DISPUTATION 26
Is God's general concurrence an action on the causes,
so that
they act after having first been moved, or an immediate
action with the causes on their natural actions and effects?
1. In Summa Theologiae 1, q. 105, a. 5, St. Thomas teaches that
God is said to operate with secondary causes in two ways. First, He gives
them their powers to act and conserves these powers in existence, just
as Durandus claimed. Second, He moves them to act in such a way that He
in some sense directs their forms and powers to the operation, not unlike
the way in which a craftsman directs his axe to that which is to be cut.
He gives as the reason for this that it is always true that when there
are many agents ordered among themselves, the second acts by the power
of the first in such a way that it is moved by it to act.
2. However, there are two things about this teaching of St. Thomas'
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.
3. In Contra Gentes 3, chap. 70, Ferrariensis claims that this
sort of direction is a kind of force in the secondary causes which is,
as it were, an intentional existence of the divine power, in the
way in which the species of colors in the medium are called an intentional
existence of the colors. This force, as he sees it, is something added
to the powers of the secondary causes and exists in them as long as they
are bringing about their operations--and when the operations cease, he
takes it that this added force immediately ceases. But this is plainly
a fabrication and has absolutely no support, and it multiplies entities
to no purpose.
4. 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. For both the powers of secondary causes which God confers
and conserves and also their motion and direction are in the secondary
causes themselves. Thus, if God concurs in just these ways, then He certainly
does not act immediately, by an immediacy of the suppositum, on the acts
and effects of the secondary causes. But although Ferrariensis concedes
this in the place already cited, still, the contrary seems to be effectively
proven by the things which were said above, in this and the preceding disputation,
against Durandus' position--as I will now make clear.
5. 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.
In a short while we will explain what sort of action this is and why
neither it nor the action of the secondary cause is superfluous. Right
now we will prove what has just been claimed.
6. It can be proven, first, as follows: As we have said, the fire, entirely
unmoved in itself, heats the water brought near it; nor is it possible
to understand what de novo motion there might be through which it would
be moved and directed by God, while it was heating the water; nor is such
a motion necessary. But since through every motion or action some terminus
is produced which is at the very least really distinct from that action,
and since no terminus of the alleged motion or direction can be imagined
other than a quality, it would doubtless have to be conceded that as often
as the fire produces heat, a certain quality is produced by God in the
fire along with that motion--which seems implausible. Also, if the fire
needed that antecedent motion and direction for every action, then there
would be as many motions by which it was moved and directed by God simultaneously
to the numerically distinct heatings emanating from it as there were subjects
brought near to it which it was simultaneously heating--which seems implausible.
The same argument can be made in the case of any other similar secondary
cause.
7. Second, as was shown clearly enough in the first argument by which
we impugned Durandus' position in the preceding disputation, God's general
concurrence is necessary for every action and effect of a secondary cause
because every created thing depends for its conservation on God's immediate
influence, and because what is required for its conservation is all the
more necessary for its first production. Accordingly, the need for God's
general concurrence with a secondary cause in each of its actions and effects
has its source in the need which the action and effect perpetually have
for God's influence on them for as long a time as they exist in reality,
even after the influence of the secondary cause has ceased. Therefore,
God's general concurrence with secondary causes is not an immediate action
on the causes themselves and a mediate influence through the causes on
their actions and effects, but is rather an action which is immediate,
by an immediacy of the suppositum, on the actions and effects themselves.
8. Third, since it cannot be denied that each effect of a secondary
cause needs God's immediate influence on it in order to be conserved, even
after the influence of the secondary cause has ceased, and since it needs
this influence all the more in order to be produced de novo, certainly
either (i) it would have to be granted that God's general concurrence with
secondary causes vis-a-vis their actions and effects is not an influence
on the causes but is rather an influence with the causes
immediately on the actions and effects (which is what we mean to show),
or else (ii) it would have to be affirmed that in the production of each
effect God acts by two sorts of general concurrence, one immediately
on the cause and mediately through the cause on the effect, and the other
immediately on the effect. But no one would say this.
9. Fourth, suppose that God's general concurrence with secondary causes
were an influence on the very causes themselves, an influence by which
God moved them, directed them and rendered them more capable of acting.
Then, since such an influence in a secondary cause, along with whatever
would be produced in it by the action, would be something created and would
supplement the proper power of the cause, e.g., the power of the fire to
produce heat in the water, certainly the action itself would be no less
a secondary cause than that very power of heating had by the fire. Thus,
it would need another concurrence on God's part no less than the power
of the fire does, since the need for God's general concurrence in order
to act is something common to all secondary causes, even supernatural ones,
with no exceptions. Hence, either an infinite regress among concurrences
of this type would have to be countenanced, in which case no effect of
this sort could be produced, or else it would have to be acknowledged that
God's general concurrence is not an influence on the cause, but instead
acts immediately with the cause on the action and effect.
10. Lastly, the Scriptural passages by which we showed against Durandus
in the preceding disputation that a general concurrence on God's part with
secondary causes has to be conceded are clearly consonant with an immediate
influence by God on their actions and effects.
