So, if created things have no actions productive of effects, it follows that no nature of anything would ever be known through the effect. And thus, all the knowledge of natural science is taken away from us, for the demonstrations in it are chiefly derived from the effect. (Aquinas SCG 3.69.18)
Secondary Causes: Their Relation to the Primary Cause (God)
The Primary Cause (God) is the uncaused cause, the source of all beings and existence.1“For Scholastics, in order to be caused (whether caused to exist or caused to undergo some change), a thing must in some way be a mixture of act and potency, since to change or come into being is to go from potency to act. But then what is pure actuality and thus devoid of potency not only need not have a cause, but could not have had one. Hence it is false to say that everything has a cause. The principle of causality says that what changes requires a cause, that what comes into being has a cause, that what is composite, contingent or merely participates in being needs a cause, and in general that what goes from potency to act requires a cause. But that is very different from saying that absolutely everything has a cause. When the Scholastic says that God is uncaused, that is not because God is being made an arbitrary exception to a general rule. It is rather because God is taken to be pure actuality, non-composite, non-contingent, and so forth.” Edward Feser, Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction (editiones scholasticae, 2014), p. 107. God continues to sustain the universe at every moment to ensure its continued existence and operation.
Secondary Causes like finite living beings and natural forces possess causal powers. For example, fire has the power to heat and a human has to power to make choices and initiate action. Everything must have a cause. A thing’s nature must be caused by another, that is, it is causally dependent on another agent in a chain of causes. Since these agents are dependent, there are accordingly regarded as secondary” causes. This chain of causes operates as an interactive system established by God. However, each “secondary” cause is ultimately dependent on the power of the Primary Cause (God).
What is the relationship between primary cause and secondary cause? The relationship between a craftsman and his tool provides a helpful analogy: The craftsman (God) is the primary cause of the artifact but this does not undermine the genuine role contributed by the tool (secondary cause) in the production of the artifact.
In Defence of Secondary Causation Against Occasionalism
According to occasionalism2Occasionalism was a dominant philosophy school in medieval Islam. Its prominent advocates included Al-Ash’ari (10th C), founder Ash’arite occasionalism and following him, Al-Ghazali (12th C) and Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (13th C). According to Islamic occasionalism, what appears to be causal relationships in nature are merely God’s habit (’adah) of creating certain events after others, with no necessary connection between them. “God has decreed as a matter of habit (’adah) that the succession of accidents shall correspond to a certain pattern… But it is clear that God who is the ultimate Agent could alter this course of habit freely.” See Majid Fakhry, Islamic Occasionalism (Routledge, 1958, 2008), p. 30, created substances do not have intrinsic power of causation to bring about changes or events. There is no secondary causation since all events are directly caused by God. The discussion below defends the necessity of secondary causation by highlighting some weaknesses of occasionalism.
1) Occasionalism undermines the integrity of created natures: If creatures have no genuine causal powers, then their natures are illusory. However, in endowing creatures with causal powers, God empowers them to exist (The verb exist, comes from the Latin existere, “come into being,” from a combination of ex, “out,” and sistere, “take a stand”). To exist is to participate in God’s creative power and reflect God’s overflowing creativity and plenitude of goodness.3“Now, it is better for a good that is conferred on a thing to be common to many than for it to be exclusive, for “the common good is always found to be more divine than the good of one alone.” But the good of one being becomes common to many if it can pass from one to the other; this cannot occur unless it can diffuse this good to others through its own action. On the other hand, if it lacks the power to transfer this good to others, it continues to keep it exclusively. Therefore, God so communicates His goodness to created beings that one thing which receives it can transfer it to another. Therefore, to take away their proper actions from things is to disparage the divine goodness.” Aquinas, SCG 3.69.16
2) Secondary causation does not diminish God’s sovereignty but rather enhances it. God’s power is absolute precisely because he can create beings with genuine causal efficacy without compromising his sovereignty over creation. The view that God establishes secondary causation is consistent with the biblical teaching that God is both transcendent (unconditioned sovereignty over creation) and immanent (sustaining the integrity and reality of the created order).
