As Alexander Pruss has observed (Pruss 2009), the Grim Reaper paradox suggests not only that no finite time period can be divided into infinitely many sub-periods but also that it is impossible that there should exist infinitely many time periods, all of which are earlier than some event. It seems to provide grounds for thinking that time must be bounded at the beginning: that there must be a first period of time. If not, we could simply construct a new version of the Grim Placer paradox. As in the original version, we postulate the possibility of a Grim Placer, who creates a particle and places it at a designated spot, if and only if no particle is already located at a spot corresponding to any earlier Placer. In this version, Placer 1 is set to act at the first moment of 1 B.C., Placer 2 at the first moment of 2 B.C., and so on ad infinitum. Once again we can generate the contradiction: some particle must be placed within d meters of the plane, but there is no finite distance from the plane such that a particle could have been placed there.
 
Let us try to be more explicit about the premises needed to generate the paradox. First of all, we must assume that a single, isolated Grim Placer scenario is metaphysically possible:
 
P1. Possible Grim Placer (PGR). There are  numbers d and m such that for every positive integer n there is a possible world W and a region R such that R has a finite temporal duration d seconds, there is a Grim Placer wholly contained within R, and throughout R the Grim Placer has the power and disposition to create a “Fred” particle and place it at a designated position m/2^n  meters from the plane P if there is no unique particle located at m/2^i meters from P for some i >n (eliminating all other particles located within m meters of P, if there are more than one), and otherwise to maintain the unique Fred particle that is located at m/2^i meters from P in its initial position.
 
Secondly, we appeal to some version of David Lewis’s Patchwork Principles (Lewis 1983, 76-7). Much, if not most, of our knowledge of possibility is based on patchwork principles, since we have little direct access to alternative possibilities. Instead, we have to rely on our direct knowledge of the actual world, as well as the license to cut-and-paste or recombine various regions of the actual world into a new arrangement.
 
Binary Spatiotemporal Patchwork. If possible world W1 includes spatiotemporal region R1, possible world W2 includes region R2, and possible world W3 includes R3, and R1 and R2 can be mapped onto non-overlapping parts of R3 (R3.1 and R3.2) while preserving all the metrical and topological properties of the three regions, then there is a world W4 and region R4 such that R3 and R4 are isomorphic, the part of W4 within R4.1 exactly duplicates the part of W1 within R1, and the part of W4 within R4.2 exactly duplicates the part of W2 within R2.
 
Following Lewis, I will assume that ‘intrinsicality’ and ‘exact duplication’ are inter-definable:
 
Definition of Intrinsicality: a property P is intrinsic to a thing x within region R in world W if and only if x is P throughout R in W, and every counterpart of x in any region R’ of world W’ whose contents exactly duplicate the contents of R in W also has P throughout R’.
 
Binary Spatiotemporal Patchwork licenses recombining region R1 from world W1 with region R2 from world W2 in any way that respects the metrical and topological properties of the two regions, so long as there is enough “room” in spacetime as a whole to fit the two regions in non-overlapping locations (as witnessed by the two regions R3.1 and R3.2 in world W2). The Binary Patchwork principle can plausibly be generalized to the case of infinite recombinations:
 
P2. Infinite Spatiotemporal Patchwork (PInfSP). If S is a countable series of possible worlds, and T a series of regions within those worlds such that Ti is part of Wi (for each i), and f is a metric and topology structure-preserving function from T into the set of spatiotemporal regions of world W such that no two values of f overlap, then there is a possible world W* and an isomorphism f* from the spatiotemporal regions of W to the spatiotemporal regions of W* such that the part of each world Wi within the region Ri exactly resembles the part of W* within region f*(f(Ri)).
 
In order to apply the Patchwork principles to Benardete's story, we must assume that the relevant powers and dispositions are intrinsic to the things that have them when they have them. Otherwise, we cannot assume that the joint possibility of an infinite number of Grim Placer scenarios follows from the possibility of a single scenario, taken in isolation.
 
Intrinsicality of the Grim Placers’ Powers and Dispositions (PDIn). The powers and dispositions ascribed to each Grim Placer are properties intrinsic to that Placer in its corresponding region and world.
 
Our hypothesis for the reductio will be the possible existence of a world with an entity that has an infinite past:
 
HIP. Hypothesis of the Possibility of an Infinite Past. There exists a possible world W´ and a spatiotemporal region R´ in W´ such that R´ has infinitely many temporally extended parts such that these parts can be put into a sequence (ordered by the natural numbers) in which each successive part in the sequence is within the backward time cone of its predecessor, and each part is large enough to contain a Grim Placer.
 
1. Start with a possible Grim Placer in world W and region R, with finite duration d. (From PGP, the Possibility of Grim Placer)
2. Next, locate a world W' with a region R' containing a non-well-founded infinite series of non-overlapping temporal parts, each of duration d and each in the backward time cone of its predecessor. (Assumption of HPIF, for reductio)
3. Find a single possible world W* with region R* containing a non-well-founded infinite series of non-overlapping temporal parts (R1, R2, etc.), with each Ri containing a counterpart of the Grim Placer. (From 1, 2, and Infinite Spatiotemporal Patchwork)
4. Assume that, in world W*, there is after period R1 no particle located at any distance m/2^n from P, for any n > 0. (Assumption for second reductio)
5. Therefore, there is after period R2 no particle located at any distance m/2^n, for any n > 1. (From 4)
6. Grim Placer #1 in period R1 in world W* placed a Fred particle at distance m/2 from P. (From 5, and the Possibility of Grim Placer)
8. Contradiction (4 and 6). So, after R1 in W*, there is some particle located at some distance m/2^n from P, for some n > 0. 
9. Therefore, no particle is located any distance m/2^j from the plane P, for any j > n. (From 8, the Possibility of the Grim Placer)
10. Therefore, no particle is located any distance m/2^j from the plane P, for any j > n+1. (From 9)
11. Therefore, Grim Reaper n + 1 placed a particle at distance m/2^(n+1) from P. (From 10, and the Possibility of the Grim Placer).
12. Contradiction (9 and 11).
13. So, there is no possible world containing a non-well-founded infinite series of non-overlapping temporal parts, each of duration d0 and each in the backward time cone of its predecessor. (Negation of HPIF)
 
From the conclusion of this argument (step 12), we can deduce premise P3:
 
P3. Every non-eternal thing began to exist at some point in time (since the past of each non-eternal thing is finite in length).
 
