PHYSICAL PREMOTION. – It is God’s prior and immediate concurrence or influence upon the activity of every creature, and especially upon free human action, according to the doctrine of St. Thomas.
I. HISTORY
The question of the relationship between God and the activity of created nature underwent various developments within Christian thought. In the time of s. Tommaso, two opposing currents prevailed: one, linked to s. Agostino and to Jewish philosophy (Avicbron in the book Fons vitae), held, from a theocentric standpoint, that the action of the creature, both in its realization and in its specification, depended exclusively on the will of God; the other, naturalistic in tendency, derived from Arabic philosophy (Avicenna, Averroes) and sought to explain every activity of the creature on the basis of its natural energies, without divine intervention. Clearly, the first opinion deprived nature of its intrinsic operative capacity and made the natural agent not a true and proper cause, but an occasion which God would use to produce a determinate effect (almost an anticipation of Malebranche’s occasionalism). The second opinion, on the other hand, exalted nature beyond what was proper, to the point of removing it from God’s dominion. S. Tommaso perceived the incongruity of the one and the absurdity of the other and, starting from the concept of creation, which entirely subordinates the creature’s being in its origin and preservation, established, in the light of reason and Revelation, that nature, with its faculties, is intrinsically ordered and proportioned to determinate effects; but just as it cannot exist even for an instant by itself, so it cannot pass to action by itself, but needs the influence of the First Cause. In other words, s. Tommaso sees in every created agent, man included, a being “in potency,” which cannot give itself actuality without the intervention of the Pure Act that is God. In this way he arrives at the theory of p. f. as the divine influence determining the passage from potency to act, and therefore as divine action which, in the order of causality, precedes and physically actualizes every created agent. In the De potentia (q. 3, a. 7), s. Tommaso lucidly sets forth his thought, saying that God is the cause of every action of the creature both because he gives it being together with operative power and preserves it, and because he applies that power to action in such a way that the natural agent operates as God’s instrumental cause, while God is the principal cause. Within the Dominican Order there was Durando, who opposed this doctrine, restricting God’s action to the creation and preservation of nature and of its faculties, which would pass to action by themselves (mediate concurrence). In the sixteenth century, a heated controversy arose between Dominicans and Jesuits concerning God’s natural and supernatural action upon creatures, and especially upon the free will of man (v. BAÑEZ; MOLINISMO). The Jesuit Ludovico Molina (in the work Concordia, 1588) proposed the view that God intervenes in human activity not by preceding the will, but by accompanying it with his influence; the will would remain arbiter of its action and capable of using the concurrence offered by God for good as well as for evil. In this way, God would place himself alongside the creature without determining it, but ready to help it whenever it moves to action. Molina thus maintains a divine concurrence that is not prior, but “simultaneous.” Against him rose Domenico Bañez of the Order of Preachers, who, appealing to s. Tommaso, demonstrated that God’s influence upon the creature and upon man in particular is immediate and prior; indeed, it is efficaciously determinative of every single act, even a free one, in such a way that the will is not only moved by God to act, but is physically “predetermined” to this or that particular act (D. Bañez, Scholastica commentaria in 1ʳᵐ partem Angelici Doctoris, Salamanca 1584 and 1588; id., in 2ᵐᵐ-2ᵐᵗ, ibid. 1584 and 1594). The controversy, after approximately four centuries, is still alive among the opposing schools, which reproach one another for shortcomings and compromises: the Molinists point to the danger to human freedom in Bañez’s position, while the Thomists denounce in the Molinist position a derogation from God’s dominion over man. In recent times, various means of reconciliation between the opposing systems have been attempted, giving rise to what is called “syncretism.”II. THEOLOGY
From the doctrinal point of view, the genuine thought of s. Tommaso must be clarified; it gathers the voice of sound tradition and has the support of the Church’s magisterium, which, however, has so far declined to settle the controversy and leaves Thomists and Molinists free to debate. In his theory, s. Tommaso follows the strictly metaphysical line: God alone is Being by essence, whereas all creatures receive being from him. If the creature receives being and therefore is not its own being, neither is it its own activity; rather, just as being, activity is distinguished in it from its nature or essence (Sum. Theol., 1ᵃ, q. 61, a. 1; q. 3, a. 4; De ente et essentia, chaps. 5–6; as regards activity, Sum. Theol., 1ᵃ, q. 54, a. 1; C. Gent., III, chap. 70 and elsewhere frequently). God and the creature are not two coordinated causes, but the one (the created cause) is subordinated to the other (God), as the instrument to the principal cause (C. Gent., I, chap. 44; III, chap. 67 and IV, chap. 41, besides the already cited De potentia, q. 3, a. 7). The profound reason for God’s intervention in the activity of the creature is, first of all, as has been said, the potential state of every secondary cause; then that intervention is required by the fact that in every action of nature an effect is realized, which is a new mode of being; being is therefore touched, and since it is an effect of universal character, it requires a universal cause, which is God alone. From these principles, divine physical premotion necessarily follows in all the activity of created nature and therefore also of man. Molinism does not seem to take these metaphysical principles into account when it admits the possibility of the creature passing into action without being intrinsically moved by God. Nevertheless, Molinism is right to oppose the concept of a physical premotion that is also predetermination to this or that concrete act. Everyone sees in such predetermination a danger of compromising human freedom, which is usually defined as self-determination.Returning to s. Tommaso, it must be acknowledged that he unquestionably admits physical premotion, but does not speak of the predetermination “ad unum” of the will under the divine impulse. Indeed, there are texts from which it appears that s. Tommaso consistently contrasts necessity with freedom and equates the former with determination “ad unum,” and the latter with active indetermination or indifference in the face of particular goods: «Causa prima non ita agit in voluntate ut eam de necessitate ad unum determinet, sicut determinat naturam; ideo determinatio actus relinquitur in potestate rationis et voluntatis» (De potentia, q. 3, a. 7, ad 13; to be compared with De malo, q. 6, single article, ad 3). In the Sum. Theol., 1ᵃ-2ᵃᵗ, q. 9, a. 6, ad 3, the holy Doctor summarizes his thought in these precise terms: «Deus movet voluntatem hominis sicut universalis motor ad universale obiectum voluntatis, quod est bonum, et sine hac universali motione homo non potest aliquid velle; sed homo per rationem determinat se ad volendum hoc vel illud». Thus the specific determination of the act, in which freedom is manifested, is entrusted to reason and the will. In reality, the free act is due to the will and reason together, under different aspects: insofar as it is realization (s. Tommaso says esercizio), it depends on the will; but insofar as it is specification, it depends on the object presented by the intellect. Divine motion properly takes place along the line of exercise: with regard to specification, God contributes insofar as he moves the intellect to present the appetible object to the will, which is free to accept or reject it (cf. Sum. Theol., 1ᵃ-2ᵃᵗ, q. 9, a. 1 and q. 10, a. 2). Other theologians suggest other forms of mitigating physical premotion, always out of concern to safeguard human freedom under the divine influence generally admitted. But it must be acknowledged that the problem of reconciling freedom with physical premotion and efficacious Grace touches the realm of mystery, and therefore no theological system will ever succeed in resolving it adequately.