3) Empirical coherence and rational Intelligibility of the created order: Occasionalism results in a fragmented view of the world since there is no causal power and direct interaction between created beings. The world appears to be bereft of intrinsic order and purpose. There is no rational intelligibility of the created order.4“Again, to take away order from created things is to deprive them of their best possession, for individual things are good in themselves, but all things together are best because of the order of the whole. Indeed, the whole is always better than its parts, and is their end. Now, if actions be taken away from things, the mutual order among things is removed, for, in regard to things that are different in their natures, there can be no gathering together into a unity of order unless by the fact that some of them act and others undergo action. Therefore, it is inappropriate to say that things do not have their own actions.” Aquinas SCG 3.69.17. Aquinas rightly concludes, “So, if created things have no actions productive of effects, it follows that no nature of anything would ever be known through the effect. And thus, all the knowledge of natural science is taken away from us, for the demonstrations in it are chiefly derived from the effect.” (Aquinas SCG 3.69.18)
4) Human freedom and moral responsibility: According to Occasionalism, there is no secondary causation. Hence, creatures have no real causal power and there is no real human free will. If this were the case, humans should not held responsible for their moral choices and actions. The whole moral order is undermined. In contrast, jurisprudence and the whole legal system and is premised on human freedom and responsibility. The presupposition of real human agency and accountability is consistent with the Christian understanding of the blameworthiness of sin and the grace of God’s salvation.
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Reading: Do Secondary Causes Really Operate As Causes?
Objections:
1) if we say that “secondary” causes are totally dependent on another for their very operation as causes, are we not, in effect, implying that the Primary Cause is the only real source of activity?
2) Naturalism retorts that not only is a “supernatural Cause not necessary to explain the universe, but the existence of such a Cause would render superfluous the activities of natural causes
Answer:
We agree with the naturalists in opposing any derogation of that the activity of natural causes.
The activities of things, after all, are the only real clue that we have to the nature of the things that perform them. In the words of St. Thomas,
If creatures exercise no action in producing effects, it will follow that the nature of a creature can never be known from its effect; and so all knowledge of physical science would be denied us. (Aquinas SGG 3.69)
…Does not the influence of the Primary Cause render superfluous the activities of finite things? Or, in slightly different terms, does not dependence on a Primary Cause deprive finite agents of their causality? To answer these questions, observe that at the basis of this objection is the assumption that “primary” and “secondary” causes are in some sense mutually exclusive, as if we had to accept one or the other. Nothing could be farther from the truth than this assumption.
First, when we speak of “primary” and “secondary” cause we are not using the term “cause” univocally. If we were, we would be referring to two different species of cause within one and the same genus of causality. This, however, is not the case, since the term “cause” here is used analogously—that is, as referring to two different orders of causality. Thus, it must not be imagined that a secondary agent operates on a level of activity coordinate with the Primary Cause. The role of the secondary agent, rather, is one of complete subordination to its Primary Cause. Hence the Primary Cause does not, as it were, remove or replace the activity of secondary agents, but the other way around. It is the Primary Cause that makes it possible for secondary agents to act at all.
To consider this matter rightly, it may be helpful to note the parallel situation that exists in finite things between their being and their activity. When we say, for example, that finite things have being in virtue of their dependence on a Primary Cause, we are hardly negating the fact that they are, because we are explaining why they are in the first place. In other words, participation in being does not constitute a denial of being (that is, of the being of finite things) but only an assertion of dependence. It is because of their dependence on a Primary Cause that finite things are truly said to be. This same principle applies with equal force to causality. When we speak of a finite cause that only “participates” in causality, we are in no way denying that finite things really are causes, but only asserting their dependence. Indeed, it is the very activity of the Primary Cause that guarantees the causality of “creatures.” Hence it is in virtue of this very dependence that the efficacy of finite causes is secured.
Resume
By way of summary, then, the Primary Cause so acts that in the exercise of its causality it in no way depends on any other. It is a Cause in an unqualified sense, an Agent that is in no respect a patient. On the other hand, a secondary cause is one which, though exercising a causality proper to itself, does so in virtue of the influx it receives from the Primary Cause. A secondary cause is one that must be reduced from potency to act, and even when it is “in act,” it acts in subordination to and in virtue of the influx of the Primary Cause. All the things of our experience are causes of this sort, inasmuch as their activity (like their being) is an act that accrues to them from without—that is, in virtue of some principle that is extrinsic to their nature. Finally, the existence of the Primary Cause in no way nullifies the operation of finite agents any more than It nullifies their existence.
Conclusion
[T]he activity of the Primary Cause in no way detracts from the causality of creatures; rather it is in virtue of this dependence that secondary causes exercise their acts of causality. Thus the Primary Cause “guarantees” the causality of creatures.
Source of Reading: Robert Kreyche, First Philosophy: An Introductory Text in Metaphysics (Holt, Reinhart & Winston, 1959), pp. 232-235, 242.
SCG: Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles. 5 vols. (Uni. NotreDame Press, 1975).
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