If any temporal thing had an infinitely long past, then that past would include an infinite series of non-overlapping periods of length d seconds, all in the past light cone of the current state of the thing in question, in contradiction to step 12. Thus, to reach the conclusion of an eternal first cause, we need only add the assumption of causal finitism. In the next section, I will argue that the Grim Placer paradox can be generalized into an argument for causal finitism.

In Jose Benardete’s paradox, we are to suppose that there is an infinite number of Grim Reaper mechanisms, each of which is engineered to do two things: first, to check whether the victim, Fred, is still alive at the Grim Reaper’s appointed time, and, second, if he is still alive, to kill him instantaneously, and, if he is already dead at the appointed time, to do nothing. The last Grim Reaper (Reaper 1) performs this dual task at exactly one minute after noon. The next-to-last Reaper, Reaper 2, is appointed to perform the task at exactly one-half minute after noon. In general, each Reaper number n is assigned the moment 1/2^(n-1) minutes after noon. There is no first Reaper: for each Reaper n, there are infinitely many Reapers who are assigned moments of time earlier than Reaper n’s appointment.
 
It is certain that Fred does not survive the ordeal. In order to survive the whole ordeal, he must still be alive after one minute after twelve, but, we have stipulated that, if he survives until 12:01 p.m., then Reaper 1 will kill him. We can also prove that Fred will not survive until 12:01, since in order to do so, he must be alive at 30 seconds after 12, in which case Reaper 2 will have killed him.  In the same way, we can prove that Fred cannot survive until 1/2^(n-1) minutes after 12, for every n. Thus, no Grim Reaper can have the opportunity to kill Fred. Thus, it is impossible that Fred survive, and also impossible that any Reaper kill him! However, it seems also to be impossible for Fred to die with certainty and yet to do so without any cause.
 
The original Grim Reaper paradox requires some assumption about causality: that Fred cannot die unless someone or something kills him. I would like to eliminate that dependency. Consider the following variation: the Grim Placer. In place of asking whether a pre-existing victim Fred is dead or alive, we will focus instead on the question of whether or some Grim Placer has issued a death warrant. Let’s say that each Grim Placer #n can issue a death warrant by placing a particular kind of point-sized particle in a designated position, at exactly the distance of d/2^n meters from a plane P. Each Grim Placer #n checks to see if a particle is already at a distance of d/2^i  meters from plane P, for some i > n: that is, he checks to see if any earlier Placer has issued a “warrant”. If a particle has already been placed in one of the designated spots, then the Grim Placer #n does nothing, other than maintaining the status quo.
 
If there is no particle in an appropriate location, then the Grim Placer #n issues his warrant, placing a particle exactly d/2^n meters from P. We can now prove both that at 12:01 that some particle is located within d meters of the plane, and that no particle is located there. Suppose that there is no particle at any location d/2^i meters from plane P, for any i. This is impossible, since if there were no particle d/4 meters from P, then Grim Placer #1 would place a particle in the position d/2 meters from P.
 
Thus, there must at 12:01 pm be some particle in an appropriate position. Suppose that the particle is located at that time in position d/2^n meters from P, for some n. This means that every Grim Placer whose number is greater than n did nothing, contrary to our hypothesis. Thus, this option is also impossible.

​As Alexander Pruss has observed (Pruss 2009), the Grim Reaper paradox suggests not only that no finite time period can be divided into infinitely many sub-periods but also that it is impossible that there should exist infinitely many time periods, all of which are earlier than some event. It seems to provide grounds for thinking that time must be bounded at the beginning: that there must be a first period of time. If not, we could simply construct a new version of the Grim Placer paradox. As in the original version, we postulate the possibility of a Grim Placer, who creates a particle and places it at a designated spot, if and only if no particle is already located at a spot corresponding to any earlier Placer. In this version, Placer 1 is set to act at the first moment of 1 B.C., Placer 2 at the first moment of 2 B.C., and so on ad infinitum. Once again we can generate the contradiction: some particle must be placed within d meters of the plane, but there is no finite distance from the plane such that a particle could have been placed there.

Here again is my Pruss-inspired version of the Kalam argument, relying on causal finitism:

P1. Every event has a finite causal history (no causal loops or infinite regresses).
P2. For everything that begins to exist (at some point in time), the event of its beginning to exist must have a cause.
P3. Every non-eternal thing began to exist at some point in time (since the past of each non-eternal thing is finite in length).
P4. If the yy cause the xx to begin to exist at t, then the yy exist at t or at some time earlier than t or eternally. 
Therefore, every non-eternal thing is ultimately caused to exist by some eternal (godlike) thing.

There is, however, a problem with premise P3. Causal finitism alone does not seem to give us a finite past, not even a finite history for a given thing. 

