God' s Wisdom knew all things before they were made? And how does this rhetorical question,
290 The Literal Meaning of Genesis coming upfrom the earth, and was watering all theface of the earth (Gn 2:6). From this mention of this spring onwards, whatever the narrative tells of was henceforth done through periods of time, not "all things simultaneously."
Different ways ofknowing things, following on these differences in God's working
12, 28. So then, the unchangeable formulae for all creatures in the Word of God are one thing, another those works of his from which he rested on the seventh day, yet another these which carrying on from those he is working on until now; and of these three it is the one l put last that is known to us somehow or other through the senses of the body and our familiarity with this life. As for the other two, however, they are so far removed from our senses and from what ordinary human thought is used to, that we have first of all to believe them on divine authority, and then to come to some kind of knowledge of them from the things we already know, in the greater or lesser degree of which we are capable with divine assistance.
God knows things before they exist
13, 29. So then, as regards those unchangeable and eternal divine formulae, this is how scripture gives us the evidence that the very Wisdom of God knew before they were made all the things that were made through her: ln the begin ning was the Word and the Word was with God and God is what the Word was. This was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was made nothing (Jn 1 : 1 -3). So then, could any of us be so out of our minds as to say that God did not make the things which he had known about?19 Accordingly, if he knew about them, where did he come to do so if not with himself, with whom the Word was through whom all things were made? I mean, ifhe knew about them outside himself, who had taught him? For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who hasfirst given to him and will be given something back ? Sincefrom him and through him and in him are all things (Rom 1 1 :34-36).
19. The reasoning here is almost totally opaque. How are the opening verses ofJohn evidence that God' s Wisdom knew all things before they were made? And how does this rhetorical question, winding up the argument, really fit it? This is really a veiled statement that God made things which he knew beforehand; but what seems to be required is a statement that he knew beforehand the things he then made. Perhaps, however, with a little of the mental and verbal gymnastics which Augustine so often requires of his readers, it can be turned into such a statement; it is saying, in effect, that ifGod made things, then he knew beforehand what he was doing. As for the first problem, the solution hinges, 1 would say, on the identity of God's Wisdom with his Word. Wisdom (which embraces knowledge) almost by definition knew what God was going to make; that she in fact look part in making them is then proved by the text that says of God's Word (= his Wisdom) that all things were made through him.