university of toronto press the problem of evil in early modern philosophy dec 2001

The third tenet is that even though there is just a single action, God andthe secondary agent act by different powers within diverse orders of causality.More specifically, the secondary

The Problem of Evil in Early Modern Philosophy

© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2001

Toronto Buffalo London

Printed in Canada

ISBN 0-8020-3552-3

Printed on acid-free paper

Toronto Studies in Philosophy

Editors: James R Brown and Amy Mullin

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data

Main entry under title:

The problem of evil in early modern philosophy

(Toronto studies in philosophy)

Papers presented at a conference held at the University of Toronto,

Sept 3-5,1999

ISBN 0-8020-3552-3

1 Good and evil Congresses 2 Theodicy History of doctrines

-17th century-Congresses I Kremer, Elmar J II Latzer, Michael John, 1961- III Series.

BJ1401.P762001 111'.84 C2001-930698-9

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

Contributors vii

1 Introduction 3

Elmar J Kremer and Michael J Latzer

2 Suarez on God's Causal Involvement in Sinful Acts 10 Alfred J Freddoso

3 Descartes's Theodicy of Error 35

1 Bayle on the Moral Problem of Evil 101

D Anthony Lariviere and Thomas M Lennon

8 Leibniz and the 'Disciples of Saint Augustine' on the Fate ofInfants Who Die Unbaptized 119

Elmar J Kremer

9 Leibniz and the Stoics: The Consolations of Theodicy 138

Donald Rutherford

10 Remarks on Leibniz's Treatment of the Problem of Evil 165

Robert C Sleigh, Jr.

University of Wisconsin, MadisonUniversity of California, San DiegoUniversity of Massachusetts, Amherst

ELMAR J KREMER AND MICHAEL J LATZER

The essays in this volume are about the problem of evil as it was understood andwrestled with in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries Or perhaps'problems' of evil would be a better designation, since many distinct issues are

to be found within the labyrinthine twists and turns of this momentous issue.For the philosophers of the period, the task of theodicy was both philosophicaland theological Philosophically, evil presented a challenge to the consistencyand rationality of the world-picture disclosed by the new way of ideas But indealing with this challenge, philosophers were also influenced by the theologi-cal debates about original sin, free will, and justification that were the aftermath

of the Protestant Reformation, and that exercised a formative influence on pean intellectual life right up to the publication of Leibniz's Theodicy in 1710

of evil, if evil is an illusion Similarly, the existence of an omnipotent but olent God is consistent with evil, as is the existence of a God at once benevolentand limited in power And, of course, if the divine attributes are held to bebeyond human comprehension entirely, the problem of evil again does not arise

malev-God would in such a case be said to be 'good' and 'powerful,' but not in anyway humans can understand; hence the alleged compatibility of God and evilcould not be established Classical theism, however, disallows the abandonment

of any part of the triad, and insists that we can express the divine attributes atleast analogically in human language Thus the conditions for a genuine theod-icy are set out by Leibniz, the philosopher who coined the word 'theodicy'

(from the Greek theos, 'God,' and dike, 'justice') and for whom the project was

a lifelong preoccupation: A genuine theodicy must consist of a set of tions, not just hypothetical but actually true, capable of showing the ultimateconsistency of the existence of God and evil without sacrificing the attributes ofGod as classically defined

proposi-If it is possible to speak of a 'consensus' or 'mainstream' approach to icy in the Christian West, such would be the theodicy of Saint Augustine, towhom Leibniz himself owed a great deal The intellectual struggle with theproblem of evil defines the philosophy of Augustine to an enormous degree As

theod-he records in his Confessions, as a young man Augustine was attracted to ttheod-he

sect of the Manichaeans precisely because of their rational solution to the lem of evil: cosmic dualism Rather than fruitlessly endeavouring to show how

prob-a single prob-all-good principle could prob-account for evil, the solution of the Mprob-anichprob-ae-ans was to posit an evil god as the source of evil, leaving good alone as theproduct of the good god In the seventeenth century, Pierre Bayle will ironicallyhail the 'hypothesis of the two principles' as indeed the only truly reasonablesolution to the problem But Augustine found the answer to Manichaeism in hisdiscovery of the 'nothingness' of evil Because evil is literally no-thing, butsimply the privation or absence of a good which ought to be present, there is noneed to trace its presence to any evil god, still less to the positive will of the one

Manichae-good God God merely 'permits' the privatio boni which his power could easily

prevent, but which his goodness allows, for his own good reasons

What are these reasons? One of the most famous and influential Augustiniancontributions, with roots in both pagan philosophy and biblical revelation, is theso-called 'aesthetic' theme: that whole consisting of evil and the good madepossible by and drawn out of evil is better than a condition simply good tobegin with, just as shadows are needed in paintings and dissonance in musicalcompositions Along with this theme, Augustine developed what has come to

be called the 'free will defence.' God is able to draw good even out of thedisordered (hence evil) choices of free rational agents, angelic and human,which choices are themselves the causes of a vast amount (if not all) of the evilaround us

As perennial as the themes of Augustine's theodicy are the challenges tothem, challenges that are central to the theodicy debates in the early modern

period If the world containing evil is ultimately a good world - perhaps eventhe best of all possible worlds - does this not amount to a denial of the reality ofevil? Is the appearance of evil not in the end a function of the limitation ofhuman perception, such that, to an unclouded mind, 'whatever is, is right'? And

if God incorporates human choices, good and bad, in the plan for creation ceived from all eternity, does not the inevitability of this plan imply that nocreatures are really free? So acute is this problem, and so contentious in thehistory of Christian dogma, that Leibniz calls it a 'labyrinth' wherein humanreason goes inevitably astray In the two centuries following the ProtestantReformation, the problem of freedom and predestination reached an unsur-passed degree of crisis, involving not just a plethora of excruciatingly difficultand sophisticated attempts at solution, but social and cultural upheaval as well.Thus in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the theodicy problem was nomere idle puzzle of dogmatics, but a problem of immense social significance, aproblem which cut to the heart of the philosophical and theological projects ofthe very best minds of the age

world-cartes, in the Meditations on First Philosophy, tries to limit his dicusssion of the

problem of evil to the problem of error, or a problem concerning the worthiness of clear and distinct ideas Of course, this restriction of the problemcannot hold, since error is intimately connected with sin or moral evil, andDescartes is impelled to wrestle with evil like any traditional theodicist In theFourth Meditation, he offers a version of the 'free-will defence,' locating theorigin of evil in the will of the erring creature However, as Michael Latzerargues, Descartes's free-will defence founders on his conception of God's abso-lute and inscrutable predestination of all events, including human acts ofthought and will Descartes presents this conception in his correspondence withPrincess Elizabeth as consoling - there is a Providence that shapes our ends.But tracing evil to its source in utterly unfathomable divine decrees, and placingGod above the laws of mathematics and logic, as Descartes does, spells the end

trust-of a rational theodicy

Descartes would have wanted to avoid such an outcome But Spinoza, bycontrast, makes a conscious and systematic effort to undermine the traditionalpreconditions of theodicy in favour of what he regards as a more truly philo-

sophical (and more sublime) analysis of God, destiny, and the human condition.Steven Nadler points out in his 'Spinoza in the Garden of Good and Evil' thatSpinoza's denial that God acts by free choice, that God is 'good' (as defined byclassical theism), and that God acts for the sake of ends, places him outside thedomain of traditional theodicy But Spinoza is also interested in the project ofconsolation Nadler locates Spinoza in the context of medieval Jewish theodi-cies, and notes that although Spinoza rejects such elements as post-mortem rec-ompense for good deeds done and injustice suffered, he sees in Gersonides hints

of his own prescription for happiness: freedom through scientia intuitiva, or

knowledge through essences, related to their infinite causes Through sion of adequate ideas, and indifference to the affective modes of good and evil,the reward of virtue can be found in this world alone and authentic human goodrealized

posses-However, as Graeme Hunter points out in 'Spinoza: A Radical Protestant?'Spinoza also had close ties with some of the radical Protestants in the Nether-lands, and in some passages presents his work as part of a new and more radical