11. Now neither of these influences, viz., God's general concurrence
or the secondary cause's particular influence, is superfluous.
For by His general concurrence God acts as a universal cause with a
kind of influence which is indifferent with respect to various actions
and effects, and this influence is channelled to the various species of
actions and effects by the particular influence of the secondary causes,
influence which varies according to the differences among the powers had
by each for acting--or, if the cause is a free one, it has the power to
operate in such a way that this action rather than that one is produced,
e.g., willing something rather than willing its opposite, or walking rather
than sitting; or this effect is produced rather than that one, say, this
artifact rather than another; or it even has the power to suspend its operation
altogether, so that there is no action at all. Moreover, God's general
concurrence is channelled by the particular concurrence of the secondary
causes in a way not unlike that in which the influence of the sun, which
is also universal, is channelled by the action of a human being in order
to generate a human being and by the action of a horse in order to produce
a horse; for the sun and the man generate a human being, as is said in
Physics II, and in the same way the sun and a horse generate a horse.
12. Similarly, moreover, just as for the generation of a horse the influence
of the sun is not sufficient without the influence of the horse, nor the
influence of the horse without the influence of the sun, so too the influence
of God through His universal concurrence alone is not sufficient
for any effect without the influence of the particular secondary cause
by which it is channelled; nor, vice versa, is the influence of the particular
secondary cause sufficient without God's influence through the universal
concurrence by which the secondary cause is assisted and which God according
to an ordinary statute has decided never to withhold. Rather, these two
influences mutually depend on one another for their existence in reality,
since neither is an action or a production of any effect without the other.
Indeed, there are not two actions but numerically one action,
which, insofar as it is from God acting in just this way, is called God's
general concurrence, and which, insofar as it is from the secondary cause,
say, from the fire which is producing heat, is called the fire's concurrence
or influence.
Nor does the action have the character of belonging to this species
(say, heating rather than cooling) because it is from God
via His universal concurrence or because it is a universal concurrence
on God's part; rather, it is an action of this species because it is from
the fire, which cooperates with God through its particular power and determines
it to the species heating and because on the fire's part it is a
particular influence or concurrence. For, given that God for His part acted
in exactly the same way, if water were to concur with God in the way that
fire is now concurring with Him, then a cooling and not a heating would
be produced. And corresponding to the differences among the various other
particular agents that might concur, actions differing from one another
in species will result, with the particular agent always channelling God's
universal concurrence by means of its particular power and influence to
an action and effect proper to and peculiar to itself.
This is analogous to the generation by which the sun and a horse generate
a horse. For, in fact, one and numerically the same generation of a horse,
insofar as it is from the sun, is called an influence of the sun and an
action by which the sun as a universal cause generates the horse; whereas
insofar as it is from the horse through the power of the semen coming from
it, it is called an influence and action by which the horse as a particular
cause generates the horse which is its son. But the action does not have
the character of being the generation of a horse because it it is from
the sun or because it is an action of the sun's. For if the sun, acting
in exactly the same way for its own part, had a lion instead of a horse
concurring with it, then the specifically distinct generation of a lion
would occur. Rather, it is because the action is from a horse and because
it is the action of a horse that it has the character of being the generation
of a horse. For whenever the universal cause concurs not as a particular
cause but as a universal cause, it is always the particular cause that
channells the influence of the universal cause to a given species of action
or effect. For when God produces an effect by Himself, or when through
His particular concurrence He makes that effect to be of a different species,
in the way that He is wont to render supernatural those works of ours which
are conducive to eternal life, then He is acting not as a universal cause,
but as a particular cause of those effects. And so since God's general
concurrence and the particular concurrence of the secondary cause mutually
depend upon one another for their existence in reality, it follows that
just as when God ceases to act via His universal concurrence (e.g., when
He ceased to act with the Babylonian fire so that it would not consume
the three young men, and when He ceased to act with the eyes of those from
whom He was hiding and escaped from the Temple), the influence and action
of the secondary cause immediately ceases, so too when the secondary cause
ceases to act through its particular concurrence, the divine influence
also ceases and no action follows.
13. However, there is a difference between God's general concurrence
and the sun's general concurrence--not only because the former, to the
extent that it comes from a maximally universal cause, is thereby much
more universal and extends to many more effects than does the concurrence
of the sun, but also because from the sun there first comes light or other
similar imperceptible qualities, which either through themselves or through
the heat produced by the occurrence of the light in the generation of,
say, a human being or a horse, assist the power of the semen and along
with that power appropriately dispose the matter for the sort of form which
is to be introduced; and, lastly, both the generation, i.e., the introduction
of the substantial form, and the previous alteration together are effected
by the power of the sun and of the semen, as has been explained. By contrast,
God's general concurrence with secondary causes emanates immediately onto
each of their operations and is indifferent of itself, so that various
actions and various effects result because of the differences among the
cooperating secondary causes.
