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.