7. If effects are not produced by the action of creatures, but only by the action of God, it is impossible for the power of any creature to be manifested by its effect: for an effect shows the power of the cause only by reason of the action, which proceeds from the power and is terminated to the effect. But the nature of a cause is not known through its effect except in so far as through its effect its power is known which follows upon its nature.* If then created things have no actions of their own productive of effects, it follows that the nature of a created thing can never be known by its effect; and thus there is withdrawn from us all investigation of natural science, in which demonstrations are given principally through the effect.f Some Doctors of the Moorish Law are said to bring an argument to show that accidents are not traceable to the action of bodies, the ground of the argument being this, that an accident does not pass from subject to subject: hence they count it an impossibility for heat to pass from a hot body to another body heated by it, but they say that all such accidents are created by God. Now this is a ridiculous proof to assign of a body not acting, to point to the fact that no accident passes from subject to subject. When it is said that one hot body heats another, it is not meant that numerically the same heat, which is in the heating body, passes to the body heated; but that by virtue of the heat, which is in the heating body, numerically another heat comes to be in the heated body actually, which was in it before potentially. For a natural agent does not transfer its own form to another subject, but reduces the subject upon which it acts from potentiality to actuality. J * Hence they who deny all causative activity, and may. But St Thomas's ' natural science' includes phyreduce causality to a particular case of sequence, further sics and metaphysics. Metaphysics rest on an a posteconclude, logically enough, that we can know nothing riori basis of sensory experience. The enquiries in of 'natures,' 'substances,' 'essences,' and 'things in Aristotle's eight books of Physics are chiefly metaphythemselves,' but only phenomena. Logic should fur- sical. No doubt, physics have gained by being made ther lead them to deny all potential being and all a speciality, apart from metaphysics. The former is permanent existence, and to take up with the Heracli- the lower, the latter the higher science. You may stop tean flux. short of the higher: but you can be no great master t That is to say, the proofs are a posteriori, resting of the higher if you are quite a novice in the lower, on experience. The order of nature is an historical Nemo metaphysial* quin idem physicus. order, particularly in its coexistences. It may be ob- % The doctrine refuted in this chapter is known jected that the physicist may prescind entirely from in more recent philosophy as Occasionalism. "Occathe question agitated in this chapter. So indeed he sionalism...teaches that created things are the GOD THE END OF CREATURES CHAPTER LXX-How the same Effect is from God and from a Natural Agent SOME find it difficult to understand how natural effects are attributable at once to God and to a natural agent. For (Arg. i) one action, it seems, cannot proceed from two agents. If then the action, by which a natural effect is produced, proceeds from a natural body, it does not proceed from God.
Arg. 2. When an action can be sufficiently done by one, it is superfluous to have it done by more: we see that nature does not do through two instru- ments what she can do through one. Since then the divine power is sufficient to produce natural effects, it is superfluous to employ also natural powers for the production of those same effects. Or if the natural power sufficiently pro- duces its own effect, it is superfluous for the divine power to act to the same effect.
*Arg. 3. If God produces the whole natural effect, nothing of the effect is left for the natural agent to produce.
Upon consideration, these arguments are not difficult.
Reply 1. The power of the inferior agent depends upon the power of the superior agent, inasmuch as the superior agent gives to the inferior the power whereby it acts, or preserves that power, or applies it to action; as a work- man applies a tool to its proper effect, frequently however without giving the tool the form whereby it acts,* nor preserving it, but merely giving it motion. The action therefore of the inferior agent must proceed from that agent not merely through its own power, but through the power of all superior agents, for it acts in virtue of them all. And as the ultimate and lowest agent acts immediately, so is the power of the prime agent immediate in the production of the effect. For the power of the lowest agent is not competent to produce the effect of itself, but in power of the agent next above it; and the power of that agent is competent in virtue of the agent above it; and thus the power of the highest agent proves to be of itself pro- ductive of the effect, as the immediate cause, as we see in the principles of mathematical demonstrations, of which the first principle is immediate, t As then it is not absurd for the same action to be produced by an agent and the power of that agent, so neither is it absurd for the same effect to be pro- duced by an inferior agent and by God, by both immediately, although in different manners.
