Article 7 — Whether God works in the activity of nature

The seventh point of inquiry is whether God works in the activity of nature. (Parallel texts: ST I.105.5; SCG III.67; Compendium theologiae, ch. 135; In II Sent. 1.1.4.)

Obj. 1: It seems that he does not. For nature neither fails in necessary things nor abounds in the superfluous. Now, the action of nature requires nothing more than an active power in the agent and a passive power in the recipient. Therefore, there is no need for the divine power to operate in things.

Obj. 2: But you may say that nature’s active power depends, in its own activity, on the divine activity.

On the contrary, as the activity of a created nature depends on the divine activity, so the activity of an elemental body depends on the activity of a heavenly body, because the heavenly body stands in relation to the elemental body as a first cause to a second. Now, no one maintains that the heavenly body operates in every action of an elemental body. Therefore, we must not say that God is at work in every activity of nature.

Obj. 3: If God is at work in every activity of nature, then either God’s activity and nature’s are one and the same activity, or they are distinct. But they are not one and the same, for unity of activity indicates a unity of nature; therefore, as in Christ there are two natures, so also are there two activities there, and it is certain that there is not one nature of God and a creature. Nor can they be two distinct activities, because it seems that distinct activities cannot terminate in one and the same product, since movements and activities are diversified according to their termini. Therefore, it is altogether impossible that God work in nature.

Obj. 4: It will be replied that two activities can have the same terminus, if they stand as prior and posterior.

On the contrary, when several things are immediately related to some one thing, they do not so relate in an order. Now, both God and nature produce the natural effect immediately. Therefore, God’s activity and nature’s are not in a prior or posterior relationship.

Obj. 5: By the very fact that God fashions a nature, he gives it all that belongs to the account of that nature; for example, by the very fact that he makes a man, he gives him a rational soul. Now, it belongs to the account of a strength that it be a principle of action, since strength is the limit of a power, which latter is a principle of acting on another as other, as is said in Metaphysics 5. (Aristotle, Metaphysics 5.12, 1019a15–20.) Therefore, by the very fact that he implanted natural strengths in things, he enabled them to complete their natural activities. Hence, there is no need for him also to be at work in natural things.

Obj. 6: It might be replied that natural powers, like other beings, cannot last unless they be upheld by the divine power.

On the contrary, to work toward a thing is not the same as to work within the thing. But the activity whereby God either produces or preserves in existence a natural power is an activity producing or preserving toward that power. Therefore, this does not prove that God works in a natural power at work.

Obj. 7: If God works in a natural activity, it follows that he imparts something to the natural thing by so doing, since every agent, by acting, makes something to be actual. Either, then, this something suffices for nature to be able to be active by itself, or it does not suffice. If it suffices, then, since God also gave nature its natural power, for the same reason we may say that the natural power was sufficient for acting; nor will it be necessary that God, after he bestows power on the nature, should work in a thing for its activity. If, on the other hand, it does not suffice, he will need to do something more, and if this is not sufficient, more still, and so on to infinity. But this is impossible because one effect cannot depend on an infinite number of actions; for, since it is not possible to traverse infinity, it would never be accomplished. Therefore, we must accept the first alternative, namely, that the natural power suffices for the action of nature, without God operating in it.

Obj. 8: Further, given a cause that acts of natural necessity, its action follows unless it is hindered accidentally, because nature is determined to one thing. If, then, the heat of fire acts of natural necessity, then given heat, heating follows, and there is no need of a higher power to work in the heat.

Obj. 9: Things that are altogether disparate can be separated from each other. Now, God’s action and nature’s are altogether disparate, since God acts by his will, but nature acts by necessity. Therefore, God’s action can be separated from the action of nature, and consequently, he need not be at work in the action of nature.

Obj. 10: A creature, considered in itself, is like God inasmuch as it actually exists and acts; in this respect, it participates in the divine goodness. But this would not be so if its own power was not sufficient for it to act. Therefore, a creature is sufficiently equipped for action without God’s activity within it.

Obj. 11: Two angels cannot be in the same place, according to some, lest confusion of their activities should result, because an angel is where he acts. Now, God is more distant from nature than one angel from another. Therefore, God cannot operate in the same thing at the same time as nature operates.

