CHAPTER IV
that he sin; hut he does so by that necessity which, as I have explained above, does not compel or prevent anything.
Thus the free will chooses something which it is both able to keep from willing and also not able to keep from willing and which is therefore, neces sary for it to will. For before it has willed, it is able not to will, because it is free; but once it has willed, it is no longer able to refrain from so willing, and thus it is necessary for it to will, because it is impossible for it both to will and not to will the same thing at the same time.
Now the will has been given the power to act in such a way that what it wills does occur and what it does not will does not occur. And this act is voluntary or free, because it arises from a free will. But this action is also necessary in a double sense: first, because it is compelled to happen by the will; and, secondly, because what is done by the will cannot at the same time not be done. These two kinds of necessity are produced by the freedom of the will, which can take account of them before they come to be. Now God, who knows all truth and only truth, sees all things just as they are--whether they be free or necessary; and conversely, all things exist in the way in which He sees them as existing. It is clear from these considerations that there is no inconsistency in maintaining both that God foreknows all things and that there are many things which, though Having before they occur the possibility of never occurring, do actually occur through free will. Yet there is a certain manner in which these things occur by necessity; but this necessity, as I have said, derives from free will.
CHAPTER IV
There is another way to recognize that not all things which God foreknows occur by necessity but that some things occur by freedom of will. For this
can be seen from the fact that when God wills or causes something, it is undeni able that He knows what He wills or causes and that He foreknows what He shall will or shall cause. This is true whether God's willing and causing are under stood in terms of the immutable present of eternity or in terms of the temporal order. (According to the former, nothing is past or future, but everything exists together without any change.. In this regard we do not say that God has willed or has caused something or that He shall will or shall cause something; we say only that He does will or does cause something. But when we say that God shall will or shall cause something which we know has not yet been done, we are thinking of God's action in terms of the temporal order.) So then, if God's knowledge and foreknowledge impose necessity on all the things He knows and foreknows, then He Himself wills and causes nothing freely, but rather wills and causes all things by necessity /since His knowledge, or foreknowledge, imposes necessity upon His own will and also upon created things/. And so whether His willing and causing are understood in terms of the eternal order or in some temporal sense, they would be necessary. But if it is absurd to suppose that God wills and causes by necessity, then not everything which He knows or foreknows occurs by necessity. Therefore, there is nothing which prevents God's knowing or foreknowing something in our volitions and actions as occurring, whether now or in the future, through free choice. Thus, even though it is necessary that what He loiows or foreknows should occur, never theless many things do occur without necessity and through free will, in the way I explained earlier.
Why should it be thought surprising that in this manner something exists both freely and by necessity, since there are many things which, seen from different points of view, have contrary characteristics? For what could be
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