​Suppose that we have a thing x that exists in time and suppose that causal finitism is true. This means that each event in the history of x must have a finite causal history. Is this enough to entail that x must have begun to exist at some point in the past? Couldn’t the history of x begin with an event or state that is infinitely extended in the past direction? Let’s call such an initial state a simple infinitely long past state or SILPS.
 
We can refute the possibility of a SILPS by posing a dilemma: either time itself has an intrinsic measure (in which sense time can pass in the absence of change) or it does not. If time does not have an intrinsic measure, and the initial state of x is a simple state, without discrete parts, then that state cannot have any temporal duration, much less an infinite duration (since there are, ex hypothesi, no changes concurrent with this state by which time could be extrinsically measured). Hence, we must suppose that time itself has an intrinsic measure.
 
However, this is also inconsistent with a SILPS, since if time has an intrinsic measure, then any extended period of time has discrete proper parts corresponding to the measurable proper parts of that period of time. If an event or state has a duration corresponding to that extended period, then it too must have temporal parts corresponding to the proper parts of the period of time. Thus, the state is not simple or “uneventful” after all. This is a strong argument, although it will not persuade those who think that extended simples (like extended Democritean atoms) are metaphysically possible.
 
Here is a version of the argument without the assumption of a finite past (P3):
 
P1. Every event has a finite causal history (no causal loops or infinite regresses).
P2. For everything that begins to exist, the event of its beginning to exist must have a cause.
P3.1. If something has existed for an infinite period of time, then it must have an infinite causal history (because a simple infinitely long past state is impossible).
Therefore, every non-eternal thing is ultimately caused to exist by some eternal (godlike) thing.
 
Since my argument for P3.1 is less than ironclad, I will argue in future posts both for causal finitism and for the finitude of the past of each temporal thing. This provides support for both arguments: the original argument (which depends on both causal finitism and the finite duration of the past) and the revised argument (which depends on causal finitism and the impossibility of SILPS).

The Kalam argument for God’s existence, which was pioneered by John Philoponus (490-570), developed by Islamic philosophers such as al-Kindi and al-Ghazali, and championed in recent years by William Lane Craig (Craig 1979) and by me (Koons 2014), is an attempt to prove that the universe must have had a cause, a role which God seems best suited to fit. The argument typically takes the following form:
 
1. Whatever begins to exist must have a cause.
2. The universe began to exist, because time itself is bounded in the past.
Therefore, the universe had a cause.
 
The first premise has a great deal of intuitive appeal, and there are severe epistemological costs to countenancing the idea of uncaused origins. For instance, the skeptical scenario popularized by Bertrand Russell—How do we know that the universe didn’t simply appear 5 minutes ago?—would be a live possibility in the absence of an a priori causal principle similar to premise 1. So, let’s focus on premise 2.

The typical Kalam strategy for defending premise 2 is to argue that time past is not eternal, that is, that there is some finite temporal bound to all past events. Now, it is not immediately obvious that a finite bound to the past entails that the “universe” began to exist. First, it is not obvious that there is such a thing as the universe: perhaps the plurality of things that exist at a time t do not compose a single whole at t. We might try to avoid this composition question by modifying premise 2 into 2.1:
 
2.1 There is a time t such that everything existing at t began to exist at t, and nothing existed at any time prior to t.
 
In order to get the desired conclusion, we would also have to modify premise 1 as follows:
 
1.1 If some things xx began to exist at time t, then there must be some thing y or things yy not among the xx such that y (or the yy) caused the xx to begin to exist at t. (I am using double letters as plural variables, following George Boolos’s plural quantification (Boolos 1984). One should read ‘yy’ as ‘the y’s (plural)’.)
 
We will also have to rule out the possibility that the things coming into existence at the first moment of time might have been caused by things existing at later times:
 
3. If the yy cause the xx to exist at t, then the yy exist at t or at some time earlier than t or eternally.

Form 1.1, 2.1, and 3, we can reach the conclusion that something that exists eternally caused the beginning-to-exist of all the things that existed at the first moment of time (if there is such a first moment).
 
There is, however, a further lacuna to fill: from the fact that the past is finite in extent or duration, it does not follow that there is a first moment of time. For example, it could be that no event occurs 14 billion or more years ago, but for every length of time L years less than 14 billion years, there are events that occurred exactly L years ago. That is, there might be a finite bound on the past, with past moments that approach arbitrarily close to that boundary, but no moment that reaches it, i.e., no absolutely first moment. (Think of the set of positive real numbers, which approach arbitrarily close to zero without actually including it.)

Instead of looking for proof of the finitude of the past, we should look instead for support of what Alexander Pruss (2016) has called causal finitism. If we can show that every event has a finite causal history (i.e., no causal loops and no causal infinite regresses), then we can infer that there are uncaused events. If we can further assume that everything that begins to exist at a time must have a cause and that every non-eternal or fully temporal thing must have begun to exist at some time (because the past is finite), then we can conclude that all uncaused things must be eternal in nature (i.e., existing “outside” or “beyond” time itself). At that point, we might be able to show that such an eternal cause of temporal events must be relevantly godlike.
 
Here is a version of this Pruss-inspired argument:
 
P1. Every event has a finite causal history (no causal loops or infinite regresses).
P2. For everything that begins to exist (at some point in time), the event of its beginning to exist must have a cause.
P3. Every non-eternal thing began to exist at some point in time (since the past of each non-eternal thing is finite in length).
P4. If the yy cause the xx to begin to exist at t, then the yy exist at t or at some time earlier than t or eternally. [Premise 3 above]
Therefore, every non-eternal thing is ultimately caused to exist by some eternal (godlike) thing.

