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We shall now begin to consider those attributes [of
God] which we called Propria. [N1] And, first of all, how
God is a cause of all things.
[Note N1]: The [attributes] following are called Propria, because they are only Adjectives, which cannot be understood without their Substantives. That is to say, without them God would indeed be no God, but still it is not they that constitute God; for they reveal nothing of the character of a Substance, through which alone God exists. Now, we have already said above that one substance cannot produce another; and that God is a being of whom all attributes are predicated; whence it clearly follows that all other things can by no means be, or be understood, apart from or outside him. Wherefore we may say with all reason that God is a cause of all things. As it is usual to divide the efficient cause in eight divisions, let me, then, inquire how and in what sense God is a cause. First, then, we say that he is an emanative or productive cause of his works; and, in so far as there is activity, an active or operating cause, which we regard as one and the same, because they involve each other. Secondly, he is an immanent, and not a transeunt cause, since all that he produces is within himself, and not outside him, because there is nothing outside him. Thirdly, God is a free cause, and not a natural cause, as we shall make clear and manifest when we come to consider whether God can omit to do what he does, and then it will also be explained wherein true freedom consists. Fourthly, God is a cause through himself, and not by accident; this will become more evident from the discussion on Predestination. Fifthly, God is a principal cause of his works which he has created immediately, such as movement in matter, &c.; in which there is no place for a subsidiary [instrumental] cause, since this is confined to particular things; as when he dries the sea by means of a strong wind, and so forth in the case of all particular things [N1] in Nature. The subsidiary provoking cause is not [found] in God, because there is nothing outside him to incite him. The predisposing [N2] cause, on the other hand, is his perfection itself; through it he is a cause of himself, and, consequently, of all other things. [Note N1]: B omits the semi-colon before "as," in the preceding line, and gives the words "as when ... particular things" in a note, instead of in the text.
[Note N2]: A and B: voorgaande.
Seventhly, God is also a Universal cause, but only in so far as he produces various things; otherwise this can never be predicated of him, as he needs no one in order to produce any results. Eighthly, God is the proximate cause of the things that are infinite, and immutable, and which we assert to have been created immediately by him, but, in one sense, he is the remote cause of all particular things. |
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