Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of EvilLeibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Freiherr von
Religion
Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Freiherr von
Free will and determinism; Theism; Theodicy
37. This determination comes from the very nature of truth, and cannot
injure freedom: but there are other determinations taken from elsewhere,
and in the first place from the foreknowledge of God, which many have held
to be contrary to freedom. They say that what is foreseen cannot fail to
exist, and they say so truly; but it follows not that what is foreseen is
necessary, for _necessary truth_ is that whereof the contrary is impossible
or implies contradiction. Now this truth which states that I shall write
tomorrow is not of that nature, it is not necessary. Yet supposing that God
foresees it, it is necessary that it come to pass; that is, the consequence
is necessary, namely, that it exist, since it has been foreseen; for God is
infallible. This is what is termed a _hypothetical necessity_. But our
concern is not this necessity: it is an _absolute necessity_ that is
required, to be able to say that an action is necessary, that it is not
contingent, that it is not the effect of a free choice. Besides it is very
easily seen that foreknowledge in itself adds nothing to the determination
of the truth of contingent futurities, save that this determination is
known: and this does not augment the determination or the 'futurition' (as
it is termed) of these events, that whereon we agreed at the outset.
38. This answer is doubtless very correct. It is agreed that foreknowledge
in itself does not make truth more determinate; truth is foreseen because
it is determinate, because it is true; but it is not true because it is
foreseen: and therein the knowledge of the future has nothing that is not
also in the knowledge of the past or of the present. But here is what an
opponent will be able to say: I grant you that foreknowledge in itself does
not make truth more determinate, but it is the cause of the foreknowledge
that makes it so. For it needs must be that the foreknowledge of God have
its foundation in the nature of things, and this foundation, making the
truth _predeterminate_, will prevent it from being contingent and free.
39. It is this difficulty that has caused two parties to spring up, one of
the _predeterminators_, the other of the supporters of _mediate knowledge_.
The Dominicans and the Augustinians are for predetermination, the
Franciscans and the modern Jesuits on the other hand are for mediate
knowledge. These two parties appeared towards the middle of the sixteenth
century and a little later. Molina himself, who is perhaps one of the [145]
first, with Fonseca, to have systematized this point, and from whom the
others derived their name of Molinists, says in the book that he wrote on
the reconciliation of freewill with grace, about the year 1570, that the
Spanish doctors (he means principally the Thomists), who had been writing
then for twenty years, finding no other way to explain how God could have a
certain knowledge of contingent futurities, had introduced predetermination
as being necessary to free actions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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