This is a function of God's mode of being--God's timelessness. Though the future cannot be known certainly 'in its causes', God can know it 'in its presentiality', that is, insofar as it is present to God in eternity.
The problem with this of course (and it is the problem that plagues all such attempts to justify the doctrine of foreknowledge on the basis of God's supposed 'timelessness'), is that God's mode of being is irrelevant to the mode of being of the future. And if the future does not exist, it doesn't matter if God is timeful, timeless, time-whatever. There's nothing there to 'know'.
Aaah, but the astute Thomist will point out that for Aquinas, 'knowledge' is a word we use analogically of God. Because God is essentially impassible, God does not 'receive' knowledge from the world in any passive sense. Rather he knows the world through himself, as its First Cause. His knowledge is thus activity, rather than passivity.
Of course, the point is well taken. For Aquinas, though we may speak of God's 'knowing' and God's 'causing' because of their semantic differences, for God these are in fact the same thing. God's action is entirely simple and undivided, and so what we call 'knowledge', 'providence', or 'creation' are in God all the same act.
The trouble here, is as follows. What the doctrine of divine simplicity entails is either A) that God foreknows what he predestines, such that his certain foreknowledge of the future is related to his certain causing of the future--and this undermines the conception of free will he has worked so hard to maintain; or B) we take seriously Aquinas' point that God's 'causation' of the world is compatible with 'contingent causation' (and thus with human free wills) and therefore insist that God's knowledge extends only as far as God's causation--which means that God 'knows' the future as it is--as contingent--which makes Aquinas an open theist.
What I'll be arguing in the paper I'm writing is that the source of this confusion is probably the linguistic habit we have (and all people seem to have) of referring to the future in the singular. But taking Aquinas' conception of free will seriously requires that we speak of futures rather than simply 'a' future. To the extent that indeterminacy results from human deliberation, there are several possible futures. Within Aquinas' scheme, if God's causation is compatible with a plurality of futures, then God's knowledge must be as well.
The philosophically inclined will recognize this as some form of so-called 'neo-Molinism'. The key metaphor here is of time as a tree lying on its side. The trunk is the past, the branches are possible routes for the future (or, we could say, the futures), and the point connecting the two halves is the present.
Long story short: if Aquinas can't reconcile exhaustive definite foreknowledge and libertarian free will, who can? Perhaps one or the other doctrine should be thrown out (/reformulated)...
Peace,
-Daniel-
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
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11 comments:
Well, I know I'm treading into deep waters here, especially with someone as educated as yourself, Daniel, but my vote would be to throw out the "divine foreknowledge" doctrine because it makes life a lot easier for those of us who strongly believe in free will. Divine foreknowledge always (and, again, I'm fairly ignorant here) seems to be predicated on divine sovereignty. I am in favor of throwing out that one, too, because I believe that God, as evidenced by Jesus' sacrifice of Himself, chooses to give up his power in order to gain our love. In all relationships, once one loves, one becomes vulnerable. I believe it is no different with God. To love he must become "weak" in a sense, or else it is not really love.
All that said, if we throw out foreknowledge, how are all of the prophecies in the Bible explained? When I say prophecy here, I am specifically talking about those times when future events were foretold through the prophets, for example, the many prophecies pointing to the coming of Christ. Your thoughts?
Hi Nora,
Thanks for your input. I think most people typically affirm divine foreknowledge because it seems to be entailed by divine omniscience. It seems reasonable to assume that the Creator of the universe would have some sort of unmediated access to the Creation and know what's going on in it.
What I think people (including Aquinas) have gotten wrong, is that this somehow means that God knows things which can't be known (the outcome of future free choices).
The solution then, is not necessarily to 'throw out' foreknowledge, but simply to suggest God knows the world (and the future) as it is. If the future is partially 'settled' (e.g. the law of gravity isn't going to change overnight) and partly 'open' (we're back to free will--though there may be other kinds of indeterminacy as well), then God's knowledge of it must follow the same lines.
As far as 'prophecy' is concerned, my understanding is that biblical prophecy is concerned less with 'prediction' of the future, and more with a present diagnosis of a situation (though this frequently involves a trajectory which could in the future have dire consequences). So Jonah is sent to Nineveh to say 'your current path leads to doom'. And they repent. Hence no doom.
Jesus is sent to Israel (among many other reasons) to say: 'your current path leads to doom' (I believe his exact words were along the lines of 'there is a broad path which leads to destruction'...), and they (for the most part) don't repent. What happens? Roman armies trample over Jerusalem and the Temple is destroyed (cf. Mark 13).
Long story short, I think a case can be made that biblical prophecy is compatible with viewing the future as being partially indeterminate. Of course, many others have made the case far better than I ever could (cf. Boyd, Sanders, etc.).
Let me know if this was helpful or not.
Peace,
-Daniel-
Hey man! I was delighted to run across your blog. I often think about the email interaction we had at Bethel. Sorry I was a jerk. I still am a jerk, in case you were wondering, but at least I'm a sorry one now. Glad to see you're still studying.