This proof assumes (in premise 3) that, for anything that begins to exist, there is a first moment of its existence. That seems pretty reasonable. In addition, one could probably derive this from causal finitism. Suppose, for contradiction, that some x has a finite past but no first moment of existence. Then it seems that there must an infinite regress of periods of x's existence, each caused by its predecessor, in contradiction to the principle of causal finitism.

But suppose one doesn't buy either of these moves. Then there would have to be a single initial period P of x's existence, a period which lacks a first instant. In that case, premises P2 and P4 (suitably modified) would entail that there must be some cause of x's beginning to exist, a cause that is either timeless or active at a time t that is prior to and adjacent to period P. And so the proof will go through.

The proof is pretty simple. Suppose x is some non-eternal thing. By P2 it begins to exist, and by P3 its beginning to exist must have a cause. By P4, this cause must either exist eternally or at the same or earlier time than that of the beginning of x's existence. If the cause is an eternal being, we're done. If the cause is a non-eternal being, then it must have a beginning of its existence. Premise P1 rules out an infinite regress of temporal causes. So, there must be an eternal cause.

Summa Theologiae I-II, Q112, a2, and SCG III 160-162
 
Is preparation for grace required on man’s part? This is one of the rare articles in which Thomas answers both Yes and No. Grace can be understood in either of two ways: as the habitual gift of God (i.e., the infused virtues of faith, hope, and charity) or as supernatural help from God in general—i.e., any movement of the human soul toward the good. For grace in the first sense, some preparation is required, since the “forms” of the supernatural virtues can only come into “matter” that is suitably prepared for them. Thomas has in mind some act of consent on the part of the human being toward receiving grace, since God does not infuse the supernatural virtues into someone against his will.

In the second sense, no preparation is possible, since no movement of the soul toward God can occur without God’s help. Even the act of free-will by which we consent to the reception of the supernatural virtues is something worked in us by God.
 
Article 3. Is grace necessarily given to everyone who prepares for it?

Yes, but only because of God’s infallible concordance with His own decrees. Thomas considers an argument (in objection 3) based on Dionysius’s principle that good is naturally self-diffusive. Since grace is a higher good than any good of nature, it should be supremely self-diffusive, and so it should “automatically” flow into anyone whose heart is suitably prepared for it. In response, Thomas points out that the diffusion of good requires the action of an agent—a suitably prepared piece of matter is not automatically elevated to a higher state. And, since God is the agent and God acts freely in creating, the diffusion of grace depends on His free decrees. The self-diffusiveness of good does not require that God give every good to every possible creature.
 
Article 4: Is grace greater in one than in another?
 
Grace can be measured in two ways: in terms of the good to which it directs us, and in terms of the degree to which we receive the influence of the direction (subjectively). All grace is equal in the first sense, since it orders all to the supreme good of the beatific vision. In the second respect, grace can vary from person to person. The better one has prepared oneself for grace, the greater its influence in one’s life. But this too depends on the degree to which we are helped by God to prepare ourselves for grace. Hence, the fundamental source of inequality lies in God’s free choice.

This is a revised version of my argument in this earlier blog:

If God is a necessary a being and uncaused, then He must lack all passive potentiality. Whatever intrinsic properties He has (qua God), He must have necessarily. Here's the argument.

First, I will need the concept of a logical moment. If agent A causes some effect E, then we can identify two logical moments, even if the action and the effect are temporally simultaneous. If agent A causes E, then agent A acts at one logical moment M1, and the effect is first in actuality at a posterior moment M2. The relation of priority/posteriority between logical moments is transitive and asymmetric. No logical moment is prior to itself, and no moment is prior to any moment that is prior to it.
 
We have proven that there are absolutely uncaused facts. These facts must belong to logical moments that are absolutely primal—i.e., logical moments that are posterior to no logical moments.
 
Second, I need the concept of a full complement of intrinsic properties. A substance x has a full complement of intrinsic properties at moment N with respect to its nature if and only if every property P is such that, if x has P intrinsically at some logical moment in some possible world, then x has either P or its negation intrinsically at N (with respect to that same nature).
 
Now I’m in a position to propose a basic principle about causality:
 
The Completeness of Agents (COA). Necessarily, if agent x acts at logical moment M to produce some effect, then x has a full complement of intrinsic properties at M with respect to its nature.
 
The rationale for COA is this: in order to act at a logical moment, an agent must actually exist in that moment. But an agent cannot actually exist at a moment without possessing a full complement of properties at that moment. If it didn’t possess such a full complement, it would fall short of actuality and would thereby be disqualified from acting.
 
I need one further principle:
 
The Groundedness of Intrinsic Properties. Necessarily, if an individual x has property P intrinsically at logical moment M, then there are some properties Q1 through Qn such that: x’s being P at M is wholly grounded by x’s having Q1 through Qn at M, and for each Qi, x’s having Qi at M is a basic, positive fact.

Let’s suppose that God is one of the agents acting at a primal moment M. Suppose for contradiction that God has some intrinsic property P at M contingently. By GA, there must be some basic properties Q1 through Qn possessed intrinsically by God at M, and God’s having P at M is wholly grounded by His having Q1 through Qn at M. We can assume that grounding is a necessitation relation. Consequently, God must have at least one property Qi contingently at M. If He had all of them at M necessarily, then He would have to have P at M necessarily as well.
 
Since it is a basic, positive, contingent fact that God possesses Qi at M, then this fact (by the PSR or principle of causality) must have a cause. But that is inconsistent with our assumption that M is a primal moment, and so no fact at M can have a cause.
 
Hence, God cannot possess any contingent intrinsic properties at logical moment M.
 
