Abstract
The paper deals with the problem of divine causation in relation to created agents in general and human rational agents in particular. Beyond creation and conservation, Aquinas specifies divine contribution to created agents’ operation as application in the role of the first cause and the operation of the principal cause employing an instrumental cause. It is especially the latter which is open to varying interpretation and which might be potentially threatening to human freedom. There are different readings of what it is for the secondary agent to “act through the power of the principal cause”. Either the divine cause causes only the existence of the effect of the secondary cause, or it also causes the cause to operate in the sense that it determines its outcome. The latter seems to contradict human freedom. Both readings of Aquinas were developed in the latter half of the sixteenth century within scholastic philosophy and theology.
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Notes
On the Power of God, abbreviated as QDP, Aquinas (1952).
Abbreviated as SCG. English translation Aquinas (1955–57).
For the analysis of change in Aristotle’s Physics see Waterlow (1982).
Aristotle (1930), VII, 1.
“Therefore it is necessary, as the Philosopher says (De Gener. ii, 10), to suppose a movable principle, which by reason of its presence or absence causes variety in the generation and corruption of inferior bodies. Such are the heavenly bodies. Consequently whatever generates here below, moves to the production of the species, as the instrument of a heavenly body: thus the Philosopher says (Phys. ii, 2) that ‘man and the sun generate man’” (Summa theologica abbreviated as STH, I, 115, 3 ad 2, Aquinas 1920)).
The basis for this model of how a higher cause interacts with the action of the lower cause is derived from The Book of Causes. See Aquinas’ Commentary on the Book of Causes: “But the activity by which the second cause causes an effect is caused by the first cause, for the first cause aids the second cause, making it act. Therefore, the first cause is more a cause than the second cause of that activity in virtue of which an effect is produced by the second cause” (Proposition 1, Aquinas 1996).
For the problem of whether Aquinas allows that secondary causes produce being (in the power of the principal cause) see Wippel (2007), who answers in the affirmative.
We have followed Aquinas in De potentia and Summa contra gentiles. In Summa theologica he gives essentially the same theory, including God’s acting on creatures as the ultimate end:
We must therefore understand that God works in things in such a manner that things have their proper operation. In order to make this clear, we must observe that as there are few kinds of causes; matter is not a principle of action, but is the subject that receives the effect of action. On the other hand, the end, the agent, and the form are principles of action, but in a certain order. For the first principle of action is the end which moves the agent; the second is the agent; the third is the form of that which the agent applies to action (although the agent also acts through its own form); as may be clearly seen in things made by art. For the craftsman is moved to action by the end, which is the thing wrought, for instance a chest or a bed; and applies to action the axe which cuts through its being sharp.
Thus then does God work in every worker, according to these three things. First as an end. For since every operation is for the sake of some good, real or apparent; and nothing is good either really or apparently, except in as far as it participates in a likeness to the Supreme Good, which is God; it follows that God Himself is the cause of every operation as its end.
Again it is to be observed that where there are several agents in order, the second always acts in virtue of the first; for the first agent moves the second to act. And thus all agents act in virtue of God Himself: and therefore He is the cause of action in every agent.
Thirdly, we must observe that God not only moves things to operate, as it were applying their forms and powers to operation, just as the workman applies the axe to cut, who nevertheless at times does not give the axe its form; but He also gives created agents their forms and preserves them in being. Therefore He is the cause of action not only by giving the form which is the principle of action, as the generator is said to be the cause of movement in things heavy and light; but also as preserving the forms and powers of things; just as the sun is said to be the cause of the manifestation of colors, inasmuch as it gives and preserves the light by which colors are made manifest” (STH I, 105, 5c, Aquinas 1920).
It is evident, next, that God is the cause enabling all operating agents to operate. In fact, every operating agent is a cause of being in some way, either of substantial or of accidental being. Now, nothing is a cause of being unless by virtue of its acting through the power of God, as we showed. Therefore, every operating agent acts through God’s power (SCG III, 67).
Aristotle in Physics III, 3, says: “…Motion is in the movable. It is the fulfilment of this potentiality by the action of that which has the power of causing motion; and the actuality of that which has the power of causing motion is not other than the actuality of the movable; for it must be the fulfilment of both. A thing is capable of causing motion because it can do this, it is a mover because it actually does it. But it is on the movable that it is capable of acting. Hence there is a single actuality of both alike, just as one to two and two to one are the same interval, and the steep ascent and the steep descent are one – for these are one and the same, although they can be described in different ways. So it is with the mover and the moved” (202a 13–21, Aristotle 1930)).
Aquinas concludes his commentary on this passage with these words:
For motion insofar as it proceeds from the mover to the mobile object is the act of the mover, but insofar as it is in the mobile object from the mover, it is the act of the mobile object (Aquinas 1999, Book III, Lectio 4, § 307, p. 105).
There can be one act belonging to two objects: “There is nothing to prevent two things having one and the same actualization, provided the actualizations are not described in the same way, but are related as what can act to what is acting. Nor is it necessary that the teacher should learn, even if to act and to be acted on are one and the same, provided they are not the same in definition (as “raiment” and “dress”), but are the same merely in the sense in which the road from Thebes to Athens and the road from Athens to Thebes are the same… For it is not things which are in a way the same that have all their attributes the same, but only such as have the same definition” (202b 8–16, Aristotle 1930).
