Prima Pars
Lecture 98: Divine Providence and Necessity in Contingent Things

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Article 2, Article 4, whether providence imposes necessity upon the things foreseen, right? So the fourth one proceeds thus. It seems that divine providence, divine foresight, places necessity upon the things foreseen. The first objection says, for every effect which has some cause as such, which already is, or will be, to which a necessity it follows happens to necessity, as the philosopher shows in the sixth book of the Metaphysics. But the providence of God, since it is eternal, pre-exists, and to it follows the effect of necessity. For the divine providence cannot be frustrated. Therefore the divine providence places necessity upon the things foreseen. Moreover, the second objection says, every provider makes stable his work, so far as he can, lest it fail. But God is the highest potent, most powerful. Therefore he gives the firmness and necessity to the things foreseen by him. The third objection takes a text from Boethius. Moreover, Boethius says in the fourth book of the Consolation of Philosophy, that fate, proceeding from the origins of immobile providence, constructs the acts and fortunes of men by an indissoluble connection of causes. Therefore it seems that providence places necessity upon the things foreseen. Against all this is what Dionysius says in the fourth chapter of the divine means, that to corrupt nature does not belong to providence. But this has the nature of some things, that they are contingent. Therefore divine providence does not exclude contingency from things by placing necessity upon them. Thomas is going to distinguish them. Some things are necessary and some things are contingent. But God's foresight makes what? What he foresees always take place, but some things take place necessarily, and some things take place continually. Some by chance, some by luck, and by free choice. I answer, he says, that divine providence, divine foresight, places necessity, puts necessity upon some things, but not upon all, as some believe. For to providence it pertains to order things to their end. Now, after the divine, what? Goodness, which is the end separated from things, the last end. After that, the chief good existing in things is the perfection of the universe. That's an old principle going back to Aristotle, right? And that there's a distinction between two orders. And one is the order of things among themselves, and the other is the order of all these things to their end. And the more fundamental order is the order of things to their last end. So the end of the chair is sitting. So the chair and all its parts are ordered to sitting as an end. But then because they're ordered to that end, then they have a certain order to each other. So one part comes in at this angle to that part, and so on. So it's like that universe, huh? Except the ultimate end is God, and then the order of the parts of the universe, the perfection of the universe, is an account of the order of the holy and first of God. So Thomas is calling that. So he's saying, after the divine goodness, which is the end separated from things, and the chief end, you can say, the first end, the last end. After that comes the chief good in things existing, is the perfection universe, which would not be if not all grades of being were found in things. Whence it belongs to divine foresight to produce all the grades of being, all the variety. Now, of course, this is a division of being as such, into necessary and, what, contingent, right? And therefore, for some effects, he prepares necessary clauses, so that they could come about necessarily. For some things, he prepares contingent clauses, so that they might happen contingently, according to the condition of the proximate clauses. So God's providence is going to be infallible. Everything that he foresees is going to take place will take place, right? But some things he foresees will take place necessarily, other things will take place contingently. And among those that take place contingently, some will be taking place by luck or by chance, some by free will, and so on, right? But God's causality extends, right? Not only that something will be, but how it will be, right? Necessarily or contingently, right? So, in reply to the first objection, to the first it should be said, that the effect of the divine foresight is not only that something come about in any way, right? But that something come about either contingently or necessarily. And therefore, it comes about infallibly and necessarily what divine providence disposes will come about and infallibly and necessarily. And it comes about contingently what divine providence, what? Has and will come about contingently. I'm saying that quote from Aristotle, that's in the chapter or the place of the sixth book of wisdom on metaphysics where he's showing that not everything happens by necessity. And he's saying, if everything happened by necessity, everything would have a cause as such and a cause could not fail. And then he goes to show that neither one of