Phil 312 Scotus on Free Will and Divine Foreknowledge
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Phil 312
Scotus on Free Will and Divine Foreknowledge
I. Overview of the problem
Future contingents have no definite truth-value: “In future contingents there is no determinate
truth.” For there is no fact that makes them true. Hence, God can have no determinate or certain
knowledge of future contingents.
Scotus’ [partial] solution: God’s will makes [some of] them true and [some of] them false. It
does this in a contingent (non-necessary) way – God could (has the ability to) reverse his choices,
even as He makes them. God’s intellect perceives these choices and hence knows the truth-values
of the relevant propositions.
Principal Difficulties:
- Is it coherent to think of God’s causation as contingent, or of unactualized potentialities
that are present in God?
- Even if it is: how do we account for future contingents that depend on human choices?
II. Rejection of Boethius
Boethius’ position: eternity is present to the whole of time; hence eternity ‘co-exists’ with all
things; this allows God to know them all as we know the present.
Scotus’ objections:
1) Eternity ‘co-exists’ not with potential but only with actually existent times – i.e., the present.
2) If a future object has a real relation with God, it is actual; hence it exists now [absurd].
3) Similarly, a future event is produced twice by God (now and later) [absurd].
4) Eternity fails to explain certain knowledge of future contingents:
(4a) Temporal, contingent things themselves cannot cause knowledge in God (that would
cheapen God’s intellect).
(4b) God’s certain knowledge must derive from something else (i.e., some aspect of God
himself).
(4c) Hence, the relationship between eternity and temporal things is irrelevant to God’s
knowledge in any case.
5) Other eternal beings (angels) would know future contingents [absurd].
III. Summary of Scotus’ position (** exact opposite of the answers in sections [1] and [2] **)
1) God has completely determinate, certain and infallible, and immutable knowledge of the
existence and ‘conditions of existence’ of all things – including the truth-values of future
contingents.
2) If A is a contingent truth, then God’s knowledge of A is not absolutely necessary (= necessarily,
God knows that A), for just as A could not be true, God could not-know A. But God’s knowledge
of A is conditionally necessary (= necessarily, if A is true then God knows that A is true).
3) Contingency is compatible with determinacy, certitude and immutability of God’s knowledge.
IV. Initial arguments to the contrary ([1] and [2]) (** Scotus later rejects these views **)
[1.1] and [2.1]. God does not have determinate knowledge of everything; he does not know the truth or
falsity of all propositions about the existence and ‘life’ of every creature.
a) “In future contingents there is no determinate truth”, hence no determinate knowledge is possible.
b) “Neither deliberation nor taking trouble would be needed” if there were determinate knowledge.
[1.2] and [2.2]. God does not have certain and infallible knowledge of all propositions about the existence
and ‘life’ of every creature.a) If God knows that I will sit tomorrow and I could not-sit, then God could be deceived; given free choice,
I could not-sit; hence God could be deceived [absurd].
[1.3] and [2.3]. God does not have immutable knowledge of all propositions about the existence and ‘life’
of every creature.
Let A be “Jean Chretien will sit at 12 noon on October 10, 2002”. If God does not know A but can know A
(since A is a future contingent), then God’s knowledge about A must change.
[1.4] and [2.4]. God necessarily knows all propositions about the existence and ‘life’ of every creature.
Key distinction: Necessarily (God knows A) – absolute necessity. [Defended here; rejected by Scotus]
Necessarily (A if and only if God knows A) – conditional necessity. [Defended later]
a) God’s knowledge is immutable and hence necessary.
b) To know any such proposition is an unqualified perfection (= implies no limitation), hence to know such
propositions necessarily belongs to God.
[1.5] and [2.5]. Contingency in things cannot co-exist with the determinacy and certitude of God’s
knowledge.
a) Boethius’ argument: If God knows A, A is necessarily true.
V. Brief arguments for Scotus’ own position ([3])
[3.1] Quotation: God has determinate and certain knowledge of everything. Further, God is unchangeable
so his knowledge must be immutable.
[3.2] If necessarily (God knows A), then necessarily A and A would not be contingent.
[3.3] Some things are contingent beings and some are necessary beings; the intellect’s correct apprehension
is perfectly consistent with this.
VI. Others’ opinions ([4]) -- and Scotus’ objections
[4.1] God obtains foreknowledge from ideas in His intellect.
Scotus’ main objection:
Ideas in the intellect prior to any acts of the divine will contain only knowledge about natures (i.e.,
essences) – no knowledge about contingent relations between things would be present in God’s
intellect.
Another way to put this: any contingent linkages can neither be present in the divine intellect (that
would make them necessary) nor absent (that would make them impossible).
[4.2] Knowledge of future contingents through eternal existence [Boethius].
(See Section I above)
[4.3] It’s all a matter of perspective: some propositions (or acts or events) are necessary in relation
to God and contingent in relation to their proximate causes.
