Scotus Academicus, Tomus secundus: De Deo Intelligente et Volente

Since a fourfold office and work of divine Providence can be distinguished, namely the conservation of creatures, cooperation with the same agents, the due ordering of these same things to an end, and the execution of this ordering; it is asked at present whether God performs these four offices per se and immediately: or whether he assumes some creature into the lot and share of performing any of these offices.

Note 1. It is certain that God creates all things by his immediate power; for although he uses certain creatures for the formation and generation of others, nevertheless he has an immediate influx of his power upon them, as all those texts of Sacred Scripture indicate which expressly proclaim God the Author and Artificer of all things. Thus Iob. 10. Your hands, Lord, have made me and formed me wholly, etc. Ps. 138. You formed me and laid your hand upon me. Ieremiae 1. Before I formed you in the womb: whence rightly that most unconquered mother of the seven Maccabees, exhorting her sons to undergo a noble martyrdom, speaks thus, Mach. 1. 2. c. 7: I know not how you appeared in my womb: for neither did I give you spirit and soul, nor did I myself join together the life and the members of each one: but the Creator of the world, who formed the birth of man, found out the origin of all things.

Note 2. It is certain that the ordering of all things to an end suitable to them is immediately from God; for Providence, as we have said with Boethius, is that very divine reason established in the supreme Prince of all things by which he disposes all things; and so that ordering is an internal act of the divine will, and consequently proceeds immediately from God himself; for God immediately and per se alone proposed to himself the ends which he willed, and to them he established and decreed the means, or quasi-means, which he chose or permitted. It is likewise certain that he does not execute all things per se alone, but for certain things he joins to himself the concurrence of other causes, whether because the concurrence of those causes seems so necessary to the work, as respiration and nutrition to the conservation of life; or because out of liberality he deigns to communicate the notion of cause to things, and to take them into a share of governance and execution. But in what manner this is done, and which things he uses for the conservation of others, will have to be resolved here.

Note 3. Although it is certain that God provides for all things, nevertheless his care for individual things is not the same, nor is the ordering the same; for a twofold Providence of his can be distinguished, namely Sufficient and Favorable: the former is called that by which God orders all things to an end suitable and designated by his Wisdom, whether meanwhile that end redounds to the private good of the very thing which is ordered, or to the good of the Universe, or of another special creature for whose utility or adornment such an ordering is made. The latter, however, is called that by which God orders certain things to their own private good and to an end suitable and favorable to them. It is certain, however, that God does not provide so favorably to just any things; for there are some things which are ordered to others with their own loss, as food and drink to the nutrition of animals, and the brute animals themselves to the utility and convenience of men: whence he is said to provide favorably only to intellectual creatures, for he orders those alone to an end suitable and favorable to them, namely to eternal life. With these things premised, three things are to be resolved. First: Whether God truly conserves creatures immediately and per se. Second: Whether he operates per se and with immediate concurrence with their agents. Third: Which creatures he uses for the conservation and direction of others to an end; namely, whether the lower sometimes serve the higher, or rather the higher serve the lower.

First conclusion. — Divine Providence conserves all things per se and from its formal notion for as long a time as it judges to be fitting.

This conclusion is proved. first indeed from that passage of Sapientiae 11. How could anything remain unless you willed it? or what was not called by you be preserved? This calling, however, is that very divine command by which he commands things to be preserved, just as he also commanded that they be made, according to that saying: He calls those things which are not as those which are. That very thing St. Paul expressly explains in Hebraeorum 1, where he speaks thus of the Divine Word: Who being the brightness of his glory and the figure of his substance, and carrying all things by the word of his power; that is, as the Master of the Sentences interprets in his commentary on the same place: Carrying, that is, containing and governing all things: by the Word, that is, by his command alone: of his power, that is, of his power and of his charity, which appears no less in governing than in creating. With him Primasius agrees:

The Word of God the Father, he says, carries all things which he made by the word of his power, that is, he governs and rules all things by the power of his might and by the word of his command: for to govern the world is not less than to have created it; for in creating, the substances of things were produced from nothing; but in governing, those things which have been made are contained lest they return to nothing.