those is true. That everything has a cause as such. And that every cause can never fail. So sometimes, nature, just like human art, sometimes fails. Sometimes the cook over cooks the meat, right? Sometimes a child is born without an arm or a leg or something, right? So these are causes that can be impeded. As you know, the seeds you plant in the garden, they don't know how to germinate, right? So you have causes that can be impeded and therefore their effects take place only for the most part, not always. But he also attacks the other proposition that everything has a cause as such. And there he goes back to the fact that you have accidental being. Now, you can take an example of accidental being. I am a Christian geometer. Now, is there really such a thing as a Christian geometer? Yeah. Because there's something by which I'm a geometer. And that is by a certain knowledge of the theorems of geometry. There's something by which I am a Christian, by baptism and grace and so on, right? But is there anything by which I'm a Christian geometer? There's no such thing as Christian geometry, is there? So, I'm a hardly Christian geometer because there's nothing in which I could be such a thing. Now, there's a way in which I became a geometer by studying Euclid, right? There's a way I became a Christian by being taken into the Nativity Church and baptized, right? But is there a way of becoming a Christian geometer? It's something you might say that happened, right? Okay? There's no cause as such. There's a cause as such of being a Christian. There's a cause as such as being a geometer. There's no cause as such of... So, the world is filled with the accidentalness, right? I might, you know, be... Driving up here to see you guys, to give a class and so on, and someone else is roaring along the highway there, you know, trying to escape the police and runs into me, right? Well, bad luck. So, does that happen necessarily, right? That if you're going up to give a class, as such, you're going to get an accident? But it could happen, right? So, before you could say that everything happens by necessity, you'd have to say that everything has a cause as such, and that cause cannot fail. And both of those statements are shown not to be true by Aristotle in the sixth book, right? Now, the second one here, about stability, right? Well, this doesn't really interfere with the stability of the divine foresight, huh? In this, the order of divine providence is unchangeable and certain, that those things which are foreseen by him, they all come to be in that way that he foresees they'll come about, whether it be necessarily or contingently, huh? So, you really realize the excellence of God's causality, right? Extends down to not just that something will be, but how it will be, right? Whether by necessity or by contingency. And that's the way he understands the text from the great Boethius, huh? That the indocibility and the immutability which Boethius is touching upon pertains to the certitude of providence, right? Which cannot fail from its effect, nor from the way of coming about which he provides, right? That's either one of those ways that he provides, huh? Not, however, to the necessity of the effects, huh? And he comes back to this more general thing we were touching upon before. And it should be considered that necessary and contingent properly follow upon being as such, huh? Just like odd and even follow upon number. Whence the way of contingency and of necessity falls under the foresight of God, which is, who is the universal provider of the whole being. Not under the foresight of some, what, particular foreseeing. So often things happen by chance, right? Now, Dr. Rick, what were you saying about, would that be the same as when we speak? Or, I wonder if it might be different when we talk about a Christian philosopher. Yeah, same thing, basically, yeah. You've got to be careful about that, yeah. Would there be, though, maybe an argument to say, though, that because of, you've talked about Christian philosopher, the one benefit might be that reason and strength, though, for him, because of the grace to see in the baptism or revelation, too? Or is that kind of... Yeah, you can say that faith and reason help each other, right? Yeah. Yeah. Maybe geometry helps Christian, too. Yeah. I've got to go to the graduation there on Trivial School, right? Oh, good. I knew you had to kind of start the ceremony, right? And so the former head there was telling me, he said there were 17 students, right? 17 graduates this year. Wow. Remind me of what John, or Augustine, rather, says about 153 fish that I caught. