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THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD IN RELATION TO THE FUTURE.

THIS speculation, heedless of the recent warnings of Matthew Arnold, starts from the assumption that God has the attribute of intelligence. He knows. This is held by all theists; for while a man who holds that mere force is the cause of all things, or that the only God we know is a stream of tendency making for righteousness, may call himself, and be called by others, a theist, he certainly has no proper claim to the designation.

"The notion of a God is not contained in the notion of a mere First Cause; for, in the admission of a first cause, atheists and theists are at one. Neither is the notion completed by adding to a first cause the attribute of omnipotence; for the atheist who holds matter or necessity to be the original principle of all that is, does not convert his blind force into a God, by merely affirming it to be all powerful. It is not until the two great attributes of intelligence and virtue. . . . are brought in, that the belief in a primary and omnipotent cause becomes the belief in a veritable Deity." -(Sir W. Hamilton's Lectures, vol. i, pp. 26, 27.)

And when it is affirmed that God knows, we must take the term to mean what is generally understood by it. Knowledge in God is, generically, the same as knowledge in man. This, apparently, must be so; for it is from our own intelligence that we arrive at the knowledge of God's. When we affirm that God has intelligence, we simply affirm that he possesses an attribute which, in its essential quality, we ourselves possess. We know what intelligence is only through our consciousness of it. We see marks of design in natural objects, and we say that the Being who made them has intelligence; but we never could have made this inference had we not first had the consciousness of intelligence. It is, then, and apparently it only can be, generically, human intelligence which is predicated of God. This ought to be borne in mind; for it appears to me that many labour with all their might to prove that God has intelligence; and then, with equal ardour, strive to prove that it is not really intelligence. They prove that God has an attribute that belongs to the species, intelligence-but hasten to declare that it has none of the specific qualities of intelligence. Like one who would say, "this object belongs to the species, man; but it has none of the specific marks of a man.” They say to the atheist, "You are conscious of intelligence. You admit that marks of design in an object prove that its constructor possesses a faculty the same, in its nature, as this which you possess. Natural objects have marks of design, therefore their Constructor possesses a faculty generically the same as this of which you are conscious." Now, mark the con

clusion. It is that the Maker possesses a faculty generically the same as that of which the atheist admitted he was conscious. But no sooner have they thus triumphantly overthrown the atheist, than they turn round and assert that we must not reason about the intelligence of God as if it were the same in its essence as man's. They prove triumphantly that God has intelligence; and then, being afraid that they have made God too like man, they assert that it is not pure intelligence, but something like it.

The Bible does not hint that we are to understand the term knowledge, when applied to God, in any but its natural sense. It speaks about God's knowledge, and takes it for granted that we understand the meaning of the word-it assumes that we are to understand by it the act or energy, in our own consciousness, which we call by that name. If it do not mean this, but something altogether different, may we not believe that some other term would have been used? If the thing knowledge, in God, be generically different from the thing called knowledge in man, why not have different words for them?

We must beware, however, of ascribing to God's knowledge the narrow limits of our own. Though in its nature his intelligence is like ours, it must be infinitely different in degree. His knowledge must be positively infinite, for he has as an object of knowledge himself, and he is positively without beginning. His knowledge must include all that exists, for everything depends on him. And is it not true that all in his mind must ever be in his consciousness? In other words, must it not be the case that he has no unconscious retention? But while we deny limits, we must take care and not go too far in this direction, and deny those limits which are the essential qualities of knowledge. I have said, "those limits which are the essential qualities of knowledge," for there is a sense in which a quality is a limit. The quality of reason in man is a limit, inasmuch as it marks him off from the lower animals. So each essential element of the attribute of intelligence is a limit, because it marks it off from other attributes. We must, then, guard against denying to the knowledge of God limitation after limitation, or, what is the same thing, quality after quality, till we have made it no knowledge at all.

We have an example of this, have we not, in the philosopher who believes that God knows, while at the same time he denies that there is in his consciousness subject and object? This is surely to believe that God knows, and at the same time, to hold that he does not know; for the distinction between subject and object is an essential characteristic of know

ledge. Another example is found in the case of those who believe that God knows, while they deny that he knows any object mediately or representatively; for is it not manifest that without representative knowledge there can be no knowledge at all? This negative process, carried to extreme, might be illustrated by denying limitations or qualities to any other form of existence. Let us take, for example, a stone. It is our desire to affirm all perfection of it, and we do so by the way of negation. It has no weight; it has no colour; it has no limits; it has no resistance; it is a sublimated stone, free from all those common qualities. This is not only the method of negation, it is also the method of annihilation.

Let us, then, in reasoning about the foreknowledge of God, remember that it is knowledge, and not some figment of the imagination like knowledge of which we are reasoning. It is knowledge in relation to events that are future, and especially in relation to one class of future events, viz., contingent; for it will be assumed that there are real contingent events.