Protestant reformation Hunter rejects the traditional reading of the Tractatus

Theologico-Politicus through the lenses of the Ethics, and examines Spinoza's

dicta in the Tractatus concerning the spirit of Christ, the essentials of Christian

belief, and the principles of Christian reformation on the premise that they weresincerely held and seriously intended Hunter argues that against the crude

anthropomorphism of Cartesian divine voluntarism, the Spinoza of the

Tracta-tus offers an orthodox understanding of divine providence, ruling all things by

grace, mercy, and pity

Leibniz is another of the moderns whose Christian orthodoxy seems to situneasily with his philosophical principles The tension in Leibniz's case isbrought out by Donald Rutherford in 'Leibniz and the Stoics: The Consolations

of Theodicy.' Like the Stoics, Leibniz teaches a doctrine of consolation based

on the pursuit of virtue grounded in the knowledge of divine justice Leibniz

insists that his conception of the Fatum Christianum offers a richer consolation than the Fatum Stoicum, because the Fatum Christianum includes an affirma-

tion of God's providential care for individual human beings In the last analysis,however, Leibniz does not locate beatitude in resignation to the Redeemer ofworldly suffering, or in the timeless beatific vision, but in the 'perpetualprogress' of the unending development of substances, and the independencefrom fortune which true virtue, and conformity with the universal will, provide.Recognition of the seriousness of Leibniz's consolatory and apologetic aims

in theodicy is a welcome corrective to caricatures of Leibniz's theodicy as low and merely popular And, in fact, as Robert Sleigh notes in his essay, seri-ous scholarship concerning Leibniz's undertakings in theodicy is in relative

shal-infancy, compared to other aspects of his system Sleigh's contribution traces

some of the developments in Leibniz's thinking from the time of the early

Con-fessio Philosophi, through the Discourse on Metaphysics, and finally the Theodicy, particularly with regard to Leibniz's handling of the classical themes

of the free-will defence and of evil as privation As always in the work of thegreat polymath, natural theology is never far removed from the abstruse doc-trines of his metaphysics, such as his theories of contingency and of individua-tion His genius is in bringing together in synthesis his own idiosyncraticmetaphysical doctrines and the classical themes of Augustinan theodicy, includ-ing the doctrine that the created universe as a whole reflects God's perfect wis-dom and power

That there is nothing to be improved upon in God's creation is common to thetheodicies of the moderns But as Denis Moreau argues in 'Malebranche onDisorder and Physical Evil: Manichaeism or Philosophical Courage?' Male-branche is a notable exception For, in a striking way, Malebranche is willing toallow that God's governance of the world through simple 'ways,' while unim-peachable and wholly worthy of the Creator, may (and indeed does) involvedysteleological 'surd' evils, instances of suffering of which we can say, withoutany qualification, nuance, or excuse, 'It's evil.' Arnauld claimed that in thisrespect Malebranche's theodicy is Manichaean It can also be viewed as a pre-cursor of the theodicies of the age of the Holocaust Like a good Cartesian,Malebranche highlights the connection of error and moral evil But, unlikeDescartes, he shows a tolerance for an unredeemed remainder of physical evil

In abandoning a pristine world-picture, Malebranche thus credits the nological experience of suffering

phenome-Ill

Another reason for the seventeenth-century preoccupation with evil and icy, equal in importance to the Rationalist dream of a perfect science, involvesthe labyrinthine problem of freedom and predestination, particularly in the cau-sation of sin Although a problem with a biblical lineage, the contingencies ofhistory brought it, by the early modern period, to a near-crisis level of acute-ness The denial of human freedom and the determinism imposed by divine pre-destination which Martin Luther read in some of the Pauline epistles was key tothe Reformer's rejection of the efficacy of good works, and of the whole sacer-dotal-sacramental system of the Roman Church The first attempt at a reasoned

theod-refutation of Luther on freedom, Erasmus's On the Freedom of the Will, was crushed by the more powerful reasoning of Luther's mighty Bondage of the

Will Although the Church devised what was meant to be a definitive answer to

Luther at the Council of Trent, the more than a century of rancorous struggleover grace and freedom which Catholics fought with Evangelical and ReformedChurches spilled over into battles among Catholics.

The most important debate on these topics within the Catholic Churchoccurred in the meetings of the Congregationes de Auxiliis These were ad hoccommittees of cardinals called together to resolve a dispute that began in 1588with the publication of the Jesuit Luis de Molina's work on the agreement offree will with grace, and related matters, 'according to Several Articles in St.Thomas,' and its repudiation by Domingo Banez, a more traditional Thomistand the leading Dominican theologian of the time The meetings lasted from

2 January 1598 until 28 August 1607, and ended without a resolution of theissues Dispute broke out again among Catholics after the publication of Jan-

sen's Augustinus in 1640 and continued into the eighteenth century Alfred

Freddoso's essay, 'Suarez on God's Causal Involvement in Sinful Acts,' trates the degree of complexity that the problem had reached in the Jesuit camp

illus-at the threshold of the seventeenth century Suarez's finely tuned analysis of theconcurrence of God in the sinful acts of creatures is an attempt to walk therazor-thin line between ascribing the causation of evil acts to God (and so vio-lating divine goodness) and ascribing their causation to creatures (and so violat-ing omnipotence)

The disputes between the various Christian denominations, as well as within

the Catholic Church, provided much material for Pierre Bayle's Historical and

Critical Dictionary Bayle's massively erudite work intensified the theodicy

problem on many fronts, and, whatever Bayle may have intended, providedammunition for atheology well into the late eighteenth century (Its influence is

felt, for example, in Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.) Some of

Bayle's aporetic challenges on the freedom-foreknowledge issue are discussed

by D Anthony Lariviere and Thomas Lennon in 'Bayle on the Moral Problem

of Evil.' Typically cloaking his views in commentary on the views of others,Bayle voices his dislike of classical solutions by approving the Socinian denial

of foreknowledge This move seemed to Bayle at least more reasonable than theunfathomable affirmation of both divine foreknowledge and human liberty ofindifference, to be found, for example, in the theodicy of William King Moregenerally, the theodicy problem is given acute focus by Bayle through his insis-tence on two theses: first, that 'good' can be applied univocally to God andcreatures, so that we cannot get away with claiming God's goodness is quiteunlike ours, subject to different rules; and, second, that God is utterly free tomake any world, unfettered by any need to achieve plenitude of being, or anyother quasi-aesthetic result These theses generate the haunting fear that per-haps God is not good at all

Leibniz's Theodicy, written in response to Bayle, was the last instalment in

Leibniz's lifelong effort on behalf of the reunification of the Christian churches.Thus in a letter of 2 May 1715, about eighteen months before his death, he

expresses his pleasure at the favourable reception of the Theodicy by 'excellent

theologians of the three religions.' Yet, as we have seen in connection withDonald Rutherford's essay, Leibniz's own theological views were sometimessufficiently unorthodox to threaten his project Elmar Kremer, in 'Leibniz andthe "Disciples of Saint Augustine" on the Fate of Infants Who Die Unbaptized,'argues that Leibniz's repudiation of the Augustinian position on this particularpoint led him to a markedly unorthodox position on original sin Kremer alsoargues that Leibniz's position on the fate of infants who die unbaptized reflects

an important break with the Augustinian division of the problem of evil into twoparts, one dealing with humans (and other intelligent creatures) and one dealingwith subhuman creatures

Leibniz's discomfiture is archetypical of the early modern philosophers intheir dealings with the problems of theodicy Their philosophy tended to putthem at odds with all of the important Christian theological positions on sin,grace, and justification Yet they were forced, for practical as well as theoreticalreasons, to stay in touch with the ongoing theological discussion It is our hopethat the studies in this volume will stimulate further research into the resultingstruggles of the early modern philosophers to resolve this most poignant andtroubling of problems

