Little Question Seven of Principal Question Three
What fate is according to theologians, and whether it is to be conceded
It is asked what fate is according to theologians; what things they subject or do not subject to fate; in what sense Christians can admit fate in a Catholic manner; and in what respects, according to them, fate differs from the providence of God.
To this it is answered as follows.
First, to the first point, it is said that fate according to theologians is a disposition inhering in movable things, through which divine providence binds each thing to its own orders.
Or thus: Fate is the ordering or series of secondary causes toward producing their effects among these inferior things, according to the dependence which they have upon God.
This ordering of secondary causes toward producing their effects can be considered in two ways.
In one way, insofar as it is united in the prospect of the divine mind which orders and distributes all things by places, times, motion, and forms; and thus it is called the divine will or divine providence.
In another way, insofar as the same ordering, arranged and applied to times, exists in the mediating causes ordained by God for producing their proper effects according to the dependence which they have upon God; and thus it is called fate.
It is therefore evident that God’s will or providence itself can be called fate causally. But the disposition itself of secondary causes toward their effects, dependent upon God, is called fate essentially.
This disposition of secondary causes is called fatum from fari, “to speak,” as though it were the utterance of divine providence, as Thomas says in Book III Against the Gentiles, chapter 93, and in Book I of the Sentences, distinction 39. For God speaks through fate by his providence, just as a human being speaks the conceptions of his heart through words, and just as an artisan manifests through the effect of a work the form which he has conceived concerning the thing to be made.
And just as an artisan leads to effect through temporal orders that which he has foreseen individually and mentally, so God through his providence simply disposes the things to be done, and through fate administers them multiply and temporally.
Three things can be gathered from these matters.
First, what things are subjected to fate and what things are not. For, since fate according to theologians is the ordering of secondary causes toward effects foreseen by God, it follows that only those things which are subjected to secondary causes are subjected to fate.
But if there are any things which are done immediately by God, since they are not subjected to secondary causes, neither are they subjected to fate. Such are the creation of the first things—namely, the four coevals: the angels, celestial bodies, time, and the matter of the four elements; the first supposits of all species, which were produced in the beginning; the glorification of spiritual substances; the justification of the impious; and souls, which are always created anew.
For all these things have emanated immediately from God and are created by him, and they could not and cannot be produced in another manner. Therefore, they are not subjected to fate, for those things which are done and disposed by a superior cause are not changed by an inferior cause.
For this reason Boethius says in the place cited above that those things which are nearest to the first divinity, fixed immovably, entirely transcend the fatal order of mutability. But those things which are remote from the first cause are subjected to so many more bonds of fate and are so much more movable as they are more remote from the first cause. The example is evident in Boethius from the center of a circle and its circumference.
Thus, therefore, those things which have been and are done by God are subjected to him alone. But other particular and natural effects are subjected to the motion of the elements, the motion of the celestial bodies, the motion of the first movable, and finally the providence of the first immovable cause, from which all things possess whatever firmness they have and without which nothing remains in its own state. For when the first is removed, the things which follow are removed.
Second, it is gathered from the preceding how faithful Christians can concede that fate exists. For if fate is understood as the disposition of the stars under which someone is conceived or born, necessitating all inferior effects apart from the wills of God and human beings, then we must deny with Gregory that fate exists, when he says: “Far be it from the hearts of the faithful that they should say fate is anything.”
But if fate is understood as the disposition of secondary causes and the ordering of human acts through their relation to God and his providence, as ordered and foretold or uttered through him, then we can posit fate. Nevertheless, the holy doctors refused to use even this name because of those who twisted the name against the position of the faithful.
Hence Augustine says in Book V of The City of God, chapter 1: “If anyone attributes human affairs to fate because he calls God’s will or power itself by the name of fate, let him retain his opinion and correct his language.” These are his words.
Third, the difference between providence and fate is gathered from what has been said. For the disposition of things to be brought to completion, governed, and preserved in the prospect of the divine mind is called providence. But that same disposition in the mediating causes ordained by God for producing certain effects, and unfolded in times, is called fate.
They also differ because both necessary and contingent things are subjected to divine providence; indeed, fate itself is subjected to providence. But only movable things are subjected to fate.
They also differ because divine providence, since it is the divine reason itself established in the highest prince of all things, as Boethius says, is in God, while fate exists only in secondary causes.
They also differ because things existing in God after the manner of divine providence are there united and simply one; but insofar as they are under fate, they are several and divided, and are called several fates, in which manner it is said by the poet: “Your fates draw you.”
They also differ because divine providence is called fate causally, insofar as the fatal ordering depends upon and descends from the ordering of divine providence. But the disposition of secondary causes itself, in itself, is called fate essentially.
Finally, they differ because divine providence is immovable and remains stable while causing all things to be moved. Fate, however, since it exists in movable things, is movable.
And let these things suffice for Principal Question Three concerning fate.