If it is necessary that God possess P intrinsically at M, there must be some explanation of this necessity. A logical moment is not a thing in its own right, but simply a node in the causal network of the world. So, if it is necessary that God possess P intrinsically at M, this must be a result of God’s essence, and a result of God’s essence alone, since there are no prior facts to appeal to. But if God’s possessing P is a result of God’s essence alone, then He must possess P necessarily at ever logical moment in every possible world, and not just at M.
 
Suppose that God has an intrinsic property P at moment N. Since God has a full complement of properties at the primal moment M, God must either have P or its negation at M. So, God qua God must have P necessarily at all logical moments in all possible worlds. Hence, God has all His intrinsic properties necessarily at every logical moment.
 
Here’s another way to look at this. Why can’t God lack some intrinsic property P at primal moment M, such that God could gain P in some subsequent logical moment? For a thing x to lack a possible intrinsic property is for it to have an intrinsic character of a certain kind. This intrinsic character must be a positive fact about x. Either the absence of P is grounded by x’s having some contrary intrinsic property Q, or else there is some totality property T [1] of x that encompasses the fact that x’s total complement of intrinsic properties does not include P. In either case, there is a basic, positive fact about x that must be causally explained (given the PSR).

When God lacks a particular intrinsic property (with respect to His divine nature), this absence is not a mere absence but a kind of privation. Contingent privations are causable facts, and so the PSR requires that they all have actual causes (see Haldane 2007). Consequently, God cannot have (qua God) any contingent privations in the primal moment M. It is not possible for Him to subsequently gain intrinsic properties in His divine nature, since He has with necessity a full complement of intrinsic properties.
 
Since God has every intrinsic property essentially, He must be a being of pure actuality, with no passive potentiality. Consequently, He must be timeless.
 
[1] A totality property is a constituent of what David M. Armstrong (1997) called totality facts. A totality fact about some particular substance would entail that the substance lacks any intrinsic property not contained in some totality C. Totality facts are basic, positive facts that ground truths about privations.

​Summa Theologiae I, Q23, and SCG III.163
 
It is only the elect who are predestined, and they are predestined only for their ultimate end, the beatific vision. Thomas takes the term ‘predestine’ to refer to God’s aiding and directing men to their supernatural end, an end that they cannot achieve by their natural powers alone. Predestination then is simply one aspect of God’s providential care of all things. In reply 3, Thomas clarifies that predestination applies both to elect men and to elect angels, since in both cases the ultimate end exceeds their natural powers.
 
In article 2, Thomas explains that predestination exists in an active way in the mind of God. There is no quality of predestination in the elect. The predestination of the elect consists simply in the fact that they have been chosen for eternal life by God. The execution of predestination occurs through the government of God, which consists in a kind of calling and justifying of the elect by God (Romans 8:30).
 
The opposite of predestination is reprobation (article 3). God is said to reprobate those who are not elect. Reprobation is an instance of God’s permissive will, and an aspect of His providence. God permits some men to fall away from their final end. This reprobation is not mere foreknowledge—it is an aspect of God’s will, “the will to permit (voluntatem permittendi) a person to fall into sin, and to impose the punishment of damnation on account of that sin.”
 
Reply to objection 1: “God loves all men and all creatures, inasmuch as He wishes them all some good; but He does not wish (vult – volo seems to imply a wanting that is somewhat stronger than a mere “wish”) every good to them all. So far, therefore, as He does not wish this particular good—namely eternal life—He is said to hate or reprobate them.”
 
At the same time, Thomas insists (in reply 2) that reprobation is not the cause of sin, as predestination is the cause of grace. “Guilt proceeds from the free-will of the person who is reprobated and deserted by grace.”
 
In objection 3, Thomas considers the question of whether the reprobate are unable to obtain grace. Thomas insists that any such impossibility is not absolute, but only conditional or suppositional. Such conditional necessity does not do away with the liberty of choice. This conditional or suppositional necessity refers only to the immutability of God in His eternal knowledge and will—it means only that each future fact necessitates itself, in the sense that it is necessary that if it will be, it will be.
 
In article 4, Thomas explains that predestination is moved by love for the person and preceded causally by God’s choosing to give them eternal life. It is not a mere knowledge of something independent of God’s will. This point is clarified still further in article 5: predestination does not consist in God’s foreknowledge of the merits of the elect. That is, I am not predestined because God foreknew that I would freely cooperate with God’s grace. The causal relation goes in the opposite direction: I freely cooperate with God’s grace because He elected and predestined me.
 
Thomas takes it as obvious that predestination as a choice existing in God could not be caused by some external factor, like our choices. Nonetheless, we can look for a causal or explanatory order among the things that are willed by God. Consequently, we can ask whether God willed that p because He willed that q, or vice versa, or God willed neither because of the other.  So, we can sensibly ask whether God willed our predestination because He willed our future cooperation, or vice versa.
 
Thomas thinks that those who suppose that predestination follows from cooperation rely on a false dichotomy between grace and free-will, as though what we do by grace we cannot do freely, and vice versa. On this picture, God supplies equal grace to everyone, and then we, totally apart from grace, decide whether to cooperate with it or not. If we decide to cooperate, then God predestines us. Thomas thinks this is based on a false premise. Free cooperation with grace is itself a manifestation of grace. Therefore, predestination causes the future grace, which causes the free cooperation. That which is through (est per) free-will is also of (ex) predestination.
 
Whatever is in a man disposing him toward salvation, even our preparation for grace, is included under the effect of predestination. Lamentations 5:20, “Convert us, O Lord, to Thee, and we shall be converted.”
 
