Disputationes metaphysicae

1. An act is called contingent in two ways.—In order that there be no ambiguity in the word contingency, it must be noted that an effect can be called contingent in two ways: in one way, because it takes place by chance and beside the intention of the agent; in which sense the word contingency is taken very strictly and rigorously; but now we do not speak so, for of the chance effect we shall speak in the last section of this disputation. In another way, then, contingent is taken as it says a certain middle between the necessary and the impossible, in which way the contingent is said by the dialecticians to comprehend at once the possible to be and the possible not to be; and in this signification it is taken in the present matter, and so too it seems to have been taken by Aristotle, I De Interpret., last chapter, where he disputes about future contingents.

2. Secondly it must be observed that an effect can be compared either to its proximate cause only according to its intrinsic power, or to the same as conjoined to the concurrence or opposition of other causes, which in the whole order of the universe can meet it or concur with it; among which we can either comprehend the first cause, or only the series and order of secondary causes. And in this latter way we now speak; for we suppose that in order to the first cause no effect of the universe comes about from absolute necessity, because all depend on its concurrence, which it can deny by its freedom; and therefore in order to it there is nothing so necessary, nor any effect having a cause acting so necessarily, which cannot be and not be, and in this sense be contingent. Now, however, although God acts freely, we suppose that He is ready to concur with secondary causes and supplies His concurrence by a definite law; and therefore we consider the contingency or necessity of natural effects in order to the secondary causes as if they did not depend on the first, or as if the first could not deny its concurrence or impede or change the actions of these causes. For the miracles which God can do in this, philosophy does not consider, nor does it deny them if they are true, but says that they are exceptions from the general rule, which do not pertain to it.

Resolution of the question

3. These things being posited, the resolution of the present question is very easy; and therefore it must be said, first, that in order to a proximate cause operating from necessity of nature there is no effect contingent through the intrinsic power of such cause; it can, however, be contingent from the imperfection or defect of such cause, which can be impeded by the concurrence or opposition of another cause. The former part of this assertion is clear; for if the cause is by its nature determined to one, it is so able to act that from its intrinsic power it cannot not act; therefore the effect from this side has not contingency but necessity. Hence, if someone looks only to the intrinsic power of the cause and to its natural mode of acting, he will not be able to gather from it either that the effect will not be future, or that it can not be, but rather that it has necessity of being, so far as concerns that head; therefore the effect cannot have contingency from this relation to a cause of this kind. Nevertheless, the other part of the conclusion is equally true and easy; for, although the proximate cause acts necessarily, it is unable to resist every contrary cause meeting it, or to conquer and overcome every resistance which can be made by another cause; therefore from this head it can happen that the effect does not come about which from elsewhere would necessarily come about, so far as concerns the power and mode of acting of the proximate cause; therefore such effect is contingent, not from the power, but rather from the defect of power, of its cause, the possible concurrence or opposition of other causes being added; under which we comprehend not only efficient causes, but also material causes and those in any way resisting or impeding the natural action of the cause. And in this way the philosophers rightly admit contingency in the effects of natural causes, because a contingent effect is that which can be made and not made by its cause; but this effect can absolutely be made and not made by its cause, whether this comes from power or from defect of power, from possible impediments; therefore.

4. A contingent effect both intrinsically and extrinsically.—Hence, however, for the sake of greater clarity, a twofold contingent effect is rightly distinguished, namely, either intrinsically or only extrinsically. In the former way an effect is called contingent from within because it flows from a cause which from its intrinsic force and power can give contingency to the effect. Not that this contingency is ever an intrinsic mode inhering in the effect itself; for it is nothing other than a denomination taken from the power and mode of acting of its cause; but that such denomination comes from the sole intrinsic power and perfection of its proper cause. And this contingency is only in order to a free cause. In the latter way, however, or extrinsically, an effect is called contingent when the lack of necessity which is in it is only from extrinsic impediments. From which it is also understood that contingency of this kind does not depend on the freedom of any cause, even of the first, because it consists only in the relation to the proximate cause, which can be impeded; which relation is the same whether free causes intervene or not, indeed even if God acted from necessity of nature, provided He had produced the same natural causes which now exist.

