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Divine premotion

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Abstract

According to divine premotionism, God does not merely create and sustain the universe. He also moves all secondary causes to action as instruments without undermining their intrinsic causal efficacy. I explain and uphold the premotionist theory, which is the theory of St Thomas Aquinas and his most prominent exponents. I defend the premotionist interpretation of Aquinas in some textual detail, with particular reference to Suarez and to a recent paper by Louis Mancha. Critics, including Molinists and Suarezians, raise various objections to the view that premotion is compatible with genuine secondary causation. I rebut a number of these objections, in the course of which I respond to the central challenge that premotionism destroys free will. I also offer a number of positive reasons for embracing the premotionist theory.

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Notes

  1. The famous exception being Durandus de Saint-Pourçain (c.1275–1332), whom Freddoso (1991, p.555) calls ‘the one and only well-known medieval proponent of mere conservationism’.

  2. Isaias 26:12 (All Scriptural citations use the Douay–Rheims translation).

  3. Acts 17:25.

  4. Acts 17:28.

  5. St Augustine, On the Literal Meaning of Genesis 5.20, in Rotelle (2002, p. 296). (I have slightly amended the translation.) Note that in the cited passage from John 5:17, Christ adds ‘…and I work.’

  6. Book I, Chaps. 2–3, (Jerome c.415).

  7. Dei utendum…Deus juverit….

  8. McHugh and Callan (1982, p. 30). The Scriptural quotation is from Wisdom 8:1. See also Wilhelm and Scannell (1909, pp. 365–368) for an excellent summary of the received position, echoed by Ott (1974, pp. 88–89) where the theological note ‘sententia communis’ is given to the proposition: ‘God co-operates immediately in every act of His creatures’.

  9. ‘build’ = ‘yivneh’, Ps. 126:1; ‘work’ = ‘ergazetai’, John 5:17; ‘wrought’ = ‘pa’alta’, Is. 26:12.

  10. For an excellent overview, see Garrigou-Lagrange (1939, Chap. IV) and Phillips (1962, Part II, Chap. IX and Part III, Chap. VII), to both of which I am indebted throughout this paper.

  11. Molina (1588, Part II, Disp. 25, n. 3) attributes it to Gabriel Biel (c.1425–1495), following Peter D’Ailly (c.1350–1420). It had been espoused even earlier by Arabic philosophers including al-Ghazali (c.1058–1111): see Fakhry (1958). For Malebranche, see his The Search after Truth and the Elucidations (Malebranche 1678/1997).

  12. Such is Molina’s statement of the position, but it is more accurate to define it as the theory that there are no secondary causes at all, only the one divine cause of everything that is or comes to be. Even specifying what the effects are is difficult: what the occasionalist must say is that God alone causes those effects that we would rightly attribute to what we call secondary causes were those causes in fact operative.

  13. For an important contemporary critique of mere conservationism, see Freddoso (1991). For Aquinas’s critique of occasionalism, see Aquinas (c.1268, q.3 a.7), resp.

  14. De Potentia q.3 a.7 ad 7, Aquinas (c.1268).

  15. Disputates Metaphysicae (hereafter DM) 22.2.52, Suarez (1597/2002, p. 203).

  16. Summa Theologica (hereafter ST) I q.105 a.5, Aquinas (c.1273b/1922, pp. 38–41).

  17. Summa Contra Gentiles (hereafter SCG) III.70, Aquinas (c.1264/1956, pp. 235–237).

  18. Weisheipl (1983, pp. 359–363) gives 1264 for the completion SCG and 1266 for the commencement of ST; Davies (2012, p.533) gives 1265 for SCG and 1265 for ST.

  19. Ad septimum dicendum, quod virtus naturalis quae est rebus naturalibus in sua institutione collata, inest eis ut quaedam forma habens esse ratum et firmum in natura. Sed id quod a Deo fit in re naturali, quo actualiter agat, est ut intentio sola, habens esse quoddam incompletum, per modum quo colores sunt in aere, et virtus artis in instrumento artificis. Sicut ergo securi per artem dari potuit acumen, ut esset forma in ea permanens, non autem dari ei potuit quod vis artis esset in ea quasi quaedam forma permanens, nisi haberet intellectum; ita rei naturali potuit conferri virtus propria, ut forma in ipsa permanens, non autem vis qua agit ad esse ut instrumentum primae causae; nisi daretur ei quod esset universale essendi principium: nec iterum virtuti naturali conferri potuit ut moveret se ipsam, nec ut conservaret se in esse: unde sicut patet quod instrumento artificis conferri non oportuit quod operaretur absque motu artis; ita rei naturali conferri non potuit quod operaretur absque operatione divina.

  20. Mancha (2012, p. 348ff).

  21. Garrigou-Lagrange (1939, p. 256).

  22. SCG III.70.5, Aquinas (c.1264/1956, p. 236).

  23. ST I q.105 a.5, resp., Aquinas (c.1273b/1922, p. 40).

  24. DM 22.2.13, Suarez (1597/2002, p. 178).

  25. ‘principium per se agendi’.

  26. ‘solum remote et per accidens causat effectum’.

  27. ‘conditionem requisitam ad agendum’.

  28. ‘unde qui utrumque facit, duplici modo concurret per accidens, nullo tamen modo per se’.

  29. Mancha (2012, p. 352).

  30. ‘no less false’, ‘non minus falsa’.

  31. DM 22.2.35-37, Suarez (1597/2002, pp. 193–195) and Mancha (2012, pp. 352–353).

  32. ‘passive indifferens’.

  33. ‘Non est ergo in potestate activa et libera voluntatis ut hanc vel illam determinationem recipiat’.

  34. ‘cum ergo ad unum tantum actum determinetur, illum potest efficere et non alium’.

  35. ‘Rursus, posita in voluntate illa conditione. quae praedeterminatio dicitur, fieri non potest quin ipsa exerceat actum; nec potest resistere determinationi seu motioni eius; ergo nunquam habet potestatem exercendi et non exercendi actum; ergo tollitur indifferentia quoad exercitium, quae in hac potestate consistit.’

  36. See further Garrigou-Lagrange (1936, 1939, Chap. VIII).

  37. ST I q.19 a.9, resp., Aquinas (c.1273a/1920, p. 279).

  38. I am, of course, advocating the well-known Guise of the Good thesis. For a detailed defence, see Oderberg 2015.

  39. Here I am indebted to Phillips (1962).

  40. De Veritatae q.27 a.4, resp., Aquinas (c.1259): Haec enim est ratio instrumenti, in quantum est instrumentum, ut moveat motum…Et sic instrumentum habet duas operationes: unam quae competit ei secundum formam propriam; aliam quae competit ei secundum quod est motum a per se agente, quae transcendit virtutem propriae formae.

  41. DM 17.2., Suarez (1597/2002, pp. 30–31). Suarez does not use the term ‘active obediential potency’ here but he accepts that the instrumental power might be permanent and endure after cessation of the instrumental action; which looks like acceptance of active obediential potency in some cases.

  42. Phillips (1962, p. 244).

  43. Molina (1588): Part II, Disp. 25, n. 12, Disp. 26, n. 15.

  44. Ephesians 1:11.

  45. An earlier version of this paper was given at the Workshop on Continuous Creation organized by Paul Clavier and held at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, in December 2014. I am grateful to the participants for their comments, especially Alexander Pruss and Cyrille Michon. I also thank Prof. Michon for extensive correspondence afterwards.

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    David S. Oderberg

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Oderberg, D.S. Divine premotion. Int J Philos Relig 79, 207–222 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-015-9536-z

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