Chapter XXIV. Question 105

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LTHOUGH this question is in itself of great importance, we will not consider it at length because we have already solved the principal difficulties arising from it.*

First ARTICLE

WHETHER GOD CAN DIRECTLY MOVE MATTER TO THE FORM

State of the question. It seems that the most universal cause can directly produce only the most universal effect, that is, the being of all things inasmuch as it is being, but not the most particular effect, for example, forming this particular body out of matter.

Reply. The reply is in the affirmative, for we read in the Scriptures: “The Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth.” ? The reason is that a being in passive potency can be reduced to act by that active potency which has this being in its power. But matter is under the power of God inasmuch as it is produced by God. Therefore matter can be reduced to act by the divine power.

Reply to first objection. An angel cannot do this because matter is not in its power.” An angel cannot directly change water into wine¹ progressively by the fermentation of the grape. 449² by a direct action on the matter itself to educe the form of wine without preliminary alterations. The angel can only move bodies locally, but it can do this quickly and skillfully.‘

Reply to second objection. If God acted by a necessity of nature, He could produce but one effect, but God acts freely, not only with the freedom with which man freely begets only a man, but God acts directly by His will and intellect and He knows not only the universal natures of things but also this particular form which is to be imprinted on the slime of the earth.

WHETHER GOD CAN DIRECTLY MOVE A BODY

The reply is in the affirmative, for the same reason as given in the preceding article. The contact of God moving with the body that is moved is not quantitative contact, but rather a contact of power or a dynamic contact. Thus God touches but He is not touched because the natural power of no creature can reach Him.

Tump ARTICLE

WHETHER GOD DIRECTLY MOVES THE CREATED INTELLECT

The reply is in the affirmative. God moves the created intellect: 1. because, as the first intelligence, He gives the creature the power of intellection; 2. because He is the supreme intelligible, in whom other intelligibles pre-exist intelligibly and from whom these intelligibles are derived for other intellects. Thus God causes the intelligible species in angels directly, and in our intellect by means of the abstraction from sensible things.

FourtH ARTICLE

WHETHER GOD CAN MOVE THE CREATED WILL

State of the question. It appears that God cannot move the created will because whatever is moved extrinsically is forced ; because to move voluntarily is to be moved from within and not by another; and because voluntary deeds would not be imputed to man for merit or demerit. These objections were revived by Molinism.

St. Thomas replies that it belongs to God to move the will objec-

THE CHANGE OF CREATURES BY GOD 451 tively and efficaciously, and especially interiorly by inclining it.

Proof from Scripture. “For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish.” ° Other texts were cited above.®

Proof from reason. 1. On the part of the object the will is not adequately or efficaciously moved except by God because God alone is the universal good in being, which adequates and exceeds the ¢apacity of the will. Thus God alone, clearly seen, irresistibly attracts our will.” 2. Further, God alone can move the will by inclining it interiorly, just as He alone is the cause of the power of willing. The order of agents must correspond to the order of ends, and therefore only the supreme agent can move beings to the final end, to the universal good.

Reply to first objection. In moving the will, God does not force it, because He gives the will an inclination that is proper to it, and in accord with this inclination He moves the will from within. Thus God also moves the will to some particular good according to its inclination to the universal good.

Reply to second objection. To be moved voluntarily is to be moved of oneself, that is, by an intrinsic principle. But that intrinsic principle is a second cause, which is moved by the first cause.

Reply to third objection. If the will were to be moved by God in such a way that it did not move itself as a second cause, the acts of the will would not be imputed for merit or demerit. But such is not the case. “Since the divine will is most efficacious, it follows not only that those things take place which God wishes, but that these things take place in the manner that God wishes. But God wishes certain effects to take place contingently (some even voluntarily) and therefore He has prepared contingent (and voluntary) causes for these effects” ° and He moves these causes in accord with their condition.®

WHETHER GOD OPERATES IN EVERY OPERATION

The reply is in the affirmative according to the words of Scripture, “Thou hast wrought all our works for us,” 1° “For in Him we live

and move and are,” ** “The same God, who worketh all in all.” !?

In this article St. Thomas rejects two errors which are opposed to each other. According to nominalism, no created power operates in things; God alone directly does all things, for example, fire does not heat, it is God operating in the fire. On the other hand, others say that the creature can act without divine movement and thus the creature is not subordinate to the first cause; God and the creature are two coordinate causes, like two men rowing a boat.

St. Thomas takes a position above these opposing views. The operation always follows being, and the mode of operation follows the mode of being. Therefore God alone, who is being per se, operates of Himself without any superior movement, whereas the creature, which is being by participation, does not operate except dependently on the divine movement. That is, “God not only gives forms to things but He conserves them in being, and He applies them to action, and is the end of all actions.” 1%

If the creature were to pass from potency to act, or to action, without the divine movement, more would proceed from less, the perfect from the imperfect in opposition to the principle of causality, and the proofs for the existence of God based on motion and on efficient causes would lose their force. “Thus God is the cause of every action inasmuch as He gives the power to act, inasmuch as He conserves that power, inasmuch as He applies the power to action, and inasmuch as every power acts by His power.” '4 “God could not have made a natural thing so that it could operate without the divine operation.” 15 Nothing has been more explicitly stated by the Thomists.

