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| Concerning the Foreknowledge of God and the Free Will of Man, in Opposition to the Definition of Cicero.
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Chapter 9.—Concerning the
Foreknowledge of God and the Free Will of Man, in Opposition to the
Definition of Cicero.
The manner in which Cicero
addresses himself to the task of refuting the Stoics, shows that he
did not think he could effect anything against them in argument
unless he had first demolished divination.194
And this he attempts to
accomplish by denying that there is any knowledge of future things,
and maintains with all his might that there is no such knowledge
either in God or man, and that there is no prediction of events.
Thus he both denies the foreknowledge of God, and attempts by vain
arguments, and by opposing to himself certain oracles very easy to
be refuted, to overthrow all prophecy, even such as is clearer than
the light (though even these oracles are not refuted by
him).
But, in refuting these conjectures
of the mathematicians, his argument is triumphant, because truly
these are such as destroy and refute themselves. Nevertheless,
they are far more tolerable who assert the fatal influence of the
stars than they who deny the foreknowledge of future events. For,
to confess that God exists, and at the same time to deny that He
has foreknowledge of future things, is the most manifest folly.
This Cicero himself saw, and therefore attempted to assert the
doctrine embodied in the words of Scripture, “The fool hath said
in his heart, There is no God.”195
That, however, he did not do in
his own person, for he saw how odious and offensive such an opinion
would be; and therefore, in his book on the nature of the gods,196
he makes
Cotta dispute concerning this against the Stoics, and preferred to
give his own opinion in favor of Lucilius Balbus, to whom he
assigned the defence of the Stoical position, rather than in favor
of Cotta, who maintained that no divinity exists. However, in his
book on divination, he in his own person most openly opposes the
doctrine of the prescience of future things. But all this he
seems to do in order that he may not grant the doctrine of fate,
and by so doing destroy free will. For he thinks that, the
knowledge of future things being once conceded, fate follows as so
necessary a consequence that it cannot be denied.
But, let these perplexing debatings
and disputations of the philosophers go on as they may, we, in
order that we may confess the most high and true God Himself, do
confess His will, supreme power, and prescience. Neither let us
be afraid lest, after all, we do not do by will that which we do by
will, because He, whose foreknowledge is infallible, foreknew that
we would do it. It was this which Cicero was afraid of, and
therefore opposed foreknowledge. The Stoics also maintained that
all things do not come to pass by necessity, although they
contended that all things happen according to destiny. What is
it, then, that Cicero feared in the prescience of future things?
Doubtless it was this,—that if all future things have been
foreknown, they will happen in the order in which they have been
foreknown; and if they come to pass in this order, there is a
certain order of things foreknown by God; and if a certain order of
things, then a certain order of causes, for nothing can happen
which is not preceded by some efficient cause. But if there is a
certain order of causes according to which everything happens which
does happen, then by fate, says he, all things happen which do
happen. But if this be so, then is there nothing in our own
power, and there is no such thing as freedom of will; and if we
grant that, says he, the whole economy of human life is
subverted. In vain are laws enacted. In vain are reproaches,
praises, chidings, exhortations had recourse to; and there is no
justice whatever in the appointment of rewards for the good, and
punishments for the wicked. And that consequences so disgraceful,
and absurd, and pernicious to humanity may not follow, Cicero
chooses to reject the foreknowledge of future things, and shuts up
the religious mind to this alternative, to make choice between two
things, either that something is in our own power, or that there is
foreknowledge,—both of which cannot be true; but if the one is
affirmed, the other is thereby denied. He therefore, like a truly
great and wise man, and one who consulted very much and very
skillfully for the good of humanity, of those two chose
the freedom of the will, to confirm which he denied the
foreknowledge of future things; and thus, wishing to make men free
he makes them sacrilegious. But the religious mind chooses both,
confesses both, and maintains both by the faith of piety. But how
so? says Cicero; for the knowledge of future things being granted,
there follows a chain of consequences which ends in this, that
there can be nothing depending on our own free wills. And
further, if there is anything depending on our wills, we must go
backwards by the same steps of reasoning till we arrive at the
conclusion that there is no foreknowledge of future things. For
we go backwards through all the steps in the following order:—If
there is free will, all things do not happen according to fate; if
all things do not happen according to fate, there is not a certain
order of causes; and if there is not a certain order of causes,
neither is there a certain order of things foreknown by God,—for
things cannot come to pass except they are preceded by efficient
causes,—but, if there is no fixed and certain order of causes
foreknown by God, all things cannot be said to happen according as
He foreknew that they would happen. And further, if it is not
true that all things happen just as they have been foreknown by
Him, there is not, says he, in God any foreknowledge of future
events.