The papers in this volume were delivered at a conference on the problem

of evil in early modern philosophy held at the University of Toronto during3-5 September 1999, and sponsored by the SSHRC, by the Department ofPhilosophy, University of Toronto, and by St Michael's College, University

of Toronto We would like to thank Sebastien Charles and Syliane Charles ofthe University of Ottawa, Sarah Byers, Karen Detlefsen, Sarah Marquardt,Jon Miller, Tobin Woodruff, and Byron Williston of the University of Toronto,and Patricia Sheridan of the University of Western Ontario, who providedcommentaries on the papers, as well as those who attended and took part in thediscussion at the conference

Suarez on God's Causal Involvement

in Sinful Acts

ALFRED J FREDDOSO

1 Introduction: Evil and God

In this paper I will explore certain key features of Francisco Suarez's account ofGod's action in the world, with an eye toward explaining his view of the preciseway in which God concurs with - that is, makes an immediate causal contribu-tion to - free action in general and sinful action in particular Suarez agrees withhis mainly Thomistic opponents that God is an immediate cause of every effect

produced by creatures - including every free act and, a fortiori, every sinful act

elicited by creatures with a rational or 'free' nature But he differs markedlyfrom them in his account of how it can be plausibly maintained that God

permits sin without causing sin or, to put it somewhat differently, how it can

be plausibly maintained that the moral defectiveness of a sin is not traceable

to God as a source

The heart of the paper will be drawn from sections 2-4 of Disputation 22 of

the Disputationes Metaphysicae (DM), but I want to begin by defining the

prob-lematic in light of Suarez's general discussion of the metaphysics of evil in putation 11 Suarez agrees with traditional writers that what is 'evil in itself iseither (a) the privation of some good that ought to belong to a given subject inview of its nature and powers or (b) the subject itself insofar as it suffers such aprivation Beyond this, however, he notes that a positive entity can be 'evil for

Dis-another' in the sense that its presence in a particular type of subject entails the

absence of some good which that subject ought to have Such an entity might be

a natural evil, that is, a positive entity that deprives its subject of some natural

good it ought to have according to the standard set by its own nature For

instance, from the perspective of Aristotelian science heat is a positive entitythat is naturally bad for water, since water is by its nature cold; again, a sixthfinger on one hand is a positive entity that is naturally bad for a human being,since by their nature human beings have five fingers on each hand; and, moregenerally, pain is a positive entity that is naturally bad for animals In addition,

some positive entities that are 'evil for another' are moral evils, that is, entities

that are bad for a free nature precisely insofar as it is free Moral evil is divided

into the evil of sin or fault (malum culpae) and the evil of punishment (malum

poenae), a distinction that Suarez characterizes as follows:

We can say succinctly and clearly that the evil of sin (malum culpae) is a disorder

in a free action or omission - that is, a lack of due perfection as regards a free

action - whereas the evil of punishment (malum poenae) is any other lack of a due good that is contracted or inflicted because of sin (DM 11.2.5)

Thus, a sinful act, while good to the extent that it is a real quality of a rationalwill, is defective because by its nature it induces a privation of the due ordering

to God that its subject - a free and rational creature - ought to have An evil ofpunishment, on the other hand, can itself be either a sin that is causally con-nected with other sins or some other type of suffering that God directly inflicts

or at least permits

Although Suarez concedes that from outside the Christian perspective itseems that human beings suffer natural evils that are in no way connected withsin, he nonetheless notes that, according to the Faith, all the natural evils thatbefall us as human beings in fact stem ultimately from sin and especially fromoriginal sin, since God's antecedent intention was that we should be free fromsin and suffering and death:

Even though, leaving aside divine providence, one could conceive of some natural evil in a rational creature which was not inflicted because of any fault and which would thus be neither a sin nor a punishment, nonetheless, we believe that in con- formity with divine providence no lack of a due perfection can exist in a rational creature unless it is a sin or else takes its origin from sin It is for this reason that

Augustine, In Genesim ad litteram, chap 1, says that every evil is either a sin or a

punishment for sin In fact, it is not only the evil that exists formally in human beings, but also that which exists in irrational and inanimate things, to the extent that it results in harm for human beings themselves, that pertains to the evil of punishment - not punishment with respect to the lower things but with respect to the human beings themselves, because of whose sin it is inflicted or permitted (DM 11.2.5)

(In this connection, though, it is important to note in passing that punishment,strictly speaking, is contrary to the will of the sufferer So within the Christiandispensation the evil of punishment loses its character as punishment when it iswillingly embraced in atonement for sin out of supernatural love for God andneighbour and is in this way joined to the redemptive suffering of Christ.)Having laid out this taxonomy, Suarez turns to the causal origins of evil and,more specifically, to the role of the First Cause in the genesis of evil His discus-sion is subtle and complex, and so I will limit myself to just a few relevant

points Some natural evils are the per accidens or incidental by-products of the

'perfect' action of unimpeded and non-defective created (or secondary) agents

on non-defective patients, and as such they are traceable to God's immediateinfluence in the same way that they are traceable to the immediate influence oftheir proximate secondary causes By contrast, other natural evils find theirdirect source in a defect of power in the agents that cause them or in variousexternal impediments that keep their agents from 'perfectly' producing theeffects at which they are aiming Such evils are not causally traceable directly toGod, but they are traceable to him indirectly and in the final analysis, since thevarious defects from which they originate always have their ultimate source in

'perfect' actions of the sort just described (DM 11.3.23) What's more, both

nat-ural evils and evils of punishment are such that God, as an intelligent and ident agent, can directly intend them for the sake of some good, even if he

prov-cannot be a per se and immediate cause of them (DM 11.3.21) So on Suarez's

view there is in principle no metaphysical or moral problem with God's being acausal source in some way or other of natural evils and evils of punishment.Sinful actions, however, are a different story because they constitute a freeagent's rejection of God's unfailing love and impede the agent's union with Godand with other rational creatures As such, they have a special repugnance toGod's goodness and are directly contrary to what he intends Thus, even thoughGod might use our sins as instruments in bringing us to true humility and repen-tance, he cannot directly intend sin or be a causal source of sin or in any wayinduce us to sin

Suarez summarizes his discussion in this way:

Because of its depravity, the evil of sin cannot be intended or willed by God, but only permitted On the other hand, the other kinds of evil, wherever they come from, can be directly willed and intended by God, as long they do not include sin For they do not have a depravity that is incompatible with his great goodness And

so it is only the evil of sin that God cannot be a cause of, whereas he can be a cause

of the other kinds of evil (DM 11.3.24)

So as far as the causal origin of evil is concerned, the only daunting generalmetaphysical problem, according to Suarez, is to explain in a precise and per-suasive way how God makes an immediate causal contribution to each sinful actwithout its being the case that the moral defectiveness of such acts is causallytraceable to him in any way.

2 God's General Concurrence: The Basic Account

In order to grasp Suarez's solution to this problem, we must begin with his

account of God's general concurrence in Disputation 22 of the Disputationes

Metaphysicae By the end of Disputation 21, Suarez takes himself to have

established that every effect depends on God per se and immediately for its

con-servation One way to broach the topic of Disputation 22 is to ask whether

every effect likewise depends on God per se and immediately for its production When the production takes place directly through creation ex nihilo, the answer

is obviously affirmative But the more problematic case is production throughthe communication of an accidental or substantial form, since such production

is normally effected by the action of secondary causes

The question can be put in a slightly different way by asking whether God acts

per se and immediately in every action of a created or secondary cause To be

sure, God per se and immediately conserves created agents with their active

pow-ers at the very time when they are engaged in their productive activity But from

this it follows only 'that God's influence is required remotely andperaccidens for the action of any created cause' (DM 22.1.1) The question now being posed

is whether every action of a created agent is literally a single cooperative action with the First Agent, an action in which both God and the created agent are per

se and immediate causes of the very same effect at the very same time.

