Sect. 114God the Principle of All Created ActionGod the Principle of All Created Action

The absolute and universal dependence of creatures on God implies that they can no more act as causes without a positive Divine influence than, without such influence, they can begin or continue to exist. God, Who conserves their substance, also concurs in their operations, so that all positive reality caused by the activity of creatures owes its being directly to the action of God co-operating and co-producing with the created cause.

I. Some notion of this Divine co-operation may be gathered from an explanation of the technical terms in which the Schoolmen describe it. They call it “Concurrence” (concursus) to signify a participation in the motion (cursus) of another being; “physical” co-operation, to distinguish it from moral co-operation, which consists in inducing another person to perform an action; “natural” or “general,” as opposed to the supernatural and special concurrence required to elevate our actions to the supernatural order; “immediate” or “direct,” because the Concurrence in question directly bears upon the energy and action of creatures, and not merely upon their substance and faculties. It is further described as “a Concurrence in the operations and effects of the secondary causes,” because it embraces both the act and the effect of the cause, God working at the same time through and with the creature. The expression “the action of God in every thing that acts” conveys the idea that God intrinsically animates the created cause, working with and by it as the soul animates the body. The Divine Concurrence must not, however, be thought of as a force added to, or operating side by side with the creature, but as the animating, Divine soul of its own powers and faculties.

1. Upon the whole, the above notion of the Divine Concurrence is admitted by all theologians, however much they may differ as to its further development. The Fathers find it in Holy Scripture; and it is a necessary consequence of the relation of dependence of the creature on God. “Not only does God watch over and administer every thing that exists: the things that are moved and that act He also impels by intrinsic power to motion and action in such a way that, without hindering the operation of secondary causes, He (as it were) goes before it (præveniat), since His hidden might belongs to each thing, and, as the Wise Man testifies, ‘He reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly.’ Wherefore it was said by the Apostle, when preaching to the Athenians the God Whom they worshipped unwittingly: ‘He is not far from every one of us, for in Him we live and move and be’ “ (Catechism of the Council of Trent, pt. i., ch. ii., n. 22). Holy Scripture refers to the Divine Concurrence in the texts which ascribe to God the operations of creatures, or which directly attribute to Him the effects of created activity. “There are diversities of operations, but the same God Who worketh all in all” (ὁ ἐνεργῶν τὰ πάντα ἐν πᾶσιν, 1 Cor. 12:6); “My Father worketh until now, and I work” (John 5:17); “It is He Who giveth to all life, and breath, and all things.… Although He be not far from every one of us; for in Him we live and move and be” (Acts 17:25, 28); “Of Him, and by Him, and in Him are all things” (ἐξ αὐτοῖ καὶ διʼ αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν τὰ πάντα, Rom. 11:36).

2. The intrinsic reason for the necessity of the Divine co-operation with secondary causes lies, speaking generally, in the absolute dependence of all derivative being on the Essential Being. Nothing in the creature that deserves the name of being can possibly be independent of the Creator. But if the effects of created activity were not directly and immediately attributable to God, they would, to some extent, be independent of Him. This appears most clearly in the generation of living things. Here new and substantial beings receive an existence, the commencement and continuation of which are so peculiarly and eminently the work of God, that they cannot be conceived independently of Him.

II. The principle which proves the necessity of the Divine Concurrence, defines also its measure and its extent.

I. Everything that exists, all positive and real being, all manifestations of a power good in itself, are dependent for existence on the direct operation or co-operation of God. But whatever is defective, inordinate, or morally wrong—in other words, whatever is not-being connected with the effects produced or with the action of the created cause—is not attributable to the Divine Concurrence: the defect or deficiency in either the act or its effect must be ascribed to some defect or deficiency in the secondary cause which God does not prevent or remove. In the production of effects physically or morally defective, God co-operates somewhat in the way that the soul co-operates in the imperfect motion of a lame foot. The motion, not the lameness, is the work of the soul; in like manner, the positive being or reality to which an imperfection attaches, is the work of God, but not the imperfection. Thus, sin comes from God in as far as it is a positive act and a real being, but not in as far as it is a deviation from justice. Cf. St. Thomas, De Malo, q. iii., a. 2; and the commentators on 2 Sent. dist. 37.

2. As to the nature of the Divine Concurrence and the manner in which God influences the activity of creatures, great controversies exist among Theologians. The burning question is how God influences free will. According to the followers of Molina, the Divine Concurrence is a mere co-operation, or an influence acting side by side with the created cause. The school of St. Thomas holds that it is a true moving of the creature—that is, an impulse given to the creature before it acts (impulsus ad agendum). St. Thomas himself resolves the Divine Concurrence into these four elements: “God is the cause of all and every action (1) inasmuch as He gives the power to act; (2) inasmuch as He conserves this power; (3) inasmuch as He applies it to the action; and (4) inasmuch as by His power all other powers act” (De Pot., q. iii., a. 7). He borrows the notion of applying the power to act to the action, from the application of a tool to its work (“as the carpenter applies his saw to divide a log”). The application by God of the created power to its object differs greatly, however, from the application of a tool to its work. The latter action is merely external and accomplished by local motion, whereas the former is internal and proceeds from God as its life and its energizing principle. A better analogy is afforded by the impulse which the root gives to the life of the plant.

The theory of St. Thomas, as originally proposed by him, appears at first sight more in harmony with the language of Revelation and of the Church, and expresses better the dependence of the Creature on God. The mystical depth of the Thomistic theory and the difficulty of expounding its innermost nature in set sentences tell in its favour rather than against it, for the same difficulty and mystery are met with when we pass from a mere machine to a living organism. The only serious objection against the theory is that it seems to destroy the self-determining and self-acting power of creatures. But this objection draws all its force from a misconception. The Divine motion is not external and mechanical, like the motion of a tool; but organic, like the motion imparted to a living plant by the action of its root. Such an organic action, far from destroying the self-acting power of the being to which it gives an impulse, is really the foundation and necessary condition of this power.

To enter into a detailed discussion of the two conflicting systems would be beyond the scope of the present work. Further information may be found in the commentaries on I., q. 105.