Autor: Stebbins, J. Michael

Buch: The Divine Initiative

Titel: The Divine Initiative

Stichwort: Wirkursache - Wirkung -> absolut - relativ, vorausgehend - nachfolgend, früher - gleichzeitig, innere - äußere; Banez, Molina

Kurzinhalt: efficacy -> absolut - relative, antecedent - consequent; previous - simultaneous, intrinsic - extrinsic

Textausschnitt: 1 Divine Efficacy and the Possibility of Contingence

1.1 The Meaning of 'Efficacy'

4/8 Efficacy is a quality predicated of an efficient cause. Specifically, it is the quality of indefectibility: an efficacious efficient cause is one that cannot fail to produce its effect, so that in De ente supernaturali 'indefectibility,' 'irresistibility,' and 'efficacy' are treated as synonyms (DES:108). The production of an effect by an efficacious cause, therefore, involves some kind of necessity. (254; Fs)

5/8 Lonergan employs a series of four disjunctions to express different reasons that can be given for affirming that a given efficient cause is efficacious. First, the efficacy of an efficient cause is either absolute or relative (DES:110). It is absolute if it 'gives rise to metaphysical certitude' -that is, if the cause is efficacious under any and all conditions. Efficacy is relative, on the other hand, if it generates only physical or moral certitude.

6/8 Second, efficacy is antecedent if it 'pertains to the cause antecedently to the occurrence of the effect' (DES:109). This antecedence is not temporal; it implies only that the necessity of the effect's occurrence is due to, or can be deduced from, the perfection of the cause itself (DES:123). By contrast, consequent efficacy consequent efficacy 'pertains to the cause only because de facto the effect occurs' (DES:109). Consequent efficacy, like relative, qualifies as efficacy only in an improper sense. That is to say, the mere occurrence of an effect is not enough to establish the efficacy of the cause; if efficacy, indefectibility, irresistibility is to mean anything at all, then it must somehow be grounded in the actuality of the cause rather than in the actuality of the effect and in this sense be antecedent - in the logical or causal order - to the effect's occurrence. (255; Fs)

Third, efficacy is either previous or simultaneous. Lonergan's definition of these terms is a bit surprising because it makes no explicit reference to temporal relations: efficacy is previous if it 'is adequately distinguished from the fact that the effect occurs'; it is simultaneous if it 'is not adequately distinguished from the fact that the effect occurs' (DES:110).

9/8 These four sets of terms can be used to mark off the differences between the Bannezians and the Molinists on the question of the efficacy of divine concourse (DES:111). Both schools agree that divine concourse is efficacious. According to the Bannezians, 'God either does or does not give a physical premotion; if he does, the effect certainly occurs; if he does not, the effect cannot occur.' In the Molinist system, 'God either does or does not concur; if he does, the effect certainly occurs; if he does not, the effect certainly does not occur.' Moreover, both sides agree that the efficacy of divine concourse is absolute (for it is unconditioned) and antecedent (for it is grounded in God's perfection). (255; Fs)

10/8 Where they diverge is on the matter of the two remaining distinctions (DES:110). In the Bannezian system, the efficacy of divine concourse is previous: it pertains to the physical premotion, and the premotion is an entity that is really distinct from the effect that it causes. But the Molinists classify the efficacy of divine concourse as simultaneous, since it is not adequately distinct from the occurrence of the effect in whose production God cooperates. (One might expect the Molinists themselves to say instead that divine efficacy is simultaneous because God and the created cause operate at the same moment in time to produce a given effect.) (255f; Fs) (notabene)

11/8 Again, for the Bannezians the efficacy of efficacious grace is intrinsic, because the physical premotions by which God moves finite potencies are entities that by their very nature exert an irresistible influence. For the Molinists, on the other hand, the efficacy of divine concourse is extrinsic. It is grounded not in grace as such but rather in the divine scientia media, by which God knows, for example, that a grace given to a particular person in a particular set of circumstances would unfailingly result in the person's making a particular choice; and in the divine will, by which God chooses actually to bring about these circumstances and to bestow this grace. (256; Fs) (notabene)