Scotus’ objections:
1)*** There can be no contingent causation unless the first cause in the chain acts in a contingent
manner. Argument: if the first effect is brought about with necessity in all respects, then its
causation is itself necessitated and the same holds for each subsequent effect in the chain.
2) If the proximate cause has necessary being, it can’t confer contingency on its effect.
3) God has produced and still produces many contingent effects directly (e.g., the world and
individual souls)
VII. Detailed explanation of Scotus’ position ([5])Two parts: explanation of the origin of contingency (5.1 – 5.5); reconciliation with divine foreknowledge
(5.6).
[5.1] The existence of something contingent can’t be proven but should be accepted as obvious.
- “Necessary being” and “contingent being” are two sub-genera of being. (Everything that is falls in
exactly one of these two classes.)
- Not possible to demonstrate the existence of contingent beings, but Scotus feels that it is sufficiently
obvious to make a rare (and tasteless!) joke.
- Hence by the argument of [4.3], God (the First Cause in every causal chain) must exercise contingent
causation (else there would be nothing contingent).
[5.3] Contingency cannot originate in the divine intellect but only in the divine will.
- By the argument of [4.3], contingency must originate in God.
- Hence it originates in God’s intellect or will, since God causes via his intellect and will.
- But not in the intellect. For the intellect’s “first act” is prior to every act of will. Ideas are
‘ideated’ in a purely natural (and hence necessary) manner: there is no room for contingency.
- So contingency must originate in the divine will. To understand how this happens, Scotus first
examines how contingency can arise from the human will.
[5.4] Contingency originates in the human will through the freedom to tend towards distinct objects.
This freedom implies that if you choose A, there is both an obvious (temporal series) and a non-
obvious (same instant) potentiality for choosing not-A.
(1) In what sense is the human will perfectly free?
- To keep things simple, imagine that every choice involves just two options, which we’ll call
‘opposite acts’.
- The freedom to perform opposite acts or bring about opposite effects is imperfect (the will is
mutable and other causal influences may interfere).
- The freedom to tend towards opposite objects or acts (the internal movement of the will) has ‘no
imperfection’.
(2) How does contingency or ‘possibility’ follow from this freedom?
This freedom in respect of opposite objects (or tendencies to act) implies TWO potentialities:
a) The potential for opposites in a temporal series: i.e., a series of events in which you sometimes
will A and sometimes will not-A.
b) The potential for opposites at the same instant.
• not the potential for both A and not-A at the same time
• rather, an underlying potentiality for either A or not-A that persists even as you
choose A.
Elaboration: Scotus is employing an Aristotelian distinction between 1st potentiality/1st actuality
and 2nd potentiality/2nd actuality.
Ex: Language-learner’s potentiality for speaking French (1st pot) ⇒ having competence in French
(1st act/2nd pot) ⇒ actually speaking French (2nd act)
The relationship of potency-act is sometimes sequential in time and sometimes occurs within a
substance at a single instant (as when speaking French – the capacity is still there and hence so is
the 2nd potentiality-2nd actuality relationship).
Present Application: the potential or absolute freedom for choosing opposites is a 1st actuality of
the will (hence a 2nd potentiality); the actual movement or choice is the 2nd actuality. The
relationship of (2nd) potentiality to act is real at the moment of choice, but that 2nd potentiality is
equally there for the opposite choice (the one not taken).
(3) How do we express the possibility in respect of opposites in logical terms?How do we make sense of: “A will that is not willing A is able to will (or possibly willing) A”?
Four possible readings:
a) Temporal series reading:
Composite sense: A will that is not willing A does will A” -- False
Divided sense: The will that is not willing A is able to will A at a later time. -- True
b) Same instant reading:
Composite sense: A will could at the same time will A and not-will A. – False
Divided sense: To a will to which not-willing A belongs, at the same instant willing A is
able to belong. – True [the potential for willing A is there in virtue of the 1st actuality]
“Jean is not willing A but possibly willing A” can be true at an instant.
(Compare: “Jean did not will A” is incompatible with “it is (now) possible that Jean willed A”.)
Objection 1: this seems to break with Aristotle’s dictum: “everything which is, when it is,
necessarily is.”
Reply: Necessity of the concomitant: “when p, nec. q”
Necessity of concomitance: “necessarily, when p, q”
Aristotle’s dictum is true only if interpreted in the second way (with p and q the same).
So a thing can occur contingently and the opposite remains possible.
Objection 2: similar point, with more detailed argument about motion and change.
Objection 3: if p is the case at an instant m, and there is a potential for ~p at m, either the
potential exists with its actuality at m (obviously not), or before its actuality (but then it would not
be a potential for ~p at m); either leads to trouble.
Reply: the potential is ‘before’ the actuality: not temporally, but in the order of nature.
It’s not the case that every potentiality must be ‘with or before’ its actuality.
Objection 4: From possibly p and possibly ~p at m, we can infer possibly (p and ~p), which is
absurd.
Reply: This principle is just unsound, and Scotus gives several helpful examples.
[5.5] Contingency in the divine will again pertains to the freedom to tend towards distinct objects.
