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Fate, Providence and Moral Responsibility in Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Thought. Collected Studies in

Honour of Carlos Steel, ed. by Pieter d’Hoine and Gerd Van Riel (Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, De Wulf –

Mansion Centre, Series I), Leuven: University Press, 2013.

Thomas Aquinas on Providence, Contingency and the Usefulness of Prayer

Rudi te Velde (Tilburg University)

1. Introduction

Does the classical metaphysical notion of providence leave room for real contingency in the

world? Many would assume, and not unreasonably, that the notion of providence is tainted

with some sort of determinism: everything in the world occurs inevitably, according to a pre-

established divine plan. Since that divine plan must be certain and immutable, nothing can

occur in any other way than it actually does. The classical notion of providence, with its

theological corollary of predestination, seems to lead inescapably to a view of the world as a

totalitarian whole closed within itself: nothing can happen outside God’s all-determining

will. There is consequently no room for true freedom, surprise, or for something radically

new; the sequence of events in the world follows a fixed divine scenario, like in Diderot’s

Jacques le fataliste et son maître.

In the metaphysical-theological thought of medieval scholasticism it is unthinkable that God

could receive anything from the world.1 It is likewise unthinkable that the contingent

outcome of a free decision would constitute a ‘new fact’ for God, something not already

included in God’s foreknowledge or in his praeordinatio of all things. This view of a

theologically closed universe, in which God is the universal determining ground of all

existing things, can be found in Thomas Aquinas. It was only in the early modern age that

the paradox of human freedom in a world controlled by an omnipotent and sovereign deity

was urgently felt as a deep problem (e.g., the ‘humanistic position’ of De Molina in the

sixteenth century debate on grace and free will). The modern struggle of coming to an open

world in which human freedom can assert itself in its own right has shifted gradually in the

direction of abolishing the ancien régime of the omnipotent and sovereign deity.

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Is Thomas Aquinas one of the architects of the ancien régime in the theological-ideological

sense of the word? To put it differently: should we trace back the problem of the ‘one-way

traffic’ between God and the world, in which the world receives everything from God and

God nothing from the world, to the metaphysical systems of the thirteenth century? The

answer is not so simple. The God of Aquinas is not like the absolute monarch of the ancien

régime; on the contrary, it is a God who grants the secondary causes (nature, human will) in

the world their own efficacy and operation, not by ‘retreating’ as it were from the

‘autonomous’ space of the (human) world, but by being actively present in all things. The

God of Aquinas favors, one could say, a governmental system of ‘subsidiarism’, according to

which the ‘secondary causes’ in the world, sustained from within by the power of the ‘first

cause’, have their own sphere of operation.

In this article we will explore Aquinas’s concept of divine providence and pay particular

attention to the question of how, in his view, the certainty of divine providence does not

exclude contingency and free will. In light of Aquinas’s doctrine of the second causes, the

affirmation of contingency (and free will) in the world does not cause real problems. But the

question remains what contingency could mean in a world in which everything is subjected

to the order of divine providence? What can we ourselves do, what would be the use of

prayer and ‘good works’, if God cannot receive anything from the world?

2. Providence and Contingency

To examine how Thomas conceptualizes the idea of divine providence, we will commence

with the third book of the Summa contra Gentiles.2 Here the question of contingency is

explicitly raised. The need is felt, apparently, to argue that “divine providence does not

exclude contingency from things.”3 Why does contingency, regarded from the perspective of

providence, present a ‘problem’? Why the apparent suggestion that the affirmation of

providence does away with contingency, as if necessity – the opposite of contingency –

would be far more likely in a world ruled by divine providence?

Providence means that the world is ruled by divine reason by which everything is ordered in

view of the good. The key terms demarcating the semantic field of ‘providence’ are order,

reason, and good, in short: providence signifies ‘the rule of reason’. For Aquinas the

providential order of the world is essentially an order exhibiting divine reason and wisdom.