Reply 2. Though a natural thing produces its own effect, it is not super- fluous for God to produce it, because the natural thing does not produce it except in the power of God. Nor is it superfluous, while God can of Him- self produce all natural effects, for them to be produced by other causes: this mere occasions on which the Divinity takes the oppor- tools. This example of the workman and his tool, a tunity to act conformably to the requirements of the favourite with St Thomas, goes beyond the domain objects present; this theory is especially characteristic of physical nature, and therefore is in point. But, as of the school of Descartes, and is in intimate con- I have already observed, the instances which physical nexion with the reduction of matter by that philoso- nature yields are not of subordinate, but of co-ordi- pher to extension, with inertia for its chief property, nate action. That prime minister of creation, the cor- Matter, according to him, can itself do nothing: it is pus coelestey or primum mobile^ respected and constantly a mere receptivity and channel of communication or referred to till the end of the sixteenth century, has transference for the motion imparted by the Creator; gone finally out of office, and with it the primacy and it can hand about movement from particle to particle, commanding influence of heavenly over earthly bodies, but it cannot originate or destroy any; and thus it is Physical forces in the heavens above and on the earth opposed to mind, the very essence of which is thought beneath make together a republic, not a feudal moor activity. Matter is inert extension, thought is ever- narchy.
operative inextension, etc." See (general Metapbyskes, t That is, immediately known, or self-evident.
Stonyhurst Series, pp. 308-313. The feudal, or hierarchical, view of causation, here * The workman does not usually make his own taken, is remarkable.
is not from the insufficiency of God's power, but from the immensity of His goodness, whereby He has wished to communicate His likeness to creatures, not only in point of their being, but likewise in point of their being causes of other things (Chap. XXI).
Reply 3. When the same effect is attributed to a natural cause and to the divine power, it is not as though the effect were produced partly by God and partly by the natural agent: but the whole effect is produced by both, though in different ways, as the same effect is attributed wholly to the instrument, and wholly also to the principal agent.* CHAPTER LXXI-That the Divine Providence is not wholly inconsistent with the Presence of Svil in Qreation PERFECT goodness could not be in creation if there were not found an order of goodness among creatures, some being better than others: or else all possible grades of goodness would not be filled up; nor would any creature be like God in having pre-eminence over another, t Thus a great beauty would be lost to creation in the removal of the order of distinct and dissimilar beings, one better than the other. A dead level of goodness would be a manifest derogation to the perfection of creation. A higher grade of goodness consists in there being something which cannot fall away from goodness; a lower grade, in there being that which can fall away. J The per- fection of the universe requires both grades of goodness. But it is the care of a ruler to uphold perfection in the subjects of his government, not to make it less. Therefore it is no part of divine providence wholly to exclude from creation the capability of falling away from good. But upon this capability evil ensues: for what is capable of falling away, sometimes does fall away; and the mere lack of good is evil (Chap. VII).
3. The best rule in any government is to provide for everything under government according to the mode of its nature: just administration consists in this. As then it would be contrary to any rational plan of human admini- stration for the civil government to debar its subjects from acting according to their offices and conditions of life, except perhaps in an occasional hour of emergency, so it would be contrary to the plan of divine government not to allow creatures to act according to the mode of their several natures. But by the very fact of creatures so acting there follows destruction and evil in the world, since by reason of mutual contrariety and inconsistency one thing is destructive of another. § 5. There are many good things in creation which would find no place there, unless evils were there also. Thus there would be no patience of the just, if there were not the malice of persecutors: no room for vindictive justice, * The notion of instrumentality does not enter X An atom cannot fall away from goodness, being into physical science. Only intelligence applies instru- practically imperishable: a man's body easily falls away: ments, formally as such. yet there is no doubt which represents the higher grade t In a great house there are not only Vessels of gold of goodness. and silver, but also of mod and earthenware, and some § This perhaps is the best account that we have unto honour, some unto dishonour (2 Tim. ii, 20). Yes, to render of evil. Evil lies at the root of things crcatbut we should like to have every vessel good of its able, limited and imperfect: it is imbedded in the kind; sound earthenware as well as 22-carat gold, eternal possibilities of their nature: let but things Per se it is so, per accidens often not. The human exist in time, and certain evils, physical evils at any spirit ever finds some retort upon these justifications, rate, are bound to arise. And given a realm of rational Investigable up to a certain point, the dark continent creatures, subject to physical evils, moral evils are not of evil stretches away beyond into mystery; and there far off the frontier of such a kingdom, is nothing for it but to trust God.
