Hence it can only be from a special point of view that wisdom is regarded as a special attribute, and in this respect there will be something to say about it elsewhere. But it also follows, that finite existence must merge as completely in the divine knowledge as in the divine omnipotence, and that in finite existence the divine knowledge is exhibited as completely as the divine omnipotence; so that when both are held one against another, there is nothing left in the divine knowledge to which there is no correlative in existence, or which stands in a different relationship to existence, so that the latter would always have to be presupposed in order that the former might be posited. Or, to put it briefly, God knows all that is; and all that God knows is, and these two are not two-fold but single; for His knowledge and His almighty will are one and the same.

2. It is in the light of what has already been said that the further, and for the most part later, definitions concerning divine omniscience must be judged. Of these it may, of course, be said in general that they transfer to God human activities, so conceived as still to include imperfection, and in such a way that by illimitation the imperfection is by no means done away. The first case where this holds good is when, in God’s knowledge of existence, perception, memory, and prescience are distinguished, and then the divine omniscience, as the absolutely perfect cognition of things, is made up compositely of these three.⁸ For as the same thing which now is present directly after is past, as it was previously future, in God all these three kinds of knowledge must either be simultaneous even for the same object, in which case the distinctions would be quite blurred by their simultaneity; or, if they remain distinct and outside one another, they must follow one upon another even in God, according as the thing known passes out of the future into the past. And then this means that in the case of the divine knowledge the rule that in God there is no change is broken.⁹ If then we say (as indeed already by combining opposites we have often sought to present the divine as raised above all opposition) that the perfect knowledge of a thing’s existence for itself is the same as the knowledge of the inner law of its development, and the perfect knowledge of a thing’s place in the sphere of universal interaction is one with the knowledge of the influence of all other things on it, but that both these perfect kinds of knowledge form in God one and the same timeless knowledge, determining the existence of the object, while with us both are incomplete and so temporally distinct, because our knowledge does not determine the existence of a thing, but is determined by it—then we have at least an indication as to how to avoid as far as possible too great a humanizing of the divine knowledge.¹⁰

Nor is a better scheme achieved by the division into free or intuitive knowledge and necessary knowledge or pure thought;¹¹ for as the first member comprehends in itself those three modes of thought already noticed, the other would comprehend that divine knowledge which would have God Himself and all that is possible for its object.¹² It must strike everyone as peculiar as well as most unfortunate that under one name there should be comprised God’s knowledge of Himself, and His knowledge of that which is merely possible. For whether one thinks of the merely possible as including only that which never becomes real, or whether one also includes that which comes to reality, in abstraction from its reality, God always remains that which is truest and most original, but the simply possible that which is most shadow-like and ineffectual; so that such a combination almost assumes that God knows even Himself only through an abstract shadow-like presentation.¹³ Thus we should have to admit besides a divine self-consciousness partaking of the nature of intuitive knowledge and resembling it; the latter would be the living consciousness of God in His reality, but the former an inactive and, as it were, passive element of the Divine Essence. Only, since all are at one in asserting that God’s essence and God’s attributes (and so also the active attributes) are one and the same, this distinction comes to nothing, as also does this aspect of pure thought in God. Next, the one description appears to be formed very much on the analogy of the fact that with us the indefinite idea of what is simply possible must have an immediate sense-impression added to it, if it is to pass over into the consciousness of an object as real. If now in all cases perceptual knowledge is richer in content than pure thought (since the former has a real existence corresponding to it and the latter has not), and if none the less finite existence is dependent on divine thought, the question inevitably arises why God, who must will to have the absolute maximum of cognition in Himself, knows with intuitive knowledge only some of what is possible, i.e. that which at any time becomes real, and not all. And if we do not wish to fall back upon simple arbitrariness, which in thought is always an imperfection, and so a self-diminution of God, there can hardly be any other answer to this question than that some of what is possible lacks the possibility of existing along with the rest. But that, the existence of which conflicts with the existence of all else, is also contradictory to itself. Thus there is no divine knowledge of it even on the traditional explanation of the divine omniscience, for the self-contradictory is neither a thing nor cognizable. But if we look at the matter from the point of view of the other description, that intuitive knowledge is free, while the other is necessary, then (since the free is something other than the necessary), God thereby is brought under this antithesis, and the necessity whereby anything not free exists in Him is not anything in Him (otherwise it would be His freedom itself), but something outside and above Him—which conflicts with the conception of the Supreme Being.

