IV. To the Initial Arguments

159. To the first argument [n.3] response will be given below, in q.5 of this distinction 1, n.326.

160. To the second [n.4] I say that what Augustine posits is a cause, and a more manifest one, but it is not precise.

To the confirmation [n.5] I say that even immanent actions have some passive substrate, because the power in which they are immanent is a power receptive of them.

161. To the argument about adequacy or equality [n.6] I say that there is no argument from equality of effect to cause, because it is impossible for any effect to be equal to God. But adequacy can be understood there in the sense of precise proportion, that is, ‘an effect having such proportion to the cause as no other effect can have’ (namely because it is as close as possible to the cause). If ‘non-adequacy’ is understood thus in the major, I deny it. For it is as valid as if one said ‘an effect inferior to the first possible can be produced by the supreme possible’ - which is to be denied for this reason, that an inferior cannot be whole and wholly produced save by the supreme thing.

162. To the proof of the major [n.7] I say that the agent does not produce according to the whole of its power. For there is no necessity that an agent, when it acts freely and not by necessity of nature, should produce according to the whole of its virtue as much as it could produce according to that virtue. And when it is further said that ‘then the more perfect effect would show greater perfection of the cause’ [n.7], I concede that any effect - whole and wholly produced - shows equal power in the cause, but a more perfect effect shows it more eminently (an example: if many ordered conclusions follow from the same principle, the whole truth of the principle is the cause of the truth of each of the conclusions, and yet one of the conclusions is truer than another and more eminently shows the truth of the principle).

163. To the other argument about ‘annihilate’ [n.8] I say that annihilation belongs only to God, because ‘to annihilate’ is not to act positively but is not to act, that is, not to conserve. But it belongs only to God to conserve the whole creature and conserve it wholly. And in brief: just as any creature requires in its becoming a cause co-causing with it, namely the potential principle, so it has no power over it to destroy it as neither to produce it, and consequently it necessarily leaves something behind just as it necessarily presupposes something. But just as creation properly speaking is production from nothing, that is, not from anything that is part of the first thing produced or that is receptive of the induced form, so annihilation is destruction to nothing in both ways.

164. To the first proof, about natural form [n.9], the answer is plain in Ord. II d.8 n.9, because although no part of the form remain, yet something receptive of form, which was something of the composite, does remain.

165. To the other proof, about the virtues [n.9], I reply that no infused virtue can be corrupted in us by any act of ours as by nature of repugnance, but only by demeriting cause. For a soul that sins deserves that grace not be conserved in it, and so, in the second instant of nature (because of such demerit as something preceding), God does not conserve grace and so grace is annihilated.

166. To the proofs about friendship and enmity [n.9] I say that by sin one is an enemy not formally but by demerit. Similarly I say to the proofs about faith and hope [n.9] that infused faith and hope are only by way of demerit corrupted by act of infidelity or despair. And if you want to have something that is corrupted by those acts as formally repugnant, I say that it is only acquired faith and hope that are so - and it is very possible for something formally repugnant to those acquired habits to be induced by our acts.

167. As to the final argument [n.10], when it is said ‘by virtue etc.’ - to understand this phrase (and those said about instruments [n.18]) one must understand that nothing can act, in any order of acting, save by its proper virtue. For as was said above [n.152], that if a thing does not have virtue as active and intrinsic form it can altogether not act, so too if it not have its own intrinsic virtue, because the form is virtue. But if it did not have form or virtue before and it is now acting in some order, it must be that now it have de novo an active form and virtue in that order. For the same nature, remaining without any change, can in no way now be active and now non-active.

168. But nevertheless ‘an agent dependent on another’ is said to act in virtue of that other, because the virtue of a dependent agent does not suffice without the virtue on which it depends. However, an instrument is more said to act in virtue of another than a second cause is, for that thing depends more on a superior agent which does not have an active form in its being, but receives in actually being moved as much of it as that has which has the active form in its settled being.

169. Also, for a second cause - that is a cause that has an active form in its settled being - to act in virtue of another is not for it then to receive something from that other, but only for it to have an order inferior to that other agent in its own order at the same time. But for an instrument - that is something that receives an active form in being moved - to act in virtue of another is for it then actually to receive a form from that by which it acts.

170. And from this is plain that when a first cause and a second cause properly speaking act together, there is from the first cause to the second cause no new influence that is the creation of anything inhering in the second cause; rather the influence there is a determinate order of those causes in bringing about the common effect. But an instrument, when it acts, properly receives an influence from that of which it is the instrument, because it receives actual motion and, in the motion, a form by which it acts in its own order.

171. From these is plain how to understand the major [n.10]. For it is very true that a second cause and an instrument can do more in virtue of another than in their own (supply: sole) virtue when one prescinds from the virtue of the other. For their virtue is properly diminished and subordinate to the other virtue, so that without that other virtue acting, their virtue has no power for the effect. Yet they cannot do more in virtue of another than in their own virtue, that is, do something to which their virtue in no way extends itself in their own order of causing.

172. But now the minor [n.10], if it assume their own virtue prescinding from the virtue of the superior cause, is false. For a creature can do nothing without the virtue of God acting more principally.

173. For this reason the argument is not valid.