Whether Things Known or Declared Prophetically Can Be False?
Objection 1: It would seem that things known or declared
prophetically can be false. For prophecy is about future
contingencies, as stated above (A. 3). Now future contingencies may
possibly not happen; else they would happen of necessity. Therefore
the matter of prophecy can be false.
Obj. 2: Further, Isaias prophesied to Ezechias saying (Isa. 38:1):
"Take order with thy house, for thou shalt surely die, and shalt not
live," and yet fifteen years were added to his life (4 Kings 20:6).
Again the Lord said (Jer. 18:7, 8): "I will suddenly speak against a
nation and against a kingdom, to root out and to pull down and to
destroy it. If that nation against which I have spoken shall repent
of their evil, I also will repent of the evil that I have thought to
do them." This is instanced in the example of the Ninevites,
according to John 3:10: "The Lord [Vulg.: 'God'] had mercy with
regard to the evil which He had said that He would do to them, and He
did it not." Therefore the matter of prophecy can be false.
Obj. 3: Further, in a conditional proposition, whenever the
antecedent is absolutely necessary, the consequent is absolutely
necessary, because the consequent of a conditional proposition stands
in the same relation to the antecedent, as the conclusion to the
premises in a syllogism, and a syllogism whose premises are necessary
always leads to a necessary conclusion, as we find proved in I
Poster. 6. But if the matter of a prophecy cannot be false, the
following conditional proposition must needs be true: "If a thing has
been prophesied, it will be." Now the antecedent of this conditional
proposition is absolutely necessary, since it is about the past.
Therefore the consequent is also necessary absolutely; yet this is
unfitting, for then prophecy would not be about contingencies.
Therefore it is untrue that the matter of prophecy cannot be false.
_On the contrary,_ Cassiodorus says [*Prol. in Psalt. i] that
"prophecy is a Divine inspiration or revelation, announcing the issue
of things with invariable truth." Now the truth of prophecy would not
be invariable, if its matter could be false. Therefore nothing false
can come under prophecy.
_I answer that,_ As may be gathered from what has been said (AA. 1,
3, 5), prophecy is a kind of knowledge impressed under the form of
teaching on the prophet's intellect, by Divine revelation. Now the
truth of knowledge is the same in disciple and teacher since the
knowledge of the disciple is a likeness of the knowledge of the
teacher, even as in natural things the form of the thing generated is
a likeness of the form of the generator. Jerome speaks in this sense
when he says [*Comment. in Daniel ii, 10] that "prophecy is the seal
of the Divine foreknowledge." Consequently the same truth must needs
be in prophetic knowledge and utterances, as in the Divine knowledge,
under which nothing false can possibly come, as stated in the First
Part (Q. 16, A. 8). Therefore nothing false can come under prophecy.
Reply Obj. 1: As stated in the First Part (Q. 14, A. 13) the
certitude of the Divine foreknowledge does not exclude the
contingency of future singular events, because that knowledge regards
the future as present and already determinate to one thing. Wherefore
prophecy also, which is an "impressed likeness" or "seal of the
Divine foreknowledge," does not by its unchangeable truth exclude the
contingency of future things.
Reply Obj. 2: The Divine foreknowledge regards future things in two
ways. First, as they are in themselves, in so far, to wit, as it sees
them in their presentiality: secondly, as in their causes, inasmuch
as it sees the order of causes in relation to their effects. And
though future contingencies, considered as in themselves, are
determinate to one thing, yet, considered as in their causes, they
are not so determined but that they can happen otherwise. Again,
though this twofold knowledge is always united in the Divine
intellect, it is not always united in the prophetic revelation,
because an imprint made by an active cause is not always on a par
with the virtue of that cause. Hence sometimes the prophetic
revelation is an imprinted likeness of the Divine foreknowledge, in
so far as the latter regards future contingencies in themselves: and
such things happen in the same way as foretold, for example this
saying of Isa. 7:14: "Behold a virgin shall conceive." Sometimes,
however, the prophetic revelation is an imprinted likeness of the
Divine foreknowledge as knowing the order of causes to effects; and
then at times the event is otherwise than foretold. Yet the prophecy
does not cover a falsehood, for the meaning of the prophecy is that
inferior causes, whether they be natural causes or human acts, are so
disposed as to lead to such a result. In this way we are to
understand the saying of Isa. 38:1: "Thou shalt die, and not live";
in other words, "The disposition of thy body has a tendency to
death": and the saying of Jonah 3:4, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh
shall be destroyed," that is to say, "Its merits demand that it
should be destroyed." God is said "to repent," metaphorically,
inasmuch as He bears Himself after the manner of one who repents, by
"changing His sentence, although He changes not His counsel" [*Cf. I,
Q. 19, A. 7, ad 2].
Reply Obj. 3: Since the same truth of prophecy is the same as
the truth of Divine foreknowledge, as stated above, the conditional
proposition: "If this was prophesied, it will be," is true in the same
way as the proposition: "If this was foreknown, it will be": for in
both cases it is impossible for the antecedent not to be. Hence the
consequent is necessary, considered, not as something future in our
regard, but as being present to the Divine foreknowledge, as stated in
the First Part (Q. 14, A. 13, ad 2).
_______________________