The aim of this paper is a critical analysis of Bocheński’s claim that it is obviously mistaken to hold that in the Thomist philosophical system, to which Bocheński subscribed for decades, divine action (providence) is incompatible with the freedom of the human will.Footnote 1 He labeled the thesis of incompatibility “a superficial misunderstanding.” In order to understand better why some critics and opponents of Thomism maintain the incompatibility thesis and to understand the reasons why Bocheński rejected it, we need to remember some major Thomist assumptions regarding divine nature and providence.

With much clarity and precision, Bocheński himself characterized the nature and attributes of God as follows:

Thomist theism promulgates that God is not only the supreme being and source of all other beings, but that He is the highest value, infinite Truth, Goodness, Beauty, Love, Knowledge; since in God there is no real difference between His essence and attributes. (Bocheński 1950: 37; translation D.Ł.)

Thus, Bocheński asserts the identity of the divine nature with the divine attributes and, when writing about His infinite Knowledge, he points to divine omniscience. Therefore, the above passage can be regarded as an account of divine simplicity. God’s cognition, in turn, is described in the following way:

Certainly, God is an intelligent being, but God’s intellect is not like the human intellect, which acquires knowledge by hard labor, by reasoning; intellect and being are the same in God; it is unchangeable, comprehends all in one infinite act of intuition. (Bocheński 1950: 38; translation D.Ł.)

Because God’s cognitive activity is intuitive, and not deductive or inferential, therefore it is not propositional, i.e. expressed by means of propositions and sentences.

God’s action in the world is characterized by Bocheński as follows:

Thomism teaches that the all-embracing action of the divine will does not sweep away the agency of created beings, their passing from potency into act according to their own nature. Thomism, in particular, claims that each movement of the human will need divine cooperation without which any human volition could never come into being. However, Thomism rejects some conclusions drawn from this by Calvinists and other determinists that God’s action wipes away the freedom of will as based on a superficial misunderstanding. (Bocheński 1950: 39; translation D.Ł.)

Policki, one of Bocheński’s students, also underlines that for Bocheński the incompatibility of divine providence, omniscience and omnipotence with the freedom of human will was simply a non-existent, pseudo-problem (Policki 2005: 205). But are these commentators right in their disregard of the issue?

In order to answer the above question, one should take a look at the arguments put forth by those who regard Thomism as a theological fatalism or determinism (Hasker 1989; Helm 2001). Let us consider two of them. The first is based on the view that divine omniscience (foreknowledge) concerning human future volitions and actions is incompatible with the freedom of those volitions and actions, whereas the second argument for theological fatalism (theological determinism) concerns the doctrine of divine simplicity and the theory of time adopted by Thomism. The first argument can be formulated as follows:

$$ \begin{array}{*{20}c} {\left( { 1 {\text{TF}}} \right){\text{ L }}\left( {{\text{God believed that}}\,p \to p} \right)} \hfill & {\text{Supposition of Infallible Foreknowledge}} \hfill \\ {\left( { 2 {\text{TF}}} \right){\text{ L}}_{\text{a}} \left ( {{\text{God believed that}}\,p} \right)} \hfill & {\text{Principle of Necessity of the Past}} \hfill \\ {\left( { 3 {\text{TF}}} \right){\text{ L}}_{\text{a}} p.} \hfill & {{\text{Transfer of Necessity Principle}} \, \left( { 1 {\text{TF}},{\text{ 2TF}}} \right)} \hfill \\ \end{array} $$

where L stands for the logical necessity, La signifies the necessity of the past (called by William Ockham necessity per accidens), and p stands for a proposition describing human free volition or action. In order to formulate this argument, one must accept the following set of assumptions:

  1. (a)

    the supposition of Infallible Divine Foreknowledge and temporality of God’s being, present in the first premise of the argument above (1TF): L(God believed that p → p). Since God believed that p, He must exist in time. Importantly, the premise also requires that God have beliefs; therefore, His knowledge is, or at least can be, propositional.