I was also delighted to see you're thinking about Thomas. I've been fascinated with him the past 3 months, after just being introduced to him.
Mind if I ask an extremely unclear and mildly challenging question (I don't wish to challenge your OVT, BTW, since I've not thought about that issue for some time nor do I care to, frankly)? How does Thomas' substantial metaphysic factor into your objection? It seems as if your critique would be an excellent one if Thomas was a Scotist. But considering the analogy of being, I fail to see how the definition of LFW you're assigning to Aquinas can give rise to the critique you're leveling against him. Granted, most Reformed Thomists of the C16th-17th saw humanity in more relational categories than did Thomas (it seems to me that even the Reformed Thomists adopted some form of the univocity of being, even though they applied analogical predication to God's attributes; I confess I don't really understand how they worked that out), but applying an essentially relational critique to an essentially substantial idea of being seems to fall prey to anachronism. I think your critique would do better against guys like John Owen or Jerome Zanchi (both Reformed Thomists), since they saw the divine/human in relational terms. I just can't see how it can work with someone like Thomas or Henry who saw things in substantial, analogy of being terms. Could you help me out?
I'm not trying to swoop in and weaken your paper, honestly. To tell the truth, I would like your help in understanding this stuff since I remember you're more philosophically astute than I. Any help would be appreciated.
Hi Ben,
Welcome to my blog! Glad you found it.
I haven't thought much about OVT of late either, except that when looking for paper topics for the Aquinas class I'm taking, divine foreknowledge came up and I just couldn't resist (partially because I'm already aware of some of the literature surrounding the issue, as you might have guessed).
And you were never a jerk. Opinionated, certainly. Jerk-ish, certainly not. I hope and pray the same could be said of me...
I'm not sure what you're getting at with your reference to Aquinas' 'substantial metaphysic'. I know he digs his Aristotle, and that everything hinges on substance for him, but I have trouble seeing how that affects anything I've said regarding Thomas.
Just to be clear, do you think I've misconstrued/misunderstood Aquinas' position on free will, or his position on divine simplicity?
Hope you're well.
Peace,
-Daniel-
Thanks for the kind words. I'm sure you have less of a rightful claim to jerkishness than I, but whatever.
I do think you may have misunderstood his position on free will, because you seem to be critiquing him as if he were Scotus or Franciscan. I'm not sure you've sufficiently factored in the dependence issue, and the other weird stuff that surrounds the Thomist theory of being and humanness. The issue of free will in Thomas is easy to abstract from what he's already said about contingency and the nature of second causes, but if we do that I think we miss what really makes Thomas different and what really made the Voluntarist crisis significant. But I guess it's not so much that I'm wondering if you've missed what he said, per se, with respect to free will, I'm just wondering how you account for the larger issue: how he accounts for God's being and human beings (which would include the smaller issue on second causes and LFW). But perhaps I'm the one missing something. I just don't that big of a difference between how the Protestant Scholastics like Owen and Zanchi talked about LFW and how Thomas did.
Okay, I think I see what you're getting at. Certainly Aquinas' take on Creation/God as the First Cause of everything muddles up the 'free will' picture. So it's entirely possible that labeling him as a 'libertarian' is far too simplistic.
Of course, the fact that he tackles the problem of foreknowledge along Boethian lines seems to me to suggest that it is nevertheless a legitimate move. The 'problem' of account for foreknowledge really is only a problem insofar as human agency is in some way independent from God's.
If we sneak a strong sense of providence in the back door (and I'm not sure whether or not Aquinas does that), then yes, the 'problem' disappears. But you get a different set of problems (which I'm sure you know).
The little I know about Aquinas on providence is that (somewhere in the Summa) he says something along the lines of God's causing (as source) of things is compatible with contingent causes in human realms. You could give that two readings: a deterministic one or an indeterministic (or synergistic) one. I guess I've opted for the latter.
But perhaps I'm missing something. Feel free to share if you think so. You might even get acknowledgment in a footnote if your comments make me alter my paper... ;-) (how exciting, I know!)
Peace,
-Daniel-
I think Stump, in her book on Thomas, would agree with at least part of your reading in that she sees more continuity with LFW than with compatiblism in him. She doesn't soften him much on providence, however, simply because the texts are too numerous and too clear I think. However, I personally like Brian Davies reading of Thomas better for at least one reason: the Dominicans. Thomas' interpretors were some of the biggest opponents of the Jesuit and Molinist school when it came to the doctrine of God, providence and free will. If we go with Stump, then Thomas' followers were wrong and they misrepresented the one they held in highest regard. I find that very unlikely, esp. since all these medieval guys were some of the most brilliant men the world has ever seen (agree or disagree with their often wacky views).
In the Summa Th. Thomas has a lengthy section on providence, as I'm sure you're aware (1.22.1-4). It's pretty clear to me that providence extends to absolutely everything in his system (contra Stump). But even then, Stump admits that if he did "sneek" anything through the back door, it was LFW, not God's control of future contingents. The reason being what he's already taken such great pains of establishing: namely, the being of God.