Or, as St. Thomas better interprets the same place: By the word of his power, that is, by himself, who is the omnipotent Word. Finally, the same Apostle says to the Colossians 1: All things were created through him and in him, and he is before all, and all things hold together in him, that is, as St. Anselm interprets the same place: All things hold together in him, who just as he created all things, so he contains and rules all things. All things hold together in him, because according to the immensity of his uncircumscribed and incomprehensible Divinity all things are within him, and lest they return to nothing they hold together through him: Or as St. Chrysostom weighs it, Homily 3. Not only did he produce them from nothing so that they might be; but the same he even now conserves and protects them: so that if they were deprived of his care, they would soon perish and be corrupted.

The same truth is proved by reason. We must reason about the conservation of things in the same manner as about their creation: but of creation God alone is the author and Artificer: therefore likewise of conservation. The major is that of the Subtle Doctor, who in 2. dist. 2. qu. 1. num. 9. says with St. Bonaventure that conservation is a continuous creation; so that the same divine action is called Creation, inasmuch as it coexists with the first instant of the existence of the thing: but it is called Conservation, inasmuch as it coexists with the other parts of the time in which that thing endures. — Next, creatures depend essentially on God: but they would not so depend if they needed his influx only for their creation, and not for their conservation: therefore they need the divine influx for both. The major is clear. The minor is proved: If creatures depended on the influx of God only in the first instant of their production, it would follow that through eternity their being would subsist independently of the divine influx itself; and so they would not be essentially dependent on him, but only per accidens; for dependence according to the first instant of their existence is related per accidens to existence and duration in the following instants, or in eternity itself. — Finally, if things, especially the incorruptible ones, for example Angels and rational souls, did not depend on the continuous influx of God in being conserved, it would follow that God could not destroy them and reduce them to nothing: but the consequence is absurd; therefore also that from which it follows. The consequence is clear, for those spiritual creatures cannot be destroyed by any positive thing repugnant to their life and subsistence; because just as they do not depend on any created influx, so neither can anything created be destructive of them: it remains, therefore, that they can be destroyed only by the subtraction of concurrence. Whence the Doctor rightly in 4. dist. 1. qu. 1. n. 33.: I say that to annihilate belongs to God alone, because to annihilate is not to act positively, but not to act, that is, not to conserve; but to conserve the whole creature, and totally, belongs to God alone.

You will say. The effects and works of divine Providence are of more vigorous power and of more perfect entity than the works and effects of creatures: but these do not need the continuous influx of their maker, for a house subsists even when the builder is dead; a lion that has been born has no need of the lion that begot it in order to subsist, and a son keeps his life intact even when his Father has died; therefore neither do those need a conserver.

I answer 1. that the reason is not the same concerning the efficacy and the works of divine Providence and of creatures; for that one is the principal, fontal and first cause from which creatures borrow whatever activity and power they have; these, however, are only subservient, secondary and less principal causes: whence it is no wonder if the effects which require the influx of those causes together with the influx of the first cause for their production, do not need that very influx for their conservation, because they can subsist through the influx of the first cause alone. Hence the dependence of effects on the first cause and on the second is not the same; for from the latter they depend only accidentally, for a son begotten by one father could have been begotten by another, and a house built by one craftsman could also have been built by another: but from the former they depend so essentially that they would in no way exist if God did not concur to their production. Whence in form: The effects of divine Providence are more excellent than the effects of creatures, according to the more excellent grades of perfection, I concede; for the fabric of the whole world far exceeds the structure of any most famous Palace: according to lesser dependence, I deny; because effects depend essentially on divine Providence; but on creatures only accidentally.

From these gather. That God, even by his extraordinary power, cannot produce any creature of such power and perfection that it can subsist independently of his influx, because it is essential to every creature to depend on God, both for its production and for its conservation. Nor does it matter that God is omnipotent; for as our Alexander of Hales observes, quaest. 26. membro 5. art. 1., there are certain things which God cannot bring about, which rather strengthen and commend the divine power. Whence, he says:

that he cannot sin, that he cannot make any creature equal to himself, that he cannot confer on a creature that it be sufficient to rule itself; this does not give impotence to God, but rather power. Whence just as it would detract from his power to posit some creature from itself; so it detracts from Wisdom, or Goodness, to posit that a creature be sufficient for its own rule. Whence that a creature cannot rule itself is not from the impotence of God, but from the impotence of nature; which cannot receive so great a power.

Second conclusion. — Divine Providence immediately concurs in all the operations of creatures. This conclusion already remains sufficiently and more than sufficiently proved by the philosophical reasons in our Physics, when treating of the divine concurrence: and it only remains to strengthen it with theological considerations.