Now the question is, why should reason and wisdom exclude contingency? Contingency, as

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Thomas understands it, is characterized by a relative lack of reason, inasmuch as the

contingent has the possibility to be and not to be.4 That which is contingent can fail to be (or

to act); hence it is marked by weakness and deficiency. Therefore the rational order of the

universe has its limits in the sphere of the contingent. But then there are two possibilities:

either providence will be restricted to the higher, rational part of the universe (as opposed to

the ‘messy’ sublunary sphere where things happen more or less without reason), or

providential reason will embrace the whole universe in such a way that there can be, from

God’s point of view, no contingency whatsoever. This classical dilemma arises from the

Greek conception of ontological reason as based upon the principle of form. Now, Aquinas

does not want to choose between the horns of the dilemma; he wants to have both: the

universal extension of divine providence and the existence of contingency, the universal rule

of reason in the world and a relative lack of reason in the contingent part of the world. How

does he succeed in combining both aspects? And what can be the meaning of contingency if

all contingent events still obey the universal rule of divine reason?

Let us first reconstruct Aquinas’s line of reasoning in his treatment of divine providence in a

few steps. In this way we can better understand why the problem of contingency arises and

how Aquinas intends to solve this problem. Aquinas begins by affirming the existence of

divine providence: God governs all things in the world in view of the good (c.64). Now, if we

speak of God governing the world, we should not understand this action in an external

manner as if God governs an already existing world. God is active in the world in the respect

that he gives being to all things and preserves them in being (c.65). Providence presupposes

the concept of creation. All things are dependent on God, not only for their being but also

with respect to their actions. Things cannot act independently from God’s action. This is

expressed in the thesis argued in the next chapter (c.66), that “nothing gives being unless it

acts by divine power.”5 In every causal action in the world divine creative power is actively

present. In other words: “God is the cause of operation in all things that operate” (c.67). In no

way can God be thought of as standing outside the world; God is everywhere (ubique) and

actively present in all things (c.68). But the omnipresence of God’s power in all things should

not be understood in the sense that the proper actions of things are suppressed by that

power (c.69).6 God operates in the operation of nature in such a way that the effect is both

from God and from the natural agent. Not in the sense that the effect is partly from God and

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partly from nature, but that the whole is done by both (totus ab utroque).7 Here we see

Aquinas defending, in his characteristic manner, the efficacy of the second causes.

Providence does not mean that God does everything by himself to the exclusion of nature’s

own operation. God governs the world by being actively present in the actions of all things

and by grounding the second causes (nature, human will) in their own causality.

Characteristic of Aquinas’s view of God’s providential government is that it includes the

operations of the secondary causes. Divine providence is carried out by secondary causes of

both natural (necessary or contingent) and human (rational, free) agency. Thus providence,

understood correctly, does not entirely exclude the existence of evil (c.71), the contingency

from things (c.72), free will (c.73), fortune or chance (c.74). Evil, contingency, free will,

fortune and chance are all essential features of the world of human experience; they mark the

open and unpredictable character of our human world. For Thomas, these features pertain

to the realm of second causes as such and are not reducible to the presence of the first cause

in those second causes. Hence, providence, as the rule of reason in all things, does not

remove contingency from our world. The world of human experience with its contingency

and openness remains intact. Thomas does not allow a massive presence of the first cause in

the created order of the secondary causes, as consequence of which the secondary causes

would be suppressed.

But what is not immediately clear here is how Thomas can successfully defend the existence

of contingency if it remains regulated and controlled by the infallible order of divine

providence. How can the relative lack of reason we experience in the contingent events of

our world be reconciled with the fact that they are included in the universal order of

providential reason?

3. Contingency as Deficiency and Divine Will

God’s providence does not exclude contingency from things, Thomas claims. In the previous

section, we saw that contingency is something which is ascribed to the operation of

secondary causes. But this still leaves many questions unanswered. Let us use as an example

an airplane accident. Many people nowadays would regard such an accident as a contingent

event, an event without an ultimate ‘why’, neither intended by God nor part of any

meaningful order. In line with Thomas, we should explain the air crash in terms of the

‘second cause’: not God but the airplane itself is the immediate cause of what happened,

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insofar as the airplane by some defect was hindered in its correct operation. Airplanes belong

to the class of corruptible things which are susceptible to defect and failure. Thus the

operation of an airplane, being a corruptible thing, has the possibility of deficere; in this sense

the accident has no necessitating reason, it occurred contingently. But how does this

contingent event fit in the order of providence? Should one say that the airplane’s

malfunctioning was somehow foreseen by God and included in his praeordinatio of all things?

But if it is willed by God as part of his providential plan, then how could it still be

contingent?