Obj. 12: Moreover, it is written that God made man and left him in the hand of his own counsel (Sir 15:14). But he would not have so left him if he always were at work in the will. Therefore, he does not operate in the activity of the will.

Obj. 13: The will is master of its own action. (Cf. Augustine, City of God 5.9 (PL 41:149–52).) But this would not be the case if it were unable to act without God being at work in it, for our will is not master of the divine activity. Therefore, God is not active within our active will.

Obj. 14: To be free is to be the cause of one’s own action, as is said in Metaphysics 1. (Aristotle, Metaphysics 1.2, 982b25.) Consequently, that which cannot act except by a cause acting on it is not free in its action. But our will is free in its action. Therefore, it can act without any other cause acting on it, and the same conclusion follows.

Obj. 15: A first cause exerts a greater influence on the effect than does a second cause. If, then, God is at work in will and nature as a first cause in a second cause, it would follow that the defects that occur in voluntary and natural action would be ascribed to God more than to nature or will—which is incongruous.

Obj. 16: Given a cause whose action suffices, it is superfluous to require the action of another cause. But it is clear that if God acts within nature and will, his action is sufficient, since God’s works are perfect (Deut 32:4). Therefore, every action of nature and will would be superfluous. But nothing in nature is superfluous, (Aristotle, On the Parts of Animals 4.2, 691b5.) and consequently, neither nature nor will would do anything, and God alone would act. This, however, is incongruous. Therefore, so is the first thing, to state that God is at work within nature and will.

On the contrary (1) it is written: Lord, you have wrought all our works in us (Isa 26:12).

Furthermore (2), just as art presupposes nature, so does nature presuppose God. Now, nature is at work in an activity of art, since the activity of an art is not accomplished without the activity of nature; for example, fire softens the iron so as to render it malleable under the stroke of the smith. Therefore, God also is at work in the activity of nature.

Furthermore (3), according to the Philosopher, a man generates a man, and so does the sun. (Aristotle, Physics 2.2, 194b14.) Now, just as man’s activity in generation depends on the sun’s action, thus and much more so does the nature’s action depend on God’s action. Therefore, whatever nature works, God also works.

Furthermore (4), nothing can act unless it is a being. Now, nature cannot exist except through God’s action, for it would fall into nothingness were it not preserved in being by the action of the divine power, as Augustine states in The Literal Interpretation of Genesis. (Augustine, On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis 4.12 (PL 34:303–6).) Therefore, nature cannot act unless God act also.

Furthermore (5), God’s power is in every natural reality, since he is in all realities by his essence, power, and presence. Now, it cannot be admitted that God’s power, insofar as it is in things, is inactive. Consequently, insofar as it is in nature it is at work. Nor can it be said to work something other than the nature itself works, since evidently there is but one activity there. Therefore, in every activity of nature God is at work.

I answer that we must admit, simply speaking, that God works in the activities of nature and will. Some, however, through failing to understand this aright, fell into error, and ascribed to God every activity of nature in the sense that nature does nothing at all by its own proper power. They were led to hold this opinion by various arguments.

Thus, according to Rabbi Moses, (Moses Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed 1.73, 8th premise. Moses Maimonides was born in Cordoba in 1135 AD and died in Egypt in 1204 AD. Besides writing many medical and theological works, he is best known for having composed Moreh Nebuchim or The Guide for the Perplexed, which had a substantial influence on medieval philosophy.) some of the sages in the Moorish books of law asserted that all these natural forms are accidents; and since an accident cannot pass from one subject to another, they deemed it impossible for a natural thing, by its own form, to produce in any way a similar form in another subject. Consequently, they said that fire does not heat; rather, God creates heat in the thing that is made hot.

And if it were objected to them that a thing becomes hot whenever it is placed near a fire unless some obstacle be in the way, which shows that fire is the cause of heat by itself, they replied that God established an order to be observed within things, according to which he would never cause heat except at the presence of fire, not that the applied fire itself would do anything towards the heating.

