Autor: Stebbins, J. Michael

Buch: The Divine Initiative

Titel: The Divine Initiative

Stichwort: Wirkursache als Zustrom; A -> B -> C: verschiedene Möglichkeiten

Kurzinhalt: Efficient Causality as Influx; the first alternative analyses the causal series, A causes B and B causes C, in a manner reminiscent of Durandus

Textausschnitt: 32/7 The first alternative analyses the causal series, A causes B and B causes C, in a manner reminiscent of Durandus: (222; Fs)

[O]ne may say that in such a causal series there are two and only two instances of influx and so two and only two real instances of efficient causality: from A to B, and from B to C; but there is no third influx from A to C; accordingly, mediate causality is not a true species of causality but merely a name for the combination of two other instances.
33/7 This position, then, amounts to a refutation of the possibility of mediate causality, for C receives but one influx, and that from the cause most proximate to it, B. It is the sort of model that, if used as an analogy for understanding divine concourse, leads to the position that 'God causes the creature, the creature produces its effect, but God does not exercise any other causality than that by which he produces the creature' (DES:101). If this is the only way in which God and finite causes can contribute jointly to the production of an effect, then 'cooperation' and 'concourse' are misnomers. (222; Fs)

34/7 There is another way of conceiving the matter:
[O]ne may say that in the causal series there are, at least at times, three instances of influx and so three instances of efficient causality: not only from A to B, and from B to C, but also a third from A to C; simultaneously both A and B exert an influx to produce C. Now while this makes A the efficient cause of C not only in name but also in reality, it does so by making A the immediate cause of C; mediate causality is not saved.
35/7 Lonergan identifies this understanding of mediate causality as similar to Molina's. As applied to divine concourse, it identifies the influx from A to B with God's creation of the creature, the influx from B to C with the creature's production of its act or effect, and the third influx, from A to C, with simultaneous divine concourse. Lonergan indicates, however, that while this approach attempts to explain how God is the cause of the created effect, it does so without any appeal to mediate causality. Hence, God's efficient causality with respect to the effect produced by the creature must be immediate. In other words, this model shares with the previous one the view that C can receive an influx only from an immediately proximate cause; there is apparently no possibility of an influx reaching C through the mediation of B. (223; Fs) (notabene)

36/7 Furthermore, it is by no means evident that the Molinists' analogy for divine concourse is an appropriate one (DES:183; cf. GO: 158). The notion of simultaneous efficient causality is intelligible enough when applied to the production of material and quantitative effects, as in Molina's example of the two men who together pull a barge. In such a case, 'the total effect is nothing other than the vectorial addition of its parts'; but what is one to make of a 'spiritual vectorial addition by which man produces an act as vital and God produces the same act as supernatural' (DES: 183)? Lonergan is speaking here of supernatural divine concourse, but it seems to me that the same question can be posed with respect to natural divine concourse, where the creature produces the act's vitality and other qualities, and God produces the act's esse. Lonergan does not find the idea of a 'spiritual vectorial addition' to be either intelligible in itself or demonstrable from some other source. Since, then, the applicability of the analogy is gratuitously asserted, it may just as gratuitously be denied. This result exposes the theoretical flimsiness of the notion of simultaneous concourse: it simply does not explain how God operates in all created operations. (223; Fs)

37/7 Finally, a third alternative, which Lonergan likens to the position of Banez, can be proposed. Again, there are three influxes rather than two: (223; Fs)

[O] ne may say that there is a real difference between B as effect of A and B as cause of C, and this real difference is what explains the reality of mediate efficient causality; first, an influx from A gives B' [B as effect of A]; secondly, an influx from A gives B" [B as cause of C]; thirdly, an influx from B" gives C..

38/7 According to this model, each influx can be conceived as an instance of the efficient causality by which God produces a physical premotion in the creature. The first influx gives the creature its active potency {B'), and the second causes it to produce (B") its act or effect. Unlike the previous two models, therefore, this one at least succeeds in assigning a more-than-nominal meaning to mediate efficient causality: it is A's causing of B's causing. (223; Fs)