Lesson 35 –
Primary and Secondary Causality: Principles and Distinctions

For Christianity, God is not a part of the universe; nor simply separate from the universe. Rather, he is the very source of the universe, its absolutely transcendent and primary cause — a cause of an absolutely different kind, in a different order altogether, from all other causes that we know.

He gives to other causes their being and therefore their capacity to cause. Creaturely causality is real, and so there is no competition between taking seriously the creaturely causality that we find in the universe, and simultaneously affirming that God is the first cause of all of these things.

Course Reading

Summa Theologiae I q. 103, aa. 1-2 | St. Thomas Aquinas

Summa Theologiae I q. 103, aa. 3-4 | St. Thomas Aquinas

Excerpt from the Summa Theologiae I q. 103, a. 2:

As the end of a thing corresponds to its beginning, it is not possible to be ignorant of the end of things if we know their beginning. Therefore, since the beginning of all things is something outside the universe, namely, God, it is clear from what has been expounded above (Question [44], Articles [1],2), that we must conclude that the end of all things is some extrinsic good. This can be proved by reason. For it is clear that good has the nature of an end; wherefore, a particular end of anything consists in some particular good; while the universal end of all things is the Universal Good; Which is good of Itself by virtue of Its Essence, Which is the very essence of goodness; whereas a particular good is good by participation. Now it is manifest that in the whole created universe there is not a good which is not such by participation. Wherefore that good which is the end of the whole universe must be a good outside the universe.

Course Listening

Causality According to the Aristotelian-Thomistic Perspective | Prof. Michael Gorman

Can God Force Me to be Good? A Thomistic Answer | Prof. Thomas Osborne