Boethius on the compatibility of divine foreknowledge and the future contingent events

Abstract

One of the key philosophical problems of antiquity, i. e. the question of determinism and the freedom of the will, is especially sharply formulated in the Boethius' De consolatione philosophiae (v, 3--6). Boethius raises the problem as the question of the compatibilty or incompatibility of devine foreknowledge and the future contingent events (events that depend on the freedom of the will): if there is divine foreknowledge of the future contingent events, there is no freedom of the will, and that has catastrophical ethical consequences. The basic incompatibility of divine foreknowledge and the future contingent events is, in my view, based on Boethius' application of the general Aristotle's demand that “what is known has to be necessary” (or, that the object of episteme “can not be otherwise”, as it is known) on the division between past/present events (which cannot be otherwise) and future events (which can be otherwise). Boethius' solution of the problem is a combination of the following notions and theses: (i) the nature of the knowledge depends on the knower and not on the object known; (ii.) God has eternaly present knowledge; (iii.) there is a difference between the conditional and absolute necessity.