Chapter II, Section 2: Divine Co-operation or Concurrence

Pohle, God the Author of Nature and the Supernatural, Part I, Chapter II, §2 (pp. 66–78)

1. Definition of the Term

The causality of God extends to the operations (operari) of His creatures as well as to their being (esse). He co-operates in their operation by preserving their substance and energy. But His co-operation is more than mediate. We hold with Catholic theologians generally, against Durandus,¹ that God lends His immediate physical co-operation or Concursus to each and every creatural act. This particular function of divine Providence is called concursus divinus generalis, in contradistinction to the special assistance granted in the order of supernatural grace.

Two extremes must be avoided in defining the divine Concursus. First, all creatural operations are not attributable solely to God. This is the error of the so-called Occasionalists, who assert that the causae secundae are not true causes.² Secondly, we must not exclude the divine causality altogether by ascribing all causal influence to the creature. The First Cause actually co-operates with the secondary causes,³ though this co-operation is not a cooperatio in the strict sense of the term; that is, God does not posit one part of the effect, and the creature the other, but the same effect is fully and completely wrought by the First Cause, and just as fully and completely by the second causes. “When one and the same effect is attributed to a natural cause and to the divine power,” says St. Thomas Aquinas, “this does not mean that the effect is produced partly by God and partly by the natural agent. The whole effect is produced by both, though in different ways, just as the same effect is produced wholly by the instrument and wholly also by the principal cause.”⁴ The right relation between Causa prima and causa secunda demands that the creatural be subordinated to the divine principle in such wise that the effect produced by both derives its physical entity from God more than the creature.⁵

As regards sin, we must distinguish between its material and its formal cause, that is, between the physical entity of the sinful act (entitas peccati), and its inherent malice (malitia peccati). God lends His co-operation solely to the act as such; the malice inherent in it, or, in other words, the sinning creature’s inclination towards evil, is due entirely to the exercise of its free will.⁶

2. The Divine Concursus Demonstrated from Revelation

The doctrine of the divine Concursus is not strictly a revealed dogma. But it is a certain theological conclusion, as appears from the fact that it is held by all theological schools.⁷ We quote the Roman Catechism as of special weight in this matter: “Non solum autem Deus universa, quae sunt, providentia sua tuetur atque administrat: verum etiam, quae moventur et agunt aliquid, intima virtute ad motum atque actionem ita impellit, ut, quamvis secundarum causarum efficientiam non impediat, praeveniat tamen, quum eius occultissima vis ad singula pertinent, et quemadmodum Sapiens testatur, ‘attingat a fine usque ad finem fortiter, et disponit omnia suaviter.’ Quare ab Apostolo dictum est, quum apud Athenienses annuntiaret Deum, quem ignorantes colebant: ‘Non longe est ab unoquoque nostrum; in ipso enim vivimus, et movemur, et sumus’” — Not only does God by His Providence protect and govern all things that exist, but by His intimate power He also impels to motion and action whatever things move and act, and this in such manner that, although He excludes not, He yet prevents, the agency of secondary causes; for His most secret influence extends to all things, and as the Wise Man testifies, “reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly.” Wherefore the Apostle, when announcing to the Athenians the God, whom not knowing they adored, said: “He is not far from every one of us, for in Him we live, and move, and be.”⁸

a) The Scriptural argument offers some difficulties. In selecting probatory texts we must be careful to choose only such as do not, on the face of them, refer to the supernatural aid of grace or to the purely mediate co-operation of God. For this reason, e.g., 1 Cor. XII, 6 is unavailable. This text runs as follows: “Divisiones operationum sunt, idem vero Deus, qui operatur omnia [opera] in omnibus [operantibus]” — And there are diversities of operations, but the same God, who worketh all in all. St. Paul here speaks of supernatural co-operation on the part of God.⁹

Equally unavailing for our present argument is Job X, 8 sqq.: “Manus fecerunt tuae [Domini] me et plasmaverunt me totum in circuitu, … pelle et carnibus vestisti me, ossibus et nervis compegisti me” — Thy hands have made me, and fashioned me wholly round about. … Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh: thou hast put me together with bones and sinews. As the plastic power of the womb is undoubtedly due to the creative and preservative causality of God, this text would not lose its force even if it did not refer to His immediate co-operation.

There is another series of Scriptural texts so worded as to be equally applicable to the Preservation of the universe and to the divine Concursus with which we are here concerned. For instance, John V, 17: “Pater meus usque modo operatur et ego operor” — My Father worketh until now, and I work.