However, this opinion is manifestly opposed to sensation. For, since a sense does not perceive unless it is acted upon by the sensible object—which is clearly true in regard to touch and the other senses, although with sight there is a doubt since some say that this occurs by an outward emission—it would follow that a man would not feel the fire’s heat, if the action of the fire did not produce in the sensorial organ a likeness of the fire’s heat. In fact, if this heat-species were to come to be in the organ from another agent, although touch would sense heat, it would not sense the heat of the fire, nor would it perceive that the fire is hot, and yet the sense does judge this to be the case, and the sense’s judgment does not err about its proper object.

It is also opposed to reason, which convinces us that nothing in natural things is void of purpose. Now, unless natural things did something, the natural forms and powers bestowed on them would be to no purpose, just as if a knife were not to cut, it would be useless for it to have sharpness. It would also be useless to set the fire next to the wood, if God ignites the wood without fire.

It is also opposed to God’s goodness, which is self-communicative, the result being that things were made like God not only in being but also in acting.

But the argument that they put forward is altogether frivolous. For when we say that an accident does not pass from one subject to another, this is understood as being about numerically the same accident, not to deny that an accident like in species can be induced in another subject by the power of the accident that is in some natural subject. And this happens of necessity in every natural action. Moreover, what they are supposing is false—that all forms are accidents—because then, in natural things, there would be no substantial being, the principle of which cannot be an accidental but only a substantial form. Moreover, this would make an end of generation and corruption, and many other incongruities would follow.

Avicebron, (Solomon Ibn Gabirol (Avicebron) was born in Spain ca. 1020 AD; he is known especially for his doctrine that all things, including soul and intellect, are composed of matter and form.) in the book The Font of Life, says that no corporeal substance acts, but that a spiritual force penetrating all bodies acts in them, and that the measure of a body’s activity is according to the measure of its purity and subtlety, by which it is rendered more penetrable to the spiritual power. He supports his statement by three arguments. (Avicebron, The Fountain of Life 2.9.)

His first argument is that every agent after God requires subject-matter on which to act, and no corporeal agent has matter subject to it; therefore, seemingly, it cannot act.

His second argument is that quantity hinders action and movement, in proof of which he points out that the size of a quantity slows its movement and increases a body’s heaviness; therefore, a corporeal substance, which is imbued with quantity, cannot act.

His third argument is that the corporeal substance is furthest removed from the first agent, which is only active and not passive, while the intermediate substances are both active and passive; therefore, corporeal substances, which come last, must be passive only and not active.

Now, all this is manifestly fallacious in that he takes all corporeal substances as numerically one and the same substance, as though they were distinct from one another only in accidental and not in their substantial being. For if the various corporeal substances be taken as substantially distinct, not every corporeal substance will occupy the last place among beings and be the furthest removed from the first agent; rather, one will be higher than another and nearer to the first agent, and thus one will be able to act on another.

Further, in the foregoing arguments, corporeal substance is considered only according to the account of matter and not according to the account of its own form, although it is composed of both. For it is true that corporeal substance belongs to the lowest grade of beings and has no subject beneath it, but this is by reason of its matter, not of its form; for by reason of its form, a corporeal substance has an inferior subject in any other substance whose matter has potentially that form, which this particular thing has actually.

Hence, it follows that there is mutual action in corporeal substances, since in the matter of one there is potentially the form of another, and vice versa. However, if the form itself does not suffice for acting, for the same reason neither does the force of the spiritual substance, which the corporeal substance must receive according to its own mode.

Nor does quantity take away movement and action, since nothing is moved unless it is a quantity, as is said in Physics 6. (Aristotle, Physics 6.10, 241a6.) Nor is it true that quantity is the cause of weight. This is disproved in On the Heavens 4. (Aristotle, On the Heavens 4.2, 308a34–b29.) In fact, quantity increases the speed of natural movement; for the greater a weighty body is, the greater the velocity of its downward movement, and in like manner, that of a light body in its movement upwards. And although quantity, in itself, is not a principle of action, no reason can be given why it should hinder action, seeing that it is rather a certain instrument of an active quality, except insofar as active forms in quantitative matter receive a certain being that is limited and individuated in respect to that particular matter, such that their action does not extend to an extraneous matter. But although they attain an individuated being in matter, still they do not lose the account of species, through which they can produce their like in species, although they themselves are unable to exist in another subject.

