Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Collection: Papers bei B. Lonergan

Titel: Collection: Papers bei B. Lonergan

Stichwort: Wirkursache: Influx - Bedingung (göttlicher Plan); Begriff der Unmittelbarkeit

Kurzinhalt: Efficient Causality; the created cause, not as cause, but as conditioned; the only solution is to postulate a master plan that ...;

Textausschnitt: 1.2 Efficient Causality and Relation of Dependence

55a As there is an alternative view of efficient causality, so also there is an alternative analysis of the causal series. Distinguish between the series properly so called and the merely accidental series: the latter is illustrated by Abraham begetting Isaac, and Isaac, Jacob, where evidently Abraham does not beget Jacob; the former is illustrated by my moving the keys of my typewriter, and my typewriter typing out these paragraphs, where evidently I am more a cause of the typed paragraphs than the typewriter is. Now in the accidental series there are only two real relations of dependence on an id a quo: B depends on A, C depends on B; but the relation of C to A is not of causal dependence but of conditioned to condition. On the other hand, in the proper causal series, there are three real relations of dependence with respect to an id a quo: B depends on A, C depends on B, and C depends on A even more than on B. Since there are three real relations of dependence, there are three real instances of efficient causality, and, as it appears, the instance of merely mediate causality (which causes such trouble when thinking is in terms of influx) turns out to involve more dependence, and so more causality, than the apparently immediate instance. This leads to an examination of the notion of immediacy. What is it? A first answer is in terms of space and time; but this necessarily is irrelevant, for there are causes and effects outside space and time. A second answer is in terms of proximity in the enumeration of terms in the causal series; but terms have their place in the series inasmuch as they are causes of what follows and instruments or means with respect to what precedes; and so we are brought to the etymology; the 'immediate' involves a negation of a medium, a middle, a means; and such a negation may be either 'not being a means' or 'not using a means'; what is not a means may be termed immediate immediatione virtutis; what does not use a means may be termed immediate immediatione suppositi; the former is what has first place in the proper causal senes; the latter pertains in turn to each preceding term in the proper causal series. (Fs) (notabene)

55b Now with this analysis of the causal series, different views may arise when one asks the grounds of affirming that God, any created cause, and the created cause's effect form a proper causal series. Three sets of grounds have been offered; the first regards only immanent acts and so from its lack of universality has fallen into desuetude; the second regards all created causes and, indeed, as causes; the third is equally universal, for it regards all created causes, but it regards them, not as causes, but as conditioned. An argument for the first view may be put as follows: When I see, I act and so am an efficient cause; but when I see, I add to my own ontological perfection; to enable me to make such an addition I must receive a physical premotion; and only God can be the cause of such premotions in the general case. The second view proceeds more generally: Only absolute being is the sufficient ground for the production of being; hence, insofar as it produces being, every created cause must be an instrument; further, this instrumentality affects the created cause as cause, for there is a real difference between potentia agendi and ipsum agere, and that real difference is in the created cause as such; but it cannot be produced by the created cause, for nothing can add to its own perfection; and it must be attributed to God, for it involves the production of being, and only God is proportionate to that. (Fs) (notabene)

Kommentar (10/02/2005): potentia agendi -> gemäß der Natur der kontingenten Ursache; ipsum agere -> mit dem "göttlichen" Zusatz als Vermögen, etwas ins Sein zu setzen.

56a The third view regards the created cause, not as cause, but as conditioned.e As in the second view, only infinite being is the proportionate cause of being, of the event as event, of the actual emergence of the effect, of the exercise of efficiency; hence, all finite causes are instruments, naturally proportionate to producing effects as of a given kind, but not naturally proportionate to producing effects as actual occurrences. However, this limitation is operative, not through some entitative and remediable defect in the created cause (for the only remedy would be to make it infinite), but through the manifest fact that finite causes are all conditioned. Since no finite cause can create, it must presuppose the patient on which it acts, suitable relations between itself and its patient, and the noninterference of other causes. Over these conditions the finite cause has no control, for the conditions must be fulfilled before the finite cause can do anything. Next, though the conditions are finite entities and negations of interference, though the conditions of the efficiency of one finite cause may be fulfilled by suitable operations and abstentions on the part of other finite causes, still it remains that all the other finite causes equally are conditioned. Hence, appeal to other finite causes can do no more than move the problem one stage further back; it can do that as often as one pleases; but never can it solve the problem. The only solution is to postulate a master plan that envisages all finite causes at all instants throughout all time, that so orders all that each in due course has the conditions of its operation fulfilled and so fulfils conditions of the operation of others. But since the only subject of such a master plan is the divine mind, the principal agent of its execution has to be God. Demonstrably, then, God not only gives being to, and conserves in being, every created cause, but also he uses the universe of causes as his instruments in applying each cause to its operation, and so is the principal cause of each and every event as event. Man proposes, but God disposes. (Fs) (notabene)