if there were no offences: and in the physical order one thing cannot come to be unless something else is destroyed.* If then evil were wholly excluded from the universe by divine providence, the number of good things would be proportionally diminished: which ought not to be, because good is more vigo- rtnis in goodness than evil in badness (virtuosius est bonum in bonitate quam in malitia malum), as above shown (Chap. XII).
6. The good of the whole takes precedence of the good of the part. It belongs then to a prudent ruler to neglect some defect of goodness in the part for the increase of goodness in the whole, as an architect buries the founda- tion under the earth for the strengthening of the whole house. But if evil were removed from certain portions of the universe, much perfection would be lost to the universe, the beauty of which consists in the orderly blending of things good and evil (pulcritudo ex ordinata bonorum et malorum adunatione consurgii)y while evil things have their origin in the breaking down of good things, and still from them good things again take their rise by the provi- dence of the ruler, as an interval of silence makes music sweet.
7. Other things, and particularly inferior things, are ordained to the end of the good of man. But if there were no evils in the world, much good would be lost to man, as well in respect of knowledge, as also in respect of desire and love of good: for good is better known in contrast with evil; and while evil results come about, we more ardently deire good results: as sick men best know what a blessing health is.
Therefore it is said: Maying peace and creating evil (Isai. xlv, 7): Shall there be eVd in the city that the Lord hath not done? (Amos iii, 6.)
Boethius (De consolationey Lib. I, prosa 4) introduces a philosopher asking the question: 'If there is a God, how comes evil?'. The argument should be turned the other way: 'If there is evil, there is a God.' For there would be no evil, if the order of goodness were taken away, the privation of which is evil; and this order would not be, if God were not.
Hereby is taken away the occasion of the error of the Manicheans, who supposed two primary agents, good and evil, as though evil could not have place Ainder the providence of a good God.
We have also the solution of a doubt raised by some, whether evil actions are of God. Since it has been shown (Chap. LXVI) that every agent produces its action inasmuch as it acts by divine power, and that thereby God is the cause of all effects and of all actions (Chap. LXVII); and since it has been further shown (Chap. X) that in things subject to divine providence evil and deficiency happens from some condition of secondary causes, in which there may be defect; it is clear that evil actions, inasmuch as they are defective, are not of God, but of defective proximate causes; but so far as the action and entity contained in them goes, they must be of God, — as lameness is of motive power, so far as it has anything of motion, but so far as it has any- thing of defect, it comes of curvature of the leg.
* We only live because previous generations have conditions of humanity that at present obtain, would died and made room for us. Deaths make births and be as bad as a general massacre, marriages possible. A general resurrection, under the CHAPTER LXXII-T/iat Divine Providence is not inconsistent with an element of Contingency in Creation* AS divine providence does not exclude all evil from creation, neither does it exclude contingency, or impose necessity upon all things. The operation of providence does not exclude secondary causes, but is fulfilled by them, inasmuch as they a<5t in the power of God. Now effects are called ' necessary ' or ' contingent ' according to their proximate causes, not according to their remote causes. Since then among proximate causes there are many that may fail, not all effe6ts subje6t to providence will be neces- sary, but many will be contingent.
6. On the part of divine providence no hindrance will be put to the failure of the power of created things, or to an obstacle arising through the resistance of something coming in the way. But from such failure and such resistance the contingency occurs of a natural cause not always a6ting in the same way, but sometimes failing to do what it is naturally competent to do; and so natural effe6ts do not come about of necessity. t CHAPTER LXXlll-That Divine Providence is not Inconsistent with Freedom of the Will THE government of every prudent governor is ordained to the per- fe&ion of the things governed, to the gaining, or increasing, or maintenance of that perfection. An element of perfeftion then is more worthy of being preserved by providence than an element of imper- fection and defedt. But in inanimate things the contingency of causes comes of imperfeflion and defedt: for by their nature they are determined to one effect, which they always gain, unless there be some let or hindrance arising either from limitation of power, or the interference of some external agent, or indisposition of subject-matter; and on this account natural causes in their action are not indifferent to either side of an alternative, but for the most part produce their effects uniformly, while they fail in a minority of instances.
