Summa contra Gentiles3.69 Chapter LXIX. Concerning the opinion of those who withdraw from natural things their proper actions

Tuts was an occasion of error to some who thought that no creature has an active part in the production of natural effects: so that, to wit, fire would not heat, but God would cause heat at the presence of fire: and they maintained the like of all natural effects.

They endeavoured to confirm this error with arguments, by showing that no form whether substantial or accidental is brought into being except by the way of creation. Because forms and accidents cannot be made out of matter: since matter is not a part of them. Hence, if they be made, they must be made out of nothing, and this is to be created. And since creation is the act of God alone, as we proved in the Second Book," it would seem to follow that God brings into being forms both substantial and accidental.

The opinion of certain philosophers agreed in part with this position. For, seeing that whatever is not per se must result from that which is per se, it would seem that the forms of things which do not exist by themselves but in matter, result from forms that are by themselves without matter: as though forms existing in matter were participations of forms that are without matter. For this reason Plato supposed that the species of sensible things are certain separate forms, which are causes of being to these objects of sense, in so far as these partake of them.

Avicenna maintained that all substantial forms emanate from the active intelligence. But as to accidental forms. he held them to be dispositions of matter, resulting from the action of lower agents disposing the matter: and in this he avoided the absurdity of the previous opinion. A sign of this apparently was that no active power can be found in these bodies except the accidental form, active and passive qualities for instance; and these would not seem capable of causing substantial forms.

Moreover in these lower things we find certain things that are not engendered from their like; animals caused through putrefaction, for instance. Wherefore apparently the forms of these are caused by higher principles. And in like manner other forms, some of which are much more perfect. Some too, find proof of this in the inadequacy of natural bodies for action. Because the form of every natural body is annexed to quantity. Now quantity is an obstacle to action and movement: a sign of which they see in the fact that the more we add to the quantity of a body, the heavier it becomes, and the slower its movement. Whence they conclude that no body is active, but that all bodies are purely passive.

They also attempt to prove this again from the fact that every patient is subject to the agent; and that every agent, save the first which creates, requires a subject inferior to itself. But no substance is inferior to a body. Therefore seemingly no body is active.

They add that the corporeal substance is the furthest removed from the first agent: wherefore they do not see how the active power can reach as far as the corporeal substance: and maintain that, as God is purely active, so the corporeal substance, being the lowest thing of all, is purely passive. For these reasons, then, Avicebron! (Fons Vite, tract. ii., ili.) held that no body is active: but that the power of a spiritual substance pervading through bodies produces the actions which séem to be performed by bodies.

Moreover tertain Moslem theologians are said to have argued that even accidents are not the result of corporeal activity, because an accident does not pass from one subject to another. Hence they deem it impossible for heat to pass from a hot body into another body so as to heat it: but that all like accidents are created by God.”

However, many absurdities arise from the foregoing positions. For if no inferior cause, above all a body, is active, and if God works alone in all things; since God is not changed through working in various things, no diversity will follow among the effects through the diversity of the things in which God works. Now this is evidently false to the senses: for from the application of a hot body there follows, not cooling but only heating: and from human seed is generated a man only. Therefore the causing of inferior effects is not to be ascribed to the divine power so as to withdraw the causality of inferior agents.

Again. It is contrary to the notion of wisdom that anything should be done in vain in the works of a wise man. But if creatures did nothing at all towards the production of effects, and God alone wrought everything immediately, other things would be employed by him in vain for the production of effects. Therefore the above position is incompatible with divine wisdom.

Besides. He who gives a principle, gives whatever results from the principle: thus the cause that gives gravity to anelement, gives it downward movement. Now to make a thing actual results from being actual, as we see to be the case in God: for He is pure act, and is also the first cause of being in all things, as we proved above.’ If therefore He bestowed His likeness on others in respect of being, in so far as He brought things into being, it follows that He also bestowed on them His likeness in the point of acting, so that creatures too should have their proper actions.

Further. Perfection of effect indicates perfection of cause: since greater power produces a more perfect effect. Now God is the most perfect agent. Therefore things created by him must needs receive perfection from him. Consequently to detract from the creature’s perfection is to—detract from the perfection of the divine power. But if no creature exercises an action for the production of an effect, much is detracted from the perfection of the creature; because it is due to the abundance of its perfection, that a thing is able to communicate to another the perfection that it has. Therefore this opinion detracts from the divine power.

Moreover. Just as it belongs to the good to produce a good, so it belongs to the sovereign good to make a thing best. Now God is the sovereign good, as we proved in the First Book.” Therefore it belongs to Him to make all things best. Now it is better that the good bestowed on someone should be common to many, than that it should be proper to one: since the common good is always considered more godlike than the good of one only. But the good of one becomes common to many, if it flows from the one to the other: and this can only be when the one, by its own action, com- CHAPTER LXIX 169 municates it to the others: and if it has not the power to transmit it to others, that good remains its own property. "Accordingly God communicated His goodness to His creatures in such wise that one thing can communicate to another the good it has received. Therefore it is derogatory to the divine goodness to deny things their proper operations.