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And because the fish in the last chapter, John, the net doesn't break, right? Well, in the earlier nets, they do break, then. So the earlier net refers to the catch of fish in this world, where some people are kept in the church and some fall out. But the one in the last chapter, John, they're pulled up on the shore of eternity. But what's amazing is that John mentions there's 153 fish. So Augustine has to figure out, exercise his mind with the symbolism of 153, right? Well, he tries to explain it by the number, what, 17. Now, what's the connection between the number 17 and 153 on the one hand, and then between 17 and being saved on the other hand, right? Well, now, if you know what kind of a number 17 is, it's a prime number, not a composite number. So you can't explain 17 by its size. Like sometimes when they talk about the 12 apostles, they take the sides of 12, that we call factors today, but the ancient geometers are called sides, mathematicians, three and four, right? And they say, well, they're going to preach the trinity to the four corners of the world. So four times three. Well, 17 is not a composite number, so there's no besides. But there's parts, right? And clearly the parts of 17 kind of stand out are 10 and 7. So 17 represents those who obey the Ten Commandments, fulfill the Ten Commandments, through the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. That's a beautiful way of saying you're going to be saved, right? Those who abundantly, you might say, right? Fulfill the Ten Commandments through the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which is seven. Now, I do type 17 with 153. Well, if you take everything that is in 17, all the way down to what? 17 plus 16 plus 15 plus 14. I've added these up a few times. But they add up to exactly 153. So that's... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, I was thinking about that and how the contemporary, you know, scriptural scouts don't like that sort of thing, right? Sure, yeah, yeah. But you find this all the time, you know, in Augusta and Thomas repeating and so on and so on. And I always remember this one time when Father Boulay was lecturing about these things. And he says, some things that are appropriate in theology do not be appropriate elsewhere, right? And in theology, you know, ultimately you have what Darnusius calls the via negativa, right? Because the ultimate thing is to realize that after all your thoughts about God and all the things you've shown about God, like we do in the Sumer, you still don't know what God is. And in some ways, metaphors are closer to negative theology than the Summa. Because the Summa, you might think you understand more than you do. And as Socrates warns us, we often think we understand things we don't understand, right? But if we make that mistake, we often make the mistake of thinking we know more than we do, right? But when things are said metaphorically, there you have a great distance between things. And take a very simple example. The Lord is my rock, right? Well, everybody knows that God is not really a rock. He's not going to think, I really understand God now that I call him a rock. But there's an extremely, what? Extreme distance, you know, between God and a rock. If I say God is an understanding, the will is. It sounds like I'm getting into it more. So it's very appropriate for Scripture to use metaphors. And as Thomas points out, taking metaphors from things that are lowly, like a rock. More often than taking, you know, God is a soul or something like that. You might think that's really what he is. He's not a soul, but, you know, you might think he's really a soul, but you make the mistake of thinking he's really a rock. And so, if you know the Plato, right? The Platonists were trying to make everything out to be numbers, right? Because it's kind of funny sometimes, you know, the soul is a self-moving number and so on. And, but there seems some kind of a very distant likeness between numbers and something else. Like they'd say, well, justice is an even number, right? There's some, there's some reason to think of justice as an even number rather than, you know, like we sell something financially, we're even now, you know? and maybe liberality would be an odd number or something, right? Something. And we find odd people kind of humorous, right? And so you can see a certain likeness as a kind of distant thing, you know? It's not really so appropriate for philosophy to do that, huh? And it's a soul, really a number and that's that thing. know the soul better than that. But these likenesses between numbers and those who are saved, right, are kind of distant, right? But it's appropriate for theology to see that connection between things that are very far apart, right? Just like saying the Lord is a rock, right? Maybe it's appropriate for theology to do that. And the people who are amused by the best in doing that, because it seems kind of far-fetched, right, don't realize it's very far-fetched that God is a stone, too. It's very appropriate, and Scripture will often say that, you know, the Lord is my rock and my salvation, so. I'm just not sure if I can jump back to this question three. Four? You have to reply to either of it. Yeah, yeah. But I understand especially like you replied what the atheist said, so that God foresees, say, the destination of a certain soul and he even provides for it. If provido, I don't know if that's still foreseen or there's proviso and provido or whatever. But anyway, he foresees what's going to happen with the soul. And