This was the original point I was unclearly trying to make. If we grant his discussion on God's being, we've got some thorny issues in many people's eyes. God's way too prior and way too unlimited by anything that's not God, and everything is way to dependent upon him for us to have anything resembling a pleasant answer to the problem of evil. Hence his commentary on Job, which leaves a bit of nasty taste even in this double-predestinarian mouth.
That's why I think your critique would fit a lot better if it was pitted against someone who denied the analogy of being and affirmed univocity.
Davies lame-ass intro book, Thomas Aquinas, put out by Continuum in their outstanding thinkers series, has a good section on LFW and providence (ch. 13, ironically enough). Let me know if you can't get the book and you need a short quote or two out of it (I'm doing all I can to merit that footnote. How dare you dangle that savory carrot in front of my greedy face!).
Here's some stuff from Thomas' ST (1st part, q. 22) which I pulled off of newadvent.org:
"I answer that, Divine providence imposes necessity upon some things; not upon all, as some formerly believed. For to providence it belongs to order things towards an end. Now after the divine goodness, which is an extrinsic end to all things, the principal good in things themselves is the perfection of the universe; which would not be, were not all grades of being found in things. Whence it pertains to divine providence to produce every grade of being. And thus it has prepared for some things necessary causes, so that they happen of necessity; for others contingent causes, that they may happen by contingency, according to the nature of their proximate causes.
Reply to Objection 1. The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow; but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the plan of divine providence conceives to happen from contingency." (from art4)
"I answer that, Two things belong to providence--namely, the type of the order of things foreordained towards an end; and the execution of this order, which is called government. As regards the first of these, God has immediate providence over everything, because He has in His intellect the types of everything, even the smallest; and whatsoever causes He assigns to certain effects, He gives them the power to produce those effects. Whence it must be that He has beforehand the type of those effects in His mind. As to the second, there are certain intermediaries of God's providence; for He governs things inferior by superior, not on account of any defect in His power, but by reason of the abundance of His goodness; so that the dignity of causality is imparted even to creatures. Thus Plato's opinion, as narrated by Gregory of Nyssa (De Provid. viii, 3), is exploded. He taught a threefold providence.
First, one which belongs to the supreme Deity, Who first and foremost has provision over spiritual things, and thus over the whole world as regards genus, species, and universal causes. The second providence, which is over the individuals of all that can be generated and corrupted, he attributed to the divinities who circulate in the heavens; that is, certain separate substances, which move corporeal things in a circular direction. The third providence, over human affairs, he assigned to demons, whom the Platonic philosophers placed between us and the gods, as Augustine tells us (De Civ. Dei, 1, 2: viii, 14)." (from art3)
"We must say, however, that all things are subject to divine providence, not only in general, but even in their own individual selves. This is made evident thus. For since every agent acts for an end, the ordering of effects towards that end extends as far as the causality of the first agent extends. Whence it happens that in the effects of an agent something takes place which has no reference towards the end, because the effect comes from a cause other than, and outside the intention of the agent. But the causality of God, Who is the first agent, extends to all being, not only as to constituent principles of species, but also as to the individualizing principles; not only of things incorruptible, but also of things corruptible. Hence all things that exist in whatsoever manner are necessarily directed by God towards some end; as the Apostle says: "Those things that are of God are well ordered [Vulg.'Those powers that are, are ordained of God': 'Quae autem sunt, a Deo ordinatae sunt.' St. Thomas often quotes this passage, and invariably reads: 'Quae a Deo sunt, ordinata sunt.']" (Romans 13:1). Since, therefore, as the providence of God is nothing less than the type of the order of things towards an end, as we have said; it necessarily follows that all things, inasmuch as they participate in existence, must likewise be subject to divine providence. It has also been shown (14, 6, 11) that God knows all things, both universal and particular. And since His knowledge may be compared to the things themselves, as the knowledge of art to the objects of art, all things must of necessity come under His ordering; as all things wrought by art are subject to the ordering of that art." (from art2)
There is much more on predestination. Most historians of doctrine see huge continuities between the reformed on predestination and Thomas. Both Teddy Beza and Franky Turretin (Calvin's successors at Geneva) quote Thomas and the Dominicans at length in their defense of predestination against the Soccinians and Molinists, and all the Reformers and their immediate successors used Thomas in their schools curriculum on the doctrine of God and predestination. That's got to at least make one wonder.
I should add that there's also quite a bit on providence in his Summa Contra Gentiles.
Ben, I am wowed by your Aquinas knowledge.
I have to confess to not having delved much into Aquinas' teaching on providence. Certainly the doctrine of analogy muddles the picture up.
As it is, I do think I'll have to address this in my paper, which means you may well get that footnote headnod. :-)
I'm presenting on this topic in class today, so I'll see if my co-learners have any additional insights.
Thanks for the input in any case.
Peace,
-Daniel-
I dont really have any to add to the discussion. I just wanted to thank you for such a precise and easy explanation on Aquinas thought. Which for me is anything but simple!
Thanks alot Daniel!
Woah there! Scholastic philosophy didn't come into my degree. Looks intricate... interesting too. Cheers to Daniel and Ben for this contributions to this most intellectual blog.
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