Now, against the sacrilegious and
impious darings of reason, we assert both that God knows all things
before they come to pass, and that we do by our free will
whatsoever we know and feel to be done by us only because we will
it. But that all things come to pass by fate, we do not say; nay
we affirm that nothing comes to pass by fate; for we demonstrate
that the name of fate, as it is wont to be used by those who speak
of fate, meaning thereby the position of the stars at the time of
each one’s conception or birth, is an unmeaning word, for
astrology itself is a delusion. But an order of causes in which
the highest efficiency is attributed to the will of God, we neither
deny nor do we designate it by the name of fate, unless, perhaps,
we may understand fate to mean that which is spoken, deriving it
from fari, to speak; for we cannot deny that it is written
in the sacred Scriptures, “God hath spoken once; these two things
have I heard, that power belongeth unto God. Also unto Thee, O
God, belongeth mercy: for Thou wilt render unto every man
according to his works.”197
Now the expression, “Once hath
He spoken,” is to be understood as meaning
“immovably,” that is, unchangeably hath He spoken,
inasmuch as He knows unchangeably all things which shall be, and
all things which He will do. We might, then, use the word fate in
the sense it bears when derived from fari, to speak, had it
not already come to be understood in another sense, into which I am
unwilling that the hearts of men should unconsciously slide. But
it does not follow that, though there is for God a certain order of
all causes, there must therefore be nothing depending on the free
exercise of our own wills, for our wills themselves are included in
that order of causes which is certain to God, and is embraced by
His foreknowledge, for human wills are also causes of human
actions; and He who foreknew all the causes of things would
certainly among those causes not have been ignorant of our wills.
For even that very concession which Cicero himself makes is enough
to refute him in this argument. For what does it help him to say
that nothing takes place without a cause, but that every cause is
not fatal, there being a fortuitous cause, a natural cause, and a
voluntary cause? It is sufficient that he confesses that whatever
happens must be preceded by a cause. For we say that those causes
which are called fortuitous are not a mere name for the absence of
causes, but are only latent, and we attribute them either to the
will of the true God, or to that of spirits of some kind or
other. And as to natural causes, we by no means separate them
from the will of Him who is the author and framer of all nature.
But now as to voluntary causes. They are referable either to God,
or to angels, or to men, or to animals of whatever description, if
indeed those instinctive movements of animals devoid of reason, by
which, in accordance with their own nature, they seek or shun
various things, are to be called wills. And when I speak of the
wills of angels, I mean either the wills of good angels, whom we
call the angels of God, or of the wicked angels, whom we call the
angels of the devil, or demons. Also by the wills of men I mean
the wills either of the good or of the wicked. And from this we
conclude that there are no efficient causes of all things which
come to pass unless voluntary causes, that is, such as belong to
that nature which is the spirit of life. For the air or wind is
called spirit, but, inasmuch as it is a body, it is not the spirit
of life. The spirit of life, therefore, which quickens all
things, and is the creator of every body, and of every created
spirit, is God Himself, the uncreated spirit. In His supreme will
resides the power
which acts on the wills of all
created spirits, helping the good, judging the evil, controlling
all, granting power to some, not granting it to others. For, as
He is the creator of all natures, so also is He the bestower of all
powers, not of all wills; for wicked wills are not from Him, being
contrary to nature, which is from Him. As to bodies, they are
more subject to wills: some to our wills, by which I mean the
wills of all living mortal creatures, but more to the wills of men
than of beasts. But all of them are most of all subject to the
will of God, to whom all wills also are subject, since they have no
power except what He has bestowed upon them. The cause of things,
therefore, which makes but is not made, is God; but all other causes
both make and are made. Such are all created spirits, and
especially the rational. Material causes, therefore, which may
rather be said to be made than to make, are not to be reckoned
among efficient causes, because they can only do what the wills of
spirits do by them. How, then, does an order of causes which is
certain to the foreknowledge of God necessitate that there should
be nothing which is dependent on our wills, when our wills
themselves have a very important place in the order of causes?
Cicero, then, contends with those who call this order of causes
fatal, or rather designate this order itself by the name of fate;
to which we have an abhorrence, especially on account of the word,
which men have become accustomed to understand as meaning what is
not true. But, whereas he denies that the order of all causes is
most certain, and perfectly clear to the prescience of God, we
detest his opinion more than the Stoics do. For he either denies
that God exists,—which, indeed, in an assumed personage, he has
labored to do, in his book De Natura Deorum,—or if he
confesses that He exists, but denies that He is prescient of future
things, what is that but just “the fool saying in his heart there
is no God?” For one who is not prescient of all future things
is not God. Wherefore our wills also have just so much power as
God willed and foreknew that they should have; and therefore
whatever power they have, they have it within most certain limits;
and whatever they are to do, they are most assuredly to do, for He
whose foreknowledge is infallible foreknew that they would have the
power to do it, and would do it. Wherefore, if I should choose to
apply the name of fate to anything at all, I should rather say that
fate belongs to the weaker of two parties, will to the stronger,
who has the other in his power, than that the freedom of our will
is excluded by that order of causes, which, by an unusual
application of the word peculiar to themselves, the Stoics call
Fate.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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