xed by a problem yet more
difficult.'

'And what is that?' said she; 'yet, in truth, I can guess what it is
that troubles you.'

'It seems,' said I, 'too much of a paradox and a contradiction that God
should know all things, and yet there should be free will. For if God
foresees everything, and can in no wise be deceived, that which
providence foresees to be about to happen must necessarily come to pass.
Wherefore, if from eternity He foreknows not only what men will do, but
also their designs and purposes, there can be no freedom of the will,
seeing that nothing can be done, nor can any sort of purpose be
entertained, save such as a Divine providence, incapable of being
deceived, has perceived beforehand. For if the issues can be turned
aside to some other end than that foreseen by providence, there will not
then be any sure foreknowledge of the future, but uncertain conjecture
instead, and to think this of God I deem impiety.

'Moreover, I do not approve the reasoning by which some think to solve
this puzzle. For they say that it is not because God has foreseen the
coming of an event that _therefore_ it is sure to come to pass, but,
conversely, because something is about to come to pass, it cannot be
hidden from Divine providence; and accordingly the necessity passes to
the opposite side, and it is not that what is foreseen must necessarily
come to pass, but that what is about to come to pass must necessarily be
foreseen. But this is just as if the matter in debate were, which is
cause and which effect--whether foreknowledge of the future cause of the
necessity, or the necessity of the future of the foreknowledge. But we
need not be at the pains of demonstrating that, whatsoever be the order
of the causal sequence, the occurrence of things foreseen is necessary,
even though the foreknowledge of future events does not in itself
impose upon them the necessity of their occurrence. For example, if a
man be seated, the supposition of his being seated is necessarily true;
and, conversely, if the supposition of his being seated is true, because
he is really seated, he must necessarily be sitting. So, in either case,
there is some necessity involved--in this latter case, the necessity of
the fact; in the former, of the truth of the statement. But in both
cases the sitter is not therefore seated because the opinion is true,
but rather the opinion is true because antecedently he was sitting as a
matter of fact. Thus, though