I want to recall that great book by Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae, which Dante read and reread, as he read and reread all of the literature of the Middle Ages. Boethius, who has been called "the last Roman," Boethius the senator imagined a spectator at a horse race.
The spectator is in the hippodrome, and he sees, from his box, the horses at the starting gate, all the vicissitudes of the race itself, and the arrival of one of the horses at the finishing line. He sees it all in succession. Boethius then imagines another spectator. This other spectator is the spectator of the spectator of the race; he is, let us say, God. God sees the whole race; he sees in a single eternal instant the start, the race, the finish. He sees everything in a single glance; and in the same way he sees all of history. Thus Boethius bridges the concepts of free will and of Providence. Just as the spectator sees the race (albeit sequentially) but does not influence it, so God sees the whole race from cradle to tomb. He does not influence what we do. We act by our own free will, but God knows -- God knows at this very moment -- our final destiny. God sees all of history, what unfolds as history, in a single splendid dizzying instant that is eternity.
-- Jorge Luis Borges, "Nightmares," a lecture collected in Seven Nights, New York: New Directions, 1984, p. 27.