Hence, we are to understand that God works in every natural thing, not as though the natural thing did nothing, but because God works in the very nature and will when the thing works. How this may be understood we must now explain.

It must be observed that one thing may be the cause of another’s action in several ways.

First, by giving it the power to act; (Aristotle, Physics 8.4, 255a1–256a4.) thus, it is said in Physics 4 that the generator moves heavy and light bodies inasmuch as it gives them the power through which that movement results. In this way, God works all the actions of nature because he gave natural things the powers through which they are able to act, not only as the generator gives a power to heavy and light things and does not preserve it further, but also as continually upholding the power in existence; for he is the cause of the power bestowed not only as regards its coming to be, as a generator, but also as regards its being.

And thus God may be said to be the cause of an action by both causing and preserving the natural power in its being. For also in a second way, the preserver of a power is said to make the action, just as medicine that preserves sight is said to make one see.

But since nothing moves or acts through its very self unless it be an unmoved mover, in a third way one thing is said to cause another’s action insofar as it moves it to act. By this we do not mean that it bestows or preserves the active power but that it applies the power to action, just as a man causes the knife’s cutting by the very fact that he applies the sharpness of the knife to cutting by moving it to cut. And because the lower nature in acting does not act except as moved, because these lower bodies are both subject to and cause alteration, whereas the heavenly body causes alteration without being subject to it, yet it does not cause movement except as moved, and this does not cease until we reach God—it follows of necessity that God causes the action of every natural thing as moving and applying its power to action.

Furthermore, we find that the order of effects follows the order of causes, and this must be so on account of the likeness of the effect to its cause. Nor is the second cause capable, by its own proper power, of the effect of the first cause, although it is the instrument of the first cause in regard to that effect. For an instrument is in a certain way the cause of the principal cause’s effect, not through its own form or power, but insofar as it participates somewhat in the power of the principal cause through being moved thereby. For example, the axe is the cause of the craftsman’s handiwork not through its own proper form or power, but through the power of the craftsman who moves it and in a certain way it participates in it.

Hence, in a fourth way, one thing causes the action of another as a principal agent causes the action of its instrument; and in this way too we must say that God causes every action of a natural thing. For the higher the cause, the more universal and efficacious it is, and the more efficacious the cause, the more deeply does it penetrate into the effect, and from a more remote potency it brings that effect into act.

Now, in every natural thing whatsoever, we find that it is a being, a natural thing, and of this or that nature. The first is common to all beings, the second to all natural things, the third to all the members of a species, while a fourth, if we take accidents into account, is proper to this individual. Accordingly, this individual cannot by its action produce another individual of the same species except as the instrument of that cause that is in reference to the whole species and, further, the whole being of the lower nature. And on account of this, nothing acts toward the species, in these lower things, except through the power of the heavenly body, nor does anything act toward being except through the power of God. For being itself is the most common first effect and one more intimate than all other effects; therefore, to God alone does such an effect belong, according to his own proper power. This is also why it is said, in The Book of Causes, that an intelligence does not give being unless the divine power is in it. (The Book of Causes, Proposition 9.)

Therefore, in this way God is the cause of every action inasmuch as every agent is an instrument of the divine power operating. If, then, we consider subordinate agents, every particular agent is immediate to its own effect. But if we consider the power by which the action is done, then the power of the higher cause will be more immediate to the effect than the power of the lower cause, since the power of the lower cause is not joined to its effect save by the power of the higher cause; therefore, it is said in The Book of Causes that the power of the first cause acts in a prior way toward the effect and enters into it more forcefully. (The Book of Causes, Proposition 1.)

Accordingly, the divine power must be present to every acting thing, just as the power of the heavenly body must be present to every acting elemental agent. Yet there is a difference: wherever the divine power is, there is the divine essence, whereas the essence of the heavenly body is not wherever its own power is. And further, God is his own power but the heavenly body is not its own power.