  2. (b)

    the Transfer of Necessity Principle: L(α → β), Laα, ⊢ Laβ. The intuition supporting this principle is that a necessity weaker than logical necessity can be transferred by strict implication from the antecedent to the consequent of the conditional (Zagzebski 1991: 7).Footnote 2

  3. (c)

    the assumption of the necessity of the past, or the necessity per accidens, which has its roots in a common intuition of the asymmetry of time. It could be expressed in Aristotelian terms by saying that the past has been actualized, but the future exists merely in potency, or, in other words, the past is already settled and cannot be different than it was, but the future is still “open.”

  4. (d)

    the assumption of incompatibility and alternative possibilities, which says that freedom of will is incompatible with determinism and consists in choosing among alternative options (i.e. it was possible for someone to choose and to act otherwise than s/he chose and acted). Thus, incompatibility presupposes the principle of alternative possibilities; if there are no alternative options for the will, then the will cannot be free.

Generally speaking, the argument for theological fatalism claims that if God believed that p would happen, prior to the occurrence of p, then p has to happen, which means that p is necessary. If p is necessary, then it is incompatible with freedom, because freedom of will and necessity preclude each other. Therefore, divine (fore-)knowledge determines human volitions and actions.

Let us remember, however, that this conclusion was considered by Bocheński “a superficial misunderstanding.” Regrettably, he did not address the very issue in detail, so we lack any justification for his categorical rejection of the deterministic interpretation of Thomism. There are, however, some hints as to how that justification might look. In Kazania i przemówienia, Bocheński stresses that it is not right to conceive divine knowledge and will in an anthropomorphic way (2000: 102–103). However, the argument for theological fatalism we are dealing with is clearly based on anthropomorphic assumptions: first, that God exists in time and, second, that divine knowledge is propositional (expressed in propositions). Both these assumptions should, therefore, be rejected. In Bocheński’s description of the Thomist doctrine, it is made explicit that God is identical with His nature and His nature is identical with His attributes. Both these theses mean that God is simple. Next, from the thesis of divine simplicity it follows that God is timeless. Therefore, the premise of the argument for theological fatalism saying that ‘God believed that p’ is false. Moreover, as mentioned before, God’s cognition is intuitive and happens in one act, without any propositional entities (beliefs or propositions). The fact that divine knowledge is not propositional can be easily explained when we take into account the simplicity doctrine. If God is simple, His knowledge cannot be built of many bits of propositional knowledge—it cannot be compositional and inferential. Thus, the “superficial misunderstanding” that Bocheński had in mind could depend on how God’s knowledge is conceived. God does not know the world and everything else like humans do because He is radically transcendent in relation to all created beings, and His transcendence is accounted for by His simplicity.Footnote 3

This refutation of theological fatalism requires, however, some further clarification. In his Logic of Religion, Bocheński rejects both the ineffability thesis, which states that it is not possible to say anything about God, and negative theology claiming that it is possible to say only what God is not (Bocheński 1965).Footnote 4 On the other hand, the refutation of theological fatalism suggested above is based on a kind of negative theology, because it is assumed that God’s knowledge is not like human knowledge, and the word to know means something quite different when applied to God. Therefore, the question arises whether the foregoing rebuttal of fatalism is coherent with Bocheński’s other views. One could perhaps try to solve this problem by resorting to the Thomist theory of analogy: divine knowledge, though not exactly the same as human knowledge, could be conceived as to some extent analogous to the latter; not completely different. This means, however, that God’s knowledge is considered to be sufficiently different (from ours) to refute the argument for theological fatalism, but similar enough to coherently reject the claims of negative theology; the solution does not appear to to be very compelling.