Having seen that God has the attribute of intelligence essentially the same as that of which man is conscious, I pass on to affirm that that intelligence is perfect. It must be so, for he is God. So far all true theists agree; but now comes the tug of war, for some hold that it is according to the nature of a Perfect Mind to know future contingent events, while others maintain the opposite. Let there be no mistake about the issue. It is not whether God has a perfect intellect, but whether a perfect intellect has the power of knowing, or being really certain, of future events which depend on the free will of free beings.

Before considering these opposing ideas, it is necessary that we look carefully at the truth which underlies both, viz., that there is a real future to God. "The idea," says Dr. Morison, "that God's existence is literally an eternal now, has always appeared to us a ridiculous scholastic notion." This is true. There is a real future, and, therefore, there must be a real future to God. There are past, present, and future events; and since God's knowledge is according to reality, they must be known to him as past, present, and future. To the conscious act of knowledge in his mind events stand in the relation of past, present, and future. To assert that they do not is to confound the events themselves with the ideas of them in the divine mind. The latter are always immediately present, the former are not. These are affirmations which I shall now try to establish; in other words, I shall endeavour to prove that events come into, and pass out of, the immediate knowledge or perception of God. This is assuming that there is a real distinction between the

immediate or presentative knowledge of an event, and the knowledge of it through a mental representation, as, for instance, between the past consciousness of a resolution which I may have formed yesterday and my present recollection of it.

To begin, then, it will be granted that all events are either become, becoming, or to become. This being so, they must be known by God under one or other of these categories. But admitting this, we get into the very heart of the question when we ask, "Has he an immediate cognition of the events under each of these three categories?" It is evident that he knows the events under the middle category immediately; but does he know those under the two extremes in the same way? Does he know the become, and the to become, only mediately or representatively? If so, there is to him a real past and future. This is manifest, for the principal distinction between an event in the present and the same event in the future or past is, that in the first case it is known in itself, or immediately, while in the other two cases it is known representatively. Events, then, are in the strictest sense past to an intellect the moment they pass out of immediate cognition. The crucial question then is, "Do events come into and pass out of the immediate knowledge of God? Or, in other words, has God an immediate knowledge of the become, and the to become, as well as of the becoming? Manifestly no. And that because the supposition involves a contradiction. For what is it to know an object immediately? It is to know it in itself. And it is plain that the events which are under the categories of the become, or the to become, cannot be known in themselves. To affirm that they can, is to affirm that events which do not actually exist can be known in themselves; and this is to affirm that events which do not exist, actually do exist. Since, then, God knows the becoming immediately, and all other events representatively, there is to him a past and future. Let me repeat, that those who assert that God has an immediate cognition of all events whatsoever, fail to distinguish between the events, and the ideal representation of them, in the Divine Mind. The ideal representations are ever present in consciousness; but the events themselves are not, and cannot be. His relation to those ideas never changes; but his relation to the events does change. His cognitive relation to an event which is still to be is not the same as it will be to that event when it is becoming. And this element of difference is of itself sufficient to convince us that past, present, and future events are not the same in their relation to God.

Having concluded that future events are really future to

God, we come to consider whether or not he can be really certain of them, and in order to this we must get a clear idea of the two opposing theories. First, let me state the superhuman conception. My reason for so designating it will appear before I am done. According to this theory, the fact of divine foreknowledge is an immediate or intuitive cognition of all future events whatsoever. "The knowledge of God," says Hodge, "is not only all comprehending, but it is intuitive and immutable." And Tappan says, "to a Being whose

knowledge fills duration, future, and past, events may be as immediately known as present." And again," whatsoever he knows, he knows by direct and infinite intuition." Now, a little consideration will show that the terms "immediate" and "intuitive" cannot be taken in a literal sense. It is not the case, if our previous speculations be correct, that whatever God knows he knows intuitively or immediately. Sir W. Hamilton says, "a thing is known immediately or proximately when we cognize it in itself. Immediate cognition, thus

the knowledge of a thing in itself, involves the fact of its existence." Now, future events are not yet in the category of fact, and therefore cannot be known immediately, or in themselves. But though this theory must, when speaking correctly, give up this word, it still asserts that God knows all future events with real or absolute certainty. But how can they be known? Only through a representation, or a subject-object. This is manifest. For since they are not known in themselves, if known at all, they must be known through a representation. Even those who say that in God, intelligere et facere idem est, must admit this, for the thought-created event is not identical with the event that is to be, and hence, at the best, can only be a representation of it. The representation is known in itself, the thing represented mediately. In the cognition of future events there may be discriminated two objects-the thing immediately known, and the coming event being numerically different. All that can rationally be meant, then, when it is said that God knows all future events intuitively, is that he knows them mediately, through a perfect representation of them in his mind. The exact ideal representation he knows intuitively, immediately, proximately; the thing represented mediately, remotely. To present a concrete view of it. A general has arranged to put his army through drill on a certain day. He has in his mind, we shall suppose, a perfect knowlege of all the movements through which they are to pass. The ideal evolutions are immediately known; but the actual evolutions are not so known till they are among the events which are under the category of becoming. So it must be, by

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