Consequently, we may say that God works in every reality insofar as every reality needs his power in order that it may act; however, it cannot properly be said that the heaven always acts on the elemental body, although the elemental body does act by the power of it. Therefore, God is the cause of everything’s action inasmuch as he gives everything the power to act, and inasmuch as he preserves it, and inasmuch as he applies it to action, and inasmuch as by his power every other power acts. And if we add to these things that God is his own power, and that he is within each and every reality not as part of its essence but as holding the reality in being, it will follow that he is at work immediately in each and every thing that is at work, not excluding the activity of the will and of nature.

Reply Obj. 1: The active and passive powers of a natural thing suffice for action in their own order, yet the divine power is required, for the reason given above.

Reply Obj. 2: Although the activity of a natural power relative to God and that of an elemental body relative to the heavenly body are in a sense similar, the comparison does not apply in every respect.

Reply Obj. 3: In the activity by which God works by moving the nature, the nature is not at work; but the very activity of the nature is also the activity of the divine power, just as the activity of an instrument occurs through the power of the principal agent. Nor does this prevent nature and God from working for the same effect, on account of the order between God and nature.

Reply Obj. 4: Both God and nature act immediately, although (as is clear from what was stated) they are ordered according to priority and posteriority.

Reply Obj. 5: It belongs to the account of a lower power to be in a certain way a principle of activity in its own order, namely, such that it acts as an instrument of a higher power; therefore, apart from the higher power, it has no activity.

Reply Obj. 6: God is the cause of nature’s activity not only as preserving the natural power in being, but in other ways also, as stated above.

Reply Obj. 7: The natural power that has been bestowed on natural things at their formation are in them as a certain form possessing a fixed and firm existence in the nature. But that which comes from God in a natural thing, whereby it actually acts, is as a mere intention, possessing a certain incomplete being in the manner in which colors are in the air and an art’s power is in the craftsman’s tool. Hence, just as the art can give the axe its sharpness as a permanent form within it but not the power of the art as some permanent form (unless it were endowed with intelligence), so it is possible for a natural thing to be given its own proper power as a permanent form within it but not the power to act so as to cause being as an instrument of the first cause, unless it were given to be the universal principle of being. Nor could it be given to a natural power to move its very self or to preserve itself in being. Consequently, just as it clearly cannot be given to the craftsman’s instrument to work without the motion of the art, so neither can it be given to a natural thing to act without the divine activity.

Reply Obj. 8: The natural necessity whereby heat acts is the result of the order of all the preceding causes; therefore, the power of the first cause is not excluded.

Reply Obj. 9: Although nature and will are disparate as regards their being, there is a certain order between them as regards their acting. For just as the action of nature precedes the action of our will, by reason of which in the works of an art, which proceed from a will, one needs the activity of nature, so too the will of God, which is the origin of all natural movement, precedes the activity of nature; whence also its activity is required in every activity of nature.

Reply Obj. 10: The creature has a certain likeness to God by partaking in his goodness, insofar as it exists and acts, but not such that it can become equal to him through that likeness being perfected; therefore, as the imperfect needs the perfect, so the power of nature in acting needs the divine activity.

Reply Obj. 11: One angel is less distant from another in the degree of nature than God from created nature; yet, in the order of cause and effect, God and the nature come together, but two angels do not. Whence God acts in the nature but one angel does not act in another.

Reply Obj. 12: God is said to have left man in the hand of his counsel not as though he did not act in the will, but because he gave man’s will dominion over its own act, such that it would not be bound to one side of a contradiction; this dominion he did not bestow on nature, since by its form it is determined to one thing.

Reply Obj. 13: The will is said to have dominion over its own act not to the exclusion of the first cause but inasmuch as the first cause does not act in the will so as to determine it of necessity to one thing, as it does determine nature; therefore, the determination of the act remains in the power of the reason and will.

Reply Obj. 14: Not every cause excludes freedom, but only one that is coercive, and it is not thus that God causes our activity.

Reply Obj. 15: Inasmuch as the first cause has more influence in the effect than the second cause, whatever there is of perfection in the effect is to be traced back principally to the first cause, while all defects must be traced back to a second cause, which does not act as efficaciously as the first cause.

Reply Obj. 16: God acts perfectly as first cause, yet the activity of nature is required as a secondary cause. Nevertheless, God could produce the nature’s effect even without the nature, but he wishes to act by means of nature in order to preserve the order in things.