Suarez's affirmative reply to these two questions can be captured in five currentist' tenets that he shares in common with his Thomistic rivals Theseconstitute what I will call the 'basic account' of God's general concurrence

'con-The first tenet is that God is a per se and immediate cause of any effect

pro-duced by a created agent, while the second is that in producing such an effect,God and the created agent act by the very same cooperative action Given thesetwo tenets, it follows that in each case of secondary causality, a unitary effect isimmediately produced by God and the relevant secondary cause through a sin-gle cooperative action In other words, the effect is not divided into a partcaused by God and a part caused by the created agent; nor do they act by sepa-rate actions There is just a single effect produced by a single action, and thataction belongs to both God and the secondary cause

The third tenet is that even though there is just a single action, God andthe secondary agent act by different powers within diverse orders of causality.More specifically, the secondary agent acts by its created or natural powers

as a particular cause of the effect, whereas God acts by his uncreated power as

a general or universal cause of the effect (Hence the designation 'general

concurrence.')

This tenet requires careful unpacking Concurrentists are committed to theview that when God cooperates with a secondary agent to produce a giveneffect, God's immediate contribution and the secondary agent's immediatecontribution are complementary The problem is to formulate a satisfactorymetaphysical characterization of this complementarity that will not rendersuperfluous either the secondary cause's immediate contribution or God'simmediate contribution

The only viable way to do this is to claim that certain features or aspects ofthe unitary effect are traceable exclusively or primarily to God and that certainother features of the effect are traceable exclusively or primarily to the second-ary agents.1 Accordingly, the concurrentists claim that God acts as a universal

cause whose proper effect is being or esse as such, while the secondary cause

participates in God's universal agency by directing it toward its own propereffect, that is, toward a particular effect to which its intrinsic powers are ordered

in the relevant concrete circumstances This should not be understood to meanthat God's concurrence is exactly similar in every instance of secondary causal-ity or that it is, as it were, an 'indifferent' influence that is somehow 'particular-ized' by the secondary cause To the contrary, in each instance God's action andthe secondary cause's action are one and the same action, and so just as theactions of secondary causes are obviously multifarious in species, so too God'sconcurrence varies in species from one circumstance to another.2 Rather, thepoint of calling God a universal cause of the effects of secondary agents is, in

part, that any communication of esse by a secondary agent is a participation or sharing in God's own communication of esse as such, and that God's manner of

allowing for this participation is to tailor his proper causal influence in eachcase to what is demanded by the natures of the relevant secondary agents

An analogy might be useful here Suppose that I use my favourite pen towrite you a letter It seems clear that both the pen and I count as joint immediatecauses of a single effect, though in different 'orders of causality.' More specifi-cally, I am a principal cause of the letter, while the pen is an instrumentalcause.3 Yet the fact that the letter is written in black rather than in some othercolour depends primarily on the causal powers of the pen as an instrumentalcause rather than on any of my powers as a principal cause (Remember that weare concentrating on my action just insofar as it is identical with the pen's

action; my further reasons for choosing this particular pen do not enter intothat.) On the other hand, the fact that the word 'philosophy,' rather than someother word, occurs at a certain place on the piece of paper - or, even better, thefact that there is any word produced at that place rather than none at all -depends primarily on my influence as a principal cause rather than on the pen's

as an instrumental cause

Similarly, it seems reasonable to claim that one and the same effect is ily from God insofar as it is something rather than nothing, and primarily fromits secondary cause insofar as it is an effect of one particular type rather thananother For example, a newly conceived armadillo is from God insofar as it issomething rather than nothing, and from its parents insofar as it is an animal ofthe species armadillo rather than some other sort of effect.4 This formulationseems to capture both (a) the idea that a secondary cause's communication of

primar-esse presupposes God's contribution and (b) the idea that the particular type

of esse communicated in any instance of secondary causality stems from the

natures of the relevant secondary causes In summary, then, the effect is vided and yet such that both its universal or general cause and its particularcauses contribute to its production in distinctive and non-redundant modes

undi-By contrast, if God had acted by himself to create the baby armadillo ex

nihilo, then he would have been a particular cause of the new armadillo (see DM

22.4.9) As it stands, however, his cooperative influence is merely general oruniversal in the sense that he allows the active powers of the relevant secondaryagents to determine the specific nature of the very same effect that his owninfluence plays an essential role in producing In short, the manner of his con-curring is adapted in each case to the natures of the relevant secondary agentsand is different from the mode of acting he would have engaged in if he hadcaused the relevant effect by himself A secondary agent, on the other hand,

cannot act at all or communicate esse to any effect independently of God's

gen-eral concurrence, since its power, even if sufficient for the effect within theorder of secondary causes, needs God's concurrence in order to be exercised AsSuarez puts it, God's readiness to grant his concurrence to a created agent in aset of concrete circumstances is one of the prerequisites for that agent's acting

in those circumstances But an agent is 'proximately able' to act, or 'in

proxi-mate potency' for acting, only when all the prerequisites for its acting have

been posited in reality It follows that even though a created agent might have apower which is sufficient within its own order for a given effect, it is not proxi-mately able to produce the effect without God's readiness to grant his concur-rence for that very effect.5

Thus, in holding that God acts as both a universal and immediate cause of the

effects of secondary agents, the concurrentists delineate a mode of cooperative

action that defines a middle position between occasionalism, which in essence

holds that God is a particular cause of every effect produced in the world, and the position according to which God is only a remote - that is, non-immediate -

cause of the effects produced by secondary agents What's more, the distinctionbetween universal and particular causality gives concurrentists the resources toexplain how two agents, operating by different powers and in different orders ofcausality, can produce one and the same effect by a single cooperative action.The distinction between universal and particular causality also provides con-currentists with at least a foothold for the claim that the moral defectiveness of asinful action is traceable exclusively to the rational agent who is its secondarycause Revert for a moment to the example of the pen, and suppose that the term'philosophy' is barely visible because the pen is running out of ink This defect

is traceable to the pen as an instrumental cause and not to my influence as aprincipal cause In like manner, the fact that a sinful action exists at all is trace-able primarily to God, whereas the fact that it is morally defective is traceableexclusively to the rational agent (Indeed, Suarez himself takes it to be distinc-tive of rational agents that they are capable of being the sole originating source

of their own moral defects, whereas the defects of natural agents must always

be derived in the final analysis from the positive action of some other agent or

agents [see DM 11.3.23].) However, as noted, the distinction between universal

and particular causality provides only a foothold for the claim that God is not asource of the moral defectiveness of sinful actions For the basic account ofconcurrence needs to be fleshed out more precisely, and it remains to be seenwhether the other elements in a full account of God's general concurrence willthemselves cohere with this claim

The fourth tenet is that the secondary cause's contribution to the effect is ordinate to God's contribution Suarez explains this subordination as follows:

sub-If we draw a conceptual distinction between the action insofar as it is from the FirstCause and the action insofar as it is from the secondary cause, then the action can

be said to be from the First Cause in a prior and more principal way than from thesecondary cause; and, similarly, the First Cause will be said to have his influence

on the action prior in nature to the secondary cause's having its influence on it For,first of all, the First Cause is a higher cause and influences the effect in a morenoble and more independent way Second, the First Cause is related to the action

per se and primarily under a more universal concept, since the First Cause has an influence on every effect or action whatsoever precisely because every effect or

action has some share in being The secondary cause, on the other hand, always has

its influence under some posterior and more determinate concept of being (DM

22.3.10)

Later I will raise the issue of whether this account of subordination is strongenough as it stands, but all parties would agree to at least as much as Suarezasserts here.