Why then are some predestined and others reprobated? (Objection 3) The reason must be sought in the goodness of God. The completion of the universe, as an expression of God’s glory, requires a variety of grades of being. (Romans 9:22, 23 and II Timothy 2:20) God would be acting unjustly if He owed predestination to all of us as a debt, but instead He gives eternal life gratuitously. He is free to give more or less, as He chooses. (Matthew 20:14, 15)
 
Does predestination take away our choice, making our salvation or damnation necessary, pre-determined? Thomas denies this in article 6, for reasons already given in relation to God’s providence in general. Predestination is an aspect of God’s providence, and His providence does not impose necessity on events. He works through secondary causes, and the working of these causes remains contingent and undetermined. Here Thomas could have appealed to Boethius’s insight: that God is outside of time, and so He cannot properly be said to “fore”-know or “pre”-destine things. He knows and wills from eternity, and eternally His willing and knowing my present and future choices is fully compatible with those choices remaining contingent until I have actually made them. My will is free and undetermined because God’s will is free and undetermined, and God wills what I shall will through my exercise of my own free will.
 
As I argued above, the viability of this answer depends on denying that God has a single, fully unified plan for creation that was in place at the first moment. If God has multiple plans that go into effect at different points in time, it makes sense to ask when someone has become elect or reprobate (i.e., when the plan of God’s that aims or fails to aim at their salvation has come into effect). Clearly, we are all elect (or reprobate) at some point before the last moment of our earthly lives, but how far in advance? I think it may vary from person to person. Once someone is elected, their salvation is no longer contingent (and so no longer up to them). This does not mean that we can know that we are elect before our earthly lives are over: this is impossible, barring some special, private revelation.
 
In Ephesians 1:4, St. Paul writes, “Before the foundation of the world He chose us in Christ to be His people… and He predestined us to be adopted as His children through Jesus Christ.” This does suggest that each elect person was elected from the moment of the world’s creation. However, as Karl Barth pointed out, it is not clear whether Paul is talking here about our individual election or about the collective election of the Church, Christ’s body. The emphasis on “in Christ” and “through Jesus Christ” supports the latter interpretation somewhat. I think that it is possible for our individual election to occur within time, even after our lives have largely unfolded.
 
Once we are elected, our salvation would seem to be no longer contingent and so no longer up to us. However, this does not mean that we would not still have a very great scope of freedom. The degree of glory we will eventually receive might still remain largely contingent.
 
All of this is compatible with God’s having (in eternity) certain and infallible knowledge of the whole course of history in a single, unified act of vision.
 
In article 7, Thomas affirms that the number of the elect is certain. That is, God does not leave the division of elect and reprobate up to chance. The distribution of salvation and damnation serves the good of the creation as a whole. This depends, I think, on St. Thomas’s assumption of a single, unified plan for all of history.
 
In a similar way, for St. Thomas, it was not a matter of chance that Jesus and Mary remained sinless in their earthly lives, but it was nonetheless a matter of their own free choice that they did so. The Blessed Virgin represents the hardest case for a van-Inwagen-style analysis of freedom. Her perfect sinlessness was certainly fixed by God’s plan at the very moment of her conception, if not much earlier. It would seem then that her refraining from sin was never contingent at any moment of her life. How then could she be said to refrain from sinning freely? St. Thomas would reply that her free choices were never pre-determined by any creaturely conditions, but only by God’s sovereign election. Perhaps I could argue that the Blessed Virgin’s sinlessness was always supremely fitting but not (at least not at first) strictly entailed by God’s initial plans for her. He gave her sufficient grace to avoid sin at each point in her life, but it remained for a long time contingent whether or not He would do so. Once again, this is not to call into question whether her sinlessness was grasped eternally by God’s perfect omniscience in a single act of knowing and willing.
 
Jesus, I think, may be a special case. As the Incarnation of God, Jesus enjoys the per se freedom of the divine nature, in the sense that nothing could determine that nature to be what it is or to do what it does. Hence, Jesus’ freedom would be compatible with the complete necessity of His sinlessness.

 
Summa Theologiae I, Q22, and SCG III.71-74
 
God’s providence means that God is intelligently ordering all things toward their ultimate end. To do this, it is not sufficient that He simply create things—He must also order their interactions. Since God is the cause of the whole creation, He necessarily moves the whole creation to its ultimate end, which consists in good overall order.
 
Agents order their actions to some ends. Since God’s action extends all the way to every detail of creation, every such detail must be ordered to God’s ends. God’s knowledge and agency extend to particular things, and not just to general kinds of things. And, as we saw last time, His agency always produces definite effects.
 
In reply to objection 1 of article 2, Thomas embraces the radical conclusion that there is nothing that happens by chance in relation to God, since all the eventualities are foreseen by God. It seems to me that this moves too fast. It is true that all coincidences are foreseen by God, but it doesn’t seem to follow that they cannot happen by chance. If a coincidence is the result of God’s moving two or more things toward distinct ends, and neither of the ends entails the coincidence, then it seems that we could call the coincidence a matter of chance, even if God foresees that it would happen. God can foresee something as happening without intending it either as a means or an end.
 
In his reply to objection 2 in the same article, Thomas argues that God permits all of the defects in creation for the sake of some good of the universe as a whole. For example, lions would cease to exist if there were no slaying of animals. I don’t think that this entails (or is meant to entail) that this is the best of all possible worlds—merely that there must be some reason for the existence of all of the privations within creation. As Augustine said, God is able to bring (some) good from evil, but it doesn’t follow that each evil is necessary in order to maximize total goodness.
 
I question whether Thomas has established that there is such a thing as the “good of the universe.” The universe, or the totality of creation, is not a single substance. Consequently, we can’t be sure that it has its own final cause or natural end. Created things have a common end – which is God’s glory, the manifestation of His self-diffusive goodness, but that doesn’t imply that they collectively have a single end, as Thomas seems to assume.
 