There is another problem with the refutation of fatalism suggested above. Even though divine cognition is indeed intuitive and non-propositional, it is necessary that God have propositional knowledge as well. Because divine knowledge is infinite, as mentioned at the beginning of the paper, it must also contain such entities as all propositions formulated or expressible in human languages, their logical values as well as the justifications for holding them true. Therefore, we are allowed to say that God knows, for example, the proposition “Daniel Jones will mow the loan on 30 August 2020” because He knows all entities. So it may be true that God does not acquire knowledge about the world by propositions, but it must be true that He knows all true propositions and knows which propositions are false. Therefore, we are allowed to say that God knows that p or that God believes timelessly that p. Now, if we take into account both the nature of divine knowledge and divine simplicity, which is the reason for the timelessness of God, we can formulate the argument for theological fatalism in an atemporal version (Zagzebski 1991: 61). It proceeds as follows:

$$ \begin{array}{*{20}c} {\left( { 1 {\text{TFA}}} \right){\text{ L }}\left( {{\text{God believes}}_{\text{timelessly}}\,{\text{that}}\,p \to p} \right)} \hfill & {\text{Supposition of Infallible Divine Omniscience}} \hfill \\ {\left( { 2 {\text{TFA}}} \right){\text{ L}}_{\text{at}} \left( {{\text{God believes}}_{\text{timelessly}} \,{\text{that}}\,p} \right)} \hfill & {\text{Principle of Necessity of Eternity}} \hfill \\ {\left( { 3 {\text{TFA}}} \right){\text{ L}}_{\text{at}}\,p.} \hfill & {{\text{Transfer of Necessity Principle}} \, \left( { 1 {\text{TFA}},{\text{ 2TFA}}} \right).} \hfill \\ \end{array} $$

In this argument the necessity of the past has been replaced by the necessity of eternity (Lat). The main idea here is that since it is not possible to change the past (what has been done cannot be undone because we do not have any causal access to the past), then by analogy it is not possible to have any access to eternity. Thus, if God eternally knows that Daniel Jones will mow the loan on 30 August 2020, Daniel Jones cannot do otherwise than mow the loan on 30 August 2020. But if he cannot do otherwise, he is not free with regard to his mowing the loan on that day.

The above argument for theological fatalism can be even stronger if we consider together the two basic tenets of the Thomist theism: the simplicity doctrine and the metaphysics of time defended by Aquinas and his followers. Thus, if God is simple, then He causes—within His omnipotence—all that He knows and all that He loves (Bocheński states clearly that God is Power and Love). It follows from God’s simplicity that all His attributes are identical to each other. Next, Thomism subscribes to the so-called A-theory of time, called “presentism” (Cf. Leftow 2012: 181). According to that theory, everything that exists, exists now—as present. The past does not exist, neither does the future. Such a view on the nature of time raises the question of how God knows future events if there is no future but the present only. Here we have come to the Thomist conception of divine (fore-)knowledge, which is linked closely to the Boethian approach to divine omniscience. It is worth quoting at this point what Boethius himself wrote about divine knowledge and providence:

Since, then, all judgment comprehends those things presented to it according to its own nature, and since the state of God is ever that of eternal presence, His knowledge transcends all temporal change and abides in the immediacy of His presence. It embraces the infinite sweep of past and future, and views all things in the immediacy of its knowing as though they are happening in the present. (Boethius 2001: Consolation of Philosophy Book V, Prose VI)

Boethius appears to suggest here a visual model of divine knowledge: God knows all past and future events as given to Him in one timeless act of perceiving all temporal beings. So God knows the future “as though” it were given to Him as present and existent. But in another passage of his Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius writes:

And God possesses this present instant of comprehension and sight of all things not from the issuing of future events but from his own simplicity… it is not right that our future actions should be said to provide the cause of the knowledge of God. For the nature of His knowledge as we have described it, embracing all things in a present act of knowing, establishes a measure for everything, but owes nothing to later events. (Boethius 2001: Consolation of Philosophy Book V, Prose VI)

Boethius is quite explicit here that it is not future events that cause God’s knowledge thereof, but God’s knowledge is the cause of future events. In other words, divine knowledge has a causal nature and it cannot be otherwise since God is simple; His knowledge is identical to His power and His will, i.e. to His providence. Also, God knows future events because He knows himself, his own essence.

