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Objection 1: It would seem that our intellect knows the future.
For our intellect knows by means of intelligible species abstracted
from the "here" and "now," and related indifferently to all time.
But it can know the present. Therefore it can know the future.
Objection 2: Further, man, while his senses are in suspense, can
know some future things, as in sleep, and in frenzy. But the
intellect is freer and more vigorous when removed from sense.
Therefore the intellect of its own nature can know the future.
Objection 3: The intellectual knowledge of man is superior to any
knowledge of brutes. But some animals know the future; thus crows by
their frequent cawing foretell rain. Therefore much more can the
intellect know the future.
On the contrary, It is written (Eccles. 8:6,7), "There is
a great affliction for man, because he is ignorant of things past; and
things to come he cannot know by any messenger."
I answer that, We must apply the same distinction to future things,
as we applied above (Article 3) to contingent things. For future
things considered as subject to time are singular, and the human
intellect knows them by reflection only, as stated above (Article
1). But the principles of future things may be universal; and thus
they may enter the domain of the intellect and become the objects of
science.
Speaking, however, of the knowledge of the future in a general way,
we must observe that the future may be known in two ways: either in
itself, or in its cause. The future cannot be known in itself save by
God alone; to Whom even that is present which in the course of events
is future, forasmuch as from eternity His glance embraces the whole
course of time, as we have said above when treating of God's
knowledge (Question 14, Article 13). But forasmuch as it
exists in its cause, the future can be known by us also. And if,
indeed, the cause be such as to have a necessary connection with its
future result, then the future is known with scientific certitude,
just as the astronomer foresees the future eclipse. If, however, the
cause be such as to produce a certain result more frequently than not,
then can the future be known more or less conjecturally, according as
its cause is more or less inclined to produce the effect.
Reply to Objection 1: This argument considers that knowledge which
is drawn from universal causal principles; from these the future may be
known, according to the order of the effects to the cause.
Reply to Objection 2: As Augustine says (Confess. xii [Gen.
ad lit. xii. 13]), the soul has a certain power of forecasting,
so that by its very nature it can know the future; hence when withdrawn
from corporeal sense, and, as it were, concentrated on itself, it
shares in the knowledge of the future. Such an opinion would be
reasonable if we were to admit that the soul receives knowledge by
participating the ideas as the Platonists maintained, because in that
case the soul by its nature would know the universal causes of all
effects, and would only be impeded in its knowledge by the body, and
hence when withdrawn from the corporeal senses it would know the
future.
But since it is connatural to our intellect to know things, not thus,
but by receiving its knowledge from the senses; it is not natural for
the soul to know the future when withdrawn from the senses: rather does
it know the future by the impression of superior spiritual and corporeal
causes; of spiritual causes, when by Divine power the human intellect
is enlightened through the ministry of angels, and the phantasms are
directed to the knowledge of future events; or, by the influence of
demons, when the imagination is moved regarding the future known to the
demons, as explained above (Question 57, Article 3). The soul
is naturally more inclined to receive these impressions of spiritual
causes when it is withdrawn from the senses, as it is then nearer to
the spiritual world, and freer from external distractions. The same
may also come from superior corporeal causes. For it is clear that
superior bodies influence inferior bodies. Hence, in consequence of
the sensitive faculties being acts of corporeal organs, the influence
of the heavenly bodies causes the imagination to be affected, and so,
as the heavenly bodies cause many future events, the imagination
receives certain images of some such events. These images are
perceived more at night and while we sleep than in the daytime and while
we are awake, because, as stated in De Somn. et Vigil. ii [De
Divinat. per somn. ii.], "impressions made by day are
evanescent. The night air is calmer, when silence reigns, hence
bodily impressions are made in sleep, when slight internal movements
are felt more than in wakefulness, and such movements produce in the
imagination images from which the future may be foreseen."
Reply to Objection 3: Brute animals have no power above the
imagination wherewith to regulate it, as man has his reason, and
therefore their imagination follows entirely the influence of the
heavenly bodies. Thus from such animals' movements some future
things, such as rain and the like, may be known rather from human
movements directed by reason. Hence the Philosopher says (De
Somn. et Vig.), that "some who are most imprudent are most
far-seeing; for their intelligence is not burdened with cares, but is
as it were barren and bare of all anxiety moving at the caprice of
whatever is brought to bear on it."
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