I think that the 3rd option does not entail determinism. It is man’s choices which determine God’s knowledge not the other way around. God is not the first cause of the choice. But that is off topic
God is the first cause of the choice, to the degree that it is an act of our will (because He gives being to that act), and also to the degree that it is a good act. (All goodness participates in
His goodness, and also, all choices for the good have Him as the ultimate final cause.)
He is not strictly the first cause of our failure to act correctly, because that is a privation of good, hence not a real being.
What a lot of people miss, however, is (1) secondary causes (like our wills) are real causes and (2) God’s action as first cause is mediated through the structures of our substance: our act of being, essence, and faculties.
The bottom line is, for Thomas, we are not automata in the hands of God. We really act and produce effects.
A topic for another thread, if you are interested.
It seems then, if your interpretation of Aquinas is correct, that he was basically opting for #3. Aquinas wasn’t a molinist. And Aquinas wouldn’t know our choices by causing them, so they must be the cause of God’s knowledge. But for Aquinas, this seems problematic.
Yes, it would definitely have been
scientia visionis, although not exactly in the same way that de Molina thought it, as I explained.
I agree Aquinas did not think the of the future as existing. However, I think that this is inconsistent. If God sees all of eternity, how can He see the future unless the future exists? The only other answer seems to be that God is the complete cause of the future so He sees the future as its cause, this is the answer many Thomists would give. But if He is not complete cause of the future (e.g. free-choices) then God can only see the future as it is, that is, as a reality.
God is entirely outside the cycle of coming-into-existence and going-out-of-existence. He decides when something comes to be, how long it endures, and when it will stop being. That is the answer Thomas gives. (If I remember rightly, it is in the
De veritate that I mentioned to you. I will look it up if you are interested, because Thomas explains it better than I can.)
Look at it this way. Suppose I draw a line segment: I decide where it starts, how long the segment is, an when it ends. Suppose that (like God) I could do it without having to take my pencil and actually drag it across the sheet of paper, but just will it to be. I am completely outside the space occupied by that line segment.
Well, God has a similar (and indeed even more transcendent) relationship with time. That is the idea.
Just as for me, the line “exists” from the 3-inch position up until the 7-inch position, even for God, I began to exist in 1978, and I have lasted until today. (And since I am fortunate enough to be a spiritual being, I will exist forever into the future.) But (even for God) my future doctorate (if I am so fortunate, anyway!) does not exist yet. He
sees it already (assuming that it will exist in the future), but even for Him, it starts being in 2017 (which when I hope to have it finished).
The other difference between God’s relationship with time and ours, is that God
makes these things so, whereas we simply experience them.
I think this is a strong argument in favor of God’s predestination being the cause of actions, not His foreknowledge. But if this is the case, can we make room for a loving and merciful God?
Here is the idea (which can be confusing if you are not familiar with St. Thomas’ way of thinking): predestination (a species of providence)
is foreknowledge, fundamentally. (Notice how Thomas makes use of the etymology of “providence”: literally a “fore-seeing.”)
However, God’s knowledge is also a cause. When
we know something, the thing modifies our intellect so that our intellect corresponds to the thing known. When God knows something (outside Himself, naturally), He lines up the thing known so as to have it correspond to His intellect (which is not distinct from Himself). (As a side note, this is, in a nutshell the doctrine of the Divine Ideas, as Thomas interprets it. God is the “model” based on which all His creation is made.)
So, sure predestination is a cause, and it has an effect (namely, salvation). However, it is a
first cause, and God makes use of real
secondary causes to produce that effect, including the free acts of our will (also, the prayers of the saints, the administration of the Sacraments, and so on). For Thomas, the
proper effect of God–the First Cause–is to give
being (
esse, literally “to be”) to His creatures. That is because He is Being Itself (
Ipsum Esse). Our different perfections (what Aquinas calls “second act”) are brought about by the mediation of our act of being, our essence, and our faculties, as I mentioned–and this is precisely the domain of
secondary causality. Our eternal salvation is among those perfections.
(St. Thomas is a very much a Neoplatonist at heart, even though he takes a lot from Aristotle, obviously. This sort of “cascade” of perfections is typical of Neoplatonism, although Aquinas naturally takes great pains to baptize the Neoplatonic elements of his philosophy.)
Anyway, with Thomas I have no problem saying that predestination is the first cause of our salvation, even of the actions that lead to our salvation. However, that does not mean that those same effects are not really brought about as well by secondary causes (most notably, the free acts of our wills, but not only, as I mentioned).
