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Fate
Knowledge of future events, which Philosophy believes that God must possess by virtue of being all-knowing and all-powerful. In Book V, she and Boethius try to determine if there is a contradiction between God having foreknowledge of events and humans having free will over their actions. Ultimately, Philosophy argues that God does not truly have knowledge of the “future” because God is “eternal.” This means that he can “embrace and comprehend [the] whole extent [of the universe] simultaneously.” So what human beings consider the future is, to God, actually more like part of the present, and God can know things that lie in human beings’ future without infringing on people’s free will.
Foreknowledge Quotes in The Consolation of Philosophy
The The Consolation of Philosophy quotes below are all either spoken by Foreknowledge or refer to Foreknowledge. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Book V, Part III
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The question is, therefore, how can God foreknow that these things will happen, if they are uncertain?
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Book V, Part IV
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Therefore, all those things which happen without happening of necessity are, before they happen, future events about to happen, but not about to happen of necessity. For just as the knowledge of present things imposes no necessity on what is happening, so foreknowledge imposes no necessity on what is going to happen.
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Book V, Part V
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In the same way, human reason refuses to believe that divine intelligence can see the future in any other way except that in which human reason has knowledge. This is how the argument runs: if anything does not seem to have any certain and predestined occurrence, it cannot be foreknown as a future event. Of such, therefore, there is no foreknowledge: and if we believe that even in this case there is foreknowledge, there will be nothing which does not happen of necessity. If, therefore, as beings who have a share of reason, we can judge of the mind of God, we should consider it most fitting for human reason to bow before divine wisdom, just as we judged it right for the senses and the imagination to yield to reason.
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Book V, Part VI
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God has foreknowledge and rests a spectator from on high of all things; and as the ever present eternity of His vision dispenses reward to the good and punishment to the bad, it adapts itself to the future quality of our actions. Hope is not placed in God in vain and prayers are not made in vain, for if they are the right kind they cannot but be efficacious. Avoid vice, therefore, and cultivate virtue; lift up your mind to the right kind of hope, and put forth humble prayers on high. A great necessity is laid upon you, if you will be honest with yourself, a great necessity to be good, since you live in the sight of a judge who sees all things.
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Foreknowledge Term Timeline in The Consolation of Philosophy
The timeline below shows where the term Foreknowledge appears in The Consolation of Philosophy. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Book V, Part III
Boethius raises another doubt: isn’t there a contradiction between “God’s universal foreknowledge and freedom of the will?” That is, if Providence has determined the future, how can...
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Book V, Part IV
...“human reasoning” will never fully grasp Providence because it cannot “approach the immediacy of divine foreknowledge.” She starts by considering the stance that God’s foreknowledge might not constrain human free will,...
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But could God have foreknowledge of things that do not happen out of necessity—things that aren’t inevitable? This would resolve...
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Book V, Part V
...reason [should] bow before” it. And this “supreme intelligence,” she hopes to show, can have foreknowledge of things that aren’t certain to occur.
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Book V, Part VI
...everything, including the past and future, as if it’s happening in the present, and His foreknowledge is really “the knowledge of a never ending presence,” which Philosophy calls “providence or ‘looking...
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...can see things without making them necessary, so God should be able to have “divine foreknowledge [without] chang[ing] the nature and property of things.” He should see whether things are necessary,...
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Philosophy replies that something can be “necessary when considered with reference to divine foreknowledge,” but not necessary at all “in itself.” She explains this by distinguishing between two kinds...
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...These actions of free will can be taken as conditionally necessary, “with reference to divine foreknowledge,” but not necessary when “considered by themselves.” This is similar to how any sense-perception looks...
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...people have the power to make choices, Philosophy continues, they cannot do so without God foreknowing it, “just as [they] cannot escape the sight of an eye that is present to...
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