Philosophia (2013) 41:617–634 DOI 10.1007/s11406-013-9483-9

The Concurrentism of Thomas Aquinas: Divine Causation and Human Freedom Petr Dvořák

Received: 5 February 2013 / Revised: 5 April 2013 / Accepted: 14 April 2013 / Published online: 14 August 2013 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract The paper deals with the problem of divine causation in relation to created agents in general and human rational agents in particular. Beyond creation and conservation, Aquinas specifies divine contribution to created agents’ operation as application in the role of the first cause and the operation of the principal cause employing an instrumental cause. It is especially the latter which is open to varying interpretation and which might be potentially threatening to human freedom. There are different readings of what it is for the secondary agent to “act through the power of the principal cause”. Either the divine cause causes only the existence of the effect of the secondary cause, or it also causes the cause to operate in the sense that it determines its outcome. The latter seems to contradict human freedom. Both readings of Aquinas were developed in the latter half of the sixteenth century within scholastic philosophy and theology. Keywords Concurrentism . Human freedom . Causation . Thomism . Scotism . Molinism The problem of divine agency in relation to secondary causes in general and human will in particular is undoubtedly one of the cornerstones of the theistic world view. Finding an answer to the dilemma of free will and divine causal determination appears to be something of a perennial problem in philosophical theology on the assumption that God is causally responsible for any fact in the universe, including the outcome of free human decisions. If God is fully responsible, then there does not seem to be any room left for human freedom. Furthermore, if God is made the author of human action, then God is bound to be responsible for evil. Both implications seem to contradict basic tenets of orthodox Christian theism: individual human moral

The work on this paper was supported by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (project Apriority, Syntheticity and Analyticity from Medieval Thought to Contemporary Philosophy 2010–2015, no. P401/11/ 0371). P. Dvořák (*) Institute of Philosophy, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected]

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responsibility for action and absolute goodness of God. It is, therefore, of paramount importance to accommodate divine causal action to human freedom by carefully equilibrating divine and human contributions to human action and its effect. In what follows we will examine the views on the matter of a prominent thirteenth century Roman Catholic scholar, Thomas Aquinas. Let us turn to Aquinas’ general stand on divine causal agency in relation to secondary causes first. Once the general picture is understood, the special case of the human will as a particular type of secondary cause can be examined in turn. Consequently, our task now is to see how divine causation works in relation to created causes in nature. Granted that God creates entities acting as particular causes and sustains them in being, does his causal activity also relate to their operation in bringing about their effects? In principle, one can answer either in the negative or in the positive. Either God’s causal activity does not relate to the operation of secondary causes beyond creation and conservation (sustaining in being), or it does. If the latter, then God’s causal operation can be viewed as a full causal responsibility for the effects of the secondary causes, thus in effect taking over their causal role, or it can be viewed as only partial responsibility in the sense that neither the operation of secondary causes (first position), nor divine action (second position), is sufficient for bringing about the effects of secondary causes; both are nevertheless necessary and jointly sufficient for the effects to obtain (third position). While the view denying divine involvement with secondary causes in relation to their operation is dubbed mere conservationalism or weak deism (Freddoso 1988, 1991, 1994), the opposing view of full divine responsibility for the effects of secondary causes where God is seen as a sufficient cause of the effects is called occasionalism. The middle stand taken by Aquinas, the most common among medieval scholastics usually termed concurrentism, stresses cooperation or “concurrence” of both causes, created and divine, in bringing about the effect of a secondary cause. What we have here in effect is a trichotomy: either causes alone, God alone or a cooperative model.

The Secondary Cause as Applied to an Action and as an Instrument How does divine causation relate to the causal operation of secondary causes according to Thomas Aquinas? Besides (i) creating the secondary cause and the active potency (power) in virtue of which it acts and besides (ii) sustaining these in being (conservation), the divine cause is said to (iii) move or apply the secondary cause’s power to action. Moreover, the secondary cause is said to (iv) act in virtue of the divine power as its instrument. Let us examine options (iii) and (iv) in turn. From the various texts on the matter in Aquinas, let us follow the concise passage in Quaestiones disputatae de potentia dei,1 question III, article 7, which will be supplemented by other textual material, especially but not exclusively from the Summa contra gentiles2:

1 2

On the Power of God, abbreviated as QDP, Aquinas (1952). Abbreviated as SCG. English translation Aquinas (1955–57).

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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 … secondly, the preserver of a power is said to cause the action … thirdly, a thing is said to cause another’s action by moving it to act: whereby we do not mean that it causes or preserves the active power, but that it applies the power to action, even 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 since the lower nature in acting does not act except through being moved, because these lower bodies are both subject to and cause alteration: whereas the heavenly body causes alteration without being subject to it, and yet it does not cause movement unless it be itself moved, so that we must eventually trace its movement to God, it follows of necessity that God causes the action of every natural thing by moving and applying its power to action (QDP 3,7). What we have here is a general picture explaining motion in the universe based on Aristotle’s Physics. In the Aristotelian framework of natural philosophy, processes in nature are not explained by natural laws as in modern science, but by causally active substances, termed agents, which bring about change in other substances, dubbed patients. Causal agents cause change conceptualized as the transition from passive potency to act in patients by the so-called transeunt action. In this type of action the change caused occurs in some other object than the causal agent itself. Thus fire causes water to change, to become hot, in other words to pass from being potentially hot to being actually hot. Now the agent causes, in virtue of its causal power, an active potency which, in order to induce change in the patient, must be reduced from potency to act: from potentially inducing heat to actually inducing heat in the water. Does this also mean that the agent must itself undergo change and be reduced from potency to act? What if the fire remains completely unchanged and only the water changes? It is first put in its proximity and consequently heated. As will become clear later, one can think of the action, e.g. heating, implying change solely in the patient, e.g. the water. Nevertheless, Aristotle argues that there has to be some change occurring in the agent in order for its causal activity to be released, which is, however, not the same as the causal action itself.3 This is what Aquinas means by applying the causal power to act. Aquinas’ example of a knife applied to cutting by a set of motions does not raise the same difficulty as the fire example. Unlike fire heating, a knife cannot cut of itself. Hence, we must make a distinction between the reduction of the causal power from potency to act and some other change in the object, some other reduction of potency to act, the former ontologically presupposing the latter. Aristotle and Aquinas view the latter reduction as the reduction of some passive potency of the agent to act by a different agent (which reduction is the causal action of this second agent). As the knife example makes clear, there must be some other agent, in this case human, moving the instrument. Aquinas, based on Aristotle, makes God ultimately responsible for the application of any causal power to act. In line with Aristotle’s Physics, book VIII, God is seen as the first member of the chain of movers, himself being unmoved. That God might play the role of the unmoved mover, besides the principle that every agent acts by 3

