Commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologiae

In the title, note two things. First, that this is a discussion of absolute necessity, by which certain parts of the universe are said to be necessary, such as the heavenly bodies and the intelligences; while others are said to be contingent, such as things fortuitous and casual and free. – Second, that it is one thing to ask whether all things are necessary, and another to ask whether necessity is imposed upon all things willed by God. For the first is not the business at hand: since there is no consideration here of the universe or of its parts, but of the divine will. The second, however, asks whether, from the fact that something is willed by God, it follows that that thing is necessary in itself absolutely. And this is what is inquired into here: for nothing else concerns this treatise except what things willed derive from the divine volition. This, then, is the meaning of the title.

II. In the body he does three things: first, he sets down the responsive conclusion to the question; second, concerning the reason for that conclusion, he treats of a certain opinion¹; third, he himself assigns the true reason for the conclusion².

III. As to the first point, the responsive conclusion is clearly evident in the text itself: the divine will imposes necessity upon certain things willed by it, and not upon others.

IV. With respect to according to³, he does two things. First, he recounts the opinion, namely, that certain thinkers supposed the reason for this to be the disparity of the agents' means: since some act through necessary intermediate causes, and some through contingent causes. Then he criticizes this opinion in two ways. First thus. The divine will is the first cause that cannot be impeded by any deficiency of a second cause; therefore the divine will does not have a contingent effect on account of a second cause. And the consequence is proved: because the effect of the first cause is contingent on account of the second cause⁴, from the fact that the effect of the first cause is impeded by the deficiency of the second; as is clear in the case of the sun and a plant, with respect to bringing fruit to completion. – Second, by leading to an absurdity, thus. The distinction between the necessary and the contingent is referred only to second causes; therefore it falls outside the intention and will of God: which is absurd.

V. Concerning the first argument there is a doubt, because the first proposition upon which the whole argument is founded seems false. For it does not distinguish between being modified and being impeded. A contingent effect, on account of the contingency of the second cause, does not arise from the first cause's being always impeded; but sometimes from the first cause's being modified in the second. And thus that opinion seems to have understood it: that, because the divine will is modified in a contingent cause, therefore it has contingent effects. Concerning the second argument also, there is a twofold ground of doubting. First, because the antecedent departs from what was in question, as has been declared in the title⁵: for it speaks of the distinction between the necessary and the contingent absolutely. Second, because the consequence is worth nothing. For even if contingency were on account of second causes, it still stands that contingency is willed by God: since those contingent causes themselves are willed by him, on account of the perfection of the universe, and consequently their effects as well. And thus both arguments seem to collapse on every side. Concerning the very censure of the opinion itself, too, a doubt arises: for it seems to be censured irrationally. Because, given that there be some other higher cause of contingency, nevertheless the nature itself of deficient or free second causes is the proper cause of contingency: and hence there ought to have been no place for censure, when its proper cause has been assigned to the effect, though not every cause.

VI. For the clarification of these points, it must be known that, although, as was said in the title⁶, one question is formally about the cause of contingency, and another about the cause of the contingency willed by God; yet since the divine will wills each thing to be on account of its cause, in whatever genus of cause, both questions coincide as to their subject matter. And therefore it is not beside the point—indeed it is necessary for this—to treat of the cause of contingency. And truly nothing else is here brought into question except what is the first proper root of contingency: and this in the genus of efficient cause. – Nor does the present discourse descend to this or that kind of contingency; rather it seeks absolutely the proper and first root of contingency: namely, whether it be some condition of secondary causes; or whether it be some condition of the divine will itself, which is the first cause of all things.

VII. And indeed the opinion recited and censured in the text believes that the root of this sort of thing is the condition of a secondary cause; that is, the defectibility, or possibility of contradiction, found in secondary causes. That this may be better understood, it must be known that a defective instrument can concur in the work of an art in two ways: in one way, so that the defect is not chosen by the artisan, but is a consequence of the instrument chosen, from the necessity of the matter; in the second way, so that the defect itself is chosen by the artisan. For example, a writer can use a bad pen in two ways: first, because he has resolved to use every kind of pen; second, because he has resolved to make bad letters. In the first case, when the writer, using a stone pen, forms bad letters, two things are to be noted. First, that both the badness of the pen and the badness of the letters do not fall under the choice of the writer, but the badness follows from the necessity of the matter: for he himself does not choose the bad pen, but because he chooses every kind of pen, from the necessity of the stony material a defect resulted in the pen. And therefore the deformity of the letters is traced back, as to its proper and first root, to the very condition of the pen; and not to the writer, who, if he used a suitable pen, would make good letters. And thus the condition of the pen impedes the writer's power, as modified through the pen. In the second case, however, the deformity of the letters, together with the defect of the pen, falls under the choice of the writer: indeed, by this very fact he chooses the bad pen, that he may form bad letters, insofar as he may have an instrument conformed to the evil effect intended. And thus the writer's power is indeed modified in the bad pen, but is not impeded: rather, the very defect of the pen serves it, since it was chosen for the modification of its power, that it might smoothly attain the defective intended effect.