5. Free causes being excluded, in the whole series and collection of the others no effect is contingent.—I say secondly: an effect which is contingent with respect to a proximate cause operating naturally, if it is compared to the whole order and series of the causes of the universe, and among these causes no freely acting one intervenes, at least as applying other causes or removing impediments, has not contingency but necessity. This is taken from St. Thomas, I Cont. Gent., c. 67, reason 3, where he says: As from a necessary cause the effect follows with certainty, so from a complete contingent cause, if it is not impeded. Where Ferrariensis rightly notes that this is to be understood of the effects of natural causes. It is also taken from Durandus, In I, dist. 38, q. 3; and Scotus, In I, dist. 1, q. 1; dist. 8, q. 2, and dist. 39; but Gabriel proposed it more clearly, In I, dist. 38, q. unica, a. 1. And it is proved, because, if all the causes which in every genus concur to the effect, and can either promote or impede its production, act from necessity, then with the same necessity such effect will follow as can follow from all those causes so disposed and applied. And it is declared; for, just as a natural proximate cause not impeded and having apt matter sufficiently applied necessarily produces a proportioned effect, so, if the same cause is wholly impeded, with the same necessity it will operate nothing, or, if not wholly but partly impeded, with the same necessity it will make an imperfect or monstrous effect; therefore, if all the causes, both acting and impeding, so come together from the sole natural and necessary course, and each also operates with necessity in its way, that is, that which impedes impedes necessarily, and that which applies matter applies it necessarily, and so of the others; therefore such effect, considered in order to the whole series and collection of such causes, has not contingency but necessity.

6. Nor do I find in this conclusion a reason for doubting; for this whole necessity is understood to be subordinated to the divine will, as we supposed at the beginning, and with respect to it any of these effects has contingency, that is, possibility of not coming about; yet in this very thing divine freedom too intervenes. And so it is simply and without doubt true that, with respect to the whole order or collection of acting causes, there can be no contingency in effects unless in that collection of causes some free cause intervenes.

7. And from these two assertions it is understood by the way how difficult it is to foreknow with certainty these future contingent effects, even merely natural ones, which with respect to one or another, or even several causes, have contingency, and have infallibility and necessity only with respect to all together. For it is most difficult, at least for men, to omit the angels, to know all causes of this kind, both because some are most remote from the senses and very hidden, as are the stars or their powers; and also because they are in great multitude, and their concurrences and oppositions are various and manifold; and finally because these causes do not act without matter, whose disposition is also various and often unknown; and therefore it is very laborious so to compare and observe all these things among themselves that from them something future in particular could be foreknown by sufficiently probable conjecture, let alone by infallible certainty. On this matter Benedict Pereira may be read, bk. II on Genesis, cc. 2 and 3.

8. In whatever way a free cause intervenes in the series of natural causes, the effect can be contingent.—I say thirdly: if to any effect, even of natural causes, a free cause concurs, whether as a cause per se or as a cause per accidens, applying the agent or the matter, or removing what prohibits, that is enough for the effect to be simply contingent, even if it is compared to the whole collection and series of causes. It is proved, for a contingent effect is that which can be and not be by virtue of its cause; but an effect of this kind, compared to the whole collection of its causes, can simply be and not be, even from this alone, that among those causes some free one intervenes, from whose choice it can happen either that the matter is not disposed for such effect, or that the proximate and per se cause is absent, or that some other similar impediment intervenes, which is enough for the effect not to follow. As, if the farmer does not plough the earth, which is free, the natural fruit is impeded, even if there are fitting rains and all the other causes concur; and the same reason holds of any other effect demanding some concurrence of a free cause without which it cannot be.

9. The difference between natural effects and contingent non-free ones.—And hence we may gather the difference between these contingent effects, which in a certain broad way we can call free, and the former natural ones: that the latter are contingent only in a qualified sense with respect to one or several causes, not however with respect to all collectively taken; but the former, namely the free, are simply contingent, whether they are compared to their single causes or to all taken together. From which it also comes about that these free effects can much less be foreknown in their causes than those. For a natural effect, although formally as it is contingent it cannot be known in its cause as certainly future, that is, in the proximate cause alone considered in itself, yet it can be known in the collection and comparison of all causes, because it is then known not as contingent but as necessary; but a simply contingent effect can be certainly foreknown as future neither in one nor in all causes together, because in both respects it is simply contingent, and so by virtue of the causes undetermined and indifferent to being and not being; and therefore, unless the free determination of the cause sufficient to determine the effect is known from elsewhere, it can in no way be certainly foreknown by virtue of the causes.

