Autor: Stebbins, J. Michael

Buch: The Divine Initiative

Titel: The Divine Initiative

Stichwort: Theorem der göttlichen Transzendenz; Notwendigkeit: absolut, hypothetisch; Thomas, Aristoteles: Kontingenz - Vorsehung; transzendente Wirkursache

Kurzinhalt: ... possible to show that God's effects need not occur with more than hypothetical necessity; because God is universal cause, His providence must be certain; but because He is a transcendent cause, ...

Textausschnitt: 1.2.2 The Theorem of Divine Transcendence

22/8 To say that God acts transcendently is not somehow to water down the efficacy of divine causality or to beg the question about the relation of divine concourse to human freedom, but rather to affirm that the necessity implied by that efficacy must be compatible with the occurrence of contingent effects (GO:332). Lonergan shows that this is not a nonsensical requirement by drawing a distinction between absolute and hypothetical necessity.1 (259; Fs)

23/8 Absolute necessity 'is affirmed unconditionally,' as exemplified in statements such as 'It is necessary that God exists' and 'It is necessary that twice two is four.' No 'ifs' are posited: the truth of these propositions holds under any and all conditions. But hypothetical necessity 'is affirmed conditionally in such a way that the consequent is included in the antecedent' (DES:120). Lonergan gives two examples: 'It is necessary that Socrates is sitting if he is sitting,' and 'It is necessary that I am choosing this if I am choosing this.' Does this kind of necessity mean that Socrates could not have avoided sitting or that my choosing was necessitated? No; it means that if Socrates is sitting, then ipso facto he is necessarily sitting and not standing or running, and that if I am making this choice, then ipso facto I am necessarily making this one and not some other. Hypothetical necessity follows simply from the application of the principle of non-contradiction to any given situation: 'If A, then A: granted the protasis, the apodosis follows necessarily' (GF: 104-105; cf. DSAVD:20). In this minimal sense, everything whatsoever that exists or occurs is necessary. The examples, which could be multiplied indefinitely, amply illustrate the compatibility of contingence and hypothetical necessity: both Socrates's sitting and my choosing are contingent events, since they need not have occurred; yet insofar as each is actually occurring, its occurrence is necessary. (259; Fs) (notabene)

24/8 If divine efficacy is transcendent, therefore, it must be possible to show that God's effects need not occur with more than hypothetical necessity, thereby preserving the possibility of contingence. Lonergan sets out to provide the needed demonstration by scrutinizing the proposition, 'If God either knows or wills or causes this thing to exist (or this event to occur), then this thing necessarily exists (or this event necessarily occurs)' (cf. DES:120). The proposition expresses the fact of divine efficacy; but is it also of the form, 'If A, then A'? If so, then from the mere knowledge that God knows, wills, or causes something to exist or occur, one can infer no more than that the thing exists or occurs with hypothetical necessity; only further knowledge of the particular effect can reveal whether or not its existence or occurrence was also the result of some metaphysical, physical, or moral necessity. (259; Fs) (notabene)
25/8 To reach this conclusion, Lonergan has to demonstrate that the antecedent proposition, 'If God either knows or wills or causes this thing to exist (or this event to occur),' contains or includes the consequent proposition, 'This thing exists (or this event occurs).' He does this by proving that 'whatever is predicated of God externally [ad extra] is predicated by extrinsic denomination,' that is, by reason of some entity extrinsic to God: (260; Fs)

For nothing in God is contingent; but any creature is able not to exist; therefore it can be willed by God to not exist; therefore it can be known by God as not actually existing. Now this kind of knowing and willing, which is able not to be, which is contingent, cannot be something entitative in God himself, in whom there is no contingent reality. None the less, this knowing and this willing are truly affirmed of God, for God truly knows creatures as actual and truly wills them. What is predicated [contingently and] truly of God and yet is not predicated on account of an entity received contingently in God himself, is predicated by extrinsic denomination.