VIII. Therefore, applying it to the matter at hand, the opinion just recited holds that because God in His glory determined to make use of secondary causes of every kind, and among the range of secondary causes certain defective ones, or ones indifferent to either alternative, are found, contingency follows on that account. And so understood, this opinion has been very well refuted. For it is blameworthy (as the text says, out of modesty on the part of the Author), because it gives an insufficient account of the cause of contingency. Indeed, as is touched upon at the end of the body of this article, and as can already be evident from what has been said⁷, it did not give the proper cause of contingency: since, while it called the condition of the secondary cause the proper root, it left no place for the first cause, in which the true root lies, as appears in the example given. – And by this the solution to the third difficulty is clear⁸.

IX. Both means have also been reasonably censured⁹. For although the power of the first cause can be modified in the second cause in two ways, namely with and without impediment on its part, as is manifest in the given example (for in both cases the writer's power was modified by the bad pen), nevertheless, whenever a defect in the effect is traced back to the condition of the second cause as to its first root, it is necessary that the condition of the second cause be impeding, and not merely modifying, the efficacy of the first. And because that opinion holds thus, therefore the first argument is efficacious against it. And so the first doubt¹⁰ has been clarified. But to what was brought forward in the second doubt¹¹, the response is clear from the same foundation. For there was no departure from our proposal: because the questions, as we have already said¹², coincide as to their subject matter. Nor would contingency fall under the direct divine will: but it would exist in the universe from the necessity of matter, that is, from the necessity of the natures of secondary causes, as appears in the given example. This, however, is highly unfitting: since contingency belongs to the primary parts of being (ens), and is found in the natures of purely sensible things, and in the natures of purely intellectual things, and in the nature intermediate between both, namely the human nature.

X. As to the third point ¹³, he does three things. First, he gives the true cause of the proposed conclusion, saying that it is the efficacy of the divine will. Second, he makes this clear, as follows. An effect follows from an efficient cause not only with respect to what is made, but also with respect to the mode of being or of being made: therefore those things which God wills to be made receive from his will not only that they be made, but also the mode in which he wills them to be and to be made: therefore some things have from it that they be made necessarily, and others contingently: therefore for some of these effects he has appointed necessary causes, and for others contingent ones. The divine will, then, does not impose necessity upon all that it wills, because its efficacy is so great that things are made even in the manner in which it wills. — The antecedent is made clear in the text in the generation of the son, with respect to the likeness of accidents. The first consequence is proved: because the will of God is a most efficacious cause. The second, however: because God wills contingency and necessity. This is proved from its proper final cause, namely, from the perfection of the universe. The third, moreover, is made clear: because contingent things presuppose contingent causes, and necessary things necessary causes, as causes proximate to themselves and conformable to them; otherwise all things would not be disposed harmoniously. And the last step is evident from the first to the last. Third, from the determination already made, he returns to reproving the aforementioned opinion ¹⁴, saying that it is entirely opposed to what that opinion had said. For from this it follows that God willed contingent causes precisely because he willed contingency in the universe; and not conversely, that because contingent causes are willed, contingency was consequently willed. And this has indeed already been explained in the examples given above ¹⁵. — Yet for a fuller understanding of this determination, beginners should know that to will something is one thing, and to make it another, as we experience in ourselves: and therefore in that will which is not only will but an efficacious cause, although with respect to what can be caused willing and making are the same, yet from willing one may proceed by inference to making. And so in the text, because God wills things and the modes of being and becoming of things, the argument proceeds to effecting them; namely, that since that willing is most efficacious, both the things and the modes willed come to be.