For Thomas, nothing can really escape the order of divine providence. But perhaps we

should be careful in speaking of a ‘providential plan’, which may suggest too much willful

intention and rational planning on God’s part. It would be absurd to consider such a

deplorable accident as part of some ‘plan’. But how then can we introduce the language of

providence into such a situation? Perhaps in this way: that faith in providence could teach us

that an accident, how terrible it may be, need not to be experienced as a definitive breach in

the order of the good; and that providence means that God’s ordering of all things towards

the good is still present in what we experience as a disastrous accident.

In the Summa contra Gentiles, Aquinas understands contingency as resulting from a certain

‘weakness’ proper to the corruptible part of the universe. “Effects are called necessary or

contingent in regard to proximate causes, not in regard to remote causes,” he says.8 Thus

whether an effect is contingent or necessary depends on the secondary cause, not on the first

cause. This may seem surprising as it runs counter to the common conception of contingency

in modern thought. A functioning system of whatever kind would be conceived as internally

necessary inasmuch as every part obeys the law of the system, while the system itself is

contingent in the sense of not reducible to a higher cause or justifying reason. But this is not

how Thomas conceives contingency. He illustrates his Aristotelian understanding of

contingency with the following example: the fact that a plant bears fruit is contingent on the

proximate cause, which is in this case the germinative power of the plant. This internal

power of the plant can fail (or be impeded by some external factor). Thus even when the

remote cause – the sun – remains present, the plant can still fail to bear fruit, which is to be

explained in terms of the defect of the second cause.9 For Aquinas, contingency is a

consequence of the possibility of defect or failure proper to the second causes in the domain

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of corruptible nature. In one of his arguments he speaks of a ‘debilitatio’, the weakening of the

power of a substance, the result being that a natural agent does not always operate

uniformly; it sometimes fails in regard to what is naturally appropriate for it (for instance, in

the generation of a biological deformity, a ‘monster’).10 Hence Aquinas does not see

contingency as being primarily something neutral in the sense that it may happen or not;

instead it is bound to the possibility of ‘deficere’, falling short in respect to a certain norm.

Contingency in this sense is part of the Aristotelian understanding of nature: within (lower)

nature, things do not always happen in the same uniform way, but they may be impeded in

their natural operations or fail by some internal defect. The order of (material) nature allows

for exceptions and irregularities; within the realm of lower nature, things do not conform

completely or perfectly to the rational (divine) order of the universe.

Another argument in defense of contingency is based on the principle that the more remote

something is from God and from his likeness, the more susceptible it is to mobility and thus

to contingency.11 Within the hierarchical order of the universe, the highest place is occupied

by the ‘separated substances’ (the angels) which are the closest to God’s perfection and

immutability; below them are the celestial bodies which are ‘always moved in the same

way’; and following these are the corruptible things in ‘our world’, which are ‘further distant

from the immutability of God so that they are not always moved in the same, uniform

way’.12 Contingency occurs due to the fact that corruptible things in the lower part of the

universe can deviate from the immutable order of divine reason.

This understanding of contingency as expounded in the Summa contra Gentiles seems to me

problematic. Contingency arises out of potentially defective causes, and such causes are

primarily found in the lower part of the universe where the influence of divine reason

becomes weaker and less effective. For instance, the plant can fail to bear fruit, not by reason

of its remote cause – the sun – but because of a defect in its germinative power. Aquinas does

not explain how this contingent failure of the plant to bear fruit can be understood as

something which is intended or foreseen by God’s providence. The question which remains

unanswered is whether the contingent effect of a secondary cause is intended and willed by

the first cause; and if it is willed by God, is it then still contingent? For instance, the sun

cannot help when some plants fail to bear fruit, but how should one understand the case of a

person who fails to attain eternal salvation? For Aquinas, contingency has its root in the

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principle of matter, that is to say, in a kind of ontological weakness of material causes. The

problem, however, is to understand how this ontological weakness of contingency is

included in the providential order.