The fifth and final tenet is that in any given case the cooperative action ofGod and the secondary cause with respect to a given effect is such that the influ-ence actually exercised by the one would not have existed or effected anything

at all in the absence of the influence exercised by the other This follows fromthe fact that a secondary cause is unable to effect anything without God's con-currence, taken together with the fact that in any given concrete situation God'sgeneral concurrence complements the particular concurrence of the secondarycause and hence does not overdetermine the effect

This, then, is the sort of divine cooperation with secondary causes that bothSuarez and his opponents are concerned to defend.6 I want to turn now to thedifferences between them that emerge from the attempt to fill out this basicaccount

3 The Thomistic Gambit

In section 2 of Disputation 22, Suarez tries to show, against unnamed 'later

Thomists' (DM 22.2.7), that God's general concurrence involves nothing other

than his actual influence on the secondary cause's action and effect More

spe-cifically, he argues at great length that God's general concurrence has no effectwithin the secondary agent itself that is in any way prior to the cooperativeaction by which that agent's own effect is produced; rather, God's concurrence

is just his contribution to that cooperative action, that is, to the cooperative duction of the joint effect In the words of the title of section 2, Suarez's claim isthat God's general concurrence is 'something in the manner of an action' andnot 'something in the manner of a principle of action.'

pro-But what is it to claim that God's concurrence involves 'something in themanner of a principle of action' ? And why do many Thomistic authors makethis claim?

To answer these questions, we should begin by noting that the theoriesopposed to Suarez's take their inspiration from a model that many scholasticthinkers associate with certain traditional axioms regarding the subordination offinite agents to God, namely, that of a craftsman using a tool in order to produce

an artifact - not unlike the example of the pen and the letter I used above toillustrate the difference between universal and particular causality The crafts-

man fashions the artifact through the tool as an instrument, and this in turn gests that the craftsman does something to the tool even while using it in the

sug-production of the effect In other words, the craftsman is not only engaging in a

cooperative or joint action with the tool, but is also unilaterally imparting to thetool a principle of action that is causally prior to that cooperative action.But what sort of 'principle of action' are we speaking of here? There are twopossible answers to this question, corresponding to the two theories that Suarezcriticizes in section 2.

According to the first answer, in using the tool the craftsman imparts to it a

power that 'completes' or 'perfects' its intrinsic power and makes the tool

prox-imately able to act on the relevant patient in such a way as to produce the fact So on this view the tool's intrinsic power is insufficient for the effect evenwithin its own order of causality - namely, instrumental causality - and so thatpower needs to be supplemented by a 'higher agent,' the craftsman Moreover,the power conferred by the craftsman is best thought of as temporary in thesense that it is not a type of power that could be had by the tool as an accidentalform or characteristic that endures beyond the temporal interval during whichthe craftsman is using it; that is, it is a type of power that the tool has when andonly when it is being moved by the higher agent in the cooperative action bywhich the artifact is produced

arti-According to the second answer, in contrast, the craftsman does not empower

the tool, but simply applies the tool's intrinsic power to the patient in such a

way as to produce their joint effect On this view, the tool's power is ently sufficient within the order of instrumental causality and does not needsupplementation Instead, the tool, with its pre-existent power, simply needs to

anteced-be moved or directed in the appropriate ways by a higher agent in order to anteced-beproximately able to participate in the production of the effect In technicalterms, this motion is variously called an 'application' or 'pre-motion' or 'pre-determination' which has the tool as its subject and is prior in some obvioussense - even if not temporally prior - to the cooperative action by which theartifact is produced

So the answer to the original question is this: The relevant principle of action

conferred on the tool by the craftsman is either a power or the application of a

power And it is the reception of this principle of action that constitutes the

tool's subordination to the craftsman during the time of their cooperative action.When we turn now to God's general concurrence with secondary causes, thismodel, articulated in one of the ways just explained, yields the standard inter-pretations of the following scholastic axioms: (a) 'A secondary cause does notact unless it is moved (or: pre-moved) by the First Cause'; (b) 'A secondarycause is applied to its action by the First Cause'; (c) 'A secondary cause is

determined (or: predetermined) to its effect by the First Cause'; (d) 'A

second-ary cause acts in the power of the First Cause'; and (e) 'A secondsecond-ary cause is

subordinated in its acting to the First Cause.' And it is precisely these standard

interpretations that give rise to the two theories of God's concurrence thatSuarez finds wanting.7

According to the first of these theories, by his concurrence God first pletes' the secondary cause's power and then proceeds to produce the effect incooperation with the secondary cause, where the completion of the power iscausally (rather than temporally) prior to the cooperative action Suarez givestwo descriptions which, taken together, capture the most plausible version ofthis theory:

'com-The concurrence is a certain entity that emanates from the First Cause and is received in the secondary cause, bringing the secondary cause to final completion [as an agent] and determining it to produce a given effect The reason why this con- currence is said to be something 'in the manner of principle' is that it is the second- ary cause's power to act or, at least, it formally brings that power to completion.

(DM 22.2.2)

The First Cause's concurrence is something in the manner of a principle and infused power The concurrence begins, as it were, with the conferral of this power and yet does not consist in this conferral [alone], but rather proceeds further right to the creature's very own action, with the result that what influences the action immediately is not only the power communicated to the secondary cause but

also the divine and uncreated power itself (DM 22.2.24)

Suarez begins his critique of this theory by insisting that the powers of ondary causes are usually complete or perfect within their own order of causal-ity just in virtue of God's having created and conserved them Hence, secondaryagents do not normally need a supplementary power of that same order - that is,

sec-a specisec-al power thsec-at is contemporsec-aneous with their sec-action To put it in technicsec-alterms, secondary agents are as a general rule 'perfectly constituted in first actwithin their own order' prior to the time when their power is exercised.Moreover, even if it is true that in some cases the power of a secondary causeneeds to be supplemented by God or some other higher agent at the very time ofthe action, this supplementation is naturally prior to God's general concurrenceand not apart of it:

It is true that God sometimes, at least supernaturally, makes up for a secondary cause's imperfection by supplementing its power to act; he does this especially in our own case when he infuses the supernatural habits But this falls outside of our present topic, since such an infusion of power has to do not with the First Cause's concurrence, but rather with the secondary cause's being elevated or perfected

through the First Cause's action Accordingly, if we are speaking of a secondary cause that has been perfectly constituted in first act within its own order, then it is

pointless to add to it some other principle of acting that is received within it (DM

22.2.4)

In other words, God's general concurrence always presupposes that the ondary cause's power is complete and sufficient within its own order of causal-ity, regardless of how or when this completion is accomplished It is only whenthe secondary cause proceeds from 'first act' into 'second act' - that is, only

sec-when it proceeds from already having sufficient power to actually exercising

that power - that God's concurrence comes into play

And in reply to the objection - again inspired by the model of the craftsmanand the tool - that the power conferred by God on the secondary cause is indeedpart of his general concurrence because that power is an instrument throughwhich he himself acts, Suarez asks whether or not God's contribution to theeffect is exhausted by his producing this 'instrumental' power within the sec-ondary cause If the answer is yes, then God is merely a remote cause of thesecondary agent's effect, since the only power by which he acts is a createdpower that inheres, even if only briefly, in the secondary cause On the otherhand, if God's contribution to the joint effect is not exhausted by the production

of this alleged instrumental power, but includes as well an independent andimmediate exercise of his own uncreated power, then any instrumental power iswholly superfluous:

If in addition to the influence of this instrumental power, God is also said to influence the secondary cause's action immediately by his own uncreated power,

then it is at once evident per se how pointless the alleged instrumental power that

remains on God's part would be For the divine power is intimately present there through itself And by its own eminence this power is sufficient to have, and pro-

portioned for having, a per se influence on the action; indeed, it must necessarily

have such an influence in order for the creature to be able to effect any action soever Therefore, an instrumental power of the sort in question on God's part is unnecessary; therefore, such a power is wholly irrelevant to the First Cause's con-

what-currence, which is necessary per se and pertains to the secondary cause's essential subordination to the First Cause (DM 22.2.6)

At this juncture, the objector might concede Suarez's point but insist thateven if God does not confer any power on the secondary cause, he must at least

apply or pre-move or predetermine that cause, with its own intrinsic power, in

order to make it proximately capable of producing the joint effect For surely,

the argument goes, the secondary cause's essential subordination to God can be

preserved only if God is thought of as acting on and through it.

