DISPUTATION 25
On God's concurrence with secondary causes
with respect to each of their actions and effects
1. Now that our freedom of will has been established, we have to discuss
both (i) the general concurrence by which God concurs with all the
secondary causes and hence with free choice with respect to every action
and effect, and also (ii) the particular concurrence by which our
will is further divinely aided with respect to its supernatural works.
For these two types of divine concurrence are very different from one another,
and they are not related to our will in the same way. And, doubtless, unless
we have the manner of both types of concurrence in clear view, we will
not be able to understand (i) how our freedom of choice with respect to
both natural and supernatural works can remain intact, and thus too the
contingency of things we are trying to establish along with it, or, likewise,
(ii) how that same freedom of choice fits together with God's grace, foreknowledge,
will, providence, predestination and reprobation. Finally, an understanding
of and explication of many grave difficulties depends upon a knowledge
of both modes of concurrence.
2. And so beginning with the first kind of concurrence, we will speak
first of God's general concurrence with all secondary causes, and, next,
of that same concurrence with free choice as regards natural actions and
effects. Then, further, we will demonstrate from the manner of His concurrence
that it is not God but we who are, through our free choice, the cause of
our sins. Lastly, we will examine whether or not it is the case that if
God were to act from a necessity of nature and yet were to concur with
free choice and the other secondary causes with precisely the sort of general
concurrence by which He now acts, the contingency of things would remain
intact.
3. Now as far as the present disputation is concerned, in addition to
those whom St. Thomas refers to in Summa Theologiae 1, q. 105, a.
5, in Sentences 2, dist. 1, q. 1, a. 4, in De Potentia, q.
3, a. 7, and in Contra Gentes 3, chap. 69, Gabriel (in Sentences
4, dist. 1, q. 1, a. 1, [notabile 3], and a. 3, dubia 2 and 3), following
Peter D'Ailly, is of the opinion that secondary causes bring about nothing
at all, but that God by Himself alone produces all the effects in them
and in their presence, so that fire does not produce heat and the sun does
not not give light, but instead it is God who produces these effects in
them and in their presence. Hence, in dubium 3 cited above he claims that
secondary causes are not properly causes in the sense of having
an influence on the effect; for it is only the First Cause which he affirms
to be a cause in this sense, whereas secondary causes, he claims, are to
be called causes sine qua non, insofar as God has decided not to produce
the effect except when they are present. Also, in the first article, cited
above, he asserts with Peter D'Ailly that when God produces an effect in
conjunction with a secondary cause, e.g., heat in conjunction with fire,
He contributes no less than He would contribute were He to produce the
same effect by Himself--in fact, He brings about more, since not only does
He produce the heat with a concurrence just as great as if the fire were
not present, but He also brings it about that the fire too is in its own
way a cause of the heat.
4. He supports this position (which he takes to celebrate the divine
power to the greatest possible extent, since it holds that all effects
are from God not just partially, but totally and properly) by citing 1
Corinthians 12:6, ". . . who works all in all," and 2 Corinthians
3:5, "Not that we are sufficient to think of anything by ourselves,
as if it came from us; but our sufficiency is from God."
5. Nonetheless, everyone rejects this position, and St. Thomas (in Sentences
2 and Contra Gentes 3, in the places cited above) justifiably
calls it stupid. For what can be more stupid than to deny that which is
obvious from experience and sensation? Yet it is obvious to the senses
that secondary causes elicit and exercise their own operations.
Now if this view were understood to apply to all causes in general,
even to the will and to free choice, as its authors seem to intend, then
certainly not only is it incompatible with the experience by which each
of us experiences in his very self that it is within his power to will
and not to will, but clearly it must also be judged as an error from the
point of view of the faith; for it completely destroys our freedom of choice
and thus robs our works of every vestige of virtue and vice, of merit and
demerit, of praise and blame, of reward and punishment. For if it is not
the will which operates, but God alone who elicits in it the good and evil
operations, then, I ask: What sort of freedom remains in it? Or what sort
of merit and praise or sin or blame can be attributed to it by reason of
the fact that it acts in one way or the other?
But even if the position in question were understood to apply only to
secondary causes which are not endowed with free choice, it would doubtless
still be insufficiently safe from the point of view of the faith.
For, indeed, Sacred Scripture attributes operations of this sort to
secondary causes in such a way as to signify that these operations are
truly effected by their causes. Mark 4:28, "For of itself the earth
bears the crop, first the blade, then the ear, etc." Luke 21:29-30,
"Behold the fig tree and all the trees; when they now produce of themselves
their buds . . .". Thus in De Civitate Dei 7, chap. 30 Augustine
says, "God administers all things which He has created in such a way
that He also allows them to exercise and perform their proper acts."