Aquinas explains Aristotle’s text: “He says that there is nothing to prevent two things from having one act in the sense that the act is not one and the same according to reason [ratio] but is one in things … For the same act in things is the act of two according to different intelligibilities [ratio]. It is the act of the agent insofar as it is ‘from it’ and of the patient insofar as it is ‘in it’” (Aquinas 1999, Book III, Lectio 5, § 317, p. 159).
Molina (1588), part II, disp. 25–28; Suarez (1861), disp. 22. For a very clear explanation and English translation of the latter see Suarez (2002). As for Molina’s relationship to Aquinas’ teaching, consider the following: In disp. 26 Molina clearly prefers the second interpretation of Thomas and takes his own understanding to be a possible reading of Thomas (in line with Aquinas’ foremost renaissance Thomist interpreter, Cajetan): “However, there are two things about this teaching of St. Thomas’ [in STH I, 105, 5] that raise difficulties for me.
The first is that I do not understand why in the world there should be such a motion or direction in the secondary causes by which God moves and directs them to act; I would think, to the contrary, that the fire, without any change in itself, induces heat in the water brought near to it. For instruments are of two kinds. There are some which do not have the full power to operate, such as the instruments of the artist. And these require the motion and direction of some other agent in order to effect anything. For even though an axe might have the sharpness and hardness by virtue of which it is fit for cutting, nonetheless, since that power is not sufficient to produce the effect, it is necessary that there be an additional motion, both in order that the power and force necessary for cutting be impressed upon the axe, and also in order that the axe be directed toward the different parts of the wood to produce an artifact in accord with the rules of the art. On the other hand, there are other instruments which either have the full power to act, e.g., semen from a father, or are themselves a complete power, e.g., the heat of a fire and other natural powers. And if instruments of this sort are aptly positioned, they require no additional motion or direction from the principal causes. For when the semen acts, it is not moved by the father, whose instrument it is, since of course it could happen that the father no longer exists. Likewise, when the heat of the fire makes the water hot, it is not moved and directed to make it hot by the fire in which it exists and whose instrument it is, but instead it produces the heat by itself without any other motion. Thus, I confess in all candor that it is extremely difficult for me to understand this motion and direction which St. Thomas requires in secondary causes.
…The second thing which engenders difficulty for me is that according to this doctrine of St. Thomas’ God does not concur immediately, by an immediacy of the suppositum, in the actions and effects of secondary causes, but only mediately, viz., by means of the secondary causes…
… Accordingly, it must be said that God immediately, by an immediacy of the suppositum, concurs with secondary causes in their operations and effects, in such a way, namely, that just as a secondary cause immediately elicits its own operation and through it produces its terminus or effect, so too God by a sort of general concurrence immediately acts with it on that same operation and through the operation or action produces its terminus or effect. It follows that God’s general concurrence is not an action of God’s on the secondary cause, as though the secondary cause acted and produced its effect after having first been moved; rather, it is an action immediately with the cause on its action and effect.
Now whatever might be said of the passage cited a little while ago, perhaps not even St. Thomas disagrees with us. For Cajetan, who preserves St. Thomas’ way of talking, interprets q. 14, a. 13 and St. Thomas’ position in such a way that it entirely agrees with us, as we will see in Disputation 34. Indeed, even Scotus, who seems much more obviously to be opposed to us, entirely agrees with us in Sentences 4, as will be clear from the passages we will cite from him in Disputation 34.“(For the English translation see Freddoso’s home page http://www.nd.edu/~afreddos/).
See SCG III, 69, STH I, 105, 5.
Denying predetermination, contemporary defenders of Thomas seem to answer negatively to the first question, but wish to keep a positive answer to the second question. Thus God directly creates the secondary cause’s action as well as its nature. God creates the action as the action of the secondary cause (i.e. as belonging to this cause) together with its necessary or free mode (i.e. free character of human volitions). To my mind, this interpretation either collapses into occasionalism or borders on the impossible. How could the action belong to the secondary agent and be fully created (its entity as well as its specific nature) by another agent, i.e. God? The old predeterminationist Thomists developed their position not out of some misplaced or exaggerated curiosity but because they wished the action genuinely belong to the secondary agent, not “belong” by name only. The determination of the action God wishes the secondary agent to elicit is secured by previous movement, not direct creation. Thus the action can be said to belong to the secondary agent even though it is “pre-programmed”, i.e. determined in advance. Thus I disagree with Shanley (1998, 2007) as well as McCann (2004). The latter develops the following analogy: God is comparable to a writer; humans are similar to characters in a novel. The point is, however, that characters in a novel are not genuinely causally active at all. There cannot be a better model or an illustration of an occasionalist world than that of a fiction.
Aquinas (1955–57), SCG III, 88.
We do not discuss the related issue of divine foreknowledge of future contingents here. The problem raises serious questions concerning human freedom and the nature of God in relation to time. A more comprehensive study would relate the areas of causation and foreknowledge and discuss the implications of the former to the latter and vice versa. This, however, lies beyond the scope of the present paper.
Mastrius (1655), Lib. I, disp. 3, q. 3, a. 8.
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The work on this paper was supported by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (project Apriority, Syntheticity and Analyticity from Medieval Thought to Contemporary Philosophy 2010–2015, no. P401/11/0371).
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Dvořák, P. The Concurrentism of Thomas Aquinas: Divine Causation and Human Freedom. Philosophia 41, 617–634 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-013-9483-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-013-9483-9