Given divine simplicity, the only alternative to the causal model of God’s knowledge could be the visual model of divine knowledge. This model, however, is possible only in a system in which a different theory of time, the so-called ‘four-dimensionalism’ (B-theory), is accepted. According to that theory, at every moment of time t, all events past, present, and future relative to t are equally real (Zagzebski 1991: 46). But since Thomas Aquinas (and his followers likewise) clearly opts for presentism (A-theory)—most probably because this theory is closer to our human experience of the passage of timeFootnote 5—therefore, the only solution is that God knows future events because He knows himself, His own will and power. Hence, divine knowledge has a causal nature and causal power.Footnote 6

This allows us to formulate the argument for theological fatalism based on divine simplicity and divine knowledge (understood causally and timelessly). The argument goes on as follows:

$$ \begin{array}{*{20}c} {\left( { 1 {\text{TFC}}} \right){\text{ L }}\left( {{\text{God believes}}_{\text{timelessly}} \,{\text{that}}\,p \to p} \right)} \hfill & {\text{Supposition of Infallible Divine Omniscience}} \hfill \\ {\left( { 2 {\text{TFC}}} \right){\text{ L}}_{\text{c}}\,\left( {{\text{God believes}}_{\text{timelessly}}\, {\text{that}}\,p} \right)} \hfill & {\text{Supposition of Causality of Divine Knowledge}} \hfill \\ {\left( { 3 {\text{TFA}}} \right){\text{ L}}_{\text{c}}\,p.} \hfill & {{\text{Transfer of Necessity Principle}} \, \left( { 1 {\text{TFC}},{\text{ 2TFC}}} \right)} \hfill \\ \end{array} $$

where Lc stands for divine causal necessity.

The truthfulness of premise (2TFC) can be defended by resorting to divine simplicity in the following way. Given divine simplicity, the divine attributes are identical to one another and they are identical to the divine essence. Thus, since God believes that p (divine omniscience), then God wills p (divine will) and God causes p (divine omnipotence), and therefore: God believes that p = God causes p. Now, since God is a necessary being, divine essence cannot be different than it is, hence it is causally necessary that God (timelessly) believes that p (God causes His own nature to be as it is).Footnote 7

Taking into account all the principles of Thomist theism we have discussed so far it seems that rebutting theological fatalism (determinism) may be rather difficult. The claim that Thomism does entail a sort of determinism is well-grounded and cannot be simply brushed away as “a superficial misunderstanding”; it results from the fundamental assumptions regarding divine nature and the Thomist metaphysics of time.

Bocheński could perhaps respond that there is a mistake in the above reasoning consisting in the way we grasp divine causality and the freedom of human will. Let us remember, he characterized the relation between the two by saying that “each movement of the human will needs divine cooperation without which any human volition could never come into being.” The crucial point is that the divine causal agency consists in creating a human volition (willing x or y) and sustaining it in being.Footnote 8 Unfortunately, neither in Aquinas’s writings nor in Bocheński’s texts do we find any philosophical explanation of why a free act of human will is directly caused (created) by God—there is only a very general theological claim that God is the first cause of all beings and controls the world as its Creator and Lord in every minute detail.Footnote 9

A more philosophical explanation could run in the following way: given that it is not God who causes human volitions, it is either agent S who causes an act of will A or A causes itself. If the first option is the case, then we run into a vicious regress because the question arises: why does S have the act of will A? The answer to this question is: S has A because A exists in agent S; e.g. Peter decides to attend a concert because there exists in him a decision to attend a concert, and the decision to attend a concert exists in him, because Peter wills to attend a concert. The second option, in turn, is inconsistent with the principle of sufficient reason since there is no cause of A prior to A’s happening. There is no cause of A since A causes itself and, at the time when A already exists, no cause of A is needed. Furthermore, in the latter case, the agent has no control over her will since she is not the cause of her own volitions and what she wills does not depend upon her (McCann 2005: 30–31).

If we assume that it is God who causes human volitions and He does so without undermining the freedom of will, then we can cope better with the “intelligibility question,” i.e. the problem of rationality and responsibility of human agents.Footnote 10 However, this conception of how divine agency works and relates to human will inclines the opponents of Thomism to the claim that “divine action wipes away the freedom of will” (Craig 2011: 91; Rogers 2008: 101).