yet, and it's certain and it's you know, definitive that whatever's going to happen is going to happen. But somehow there's not any necessity imposed upon the outcome because of free will, I guess. God moves our will to choose, right? Yeah. He's not forcing our will to choose, right? Right. He's respecting the nature of our will, right? That's hard for us to understand. Yes. What's the truth is about this. Okay. And he said something like that that nature is giving respect and our nature is including free will. Yeah. So, he works with it. Yet, he gives it to his beloved in sleep, right? Yes. And, you know, it's interesting that even that pagan philosopher Aristotle, right? You know, you deeming ethics and it's a very interesting technique of you in ethics which speaks of God and moving our will. It first comes from the outside, right? Yeah. He's got a very good reason why he does that. But Thomas was saying he's free with Aristotle says. So, it's kind of amazing, you know, that, you know, without the faith the man can arrive at the understanding of that, huh? So, God is the unmover not only of the motions that we think of as being natural but even of the will. In another place, he talks about providence how it doesn't impose necessities because providence is foreseeing. So, if I see you sit down, it doesn't make you sit down. He jokes. But I saw you. And that's how he had a providence. He sees now what you're going to do. It doesn't impose any sense and he sees you. Yeah, but he said somewhere else, I don't know where, somewhere, I just read St. Thomas yesterday that there's a difference between foreseeing and what happens in your salvation. That it's more, you know, he causes it to be too in the sense that he moves your will. God's even in your will. So, he's not simply foreseeing. He also says that. Yeah, he's directing us, yeah. Because it's mysterious to man. Mm-hmm. You know, it's interesting, you know, when Aristotle takes up luck and chance in the second book of natural so-called physics, and he's first, you know, talked about the four kinds of causes, matter, form, over, and end. And then he's talked about these obscure things, luck or chance. And when he begins his discussion of them, he gives three opinions that people have about them. And one opinion is that there's no such thing as luck or chance. It's just a name for our ignorance. And there's another opinion that's kind of, in a sense, the opposite of that, which attributes even the origin of the sun, the moon, this hour, the universe, to luck or chance, right? And Aristotle's is going to be in between those, right? Mm-hmm. He's going to admit that there really is luck or chance and show what they are, right? But they're not responsible for the universe as a whole, right? But then he gets the third opinion about it. The third opinion is that there's something divine about luck or chance, right? Well, that first opinion is I say he refutes, his first opinion refutes, right? The third opinion he's silent about. Because Thomas notes that, right? As if that transcends the limits of the natural philosopher, to see this, And of course, when you go to the book on the poetic art, and Aristotle's talking about how a play represents a change in your fortunes, huh? It didn't represent a change in your fortunes for your characters, right? It would not be of an interest to us to speak of, right? And basically, there's two changes in fortune. One is from good fortune to bad fortune, and that's more appropriate to tragedy. And the other is the reverse from bad fortune to good fortune, right? And he uses the word eutuchia, right? You know, good fortune, good luck. And, but he's talking at one point there in the book on the poetic art where how a chancey event arouses our wonder, which the poet wants to arouse our wonder, and it seems to have some hidden purpose to it. And if I recall, one of the examples he gives is the one where a man killed some famous man, murdered him, and he was not discovered, and he had done it. But the man was great and famous, so they put up a statue to him in the marketplace in his honor, so one day there's a festival in the city, and huge crowds there, right? And the crowds push against the pedestal, whatever it is, and the statue falls over and falls upon somebody and kills him. Now whom do you think it happens to fall on? Well, the murder, right? Well, it's happened by chance, right? But there seems to be some, well, yeah, some purpose to this, right? That's kind of hinting at something divine, right? Right, huh? Okay. Now if you take Shakespeare's play there, which is very much dealing with luck and fortune there, Romeo and Juliet, right? And like Romeo says, I'm fortune's fool, right? But at the end there, when Romeo and Juliet are dead, you know the story and everything, And the head of the city there, right, the prince there, has got these two men, right? Romeo's father and Juliet's father who've been fighting, you know, and so on, and he says, God has found a way to punish you, right? So they seem to be punished for their hate and fighting each other, right, by the love of their