There are three plausible candidates for a global good or end: justice in the distribution of benefits, the variety of modes of participating in God, and the overall beauty of the universe. On the first point, it seems plausible to think that things must already form a unity or a system of some kind, before the question of justice can even arise. If there are rational animals in the Andromeda galaxy, for example, does it make sense to ask whether God has exercised distributive justice in giving goods to them and to us? Can we ask whether God has exercised distributive justice between me and a vein of coal in Pennsylvania? On the second point, I’m not sure that variety as such is a good. It seems to like the finitude and definition that is generally required of goods—there is no maximum degree of variety that the world could contain. Perhaps it is better to say that God created each kind of thing simply because it is good for such things to exist, with variety as a mere by-product. And in the case of beauty, it seems that something must possess a certain kind of unity in order to count as beautiful. I will grant that a plurality of substances can be collectively beautiful, like the stars in the earth’s sky, but there must be at least a unified standpoint from which the collective can be considered, and I’m not sure that there is such a thing with respect to the universe as a whole.
 
The question of whether the universe as a whole has its own end or value is important. Thomas infers that God’s providence consists in a kind of unified plan or blueprint for the entire cosmos, rather than a library of plans or intentions for each substance and unified system of substances. One might respond: if God has multiple plans or intentions, must He not coordinate them, to avoid internal conflict in His intentions? Yes, but coordination isn’t the same thing as consolidation. We can imagine, I think, a plurality of divine plans existing in a degree of mutual contingency and independence from one another.
 
If God has a single, unified plan for creation, then it must have been in effect from the very first moment of creation. Since God’s plan is necessarily effective, and if (as St. Thomas teaches) the plan is complete in every detail, it is hard to see how this can be compatible with genuine contingency in the future. In contrast, if God has multiple, mutually compatible plans, then there is no reason that such plans could not come “on line” at different points in history. Such a plan goes into effect as soon as its earliest elements are actualized, but not before that point. Prior to actualization, the plan would be contingent relative to the events so far realized. Of course, all the plans are equally in effect from the perspective of God’s eternity, but that should be compatible with a changing status relative to the progress of time.
 
William of Ockham introduced a useful distinction concerning future facts. Some of these are hard facts and others are soft. So, for example, let’s suppose that it is genuinely a matter of contingency whether the Astros win their pennant this year. Let’s suppose that in fact they won’t. Then the truth of the statement ‘The Astros won’t win the pennant in 2021’ is a soft fact about the future. In contrast, let’s suppose that God has determined that one day the Anti-Christ will emerge. Then the truth of the statement ‘The Anti-Christ will emerge’ is a hard fact about the future. All facts about the present and past are now hard facts. So, it is now a hard fact that dinosaurs once lived or that the Astros won the 2017 World Series. Similarly, Ockham argues, facts about God’s will and knowledge concerning the future can be either hard or soft. As time passes, some of these facts harden. This does not involve any real change in God, since His act of will and knowledge is not internally modified by their objects.
 
In the reply to objection 4, Thomas considers the problem of reconciling human freedom with divine providence. He argues that human freedom consists in the fact that human beings are not naturally determined to a unique course of action in each circumstance. This lack of determinism applies only within the created order—it does not exclude God’s unique mode of causality (primary causation). “Everything happening from the exercise of human freedom must be subject to divine providence.” God’s providence extends in a “more excellent way” to the just than to the wicked. He can be said to have “abandoned” (dimittere) them, although they are not altogether excluded from His Providence, since that would mean their annihilation.
 
Reply 5: “Since a rational creature has, through its free will, control (dominium) over its actions, it is subject to divine providence in an especial manner (speciali modo).” I think this means that God’s agency does not exclude our own “control” or dominion over our actions. Instead, as I suggested before, we exercise a kind of joint dominion, neither excluding the other. When we do wrong, this is imputed to us and not to God as fault, because of the difference in our respective intentions. Compare Genesis 50:20 (Joseph to his brothers): “But as for you, you meant evil against me [by selling me to the Egyptians], but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.”
 
In article 4, Thomas explains that at times God governs the creation through intermediaries. This reflects God’s strength and not His weakness. It is not that He needs such intermediate causes, but that He further enhances the glory of His creation by bestowing on creatures the dignity of real causality.
 
The role of secondary causes in explaining evil is explained by Thomas in SCG I, chapter 71. A defect that is produced by some secondary or instrumental cause is not always attributed to the primary cause. Think of a skilled artisan using a flawed tool.
 
But isn’t God responsible for any defect in His secondary agents? No, because all creatures are necessarily “defective” or imperfect in some respect. No rational creature, for example, can take into account every possibly relevant factor. Moreover, the excellence of creation requires that creatures exist at a variety of levels or grades of excellence.
 
The goodness of God’s government of creation requires that He allow things to work according to their own, limited nature. Otherwise, creation would be a kind of sham, a world of mere shadow-boxing.
 
It is interesting that Thomas never appeals in these articles (as far I can tell) to God’s timelessness, in the way that Boethius does in The Consolation of Philosophy. Neither does Thomas bring to bear the implications of his strong doctrine of creation—namely, the fact that the content of God’s will and knowledge are extrinsic to His own being. He does insist that God’s causality of future things does not take away their real contingency in the circumstances, but he does seem to think that future contingencies are already in some way certain and immutably fixed. However, I don’t think that this follows. From our point of view, within the flow of time, future events are really and not just apparently contingent and indeterminate. It is true that for God (in eternity) all things happen “at once”, past, present, and future, but that does not contradict that fact that at the present time the past is fixed and the future is largely “open”. If a future event is really now contingent, then so is God’s eternal knowledge and will with respect to that event. As time passes, God’s will gradually shifts (in its objects) from contingency to necessity, but this is merely a Cambridge change in God, with no intrinsic modification required.
 
