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CONDITIONALIZING DIVINE KNOWLEDGE 3.1 Francisco Suárez

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CONDITIONALIZING DIVINE KNOWLEDGE 3.1 Francisco Suárez CHAPTER THREE THE JESUIT COUNTERREFORMATION: CONDITIONALIZING DIVINE KNOWLEDGE 3.1 Francisco Suárez (1548–1617) About 1600, a fierce debate on predestination, grace, and free will split up Catholic theology.1 Incited by Luis de Molina, the Jesuits highlighted human freedom against the Dominicans led by Domingo Báñez, who primarily stressed divine grace.2 Molina presented divine middle knowledge (scientia media) in his Concordia (1588) as a solu- tion to relate divine grace, providence, predestination, and human freedom, which seemingly contradict each other.3 Hereby, God knows what created wills shall freely choose in particular circumstances and hence also whether human beings will freely accept or reject his preve- nient grace in a given situation, in this way forming an instrument for his providence and predestination. The Dominicans rejected middle knowledge as subverting grace. Being the spiritual leader of the Spanish Jesuits, Suárez was des- tined to play an important part in the debate.4 Yet, the excellent doctor 1 The controversy De Auxiliis (On Helping Grace) has been called the “greatest doctrinal controversy ever in Catholic theology,” Hubert Jedin, Handbuch der Kirch- engeschichte, 10 vols. (Freiburg, 1999), 4: 572. 2 Both orders pleaded freedom and grace, and scrutinized their correlation, but defining both concepts differently, the Jesuits feared a disruption of freedom, while the Dominicans conversely sensed the subversion of grace in their contending party. 3 Luis de Molina, Liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis, divina praescientia, providentia, praedestinatione, et reprobatione, concordia, ed. Johannes Rabeneck (Madrid, 1953). The so-called “Gnadenstreit” began with this particular book, but concerned the opposing theologies of the two dominant Catholic orders in general. 4 The standard biography is: R. de Scoraille ,François Suarez de la Compagnie de Jésus d’après ses lettres, ses autres écrits inédits et un grand nombre de documents nou- veaux. Tome premier: L’Etudiant—Le Maître. Tome second: Le Docteur—Le Religieux (Paris, 1912–13). See for his theology: R. Brouillard, ‘Suarez (François),’ in Diction- naire de théologie catholique, contenant l’exposé des doctrines de la théologie catholique, leurs preuves et leur histoire, ed. E. Mangenot et al., 15 vols. (Paris, 1909–51; 1941), 14.2: 2638–728. For his philosophy: John P. Doyle, ‘Francisco Suárez (1548–1617),’ in: Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy 9, ed. Edward Craig (Londen, 1998), pp. 189–96. An impression of the massive amount of secondary literature (though studies on his standpoint on conditional knowledge are few!) is given by: Gonzalo Díaz Díaz, ‘Franciso 72 chapter three (Doctor Eximius) initially rejected middle knowledge,5 and his later acceptation qualified Molina’s position in significant respects.6 Even so, this modified viewpoint was soon to dominate the Jesuits as the most powerful expression of middle knowledge, being established in 1613 as the official doctrine of the Jesuits by Aquaviva, then the head of the order. Consequently, Reformed scholastics examined his posi- tion much more than Molina’s. Therefore, we will also concentrate on his position.7 In 1599, Suárez published six Various Theological Suárez,’ in: Hombres y documentos de la filosofía española 7, ed. Gonzalo Díaz Díaz (Madrid, 2003), pp. 383–426. For the position of Suárez as leading Spanish Jesuit, R. Ceñal, ‘La filosofiá española en el siglo XVII,’ Revista de la Universidad de Madrid 11 (1962), 373–410, there 384. Báñez entitled him: “the principal of all who have adopted and defended the opinions of Molina,” Báñez, Apologia Fratrum Praedicato- rum, cited in: Scoraille, François Suarez, p. 350. 5 Suárez’ views on conditional knowledge occur mainly in his Quaestio de gratia efficaci (1583), De scientia conditionalium (±1585–90), De scientia Dei futurorum con- tingentium (1599), and De Gratia (1618). In his lectures on grace in Rome (1582–83), Suárez initially rejected middle knowledge as repugnant to human freedom, as notes by one of his students show. Friedrich Stegmüller has discovered this source and pub- lished it in: F. Stegmüller, Zur Gnadenlehre des jungen Suarez (Freiburg, 1933), pp. 35–54, dating it to 1583 (pp. 2–4). Around 1585, Suárez accepted a qualified version, as appears from an unknown manucript that was published as: ‘De scientia condi- tionalium,’ in Un Tratado inedito de Suarez sobre la ciencia media, ed. Severino Gon- zalez Rivas , S.J. [Miscelánea Comillas 9], pp. 81–132 (Madrid, 1948 [1585]), which resembles in many ways his later works. 6 Molina founded middle knowledge on divine supercomprehension of the human will, by which God knows free human acts in their cause (in causa proxima: as its effects). As we will see, Suárez asserted a logical instead of such a psychological approach: conditionals have determined truth-value, so the effects are known in them- selves (in se). Unlike Molina, and like the Dominicans he advocated a predestination ante praevisa merita. This ostensible middle course nevertheless remained faithfull to the Jesuit insistence on human freedom, locating the efficacy of grace in its congruity with the concrete circumstances to explain why free will accepts this grace. In this way, conditional knowledge is still indispensable to ensure the efficacy of congruent grace. Hence, for the Dominicans Suárez’ view was no improvement of the Jesuit position. In contrast with Molina’s system, Suárez’ (final) standpoint is called “con- gruism,” see H. Quilliet, ‘Congruisme,’ in: Mangenot, Dictionnaire de théologie (see above, n. 4), 3.1: 1119–38. 7 Besides primary sources, I have used the following literature on Suárez’ position regarding conditional knowledge: André Rangel Rios , Die Wahrheit der Aussagesätze und das göttliche Wissen von zukünftig Kontingentem bei Francisco Suarez (microfilm) (Berlin, 1991) (tries to give a philosophical interpretation of De scientia Dei futuro- rum contingentium (1599) relating it to Frege and possible worlds semantics), Sven K. Knebel, ‘Scientia media: Ein diskursarchäologischer Leitfaden durch das 17. Jahrhun- dert,’ Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 34 (1991), 262–94 (comprehensive survey of sev- enteenth-century explanation of middle knowledge, including Suárez), William Lane Craig, Problem of Foreknowledge (see above, ch. 1, n. 113), pp. 207–33 (an accesible, but occasionally inaccurate description), Klaus Reinhardt, Pedro Luis SJ (1538–1602) und sein Verständnis der Kontingenz, Praescienz und Praedestination (Münster, 1965) .
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