This brings us to the second and more sophisticated theory, which sponds to the second opinion about the craftsman's relation to the tool Suarezcharacterizes this theory as follows in two different places:

corre-The second position is that the First Cause's concurrence is something in the ner of a principle within the secondary cause itself and is ordered toward its action,

man-though not as a per se principle of that action [that is, a power], but only as a

neces-sary condition for acting This seems to be the position of all those who claim that God's concurrence occupies itself with the secondary cause prior to the latter's

action, by applying or determining it to that action (DM 22.2.7)

The First Cause's concurrence begins (as I will put it) with the motion or

appli-cation of the secondary cause, but is consummated in the immediate and per se causing of the very effect or action of the secondary cause itself (DM 22.2.14)

So on this theory God's concurrence does not produce a power within thesecondary cause, but instead produces a motion by which God applies the sec-ondary cause to its action Still, this application or pre-motion must be 'at least

causally prior' to the secondary cause's action (DM 22.2.7) For even though

the application is temporally simultaneous with the action by which God andthe secondary cause cooperate in the production of the latter's effect, it has thesecondary cause itself as its subject and hence cannot be identical with thecooperative action This is why Suarez calls the application a 'necessary condi-tion' for the cooperative action

Each of the arguments for the second theory invokes one of the scholasticaxioms noted above, and the model of the craftsman and the tool looms promi-nently in the background throughout Like the tool, the secondary cause must bepre-moved or applied to its action; that is, it must be directed or determined bythe art and power of the divine craftsman to produce the effect that its ownintrinsic power is proportioned to And just as the tool acts in the power of thecraftsman, so too the secondary cause acts in the power of the First Cause.Again, just as the tool is elevated by the craftsman's application so that it canparticipate in producing the craftsman's proper effect - namely, the artifact - sotoo the secondary cause is elevated by the First Cause's application so that it can

participate in producing God's proper effect - namely, esse Or so, at least,

argue the proponents of the second theory

Suarez, however, is not impressed with these arguments and goes so far as tocall the alleged application (or pre-motion or predetermination) 'neither neces-

sary nor fully intelligible' (DM 22.2.14) He argues in effect that while the

model of the craftsman and the tool might help us to appreciate certain generalfeatures of God's general concurrence, it is badly misleading in the details.First of all, the craftsman's application of a tool typically aims at putting thetool into the appropriate spatial relations with the patient By contrast, God'sgeneral concurrence already presupposes that the secondary agent is suitablyproximate to its patient For this proximity is one of the prerequisites for thesecondary agent's action, and God's general concurrence presupposes that allthe necessary conditions for acting are already satisfied

Again, the craftsman's application of the tool has as its direct formal nus or effect a series of spatial locations that belong to the tool as accidentalforms By contrast, there is no plausible analogue for such an effect in the case

termi-of God's putative application termi-of the secondary cause:

If [the application] is an instance of real efficient causality, then it will be a real movement or change belonging to the secondary cause What terminus, then, does

it have? Not a spatial terminus or a terminus in any category other than quality, as seems per se evident But neither can the terminus be a quality For if this quality is

bestowed as a power of acting the arguments made above [against the first tion] will be brought to bear again On the other hand, if the quality is not bestowed

posi-in order to effect anythposi-ing, then it has nothposi-ing to do with actposi-ing, and there is no possible reason why it should be called a necessary condition You will object that

it is necessary for conjoining the secondary agent to the First Agent in the way that

an instrument is conjoined to the principal cause But this and similar claims, which can be expressed in words, cannot be explained in terms of realities For the conjoining in question is neither a real union nor a more intimate presence, but only some new effect, the role of and need for which in the secondary cause's action is

what we are scrutinizing (DM 22.2.23)

So unlike the craftsman's application of the tool, God's alleged application ofthe secondary cause has no obviously relevant effect within the secondarycause Suarez's conclusion is that God's concurrence does not, after all, involve

an 'application' of the secondary cause in any non-metaphorical sense

Again, whereas the tool's acting in the power of the craftsman is perhapsidentifiable with the craftsman's application of it, a secondary cause's acting 'inthe power of God' is nothing more than its acting 'through a power that partici-pates in a higher power and with a dependence in [its] action on the actual

influence of that power' (DM 22.2.51) But this is compatible with the claim that by his concurrence God acts with the secondary cause rather than, literally,

on or through it.

The model of the craftsman and the tool is especially troublesome when applied to the free actions of rational creatures According to Suarez, an agent is free just in case, with all the prerequisites for acting having been posited, that

agent is (a) able to act - that is, to will - and also able not to act (freedom with

respect to exercise); and (b) able to will an object and also able to will some

contrary object (freedom with respect to specification) 8 His charge in the present context is that because the pre-motions or predeterminations posited by his opponents are causally prior to the secondary cause's action and ordered toward a single effect - in this instance, a single act of the rational agent's will - they are destructive of both freedom with respect to exercise and freedom with respect to specification:

The condition called a 'predetermination' is not only unnecessary for a free cause

in light of its peculiar mode of acting, but is also for that very reason incompatible

with it if it is going to act freely with respect to both exercise and specification For the use of freedom would be impeded on both these counts by such a predetermina- tion This claim is explained, first, for the case of indifference with respect to the

specification of the act: Since the First Cause alone is said to effect the

predetermi-nation in question, the will is merely in passive potency with respect to it; hence, the will is not free with respect to it, but is instead passively or negatively indiffer- ent, in the way that matter is indifferent with respect to various forms For, as we showed above, there is no freedom in a passive faculty as such Therefore, it is not within the will's active and free power to receive this or that determination; there- fore, since it is determined to only one act, it is able to effect that act and no other (DM2.2.35) 9

Indifference with respect to the exercise of the act is likewise destroyed For, as has

been explained, if the sort of predetermination in question is necessary, then before

it is received, the will does not have it within its active and free power to exercise the relevant act, since it is not yet a proximate principle - that is, a principle that is complete and accompanied by all the prerequisites for acting It is not yet even a remote active power (as I will put it), since it does not have it within its power to do anything to acquire the condition or predetermination in question Instead, it is merely in passive potency with respect to that condition - which is not sufficient for freedom Again, once the condition called a 'predetermination' is posited in the will, it is impossible for the will not to exercise the act, and it cannot resist the determination or its motion; therefore, at no time does the will have both the power

to exercise the act and also the power not to exercise the act; therefore, its

indiffer-ence with respect to exercise, which consists in this power, is destroyed (DM

22.2.37)

8

As we shall see below, the rejection of predeterminations does not by itselfguarantee freedom as Suarez defines it But the affirmation of predetermina-tions does seem to destroy freedom so defined, since, according to Suarez'sopponents, the predeterminations are themselves necessary prerequisites for asecondary cause's acting in any way at all But if that is so, then Suarez's argu-ments seem to be right on the mark First of all, the pre-motion or predetermina-tion is always ordered toward the exercise of the relevant power, in this case thefaculty of the will It seems to follow that if the predetermination is in place,then the rational agent is unable to refrain from acting - which undermines free-dom with respect to exercise Second, any predetermination is ordered toward

a particular species of effect And here it seems to follow that the agent not will any object other than the one toward which the predetermination isordered - which undermines freedom with respect to specification

can-The problem is, needless to say, exacerbated in the case of sinful actions:

If [the will] receives a determination to will an evil object, why should it be imputed to it that it does not receive a determination to will against that object? For this cannot be imputed to it because of some prior act, both because it is possible for there not to have been any prior act, and also because the prior act could not have been effected without some other predetermination, with regard to which the same problem arises again; nor, again, can it be imputed to the will because of the absence of some act, both because (a) the predetermination to that act is likewise not within the will's power and so neither can the absence of the act be imputed to

it, since without exception the primary root of the will's not operating, even when all the other prerequisites have been posited, is that it does not receive the predeter- mination in question - for if it did receive it, it would operate - and also because (b) it is not always the case that a positive evil act is preceded by the absence of some required prior act; rather, [in some cases] the one act is omitted at the very

same time the other is being chosen (DM 22.2.36)