In the Summa Theologiae, we see Aquinas proposing a slightly different view on the

contingency of secondary causes.13 In the Summa contra Gentiles, the distinction between the

contingent and the necessary is explained solely in reference to secondary causes. According

to the Summa Theologiae this is not a sufficient explanation, since it suggests that the

difference between the contingent and the necessary in the world is independent of divine

intention and will.14 Even the example of the sun (first cause) and the plant’s germinative

power (second cause) is now judged to be less suitable. According to Aquinas, it cannot be

the case that a defect of a secondary cause hinders God’s will from producing its intended

effect (in the same way the sun is hindered by a defect in the plant).15 On the contrary,

Aquinas asserts that all that happens by means of secondary causes happens at the same

time by the efficacy of the divine will. Nothing can happen in the world without God willing

it to be so.16 But this does not mean that everything that happens, happens necessarily. God

wills some things to be done necessarily, other things contingently, so that there may be a

differentiated order of higher and lower perfection in the universe. Therefore, to some effects

he attached necessary causes that cannot fail; to others, he attached potentially defective and

contingent causes, from which arise contingent effects. Hence, that some effects occur

contingently, is due to the fact that God willed them to be produced by proximate causes

that work contingently.

For Aquinas, contingency is part of the good order of the universe. Without contingent

causes the world would be less perfect, less rich in its diversity of degrees of perfection. The

perfection of the universe requires, thus, the existence of a reality in which defect and failure

may occur. Therefore one should not demand from God that he excludes the possibility of

defect and failure because such things would be contrary to the good order of the world.

4. The Certainty of Providence

As we just have seen, Aquinas is intent to show with many arguments that God’s providence

does not exclude contingency or related features such as free will, fortune or chance.

Providence does not mean – as one might expect – that God does everything himself directly

and denies the secondary causes their own actions. On the contrary, the operation of

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providence is implemented by the secondary causes (per eas impletur), which means that their

own mode of operation (contingently or necessarily) is respected and even willed by God.

God’s providence encompasses the actions of natural and human agents. God foresees all the

effects in the world in such a way that the order of secondary causes which produces those

effects is subject to his providence. That some causes produce their effects contingently is

thus foreseen and willed by God, even if it entails the free decisions of the human will. That

is precisely the way God’s providence works. It is not Aquinas’s intention to deny our world

(which he refers to as ‘hic inferius’) its open and contingent character.

Nor does he conceive this open character as a sort of God-free zone, where human freedom

assumes the role, so to speak, of the first cause. However, judging from the prolonged

discussion of the problem of contingency in the Summa contra Gentiles, this appears to be

indeed a deep problem. The following dilemma presents itself: if the contingent events ‘here

below’ are subject to divine providence, then it is difficult to comprehend how providence

can be certain; yet if one maintains the certainty of providence, then the consequence would

be the wholesale necessity of all things.17 How can the contingent be foreseen and still remain

truly contingent? On the one hand, we are inclined to affirm the open and contingent

character of our world, a world in which there is something for us to do, where we possess

freedom and our free actions have a real effectiveness. On the other hand, we are not willing

to abandon the idea of providence (that is, the notion of a world subjugated to the rule of

reason). The only solution to this dilemma, in Thomas’s view, is to think the relationship

between the first cause and the second causes formally as a relationship, in which the aspect

of difference is preserved within their unity. The second causes are not merely puppets

moved and controlled by the first cause. They exercise their own causality in such a way that

the creative presence of the first cause establishes them in their own manner of operating.

Without this aspect of difference, since second causes do not coincide with the presence in

them of the first cause, the certainty of providence would inevitably lead to the necessity of

all things.

The dilemma between certainty and contingency is most critical when we look at the practice

of prayer. Prayer is a free human activity which belongs to the realm of secondary cause, but

in which one intends an effect – a gift from God – which is beyond one’s own power. In

prayer one appeals to God, the first cause, in his providential role. It seems evident that the

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very meaning of prayer depends on the reality of providence. But on the other hand, prayer

will seem useless if we realize the certainty (and thus immutability) of providence. In

discussing the dilemma of providence and contingency, Thomas continuously emphasizes

the difference between the level of the first cause and the level of the secondary causes,

notwithstanding the fact that all actions of the second causes are subjected to the order of

providence. Thus prayer, as we will see in the next paragraph, must be part of the cause-

effect concatenation of the order of providence. But is it then still a free activity?