From the foregoing it is now very easy to conclude what is to be held regarding the so-called mediate knowledge of God,¹⁴ by means of which He would know just what would have resulted had something happened which did not happen. It rests altogether upon the assumption of a possible outside the real, which we have already put aside. As soon, then, as we express it so, namely, that God knows what would have resulted if at any point the impossible had become real, this knowledge, as a whole, dissolves into nothing, because what rests solely upon the becoming real of the impossible is itself impossible. However, even apart from this it would follow that if anywhere even for God anything is possible outside the real, then infinitely much is possible at every point, and as each point is co-determinant for all the rest, a different world arises for each case from each point. The infinitely many times infinitely many worlds which thus, infinitely often, are formed (amid which the real world is lost as something infinitely small), are thus the object of this mediate knowledge—an object which still multiplies itself to infinity, if one considers that the necessary knowledge of God already of itself contains an infinite number of worlds originally different from the real world, for each of which again there obtains a mediate knowledge just as full as that which relates to the real world. So, measured thus, even the works of the divine omnipotence appear in the divine omniscience as something infinitely small in comparison with what omnipotence does not bring to reality, and consequently there is in God eternally and imperishably a mass of rejected thoughts; and, if we accept this mediate knowledge, the imperfection of a human artist, who, because his formative capacity is fluctuating and uncertain, thinks out the individual parts of his work in various ways other than as he afterwards fashions them, will, freed from all limitations and made infinite, be transferred to God. Looked at by itself, this whole apparatus of rejected thoughts is simply a knowledge of nothing; and it can only have a meaning if we could suppose that God also decides and produces by choice and deliberation, a view which from of old every form of teaching in any degree consistent has repudiated.¹⁵ Hence it would have been far safer, if one does start from what is human, to transfer to God, illimited and perfect, the certainty of the perfect artist, who in a state of inspired discovery thinks of nothing else, to whom nothing else offers itelf, save what he actually produces. This also agrees very well with the story of the Creation, which knows nothing of any intervening deliberation and deciding choice, but keeps contemplation entirely to the end, where it appears simply as absolute approval, without ascribing to God any contemplation of what He did not make or any comparison of the real world with those possible worlds. If, however, the edifying and tranquillizing effect of the conception of such a mediate knowledge of God be alleged,¹⁶ what that really amounts to is this, that, if we lift ourselves up to the religious consciousness in our pain over disappointed expectations, we should think that our wishes were also among God’s thoughts, but amongst the rejected. But (we may take it) true religious submission makes no such demand as that God should have had our foolish thoughts as His own, but is content with seeing from the result that our plans were not contained in that original or rather eternal sanction.

The name ‘mediate knowledge’ does, however, call for special consideration, since its reference can only be to the naming of the other two kinds of knowledge. Should it be a mediate between the necessary and the free, then God would be (as it were) more tied up in thinking that which from a given point is possible than in thinking the real, in spite of the fact that the last presents the greatest degree of ‘tied-up-ness,’ namely, the whole of the natural order. Or if the free knowledge of God is at the same time the productive, the mediate would present a transition from productivity to the idle, ineffective activity of pure thought. Thus the mediate, as a diminishing production, would be, as it were, the divine preservation and co-operation restraining itself in all directions, as in us the ever-stimulating idea of the real shades off into that of the probable, still lively-coloured and affecting us through hope and fear, and then loses itself in indifferent shadow-pictures of the merely possible. But we may reasonably hesitate to transfer such things from ourselves to God. If, however, this knowledge is the mean between perceptual and pure thought, it affords a passage from the former to the latter, which is inconceivable without a diminution of living power. And so, even from this point of view, we reach the final result, that the possible as distinct from the real cannot be an object of the divine knowledge.

