This is the technical designation of God's knowledge of future contingent events, presumed, by the authors of this distinction, to depend not upon the eternal purpose of God making the event certain, but upon the free act of the creature as foreseen by a spe- cial intuition. It is called scientia media, middle Jcnoivledge, because it is supposed to occupy a middle ground between the knowledge of simple intelligence and the knowledge of vision. It differs from the former, since its object is not all possible things, but a special class of things actually future. It differs from the latter, since its ground is not the eternal purpose of God, but the free action of the creature as simply foreseen.
34. By whom was this distinction introduced, and for what purpose ?
By the Jesuit doctors, for the purpose of explaining how God might certainly foreknow what his free creatures would do in the absence of any sovereign foreordination on his part, determining their action. Thus making his foreordination of men to happi- ness or misery to depend upon his foreknowledge of their faith and obedience, and denying that his foreknowledge depends upon his sovereign foreordination.
35. What are the arguments against the validity of this dis- tinction ?
1st. The arguments upon which it is based are untenable. Its advocates plead, (1.) Scripture. — 1 Sam. xxiii., 9-12 ; Matt, xi., 22, 23. (2.) That this distinction is obviously necessary, in order to render the mode of the divine foreknowledge consistent with man's free agency.
To the first argument we answer, that the events mentioned in the above-cited passages of Scripture were not future. They simply teach that God, knowing all causes, free and necessary, knows how they would act under any proposed condition. Even we know that if we add fire to powder an explosion would ensue. This comes under the first class we cited above, (question 29,) or the knowledge of all possible things. To the second argument we answer, that the certain foreknowledge of God involves the certainty of the future free act of his creature as much as his fore-
INFINITE INTELLIGENCE. 115
ordination does ; and that the sovereign foreordination of God, with respect to the free acts of nien, only makes them certainly future, and does not in the least provide for causing those acts in any other way than by the free will of the creature himself acting freely.
2d. This middle knowledge is unnecessary, because. all possible objects of knowledge, all possible tilings, and all things actually to be, have already been embraced under the two classes already cited, (questions 29, 30.)
3d. If God certainly foreknows any future event, then it must be certainly future, and he must have foreknown it to be certainly future, either because it was antecedently certain, or because his foreknowing it made it certain. If his foreknowing it made it certain, then his foreknowledge involves foreordination. If it was antecedently certain, then we ask, what could have made it certain, except what we affirm, the decree of God, either to cause it himself immediately, or to cause it through some necessary second cause, or that some free agent should cause it freely ? We can only choose between the foreordination of God and a blind fate.
4th. This view makes the knowledge of God to depend upon the acts of his creatures without himself. This is both absurd and impious, if God is infinite, eternal, and absolute.
5th. The Scriptures teach that God does foreordain as well as foreknow the free acts of men. — Isa.x.,5-15; Acts ii., 23; iv.,27,28.
36. How does wisdom differ from knowledge, and wherein does the wisdom of God consist ?
Knowledge is a simple act of the understanding, apprehend- ing that a thing is, and comprehending its nature and relations, or how it is.
Wisdom presupposes knowledge, and is the practical use which the understanding, determined by the will, makes of the material of knowledge. God's wisdom is infinite and eternal. It is con- ceived of by us as selecting the highest possible end, the mani- festation of his own glory, and then in selecting and directing in every department of his operations the best possible means to secure that end. This wisdom is gloriously manifested to us in the great theaters of creation, providence, and grace.
116 THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD.
THE INFINITE POWER OF GOD.
37. What is meant by the omnipotence of God ?
Power is that efficiency which, by an essential law of thought, we recognize as inherent in a cause in relation to its effect. God is the uncaused first cause, and the causal efficiency of his will is absolutely limitless.
38. In what sense have theologians admitted that the power of God is limited ?
1st. By his own infinitely perfect nature. He can not act either unwisely or unjustly.
2d. By the nature of things. He can not work an essential contradiction.