Commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologiae

A clear title. – In the body there are two parts: first, he proposes the conclusion; second, he proves the conclusion in three ways ¹. As to the first, he says three things. First, the responsive conclusion answering the question affirmatively, namely: The will of God is the cause of things. Second, what this means: namely, that God acts through will, and not through the necessity of nature. Third, that some have thought God acts through the necessity of nature. II. Here note that acting through the necessity of nature can be understood in two ways. First, as meaning the same as acting naturally, in the way in which natural agents, Physics II, text 49 ², and Metaphysics IX, texts 3 and 10 ³, are distinguished from agents by design. And thus acting naturally is acting not because the agent wills this, even granted that it wills it; but it is acting because it is such; as is evident in the generation of man; for although Socrates wills to generate, he does not generate because he wills, but because he is of such a natural disposition, etc. Second, it can be taken as meaning the same as acting not freely, in the way we say that God wills himself not freely but by natural necessity, and that we will the good. And although both opinions concerning God have been held—that he acts not because he wills, though willing, but because he is of such a nature, as is said in Summa contra Gentiles II, chap. XXIII; and that he acts because he understands and wills, yet having such understanding and willing by natural necessity, as is touched upon in the same place, chaps. XXVI and XXVII—nevertheless in the present text, acting through the necessity of nature is taken in the first way; so that the intention here is to show that God acts because he wills, and not because he is. From the conjunction, moreover, of the conclusion of the preceding article with this one, the solution of the second question is sufficiently had. For if he acts because he wills, as is shown here; and if he wills himself only naturally, and other things freely, as was shown: therefore he will act on other things because he wills them freely. III. As to the second, the intended conclusion is proved in three ways. First, from the order of agents, thus. Both nature and intellect act for an end: therefore for an agent acting by nature the end and the means are predetermined by some intellect: therefore an agent acting by intellect is prior to one acting by nature: therefore God is an agent by intellect and will. The antecedent is proved from Physics II. The first consequence is made manifest by the example of the arrow. The second is left as self-evident. The third is proved: because God is the first agent. – Nor let it trouble you that the first consequence has been touched so lightly. For it is a common conception of the mind that acting for an end requires the end to be known, either by the very thing tending toward the end, or by something directing it, as happens with the arrow: and since it is established that nature, as such, does not know, it is clear that it must be directed by a knower. – Between acting by intellect and acting by will, moreover, there is no difference in the matter at hand. Since neither does the intellect act without the will, which is the intellectual appetite; nor does the will act without the intellect, because the good understood moves it. And therefore no fault is committed in passing from the one to the other. IV. Second, it is proved from the reason of the natural agent, thus. An agent acting by nature acts because it is such: therefore it operates in one way: therefore it produces one effect: therefore it has a determinate being: therefore God cannot act by nature: therefore determinate effects proceed from that infinite goodness of his, according to the determination of intellect and will. The antecedent is proved from the effect: because as long as it is such, it makes nothing but such. – The first consequence, together with the second and third, is left as known. And indeed the first, together with the second, proceeds a priori. The third, on account of which the antecedent was introduced together with the preceding ones, infers the prior a posteriori, as is evident. – But the fourth is proved first: because the divine being is not determinate. That this is so is evident from the fact that it contains within itself the whole perfection of being. Second, the force of the proof is made manifest, arguing to the impossible: if infinite being caused naturally, it would cause something infinite in being; this is impossible; therefore. – The fifth consequence is evident from the force of the distinction among agents. V. And note that this argument concludes that God cannot naturally produce any single effect through himself alone. If, however, anyone were to posit that God alone causes nothing integrally, but, with other causes concausing, gives being itself to effects; he would say that the proper effect of the divine infinite being is to be indeterminate in itself, but always found determinate on account of secondary causes. But this disagrees with itself. For if the divine being is infinite, there must flow forth from it the being of all those concausing causes: since every mode of being must proceed from infinite being. And if this is so, then one must concede that God can produce some effect integrally through himself alone. Therefore not through the necessity of nature, unless an effect of infinite being could be given, as is said in the text. The argument therefore stands. VI. Third, it is proved from the relation of effects to their cause, thus. Effects preexist in the cause according to the mode of the cause: therefore effects preexist in God according to an intelligible mode: therefore they proceed from him according to an intelligible mode: therefore according to the mode of will: therefore the will of God is the cause of things. The first consequence is proved: because the being of God is his understanding. The second is proved: because effects proceed from a cause according to the mode in which they preexist in the cause. This is proved: because every agent acts like unto itself. The third consequence is proved: because the inclination toward doing what has been conceived by the intellect belongs to the will. The last is self-evident. VII. Concerning the proposition assumed in the proof of the second consequence, a doubt arises. For either it is false, or it is at variance with its own proof: both are unfitting: therefore. For the proposition of the text is this: effects proceed from a cause according as they preexist in it: and its proof is added: because every agent acts like unto itself. Then thus. Either the proposition intends the mode of the effect proceeding, or the mode of proceeding. If it intends that the effect proceeding from a cause has a mode of being like the mode in which it preexists in the cause, the proof indeed is consonant, as is evident: but the proposition itself is most false (since the house proceeding from the craftsman is not assimilated to the house in his mind in its mode of being); nor does it follow from that maxim, which is understood with respect to the form by which the agent acts. – But if it intends the mode of proceeding, namely, that the effect proceeds from the cause in that manner, or one like it, in which it preexists in it, then the proof is not to the point: because, as we said, it is understood with respect to the form by which the agent acts, and not with respect to the mode in which the form is in him. And nevertheless it has many instances against it. For although the house has intelligible being in the agent, it proceeds from him sensibly: and although heat has incorruptible and universal being in the light of the sun, it proceeds corruptibly and particularly. There is ambiguity, therefore, on every side.

VIII. To this it is said that that maxim, every agent produces its like, although it is not verified universally except with respect to form, is nevertheless not to be restricted to form: rather, it must be understood with the clause as far as it can. For we see that if there be a univocal agent of vehement power, it makes something like itself not only with respect to form, but also with respect to individual conditions: for a strong male begets a male, and an irascible man begets one irascible, as is said in Book VII of the Ethics⁴. In the manner, therefore, in which the effect proceeds from the cause, two things are to be considered: first, the mode of procession considered on the side of the cause; and second, the same mode considered on the side of the effect. For if we attend to the mode of proceeding on the side of the cause, it is verified universally that the procession is like the mode of existing in the cause: because it is that mode previously effected in the genus of efficient cause. So that, just as the form proceeding is from a form in the cause, and on this account is like it; so too the mode of proceeding, on the side of the cause, is from the mode of pre-existing in the cause, and consequently is like it: because every agent produces its like. And thus it is clear how that proposition assumed is true concerning the mode of proceeding, and it is excellently proved by that maxim. - But if we attend to the mode of proceeding on the side of the effect, then the proposition assumed, as was said, is not verified universally. Nor was its proof adduced for this purpose, nor the proposition itself: since this mode, properly speaking, is more a mode of participating in or receiving the cause than of proceeding from it. And therefore the objections brought forward do not militate against the intent: for they speak of the mode of participating on the side of the effect; but the text speaks of the mode of proceeding from the cause, on the side of the cause itself. For the house proceeds from art intelligibly, because from proairesis, as is said in Book IX of the Metaphysics⁵; although in matter it is received sensibly, and comes to be through organs. Likewise the effects of the heavenly bodies proceed from them incorruptibly and universally, according to the mode of the forms by which they act; for they proceed through their eternal actions, commensurate with those forms: although their participation at the sphere of generable things, etc., is full of corruption and disarticulation; because passion is not equal to action.