3. If one adds to this the fact that unquestionably there exists at least a strong appearance as though, on the one side, a dual self-consciousness—an original and a reflected—were attributed to God, and as though, on the other, the piece-by-piece character of His knowledge were being assumed, it follows that till now the theory of these divine attributes has transferred to the Supreme Being all the imperfections of our consciousness. The appearance of a dual consciousness issues from the fact that the whole of God’s knowledge about Himself (which is similar to His knowledge of all that is possible, as it remains wholly separate from the Divine activity) can only be thought of as objective and indeed on the lines of our most abstract knowledge; yet as such it cannot be the only knowledge He possesses, but has necessarily beside it an original knowledge. This, indeed, does not come out immediately in the language of the Schools, but mediately, and as presupposed wherever emotional excitations attributed to God in popular preaching and religious poetry are treated dogmatically—which means that there is all too easily suggested such a sensibility on the part of the Supreme Being as destroys the basal relationship of absolute dependence. But such excitation of itself always implies the second imperfection we have to prove—the piece-by-piece quality of knowledge in God. For it is only the influence of a definite moment (which we feel is making such a demand upon us that in relation to it something must happen) that evokes an emotion in us. And so for a right theory on this point there is nothing left but the formula that God is related to the object in an eternal and omnipresent way, as in us the evocation of the emotion is related to the momentary impression. Then there will no longer be any cause either to introduce in the divine self-consciousness the above-mentioned contrast between original and reflected, or even to make a contrast between the latter and the objective, to avoid which the above formula¹⁷ was chosen. The second point, namely, the piece-by-piece character of the divine knowledge, still lurks curiously in the treatment of the question whether even the trivial is an object of the divine knowledge. For this question could simply not have been raised if a start had been made from the formula that God knows each in the whole, as also the whole in each—a formula which utterly abolishes the contrast between great and small, and which alone is correct because already given in the idea of a settled natural order. This, however, follows of itself on the customary method of illimitation, for in fact we consider even a human consciousness more perfect the more there is present to it in each individual moment.

And this leads us to consider still further, in the light of this divine attribute, a subject which might really be regarded as already done with,¹⁸ namely, whether the divine knowledge about the free actions of men can co-exist with their freedom. Most thinkers, indeed, perhaps even the Socinians, would have felt ashamed to answer the question in the negative, or even to raise it, if they had reflected that in that case not only could there have been no further question of an eternal decree of God regarding salvation, but that history in general would become something which God only gradually experienced, and consequently the idea of providence must be wholly given up.¹⁹ If, then, the temptation to answer the question in the negative, and the need to raise it is grounded in the interests of human freedom, it must be considered that one’s own foreknowledge of free actions and the foreknowledge of others must destroy freedom still more than divine foreknowledge does. And yet we deem those people least free who cannot in general know their actions beforehand, i.e. those who are not conscious of any definite course of action. But in such cases this special foreknowledge is lacking only because foreknowledge is lacking of the special relevant outer conditions and inner conditions produced from without. In the same way we estimate the intimacy of relationship between two persons by the foreknowledge one has of the actions of the other, without supposing that in either case the one or the other’s freedom has thereby been endangered. So even divine foreknowledge cannot endanger freedom.

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Footnotes

1. 51, 2. ↩

2. This is Calvin’s meaning, Instit. iii. 23. 6: Quum nec alia ratione quae futura sunt praevideat, nisi quia ut fierent decrevit; where only the idea of seeing beforehand is awkward. Erigena puts it better, de praedest., p. 121: Ea ergo videt quae facere voluit, neque alia videt, nisi ea quae fecit. ↩