From the perspective of the first cause, there can be no question of failure, surprise or an

unforeseen event. If God foresees an event to happen, it will happen. This is what it means to

call providence ‘certain’. Yet Thomas hastens to add that it will occur in the way that God

foresaw it to be. If he foresaw (or willed) that it should occur contingently, it will occur

contingently.18 What Thomas seems to have in mind is, if God foresees something to occur

contingently in a certain way (for instance, he foresees that a certain man will become a

ruler), it will infallibly occur in this way; as object of divine foresight it cannot occur in any

other way, but considered in itself, the contingent event can possibly occur in another way

(the man may not become a ruler).19 Although such an answer seems completely acceptable,

one gets the impression that Thomas somehow cuts his explanations short, that he is not

interested in exploring the deeper and inextricable questions concerning human freedom

and divine providence. Contingency might be spared in Thomas’s solution, but it is hard to

see how the possibility of not becoming a ruler is more than merely a theoretical possibility.

We see Aquinas, in response to an argument of Cicero, applying the same manner of

reasoning to the issue of actions arising from free choice. Cicero was unable to reconcile the

certainty of divine providence with human freedom.

If all things are foreseen by God, then the order of causes is certain. But if this is true, all things

are done by fate. And if all things are done by fate, nothing is within our power, there is no

volitional choice. Therefore, it follows that if divine providence is certain, then free choice

would be eliminated. And in the same line of thinking, it would follow that all contingency

would be eliminated.20

This is in fact the position of the Stoics: given the certainty of providence, all things happen

by necessity.21 In his answer Thomas very neatly summarizes his own view: not only the

effects themselves but also the way these effects are produced by the secondary causes are

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subjected to divine providence. Thus if everything is done in conformity to providence, the

result is not that there is nothing for us to do (nihil sit in nobis), for the effects are foreseen by

God as they are freely produced by us.22

Providence does not do away with secondary causes, it is carried out by them, and this

includes our acts of freedom as well. This means that prayer and good works – all we freely

can do in order to promote our or other people’s salvation and happiness –, are not useless,

since even these acts of freedom are part of the universal order of God’s providence. The

difference prayer will make is not a difference external to the universal order of providence,

intending to change this order, but it is a difference within this all-embracing order. Aquinas

resolutely rejects any form of fatalism or determinism with regard to providence. That

providence is certain, does not mean that human freedom is an illusion.

5. Providence and the Usefulness of Prayer

Assuming that God’s providential plan is certain and immutable, how then should we

understand the usefulness (utilitas) of prayer? Does it make sense to pray to a God whose

providential ordering of all things conforms to an eternal and immutable plan? In Aquinas’s

view, God cannot receive from the world; he cannot, strictly speaking, react to what happens

in the world. When he is said to ‘listen’ to our prayers and to ‘answer’ them, this cannot

mean that those prayers have a real effect upon God’s will and that he consequently changes

the order (praeordinatio) of his providence. As Thomas says:

[P]rayer is not established for the purpose of changing the eternal disposition of providence,

since this is impossible.23

The metaphysical concept of providence with its implications of certainty and immutability

leaves no room for the ‘magical’ view of prayer as a means to manipulate the deity and

influence the order of providence. But if this option were to be rejected, how then should we

conceive the meaning of prayer? Does it make a difference? In what sense can praying be

said to ‘help’, when efficiency in the practical-technical sense is excluded?

In chapter 95 of book III of the Summa contra Gentiles, Thomas defends the thesis that “the

immutability of divine providence does not suppress the utility of prayer”. Thus

immediately after the crucial chapter on the certainty of divine providence, the problem of

(petitionary) prayer is addressed. For Aquinas, this problem arises from a false

understanding of the immutability of providence, as if this would entail necessity of

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everything that happens in the world, thus leaving no room for free human activity which

can ‘make a difference’. His principal aim is to defend the usefulness of prayer as a free

human act which does make a difference, not in the sense that it changes the disposition of

providence, but that through our prayers, as such foreseen by God, the divine disposition

will be realized.24 The question for us now is whether this solution to the problem of prayer

in terms of the foreseen activity of the ‘second causes’ is convincing. Prayer is an expression

of human freedom. But this freedom, as implied in the ‘secondary causality’ of human

actions, is, I will argue, a rather ‘innocent’ freedom, imbedded in a teleological ordered

universe. Thomas’s discussion does not confront the deep problems concerning human

freedom and divine grace which are the focus of the sixteenth century debate.

