Of God and His Creatures
In what sense one is said to be Fortunate, and how Man is aided by
Higher Causes*
GOOD fortune is said to befall a man, when something good happens to
him beyond his intention, as when one digging a field finds a treasure
that he was not looking for. Now an agent may do something beyond his
own intention, and yet not beyond the intention of some agent whom he
is under: as if a master were to bid a servant to go to some place, to
which he had sent another servant without the first servant knowing of
it, the meeting with his fellow-servant would be beyond the intention
of the servant sent, and yet not beyond the intention of the master
sending: in reference to the servant it will be luck and chance, but
not in reference to the master, -- to him it is an arrangement. Since
then man is subordinate in body to the forces of physical nature
(corporibus coelestibus), subordinate in intellect to the
angels, and subordinate in will to God, a thing may happen beside the
intention of man, which is nevertheless according to the order of
physical nature (corporum coelestium), or according to the
arrangement of angels, or again of God. But though God alone works
directly upon man's choice, yet the action of an angel does something
for that choice by way of persuasion, while the action of the heavenly
body (of the forces of physical nature) does something by way of
predisposition, inasmuch as the bodily impressions of the heavenly
bodies (physical forces) upon our bodies predispose us to certain
choices.* When then under the impression of
the physical forces of nature (coelestium corporum) one is
swayed to certain choices that prove useful to him, though his own
reason does not discern their utility; and simultaneously under the
light shed on him by separately subsistent intelligences, his
understanding is enlightened to do those acts, and his will is swayed
by a divine act to choose that useful course, the utility whereof goes
unperceived by him, -- then he is said to be a 'fortunate man.'*
But here a difference is to be noted. For the action of the angel and
of the physical force (corporis coelestis) merely predisposes
the man to choose, but the action of God accomplishes the choice. And
since the predisposition that comes of the bodily affection, or of the
persuasion of the understanding, does not induce necessity of choice,
man does not always choose that which his guardian angel intends, nor
that to which physical nature (corpus coeleste) inclines, but
man always chooses that which God works in his will.* Hence the guardianship of the angels
sometimes comes to nought, according to the text: We have tended
Babylon, but she is not healed (Jerem. li, 9). And much more may
physical inclination (inclinatio coelestium corporum) come to
nought: but divine providence always holds firm.
It is further to be observed that good or ill fortune may befall a man
as a matter of luck, so far as his intention goes, and so far as the
working of the prime forces of nature (corpora coelestia) goes,
and so far as the mind of the angels goes, but not in regard of God:
for in reference to God nothing is by chance, nothing unforeseen, either
in human life or anywhere else in creation.
3.91 : How Human Things are reduced to Higher Causes
3.93 : Of Fate, whether there be such a thing, and if so, what it is