Thus, we have two contradictory approaches to the problem of the freedom of will: on the one hand, the Thomist view that God is the source of human freedom, and, on the other hand, the position of determinism (fatalism) that divine agency is incompatible with the freedom of will. Why do the opponents of Thomism maintain the latter view? Is it unavoidable that divine agency undermines creaturely freedom? According to the incompatibilists, if God creates and thereby causes human volitions, for example, Peter’s volition to attend a concert tonight, then Peter has no other option but to attend a concert tonight. Well, he is free in that he wills to attend a concert tonight and no external factor forces or determines him to do this. But the very act of his will as created by God could not be different than it is, because it is the divine will and power which brings Peter’s volition into being—this is how the adherents of libertarianism argue. Therefore, freedom of will is incompatible with determinism of any sort. Thomism, in contrast, adopts a compatibilist position since it holds that divine causation and creaturely freedom are compatible.Footnote 11 The essential point is that Thomism rejects the principle of alternative possibilities, which states that freedom requires the possibility of choice between at least two options.

Summing up, libertarians can defend the argument for theological fatalism based on divine omniscience conceived in a causal way. From this point of view, their deterministic interpretation of Thomism is not “a superficial misunderstanding” as Bocheński firmly claimed, but it is deeply rooted in our moral and metaphysical intuitions (such as that freedom requires both alternative possibilities and spontaneity of action). Thomists, on the other hand, can refute the arguments for fatalism by rejecting the libertarian concept of freedom based on the principle of alternative possibilities.Footnote 12 Therefore, the Thomist theism, to which Bocheński long subscribed, is not logically inconsistent, at least with respect to the problem of divine agency and human freedom, and it can be defended providing that the compatibilist conception of freedom is accepted. This view on freedom is, in fact, supported by the principle of sufficient reason stating that for whatever exists there must be a reason or cause of its existence.

However, once we accept Thomist compatibilism, there arises a bigger problem of the responsibility for sin. If God creates all human acts of will, then He is responsible for all sins and evil caused by human volitions and actions.Footnote 13 As far as responsibility for sin and evil is concerned, there are, generally speaking, three possibilities: it is either God who is responsible for them, or man, or there are no sins and no evil in the world. The third possibility, i.e. the non-existence of sin and evil, is incompatible with Thomism and with the Christian doctrine in general. Hence, two options remain: it is either God or man who is to be held responsible. God’s responsibility for sin and evil would contradict His Goodness and Love, and if man is responsible, then this can be true only in a secondary sense, since it is God who creates human volitions and sustains them in being.Footnote 14

This is a problem to which Thomists usually respond in two ways. First, they argue that, although it is true that God is the Creator and sustainer of all human volitions, it is the human agent who wills something on its own (McCann and Hugh 2012). The second response is that it is God indeed who creates human volitions causing sin and evil events, but this is a means leading to some greater good intended by God in His divine plan (Stump 2012: 405). Let us quote Bocheński at this point:

Von diesem Standpunkte aus erscheint die ganze Weltgeschichte als die Verwirklichung eines ewigen, frei gesetzten Planes Gottes. Damit wird klar, dass das Weltgeschechen ein Ziel hat. (Bocheński 1951: 250–251)

Naturally, such arguments raise further questions and doubts concerning mainly the problems of evil and theodicy, so much debated in the contemporary philosophy of religion. However, these are beyond the scope of the present paper. Our aim has been to show that, contrary to what Bocheński claimed, the critique of Aquinas’s doctrine of divine providence by determinists is not “a superficial misunderstanding” but a well-founded view and follows from the fundamental principles of this doctrine. But it is also worthy of note that Bocheński’s belief in the internal, logical consistency of Thomism, at least in regard to divine providence and creaturely freedom, was not unwarranted, as the discussion in the contemporary philosophy of religion demonstrates. The source of the controversy lies in the intuitions we decide to accept in our philosophizing.