. "What is that?" quoth she, "for I
already conjecture what it is that troubleth thee." "It seemeth," quoth
I, "to be altogether impossible and repugnant that God foreseeth all
things, and that there should be any free-will. For if God beholdeth all
things and cannot be deceived, that must of necessity follow which His
providence foreseeth to be to come. Wherefore, if from eternity he doth
not only foreknow the deeds of men, but also their counsels and wills,
there can be no free-will; for there is not any other deed or will, but
those which the divine providence, that cannot be deceived, hath
foreseen. For if things can be drawn aside to any other end than was
foreknown, there will not be any firm knowledge of that which is to
come, but rather an uncertain opinion, which in my opinion were impious
to believe of God. Neither do I allow of that reason with which some
suppose that they can dissolve the difficulty of this question. For they
say that nothing is therefore to come to pass because Providence did
foresee it, but rather contrariwise, because it shall be, it could not
be unknown to Providence, and in this manner the necessity passes over
to the other side. For it is not necessary, they argue, that those
things should happen which are foreseen, but it is necessary that those
things should be foreseen that are to come--as though our problem were
this, which of them is the cause of a thing, the foreknowledge of the
necessity of things to come, or the necessity of the foreknowledge of
things to come, and we were not trying to prove that, howsoever these
causes be ordered, the event of the things which are foreknown is
necessary, even though the foreknowledge seemeth not to confer necessity
of being upon the things themselves. For if any man sitteth the opinion
which thinketh so must needs be true, and again on the other side, if
the opinion that one sitteth be true, he must needs sit. Wherefore,
there is necessity in both, in the one of sitting and in the other of
truth. But one sitteth not because the opinion is true, but rather this
is true because one hath taken his seat. So that though the cause of
truth proceedeth from one part, yet there is a common necessity in both.

And the like is to be inferred of Providence and future things. For even
though they be foreseen because they shall be, yet they do not come to
pass because they are foreseen, notw