In order to follow Aquinas’s line of thought, it is, to begin with, important to realize the

paradox inherent in the act of prayer: on the one hand, it presupposes the providential order

of a God who governs all things, guiding them to their ultimate good. In a universe without

providence – without a teleological order of the good – the act of prayer would be useless.25

On the other hand, if one accepts the idea of providence, the act of prayer would seem to be

vain and useless as well, especially since nothing could be altered any more.26 The notion of

prayer, its possibility and usefulness, lies at the heart of the problem of providence.

The practice of prayer is motivated by the religious intuition that that our many daily desires

and needs (for food, safety, physical health, peace, justice, etc.) are rooted in our creaturely

desire for God. Our motus ad bonum expresses the way in which God orders human creatures

towards himself (towards his goodness or his glory) as the fulfillment of human life. Prayer

is something we do – in the act of prayer we exercise our freedom – but at the same time the

act of prayer brings us to acknowledge God’s infallible will in all what happens to us (‘thy

will be done’), as we trust that his infallible will is a will for the good. Thus prayer cannot

have the intention to change God’s will on our behalf, to use God as it were for the

fulfillment of our desires. This would be a perversion of what prayer – and religious worship

in general – should be. Prayer is a free exercise of human agency, thus an activity at the level

of the ‘second causes’, in such a way that it is intentionally related to the ‘first cause’, to

God’s providential ordering of everything towards the good. In prayer God is addressed as

the Good, that he, as the principle of our movement towards the good, may fulfill our

desires. In prayer one presents to God one’s ‘pious desires’,27 not from a neutral standpoint

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external to God’s providential order, as if those desires were foreign to God, but so that those

desires are included in his teleological universe and thus already ordered by God himself

towards the good.

The conclusion is that prayer makes a difference. Our prayers are foreseen by God as

somehow included in the way his providence is implemented by the ‘second causes’.28

Thomas defends the usefulness of prayer with help of the general scheme of the relationship

between first cause (God) and second causes (natural and human agency). Prayer, and in

general everything we can do (‘good works’) to promote the salvation of ourselves or of

others, pertains to the realm of the second causes, and as such is included in the universal

order of God´s providence. There cannot be a neutral position for human freedom outside

the teleological order of creation, thus outside God. God’s will to save or not to save a certain

person cannot be conditioned by the free decision on our part to pray or not to pray. Human

freedom should not, therefore, be situated above or against the order of providence as if

freedom – the free decision to act in a certain way – could only be safeguarded if it were to

inform God’s providential knowledge, which in turn would not be sufficiently determined in

respect to the actual course of things without this extra ‘information’.29 What I freely will and

do is part of how God’s providence is carried out.

“Men perform certain actions, not that thereby they may alter the divine disposition, but that

by those actions they may achieve certain effects according to the order of the divine

disposition.”30

Thus, according to the disposition of his providence, God wants that some effects are

brought about by means of free decisions of the human will. Human freedom makes a

difference, but not in the sense of introducing a factor of uncertainty in the order of

providence. It is imbedded in the teleological order in such a way that what it reasonably

aims for, under the guidance of God´s providence, is to realize the inner teleology of human

nature.

6. Conclusion

As we have just seen in Thomas’s exposition on providence, contingency and prayer, human

freedom is allowed to play its own role in the execution of providence. In the word governed

by God’s regime of the good, there is indeed something for us to do, not in the sense that

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prayer would change that regime, but in the sense that through prayer we express and

propose to God our pious desires for good things which God has foreseen to fulfill.

Does Aquinas’s theory of providence leave sufficient room for human freedom? This is

debatable, I think. He conceives human freedom as imbedded in the teleological order of the

world, and as such its principal aim is to realize the inner teleology of human nature.

Freedom essentially belongs to the way in which a particular kind of creatures, namely

rational creatures, are able to realize by their actions their ultimate end and perfection.

Thomas’s conception of free will is still a ‘naïve’ freedom, it is not a freedom which places

itself in a self-conscious manner above and against the determinate order of things. Nor is it

a modern freedom which requires, in order to exert itself, a space of indeterminacy, not yet

filled in, as it were, by God’s providence.