6. Next, the position is refuted by arguments. Given this position,
the following proposition would be false: 'The sun gives light', 'Fire
produces heat', etc., since it would not be the secondary causes which
bring about these things, but rather God in their presence. But this consequent
is contrary both to the common way of speaking and also to the common sense
of human beings. Furthermore, since according to Aristotle in De Caelo
2, chap. 3, each thing exists for the sake of its proper operation, it
would follow that all things exist in vain, since the things themselves
would not be doing that for which they were instituted, but rather God
would be doing it in their presence. Likewise, since God is just as able
to make a given thing cold in the presence of fire and to make it hot in
the presence of water as vice versa, fire could just as easily be the cause
of cooling and water of heating as vice versa. Indeed, since God could
create an angel or some other thing in the presence of a rock, a rock could
be a cause of creation--which, even though Gabriel concedes it, is obviously
as absurd as can be. Again, that which experience attests to should not
be denied in the absence of a compelling reason; but not only is there
no compelling reason, there is not even a plausible reason which
might recommend the claim that created things do not truly exercise the
actions which experience teaches originate from those same causes. Again,
one extols God's power more by claiming that He can bring about the operations
of all things both by Himself and through the powers He confers
on secondary causes than by claiming that He alone is able to bring them
about.
7. As for the first passage from Paul for the contrary (# 4 above),
it should be said that he is talking here about the operations of grace,
as is plainly obvious if the things which precede and follow are taken
into consideration; and those operations are from God, though with our
cooperation.
8. To the second passage (# 4 above) it should be replied similarly
that this passage has to do with a sort of cogitation which is sufficient
for someone to be a deserving minister of the New Testament, as will be
clear enough to anyone who carefully looks at Paul's context; but for that
the grace and concurrence of the Holy Spirit are necessary. Yet even if
both passages had to do with natural operations, they would still not imply
anything contrary to our position, since all operations are from God through
a universal concurrence, with simultaneous cooperation on our part.
9. Durandus' position in Sentences 2, dist. 1, q. 5, is exactly
the opposite of the position just impugned. For he contends that secondary
causes act and produce their effects in such a way that God concurs with
them by no action other than that of conserving their natures and the powers
he has endowed them with.
10. He argues for this claim as follows: First, the effects of secondary
causes are said to be from God by means of secondary causes. Therefore,
they are not immediately from God, but from the secondary causes
alone, whereas they are from God only mediately, inasmuch as He,
as the First Cause, has conferred on the secondary causes their existence
and power to act and has conserved this power in them.
11. Second, if God operated immediately with secondary causes in the
production of their effects (e.g., with fire in the production of heat),
then he would act either by numerically the same action by which the fire
acts, or by a different action. Not by the same action, because, first
of all, since that action does not exceed the power of the species fire,
the fire is capable of effecting it without any concurrence on God's part,
given the conservation of the fire's nature and active power; therefore,
God's concurrence would be superfluous. Second, numerically the same action
cannot be from two causes in such a way that it is completely and immediately
from each of them unless they act by means of numerically the same power--in
the way in which the Father and the Son completely and immediately spirate
the Holy Spirit, since they produce Him by numerically the same spirative
power. But the generation of fire is completely and immediately from the
fire, since this generation is not beyond the power of the species fire
itself. Therefore, it cannot at the same time be immediately from God,
since God and the fire do not act by means of the same power or active
potency. Nor does God act by an action numerically distinct from
that by which the fire acts. This is proven both from the fact that one
of the two actions would be superfluous, and also from the fact that the
actions could not be different from one another, because actions are distinguished
by their termini and in this case the terminus or effect produced is the
same.
12. Third, the order of agents corresponds to the order of ends. But
there cannot be two immediate and complete ends for one thing. Therefore,
neither can there be two agents, unless perhaps they take the place of
one complete agent, in the way that two people dragging a boat constitute
one total and sufficient and complete cause; in the same way, there can
also be many partial ends of the same thing.
