Disputationes metaphysicae

1. The reason for doubting is taken from what has been said so far about created intellectual agents; for in these the causality of the end does not have place as to external actions except by means of causality in the will itself of the acting cause; but the end cannot have its causality in the will of God; therefore neither in the effects or external actions which proceed from that will. On the contrary, however, is that God is most properly the end of all creatures, whence He is also properly said to operate all things for His own sake; therefore He is the final cause of all things and actions which proceed from Him.

Whether in the free decrees of the divine will there is causality of the end

2. About this doubt two things are to be briefly declared. First, whether and in what way the end exercises its notion or causality about the free determinations of the divine will, which are as it were acts immanent in it. Second, what is to be said of the transient actions which go forth from the divine power, and consequently also of the effects at which they are terminated. About the former part, Soncinas, V Metaph., q. 2, thinks that in the divine will proper causality of the end is found. His foundation is that the motion of the end is only metaphorical; but this metaphorical motion falls upon God, because the divine goodness, for the sake of which God acts, moves the will of God; therefore final causality too falls upon the divine will. Secondly, because God loves for the sake of His goodness as for the sake of the end; but by this nothing else is signified than that the divine goodness moves the will of God to the love of His essence; therefore. Thirdly, because God loves creatures for the sake of His goodness; but to love one thing for the sake of another is nothing else than from the love of one to be metaphorically moved to the love of another; therefore God is so metaphorically moved by Himself as end. Fourthly, the reason intimated above can be brought, because otherwise the effects of God as they are from Him would not have a final cause; for the final cause has no effect except by means of the agent, which it moves to act; if, then, it has no causality about the agent, neither can it have causality about the effects of the agent.

3. It is answered negatively.—This opinion, however, is wholly false. Hence it must be said that the end cannot exercise its causality on the divine will as to the immanent acts or free determinations of the same will. This is taken from St. Thomas, I, q. 19, a. 5, where in this sense he generally denies that there is any cause of the divine will, and I Cont. Gent., cc. 86 and 87, he says that, although there is some reason of the divine will, yet there is not some cause. Alexander of Hales the same, I p., q. 35, a. 5; Driedo, On the Concord of Free Choice, bk. I, tract. 1, c. 4, memb. 1, ad 4. Ferrariensis thinks the same, on the said c. 87, who notes that, although the divine goodness according to our way of understanding is the cause of the divine will, yet not according to real causality. Which is also to be understood in a sound way as to the former part; for it is not to be thought that objectively or on the part of God there is causality in Him, even in our way of understanding, otherwise we should understand falsely, but that on our part we understand and explain the reason of the divine will after the manner of causality, because we cannot conceive or explain divine things except after the manner of created things. Moreover, in the same sense, St. Augustine, bk. LXXXIII Questions, q. 28, denies that a cause is to be sought of the divine will, on account of which He willed to create the world, and gives the reason because every cause is efficient, which I think is to be so understood, as I also expounded above, that is, because in every true causality some efficient cause intervenes.

4. And hence is taken the first reason of this truth, because in the divine will there is no true efficiency about the act immanent in it, even as freely terminated to external objects; therefore neither can true causality of the end have place about such act. The consequence is evident from what was said above; for the causality of the end does not have place except in order to efficient causality. Secondly it is declared more fully, because the act of the divine will, as to the entity essential and necessary to it, cannot have any true cause in any genus, because as such it is being by essence and wholly independent. Nor yet can that act, as freely terminated to creatures, have a real cause, because as such it adds nothing real to the necessary entity of the same act; nor can a real cause be feigned which has for effect only a respect of reason. Wherefore those who think that the free determination adds to the divine will something real which simply could not be in it can quite consistently posit, or even must posit, this genus of causality about that act; for, as I think, they are compelled to posit effective causality too, which, as it is absurd, so the foundation from which it follows is false, as I shall show below in its place. Nor does Soncinas proceed by this way, because not only about the free determinations, but also about the act itself, as it is the necessary love of God, he admits that final causality, which, taken strictly, is improbable by every reason, because that act as such is being by essence itself, and therefore independent, and uncaused under any notion whatever. Hence further, if the free determination, as it is something real, is nothing besides the act itself, and as it is something of reason truly is not but is conceived or feigned from our mode of conceiving, it comes about that under no notion can that act have a true cause.

