things"—a general statement, rather than a particular one with reference to Adam, which 1 am
Book VI 317
Thus with reference to some causes of things in the future, Hezekiah was going to die; but God added fifteen years to his life,21 thereby doing something, of course, which he had foreknown before thefoundation of the world (Eph 1 :4) that he was going to do, and which he had reserved to his own will. So he did not do something that was not going to be in the future; on the contrary, this rather was what was going to be in the future, which he had foreknown he was going to do. And yet those years would not rightly be said to have been added, unless they were added to something which with reference to other causes would have been different. With reference, therefore, to lower, secondary causes, he had already reached the end of his life; while with reference to those which lie in the will and foreknowledge of God, who had known in eternity what he was going to do at that time—and this really was what would be in the future—he was going to reach the end of his life when he actually did reach it; because even though this was granted to his prayers, the fact that he was going to pray a prayer that deserved to be heard was also something, surely, foreknown by the one whose foreknowledge cannot be mistaken. And that is why what he foreknew would of necessity come to pass in the future.
1 8, 29. Hence, if the causes of all that was to be in the future were sown in the world when "that day was made" on which God created all things simulta neously, Adam was not made otherwise when he was formed from mud already in adult manhood, in the more credible view, than he was in those causes when God made the man in the works of the six days. He was there, in this case, not only as a possibility of being made like that, but also as of necessity having to be made like that. God, after all, no more made him22 contrary to the cause which he deliberately predetermined, than he makes anything contrary to his own will.
lf, however, he did not stick all causes into creation as originally established, but reserved some to his own will, these which he reserved to his own will are not indeed dependent on the necessity of those which he created; nonetheless these which he reserved to his own will cannot be contrary to those which he set up in creation by his will, because God's will cannot be contrary to itself. So he set them up in such a way that what they are the causes of has the possibility of issuing from them, but does not do so of necessity; while the other causes he so concealed that from them issues of necessity what he put as a possibility in the created causes.
21. See 2 Kgs 20:1-7. 22. Reading/ed/ with the Maurists and most of the manuscripts, instead of CSEL' sfacit, "makes things"—a general statement, rather than a particular one with reference to Adam, which 1 am sure Augustine was more likely to have made.