For the analysis of change in Aristotle’s Physics see Waterlow (1982).

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being moved, one needs the additional restriction excluding self-motion which results in the restricted principle that whatever is moved is moved by something else.4 The latter combined with the principle that there cannot be an infinite chain of movers supports the claim that God initiates the chain of agents applying other agents’ causal power to action. In Summa contra gentiles, book III, chapter 67, Aquinas states the same point with an interesting addition and specification that besides physical objects God also changes nonphysical entities such as the soul with the consequence that the non-physical power, e.g. the human will, passes to act. How this is done will be explained in more detail below: Moreover, whatever agent applies active power to the doing of something, it is said to be the cause of that action. Thus, an artisan who applies the power of a natural thing to some action is said to be the cause of the action; for instance, a cook of the cooking which is done by means of fire. But every application of power to operation is originally and primarily made by God. For operative powers are applied to their proper operations by some movement of body or of soul. Now, the first principle of both types of movement is God. Indeed, He is the first mover and is altogether incapable of being moved, as we have shown above. Similarly, also, every movement of a will whereby powers are applied to operation is reduced to God, as a first object of appetite and a first agent of willing. Therefore, every operation should be attributed to God, as to a first and principal agent. So much for the way (iii) God causes secondary agents to operate by applying their powers to causal action. As we have seen, God does not apply each and every power of any secondary agent to action directly, but does so as the first agent in a chain of agents initiating the series of agents’ changing other agents so their causal powers could be activated. One might think of a locomotive setting the first train car into motion which in turn initiates the movement of the subsequent car and so on. Thus God is only a remote cause of most other causes’ causing (excluding the first sphere of heavenly bodies, the primum mobile, which is moved directly by God). However, in Aquinas there is a more intimate and immediate way of divine causation of the causal action of secondary agents labeled (iv) above, to which option we turn next. The Angelic Doctor speaks of secondary causes acting as instruments in the power of God, the principal cause. Let us explore this view by analyzing the following passage from De potentia 3,7: Furthermore we find that the order of effects follows the order of causes, and this must needs be so on account of the likeness of the effect to its cause. Nor can the second cause by its own power have any influence on the effect of the first cause, although it is the instrument of the first cause in regard to that effect: because an instrument is in a manner the cause of

4

Aristotle (1930), VII, 1.

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the principal cause’s effect, not by its own form or power, but in so far as it participates somewhat in the power of the principal cause through being moved thereby: thus the axe is the cause of the craftsman’s handiwork not by its own form or power, but by the power of the craftsman who moves it so that it participates in his power. Hence, fourthly, one thing causes the action of another, as a principal agent causes the action of its instrument: and in this way again we must say that God causes every action of natural things. For the higher the cause the greater its scope and efficacy: and the more efficacious the cause, the more deeply does it penetrate into its effect, and the more remote the potentiality from which it brings that effect into an act. Now in every natural thing 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 or that individual. Accordingly this or that individual thing cannot by its action produce another individual of the same species except as the instrument of that cause which includes in its scope the whole species and, besides, the whole being of the inferior creature. Wherefore no action in these lower bodies attains to the production of a species except through the power of the heavenly body, nor does anything produce being except by the power of God. For being is the most common first effect and more intimate than all other effects: wherefore it is an effect which it belongs to God alone to produce by his own power: and for this reason (De Causis, prop. ix) an intelligence does not give being, except the divine power be therein. Therefore God is the cause of every action, inasmuch as every agent is an instrument of the divine power operating. Here the main idea is the following: to every causal power there exists an effect proportionate to it. This means the power is capable of producing it; in other words, it is its proper effect. If a cause produces an effect which surpasses its causal capacity, then it does not produce it alone, but — if it truly contributes to its production — brings it about through or in virtue of the capacity of some higher causal power to which the effect is proportionate. The lower cause functions as an instrument of the higher cause. For an instrument causally contributes to the effect it is incapable of producing on its own. A pen writing a poem produces ink characters on a sheet of paper but is incapable of writing the poem by itself. Pens produce ink patterns, not poems. The pen produces the poem through the power of the poet, the principal cause. In keeping with Aquinas’ example, an axe does not produce a particular work of art by itself, but by the power of the craftsman. Similarly, when an individual object produces another individual object of the same kind (e.g. a cat gives birth to a cat), the effect is regarded to exceed the causal power of the individual object as it is a proper effect of a cause in whose power is the production of a more general effect, in this case the production of the species as such. In the physical understanding of the day this higher power is reserved to heavenly bodies. The so-called lower bodies, i.e. physical objects in the sublunary realm, exert