The arguments in the opposite are answered

5. To the arguments it is answered that, just as God in a most eminent way loves Himself through Himself without any causality, either effective about the love, inasmuch as it is conceived by us as a vital act, or formal about the lover himself, inasmuch as the lover is constituted by such love, so it is to be understood that God in a most eminent way loves Himself for His own sake and other things too for the sake of His goodness without any final causality about the same love, either of Himself or of others. And so, when He is said to love Himself, metaphorically moved or allured by His goodness, the expression is metaphorical, taken from the way in which we conceive divine things after the manner of human. In which way too Boethius said, bk. III De Consolat., prose 3, that implanted goodness lacking envy impelled God to operate external things.

6. Hence to the first it is denied that the metaphorical motion of the end has place in the divine will as in ours; for in ours that motion is called metaphorical in such a way that yet it is true causality, because it is true dependence, in the act elicited for the sake of the end, on the end itself; but in the divine will there is not such metaphorical motion, but a certain eminent notion of loving, which, as it is without distinction of acts or powers, so also is without any true motion even metaphorical. Wherefore an equivocation in the word metaphorical motion must be guarded against; for with respect to us that particle, metaphorical, is added to distinguish that motion from the motion of the efficient cause, but not to exclude it from the whole latitude of motion and real causality properly so called; but when God is said to be moved or allured by His goodness, the whole expression is metaphorical, to explain only the reason of the divine will.

7. How God is said to love Himself or other things for the sake of His own goodness.—And by these things the second and third reasons have been answered; for that particle for the sake of, when God is said to love Himself or other things for the sake of His goodness, does not signify a true cause of the love itself, but only a reason (as I said) of the divine will. But it is false that God loves Himself for His own sake as for the sake of an end; for God is not the end of Himself; for who ever so spoke? or how can He have an end who has no principle? Unless perhaps He is called His own end negatively, because He has no other end; for so God is said to be from Himself. But in this sense He is not His own end through final causality, as neither is He from Himself through efficient. Likewise it is false that to love one thing for the sake of another is the same as from the love of one to be moved to the love of another, if that from signifies proper causality or distinction in reality between one love and another; for strictly, for the truth of that expression it suffices that one be the reason of loving the other. Hence, just as when God is said to be immortal because He is immaterial, that particle because designates not a true cause but a reason, so He is said to love creatures for the sake of His goodness, not because it is a cause, but because it is the reason of loving them. And just as God, by that act by which He necessarily loves Himself, freely loves creatures without real addition or augmentation, so the same act as terminated to God can be called the reason, in our way of conceiving, why it is extended (so to speak) to creatures, no proper causality intervening. For, just as that termination takes place in a most eminent way without real augmentation, so also without real causality. In which way Dionysius said, c. 4 De Divin. nom., that divine love did not allow God to be without offspring.

Whether there is causality of the end in the external actions and effects of God

8. The fourth reason of that opinion requires that we explain the second point proposed at the beginning, namely, how in the actions and effects of God ad extra there is true final causality, if in the will of God itself such causality is not found. And the reason for doubting has been sufficiently proposed at the beginning and in that fourth reason. On account of which someone could grant that in the effects of God there is found properly an end to which they are ordered and for the sake of which they are made, but not that proper final causality is found. For, as Gabriel notes, In II, dist. 1, q. 5, at the beginning, end and final cause are not wholly the same; for end as such says only the terminus to which the operation tends, or to which the motions are ordered; but the final cause is that which moves the agent to operate. Wherefore, if there is an end which does not move the agent through proper causality, there will be able to be an end which is not a final cause taken in propriety and strictness. Thus, then, it can truly be said that God operates all things for His own sake as for the sake of the ultimate end to which all things are ordered, yet not through the causality of the end, but through a more eminent mode free from all causality. But this mode of speaking does not wholly satisfy. First indeed, because by the opinion of all theologians God is the final cause of all things, as St. Thomas hands down, I, q. 44, a. 4. Secondly, because Aristotle defines the final cause as that for the sake of which something is made; but God is truly and properly that for the sake of which creatures are made, according to that of Prov. 6:¹ The Lord hath made all things for Himself. Thirdly, because the final cause as such includes no imperfection, indeed is thought to be the first and most perfect of all causes, in the way to be explained below; therefore it belongs to God properly and formally and with supreme perfection; but it does not belong to Him except with respect to effects ad extra; therefore.