The Thomists posit predeterminations in part to sustain the doctrine that God

is the principal originating source of being and goodness, including moralgoodness Suarez is charging in effect that their theory has the unintended con-sequence of making God the primary source of moral defectiveness as well and

of obliterating the distinction between God's merely permitting sin and hisbeing a cause of the defectiveness of sin What's more, given the doctrine ofpredeterminations, it is futile to invoke the distinction between universal andparticular causality and to claim that only the material element of a sinful act -namely, its being as a quality of the mind - is primarily from God, whereasits formal element - namely, its moral defectiveness - is exclusively from the

secondary cause For to predetermine just this act in just these circumstancesinvolves willing the act by an absolute volition As Suarez puts it in a relatedcontext:

The [formal] element follows from the [material], since the created will's free act

with respect to this object in these circumstances cannot exist without having the

badness that is concomitant with it Therefore, if someone wills by an absolute

volition that such an act be elicited by a created will with respect to this object in

these circumstances - and especially if he wills this in such a way that he carries

the created will along with him into the exercise of that act - then it is clear that (i) he morally or virtually wills the badness that is necessarily conjoined with the

act and that (ii) he is a source and cause of that badness (DM 22.4.19)

The distinction between universal and particular is metaphysically useful in thecase of sinful actions only if one's full-blown account of God's concurrencewith sinful acts absolves God of predetermining the sinful act with which heconcurs or of willing it 'absolutely' in some other way Otherwise, it will renderGod guilty of 'carrying the created will along with him into the exercise of theact.' Or so, at least, claims Suarez

Needless to say, the Thomists have standard replies to arguments of this sort,including an alternative account of what freedom consists in According to this

account, free acts cannot be predetermined by any temporally antecedent causal activity but are compatible with God's contemporaneous predeterminations,

which are coordinated by divine providence with the rational agent's own

inten-tions and choices Hence, it is not the case that an act is free only if all the

pre-requisites for action are compatible with its not being exercised or compatiblewith some other contrary act of will being exercised; rather, an act is free only if

all the prerequisites for action other than God's contemporaneous

predetermi-nations are compatible with its not being exercised or with some other contrary

act of will being exercised.10 What's more, the Thomists contend, it is still therational agent's own intentions and choices that serve as the root of moral defec-tiveness, despite God's predeterminations

Here, as earlier in Disputation 19, Suarez tries to show that the Thomisticreplies to his arguments are unsatisfactory However, I will not pursue the disputeover predeterminations and the nature of free agency any further here, except tonote that it cannot be understood in isolation from the whole nest of interrelatedissues involving providence, predestination, foreknowledge, and grace that setDominican and Jesuit thinkers at odds with one another in the last half of the six-teenth century.'' In any case, Suarez has his own distinctive way of dealing withfree actions in general and sinful actions in particular, and to this I now turn

4 God's Concurrence and Free Action According to Suarez

Broadly speaking, Suarez's account of God's general concurrence runs parallel

to the account published by Luis de Molina a few years before the appearance

of the Disputationes Metaphysicae.12 However, with respect to free acts of willSuarez's account represents a genuine advance in precision and detail

Suarez begins section 4 of Disputation 22 by explaining how God concurswith secondary agents that act naturally, or by a necessity of nature, rather thanfreely.13 These natural agents are necessarily such that they act in a given set ofcircumstances to produce a given effect when and only when all the prerequi-sites for their acting are satisfied in those circumstances These prerequisitesinclude both (a) 'internal' conditions such as the potential agent's possession

of enough power within its own order of causality to produce the effect and(b) 'external' conditions such as the receptivity of the patient, its proximity tothe agent, the absence of impediments, and, as we have seen, God's concur-rence in first act - that is, God's offer of, or readiness to grant, his concurrencefor the action.14

Given that God always accommodates his concurrence to the nature andrequirements of created causes, the manner in which he concurs with naturallyacting causes is straightforward In each case, he simply gives the relevant sec-ondary agent the sort of concurrence that it requires in order to produce the type

of effect to which its nature is determined in the relevant circumstances Andalthough God does this freely, he also does it, says Suarez, 'in the manner of a

nature' - that is, he does it as a matter of course (DM 22.4.3) For having willed

to create and conserve naturally acting causes as part of his providentialplan, God freely adopted from eternity a general policy of granting them theconcurrence which is 'owed' to them by a 'debt of connaturality' - that is,

a concurrence that satisfies the requirements of the natures with which God

has endowed them (DM 22.4.3).

To be sure, this general policy admits of exceptions, as when God worksmiracles by simply withholding his concurrence (as well as the offer of con-currence) from secondary agents (This is the way in which the scholasticsgenerally interpret the miracle of the fiery furnace in Daniel 3, to cite just oneexample.) But in addition to the general policy, God's providential plan includeshis willing 'efficaciously,' in each particular case of natural secondary causality,

to concur with this particular natural agent in these particular circumstances for

this particular action in order to produce this particular effect:

Just as God decided from eternity to produce these particular [naturally acting] ties and not others, and to produce them at this particular time and in this particular

enti-order and with these particular motions, etc., and not in any other way, so too he also decided to concur with these same entities in their actions according to their capac- ity And just as God has an absolutely distinct and particular knowledge of all things,

so too his will decides all things distinctly and in particular, and it extends to each individual thing according to its capacity and need; therefore, in giving his concur- rence, he decided from eternity to concur with this cause, in this place, and with respect to this subject for this individual action and effect in particular, and to concur

at another time for another action, and so on for all actions (DM 22.4.6)

Moreover, because natural agents act from what we might call 'deterministicnatural tendencies,' their actions occur by a necessity of nature.15 For this rea-son, God wills 'in an absolute and determinate way' to concur with both the

exercise of their power and the species of action to which that power is uniquely

determined in the relevant circumstances (DM 22.4.5) That is, each action of a

natural agent is such that God (a) wills it unconditionally and (b) offers for itonly a concurrence that corresponds to the agent's deterministic natural ten-

dency in the circumstances Thus, it is a necessary truth that God offers his

concurrence to a natural agent for a particular action and effect if and only if the

agent actually produces that very effect by that very action In technical terms,

God's concurrence with a natural agent exists in first act only if it exists in ond act as well

sec-Suarez argues, however, that if God offered his concurrence in this very sameway to agents capable of free action, their freedom would be destroyed withrespect to both exercise and specification, even in the absence of the sort of pre-motions or predeterminations posited by his opponents For if God offered hisconcurrence to a free agent for just a single act of will in a given set of circum-stances, and if he willed 'in an absolute and determinate way' the one act forwhich that concurrence were offered in those circumstances, then the agent inquestion would, first of all, have to elicit an act of will, and so would not be free

with respect to exercise:

In order for two free causes to concur per se and in a fixed order with respect to a

single action, the antecedent intention or volition of just one of them is not cient unless it has enough power over the other cause to carry it along wherever it pleases Therefore, if, in the case of the concurrence under discussion, the only thing that precedes it is the divine act of will by which God efficaciously wills to concur with the secondary cause for a given effect, then in order for that effect to

suffi-follow per se, this act of God's will must have enough power over the free

second-ary cause to carry it along with it into action And so the free cause's indifference in

the exercise of the action is destroyed (DM 22.4.10)16

Second, since God would be granting his concurrence for just one act of will,the secondary agent would have to elicit just that act of will for which God was

offering his concurrence, and so would not be free with respect to specification.