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their causal powers as instruments of the celestial bodies.5 To restate the main general train of thought: whenever a cause produces an effect surpassing its capacity, it does so in virtue of some higher power as its instrument and thus the higher power is the principal cause of the effect.6

The Secondary Cause Producing a Particular Being and the Concept of Dual Agency All secondary causes give rise to some entity whether it be a substance or an accident which is made actual through the change. No secondary cause is proportionate to the production of actual being by itself. Actuality, being or real existence is the most general effect proportionate only to the most general cause, the primary cause, God. So when a secondary cause brings about some new actuality, it does so through the power of God as its instrument.7 In Summa contra gentiles, book III, chapter 66, Aquinas states the same point and expands on it in an interesting way: Besides, the order of the effects follows the order of the causes. But the first among all effects is the act of being, since all other things are certain determinations of it. Therefore, being is the proper effect of the primary agent, and all other things produce being because they act through the power of the primary agent. Now, secondary agents, which are like particularizers and determinants of the primary agent’s action, produce as their proper effects other perfections which determine being. A particular effect produced by the causal agency of secondary causes seems to have two different aspects: the fact that it exists and the fact that it has a certain determinate specific nature, i.e. that it is such and such. Let us say, for instance, that fire produces heat in water. So we can say that the heat exists but also that it is heat and not some other quality. Aquinas seems to be saying that a secondary cause produces actuality of the effect in virtue of divine power as its instrument, yet its specific nature by itself only. The particular determination of this actuality is the 5 “Therefore it is necessary, as the Philosopher says (De Gener. ii, 10), to suppose a movable principle, which by reason of its presence or absence causes variety in the generation and corruption of inferior bodies. Such are the heavenly bodies. Consequently whatever generates here below, moves to the production of the species, as the instrument of a heavenly body: thus the Philosopher says (Phys. ii, 2) that ‘man and the sun generate man’” (Summa theologica abbreviated as STH, I, 115, 3 ad 2, Aquinas 1920)). 6 The basis for this model of how a higher cause interacts with the action of the lower cause is derived from The Book of Causes. See Aquinas’ Commentary on the Book of Causes: “But the activity by which the second cause causes an effect is caused by the first cause, for the first cause aids the second cause, making it act. Therefore, the first cause is more a cause than the second cause of that activity in virtue of which an effect is produced by the second cause” (Proposition 1, Aquinas 1996). 7 For the problem of whether Aquinas allows that secondary causes produce being (in the power of the principal cause) see Wippel (2007), who answers in the affirmative.

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proper effect of the particular secondary cause. Let us keep this point in mind as it will prove extremely important in the ensuing discussion of two different interpretations of “acting through divine power” and of the late scholastic refinements of Aquinas. From what has been said it is clear that in the production of an effect, i.e. in actualizing some entity, both God and the secondary agent are causally active. We have seen that God is active as the principal cause; the secondary agent produces the effect through God’s power and thus plays the role of an instrumental cause. The production of ink marks is a proper causal effect of the pen. The fact that these marks are patterned into a poem cannot be causally explained by the pen alone. The pen causally acts as an instrument of some higher agency, the poet, who is the principal cause of the poem. Essentially the same happens on a much more general level when some entity is produced. The secondary agent is causally responsible for bringing about a certain specific determination of being, yet inasmuch as it produces being, it acts as an instrument of the primary cause, God. The resulting effect is thus a product of dual agency. Both agents, God and a created secondary agent, produce the effect immediately: …And just as the lowest agent is found immediately active, so also is the power of the primary agent found immediate in the production of the effect. For the power of the lower agent is not adequate to produce this effect of itself, but from the power of the next higher agent; and the power of the next one gets this ability from the power of the next higher one; and thus the power of the highest agent is discovered to be of itself productive of the effect, as an immediate cause. This is evident in the case of the principles of demonstration, the first of which is immediate. So, just as it is not unfitting for one action to be produced by an agent and its power, so it is not inappropriate for the same effect to be produced by a lower agent and God: by both immediately, though in different ways (SCG III, 70). Moreover, both agents cause the effect as a whole, not only some part of it (like, for instance, two horses pulling a cart): It is also apparent that the same effect is not attributed to a natural cause and to divine power in such a way that it is partly done by God, and partly by the natural agent; rather, it is wholly done by both, according to a different way, just as the same effect is wholly attributed to the instrument and also wholly to the principal agent (SCG III, 70). I take it that the effect as such can be described in two different ways, e.g. as a set of ink marks on a sheet of paper as well as a poem. It is clear that in the material sense the effect is no more than the ink marks for which the moving pen is fully causally responsible. In a different sense the effect is a poem caused by the poet in its entirety. Similarly, the heat in the water is heat as well as an

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accidental entity (existing property). As heat it is caused by fire, as an entity it is caused by God.8

Human Will in the Scope of the Divine Causation So far we have dealt with the relationship of divine and created causes in general. Now a special instance of this relationship is of particular importance in the philosophical theology; namely, the relationship between God and human will. The latter is a causal power whose act is a particular act of the will, in other words, a particular volition. Unlike agents changing other objects, patients, different from them in transeunt action, volition is a modification of the agent to whom the will belongs. Hence the effect of the causal action remains in the agent. We speak of the so-called immanent action. Apart from this difference, the general model of the primary-secondary cause relationship developed by Aquinas remains the same also in this special case. God applies the will to action as the first mover and the will acts through the power of the divine cause, as we see in an excerpt from Summa contra gentiles, III, 89: Besides, God not only gives powers to things but, beyond that, no thing can act by its own power unless it acts through His power, as we showed above. That is why man cannot use the power of will that has been given him except in so far as he acts through the power of God. Now, the being through whose power the agent acts is the cause not only of the power, but also of the act. This is apparent in the case of an artist through whose power an instrument works, even though it does not get its own form from this artist, but is merely applied to action by this man. Therefore, God is for us the cause not only of our will, but also of our act of willing. 8