1 This is implied by the doctrine of God as actus purus.

2 The third book of the Summa contra Gentiles is devoted to God “inasmuch as He is the end and ruler

of all things” (prooemium). Providence is the general theme of the entire book III; in the proper and

strict sense it is treated from c.94 onwards (“Quod Deus sua providentia gubernat res”).

3 S.c.G. III, c.72: “quod divina providentia non excludit contingentiam a rebus.” The same issue is dealt with

in the Summa Theologiae in the context of the question whether “providence imposes any necessity on

what it foresees” (S.Th. I, q.22, a.4). For Aquinas this is the Stoic position: the Stoics believe that

providence, the rule of reason in all things, entails determinism which excludes contingency.

4 “Contingens est quod potest esse et non esse”; cf. S.Th. I, q.86, a.3.

5 S.c.G. III, c.66: “Quod nihil dat esse nisi inquantum agit in virtute divina“. This principle, derived from

the Liber de causis, presupposes the notion of participation which determines the logic of the

relationship between God and creature. See my study Participation and Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas

(Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 46), Brill: Leiden, 1995. Because of the

central role of the concept of participation, which grants the created realm of the second causes an

own causal efficacy, I find Thomas’s understanding of God more satisfactory than the nominalist

conception of the sovereign and almighty Deity of the early modern era.

6 C.69: “De opinione eorum qui rebus naturalibus proprias subtrahunt actiones.”

7 C.70, n.2466: “Patet etiam quod non sic idem effectus causae naturali et divinae virtuti attribuitur quasi

partim a Deo, et partim a naturali agente fiat, sed totus ab utroque, secundum alium modum: sicut idem effectus

totus attribuitur instrumento, et principali agenti etiam totus.”

14

8 S.c.G. III, c.72: “Ex causis autem proximis aliqui effectus dicuntur necessarii vel contingentes, non autem ex

causis remotis”.

9 S.c.G. III, c.72: “nam fructificatio plantae est effectus contingens propter causam proximam, quae est vis

germinativa, quae potest impediri et deficere; quamvis causa remota, scilicet sol, sit causa ex necessitate agens”.

10 S.c.G. III, c.72: “Ex virtutis autem debilitate, et eius impedimento, contingit quod res naturalis non semper

eodem modo operatur, sed quandoque deficit ab eo quod competit sibi secundum suam naturam, ut sic naturales

effectus non ex necessitate proveniant.”

11 S.c.G. III, c.72: no.2486.

12 S.c.G. III, c.72: “.. longius ab immobilitate Dei distant, ut scilicet non semper eodem modo moveantur.”

13 S.Th. I, q.19, a. 8: “utrum voluntas Dei necessitatem rebus volitis imponat.”

14 S.Th. I, q.19, a. 8: “si distinctio contingentium a necessariis referatur solum in causas secundas, sequitur hoc

esse praeter intentionem et voluntatem divinam, quod est inconveniens.” Cf. the principle formulated in

S.c.G. III, c.72: “Ex causis autem proximis aliqui effectus dicuntur necessarii vel contingentes, non autem ex

causis remotis.”

15 S.Th. I, q.19, a. 8: “Nullus autem defectus causae secundae impedire potest quin voluntas Dei effectum suum

producat.”

16 One should understand this correctly: God’s will is productiva rerum, thus nothing can exist without

being willed by God.

17 S.c.G. III, c.94.

18 S.c.G. III, c.94, n.2697: “Sed sic erit sicut Deus providit illud esse futurum. Providit autem illud esse

futurum contingenter. Sequitur ergo infallibiliter quod erit contingenter, et non necessario.”

19 S.c.G. III, c.94, n.2698: “Patet etiam quod hoc quod ponitur esse provisum a Deo ut sit futurum, si sit de

genere contingentium, poterit non esse secundum se consideratum: sic enim provisum est ut sit contingens,

potens non esse. Non tamen est possibile quod ordo providentiae deficiat quin contingenter eveniat (…).

20 S.c.G. III, c.94, n.2690: “Item. Argumentatur sic Tullius, in libro de Divinatione. Si omnia a Deo provisa

sunt, certus est ordo causarum. Si autem hoc verum est, omnia fato aguntur. Quod si omnia fato aguntur, nihil

est in nostra potestate, nullum est voluntatis arbitrium. Sequitur igitur quod tollatur liberum arbitrium, si

divina providential sit certa. Et eodem modo sequetur quod omnes causae contingentes tollantur.”

