Lesson 36 –
Primary and Secondary Causality: Aquinas and Indeterminacy

God is the source of what science studies. This means that God can bring things about in a radically different way than any creature can.

Within the creaturely frame of reference, a reality might be indeterminate, but this doesn’t mean that it is uncaused or absolutely random. God is still the source of its being, of its actuality, and of its causal power.

Course Reading

Summa Theologiae I q. 103, a. 5 | St. Thomas Aquinas

Summa Theologiae I q. 103, aa. 7-8 | St. Thomas Aquinas

Excerpt from the Summa Theologiae I q. 103, a. 5:

For the same reason is God the ruler of things as He is their cause, because the same gives existence as gives perfection; and this belongs to government. Now God is the cause not indeed only of some particular kind of being, but of the whole universal being. Wherefore, as there can be nothing which is not created by God, so there can be nothing which is not subject to His government. This can also be proved from the nature of the end of government. For a man's government extends over all those things which come under the end of his government. Now the end of the Divine government is the Divine goodness. Wherefore, as there can be nothing that is not ordered to the Divine goodness as its end… so it is impossible for anything to escape from the Divine government.

Course Listening

Chance and Indeterminism in Biochemistry and Medicinal Chemistry | Prof. Tony Barbosa

Unlocking Divine Action: Causality from Thomas Aquinas to Quantum Mechanics | Fr. Michael Dodds, O.P.