Still more to the point is Is. XXVI, 12: “Domine, dabis pacem nobis; omnia enim opera nostra operatus es nobis” — Lord, thou wilt give us peace, for thou hast wrought all our works for us. Here “our works” are attributed to God. Cfr. also Acts XVII, 25: “Quum ipse det omnibus vitam¹⁰ et inspirationem¹¹ et omnia¹²” — Seeing it is he who giveth to all life, and breath, and all things. Probably the most conclusive text is Acts XVII, 28, cited by the Tridentine Catechism: “In ipso enim vivimus, movemur et sumus” — For in him we live, and move, and are. The Apostle here emphasizes the fact that we are dependent upon the divine co-operation for our existence as well as our life and operation.

b) The Fathers of the Church regarded this as a truth both natural and revealed. Their teaching clearly appears from their polemical writings against the Pelagians. St. Augustine censures those “qui arbitrentur, tantummodo mundum ipsum factum a Deo, cetera iam fieri ab ipso mundo, Deum autem nihil operari. Contra quos profertur illa sententia Domini: Pater meus usquemodo operatur.”¹³ The doctrinal position of the Pelagians is aptly hit off in St. Jerome’s dialogue between Critobulus and Atticus.¹⁴ Critobulus, who speaks for the Pelagian heretics, objects that, “If we need God’s aid in everything we do, we cannot put a pen to paper, or keep silence, or speak, or sit, or stand, or walk about, or run, or eat, or fast, or weep, or laugh, etc., unless God lends us His assistance.” Atticus, who defends the Catholic view, replies that it is quite evident that we can do none of these things except by the aid of God.¹⁵

Gregory the Great clearly teaches both the Preservation and the divine Concursus: “Omnia, quae creata sunt, per se nec subsistere valent nec moveri, sed intantum subsistunt, inquantum ut esse debeant acceperunt, intantum moventur, inquantum occulto instinctu disponuntur” — Created things, of themselves, can neither continue to exist nor move; they subsist only in so far as they have received the power of subsistence, and they move only in so far as they are disposed thereunto by a hidden instinct.¹⁶

3. The Controversy Between Molinism and Thomism

The famous controversy between the Molinists and the Thomists, which we have already sketched in our volume on God: His Knowability, Essence, and Attributes,¹⁷ sharply reasserts itself in discussing the relation of the concurring First Cause to the operation of the secondary causes, especially in regard to the free acts of rational creatures. While both schools agree in upholding the necessity of the divine Concurrence in all human acts, including those which are free, and even those which are sinful, they differ widely in regard to its measure and mode.

a) The Molinistic theory may be outlined thus. The divine Concurrence postulates two efficient causes (namely, the First Cause and a secondary cause), which by their harmonious co-operation produce the whole effect. The question arises: How is the free act of the will produced by this double cause? Liberty of choice is essentially conditioned by an absolutely free self-determination on the part of the will, and hence it is evident that God, while remaining the First Cause, must so shape His concurrence that the liberty of the creature remains intact. “Albeit the First Cause exerts the strongest influence upon the effect,” says St. Thomas, “that influence is nevertheless determined and specified by the proximate cause.”¹⁸ Hence the divine Concursus must comprise a twofold act: an offer of co-operation, and actual co-operation. The former is called concursus oblatus, the latter, concursus collatus.

The concursus oblatus does not as yet produce a determined act of the free will, but is of its nature indifferent, equivocal, and hypothetical, though at the same time necessary, because free volition cannot operate of itself and independently of the First Cause. By seizing, as it were, and leaning on the proffered arm of God, the human will is enabled to get its bearing according to the full extent of the active indifference which constitutes its freedom, and to act according to its good pleasure. Did God proffer only a particular concursus along certain definite lines, the choice of the will would by that very fact be determined and its freedom destroyed.

By Concursus collatus or exhibitus we understand the actual bestowal of divine help for the performance of a specific act which the will freely posits, and which God by virtue of the scientia media foresees with absolute certainty from everlasting. This particular concursus is by its very nature precisely as definite, univocal, and absolute as the free determination of the will. It consists in God’s physically positing the selfsame act to which the free will has determined itself. The will’s self-determination precedes the divine causality as a condition precedes that which it conditions, not, however, as a cause precedes its effect. It follows that the concursus collatus, taken in the sense explained, is and must be strictly simultaneous.¹⁹

b) Thomism²⁰ postulates what is technically known as the concursus praevius, that is, a co-operation on the part of God which not only co-produces the free act of the creature, but as a praemotio physica causally predetermines it, and formally applies the will, which is of itself indifferent, to the free act. According to this much-debated theory the free-will of the creature is predetermined by God physically and ad unum before it determines itself. Concursus praevius and praemotio physica, therefore, are merely different names for one and the same thing.