14. In order to understand better (i) what sort of thing God's general
concurrence is in itself and (ii) how it emanates from the highest and
most perfect God, we should keep in mind that God is a free cause and that
the free and eternal determination of the divine will, both with respect
to the time and place of His action and with respect to the quantity and
manner of His action, insofar as that action is accommodated to the various
things to be produced and insofar as it either sufficies by itself for
the things to be produced (if it is great) or is only accommodated to the
secondary causes to be assisted (if it is not so great) and is thus such
that if those things act at the same time, then it emanates, whereas if
they cease to act or never begin to act, then it does not emanate, either--this
sort of determination of the divine will or the divine volition itself,
I repeat, freely determined in this way, is a cause and principle of things,
a cause and principle from which the divine influence or action emanates
immediately, as will be shown below in Part I, q. 25. For without any change
or shadow of alteration in God, when the time arrives at which He has decided
from eternity by the free determination of His will to create the things
and to effect or to assist this or that thing in this or that place in
one or another way, then God's external action and influence follows from
that very act of the divine will so determined, without any other command
and without the application of any other executive power which exists in
God--the action follows from that act of the divine will as from an immediate
efficient cause, in this rather than another place, in order to create
this or that rather than some other thing, and in order to effect or assist
things in one or another way. For by that eternal decree and determination
He has spoken and they were made, He has commanded and they were created;
and in this way He willed all things whatsoever, and He made them in the
way He willed in heaven and on earth, in the sea and in every abyss. For
the measure of the divine power is the free will of God, which not only
is an immediate principle of divine action, but also prescribes the time
and place at which it acts and the quantity and manner of that action;
and as the will prescribes and determines, so it acts.
Now God, who not only has infinite power but is absolutely omnipotent,
does not act infinitely and does not do all that He is capable of, as if
He acted by a necessity of nature, since of course this would imply a contradiction;
rather, by the free and eternal determination of His will He prescribed
in accord with His own choice the influence to be communicated at predetermined
times--manifold and varied, yet always finite, now more, now less, in the
measure demanded by the nature of each thing to be produced. For an angel
requires one action in order to exist, while the heavens, the sun and the
different stars require still another; human beings and various living
things require one action, other things require another action. In exactly
the same way, since God perceived that the secondary causes on which He
had decided to confer various powers for acting would not be able to effect
anything unless He acted along with them on their operations and effects,
He decided by His eternal will to accommodate and, as it were, to time
His influence and in this way to confer assistance and aid on them, not
in order that He might produce the actions and effects by Himself in their
presence, but rather in order that He might allow them their own place
and influence in such a way that their operations and effects might be
their own--which enhances the dignity of created things. On the other hand,
by a sort of influence common to all things, which was able to be divided
up and adapted according to the different sorts of concurrence on the part
of the secondary causes with respect to their various operations and effects
(for which reason it is called God's general concurrence), He would
make up for their weakness vis-a-vis both the production and the conservation
of their effects. And for this reason He decided by His eternal will to
be present to all secondary causes through this sort of general concurrence
in such a way that whenever secondary causes cooperate (either by a necessity
of nature or by their own will and freedom), then influence of the sort
in question will perpetually follow from the determination of His free
will and by His ordinary and established law, just as if He were a cause
acting by a necessity of nature--but still with a few events excepted,
events in which He who foreknows all future things has by the eternal determination
of His will decided to suspend the influence in question and in the service
of some higher end to miraculously withhold that influence from the secondary
causes.
15. From what has been said it should be easy to see that if we use
the term "complete cause" in a sense that includes every cause
necessary for an action, be it universal or particular, then God through
His universal concurrence constitutes with the secondary causes one complete
cause comprising many causes which are non-complete with respect to a given
effect, so that neither God through just His universal concurrence without
the secondary causes nor the secondary causes without God's universal concurrence
are sufficient to produce the effect. Yet when we say that God through
His universal concurrence and the secondary causes are not complete
but partial causes of the effects, this should be understood
to imply the dividedness of the cause, and not the dividedness of the effect.
Indeed, the total effect is both from God and from the secondary
causes; but it is neither from God nor from the secondary causes as from
a total cause, but instead is from each as from a part of
a cause, a part which simultaneously requires the concurrence and influence
of the other part--not unlike the way in which, when two men are dragging
a boat, the total motion comes from each of the men doing the dragging,
but not from each as from a total cause of the motion, since each of them
simultaneously effects, in conjunction with the other, each and every part
of that same motion. But if we are speaking of a total or complete cause,
not absolutely but within a certain category of cause, then through His
universal concurrence God is the complete cause in the category of maximally
universal causes, since no other cause concurs with Him within that category
of cause. In the same way, the various secondary causes can be complete
causes of the same effect, each in its own category, just like the sun
and a horse in relation to the generation of a horse, the sun as a universal
cause, the horse as a particular cause.
16. From what has been said it can be seen, further, that when causes
are subordinated to one another in such a way that some are more universal,
some less universal and others particular, it is not necessary that the
higher in that ordering always move the lower--even if they are essentially
subordinated among themselves and mutually depend upon one another in producing
a given effect; instead, it is sufficient that they act immediately on
the effect.
Translated by
Alfred J. Freddoso
University of Notre Dame
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