13. Most judge this position of Durandus' to be erroneous, and this
point is intimated by Soto in Physics 2, q. 4, concl. 1. I, however,
judge it to be at the very least false and less than safe. For when Paul
(Acts 17:28) shows that God is not far away from any of us not only because
we exist in Him but also because we "move in Him", he is openly
intimating that God concurs immediately in our every movement; for the
presence of an agent by its substance is not correctly inferred from a
mediate concurrence and action. Again, when the kingly prophet (Psalm
138: 7-10) shows that wherever one might go off to, God would still be
present there, because one would have to be led there and held by the hand
of God, he is obviously affirming that God concurs immediately in every
local motion. See Job 10:8: "Your hands have formed me and you fashioned
me whole," and a while later at 10:10, "Did not you pour me out
like milk . . . ?", where the effects of secondary causes are attributed
also to God as a co-operator. Likewise, at Isaiah 26:12 we read, "You
do all of our acts in us, Lord"--and at Wisdom 8:1, "She reaches
from end to end mightily, and governs all things smoothly." See John
5:17: "My Father works even until now, and I work." See Augustine,
In Genesim ad Litteram 4, chap. 12 and 5, chap. 20, where in accord
with this passage from John he teaches excellently that on the seventh
day God rested from all the work of the creation of the world and from
producing new species in such a way that He nonetheless never ceases to
conserve those same things and to cooperate with secondary causes in the
production of their effects.
14. Durandus' position can also be shown to be false from reason. First,
no effect at all can exist in nature unless God by His influence in the
genus of efficient causation immediately conserves it. For it would be
strange if an angel and other substances depended in that way on God (as
was shown in q. 8 of Part I), whereas actions and the other accidents which
are in those substances did not likewise depend on God. For in that case
it would follow that if God wished to destroy the actions and accidents
while preserving the substances, it would not enough for Him to take away
the influence by which the former are conserved by Him, but rather He would
have to perform some additional contrary action--which cannot be truly
maintained. For what other contrary action can be imagined for, say, extinguishing
the light of the sun while preserving the substance of the sun, since there
is no contrary either to the light or to the action by which it emanates
from the substance of the sun? Indeed, unless you claimed that the light
can be extinguished by the mere subtraction of a divine action, you would
have to acknowledge that the light cannot be extinguished by God in any
way as long as the substance of the sun is preserved. Thus, it should be
said that all created things are entirely dependent on the immediate influence
of the Source from which they emanate. But since that which is necessary
for the conservation of a thing is all the more necessary for the
first production of the thing, it surely follows that nothing at
all can be produced by secondary causes unless at the same time the immediate
and actual influence of the First Cause intervenes. So it is proper to
the First Cause alone to depend on the influence of no other cause in the
production and conservation of its effects, whereas other causes depend
upon the assistance and general influence of the First Cause in both producing
and conserving their effects.
15. Second, if God did not cooperate with a secondary cause, He surely
would not have been able to bring it about that the Babylonian fire did
not burn the three young men, except by, as it were, opposing it or by
impeding its action either (i) through some contrary action or (ii) by
placing something around the young men or (iii) by conferring on them some
resistant quality which might prevent the fire's impressing its action
upon them. Therefore, since this derogates both the divine power and also
the total subjection by which all things submit to and obey God, it should
be claimed without doubt that God cooperates with secondary causes, and
it was only because God did not concur with the fire in its action that
the young men were not consumed by the fire.
16. As for Durandus' first argument, it should be said that the effects
of secondary causes are said to be from God by means of secondary
causes, not because God acts through a universal concurrence, but rather
because He brings about effects through those very causes as through ministers
or instruments which receive the power to act from Him.
17. The refutation of the second argument will be clearer from what
is going to be said in the next disputation. In the meantime it should
be said that God acts by numerically the same action, which, insofar
as it is from God, is called an action of God's and His universal concurrence,
but which, insofar as it is from the fire, it is called an action
and concurrence of the fire's; still, it is from the fire that the action
has the character of being a burning--and not from God, except
via the determination of the fire, which concurs simultaneously in that
action.
18. In response to the first proof to the contrary, it should be denied
that it does not exceed the power of the fire for that action to be done
without the assistance of God's universal concurrence. For to act with
nothing else assisting is proper to God and exceeds every created power;
for every created power, insofar as it depends on another for its nature,
depends on that other for its operation as well--especially since, as has
been shown, all effects depend upon God in such a way that even after they
have been produced, they are not able to exist at all unless God conserves
them by His influence.
19. In response to the second proof (# 11 above) it should be said that
an action of this sort is not completely and totally from the fire, if
we are speaking of an absolutely total cause, but is rather partly from
the fire and partly from God; on the other hand, it is wholly and totally
from each of them in its own order, i.e., from the fire in the order of
particular causes and from God in the order of universal First Causes,
as will be explained in the next disputation.
20. In response to the third proof (# 12 above) it should be said that
God and the secondary cause constitute one agent which is altogether complete
as regards the effect to be produced, even though each of them is complete
in its own order, as will be explained in the next disputation. So understood,
there is nothing incongruous in two agents concurring simultaneously in
the same action, as Durandus himself acknowledges.
Translated by
Alfred J. Freddoso
University of Notre Dame
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