The Religion of Nature Delineated William Wollaston (my reading book .TXT) 📖

of knowing? This is so far from being true, that, since God has no organs of sensation, nor such mean faculties as the best of ours are, and consequently cannot know things in the way which we know them in, if He does not know them by some other way, He cannot know them at all, even though they were present; and therefore there must be other ways, or at least another way, of knowing even matters of fact. And since the difficulty we find, in determining whether future matters of fact may be known, arises chiefly from this: that we in reality consider, without minding it, whether they may be known in our way of knowing; it vanishes, when we recollect that they are and must be known to God by some other way, and not only so, but this must be some way that is perfect and worthy of Him. Future, or what to us is future, may be as truly the object of Divine knowledge, as present is of ours; nor can we259 tell what respect “past,” “present,” “to come,” have to the Divine mind, or wherein they differ. To deaf men there is no such thing as sound; to blind no such thing as light or color: nor, when these things are defined and explained to them in the best manner which their circumstances admit, are they capable of knowing how they are apprehended. So here, we cannot tell how future things are known, perhaps, any more than deaf or blind people what sounds or colors are and how they are perceived; but yet there may be a way of knowing those, as well as there is of perceiving these. As they want a fifth sense to perceive sounds or colors, of which they have no notion, so perhaps we may want a sixth sense, or some faculty of which future events may be the proper objects. Nor have we any more reason to deny that there is in nature such a sense or faculty, than the deaf or blind have to deny that there is such a sense as that of hearing or seeing.

We can never conclude that it is impossible for an infinitely perfect Being to know what a free agent will choose to do, till we can comprehend all the powers of such a Being, and that is till we ourselves are infinite and perfect.260 So far are we from being able to pronounce, with any show of reason, that it is impossible there should be such knowledge in God.

In the last place, this knowledge is not only not impossible, but that which has been already proved concerning the Deity and His perfection does necessarily infer that nothing can be hid from Him. For if ignorance be an imperfection, the ignorance of future acts and events must be so: and then if all imperfections are to be denied of Him, this must.

There is indeed a common prejudice against the prescience (as it is usually called) of God, which suggests that if God foreknows things, He foreknows them infallibly or certainly, and if so, then they are certain, and if certain, then they are no longer matter of freedom. And thus prescience and freedom are inconsistent. But sure the nature of a thing is not changed by being known, or known beforehand. For if it is known truly, it is known to be what it is, and therefore is not altered by this. The truth is, God foresees, or rather sees the actions of free agents, because they will be⁠—not that they will be because He foresees them.261 If I see an object in a certain place, the veracity of my faculties supposed, it is certain that object is there; but yet, it cannot be said it is there because I see it there, or that my seeing it there is the cause of its being there; but because it is there, therefore I see it there. It is the object that determines my sensation; and so in the other case, it is a future choice of the free agent that determines the prescience, which yet may be infallibly true.262

Let us put these two contradictory propositions⁠—“B (same particular man) will go to church next Sunday,” and “B will not go to church next Sunday”⁠—and let us suppose withall, that B is free, and that his going or not going depends merely upon his own will. In this case he may indeed do either, but yet he can do but one of these two things: either go, or not go; and one he must do. One of these propositions therefore is now true, but yet it is not the truth of that proposition which forces him to do what is contained in it; on the contrary, the truth of the proposition arises from what he shall choose to do. And if that truth does not force him, the foreknowledge of that truth will not. We may sure suppose B himself to know certainly beforehand which of the two he will choose to do, whether to go to church or not (I mean so far as it depends upon his choice only), and if so, then here is B’s own foreknowledge consistent with his freedom; and if we can but, further, suppose God to know as much in this respect as B does, there will be God’s foreknowledge consistent with B’s freedom.

In a word, it involves no contradiction to assert that God certainly knows what any man will choose; and therefore, that he should do this cannot be said to be impossible.

It is not impossible that such laws of nature, and such a series of causes and effects, may be originally designed, that not only general provisions may be made for the several species of beings, but, even particular cases, at least many of them, may also be provided for without innovations or alterations