Hello everyone and welcome to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We are continuing our quest into the knowledge of the doctrine of God with our guide being St. Thomas Aquinas and his Summa Theologica. You can read a copy of his work for yourself at newadvent.org. We are studying the topic of the knowledge of God right now and we are on the thirteenth article. Tonight’s question is if God knows future contingent things.
I am sure this will be a very controversial one and if I have to do another blog to answer objections, I’ll do that. My rule is to do only one more however and I leave it to readers if they want to debate it out here in the comments. I might jump in. I might not.
To begin with, I think it’s important to start with our doctrine of God. We have to keep in mind all that has been said about God before with regards to his simplicity, eternality, immutability, infinity, etc. If we change something here, we must go back and see the ramifications of what that will be on God. If God does not know the future, what will that mean?
Also, for those who are strict Calvinists, Aquinas does believe in free will and when he gets to his doctrine of man, he will defend that. For now, he assumes it and so will we for the sake of argument. That, however, is not a discussing I wish to get in. I avoid that debate like the plague.
By contingent, we mean things that were not necessary to be. We could simply ask that if God knows something is it contingent? Could it have been another way? My answer to this is that if God knows you will do something then yes, you will do it. However, he also knows what kind of action it is. It is an action that you freely do.
Our actions are contingent because we are. None of us had to be and God did not have to create any of us in order to be God. God could have gone without creating anything and he would have still been God. God alone is the one who is necessary for if he is not, then nothing else can be. If you and I were not, the universe could get on just fine.
However, if God does not have knowledge of the future, then he is informed by something outside himself which means first off that he’s not without limits and is thus not infinite. It also means that he’s not eternal for he goes from not knowing X to knowing X. That would mean that he changed in some way which means he’s not immutable. Then, that counts as motion and whatever undergoes motion has parts which means God’s simplicity is called into question.
Now of course, there are many who do say that these doctrines aren’t true, but we must begin with God before we decide that. I fully believe in the free will of man. I have no hesitancy saying God knows my future entirely but also saying that my future is free. God has entire knowledge of what I will freely do.
So now, let the objections fly!
Maybe we’ll continue tomorrow.
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