Can Divine Foreknowledge Change? A Characteristic Theo-Logical Doctrine of Alberic and His School

Can God’s foreknowledge change? There are two ways to interpret this question. First, is God capable of knowing future things that God, at present, does not know? Call this addition to divine foreknowledge. Second, is God capable of not knowing the things that God, at present, does know? Call this subtraction from divine foreknowledge. Peter Abelard rejected both possibilities. His rivals, Alberic of Paris and his school (the Albricani), held not only that both were possible, but even that both were true: God comes to know new things, and even comes not to know things formerly known. Accordingly, the Albricani argued that these such alterations in divine knowledge do not entail that there is any alteration in God. Here, I show how they developed their arguments along these lines, anticipating a later debate between Ockham and Robert Holcot, and much later thinking about infinity in David Hilbert. This paper also includes, by way of an appendix, the first ever Latin edition and English translation of key passages from two important 12th-century logical texts associated with Alberic's school: H10 (Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, 910, fols 163ra–186vb) and H17 (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, lat. fol. 624, fols 87vb–96vb).