We have followed Aquinas in De potentia and Summa contra gentiles. In Summa theologica he gives essentially the same theory, including God’s acting on creatures as the ultimate end: We must therefore understand that God works in things in such a manner that things have their proper operation. In order to make this clear, we must observe that as there are few kinds of causes; matter is not a principle of action, but is the subject that receives the effect of action. On the other hand, the end, the agent, and the form are principles of action, but in a certain order. For the first principle of action is the end which moves the agent; the second is the agent; the third is the form of that which the agent applies to action (although the agent also acts through its own form); as may be clearly seen in things made by art. For the craftsman is moved to action by the end, which is the thing wrought, for instance a chest or a bed; and applies to action the axe which cuts through its being sharp. Thus then does God work in every worker, according to these three things. First as an end. For since every operation is for the sake of some good, real or apparent; and nothing is good either really or apparently, except in as far as it participates in a likeness to the Supreme Good, which is God; it follows that God Himself is the cause of every operation as its end. Again it is to be observed that where there are several agents in order, the second always acts in virtue of the first; for the first agent moves the second to act. And thus all agents act in virtue of God Himself: and therefore He is the cause of action in every agent. Thirdly, we must observe that God not only moves things to operate, as it were applying their forms and powers to operation, just as the workman applies the axe to cut, who nevertheless at times does not give the axe its form; but He also gives created agents their forms and preserves them in being. Therefore He is the cause of action not only by giving the form which is the principle of action, as the generator is said to be the cause of movement in things heavy and light; but also as preserving the forms and powers of things; just as the sun is said to be the cause of the manifestation of colors, inasmuch as it gives and preserves the light by which colors are made manifest” (STH I, 105, 5c, Aquinas 1920).

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The special case of human will is a kind of test case for the plausibility of the theory of dual agency. For the divine causal influence has to be compatible with the will’s freedom in the relevant sense in which it is required for a moral responsibility for its actions. In the passage just quoted it seems that the phrase “applying the power to action” is used in a different sense by Thomas than in the passages above where the model of divine agency specified as “applying the power to action” was contrasted to the model “acting through the higher power” or the secondary cause acting as an instrumental cause. God’s “applying the secondary power to action” was only indirect: in the Aristotelian physical framework God is the first in the chain of movers or agents whose action is necessary for the action of other agents, because every agent (except for the first) acts by being acted upon by others. In contrast, in our present passage it seems that “applying the power of the secondary cause” is a part of “acting through the higher power”. The principal cause applies the instrument to action and this enhances the instrument’s own power so it suffices for the job of producing the effect. In Aquinas’ favorite example of the tool the craftsman moves the passive instrument, puts it to action. Similarly, the writer moves the pen. Thus the tool or the pen would be seen as capable of producing an effect in the hands of the principal cause which they would not be able to produce otherwise. Aquinas speaks of the instrument participating in the principal cause’s power. Later Thomists would describe this in the following way: the principal cause confers something from its power exceeding the instrument’s power (in the form of a kind of transitorily existing entity) on the instrument and thus makes it proportionate to the effect. So the application or moving is nothing but conferring this transitory power on the agent for them. It is true that in Aquinas the passage from De potentia makes the connection between moving (i.e. application on analogy with the application of the tool) and the participation in a higher power explicit: Nor can the second cause by its own power have any influence on the effect of the first cause, although it is the instrument of the first cause in regard to that effect: because an instrument is in a manner the cause of the principal cause’s effect, not by its own form or power, but in so far as it participates somewhat in the power of the principal cause through being moved thereby: thus the axe is the cause of the craftsman’s handiwork not by its own form or power, but by the power of the craftsman who moves it so that it participates in his power [emphasis mine]. On the general level, the picture given us by Aquinas in the Summa contra gentiles III, 89 concerning the will and its relationship to divine causation seems to be the following: for Aquinas, human will is similar to the power of a tool used as an instrument by the artist. As the tool cannot produce a certain effect by its own power unless it is moved by the artist, the principal cause, so a human person cannot produce volitional act by the power of the will unless it is “moved” by God, the principal cause of the volition. I place “moved” in quotation marks for we understand the meaning only by analogy with “moving a tool”. Moving the will plays the same role as moving a tool, but it cannot be the same, for the tool is moved locally and by contact, while the will is part of the human soul, incapable of local movement. Two Interpretations of “Acting Through God’s Power” We should pause now and check our interpretative direction, for we have reached a decisive point in our interpretation. We can follow the route further and press the tool-