26/8 If God knows, wills, or causes some effect actually to exist or occur, then the effect actually occurs; if God does not so know, will, or cause, then the effect does not occur. But as Lonergan puts it in Insight, 'God is intrinsically the same whether or not he understands, affirms, wills, causes this or that universe to be' (I:661 [CWL 3:684]). Hence the only difference between, on the one hand, God's knowing, willing, or causing a particular world-order as actual, and, on the other, God's knowing the same world-order as merely possible, is the existence or non-existence of that world-order itself: (260; Fs) (notabene)
Kommentar eg (09/10/2004): Gute Antwort auf die Möglichkeit anderer Welten!
[T]here can be no predication by extrinsic denomination without the actuality of the extrinsic denominator: else the adaequatio veri-tatis [the correspondence of truth between the proposition and reality] is not satisfied. Accordingly, to assert that God knows this creature or event, that He wills it, that He effects it, is also ipso facto to assert that the creature or event actually is.

27/8 This analysis yields the desired result. The proposition, 'If God either knows or wills or causes this thing to exist (or this event to occur),' includes the proposition, 'This thing exists (or this event occurs)': If A, then A. As a consequence, God's effects need not occur with more than hypothetical necessity, which means that it is possible for them to occur either contingently or necessarily, in accordance with the divine intention. Thus, the relative efficacy of God's instruments does not compromise the absolute efficacy of God. And this, Lonergan avers, is nothing other than Aquinas's own position: 'By means of this distinction between absolute and hypothetical necessity, St Thomas solves [every] proposed difficulty stemming from the opposition of either God's knowledge or God's will or God's efficiency to the contingence of creatures.' (260f; Fs)

27/8 This analysis yields the desired result. The proposition, 'If God either knows or wills or causes this thing to exist (or this event to occur),' includes the proposition, 'This thing exists (or this event occurs)': If A, then A. As a consequence, God's effects need not occur with more than hypothetical necessity, which means that it is possible for them to occur either contingently or necessarily, in accordance with the divine intention. Thus, the relative efficacy of God's instruments does not compromise the absolute efficacy of God. And this, Lonergan avers, is nothing other than Aquinas's own position: 'By means of this distinction between absolute and hypothetical necessity, St Thomas solves [every] proposed difficulty stemming from the opposition of either God's knowledge or God's will or God's efficiency to the contingence of creatures.' (260f; Fs)

28/8 Let me review Lonergan's line of reasoning: because divine efficacy is transcendent, one must affirm the possibility of contingent divine effects; but one can affirm this possibility only by affirming that the necessity of divine effects need be no more than hypothetical; and this affirmation depends upon yet another, namely, that divine efficacy is actual insofar as its effects are actual. In Lonergan's terms, then, divine efficacy is simultaneous: (261; Fs)

[A]lthough the efficacy of God himself is antecedent, inasmuch as it is inferred solely from the infinite divine perfection, nonetheless it is simultaneous, not previous. For this efficacy is not adequately distinct from the effect itself, since indeed one cannot make affirmations concerning God with respect to some effect without supposing the effect itself as an extrinsic denominator. (DES:123)
Thus, if divine efficacy is transcendent, it must also be simultaneous.
29/8 Lonergan designates the position I have laid out in the preceding pages as 'the theorem of divine transcendence,' which may be stated as follows: (261; Fs)

God knows with equal infallibility, He wills with equal irresistibility, He effects with equal efficacy, both the necessary and the contingent. For however infallible the knowledge, however irresistible the will, however efficacious the action, what is known, willed, effected, is no more than hypothetically necessary. And what hypothetically is necessary, absolutely may be necessary or contingent.

30/8 Precisely because it is theorem, what the theorem of divine transcendence adds to one's store of knowledge is not a new fact but a new way of intelligibly relating a set of facts already affirmed as true. In this instance, the theorem constitutes a synthesis of the efficacy of divine causality and the contingence of created beings: (261; Fs)

[In the Contra gentiles] simultaneously St Thomas had achieved the higher synthesis of Aristotelian contingence and Christian providence. In Aristotle, terrestrial contingence had its ultimate basis in his negation or neglect of providence: events happened contingently because there was no cause to which they could be reduced except prime matter, and prime matter was not a determinate cause. Antithetical to this position was the Christian affirmation of providence, for divine providence foresaw and planned and brought about every event. The Thomist higher synthesis was to place God above and beyond the created orders of necessity and contingence: because God is universal cause, His providence must be certain; but because He is a transcendent cause, there can be no incompatibility
between terrestrial contingence and the causal certitude of providence. (GF:79) (notabene)

31/8 The transcendence of divine efficacy, then, secures the possibility of that most contingent of hypothetically necessary realities, the formally free act. (262; Fs)