And so St. Augustine proves it 1. from that oracle of Christ the Lord: My Father works until now, and I work. Which text he thus weighs, lib. 5. De Genesi ad litteram cap. 20:

There are, he says, those who think that only the world itself was made by God, and that the rest is now done by the world itself, just as he ordered and commanded; but that God himself does nothing: Against whom that sentence of the Lord is brought forth, My Father works until now: and lest anyone should think that he works something within himself, not in this world: The Father remaining in me, he says, does his works: and as the Father raises the dead and gives life, so the Son gives life to whom he wills, etc.

With him St. Chrysostom agrees, Homil. 37. in Ioannem:

But if you should ask how the Father works, since on the seventh day he rested from all his work; understand how he provides for, contains, and tempers all things which he made. When therefore you see the rising Sun, the course of the Moon, the pools, the springs, the rivers, the power of nature, the progress of seeds in our bodies and in the bodies of brutes, and all the other things of which this whole universe consists: understand the perpetual operation of the Father.

St. Augustine had also weighed the same difficulty in book 4. De Genesi ad litteram cap. 12, explaining in what sense God is said to have rested on the seventh day and nevertheless to work: It can be understood, he says, that God rested from founding the kinds of creatures, because he no longer founded any new kinds beyond that: but from then on until now and beyond he operates the administration of those same kinds which were then instituted, etc.

The same St. Augustine proves secondly from that passage of Actorum 7. In him we live, and move, and are. With which words the Apostle embraces the production, conservation and operation of creatures; which words St. Augustine, weighing in book 4. De Genesi ad litteram capite 12, says: That which the Apostle says, in him we live, and move, and are, clearly thought out as far as the human mind can, helps this sentence which we believe and say, that God in those things which he created ceaselessly operates, Then, opening in what manner the aforesaid context of the Apostle is to be understood of the works of Providence, he adds:

Believe therefore that God has not ceased for even one day from the work of ruling what he created, lest they should immediately lose their natural motions by which they are driven and given life, and altogether cease to be anything, if that motion of the wiser God were withdrawn from them by which he disposes all things sweetly.

With him Origen agrees, book 1. Periarchon capite 1. How, he says, do we live and move and are in God, unless because by his power he binds and contains the whole world?

Thirdly: St. Jerome confirms this same truth by several texts of Sacred Scripture in the Epistola ad Ctesiphontem; for, inveighing against him because, in order to defend human free choice, he spurned the help of God, he says:

Hear, I beg you, hear the sacrilegious man. If, he says, I shall will to bend my finger, to move my hand, to sit, to stand, to walk, etc., will the help of God always be necessary for me? Hear, ungrateful one, indeed sacrilegious one, the Apostle preaching: whether you eat, or whether you drink, or whether you do anything else, do all things in the name of the Lord, etc.

Finally, Anastasius Sinaita proves the same truth in book 2. De rectis fidei dogmatibus, from that passage of Psalm. 138. Where shall I go from your spirit, etc. From that, he says, the Prophet refutes the error of those whom it escaped that the actions of God pervade all things everywhere, and that there is no particle of any matter whatever which is not a work of God. The objections which are brought forth against this conclusion by Durandus in 2. dist. 1. q. 5. we have already solved in the Physics; therefore let it be

Third conclusion. — God uses not only lower creatures for the conservation of the higher: but also the higher for the rule and tutelage of the lower. This is common among Theologians, and St. Augustine proves it in book 8. De Genesi ad litteram capite 9, where he distinguishes a twofold operation of divine Providence:

In it also, he says, a twofold operation of Providence is found, partly natural, partly voluntary; natural indeed, through the hidden administration of God which gives increase even to woods and herbs; voluntary, however, through the works of Angels and of men. According to that first operation, the celestial things are ordered above, and the terrestrial below, the luminaries and stars shine, the changes of day and night are driven, the earth founded on the waters is washed within and around, the air is spread over the higher regions, shrubs and animals are conceived and born, grow and grow old, die, and whatever else is done in things by an internal and natural motion. In this other, however, signs are given, taught and learned, fields are cultivated, societies are administered, arts are exercised; and whatever other things are done either in the heavenly society, or in this earthly and mortal one, so that provision is made for the good even through the unknowing wicked, etc.