God can make certain future events necessary, by promising them to us or by inspiring prophets with infallible foreknowledge of them. So, for example, Judas’s betrayal and Peter’s denials were fixed in advance by prophecy, as was Cyrus’s decree to allow the Jews to return to Canaan. Similarly, the future advent of the Anti-Christ, and the Second Coming of Christ are fixed and certain. But much of the future is genuinely open to alternatives, depending on our choices and chance events.
 
To clarify this point, let’s look at Peter van Inwagen’s consequence argument for the incompatibility of free will and determinism. I will modify van Inwagen’s argument to make it apply to God’s Providence, conceived of as a fixed and comprehensive plan for the future.
 
1.God has (in eternity) a Plan according to which I will do x tomorrow (where x is some arbitrary free action of mine).
2.It’s not currently up to me whether God has such a plan.
3.Necessarily, if God has such a Plan, then I will do x tomorrow. (God’s providence is infallibly effective).
4.Therefore, it’s not currently up to me whether I will do x tomorrow. (By 1-3 and van Inwagen’s transfer principle)
 
I think we should deny that premise 2 is generally true. Whether I do x tomorrow can be both up to me and up to God, and there is no determinate divine Plan already in effect that settles the matter one way or the other. To think that God has to plan ahead in order to govern the creation with coherent providence is to be guilty of a kind of anthropomorphism. God is infinite in wisdom, and so He can do whatever “planning” is needed on the fly, so to speak.
 
Presumably, God has some plans about creation that are not currently up to me. For example, His eternal plans about what happened in the past are currently beyond my control. Let Plan-Minus stand for the sum total of God’s plans that are currently beyond my control. Here’s another version of the consequence argument:
 
1.It’s not currently up to me what God’s Plan-Minus contains. (By definition of Plan-Minus)
2.Necessarily, if God has Plan-Minus, then His comprehensive Plan for all of history must include my doing x tomorrow. (Any initial segment of God’s Plan entails all of its successive elements.)
3.Necessarily, if God’s comprehensive Plan for all of history includes my doing x tomorrow, then I will do x tomorrow. (God’s providence is infallibly effective).
4.Therefore, it’s not currently up to me whether I will do x tomorrow. (By 1-3 and van Inwagen’s transfer principle)
 
Once again, I think we should deny 2. This is where it is crucial to determine whether God has simply a single Plan, each part of which requires all of the other parts, or whether God has multiple partial plans that are mutually contingent. If the latter, then we can ask when a particular partial plan has become the external object of God’s will. We can ask, for example, when a particular person became elect or reprobate, and we can ask what contingent events contributed to this fact.

Summa Theologia I, Q21, a1 and a3, and SCG I.92
 
Some recent authors (including, I believe, Brian Davies and David Bentley Hart) have argued that God (as described in classical theism, including Thomism) is not a “moral being,” and so it makes no sense for us to find moral fault with God, as do those who press the problem of evil. Thomas addresses this question in Question 21 of the First Part. Thomas insists that God can be spoken of within the moral universe of discourse, since He can truly be said to have the moral virtues of justice and mercy.
 
In the case of justice, there are two forms: commutative and distributive. Commutative justice has to do with fairness in exchange, as in buying or selling. Distributive justice applies to one who distributes rewards or honors—the just distributor distributes them according to merit. Commutative justice does not apply to God, since no one could ever put God in his debt. However, God is clearly just in the distributive sense.
 
God also has mercy. Mercy consists in the virtue of one who dispels the miseries and defects of others. This God certainly does, since He is perfect goodness and goodness is (as we’ve seen) naturally dispersive. God is disposed to confer goodness on all of His creatures, including those most in need of this goodness to correct their defects. Hence, He is merciful.
 

​ 
Summa Theologiae I, Q20, A1, and SCG I.91
 
In this article, Thomas uses the word ‘amor’ for love, which is a generic term for loving attitudes and relationships. In the third objection to article 2, Thomas distinguishes two kinds of love: the love of desire (concupiscence) and the love of friendship (amicity). Friendship cannot between an irrational creature and anything else, since it is possible only if both parties can love the other. God loves creatures with the love of desire (concupiscence), since He uses them for the good of creation. God loves all creatures with this love, since all creatures, insofar as they exist, are good. To every existing thing, God wills some good. To love something is to will good to that thing, so God must love everything.
 
God, of course, has no passions, since He has no passive potentialities. In God, love is pure act, God’s delight in His own perfect goodness, and His love for all creatures insofar as they are expressions of His super-abundant goodness.
 
Is love a passion? Thomas says, No, not in general. Sensual love, the first act of the sensitive appetite, is a passion. But love as an act of the will in desiring or delighting in some good is purely active.
 
In article 4, Thomas argues that God loves better things more than He loves worse things. A hard case (objection 4) for this claim is Jesus’ pronouncement that there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 100 righteous men (Luke 15:7). Surely the righteous men are “better” and so deserve more love. Thomas replies that penitent sinners often rise from sin “more cautious, humble, and fervent.” A penitent sinner who has been forgiven might experience thereby a greater love for God and so receive more love in return.
 
In SCG I.91, paragraph 6, Thomas introduces an important component of the love of friendship that seems to be missing in the Summa Theologiae: the fact that to love is to move toward union with the beloved. Thomas argues that God moves all things to union with Himself, insofar as they are capable of such union. For rational creatures, that ultimately takes the form of the beatific vision.