And again, the potentiality for not-A is present at the same ‘instant’ God is choosing A, and hence his
choice of A is not necessary but contingent.
- The primary freedom is once again the freedom to tend towards different willed objects
- If God were not able to will the opposite to what He does, that would constitute an imperfection
- The only object of the divine will is God’s own essence. Relations between God’s will and anything
else (e.g., created things) are contingent (could be different). This can be seen by considering the will’s
1st actuality, prior to its act of choice (when it could choose the opposite of what it does).
- Talk of ‘same’ and ‘prior’ instants in God refers to “instants of nature”, an explanatory ordering in
God’s nature analogous to the temporal ordering. What occurs at a ‘prior’ instant is explanatorily prior
to what occurs at a ‘later’ instant, though in fact they all exist at the same time (or in the same eternal
now). Just as humans, while willing A, retain the possibility of not-willing A at the same temporal
instant, so God who is willing A retains the possibility of not-willing A at the same instant of nature.
[5.6] The certitude of divine knowledge is compatible with contingency. God’s intellect knows the
truth-value of contingents by knowing how God’s will (contingently) determines things to be.
Explanation 1: (The ordering of ‘steps’ here refers to instants of nature, not temporal instants.)
Step 1. The divine will makes all its determinations in a single, simple act of willing. This
includes all contingent decisions (decisions on which God has, at that instant, the power to act
differently). A simple way to think of this is to imagine God just assigning “true” or “false” to allcontingent propositions (in a consistent way, of course). These include propositions about things
that occur at times that belong to our future.
Step 2. The intellect sees these determinations.
Step 3. The intellect knows (infers) that these things will all occur as determined by God, since it
knows that the will of God is immutable and unthwartable.
In this way, the intellect has certain, immutable and determinate knowledge of all propositions
pertaining to the existence and conditions of things (though it knows them in the tenseless form C:
‘Jean Chretien sits at 12:00 noon on October 15, 2002’, rather than in any tensed version).
There is no conflict with contingency because each of God’s decisions is contingent (and hence
each of the propositions is contingently true): God could will things otherwise than he does.
The two major difficulties were indicated in section I:
- How can there be unrealized potentialities in God? [Scotus could say: for God to lack
freedom is an imperfection, and unrealized potentialities are required for freedom.]
- Even if Scotus can explain determinate knowledge of contingent propositions dependent
upon God’s will, how does he explain the same where human will is involved (as in the
above proposition C involving Jean Chretien)? If God’s determination is sufficient to
establish the truth of C, then Jean does not have free will; if God’s determination is
needed as causal support for Jean’s actions but is not sufficient, then the proposition’s
truth value is not determined by God alone and not available to God’s intellect.
Explanation 2:
Step 1. The intellect presents simples (concepts/terms) and complexes (propositions) in a neutral
way. [The objects that the concepts refer to will not all be possible; the propositions cannot all be
true. The concepts and propositions reflect different possible worlds that God could create, and
temporal orderings of objects within these worlds.]
Step 2. The will chooses some of these simples and complexes for some ‘now’. [Same as in
explanation 1: the will assigns truth-values to propositions such as, “Jean Chretien sits at 12 noon
on October 15, 2002. In effect, God actualizes one possible world and the temporal arrangement
of things within this world.]
Step 3. Since God’s essence comprises his intellect and will, these determinations are part of
God’s essence and are naturally comprehended by the intellect (whose object is always God’s own
essence – what else is worth thinking about?).
Indeed, the difference between necessary and contingent truths is this. The necessary
truths are those apprehended from God’s essence ‘prior to’ and independently of any act
of will (ex. “All that is, is”); they are true in the ‘first instant’ of nature. The contingent
truths are those apprehended from God’s essence ‘posterior to’ God’s act of will; they are
true in the ‘second instant’ of nature. In no manner does God ‘learn’ contingent truths by
a vulgar inspection of contingent things themselves.
A helpful analogy: God’s intellect is compared to an eye that is always open and
watching. A necessary truth is like a colour patch that happens to be always present (say
‘blue’); a contingent truth is like a colour patch that is sometimes present (say ‘red’).
Scotus’ point is that just as there is no formal difference in the mode by which the eye
perceives the blue and the red, there is no formal difference in how God’s intellect knows
necessary truths and contingent truths. The former are just there in the first instant of
nature.
In this second explanation, there is no need for any indirect inference by the intellect; it perceives
the truth-values of contingent propositions in an entirely natural manner.
Once again, we preserve both contingency and determinate, immutable and certain knowledge. So
this responds to the initial questions [1.1], [1.2] and [1.3].Clarification about necessity [1.4]:
We need to disambiguate the claim that God’s knowledge is necessary. Let A be a true contingent
proposition.
Conditional necessity: Necessarily, A is true if and only if God knows A.
Scotus says that this is true.
Absolute necessity: Necessarily, God knows A.
Scotus says that this is false. For A itself could be false, hence is not necessary, and hence
God’s knowledge of A cannot be absolutely necessary.You can also read
