FIRST ARTICLE: WHETHER THE WORLD IS GOVERNED BY ANYONE

State of the question. The materialists, pessimists, and all who reject divine providence deny any governance of the world. They hold, as we shall see in the third difficulty, that in their movements the principal parts of the world are determined to one end by some necessity and therefore do not need any governance.

Reply. Nevertheless the reply is that the world is governed, and this truth is of faith. All the texts of Scripture that affirm the existence of divine providence can be offered as proof. St. Thomas cites the text, "But Thy providence, O Father, governeth it."[928] God is considered the Father who gives life, and who nourishes, elevates, and governs His children with knowledge and benevolence.

The divine governance is proved "a posteriori" as follows: Means are not ordered to an end except by a governing intellect which understands the nature of the means. But in the world there are many means excellently ordered to a good end. Therefore the world is governed by one intelligence. Moreover, in opposition to Kant, this intelligence must be its own being and intellection, wisdom and truth itself, for otherwise this intelligence itself would be ordered to intellection and to truth by some higher governor.

The existence of the divine governance can also be proved "a priori" to a certain extent from a consideration of the divine goodness inasmuch as it produces things in being, so it also pertains to it to lead things to their end, which is to rule. To govern, properly speaking, is to lead things conveniently to their proper end as the arrow is directed by the archer.[929]

Reply to third objection. In natural things we find a certain necessity by which they are determined to one end; thus the eye is determined to seeing, the ear to hearing, the foot to walking, so that this end constitutes the reason for the existence of these means that are ordered to itself. But this ordering presupposes an ordering intellect in the Author of nature. Otherwise the intelligibility in things would come from non-intelligence, from a blind and material necessity; order would come from the privation of order, the more perfect from the less perfect in opposition to the principle of causality, and all things would be without a reason for their existence, that is, without any reason for being rather than not being.