own children, right? So it seems to be, heaven has found a way to punish you, yeah? Of course, I don't know if that's a statute in Juliet. yet, so, but it's kind of another aspect of what Aristotle, that opinion, right? There seems to be something, what, hidden, right? Or when Caesar is assassinated, right, behind him there the statue of what Pompeii is eliminated, right? And so it's like Pompeii is directing, you know, this. So, but the interest in Aristotle would give that opinion and then respectfully in natural philosophy not talk about, right? But you get to wisdom then, and you see God as the cause of being as being, then he, his causality extends to what? the division of being as being, right? And the distinction between necessary and contingent is a division of being as such. So the divine causality extends to the continuous as well as necessary. How does that maybe for us to understand? And so it belongs to the wise man to see that, right? And he is more so to the theologian. As I say, it's interesting that in the Eudemian Ethics that Aristotle sees that the beginning of our deliberation can't come from us and it has to come from the outside. That's from God. And so God in his providence arranges that some things will happen necessarily and some by chance and some by free will and so on. Kind of amazing divine providence. Sometimes they compare it to, you know, a little bit to the playwright, the dramatist. The dramatist arranges what? Chance events in a way that is very pleasing to us, writing to watch and God did something like that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's right. that's right. that's right. Now, if this is controversial enough, we're at the end of predestination, and then you've got up here in the probation song. So after the consideration, we've got a little premium here, after the consideration of divine providence, one should consider about predestination, and under that it's going to consider deprivation, as you'll see, and about the book of life, and about predestination, eight things are asked. First, whether predestination belongs to God, and predestine us. Secondly, what is predestination, and whether it places something in the one predestined. And then third, whether reprobation belongs to God, reprobation of some men belongs to God. Then fourth, about the comparison of predestination to choice, whether those predestined are chosen. Fifth, whether merits are the cause or the reason for predestination, or reprobation, or choice. Well, he gives to those who are asleep, right? You may suspect that they're not going to be, yeah? Sixth, about the certitude of predestination. Whether those predestined are infallibly saved. Seventh article, whether the number of the predestined is certain. I'm not going to remember what the number is, if it is certain to us. And the eighth one, whether predestination can be aided by the prayers of the saints. So let's go with the first article here. Whether men are predestined by God. To the first one proceeds thus. It seems that men are not predestined by God. For Damascene says in the second book, the Orthodox faith, it is necessary to know that God foreknows all things, right? But he does not predetermine all things. He foreknows those things which are in us, but he does not predetermine them. And what does that mean exactly, right? He certainly doesn't, what, go against free will. Does that mean that he's not in some way a cause of our good choices? He's not causing them in such a way that we're not free to choose it. We're not choosing that such thing. But the merits and human merits and demerits are in us insofar as we are lords of our acts, in free judgment, in free will. Therefore, those things which pertain to merit and demerit are not predestined by God. And thus, predestination of men is taken away. Moreover, all creatures are ordered to their ends through divine providence, divine foresight. But other creatures are not predestined by God, therefore neither men, right? Moreover, angels are capable of beatitude, just as men. But to angels it does not belong to be predestined, so it seems, since in them there never was misery. But predestination is the proposal of taking mercy, as Augustine says. Therefore, men are not, what, predestined. We made some distinctions before about mercy, right? Are you miserable when you are nothing? But in other words, you weren't, you know. But you have to see how broadly we understand the divine mercy, right? There's a certain defect in you if you don't exist. Moreover, benefits are bestowed upon men by God. Or excuse me, the benefits bestowed upon men by God are revealed through the Holy Spirit, according to saintly men, according to the words of the Apostle, 1 Corinthians 2. We, however, have taken not the spirit of this world, but the spirit which is from God, that we might know those things that are given to us by God. If, therefore, men are predestined by God, since predestination is a benefit of God, predestination would be known to those predestined, which is clearly, what, false. So none of us here knows whether he's