21 For the position of the Stoics, see S.c.G. III, c.73; c.96.

22 “Cum enim divinae providentiae non solum subdantur effectus, sed etiam causae et modi essendi, (…) non

sequitur quod, si omnia divina providentia aguntur, quod nihil sit in nobis. Sic enim sunt a Deo proviso ut per

nos libere fiant.”

15

23 S.c.G. III, c.95: “non enim ad hoc oratio ad Deum funditur ut aeterna providentiae disposition immutetur, hoc

enim impossibile est.”

24 See L. Maidl, Desiderii interpres. Genese und Grundstruktur der Gebetstheologie des Thomas von Aquin

(Veröffentlichungen des Grabmann-institutes zur Erforschung der mitteralterlichen Theologie und

Philosophie, N. F. Bd 38), Paderborn – München – Wien – Zürich: Schöningh, 1994, 145.

25 This is what the Epicureans claim. There is no providence, the gods do not take care of us, thus

prayer and religious worship in general are quite useless. Cf. S.c.G. III, c.96, n.2717: “Quidam enim

dixerunt nullum esse orationis fructum. Quod quidem dicebant tam illi qui negabant divinam providentiam

omnino, sicut Epicurei…”.

26 This is the position of the Stoics: contrary to the Epicureans they affirm the existence of providence,

but with the implication that everything happens with necessity. Thus in their view too, prayer and

religious worship is vane and meaningless: “(…) nullus sit orationis fructus, et per consequens quod omnis

deitatis cultus fiat in vanum.”

27 In c.95 of the Summa contra Gentiles III, the use of the expression ‘pia desideria’ attracts the reader’s

attention. What does Thomas mean by ‘pious’ desires? Desires are called ‘pious’, I would suggest,

insofar as they are rooted in one’s fundamental longing for God, which are therefore worthy of being

articulated in prayer. Cf. S.Th. II-II, q.83, a.5, ad 3.

28 Cf. S.Th. I, q.23, a.8: “…providentia (…) non subtrahit causas secundas, sed sic providet effectus, ut etiam

ordo causarum secundarum subiaceat providentiae. (…) ita praedestinatur a Deo salus alicuius, ut etiam sub

ordine praedestinationis cadat quidquid hominem promovet in salute, vel orationes propriae vel aliorum, vel alia

bona, vel quidquid huiusmodi, sine quibus aliquis salute non consequitur.” Cf. S.Th. II-II, q.83, a.2: ‘(…) ex

divina providentia non solum disponitur qui effectus fiant, sed etiam ex quibus causis et quo ordine proveniant.

Inter alias autem causas sunt etiam quorundam causae actus humani. Unde oportet homines agere aliqua, non

ut per suos actus divinam dispositionem immutent, sed ut per actus suos impleant quosdam effectus secundum

ordinem a Deo dispositum. (…) Et simile est etiam de oratione. Non enim propter hoc oramus ut divinam

dispositionem immutemus: sed ut id impetremus quod Deus disposuit per orationes sanctorum esse

implendum.”

29 In her article ‘Petitionary Prayer’, American Philosophical Quarterly 16, 1979, 81-91, Eleanore Stump

claims that Aquinas´s theory of prayer is deterministic and would therefore negate free will. She

argues that God determines the order in which the causes and effects of the prayer/gift system will

occur. That my prayer will lead to a gift from God is already determined and foreseen by God.

Apparently she has difficulty in reconciling the two propositions which together constitute Thomas’s

position: on the one hand, that our prayer is foreseen by God as a means by which the order of his

16

providence is carried out, and on the other hand, our free decision (as ‘second cause’) to pray. Stump

reasons, so it seems, on the basis of a Molinist presupposition, namely that freewill can only be upheld

in its true (libertarian) sense if it is a co-determining principle of the order of things as foreseen by

God. The consequence according of this Molinist view is that God could in fact receive from the

world.

30 S.Th. II-II, q,83, a.2.

Sources:

Thomas de Aquino:

- Summa contra Gentiles, I-IV(ed. Commissio Leonina, in: Opera Omnia, Vl. XIII-XV,Rome 1918-

1930).

- Summa theologiae (ed. Commissio Leonina, in: Opera Omnia, Vol. IV-XII, Rome, 1988-1906).