3. Idem, ibid. p. 125: Non in eo praecedit visio operationem, quoniam coaeterna est visioni operatio. ↩

4. Cf. § 53, 2. ↩

5. Cf. Anselm, Monol. cap. xi. ↩

6. Hilar. in Ps. cxviii. sgm 4: Ergo omne ex quo vel in quo mundi totius corpus creatum est, originem sumit ex dicto, et subsistere in id, quod est ex verbo Dei, coepit.—Anselm, Monol. cap. xii.: Quicquid fecit, per suam intimam locutionem fecit, sive singula singulis verbis, sive potius uno verbo simul omnia dicendo. ↩

7. Augustin., de div. qu. ad Simpl. ii. 2. 3: Quamquam et in ipsis hominibus solet discerni a sapientiâ scientia … in Deo autem nimirum non sunt haec duo sed unum. ↩

8. So Reinhard, Dogm., § 25: Omniscientia divina est attributum, quo omnium rerum cognitionem habet longe perfectissimam. But this very superlative contains in it an analogy, and thus ascribes to the divine knowledge a similarity with that of finite beings, thus making it temporal. From this we get praescientia, visio, and reminiscentia. ↩

9. Augustin., l.c.: Quid est enim praescientia, nisi scientia futurorum? Quid autem futurum est Deo, qui omnia supergreditur tempora? Si enim scientia Dei res ipsas habet, non sunt ei futurae sed praesentes, ac per hoc non jam praescientia sed tantum scientia dici potest. Si autem sicut in ordine temporalium creaturarum, ita et apud eum nondum sunt, quae futura sunt, sed ea praevenit sciendo, bis ergo ea sentit, uno quidem modo secundum futurorum praescientiam, altero vero secundum praesentium scientiam. Aliquid ergo temporaliter accedit scientiae Dei quod absurdissimum et falsissimum est. ↩

10. Augustin., l.c.: Cum enim demsero de humana scientia mutabilitatem et transitus quosdam a cogitatione in cogitationem, cum … de parte in partem crebris recordationibus transilimus … et reliquero solam vivacitatem certae atque inconcussae veritatis una atque aeterna contemplatione cuncta lustrantes, immo non reliquero, non enim habet hoc humana scientia, sed pro viribus cogitavero: insinuatur mihi utcumque scientia Dei; quod tamen nomen, ex eo quod sciendo aliquid non latet hominem potuit esse rei utrique commune. ↩

11. Scientia libera or visionis and scientia necessaria or simplicis intelligentiae. ↩

12. Gerhard, loc. th. i. p. 148 note. ↩

13. This is only very slightly modified by such a remark as that of Thomas (in Gerh., l.c.): Deus se ipsum videt in se ipso, quia se ipsum videt per essentiam suam: alia a se videt non in ipsis sed in se ipso, in quantum essentia sua continet similitudinem aliorum ab ipso. Here the question is rather of the actual, and the meaning really is that God knows about finite being in the same way that He knows about Himself without reference to the possible. ↩

14. Scientia media also futuribilium, or de futuro conditionato. ↩

15. Joh. Damasc., d. f. orth. ii. 22: χρὴ δὲ γινώσκειν, ὅτι ἐπὶ θεοῦ βουλήσιν μὲν λέγομεν, προαιρεσιν δὲ κυρίως οὐ λέγομεν· οὐ γὰρ βουλεύεται θεὸς· ἀγνοίας γάρ ἐστι τὸ βουλεύεσθαι· περὶ γὰρ τοῦ γινωσκομένου οὐδεὶς βουλεύεται. ↩

16. Reinhard, Dogm., p. 112. ↩

17. Page 217, l. 29. ↩

18. ↩

19. The Socinian principle when fully applied really seems to imply this. We may find directly contrasted formulæ in Augustine, de civ. Dei v. 9: Non est consequens ut si Deo certus est causarum omnium ordo, ideo nihil sit in nostrae voluntatis arbitrio; and in Socin., Praelect. cap. viii.: Namque non entium nullae sunt qualitates. Atqui ea quae nec fuerunt nec sunt, nec certo futura sunt, nullo modo sunt, itaque ea Deo praesentia esse nequeunt. Eiusmodi autem sunt voluntariae hominum actiones, quae nondum revera extiterunt. ↩