predestined, huh? Make this known to us? But against this is what is said in the Epistle to the Romans, chapter 8. Those whom he has predestined, these he has, what, false, huh? So the scripture itself speaks of having predestined, right? Now we've got to try to understand what this means, and then see how the objections can be, what, replied to, yeah. I answer it should be said that it's suitable to God to predestine men, huh? For all things are subject to divine providence. I only showed before that divine providence is extended to all things. But to providence it pertains to order things to their end. But the end to which created things are ordered by God is twofold. One of which excels the proportion and the ability of the created nature, and this end is eternal life, which consists in the divine vision. Which is above the nature of any creature as has been shown above. Another end is proportioned to the created nature, which the created thing can attain to according to the power of its own nature. Now to that to which something is not able to arrive through the power of its own nature, it is necessary that it be transmitted by another, huh? And then sent over, just as the arrow is sent by the arrowist to the target, huh? To the sign, huh? To the archer, by the archer. The archer. Whence properly speaking, the rational creature, who is capable of eternal life, is led to it, as it were, being, what? Sent over by God. And the reason of this sending over pre-exists in God, just as in him is the reason of the order of all things to their end, which we have said to be providence. But the reason of something coming about, existing in the mind of the one who's doing it, is a certain pre-existence of the thing coming about in him. Whence the reason of the foresaid sending over the rational creature to the end of eternal life is called predestination. For destinare, to destine is to send. To the end of eternal life is called predestination. To the end of eternal life is called predestination. To the end of eternal life is called predestination. And thus it is clear that predestination, as regards its object, is a certain part of providence, right? But that part of providence is dealing with what? The rational creature who's ordered to an end that surpasses his, what? The capacity of his nature, right? Now, the first objection was taken from the authority of St. John Damascene. Thomas interprets his words in this way. To the first, therefore, it should be said that Damascene names predetermination, the imposing of necessity, right? As in natural things which are predetermined to one of two opposites. Which is clear from what he adds, right? For he does not will wickedness, nor does he compel virtue, right? But he expects, in other words, the freedom of the will, right? Whence predestination is not, what? Excluded, yeah. So he's taking Damascene as excluding necessity, being imposed upon us in these things, right? It's not as efficient as though predestination, right? Because even providence, we saw, extends to contingent things, right? Now, what about the second or third ones? Now, the second one is saying that the irrational creatures don't have predestination. Why it seems so special for us? To the second, it should be said that irrational creatures are not capable of that end which excels the faculty of human nature. They're not capable of seeing God as he is. Whence, not properly, are they said to be, what? Predestined, right? Although sometimes, abusively, predestination is named with respect to some other, what? End, right? And the third objection is saying, well, the angels, they're rational. And Thomas is not going to correct, in a sense, the objection, say, well, they really are predestined too. To the third, it should be said that to be predestined belongs to the angels, just as to men, even though they were never, what? Miserable, huh? For motion gets its form or species from the limit, not from the limit from which, but the limit to which, right? For nothing does it differ as far as becoming white, whether the one who becomes white was black or what? Red or pale, okay? And similarly, nothing, it pertains in no way to the definition of predestination, whether the one predestined to eternal life is from, is predestined to eternal life from the state of misery or not, right? Okay? It's from the term to which you're being directed, huh? Although it can be said that every bestowing of good beyond the debt of the one to whom it is, or what is owed to the one to whom it is conferred, pertains to mercy, right? In the broader sense we're talking about. Now the fourth one is, well, if this is a great gift, obviously, being given to us, why aren't we told about it? To the fourth, it should be said that even if to some, from a special privilege, right, their predestination is revealed, it does not ever belong to be revealed to all. Because thus, those who are not predestined would despair, right? And security in the predestined would bear, but the expert talks about that. Security as mortals, it's a danger, you know? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.