The City of God, Volume I by Saint of Hippo Augustine
9. _Concerning the foreknowledge of God and the free will of man,
2215 words | Chapter 153
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.[189] 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."[190]
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,[191] he makes Cotta dispute concerning
this against the Stoics, and preferred to give his own opinion in
favour of Lucilius Balbus, to whom he assigned the defence of the
Stoical position, rather than in favour 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 skilfully 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."[192] 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 laboured 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_.
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