THIRD ARTICLE: WHETHER THERE IS AN ORDER OF AGENTS IN CREATURES[915]

If this article was not written by St. Thomas, it was composed by one of his disciples from what St. Thomas says on this matter elsewhere.[916] This article completes the question and serves as a preamble to the fourth article: whether there is only one world.

In this article it is asked whether the subordination of agents is not only formal but also dynamic. It appears that it is not dynamic: 1. because the omnipotent God can act without an intermediate subordinate agent; 2. because this dynamic subordination would be a return to the separated ideas of Plato, for the subordinate agents would at the same time be exemplary ideas; 3. if one creature were the active cause of another, it would also be its final cause; and God alone is the end of all things.

Reply. Nevertheless the reply is in the affirmative, that is, in creatures the subordination of agents corresponds to the subordination of ends.

Proof from authority. "There is no power but from God; and those that are, are ordained from God."[917] As Dionysius said, in this way God rules the lower through the higher.

Proof from reason. The proof is twofold: indirect and direct.

a) The indirect proof is a refutation of the doctrine of occasionalism, already proposed in St. Thomas' day, according to which it is not the fire that heats but God in the fire.[918]

Reply. The active powers, as well as the qualities and forms, attributed to things would be futile if they effected nothing. St. Thomas says: "Indeed all created things would seem to be somehow futile if they were stripped of their proper operation, because all things are because of their operation," [919] or as Cajetan says, because of themselves as operating. "It is not due to some lack of power that God acts through the mediation of creatures, but because of the abundance of His goodness inasmuch. . . as He communicates the dignity of causality to creatures."[920] This causality is explained by the distinction between potency and act, which Malebranche and Leibnitz failed to recognize and therefore they fell back on occasionalism when they were unable to explain the transitive activity of creatures.

b) The conclusion is proved directly from the inequality required in creatures to manifest the divine goodness, as we stated in the preceding article. The proof may be reduced to the following: The more perfect is compared to the less perfect as act to potency, and it is the nature of what exists in act that it act on that which is in potency. But there is inequality in creatures inasmuch as one is more perfect than another. Therefore it is necessary that one creature act on another, by the power of God, the first agent. We have in mind here agents that are "per se" subordinate, not univocal causes, subordinate "per accidens", such as men who are successive by the succession of generation.

Explanation of the major. If in nature some inferior being is in potency to receive some perfection, it is of the nature of a superior being in act that it act on that which is in potency, for example, if the fruits of the earth need warmth to ripen, it is in order that the sun, which is hot in act, should provide heat for the earth. The minor is evident. Therefore there must be a subordination of agents.

Corollary. The order or subordination of agents corresponds to the subordination of ends, as St. Thomas frequently pointed out: "It is necessary, since every agent acts for an end, that every cause direct its effects to its end, and therefore, since there is an order of ends according to the order of agents or movers, it is necessary that man be directed to the ultimate end by the movement of the first mover."[921] Hence St. Thomas says also in this article, "matter is ordered to the form, the elements to mixed beings, plants to animals, and animals to man." We see then that the order of the universe arises from the fact that one creature acts on another and that one creature is made to the likeness of another (for every agent acts in some way similar to itself) and that one creature is the end of another. Thus minerals are assimilated by plants, plants by animals, and animals by men. We see here an external finality of the inferior being to the superior which can be corroborated by the internal finality of the superior being, for example, the animal acts for an end and in assimilating the plant for its own sustenance it uses an appropriate means to the end of sustaining itself and thus it appears that according to external finality plants are because of animals.[922]

First corollary. Man is a microcosm, a sort of compendium of the universe inasmuch as he reflects this subordination of agents and ends. The intellective part of the soul moves the sensitive faculties and members and uses them for its higher end, because the end of the agent and patient is the same but in different ways. So also the sensitive part uses the vegetative part, and the vegetative part uses the lower aliments which it assimilates through the nutritive function and by respiration.

In this microcosm we see the dynamic order of the whole universe, the threefold subordination of agents, ends, and forms inasmuch as the superior agent in acting in a manner similar to itself is also a kind of exemplar of the effect produced in the inferior being. St. Thomas says: "God is the prime exemplar of all things, but secondarily the creature is an exemplar of another creature." For example, our reason is modified by prudence, and this is an exemplar of the rectitude of the sensitive appetite governed by temperance.

Second corollary. The pantheists look for a substantial unity in the universe and without reason deny the two extrinsic causes of the world, the efficient and final causes, while evidently the world has a dynamic unity which participates in efficient and final causality.

Third corollary. From all this it appears that the principle of finality (every agent acts for an end) is no less necessary and no less evident than the principle of efficient causality (every thing that is made has an efficient cause). Indeed there can be no efficient causality without finality, nor can there be a tendency which does not tend to an end. The end is the first and supreme of the four causes and thus, at least in itself, the principle of finality is prior to the principle of efficient causality and better known "per se".