XI. On this matter, since this is its proper place, it must again be known ¹⁶ that after these writings of St. Thomas a new opinion arose concerning the first root of contingency, posited by Scotus in I Sentences, dist. II, qu. I, and dist. VIII, qu. V, and dist. XXXIX, qu. I ¹⁷. For he holds that the first root of contingency is indeed a condition of the divine will, and in this he agrees with us; but we say that this condition is the supreme efficacy of that will, whereas he says that it is the contingency of that will. And as far as our present purpose is concerned, by the name contingency in the divine will he means its liberty: so that he imagines that because God wills and causes freely, therefore there is contingency in the universe. And so firmly does he adhere to this opinion that he says nothing can happen contingently unless God omnipotent freely caused it. And he said that Aristotle, along with the other philosophers, granted contradictories when they asserted that something happens contingently and yet believed that God acts of necessity. He brings forward, moreover, many arguments, both in proof and in defense of his position. But since some of them pertain to the contingency of such things, that is, of things subject to the heavenly bodies—and of these there will be proper discussion when we treat of the governance of things below ¹⁸—therefore I have judged that only those should be brought forward here which concern contingency absolutely. I shall bring forward, then, first his arguments; secondly, I shall say what seems to me about this opinion ¹⁹; thirdly, his arguments will be answered ²⁰. XII. The first argument, and the most powerful one, that moved Scotus is this. A moving cause, insofar as it is moved, if it is moved necessarily, moves necessarily: but every secondary cause is a moving cause insofar as it is moved by the first: therefore, if it is moved necessarily, it moves necessarily. Hence, if the first cause does not cause contingently, nothing in the universe happens contingently. And thus contingency in the universe arises from this, that God wills and causes contingently. — And the minor is proved: because no secondary cause does anything except in virtue of the first. The second argument is this. The first cause naturally regards the effect prior to any other cause whatsoever: therefore, if it causes necessarily, every effect has in that prior regard a necessary relation to it: therefore no effect happens contingently. And the second inference is proved: because it is impossible that the same effect have the relation both of the contingent and of the necessary, with respect to the same cause or to different ones. XIII. But this opinion seems to me to be false both in itself and in its foundations. First, because from it follows that this part of the universe is not from God as from an agent acting with an end in view: which is against both the theologians and the philosophers. — And the inference is proved thus. The effect of an agent acting with an end in view, as such, must be chosen by him, as is clear from IX Metaphysics ²¹, where the rational power is said to be determined by deliberation toward action; but if contingency arises from the manner of God's willing, then it is not itself chosen, but follows upon the manner of choosing: therefore it is not the effect of God as an agent acting with an end in view. And thus contingency would be in the universe apart from God's intention, being consequent upon his manner of willing rather than upon his willing itself. Secondly, because even granted that the divine will willed and caused not freely but by natural necessity, provided the power of its efficacy were preserved intact, still contingency would be preserved in this universe such as it now is: partly because there would be defectible causes, partly because there would be free agents, namely men. — And this appears more clearly if we suppose the world not to be from God, but as it were from itself. For then it plainly appears that, from the very fact that not every effect has a per se cause, something happens contingently, as is clear from VI Metaphysics ²². XIV. To Scotus's first argument ²³, one can reply in several ways. First, by distinguishing the term moved, or is moved. For a secondary cause is moved by the first in two ways: in one way, by a motion prior to its own act, as a stick moves a stone while being moved by the hand; in another way, by a motion cooperating intrinsically with its own act. And whatever may be said of the major premise in the first sense, in the second sense it is false; and only in the latter sense is the minor true. For when someone wills something, or when the sun illuminates, the first cause need not cooperate by a motion prior to the act: rather it suffices, and is required, that it cooperate intrinsically with such a choice or illumination. And this because cooperation in each thing is according to the nature of each: for thus he disposes all things sweetly. Hence, whether God cooperates necessarily or freely, the created will uses that cooperation none the less freely. Secondly, by distinguishing the term insofar as moved. For it can signify the precise cause, and it can signify the cause. If indeed it signifies the precise cause, the minor is false: for a secondary cause does not move precisely on this account, that it is moved, but also from its own power. But if it signifies the concausal, the major is false: since it is possible for a secondary cause to be moved necessarily by the first, and at the same time for its being moved to be modified by the nature of the secondary cause. And thus the moving of the secondary cause proceeds not from its being moved alone, but from its being moved together with the proper mode of the secondary cause itself. Now from such a mode it can come about that it does not move necessarily, as is clear in defectible causes. — Moreover, the added proposition, namely, that a secondary cause does nothing except in virtue of the first, does not help. For the meaning is not that a secondary cause has no power except that of the first: but that the secondary itself produces no effect except by virtue of the first concurring, and joining the power of the secondary to its effect: since the first attains all things immediately by an immediation of power, as was declared in qu. VIII ²⁴. XV. To the second argument it is said that the first inference is worthless. For the first cause does not attain the effect of the secondary cause in itself, but modified by its own cooperation, according to the mode of the secondary cause itself. And therefore the effect of the secondary cause would in no prior regard have a necessary relation to the first; rather it would have of itself only a contingent manner of coming to be. For that assumed proposition is not to be understood as though there were some duration of nature in whose first instant the first cause regards the effect, and in the second instant the secondary cause: for this is a puerile sense; yet from it the inference seems to have proceeded. Rather it is to be understood with respect to independence and intimacy: for the first cause attains the effect of the secondary both more independently and more intimately than the secondary does, as is clear at the beginning of the Book of Causes ²⁵; and therefore it is said to regard it prior. From this sense, however, it is clear that the inference has no force.