Foreknowledge and Knowledge

To have the face covered. I do not have these things because of wickedness... text gapped... immediately indeed he brought them: 'all these things came upon us, and we did not remember you' (Psalm 78:22). text gapped... because not coming out in our own powers, it came upon us to turn backward toward our enemies; it came upon us that a reproach should be placed upon our neighbors and those around us, a mockery and to have the face turned down, to be covered in shame.

Because the voice is of holy ones. Many many times also from the pleasant things they forget God, not only from the unpleasant ones. For he says: 'take care of yourself lest, having eaten and being filled and having built fine houses... the Lord your God you forget' (Deut 8:12). Sometimes, having come into afflictions, it is said they forget God. All these things came upon us, and we did not remember you, and we did not act wickedly against your covenant.

Israel was captured from Judea both by chance and locally, and a chance and natural local displacement has happened; for they thought text gapped having gone there they did not keep the laws there and toward the laws there text gapped to Babylonize according to the soul. Often God hindered them, persisting in living thus. In order that they might know by trial that evil is that which they loved, he resettled them into Babylon. Along with this, he made a way to be captured, and holy ones like Ezekiel, Zechariah, Angel, Daniel, and those cast into the furnace, so that even being there they were not completely abandoned, so that they might experience it as if in war.

There is also a Jerusalem above. Those living according to the divine laws dwell in God. If they become apostates from the divine laws, they are resettled into the place concerning the earth, and this is the captivity according to allegory. And there are sent out to them again here for the sake of help: 'there came a man, sent from God, his name John. This came for a testimony, so that he might testify about the light' (John 1:6-7); for he did not come for the sake of another than to testify.

To the light. Again Jeremiah hears: 'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you came forth from the womb I sanctified you, and I appointed you a prophet to the nations' (Jeremiah 1:5). Before coming forth from the womb he was sanctified, and as a prophet to the nations he was appointed. Again: 'Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world' (Ephesians 1:4). By 'foundation of the world' he means his coming-to-be. And Paul and those with him were chosen before the foundation of the world, and this election has become theirs from then until now, so that they might be sent out together with those who have been called and might be able to help them.

But did Paul speak according to foreknowledge? Foreknowledge is a theoretical viewing of what is coming to be. But according to kind, foreknowledge and knowledge are the same. They differ in time. For example, suppose I foreknow that tomorrow there will be thunder. When the thunder comes to be in the middle of the day, it is knowledge, no longer foreknowledge. And the knowledge of the thunder does not make it such, but what it is, that becomes the knowledge. Thus the known thing makes the knowledge, which does not receive the knowing from us. I use an image for the sake of the manner of foreknowledge: the one child is born so that he may demand, and the other, so that he may live in the house. What kind of justice is this of foreknowledge, if we take these things to happen according to foreknowledge? Foreknowledge both justifies and condemns. To foreknow and to know is also to condemn and to justify from the things being done and being thought.

Paul was foreknown in this life, both a traitor and a persecutor of Christ and an apostle. Was he not both foreknown? Foreknowledge therefore made him have both. Again, did he not become first an apostle and later a traitor? He was not foreknown by God. The foreknowledge of God made him at one time an apostle and at another time a traitor. And indeed it is sought: did he choose the apostles from among us? 'Did I not choose you, the twelve?' (John 15:16) and: 'Whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son' (Romans 8:29). He does not speak about existence, but about being conformed. Foreknowledge does not lead to existence. God has made it so, having made them known; for the matter does not make the knowledge of God; for the knowledge of God is eternal. It is taken in relation to what is coming to be and is called foreknowledge; for that woman Susanna says again: 'He who knows the...