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will analogy. Thus we would see the human soul with its volitional power as a tool in the hands of God which would make us search for an elaborate account detailing how God moves the will in an analogy with the artist moving a tool. We have already hinted at a historical attempt to do so: application or moving is seen in general as conferring a transitory entity on the instrument. Regardless of the particular analysis of “moving” or “application”, on this account the secondary agent (tool, will) has to be causally affected by God in order to release (and enhance) its causal capacity; for instance, an axe has to be spatially moved in order to produce cuts in the patient. Or we can retrace our steps and take a different route. We take the direct comparison of a tool to the soul or the will not to be Thomas’s point. Let us recall that Aquinas invoked the notion of the tool being used as an instrument by an artist in order to explain how secondary agents produce their effects. These are particular beings and as beings exceed the causal capacities of secondary agents. Being is the exclusive proper effect of the divine cause. In the causation of secondary agents, God produces being as the principal cause while secondary agents act as particularizers and determiners of the effect. There is no implication that the secondary agent has to be causally affected by the primary cause in order to do its causal job, i.e. produce its effect. The primary cause affects the patient only and is responsible solely for the actuality of the form in the patient. Aquinas’ analogy is interpreted in looser terms: as in instrumental causation the tool produces something which surpasses its capacity, so too every secondary cause produces something which surpasses its capacity; namely, being. The common feature of an instrumental cause such as an artist’s tool and a secondary agent is thus the fact that it is not up to the effect and that the effect is thus to be accounted for by some higher cause necessarily accompanying the causal action of the secondary agent if the effect is to be produced. It is not a common feature of an instrumental cause such as a tool and a secondary agent that they cannot act in their own right by themselves and are in need of causal influence from the higher agent in order to be able to realize their causal powers like, for instance, an axe put to cutting. But what of Summa contra gentiles III, 89 where Aquinas does compare the will to a tool? I suggest that this is only pars pro toto, the real comparison being on the general level, i.e. it concerns instrumental cause in the production of a work of art and secondary cause in the production of particular being. Since a paradigmatic case of the former is an artist’s tool and the soul with its volitional power is but a special case of a secondary agent, Aquinas compares the will to the tool. This understanding of the analogy makes much more sense for natural secondary agents such as a fire or the soul with its volitional power do not seem to require any direct causal influence from the primary cause for their causal powers to be operative. Aristotle might be right that there always has to occur a change in the agent as a prerequisite for its own operation, but this is incurred on it by another secondary agent and, on the Aristotelian premises stated above, by God indirectly as the first mover. Thus there is a clear difference between “applying the power to act” and “acting through the power of the higher cause”, a difference Aquinas seems generally to uphold. The interpretational problem starts when Aquinas speaks of moving or application of the power as a part of “acting through the power of a higher cause”. This then requires one to search for a divine causal influence on the secondary agent in order to be operative. This seems to take the analogy too far. Let us explain why. Admittedly Aquinas does employ a language which is prima facie suggestive of the fact that God causally reaches the secondary agent and makes it an agent (as a human person makes an object to be an actual instrumental agent by moving it in a way necessary for the

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production of the effect). Aquinas uses various locutions such as that God causes the secondary cause to cause, enables the secondary agent to act, makes it operative.9 However, all these formulations are in line with our present interpretation. What does it mean that an agent is operative? It means that it passes from being potentially active or operative to actual action or operation. In other words, the causal power it possesses is being actualized. Now the key point is that this action, operation or actualization of the causal power or potency is nothing but change in the patient, actualization of some form in the object acted upon. It is not change or a set of changes in the agent (we speak of a transeunt action) as we might have expected. This might come as a surprise, for it appears prima facie strange that the actualization of the power inhering in the agent in virtue of which the agent acts is an actual determination of another object, the patient. We usually perceive actions as properties of agents and tend to think of physical objects being active if they undergo a series of physical changes denoted by verbs of action (e.g. “Peter is running”, “Peter cuts wood”, etc.). As stated above, these changes might be necessary for the change in the patient to take place, but they are not action as such. Only the latter is. More precisely, action is the actualization of the form in the patient when seen as ontologically dependent on the agent. This is in any case the view Aristotle takes on action in Physics, III, 3. Aquinas, explaining Aristotle’s theory, seems to uphold the view.10 This is also obvious from his explanation of the true nature of action against the occasionalists, i.e. those who deny secondary causation and ascribe the effects solely to God: Again, it is laughable to say that a body does not act because an accident does not pass from subject to subject. For a hot body is not said to give off heat in this sense, that numerically the same heat which is in the heating body passes over into the heated body. Rather, by the power of the heat which is in the heating body, a numerically different heat is made actual in the heated body, a heat which was previously in it in potency. For a natural agent does not hand over its own form to another subject, but it reduces the passive subject from potency to act (SCG III, 69). 9

It is evident, next, that God is the cause enabling all operating agents to operate. In fact, every operating agent is a cause of being in some way, either of substantial or of accidental being. Now, nothing is a cause of being unless by virtue of its acting through the power of God, as we showed. Therefore, every operating agent acts through God’s power (SCG III, 67). 10 Aristotle in Physics III, 3, says: “…Motion is in the movable. It is the fulfilment of this potentiality by the action of that which has the power of causing motion; and the actuality of that which has the power of causing motion is not other than the actuality of the movable; for it must be the fulfilment of both. A thing is capable of causing motion because it can do this, it is a mover because it actually does it. But it is on the movable that it is capable of acting. Hence there is a single actuality of both alike, just as one to two and two to one are the same interval, and the steep ascent and the steep descent are one – for these are one and the same, although they can be described in different ways. So it is with the mover and the moved” (202a 13–21, Aristotle 1930)). Aquinas concludes his commentary on this passage with these words: For motion insofar as it proceeds from the mover to the mobile object is the act of the mover, but insofar as it is in the mobile object from the mover, it is the act of the mobile object (Aquinas 1999, Book III, Lectio 4, § 307, p. 105). There can be one act belonging to two objects: “There is nothing to prevent two things having one and the same actualization, provided the actualizations are not described in the same way, but are related as what can act to what is acting. Nor is it necessary that the teacher should learn, even if to act and to be acted on are one and the same, provided they are not the same in definition (as “raiment” and “dress”), but are the same merely in the sense in which the road from Thebes to Athens and the road from Athens to Thebes are the same… For it is not things which are in a way the same that have all their attributes the same, but only such as have the same definition” (202b 8–16, Aristotle 1930). Aquinas explains Aristotle’s text: “He says that there is nothing to prevent two things from having one act in the sense that the act is not one and the same according to reason [ratio] but is one in things … For the same act in things is the act of two according to different intelligibilities [ratio]. It is the act of the agent insofar as it is ‘from it’ and of the patient insofar as it is ‘in it’” (Aquinas 1999, Book III, Lectio 5, § 317, p. 159).

