Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy 5.15

“Tell me why you think abortive the reasoning of those who solve the question thus; they argue that foreknowledge cannot be held to be a cause for the necessity of future results, and therefore free will is not in any way shackled by foreknowledge. 

 

“Whence do you draw your proof of the necessity of future results if not from the fact that such things as are known beforehand cannot but come to pass? If, then, as you yourself admitted just now, foreknowledge brings no necessity to bear upon future events, how is it that the voluntary results of such events are bound to find a fixed end? 

 

“Now for the sake of the argument, that you may turn your attention to what follows, let us state that there is no foreknowledge at all. Then are the events which are decided by free will, bound by any necessity, so far as this goes? Of course not. 

 

“Secondly, let us state that foreknowledge exists, but brings no necessity to bear upon events; then, I think, the same free will will be left, intact and absolute." 

 

—from Book 5, Prose 4

 

The language can get a little frustrating from here on in, and the twists and turns of the arguments often require some patient rereading, so to keep it all straight in my head I try to remember that only two basic facts are being presented, and that the question revolves around how they actually work together. 

 

First, things happen. Events take place. 

 

Such actions may already have happened, may be happening now, or will still happen, but they are events in the world. Perhaps they happen from some external cause, or from some internal act of choice, but they assuredly take place. 

 

Second, things are known. Events are understood. 

 

Such awareness may be of the past, or of the present, or of the future, but a mind is conscious of them. Perhaps that knowledge is narrower, as it would be for a human, or boundless, as it would be for God, but it is still an act of knowledge.

 

As long as I keep hold of this distinction, the problem will not seem so intimidating. I am getting tripped up and frustrated by jumping to conclusions about what comes first, and what comes second. Which one is the cause, and which one is the effect?

 

All other things being equal, and setting aside, for the moment, the grand cosmic scope of what is at stake, would I normally say that I know something because it happens, or would I say that something happens because I know it? The former claim seems sensible, the latter one a bit confused. 

 

Why, then, am I applying a different set of rules to the bigger picture? As soon as the scale changes, I seem to insist that the event proceeds from the awareness, instead of the awareness proceeding from the event. Assuming that the ultimate order of Providence has already chosen to permit it, there is no reason to say that foreknowledge and free will are at odds. 

 

But if I look back at the earlier objections, I will recall that it was the question of the certainty of God’s knowledge that was standing in the way. There cannot possibly be any error in Divine thought, and so I am tempted to claim that an apparent necessity in the knowing is bringing about an apparent necessity in the event, failing to see that I might have it backwards. 

 

What if, for example, I hypothetically posited that there was no foreknowledge at all? Would the event still take place? Surely it would continue on, just as it was before. 

 

If I then do add foreknowledge into the equation, does that now change the fact that the event will still take place, according to its own proximate causes? What is stopping human choice from playing its role? It is what it is, on its own terms, the lower being allowed within the power of the higher. 

Written in 1/2016