the cause of the truth of the opinion comes
from the other side,[P] yet there is a necessity on both sides alike. We
can obviously reason similarly in the case of providence and the future.
Even if future events are foreseen because they are about to happen, and
do not come to pass because they are foreseen, still, all the same,
there is a necessity, both that they should be foreseen by God as about
to come to pass, and that when they are foreseen they should happen, and
this is sufficient for the destruction of free will. However, it is
preposterous to speak of the occurrence of events in time as the cause
of eternal foreknowledge. And yet if we believe that God foresees future
events because they are about to come to pass, what is it but to think
that the occurrence of events is the cause of His supreme providence?
Further, just as when I _know_ that anything is, that thing
_necessarily_ is, so when I know that anything will be, it will
_necessarily_ be. It follows, then, that things foreknown come to pass
inevitably.

'Lastly, to think of a thing as being in any way other than what it is,
is not only not knowledge, but it is false opinion widely different from
the truth of knowledge. Consequently, if anything is about to be, and
yet its occurrence is not certain and necessary, how can anyone foreknow
that it will occur? For just as knowledge itself is free from all
admixture of falsity, so any conception drawn from knowledge cannot be
other than as it is conceived. For this, indeed, is the cause why
knowledge is free from falsehood, because of necessity each thing must
correspond exactly with the knowledge which grasps its nature. In what
way, then, are we to suppose that God foreknows these uncertainties as
about to come to pass? For if He thinks of events which possibly may not
happen at all as inevitably destined to come to pass, He is deceived;
and this it is not only impious to believe, but even so much as to
express in words. If, on the other hand, He sees them in the future as
they are in such a sense as to know that they may equally come to pass
or not, what sort of foreknowledge is this which comprehends nothing
certain nor fixed? What better is this than the absurd vaticination of
Teiresias?

'"Whate'er I say
Shall either come to pass--or not."

In that case, too, in what would Divine providence surpass human opinion
if it holds for uncertain things the occurrence of which is uncertain,
even a