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If action is actualization of the form in the patient and we know that the actuality of a particular form, the effect of causal action, is caused by both the primary and the secondary cause, both causes being responsible for different aspects of the effect, then it is true that God causes the secondary cause to cause, makes it operative, enables it to act in the sense that without his causal contribution there would never be the action itself, no form would be actualized in the patient. It is also true that God reduces the active power to act by coproducing the effect. For the actualization of the form in the patient is the actualization of the active power in the agent. Nowhere is there presupposed any direct causal influence of the higher cause (God) on the agent and its power itself. There is no need for some special divine moving or application of the agent and its power beyond the changes incurred on the agent by other secondary agents. The Aristotelian physical principle that whatever is a cause of change must itself be changed by another is thus not contradicted in any way. So we have seen that there are two possible interpretations of Aquinas. Either “acting through the higher power” is seen as the result of “applying the power of the secondary cause” which in turn implies a direct divine causal influence on the secondary agent and his responsibility for the actual being and specific nature of the secondary cause’s action and its effect (which ontologically amount to the same thing); or “applying the power of the secondary cause” is only indirect via other higher causes and as such is not directly related to the secondary cause’s “acting through the higher power”. The latter is seen as God’s direct responsibility for only the being of the secondary cause’s action and its effect, not their specific nature. As it clearly comes out in our presentation, we are in favor of the latter interpretation for reasons which will become more obvious shortly. Returning to the special case of human will, let us observe that both interpretations are consistent with Aquinas’ claim that God is not only the cause of our will, but also its acts, i.e. volitions (“Therefore, God is for us the cause not only of our will, but also of our act of willing”, SCG III, 89). Each interpretation, however, understands “to be the cause of volitions” differently. The first reading accepts divine causal influx directly onto the will on analogy with the artist’s local movement of the tool on top of the co-production of the effect. The second sense sees God as co-productive of the volition only. More precisely, God produces its entity, its actuality, the will causes its particular nature, i.e. that it is such and such, e.g. that a particular person wills to open the window. However, on the first approach God applies the will to act on analogy with the tool. Here it could be argued that God is in full control of the outcome. What it means is that he not only produces the entity of the volition, but also its specific nature, its particular determination. It is clear that such a view makes things easy for accounting for divine providence, but difficult for the freedom of the will.

Systematic Concern and Historical Positions Our effort to understand Aquinas leads us to systematic concern. One can raise two questions that stand out from our discussion of two possible interpretations of what Aquinas means by the secondary cause acting through the power of God: 1. Does God causally influence the agent and its power besides the production of the effect? 2. Granted that God produces the being of the volitional act, does he also produce the specific nature of the act?

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The first question in essence characterizes the difference between the two interpretations. Another way to formulate the distinction between the readings is the following: is “applying the secondary agent’s power” part of the meaning of “acting through the power of a higher agent” for Aquinas? Historically the two opposing interpretations of Aquinas were developed in the late sixteenth century by the Thomist authors such as Domingo Bañez, Francesco Zumel, Diego Alvarez and others, mainly but not exclusively religious of the Dominican order who would answer in the affirmative.11 We have presented the basis for their position under the heading of the first interpretation. The second interpretation characterized by a negative answer to the first question above originated with the Jesuit Luis de Molina and was further advanced by a fellow Jesuit, Francisco Suarez.12 Both parties agree that God co-produces the effect with the secondary cause. This dual agency in relation to the effect is called simultaneous causal concurrence (concursus simultaneus). Besides simultaneous concurrence, Thomists also accept the so-called previous concurrence (concursus praevius). Divine causal influx onto the secondary agent and its power causally precedes the actualization of the power, i.e. causal action of the secondary agent. By this 11

