Theological Theses · §1985 · Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu

Recent Roman theologians reject both views; some say God knows futures in their proximate cause

Most of the more recent theologians of the Roman school approve of neither view. They reject the presence of future things in eternity in their real being, described above. Nor do they accept any efficacious decree of God by which the acts of free causes are defined in advance, before those causes determine themselves.

So to give some account of God's foreknowledge of future contingents they take refuge elsewhere. First, some hold that what will happen contingently and freely is known by God in its proximate cause. That cause is the will, taken not on its own but as it is engaged here and now: with this judgement, this object and this inclination, and finally with everything else that can either hinder it or determine it to will.

Latin

XXXIV. Sed utraque haec sententia minime probatur plerisque recentioribus Scholae Romanae Theologis. Nec enim solum rejiciunt supra dictam praesentiam futurorum in aeternitate, secundum esse ipsorum reale; sed neque agnoscunt aliquod efficax Dei decretum, quo praedefiniti sint causarum liberarum actus, antecedenter ad propriam ipsarum determinationem. Itaque ut aliquam praescientiae divinae, respectu futurorum contingentium, rationem reddant, alio confugiunt. Et primo quidem nonnulli sunt, qui existimant ea quae contingenter & libere futura sunt, a Deo cognosci in causa proxima, id est, in voluntate non nude sumpta, sed ut applicata est hic & nunc, cum hoc judicio, hoc objecto, hac inclinatione, ac denique cum omnibus aliis quae illam possunt vel impedire, vel determinare ad volendum.

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