10. Here, however, the occasion at once offered itself of disputing about the foreknowledge and prediction of these contingent effects inasmuch as they are future; for, if before they take place they do not have in their causes determination to being or not being, then there can be no determinate truth in the propositions in which either of these is announced as future; which Aristotle plainly seems to have consistently granted, indeed even to have proved ex professo, bk. I De Interp., c. 8. But from this it further follows that neither part, affirming or denying such effect to be future, can be foreknown as determinately true, even by God; for what is not true is not knowable; therefore what is not determinately true cannot be known as determinately true either. And so Cicero granted it, in the books On Fate and On Divination, as Augustine reports, V De Civit., c. 9.

11. The determinate truth of future contingents.—But this difficulty requires a higher and more extended disputation, about which the theologians, In I, dist. 38, and I, q. 14, a. 13. Now it is briefly answered that the determination of truth in a proposition about a future contingent is not to be taken from the fact that the cause from which such effect will come is already determined to it in its power and faculty from that time or instant from which it is true to say that that effect is future, but only from the fact that at some time such cause will be determined in its action to the free effect; for this alone is enunciated by that proposition, and not that the cause, of itself and from its power, is already determined to such effect. Wherefore with the absolute contingency of these effects there can stand the determinate truth or falsity of those propositions in which they are enunciated as future, because this determinate truth is not more repugnant to contingency than in a proposition about the present. Because, although the effect can be made and not made, from which it has that it is contingent, yet in fact one or the other will determinately happen, and thence it has that it is a determinately future contingent. And in this we think Aristotle was deceived and spoke against the principles of our faith, although there are not lacking Catholics who try to interpret and defend him. Hence, however, it further comes about that it is not wholly repugnant that these free effects, before they take place, can be certainly foreknown, at least by that knowledge which on account of its infinity comprehends and intuits all truth and every knowable object in the way in which it is; in which Cicero erred more shamefully, denying to God the foreknowledge of all future things. Nor does that knowledge destroy this contingency, both because it does not change or alter (so to speak) its object—otherwise it would render itself false, if by knowing an effect to be going to be contingent it made it necessary—and also because this knowledge of future things as such is not their cause, but pure intuition; but of these things elsewhere.

12. Two other difficulties remained about the last conclusion. The first is whether the freedom of the secondary cause alone suffices for the said contingency, even if by an impossible supposition there were no freedom in the first cause; and this has been treated above; for it is the same to ask whether with that hypothesis simple contingency could arise in natural effects as to ask whether with it there could be freedom and use of freedom in the creature. For, if there were use of freedom, there would also be simple contingency; but without it there would not be; and therefore the reply handed down above is to be applied here. The other difficulty is whether, conversely, the freedom of the first cause alone suffices for the contingency of the effect, even if no secondary cause were free; but this has an easy reply from what has been said, for in the way in which that effect is free it can be called contingent, as we now speak. But whether one should simply so speak that effects, inasmuch as they are made freely with respect to God, can be called contingent, we shall touch upon below in disputing about God and His free will.

13. In what free agent the root of freedom is.—And hence too the other difficulty which is usually treated here remains dispatched, namely, in what cause the root of contingency is placed, whether in the freedom of the first cause, or in the freedom of the second, or of both together; for it must be said that, if the discourse is of contingency only extrinsic and in a qualified sense, its root is not placed in any freedom, either of the secondary or of the first cause, but proximately in such a nature and condition of the secondary cause as can be impeded, such an order and series of other natural things and causes being added from which such impediment is wont to occur. But the first cause, or God, can only be called the first root of this contingency, as it is the first cause of all the effects of the universe; because, namely, such secondary causes were both created by it and so disposed and ordered that from them effects of this kind contingent would come. For this, however, formally speaking, it matters nothing that the first cause produced all these things freely; for the same contingency would follow even if it had created all these things of necessity, provided it had ordered them in the same way and afterwards concurred with them. But speaking of simple contingency, its immediate reason is placed in the freedom of the proximate cause and some use of it, as has been declared; but its primordial root is the freedom of the first cause, in the way declared above, sect. 5.