Suarez notes that there have been two principal ways of dealing with thisproblem within the Catholic intellectual tradition Some authors, accepting asingle account of divine concurrence for both natural and free causes, haveclaimed that the freedom of rational agents is preserved by the mere fact thatGod gives his concurrence freely Suarez rejects this reply outright, contendingthat the cooperative action in which God concurs can be free with respect toGod and yet not free with respect to the relevant created cause As we sawabove, this is exactly how things stand with regard to the actions of naturalagents; God freely concurs with such actions, and yet they occur by a necessity

of nature So this way of responding to the problem fails to preserve creaturelyfreedom

A second ploy is simply to claim that in giving his concurrence God wills not

only the action but the mode or modality of the action, so that in the case of free agents he wills that their acts be elicited freely Suarez agrees with this senti-

ment, but argues that it is not sufficient by itself The metaphysician must give acoherent account of just how it is possible for God to concur causally with anact that is elicited freely, that is, an account of just how it is possible for a ratio-nal agent's free act to be God's act as well:

This teaching, thus taken in a general way, is absolutely certain; yet it is also tain that when God wills something to happen in a certain determinate mode, it per- tains to his wisdom and efficacy to apply causes that are suited to that mode of acting For he would be at odds with himself if he willed something to happen in a given mode and then in some other way impeded or removed the causes for that mode of operating Accordingly, what we are asking in the present context is this: When God wills that a secondary cause act freely and with indifference, how is he able to make his concurrence determinate without this involving a contradiction? Thus, it is not enough to claim that the two things blend together in the efficacy and agreeableness of divine providence Rather, one must either explain how it is that there is no contradiction between them - which the present reply does not do - or else look for some other mode in which God can move the creature 'efficaciously

cer-and agreeably' in such a way that it acts cer-and acts freely (DM 22.4.13)

Having completed his brief survey of other views, Suarez proposes his owningenious alternative Stated simply it is this: When God offers his concurrencefor a particular free act of will A, he, first of all, makes this offer conditionally

on the free agent's cooperation, so that even with the offer of concurrence in

place, the agent is still able not to elicit A; and, second, he simultaneously offershis concurrence with respect to at least one other particular act A* that is con-trary to A, so that even with the offer of concurrence for A in place, the agent isstill able to elicit A* instead The first point preserves freedom with respect toexercise, while the second preserves freedom with respect to specification Iwill now elaborate on each in turn.

When God offers his concurrence for a particular free act of will that lieswithin the power of a rational agent, he does not will that act in the 'absoluteand determinate way' in which he wills the actions of secondary causes that act

by a necessity of nature Rather, as far as his own causal contribution is cerned, he wills a free act only conditionally:

con-God does not, through the act of will by which he decides to give his concurrence

to a free cause, decide altogether absolutely that the free cause will exercise the act

in question; nor does he will absolutely that the act exist Instead, with a sort of implicit condition he wills the existence of the act to the extent that the act pro- ceeds from him and from that concurrence of his which he has decided to offer And by virtue of that volition he applies his power to the act in question, but on the condition that the secondary cause - that is, the created will - should likewise determine itself to that action and issue forth into it For by its freedom the will is

always able not to issue forth into the act (DM 22.4.14)

So in the case of a free act, God's offer of concurrence does not - as it doeswith acts that occur by a necessity of nature - automatically result in the coop-erative action; in technical terms, the concurrence can exist in first act even if itnever exists in second act, that is, even if the act of will for which it is offered isnever exercised Still, because God's readiness to give his concurrence com-

pletes the prerequisites for a free act of will, the agent is in the strict sense

prox-imately able to elicit the act even if, as it may turn out, the act is never elicited.

Hence, Suarez's definition of freedom with respect to exercise is satisfied, sincethe agent is able to refrain from eliciting the act even though all the prerequi-sites for action - including the concurrence in first act - have been satisfied.This, he contends, is the way in which God's concurrence is accommodated torational agents as far as the free exercise of their acts is concerned

What's more, Suarez argues that only this mode of concurring with free actscan preserve the truth that even though God is a cooperating cause in acts thatare sinful, he is not a cause or source of the defectiveness of such acts Like anyother effect of a secondary cause, a sinful act cannot occur without God's gen-eral concurrence Indeed, in order for God to have creatures who can freely lovehim in this life, he must offer his cooperation with respect to acts that are sinful;

otherwise, created rational agents would never be proximately able to turn awayfrom him Nevertheless, God's offer of concurrence for such acts does notimply that he intends them or approves of them or in any way induces free crea-tures to elicit them In technical terms, the fact that he offers his concurrence for

a sinful act does not itself entail that if the act is in fact elicited, God wills it byhis 'providence of approval' (providentia approbationis)', rather, in offering hisconcurrence he wills such an act only conditionally and, if it is elicited, it falls

only under his 'providence of permission' (providentia concessionis) So God's

permission of a sinful act consists precisely in (a) his willing it only ally, (b) his offering his general concurrence with respect to it in the manner justexplained, and (c) his doing nothing positive to induce the agent to elicit it.Suarez stipulates that God's conditional willing applies only to the offer ofconcurrence, because it is important to keep in mind that God's general concur-

condition-rence is not his only contribution to free acts (see DM 22.4.30) Out of love, he

almost always prompts us antecedently toward good acts by various means, bothnatural and supernatural, even though he allows us to reject this assistance and,

as it were, to abuse his general concurrence According to Suarez, it is preciselythe fact that this sort of special divine assistance - over and beyond general con-currence - is offered prior to every good act of will that preserves the thesis, sodear to his opponents, that God is the originating source of all moral goodnessand that he antecedently intends the good even while permitting the sinful

In summary, then, any free act of will for which God offers his general currence is such that the secondary agent is proximately able to refrain fromeliciting it And Suarez is able to give a coherent metaphysical account of howthis is possible

con-Let us turn briefly to freedom with respect to specification When God offershis concurrence to a free agent, he offers it for two or more distinct acts that arecontrary to one another:

God offers concurrence to each secondary cause in a mode accommodated to itsnature; but the nature of a free cause is such that, after all the other conditionsrequired for acting have been posited, it is indifferent with respect to more than oneact; therefore, it must also receive the concurrence in first act in an indifferentmode; therefore, it must be the case that, from the side of God, the concurrence isoffered to a free cause not just with respect to one act but with respect to more thanone act If this were not so, then the created will would never be proximatelycapable of effecting more than one act; therefore, it would never be free with

respect to the specification of the act (DM 22.4.21)

In keeping with what was said above, a free agent is proximately able not to

elicit any of the acts of will for which God offers his concurrence in a given set

of circumstances The further point that Suarez makes here is that in any suchset of circumstances, God offers a free agent numerically and specifically dis-tinct concurrences for numerically and specifically distinct acts of will, so thatthe agent is proximately able to will any one of those acts This preserves free-dom with respect to specification

Once again, then, the way in which God offers his concurrence to a free agent

is accommodated to the secondary cause's mode of acting And what was saidabout sinful acts in the discussion of freedom with respect to exercise applies,

mutatis mutandis, to freedom with respect to specification In particular, given

that one or more of the acts for which God offers his concurrence on a givenoccasion is sinful, it follows that if any one of those acts is actually elicited,

God can plausibly be said to permit that act rather than to induce it or to be a

source of its moral defectiveness

This, then, is the way in which Suarez understands Saint Thomas's claim thatwhile an act that is sinful is from God, God is not a cause of sin.17 To revert tothe manner of speaking introduced above, the fact that a sinful act is somethingrather than nothing is traced back primarily to God as a universal cause, but thefact that it is morally defective rather than morally upright is traced backentirely to its secondary agent as a particular cause And, according to Suarez, it

is only his own full-blown account of God's concurrence with sinful acts thatsucceeds in fleshing out this claim in a metaphysically adequate way

5 Conclusion: Subordination and Middle Knowledge

One lingering question is whether Suarez's account of God's concurrence withfree acts preserves the claim that in such acts the rational agent's causality is sub-ordinate to God's causality Suarez, of course, claims that it does But recall thathis own explanation of subordination limits it to God's acting 'in a more nobleand more independent way under a more universal concept.' Is this strongenough? Isn't it rather the case that on Suarez's view God's concurrence is sub-ordinated to the rational agent's influence, since it is ultimately up to the rationalagent (a) whether or not God actually concurs with an act and (b) just which act

he concurs with? To be sure, God freely and independently offers his occurrence,but it seems to depend wholly on the rational agent whether or not that offer isaccepted Suarez's opponents will point out that this is precisely one of the resultsthat their pre-motions or predeterminations were designed to prevent

But Suarez does not lack the resources for an interesting reply First of all, hewill insist that the dignity of rational agents lies, at least in part, in their ability

to be self-determiners - though always, of course, with God's concurrence So it