Commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologiae

In the title, to have the character of a final cause is not taken here univocally, but in two ways: namely, in act as signified and in act as exercised. If having the character of a final cause is understood in the first way, it is taken fundamentally with respect to its proximate foundation. For it is not asked whether the good is the character of a final cause, but whether it is the proper foundation of that character. What the character of a final cause is, however, is clear from Physics II Book II¹ and Metaphysics V Book V²: namely, that for the sake of which something comes to be or exists. Hence the sense of the title is: Does a thing, precisely because it is good, claim for itself this prerogative, that it be that for the sake of which? – But if it is understood in the second way, then having the character of a final cause is taken formally; so that the sense of the title is: Whether the good formally is formally the very character of an end in act as exercised, that is, whether it exercises final causality; for example, if it is said that A comes to be or exists, simply or in such a way, because it is good, whether by this very fact it is made a final cause. And this sense, in my judgment, is the one intended: for it is formal, and worthy of genius in proportion to that; and the response tends toward this.

II. Concerning this determination, note briefly the truth you derive from it regarding that question, whether a thing is a final cause in intention or in execution, etc. For since you have here (as is also held in Book II of the Physics, ³) that good conveys the notion of an end in act exercised (which is also proved inductively, since every account of something for the sake of a good or a better thing implies an end), you must, by the same reasoning, call some thing an end insofar as you assert it to be good. From what was said above, however, ⁴ it is clear that each thing is called and is good formally by reason of its esse: therefore a thing has the notion of an end by reason of its esse. So that, just as form is the account of causing efficiently, while existing is the condition of the efficient form, so esse is the account of causing finally; and esse in intention is the condition of the esse that causes finally; but esse in execution is not an end, but rather the terminus and effect both of the end and of the efficient cause. And this needs induction, not argument: for health, knowledge, a bath, etc., are desired as present, as possessed, etc., not in intention, but according to their natural esse. And thus esse is the reason why a thing is desired, which is the same as to finalize; yet none of these would ever finalize, drawing appetite toward itself, unless it were in intention, as is clear; from this we experience that there follows the execution of the thing which moves as end. And this is what Averroes intended in Book XII of the Metaphysics, commentary XXXVI. And this, once well grasped, resolves all the difficulties for the intellect abstracting the thing from esse outside the soul, from esse in execution, and from esse in intention, in the manner described.

III. In the body there are two parts: first, the question is answered; second, a tacit objection is excluded. The first part is the conclusion answering the question affirmatively: The good has the character of an efficient cause. – Proof. The appetible has the character of an end: the good is appetible: therefore the good has the character of an end.

IV. As to the second, the tacit objection is this. Above⁵ it was already determined that the good does not have the character of a first, but rather of a last. Now, however, it is said that it has the character of a final cause: which is acknowledged to have the character of a first, since the end is the cause of causes. How, then, can these stand together—that the good has the character of both last and first?

In excluding this objection, he first gives the response, and then proves it. The response is that good is last in being (essendo), but first in causing—although in the text only the first part of this response is set forth. – The proof is: what is first in causing is last in being; the end is first in causing; therefore the end is last in being. But good has the character of an end: therefore. The major premise is proved from the testimony of sensible things, in which what is first in causing is last in being, as is clear in fire and heat. Therefore, absolutely speaking, what is first in causing is last in being.

V. Concerning the major premise, note the terms: that ly first and last denote in the proposition the order of generation; and they stand for forms, or formal reasons, which are principles of causing and of being. ly in causing is taken as distinguished against in being. For it is supposed here that a twofold order of generation exists among things: one in causing, another in being. And the former is considered according to prior and posterior in causing, the latter according to prior and posterior in being: so that that thing is prior in causing whose causality does not depend upon the causality of another, but conversely; and likewise that thing is prior in being whose esse does not presuppose the esse of another, but conversely. The sense of the major premise, therefore, is that a thing prior in the order of generation with respect to causality is posterior in the order of generation with respect to esse.

VI. Concerning the proof of the major premise, note that the order of things in being can be considered absolutely; and it is taken thus in the major premise: and it can be considered in a given genus, for instance, of caused things; and it is taken thus in the proof of the major premise. That is, from the order in being found between the foundations of prior and posterior cause—for instance, between heat and the form of fire in the thing caused—he wished to lead us by the hand to the order in being simply. For he did not intend to infer the major premise by force of that proof, but rather to show that the same order need not obtain among things in being as obtains in causing, nor conversely; which is sufficiently established by that proof. And again he intended to raise these intelligibles above sense-experience on the testimony of sensible things; which is sufficiently done here.

VII. Concerning the force of this major premise, and of the whole argument, a doubt arises. For either this is a discourse about order in causing and in being absolutely; or with respect to this, and in this. If absolutely, the major is false. First because the ultimate end of all things, namely God, is first in causing; and yet he is not last, but also first in being. Then also in the example of the letter: the form of fire is not only first in being, but also in causing; for the form of fire causes fire formally, whether as causing or as caused, before heat heats effectively. And it is similar in all cases: for form always precedes both in esse and in formal causality. – But if with respect to this, or in this: therefore the intended point is not obtained. For he intends to assign absolutely the order of the good to other things; and not in this or that.

VIII. To this it is said that this discourse concerns order both in causing and in being absolutely. But the objection errs. First, because it misinterprets the major premise. For we do not intend that what is first in causing be, in numerical identity, the last in being with respect to those things of which it is first in causing (for this universal proposition is impossible, nor did we ever dream of it); rather we intend that that same thing, according to its formal reason—whether it be the same in species, or in genus, or the same by analogy—is last in being, within the order of those things of which it is first in causing. And in this way, the divine goodness is first in causing finally, and it itself, by analogy, is last in being in any given thing; as is clear from article 1, in the reply to the first objection. – Second, because it distorts the testimony drawn from sensible things in the text. For, as has already been said⁶, sensible things are adduced here so that from the order in causing this thing, and in being in this caused thing, we might perceive that the order in causing simply and in being simply is not the same. Hence, although the substantial form of fire is prior in being and in causing simply than heat; nevertheless it is not prior in causing this, that is, in generating this fire. For, in the order of generation, heating precedes the generation of the form of fire: for alteration precedes generation. And yet the first thing which this generated fire receives is the form of fire; and heat follows upon the form, just as universally the proper accidents follow upon the form.

IX. But if you wish to examine the order in sensible things simply, note that formal causality necessarily depends on efficient causality, and the question will be resolved. For although in this sensible thing that which gives esse is first, which pertains to the formal cause; nevertheless no form or quiddity truly has formal causality according to the thing itself, unless it be from some efficient cause, which must act for the sake of an end. Since indeed a form is not the formal cause of itself, but of another, namely the composite; and every composite (as was said in q. III⁷, and as Averroes testifies in XII Metaphys., comment. XXV) is from another; there must be efficient causality before all formal causality, and before this, final causality. In being, however (in essendo), there is found first in the cause the form, and in the effect the likeness of the form: second, in the cause the active power, and in the effect its participation: third, in the cause goodness, and in the effect the complement, which is a participation of goodness. And thus, simply speaking, the order in being and in causing is inverted.

X. Yet, concerning the knowledge of the letter at the end, know, novice, that it recalls a twofold perfection, namely in being and absolutely. And by perfect in being he means perfect substantially; but the perfection absolutely, which he says is founded in a being (ens) through the intelligibility of the good, is the perfection of a thing simply, or totally. For this is considered according to the notion of the good simply, as is clear from what was said above⁸: for then nothing at all is lacking.