With which words St. Augustine expressly affirms that God provides for things not only through the lower for the higher, but also through the higher for the lower. Concerning the lower, indeed, no cause of doubting remains, since all material and corporeal creatures whatsoever, whether living or devoid of life, serve man and minister to him either for food, or for clothing, or for utility, or for delight. But neither should there be doubt concerning the higher, since the Angels, than whom we are lesser, are deputed by God to our custody, for they are all ministering spirits, sent into ministry for the sake of those who receive the inheritance of salvation.

You will say. To provide through another argues imperfection in the Provider, for a King therefore provides for his whole kingdom not per se but through his Ministers, because he can be present to each one neither by knowledge, nor by power, nor by presence. But such a defect is unseemly for God: therefore he provides for all creatures not through others, but by himself immediately.

Our Alexander of Hales answers, quaest. 26. art. 2. ad 2. That to provide through another can be from a threefold cause:

either from the defect of him who ought to provide, or from the defect of him to whom provision ought to be made, or from the part of him through whom the provision is made. On the part of the provider, as when he is not able per se to accomplish what he wills, as is clear in the example given of the King. On the part of him to whom provision ought to be made, thus divine Providence administers lower creatures through higher ones, because the lower, on account of their defect, are not immediately susceptible of divine action, as is clear in the eye, which, not being able to see the Sun in the wheel, sees it in the middle, namely in water, or in a mirror. Similarly, the Providence of God administers lower creatures through higher ones, but rational creatures per se, and also certain ones through others, as men through Angels and other Angels through others. Likewise, for the utility of him through whom the providence is, provision is made through another, as God wills that the poor be administered to by the rich for the utility of the rich; he wills also that some be taught through others. By these two last reasons God provides through others, but not by the first reason, because that is not from a defect which is in God: but on account of the defect of the creature to which it is administered, or on account of the utility of him through whom others are administered to, or provided for.

You will ask. How many and which are the fruits of divine Providence to be gathered from its consideration by good men.

I answer. that chiefly four are numbered by Lessius, cap. 9. De Providentia. The first is a great solace of the soul and a pleasant tranquility of mind amid the varied agitation and perturbation of things. For when each one weighs that all things which happen, whether good or evil, occur only with God so ordaining, he easily contains all his own motions, thinking that none of these things would come to be unless God specially permitted it; but he would not permit it, unless most just reasons were available to him, and so unless it were better to permit it than to hinder it. Refreshed by this very thought, St. Job, when he had heard of the loss of all his goods, burst into these splendid words: The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away. David weighed that very thing when he said: My soul refused to be comforted; I remembered God, and was delighted.

The second fruit is the grateful acceptance of all adversities as well, and also the repression and restraint of all murmuring; for we easily acquiesce in the divine ordering while with an attentive mind we weigh that God, most wisely, most kindly and for the most just reasons, sends or permits all those annoyances of body or of mind which sometimes befall us, and which conduce either to the exercise of virtues, or to the punishment of sins, or to the attainment of eternal happiness: for that which is momentary and light in our tribulation works in us an eternal weight of glory, above measure, into sublimity. When one has weighed these reasons, he compresses all the motions of murmuring.

Thirdly, that very consideration of divine Providence removes the anxious solicitude for the things of this life, for as Christ the Savior rightly warns, Matth. 6.:

Be not solicitous for your soul, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the soul more than food, and the body more than clothing? Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them: are not you of much more value than they?

Whence he concludes: Be not therefore solicitous, saying: What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or with what shall we be covered? For after all these things do the nations seek. For your Father knows that you have need of all these things.

Whence the Royal Psalmist admonished: Cast your care upon the Lord, and he himself will nourish you. St. Peter repeats that very thing, primae 5. cap.: Casting all your solicitude upon him, he says, for he has care of you.

Fourthly and finally, this very thought of divine Providence brings the greatest constancy and confidence of soul amid perils pressing upon us. For since God has care of all, especially of the pious, and nothing can be done without his nod and counsel, there is nothing for us to fear, whether the terrors of raging men, or the snares of demons, or anything else troublesome to be inflicted by any creature. Armed and animated by this very consideration as by an impenetrable shield, the Royal Psalmist said, Psal. 28. The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the Protector of my life, etc. And rightly indeed, as St. Augustine weighs it: For the Emperor is protected by shield-bearers and does not fear; a mortal is protected by mortals and is secure; and a mortal protected by the Immortal, will he fear and tremble?