Again. To take order away from creatures is to deny them the best thing they have: because each one is good in itself, while altogether they are very good on account of the order of the universe: for the whole is always better than the parts, and is their end. Now if we subtract action from things, the order among things is withdrawn: because, things differing in nature are not bound together in the unity of order, except through the fact that some are active and some passive. Therefore it is unreasonable to say that things have not their proper actions.

Besides. If effects be produced not by the act of creatures but only by the act of God, the power of a created cause cannot possibly be indicated by its effect: since the effect is no indication of the cause’s power, except by reason of the action which proceeds from the power and terminates in the effect. Now the nature of a cause is not known from its effect except in so far as this is an indication of its power which results from its nature. Consequently if creatures exercise no action in producing effects, it will follow that the nature of a creature can never be known from its effect: so that all knowledge of physical science would be denied us, for it is there that arguments from effects are chiefly em- ployed. Further. By induction it can be proved that luke produces like Now, that which is produced in lower things is not a mere form, but a composite of matter and form: because every generation is movement out of something, namely matter, and to something, namely form. Therefore the producer must be not a mere form, but composed of matter and form. Therefore the cause of forms which exist in matter is not the separate species of things, as the Platonists maintained, nor the active intellect, as Avicenna said, but an individual composed of matter and form.

Again. If action is consequent to being actual,’ it is unreasonable that the more perfect act be deprived of action. Now the substantial form is a more perfect act than the accidental. Consequently if the accidental forms in corporeal things have their proper actions,? much more has the substantial form an operation proper to it. But this action does not consist in disposing matter, because this is effected by alteration, for which accidental forms suffice. Therefore the form of the generator is the principle of the action whereby the substantial form is introduced into the thing generated. The arguments they adduce are easily solved.

For since a thing is made that it may be, just as a form is called a being, not as though itself had being, but because by it the composite is; so neither is the form made, properly speaking, but it begins to be through the composite being brought from potentiality to the act which is the form.

Nor is it necessary that whatever has a form by way of participation, receive it from that which is a form essentially; for it may receive it immediately from something having a like form in a like manner, namely by participation, and acting by virtue of the separate form, if there be any such; and thus like agent produces like effect.

Nor does it follow, because every action of inferior bodies is effected through active or passive qualities, which are accidents, that nothing, save accidents, results from those actions: because even as those accidental forms are caused by the substantial form, which together with matter is the—cause of the proper accidents, so do they act by virtue of the substantial form. Now that which acts by virtue of another produces an effect like not only to itself, but also, and more, to that by virtue of which it acts: thus the action of the instrument reproduces in the work done the likeness of the art: so that the action of accidental forms produces substantial forms, inasmuch as they act instrumentally by— virtue of substantial forms. As to animals generated from sphere whatever acts dispositively to a form, must act by body suffices without an univocal agent, for the production of certain imperfect forms; whereas for the production of for such animals are not produced otherwise than by seed:

Again, it is untrue that quantity is an obstacle to a form’s But if we suppose the measure of action of which a form existing in matter is capable, then quantity favours an increase rather than a decrease of action: for the greater the fiery body, supposing the heat to be equally intense, the more heat does it give: and supposing an equally intense gravity, the greater a heavy body is, the more rapid will be its natural movement: and for the same reason the slower will its non-natural movement be. Accordingly the fact that heavy bodies are slower in their non-natural movements, through being of greater quantity, is no proof that quantity is an obstacle to action, but rather that it is a help to its increase.

Again it does not follow that all bodies are without action, because in the order of things, corporeal substance is of the lowest kind: since even among bodies one is higher, more formal and more active than another, as fire in comparison with lower bodies, and yet not even the lowest body is excluded from activity. For it is clear that a body cannot be wholly active, since it is composed of matter, which is potential being, and form which is act. Fora thing acts according as it is actual: wherefore every body acts in respect of its form, to which the other body, the patient to wit, is compared as regards its matter, as subject, inasmuch as its matter is in potentiality to the form of the agent.

potentiality to the form of the passive body, they will be mutually active and passive, as in the case of two elementary bodies: or else, one will be purely active and the other pared to the elementary body. Accordingly a body acts on a subject not by reason of its entirety, but by reason of the form by which it works.

Nor is it true that bodies are furthest removed from God. For as God is pure act, things are more or less distant from And that of all things is furthest distant from God, which bodies, being composed of matter and form, approach to a Aristotle (1 Phys. ix.) calls a divine thing: wherefore they act inasmuch as they have a form; and are passive, inasmuch as they have matter.

Again, it is absurd to say that a body is not active because accidents do not pass from one subject to another.

heated body, having been potentially therein before. Because to act. Consequently we do not deny creatures their proper God, as operating in all.