, have
to think under the category of time, remembering and looking forward; but
the Divine _modus cognoscendi_ excludes either of these processes, being
the timeless act of One who "knoweth altogether"--in whose sight a
thousand years are as a day, and a day as a thousand years. To the
Eternal Intelligence, living in an unbeginning and unending Present,
"past" and "future" must be equally unmeaning; to such a One we cannot
but think that all events must be equally and simultaneously present,
"for all live unto Him." If we could behold the drama of existence _sub
specie aeternitatis_, we might be able to understand how {156} Divine
omniscience can co-exist with human freedom; as it is, we can only say,
"Such knowledge is too wonderful for us--it is high, and we cannot attain
unto it." We know that we cannot know. In any case, even while the
Divine omniscience may present itself to us as a necessity of thought,
human freedom remains a reality of experience and a postulate of
morals.[9]

There are, however, those to whom human freedom presents itself, not as a
contradiction to Divine omniscience, but as a contradiction in terms.
Man's choice of a course of conduct, they argue, cannot be thought of as
other than {157} determined by an efficient cause; but if it is so
determined, in what sense can it be free? An uncaused act is strictly
speaking unthinkable; but do we not affirm that acts are uncaused when we
speak of them as free--in other words, is not the only alternative to
Determinism what might be called _in_determinism? The answer is (_a_)
that every choice is certainly the result of an efficient cause; but
(_b_) the fact of this being so interferes in no wise with the reality of
liberty, nor does it contradict the universality of the law of causation.
For _the efficient cause is the man himself_, and the fact that he can
choose is attested in the very act of choice--which would not be "choice"
if there were not at least two real alternatives. We do not quarrel with
the obvious truth, stated by Mill, that the will is determined by
motives; we contest the assumption that a "free" act is an "uncaused"
act. The act is caused or determined by the free choice of a causal
self; in strict parlance, indeed, we should have to say that neither acts
nor wills, but only human selves, are free. The will is not
self-determined, but determined by a self; and this self is able not only
to choose between different motives,