9. Wherefore it must be said that, although the final cause does not properly cause its effects except in some way by means of the agent which it moves and allures to operate, yet, in order that the end be the proper cause of the effect of the agent, it is not necessary that it first have some proper causality in the agent itself. For, although this happens in created intellectual agents, because they immediately move or apply themselves to operating or loving through some real motion and proper causality, yet in the uncreated intellectual agent this is not necessary, because without any change of itself or real addition, dependence or causality, it applies itself (so to speak) or determines itself in a most simple and eminent way to freely loving and operating. But the final causality of God with respect to effects ad extra consists in this, that God, in view and love of His goodness, produces effects outside Himself; hence the very operation which He has ad extra essentially depends on God both in the notion of efficient and also in the notion of end, because it regards God both as omnipotent and as supremely good, who by reason of His goodness both is worthy that all things be ordered to Him as to the end, and in the said eminent way inclines Himself to communicate His goodness to others for its sake. And so the reply to the reason for doubting is easy; for we deny that causality of the end within the agent itself is always necessary in order that it can have place outside it in its other effects, in which way we shall also declare below that exemplar causality has place in the effects of God without any proper causality within God Himself.

10. An occurring doubt is dispatched.—And hence is easily dispatched the doubt which Cajetan touches about the said a. 4, q. 44, I, whether it can be granted that God, as agent, has a final cause, which is the same as to ask whether the action of God ad extra has a proper final cause. For it must be said that it indeed has a final cause. For God truly and properly exercises that action for the sake of some end which He intends. Likewise, because, as St. Thomas says in that article, the end of the agent and of the patient is the same, although in diverse ways; but the discourse is of the agent as agent, and of the patient broadly, as it extends to the effect made by the agent; but the effect of God as such has a proper final cause; therefore the action of God as such has the same final cause, which, although it is not the end of God, is yet the end of the effect of God, and consequently also of His action; for the end to which the effect is ordered is that which moves the agent to operate; hence he orders his action to the same.

11. An objection.—But at once a difficulty arises: for the action of God is the very essence of God; therefore it cannot have a final cause. In which objection the Thomists stick and labour; and Cajetan answers that that action, as to the thing which the action is, does not have a final cause; but formally, inasmuch as it is action, has as final cause the very goodness of God. But the reply does not satisfy, because either that action as action adds something real to God Himself, and so it will not be in God; or it adds nothing real, and according to that it cannot have a final cause. Some moderns answer that action as such adds only an intrinsic respect of reason, and as to that has a final cause. And they add that, since the end moves the agent metaphorically, it is not necessary that between the end and the agent or its operation there be real distinction, but that a distinction of reason suffices and that the agent be determined by the end to action, whether that determination is by a real mode or by a mode of reason. But this doctrine is false and falls into the opinion of Soncinas, and from it it plainly follows that the love of God, as freely terminated to creatures, has a proper final cause, which however has been shown to be wholly false. And the sequel is evident; for in that free determination too there is real identity and a mode of reason coming in its way from God as from the end. Likewise, it is false that a relation of reason is of the intrinsic notion of a real act, since that is nothing. And therefore it can no more be understood that it is caused through proper final causality than through proper efficiency. And therefore other Thomists deny what we have said, namely, that God so operates for the sake of the end that that end is the cause of the action of God, but only of the passion, so to speak, or effect, or also of the becoming itself. In which indeed they seem to speak consistently; for according to them the action of God is nothing else than the volition of God; but the volition of God cannot have a final cause. But from a false foundation they were compelled to depart from the true opinion.

12. The true reply.—And therefore it is more easily answered by denying the antecedent; for the transient action of God is not God, nor in God, but in the creature; and therefore it can have a final cause and be ordered to an end. And so, although God does not have an end of His being, He yet has an end of His transient action, which, if it is the proximate end, can be something outside God; for God acts ad extra so as to communicate Himself, which communication is something outside God, and universally the action can be said to be ordered to its terminus as to its end; but if the discourse is of the ultimate end, it is God Himself, not because He intends to acquire some advantage or good for Himself, but because He acts for the sake of His goodness to be communicated and manifested. And Durandus declares this opinion well, In II, dist. 1, q. 6, although he mixes in some things which are not true, which it is not now necessary to examine.