* Cf. I, Chapp. LXVII (with notes, pp. 49, 50), LXXXV.
The contingent, avf/fiefiriK^ is that which is, but might not be (Aristotle, Physics, VIII, v). The term is still of interest to the logician, and to the psycho- logist, who concerns himself with the freedom of the will, but has lost all interest in physical science, ex- cept in the cognate sense of accidental.
t But a * natural cause,' or physical agent, as such {res natura/is), as distinguished from a moral agent, does always aft in the same way under the same cir- cumstances. It is the circumstances that vary, not the behaviour of the natural cause. Compare Newton's second law of motion. And so natural, or physical, events come about under an hypothetical necessity. They always happen in the same way, if the ante- cedents, positive and negative, are the same.
In this chapter St Thomas is concerned to obviate a difficulty unlikely to occur to modern minds, — how it is consistent with divine providence for ter- restrial events, such as the weather, the growth of the crops, the healthy development of animals, not to run in regular calculable cycles, like the ordinary celestial phenomena, sunrise and sunset, equinox and solstice, the waxing and waning of the moon. From Plato and Aristotle to Newton, celestial phenomena were ' necessary,' terrestrial * contingent.' The real difference is one of simplicity and plurality of causes.
Professor Stewart, Notes on Nicomachean Ethics, vol. II, p. 9, writes: " There is no contingency in things, but there is often failure on the part of organic beings to cope with the complexity of the necessary laws which thing obey ": a remark which is true, so far as things do obey necessary laws. But there is a contingency in a&s of free will, and in things so far as they are consequent upon such a&s.
To take another point of view. Contingency, like chance, has been predicated of co-existences, or co- incidences, rather than of sequences; and necessity has been made out for sequence better than for co- existence. The study of co-existences carries us far back into the dim past, even to that * primitive collocation of materials,' which, it is argued, must have been the work of intelligence and free will. Cf. B. I, Chap. XIII: B. Ill, Chap. XCIV, with notes.
But that the will is a contingent cause comes of its very perfedtion, because its power is not tied to one effedt, but it rests with it to produce this effedt or that, wherefore it is contingent either way.* Therefore providence is more concerned to preserve the liberty of the will than to preserve contingency in natural causes.
2. It belongs to divine providence to use things according to their several modes. But a thing's mode of adtion depends upon its form, which is the principle of adtion. But the form whereby a voluntary agent adts is not determinate: for the will adts through a form apprehended by the intelledt; and the intellect has not one determined form of effedt under its considera- tion, but essentially embraces a multitude of forms;t and therefore the will can produce multiform effedts.
3. The last end of every creature is to attain to a likeness to God (Chap. XVII): therefore it would be contrary to providence to withdraw from a creature that whereby it attains the divine likeness. But a voluntary agent attains the divine likeness by adting freely, as it has been shown that there is free will in God (B. I, Chap. LXXXVIII).
4. Providence tends to multiply good things in the subjedts of its govern- ment. But if free will were taken away, many good things would be with- drawn. The praise of human virtue would be taken away, which is nullified where good is not done freely: the justice of rewards and punishments would be taken away, if, man did not do good and evil freely: wariness and circum- spedtion in counsel would be taken away, as there would be no need of taking counsel about things done under necessity. It would be therefore contrary to the plan of providence to withdraw the liberty of the will. { Hence it is said: God made man from the beginnings and left him in the band of his oVn counsel: before man is life and deaths whatever he shall please shall be gft>en him (Ecclus xv, 14-17).
Hereby is excluded the error of the Stoics, who said that all things arose of necessity, according to an indefeasible order, which the Greeks called ymarmene (elfiapfiiyrj).
