Boethius on the compatibility of divine foreknowledge and the future of contingent events

On of the key philosophical problems of antiquity, i.e. the question of det erminism and the freedom of the will, is especially sharply formulated in t he Boethius' De consolatione philosophiae (V,3-6). Boethius raises the prob lem as the question of the compatibility or incompatibility of divine forek nowledge and the future contingent events (events that depend on the freedo m of the will): if there is divine foreknowledge of the future contingent e vents, there is no freedom of the will, and that has catastrophical ethical consequences. The basic incompatibility of divine foreknowledge and the fu ture contingent events is, in my view, based on Boethius' application of th e general Aristotle's demand that "what is known has to be necessary" (or, that the object of episteme "can not be otherwise", as it is known) on the division between past/present events (which cannot be otherwise) and future events (which can be otherwise). Boethius's solution of the problem is a c ombination of the following notions and theses: (i) the nature of the knowl edge depends on the knower and not on the object known; (ii) God has eterna lly present knowledge; (iii) there is a difference between the conditional and absolute necessity.