back to ideas for this text


Single Idea 5771

[from 'The Consolations of Philosophy' by Boethius, in 16. Persons / F. Free Will / 1. Nature of Free Will ]

Full Idea

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.

Gist of Idea

Knowledge of present events doesn't make them necessary, so future events are no different

Source

Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], V.IV)

Book Reference

Boethius: 'The Consolations of Philosophy', ed/tr. Watts,V.E. [Penguin 1969], p.156


A Reaction

This, I think, is the key idea if you are looking for a theological answer to the theological problem of free will. Don't think of God as seeing the future 'now'. God is outside time, and so only observes all of history just as we observe the present.