FIFTH ARTICLE: WHETHER GOD OPERATES IN EVERY OPERATION

The reply is in the affirmative according to the words of Scripture, "Thou hast wrought all our works for us,"[972] "For in Him we live and move and are,"[973] "The same God, who worketh all in all."[974] In this article St. Thomas rejects two errors which are opposed to each other. According to nominalism, no created power operates in things; God alone directly does all things, for example, fire does not heat, it is God operating in the fire. On the other hand, others say that the creature can act without divine movement and thus the creature is not subordinate to the first cause; God and the creature are two coordinate causes, like two men rowing a boat.

St. Thomas takes a position above these opposing views. The operation always follows being, and the mode of operation follows the mode of being. Therefore God alone, who is being "per se", operates of Himself without any superior movement, whereas the creature, which is being by participation, does not operate except dependently on the divine movement. That is, "God not only gives forms to things but He conserves them in being, and He applies them to action, and is the end of all actions."[975]

If the creature were to pass from potency to act, or to action, without the divine movement, more would proceed from less, the perfect from the imperfect in opposition to the principle of causality, and the proofs for the existence of God based on motion and on efficient causes would lose their force. "Thus God is the cause of every action inasmuch as He gives the power to act, inasmuch as He conserves that power, inasmuch as He applies the power to action, and inasmuch as every power acts by His power."[976] "God could not have made a natural thing so that it could operate without the divine operation."[977] Nothing has been more explicitly stated by the Thomists.

Molina, however, found himself at variance with this teaching of St. Thomas. He said: "Two things in this doctrine of St. Thomas cause me difficulty. The first is that I cannot see or understand that movement and that application in second causes by which God moves these causes to act."[978] For Molina the influx of God's general power is simultaneous, it does not flow into the second cause and apply it to action but flows directly into the effect of the second cause, "not unlike two men rowing a boat."[979] Suarez maintained the same view.[980] The Thomists reply that if this were true the second cause would be coordinate with the first cause and it would not be properly subordinated in causality, and the transition from potency to act would not be explained. On the other hand, we must say that the second cause is subordinated to the first cause in such a way that the whole effect is from God as from the first cause and from the creature as from the second cause, just as the fruit of the vine is entirely from the branch as the proximate cause and from the whole vine itself as from the radical cause.

God, therefore, actuates the vital functions of plants and animals, just as He actuates the vitality of our intellects and the liberty of our wills without any violence being inflicted. For God moves our will according to the inclination of the will, which He conserves, and so God is more intimately present in our liberty than this liberty is to itself. God, however, never causes the disorder in a sinful act; this inordination proceeds solely from a defective cause. Our liberty is a secondary liberty which depends on the first liberty, and the idea of liberty is predicated only analogically of uncreated and of created liberty.