Molina, however, found himself at variance with this teaching of St. Thomas. He said: “Two things in this doctrine of St. Thomas cause me difficulty. The first is that I cannot see or understand that movement and that application in second causes by which God moves these causes to act.” 1° For Molina the influx of God’s general power is simultaneous, it does not flow into the second cause and apply it to action but flows directly into the effect of the second cause, “not un-

18 Cf. reply to the third difficulty.

THE CHANGE OF CREATURES BY GOD 453 like two men rowing a boat.” " Suarez maintained the same view.'®

The Thomists reply that if this were true the second cause would be coordinate with the first cause and it would not be properly subordinated in causality, and the transition from potency to act would not be explained. On the other hand, we must say that the second cause is subordinated to the first cause in such a way that the whole effect is from God as from the first cause and from the creature as from the second cause, just as the fruit of the vine is entirely from the branch as the proximate cause and from the whole vine itself as from the radical cause.

God, therefore, actuates the vital functions of plants and animals, just as He actuates the vitality of our intellects and the liberty of our wills without any violence being inflicted. For God moves our will according to the inclination of the will, which He conserves, and so God is more intimately present in our liberty than this liberty is to itself. God, however, never causes the disorder in a sinful act; this inordination proceeds solely from a defective cause. Our liberty is a secondary liberty which depends on the first liberty, and the idea of liberty is predicated only analogically of uncreated and of created liberty.

WHETHER GOD CAN DO ANYTHING OUTSIDE THE ORDER FOUND IN THINGS

The reply is in the affirmative. St. Thomas’ demonstration may be summed up as follows: That higher free cause upon which the application of hypothetically necessary laws depends and which is not bound by such laws is able to act without regard to these laws. But God is the omnipotent free cause upon whom the application of all hypothetically necessary laws depends (these laws constitute the order of action of all created nature), and the divine liberty is not bound by this order of action. Therefore God can act without regard to the order of action established in created nature, or in other words, God can work a miracle.

The following is an example of a hypothetically necessary law: when only natural causes are active in natural conditions, the resur-

17 Op. cit., p. 158. 18 Disp. met., XXII, sect. 2, no. 51; sect. 3, sect. 12, rection of a body is impossible. But in the miracle of resurrection a supernatural free cause intervenes, namely, God. On the other hand, God cannot act without regard to metaphysical and mathematical principles (for example, make a square circle), because these principles are not hypothetically but absolutely necessary.

Just as a man can act without regard to his usual custom, so God is free to act without regard to the laws of nature, which are His customs in moving creatures.

We delay no longer in this argument, which we have defended and explained at length in another place.*®

WHETHER EVERYTHING THAT GOD DOES OUTSIDE THE NATURAL ORDER OF THINGS IS A MIRACLE

The reply is in the affirmative, because a miracle is properly defined as a sensible fact produced in the world by God outside the order of action found in created nature.

WHETHER ONE MIRACLE IS GREATER THAN ANOTHER

St. Thomas divides miracles according to the degree in which they exceed the powers of nature: 1. those that go beyond the powers of nature with regard to the substance of the fact, as the glorification of the body, which nature can in no way accomplish; 2. those that exceed the powers of nature with regard to the subject in which they take place, as the resurrection of the body, for while nature can cause life it cannot do so in a corpse; 3. those that exceed the powers of nature with regard to the manner in which they take place, as the instantaneous conversion of water into wine, which nature can bring about only gradually through the fermentation of the grape.

In a later question St. Thomas explains that fate is a certain disposition of natural causes to produce a determined effect; but this disposition depends on divine providence and does not preclude either the intervention of the divine liberty or human intervention. Neither does fate exclude chance, which exists in second causes (for example,

** For false miracles and portents caused by demons, cf. Summa theol., la, q- 110, 114. Cf. Garrigou-Lagrange, De revelatione, chap. 19, a.2, on the possibility of miracles,

THE CHANGE OF CREATURES BY GOD 455 when a man digs a grave and by chance comes on a treasure); but chance does not exist with regard to God, who orders even those things that are said to be casual or fortuitous.

Having disposed of these questions related to the question on creation, we turn now to the distinction of things in general and in particular.

Footnotes

1. Cf. Summa theol., la, q.19, a.8. ↩

2. Cf. Summa theol., la, q.110, a.2. The same universality is required in a cause to produce a thing as to change it directly without the mediation of an inferior effect. Thus the imagination, which cannot produce an intellectual judgment, cannot directly change an intellectual judgment directly; it can do so only through the mediation of another phantasm. God alone can produce matter, which can be produced only by creation from nothing since it is the ultimate subject of change. Therefore God alone can directly move matter to a form without any previous accidental dispositions, for example, God alone can change water directly into wine, whereas nature does it ↩