Bañez (1588), q. 14, a. 13; q. 19, a. 8.; Zumel (1585), q 8, a 1; Alvarez (1610), entire book. Molina (1588), part II, disp. 25–28; Suarez (1861), disp. 22. For a very clear explanation and English translation of the latter see Suarez (2002). As for Molina’s relationship to Aquinas’ teaching, consider the following: In disp. 26 Molina clearly prefers the second interpretation of Thomas and takes his own understanding to be a possible reading of Thomas (in line with Aquinas’ foremost renaissance Thomist interpreter, Cajetan): “However, there are two things about this teaching of St. Thomas’ [in STH I, 105, 5] that raise difficulties for me. The first is that I do not understand why in the world there should be such a motion or direction in the secondary causes by which God moves and directs them to act; I would think, to the contrary, that the fire, without any change in itself, induces heat in the water brought near to it. For instruments are of two kinds. There are some which do not have the full power to operate, such as the instruments of the artist. And these require the motion and direction of some other agent in order to effect anything. For even though an axe might have the sharpness and hardness by virtue of which it is fit for cutting, nonetheless, since that power is not sufficient to produce the effect, it is necessary that there be an additional motion, both in order that the power and force necessary for cutting be impressed upon the axe, and also in order that the axe be directed toward the different parts of the wood to produce an artifact in accord with the rules of the art. On the other hand, there are other instruments which either have the full power to act, e.g., semen from a father, or are themselves a complete power, e.g., the heat of a fire and other natural powers. And if instruments of this sort are aptly positioned, they require no additional motion or direction from the principal causes. For when the semen acts, it is not moved by the father, whose instrument it is, since of course it could happen that the father no longer exists. Likewise, when the heat of the fire makes the water hot, it is not moved and directed to make it hot by the fire in which it exists and whose instrument it is, but instead it produces the heat by itself without any other motion. Thus, I confess in all candor that it is extremely difficult for me to understand this motion and direction which St. Thomas requires in secondary causes. …The second thing which engenders difficulty for me is that according to this doctrine of St. Thomas’ God does not concur immediately, by an immediacy of the suppositum, in the actions and effects of secondary causes, but only mediately, viz., by means of the secondary causes… … Accordingly, it must be said that God immediately, by an immediacy of the suppositum, concurs with secondary causes in their operations and effects, in such a way, namely, that just as a secondary cause immediately elicits its own operation and through it produces its terminus or effect, so too God by a sort of general concurrence immediately acts with it on that same operation and through the operation or action produces its terminus or effect. It follows that God’s general concurrence is not an action of God’s on the secondary cause, as though the secondary cause acted and produced its effect after having first been moved; rather, it is an action immediately with the cause on its action and effect. Now whatever might be said of the passage cited a little while ago, perhaps not even St. Thomas disagrees with us. For Cajetan, who preserves St. Thomas’ way of talking, interprets q. 14, a. 13 and St. Thomas’ position in such a way that it entirely agrees with us, as we will see in Disputation 34. Indeed, even Scotus, who seems much more obviously to be opposed to us, entirely agrees with us in Sentences 4, as will be clear from the passages we will cite from him in Disputation 34.“(For the English translation see Freddoso’s home page http://www.nd.edu/ ~afreddos/). 12

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influx, God moves or applies the secondary agent’s power to action as has been discussed above. The Thomists elaborate the theory far beyond what Thomas has ever said. They speak of a special created transient physical entity called premotion (premotio) which applies the power to action by reducing it from potency to act, including human will. This premotion is also called predetermination. This suggests that the premotion determines the specific nature of the ensuing act of the power including the will. Thus the Thomists would also give an affirmative answer to the second of the two questions above, while the Jesuits again answer in the negative for obvious reasons. In the case of human will, the immediate charge is that its predetermination is not consistent with human freedom. The Thomists wish to uphold that God determines the specific nature of the act. God can do that only by means of the preceding concurrence. For if in the simultaneous concurrence he were to produce not only the entity of the action but also its specific nature, then the theory would collapse into occasionalism explicitly denied by Aquinas. 13 Aquinas rejects occasionalism because it makes causal powers of secondary agents illusionary.14 Why would the Thomists wish to claim that God brings about the specific determination of the action? We have already alluded to the fact above that if God predetermines the action of every agent, it is easy to account for providence. God stands out as an uncompromised first cause being causally responsible for any contingent truth in the universe. We might add that it also appears easy to explain divine foreknowledge of future contingent events resulting from human decisions. Besides, the prima facie sense of many biblical passages seems to ascribe the authorship of many psychological states in humans to God himself.15 There seem to be two grave problems with the theory: the threat to libertarian human freedom and God’s responsibility for evil action. Why human freedom is threatened hardly needs an explanation. Thomists try to save human freedom by pointing to the fact that God in his causation respects the nature of the secondary agent, so in applying the will to action through premotion, say to volition A, the will remains free, i.e. capable of volition non-A. In order to bring out the specific sense of “capability” which is meant here they employ the distinction between the composite and divided sense. It is not possible for the will to be applied to volition A by God and not will A (composite sense). Nevertheless, when applied to volition A by God, it is 13

See SCG III, 69, STH I, 105, 5. Denying predetermination, contemporary defenders of Thomas seem to answer negatively to the first question, but wish to keep a positive answer to the second question. Thus God directly creates the secondary cause’s action as well as its nature. God creates the action as the action of the secondary cause (i.e. as belonging to this cause) together with its necessary or free mode (i.e. free character of human volitions). To my mind, this interpretation either collapses into occasionalism or borders on the impossible. How could the action belong to the secondary agent and be fully created (its entity as well as its specific nature) by another agent, i.e. God? The old predeterminationist Thomists developed their position not out of some misplaced or exaggerated curiosity but because they wished the action genuinely belong to the secondary agent, not “belong” by name only. The determination of the action God wishes the secondary agent to elicit is secured by previous movement, not direct creation. Thus the action can be said to belong to the secondary agent even though it is “pre-programmed”, i.e. determined in advance. Thus I disagree with Shanley (1998, 2007) as well as McCann (2004). The latter develops the following analogy: God is comparable to a writer; humans are similar to characters in a novel. The point is, however, that characters in a novel are not genuinely causally active at all. There cannot be a better model or an illustration of an occasionalist world than that of a fiction. 15 Aquinas (1955–57), SCG III, 88. 14

