Whether God Has Immediate Providence Over Everything?
Objection 1: It seems that God has not immediate providence over all
things. For whatever is contained in the notion of dignity, must be
attributed to God. But it belongs to the dignity of a king, that he
should have ministers; through whose mediation he provides for his
subjects. Therefore much less has God Himself immediate providence
over all things.
Obj. 2: Further, it belongs to providence to order all things to an
end. Now the end of everything is its perfection and its good. But it
appertains to every cause to direct its effect to good; wherefore
every active cause is a cause of the effect of providence. If
therefore God were to have immediate providence over all things, all
secondary causes would be withdrawn.
Obj. 3: Further, Augustine says (Enchiridion 17) that, "It is better
to be ignorant of some things than to know them, for example, vile
things": and the Philosopher says the same (Metaph. xii, 51). But
whatever is better must be assigned to God. Therefore He has not
immediate providence over bad and vile things.
_On the contrary,_ It is said (Job 34:13): "What other hath He
appointed over the earth? or whom hath He set over the world which He
made?" On which passage Gregory says (Moral. xxiv, 20): "Himself He
ruleth the world which He Himself hath made."
_I answer that,_ Two things belong to providence--namely, the type of
the order of things foreordained towards an end; and the execution of
this order, which is called government. As regards the first of these,
God has immediate providence over everything, because He has in His
intellect the types of everything, even the smallest; and whatsoever
causes He assigns to certain effects, He gives them the power to
produce those effects. Whence it must be that He has beforehand the
type of those effects in His mind. As to the second, there are certain
intermediaries of God's providence; for He governs things inferior by
superior, not on account of any defect in His power, but by reason of
the abundance of His goodness; so that the dignity of causality is
imparted even to creatures. Thus Plato's opinion, as narrated by
Gregory of Nyssa (De Provid. viii, 3), is exploded. He taught a
threefold providence. First, one which belongs to the supreme Deity,
Who first and foremost has provision over spiritual things, and thus
over the whole world as regards genus, species, and universal causes.
The second providence, which is over the individuals of all that can
be generated and corrupted, he attributed to the divinities who
circulate in the heavens; that is, certain separate substances, which
move corporeal things in a circular direction. The third providence,
over human affairs, he assigned to demons, whom the Platonic
philosophers placed between us and the gods, as Augustine tells us (De
Civ. Dei, 1, 2: viii, 14).
Reply Obj. 1: It pertains to a king's dignity to have ministers who
execute his providence. But the fact that he has not the plan of
those things which are done by them arises from a deficiency in
himself. For every operative science is the more perfect, the more it
considers the particular things with which its action is concerned.
Reply Obj. 2: God's immediate provision over everything does not
exclude the action of secondary causes; which are the executors of
His order, as was said above (Q. 19, AA. 5, 8).
Reply Obj. 3: It is better for us not to know low and vile things,
because by them we are impeded in our knowledge of what is better and
higher; for we cannot understand many things simultaneously; because
the thought of evil sometimes perverts the will towards evil. This
does not hold with God, Who sees everything simultaneously at one
glance, and whose will cannot turn in the direction of evil.
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