Gonet defines physical premotion as follows: “Actio Dei, qua voluntatem humanam, priusquam se determinet, ita ad actum movet insuperabili virtute, ut voluntas nequeat omissionem sui actus cum illa praemotione coniungere.”²¹ Let us analyze this definition. Physical premotion is a determination, not merely an indifferent, manifold, and hypothetical offer of co-operation like the concursus oblatus of the Molinists. It immediately and irresistibly (insuperabili virtute) determines the free will ad unum, after the fashion of some transient quality, designed, in the words of Alvarez, to communicate to the will and to all secondary causes the ultimate complement of the actus primus.²² Physical premotion is, more specifically, a predetermination, for the reason that both with regard to causality and nature it precedes the exercise of free will on the part of the creature. It is called physical, in order to distinguish it from every species of moral determination (such as, e.g., a counsel, command, petition), and also to emphasize the absolute effectiveness and irresistibility of the divine impulse. For, as it is metaphysically impossible for the human will to act at all without being predetermined, so, too, it is metaphysically impossible for the will not to act when it is predetermined, or to perform an act other than that to which it is predetermined. This predetermination does not, however, destroy freedom of choice, because God predetermines the will not only with regard to the substance of the act to be performed, but also in respect of its mode, that is, He predetermines the will to act freely. Needless to say, none but an omnipotent First Cause can so predetermine free-will as to cause it to co-predetermine itself, and, consequently, to act with full liberty. Therefore, say the Thomists, physical premotion does not destroy free-will, but postulates and confirms it.²³

c) This is not the place to enter into a minute criticism of the two systems. To conform fully to the demands of right reason, Molinism must meet the objection that “free-will, by predetermining itself, forces the divine First Cause into inadmissible co-ordination.” It is more important to guard the majesty and primacy of the divine First Cause, than to preserve the freedom of the human will. Molinism overcomes this objection by explaining that God depends on free-will merely as on a condition, and that the divine causality is far and away superior to that of the creature.²⁴ That the First Cause should accommodate and conditionally subordinate itself to the nature and properties of the individual free creature, is not derogatory to the infinite dignity and sovereignty of God, any more than that God should make the execution of His holy Will dependent on a condition which the creature is free either to posit or not. Having bound Himself by a solemn promise to reward His creatures for the good they do, God cannot violate their free-will, but owes it to His own wisdom, sanctity, and justice to preserve it, to foster it, and to give it full sway. This is not derogatory to His dignity, nor does it imply self-abasement; it is simply a mystery of the divine omnipotence.²⁵

The Molinistic charge that Thomism destroys free-will and makes God the author of sin, will be duly considered in the treatise on Grace. Another objection against Thomism is that the concursus praevius, being neither immediatus nor simultaneus, cannot properly be called a concursus ad actum. Nature and Revelation agree that a free act of the creatural will requires an immediate and simultaneous concurrence on the part of God. The Thomistic concursus to all appearances possesses neither the one nor the other of these qualifications. It is not per se simultaneus, because it is praevius, and it is not immediatus, because it is primarily directed to the efficient cause, i.e., the actus primus, and not to the effect as such, i.e., the actus secundus. Cardinal Zigliara tries to evade this difficulty by pointing out that the concursus simultaneus may be a continuation of the influxus praevius.²⁶ It is indeed quite true that the concursus simultaneus may be a continuation of the influxus praevius, but does not the theory of which the learned Cardinal is an advocate, demand that it must always be so? Duly considered, the concursus praevius, as such, is not really a concursus at all, it is merely a praecursus. As Liberatore convincingly argues: “Si divinus concursus in re aliqua consisteret actioni creaturarum praevia, huius vi Deus in actionem non immediate influeret, sed mediate, nimirum media re illa praevia, ad quam eius operatio proxime terminatur. Ut igitur salvetur Dei concursus immediatus, necesse est ut in ipsa actione creaturarum concipiatur.”²⁷

Notes

Readings

*Suarez, Opusc. de Concursu; *Stentrup, S.J., De Deo Uno, cap. 10, Oeniponte 1878; Idem (more briefly), Synopsis De Deo Uno, pp. 286 sqq., Oeniponte 1895; Dummermuth, O.P., S. Thomas de Doctrina Praemotionis Physicae, Paris 1886; J. Pecci, Lehre des hl. Thomas über den Einfluss Gottes auf die Handlungen der vernünftigen Geschöpfe und über die Scientia Media, Paderborn 1888; F. G. Feldner, O.P., Die Lehre des hl. Thomas über die Willensfreiheit der vernünftigen Wesen, Graz 1890; Frins, S.J., De Cooperatione Dei cum Omni Natura Creata, praesertim Libera, Paris 1892; *L. de San, S.J., De Deo Uno, t. I: De Mente S. Thomae circa Praedeterminationes Physicas, Louvain 1894; I. Jeiler, O.F.M., S. Bonaventurae Principia de Concursu Dei Generali ad Actiones Causarum Secundarum Collecta et S. Thomae Doctrina Confirmata, Quaracchi 1897.

(An asterisk in the original marks works the author considered especially clear or thorough.)

Note on this transcription: Section 2 carries one continuous footnote sequence (1–27) across all three of its numbered subsections, rather than restarting at each subsection — confirmed by cross-checking each citation’s content against its marker in the body text. As before, page-break footnote columns were hand-separated from OCR interleaving, three short Greek glosses (behind “vitam,” “inspirationem,” and the phrase in note 9) were reconstructed, and German titles in the Readings list had umlauts restored.