The Philosophy Book

75

Lady Philosophy and Boethius discuss

free will, determinism, and God’s vision

of the eternal present in his influential

book, The Consolation of Philosophy.

See also: Aristotle 56–63 ■ Thomas Aquinas 88–95 ■ John Duns Scotus 333 ■ Benedictus Spinoza 126–29 ■
Immanuel Kant 164–71

THE MEDIEVAL WORLD

as “I shall go to the cinema this
afternoon” is neither true nor false,
or at least not in the same way as
“I went to the cinema yesterday.”

A God beyond time
Boethius faced a harder version
of the same problem. He believed
that God knows everything; not only
the past and the present, but also
the future. So if I am going to go
to the cinema this afternoon, God
knows it now. It seems, therefore,
that I am not really free to choose

to spend the afternoon writing, since

that would conflict with what God

already knows.

Boethius solves the problem by

arguing that the same thing can be

known in different ways, depending

on the nature of the knower. My dog,

for instance, knows the sun only as

something with qualities he can

sense—by sight and touch. A person,

however, can also reason about the

category of thing the sun is, and

may know which elements it is made

of, its distance from Earth, and so on.

Boethius considers time in a

similar kind of way. As we live in

the flow of time, we can only know

events as past (if they have occurred),

present (if they are happening now),

or future (if they will come to pass).

We cannot know the outcome of

uncertain future events. God, by

contrast, is not in the flow of time.

He lives in an eternal present, and

knows what to us are past, present,

and future in the same way that we

know the present. And just as my

knowledge that you are sitting now

does not interfere with your freedom

to stop, so too God’s knowledge of

our future actions, as if they were

present, does not stop them from

being free.

Some thinkers today argue that

since I have not yet decided whether

I shall go to the cinema this

afternoon, there is simply nothing

to be known about it, so even a God

who is all-knowing does not, and

cannot, know if I shall go or not. ■

Boethius Anicius Boethius was a Christian

Roman aristocrat, born at a time

when the Roman Empire was

disintegrating and the Ostrogoths

ruled Italy. He became an orphan

at the age of seven and was

brought up by an aristocratic

family in Rome. He was extremely

well educated, speaking fluent

Greek and having an extensive

knowledge of Latin and Greek

literature and philosophy. He

devoted his life to translating

and commenting on Greek texts,

especially Aristotle’s works on

logic, until he was made chief

adviser to the Ostrogothic king

Theoderic. Some five years later

he became a victim of court

intrigue, was wrongly accused

of treason, and sentenced to

death. He wrote his most

famous work, The Consolation

of Philosophy, while in prison

awaiting execution.

Key works

c.510 Commentaries on

Aristotle’s “Categories”

c.513–16 Commentaries on

Aristotle’s “On Interpretation”

c.523–26 The Consolation of

Philosophy

Everything is

known, not according to

itself, but according to the

capacity of the knower.

Boethius