CHAPTER LXXIV— That Divine Providence is not Inconsistent with Fortune and Qhance^ THE multitude and diversity of causes proceeds from the order of divine providence and arrangement. Supposing an arrangement of many causes, one must sometimes combine with another, so as either to hinder or help it in producing its effedt. A chance event arises from a coincidence of two or more causes, in that an end not intended is gained by the coming in of some collateral cause, as the finding of a debtor by him who went to market to make a purchase, when his debtor also came to market. || * To say that the will is * contingent either way * § See Chap. VI, note, p. 187. means that, between two ways, it so takes one way II The example is from Aristotle's three chapters as to be able to take the other. The question need on chance and fortune {Physics, II, iv, v, vi), the not be raised here whether the two ways are opposed concluding sentence of which is worth quoting: as contraries, or as contradictories. " Chance (ro avropaTov) and fortune (1) rvyrj) are t In plain English, the intellect does not think something posterior to intelligence and natural de- of one thing only to do, but of many courses of velopment: so that however much chance be the action. cause of the system of the heavens, intelligence and t I have endeavoured to lend this contested argu- natural development must needs be a prior cause, as ment some support in Political and Moral Essays, well of many other things, as also of this universe." Essay VI, Morality without free will.
Hence it is said: J saw that the race was not to the swift...but that occasion and chance are in all things (Eccles ix, 1 1), to wit, in all sublunary things {in inferior ibus).* CHAPTER LXXV r-That the Providence of God is exercised over Individual and (Contingent Things IF God has no care of these individual things, that is either because He does not know them, or because He has no power over them, or because He has no will to take care of them. But it has been shown above (B. I, Chap. LXV) that God has knowledge of individual things. Nor can it be said that He has no power to take care of them, seeing that His power is infinite (B. II, Chap. XXIfy Nor again that God has no will to govern them, seeing that the obje6t of His will is universally all good (B. I, Chap. LXXVIII).
3. This common attribute is found in productive causes, that they have a care of the things that they produce, as animals naturally nourish their young. God thereof has care of the things of which He is the cause. But He is the cause even of these particular things (B. II, Chap. XV), and therefore He has care of them.f 5. It would be a foolish providence not to take care of those things without which the obje6ts of one's care could not exist. But certainly, if all particu- lars were to fail, universals could not remain. If then God has care of the universal only, and neglefls the individual altogether, His providence must be foolish and imperfe6t. But if it is said that God has care of individuals so far as to see that they are maintained in being, but no further, that answer cannot stand. For all that befalls individuals has some bearing on their pre- servation or destruction. If therefore God has care of individuals so far as to see to their preservation, He must have care of all that befalls them.
7. This is the difference between speculative and practical knowledge, that speculative knowledge and all that concerns such knowledge is wrought out in generalities, whereas the sphere of practical knowledge is the par- ticular. For the end of practical knowledge is truth, which consists primarily and ordinarily in the immaterial and universal, while the end of practical knowledge is aCtion, which deals with particular faCts. Hence the physician does not attend man in general, but this man; and to the care of the indi- vidual man the whole science of medicine is directed. But providence, being directive of things to their end, must be a department of practical know- ledge. Thus the providence of God would be very imperfect, if it stopped short at the universal, and did not reach individual cases.
8. The perfection of speculative knowledge lies in the universal rather * Aristotle is right in contending that things do t The tree holds on to its fruit, so far as it can, happen by fortune and chance; and further that for- and only sheds it spontaneously when it is ripe, tune and chance are relative terms, denoting the Dumb animals care for their young till they are old unforeseen and unpremeditated in relation to (human) enough to shift for themselves. Human love and forethought. But in relation to a perfect providence, solicitude for children endure as long as life lasts, — an all-seeing mind, an omnipotent ruler, nothing is and not only for children, but for artistic creations fortuitous: everything is foreseen, allowed for, willed, of hand and mind. But God is of all living things or at least permitted. Nor are the laws of nature at the best, according to the Aristotelian definition fault in a chance event. The same forces, working (Metapb. XII, vii). He may be expected therefore to according to the same laws, forward man to his be more careful of His creatures than the tree of its destination nine hundred and ninety-nine times, and fruit, than the animal of its young, than parent of the thousandth time they destrpy him. child, than artist of his work.
GOD THE END OF CREATURES