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possible for the will not to will A (divided sense). Notice the difference in the place and the scope of the possibility operator. The divided sense formulation tacitly presupposes, however, that the possible scenario of not willing is the result of application through a different premotion. Thus a human person cannot resist divine application through premotion (that would imply possibility in the composite sense). Hence the Thomist freedom is a compatibilist freedom of various courses of action under different divine determining influences, not libertarian freedom of selfdetermination. If God determines the specific nature of human volitions, then it seems virtually impossible to clear God of the charge that he is a direct cause of evil. The Jesuits take the two main problems to be fatal. They reject the theory and resort to an ingenious explanation how it is that God has providence over creation and how he foreknows contingent future occurrences. In both cases the explanation rests on the doctrine of scientia media or middle knowledge in God. The idea is sufficiently familiar thanks to its fairly recent resurgence in the analytic philosophy of religion by Alvin Plantinga and others (e.g. Craig 1991; Flint 1998; Plantinga 1974, 1977). On this doctrine God knows not only logically and metaphysically necessary and possible truths on the one hand and contingent truths concerning the actual world on the other (the former truths being independent of his will, while the latter are dependent), but he also knows how any possible rational being would act (what it would decide and do) in any possible circumstances. In other words, God knows true subjunctive conditionals of the form: “If a person S found herself in the circumstances C, she would will A”, e.g. “If Peter found himself interrogated whether he was a disciple of Christ before his resurrection, Peter would deny Christ”. These truths concerning all possible rational beings are independent of God’s will and are not necessary, but contingent. Based on this knowledge, God makes those individuals and circumstances actual which suit his providential needs. One can even give a special meaning to the already familiar locution “to apply the power to operation”. It can be explained as God actualizing particular circumstances based on middle knowledge and thus using the particular human volition foreseen via middle knowledge for his providential purposes. A corollary of this is that God knows all contingent future events.16 Unfortunately, Molinism is not immune to problems of its own. The doctrine of middle knowledge, while explanatorily potent, is nevertheless explanatorily weak, for it is not clear how there can be contingent truths, the so-called counterfactuals or conditionals of freedom, not based on any divine causal influence, concerning hypothetical decisions of possible creatures who do not actually exist and some of them never will. If it were contingently true that “If Peter were placed in such and such circumstances, he would deny Christ” prior to any divine causal decision, then God seems to be determined in his own decisions by hypothetical decisions of possible rational agents. By this we mean that his choice of what he might actualize is limited compared to what is possible. In Molinism there is a causal priority of human volition over divine volition, which is a threat for the divine causal status. God 16

We do not discuss the related issue of divine foreknowledge of future contingents here. The problem raises serious questions concerning human freedom and the nature of God in relation to time. A more comprehensive study would relate the areas of causation and foreknowledge and discuss the implications of the former to the latter and vice versa. This, however, lies beyond the scope of the present paper.

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does not seem to be the first cause in an uncompromised way as in Thomism. Divine volition is not a necessary condition of human volition. Divine will has nothing to do with the truth of conditionals of freedom. On the other hand, as we already know, in Thomism there is a causal priority of divine volition over human volition, which is a threat for human freedom. Divine volition is a sufficient condition for human volition. It is clear then that an ideal theory would make divine volition a necessary condition of human volition (as against Molinism). Nevertheless, it would not regard it as sufficient condition of human volition (as against Thomism). Historically, an attempt was made to define and defend such a middle position in around the midseventeenth century by the followers of John Duns Scotus, the chief among them being Bartolomeo Mastri.17 The Scotists would allow only those conditionals of freedom to be true to which God would grant his approval by willing to provide his concurrence if the circumstances described in the antecedent of the conditional obtained. Logically, God’s resolution to concur is a presupposition of the truth value of the conditional. For instance, if God permitted (i.e. agreed to give his concurrence to the action of the secondary cause) the apostle Peter to deny Christ in such and such circumstances, it would be true that if such and such circumstances obtained, Peter would deny Christ. Hence divine volition is a necessary condition of human volition. It is not sufficient, however, for prior to divine approval or disapproval embodied in the resolution of his will to provide or not to provide his causal concurrence, there has to be a definite way Peter would choose to act under the definite circumstances. Thus the truth value of the conditional “if Peter were in such and such circumstances, he would deny Christ” rests not only on what Peter would do just on his own as in Molinism, but also on what God would do. Hence the Scotists speak of concomitant decrees (decreta concomitantia) of the divine will which are neither prior to what Peter would do as in Thomism, nor posterior to what Peter would do as in Molinism. The drawback of this middle position seems to be that if there is some determinate way Peter would choose to act under specific circumstances, then there must be the truth of the matter prior to any approval or disapproval on God’s part. True, the way Peter would act if the circumstances obtained depends partly on divine decision, so the conditional cannot be true prior to the decision, yet prior to the latter an extended conditional is true: namely, “if Peter found himself in such and such circumstances and there was God’s volition that if Peter found himself in those circumstances, God would cooperate with his act of denial, Peter would deny Christ”. If such a conditional is true prior to divine resolution to cooperate, then there are similar objections applicable to Scotism as to Molinism: namely, that there are no truth-makers of these conditionals. Scotists seem to regard these conditionals to be necessary as, in their opinion, they are the object of God’s knowledge of simple apprehension. If this is so, then the contingency of the conditional “if Peter found himself in such and such circumstances, he would deny Christ” depends on God only and, consequently, Scotism is open to the same general objections as Thomism: any contingency in the world originates with God. There is no contribution of the human agent. By way of a conclusion, let us restate the main points we have arrived at during our exposition. Thomas Aquinas sees the cooperation of the divine and human causes predominately as the human cause participating on the action of the divine agent as its 17

Mastrius (1655), Lib. I, disp. 3, q. 3, a. 8.

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instrument. What is open to interpretation is the scope of the divine causation. The question arises whether by “acting through the divine power” Aquinas means that the divine cause causally contributes to a key aspect of the effect only: namely, its existence as such, or whether it also reaches the human agent, applying it to action. Only the former reading seems to leave enough room for libertarian human freedom. We have witnessed the two possible interpretations developed by two schools of scholastic philosophy and theology. An attempt at a compromise interpretation, i.e. Scotism, does not seem to score better in a general assessment than any of the two views derived from Aquinas, Molinism and Thomism. In spite of some inherent problems, Molinism (and Scotism if extended conditionals of freedom are taken to be contingent) seems to be a better systematic development of Aquinas as it leaves space for freedom.

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