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That, therefore, which comprehends and possesses the whole fullness of unending life equally and at once, to which neither anything of the future is lacking nor anything of the past has flowed away—that is rightly held to be eternal; and it is necessary that it both, master of itself, be ever present to itself and have present the infinity of mobile time. Whence certain people are not right who, when they hear that this world seemed to Plato to have had no beginning of time and to be going to have no end, suppose in this way that the created world is made coeternal with its Creator. For it is one thing to be led through an unending life, which Plato attributed to the world, another to have embraced equally the whole presence of unending life, which is manifestly proper to the divine mind. Nor ought God to seem more ancient than created things by quantity of time, but rather by the property of his simple nature.
For that infinite motion of temporal things imitates this present-abiding state of immovable life, and since it cannot portray or equal it, it falls away from immovability into motion, it decreases from the simplicity of presence into the infinite quantity of future and past; and since it cannot possess the whole fullness of its life equally and at once, by this very fact—that in some manner it never ceases to be—it seems in some measure to emulate that which it cannot fulfill and express, binding itself to whatever sort of presence belongs to this scant and fleeting moment, which, since it bears a certain image of that abiding presence, grants to whatever it touches that they seem to be. But since it could not abide, it seized upon the infinite journey of time, and in this way it came about that it continued by going the life whose fullness it had no power to embrace by remaining.
And so, if we wish to impose names worthy of the things, following Plato let us say that God indeed is eternal, but that the world is perpetual. Since, therefore, every judgment comprehends the things subjected to it according to its own nature, and there is in God always an eternal and present state, his knowledge also, having surpassed every motion of time, abides in the simplicity of his presence, and, embracing the infinite spaces of past and future, considers all things in its simple cognition as though they were now being done. And so, if you should wish to weigh the presence by which he discerns all things, you will more rightly judge it to be not foreknowledge as of the future, but the knowledge of a never-failing instant. Whence it is called not pre-vidence (foreseeing) but rather pro-vidence (providence), because, set far apart from the lowest things, it looks upon all things as if from the lofty summit of the world.
Why then do you demand that the things which are illumined by the divine light become necessary, since not even men make those things necessary which they see? For surely does your gazing add any necessity to those things which you behold as present? By no means. And yet, if there is a worthy comparison of the divine and the human present, just as you see certain things in this your temporal present, so he discerns all things in his eternal present. Wherefore this divine foreknowledge does not change the nature and property of things, and beholds with himself as present such things as will in time at some point come about as future.
Nor does he confound the judgments of things, but by the single intuition of his mind discerns the things to come, both those that will come necessarily and those not necessarily; just as you, when at one and the same time you see a man walking on the earth and the sun rising in the sky, although both are beheld together, yet you distinguish them and judge the one to be voluntary, the other necessary. So therefore the divine intuition, looking down upon all things, in no way disturbs the quality of things, which with him indeed are present, but in relation to the condition of time are future. Whence it comes about that this is not opinion but rather a cognition resting on truth, since he knows that something will exist which at the same time he is not unaware lacks the necessity of existing.
Here, if you should say that what God sees will come to pass cannot fail to come to pass, and that what cannot fail to come to pass happens of necessity, and should bind me to this name of necessity, I will confess it to be a matter of the most solid truth, but one to which scarcely anyone save a beholder of the divine has attained. For I will answer that the same future thing, when it is referred to the divine cognition, is necessary; but when it is weighed in its own nature, it appears utterly free and absolute. For there are two necessities: the one simple, as that it is necessary that all men be mortal; the other conditional, as that, if you know someone to be walking, he must necessarily be walking. For what each person knows cannot be otherwise than it is known; but this condition by no means draws with it that simple necessity.
For it is not its own nature that imposes this necessity, but the addition of a condition; for no necessity compels one who walks of his own will to advance, although it is necessary that, at the time when he walks, he is advancing. In the same way, then, if Providence sees anything as present, that thing must be, even though it has no necessity from its nature. Now God beholds as present those future things which proceed from the freedom of the will. These things, therefore, when referred to the divine gaze, become necessary through the condition of the divine knowledge; but considered in themselves they do not cease to be free with the absolute freedom of their own nature. Without doubt, then, all those things will come to pass which God foreknows will be; yet some of them proceed from free will, and although they happen, they nevertheless do not lose their own nature in coming to be — that nature by which, before they came to be, they might also not have happened.
What difference, then, does it make that they are not necessary, since, on account of the condition of the divine knowledge, they will come to pass in every way like things necessary? Just this difference, namely, what I proposed a little earlier — the rising sun and the walking man. While these are happening, they cannot not happen; yet of the two, one, even before it came to pass, had to exist of necessity, whereas the other by no means. So too the things which God holds as present will without doubt come to be; but of these, the one descends from the necessity of things, the other from the power of those who do them. Not without reason, therefore, did we say that these things, if referred to the divine knowledge, are necessary, but if considered in themselves, are loosed from the bonds of necessity; just as everything that lies open to the senses, if you refer it to reason, is universal, but if you regard it in itself, is singular.
'But if,' you will say, 'it lies in my power to change my purpose, I shall make Providence void, since I shall by chance have changed the very things which it foreknows.' I shall answer: you can indeed turn aside your purpose, but since the present truth of Providence beholds both that you can do this, and whether you will do it, and whither you may turn yourself, you cannot escape the divine foreknowledge, just as you cannot flee the gaze of a present eye, although by free will you turn yourself to various actions. What then, you will say, shall the divine knowledge be changed by my disposition, so that, when I now will this and now another thing, it too seems to alternate its turns of knowing? By no means. For the divine gaze runs ahead of every future thing, and bends it back and recalls it to the presence of its own knowledge; nor does it alternate, as you suppose, foreknowing now this, now that by turns, but, abiding, in one stroke it anticipates and embraces your changes.
This presence of comprehending and beholding all things God has obtained not from the outcome of future events, but from his own simplicity. From which is also resolved that objection which you raised a little before — that it is unworthy if our future actions are said to furnish the cause of God's knowledge. For this power of his knowledge, embracing all things with a present apprehension, itself sets the measure for all things, but owes nothing to what comes after. Since this is so, there remains for mortals an inviolate freedom of the will, nor do unjust laws set forth rewards and punishments for wills that are freed from all necessity. There remains also God, the spectator from on high, foreknowing all things, and the ever-present eternity of his vision runs together with the future quality of our deeds, dispensing rewards to the good and punishments to the wicked. Nor are the hopes and prayers placed in God in vain; which, when they are right, cannot be ineffectual.
Turn away, therefore, from vices, cultivate the virtues, lift up your minds to right hopes, stretch out humble prayers on high. A great necessity of uprightness is laid upon you, if you are not willing to dissemble it, since you act before the eyes of a Judge who discerns all things.