Little Question Three of Principal Question Four
What things make a human being well or badly fortuned
It is asked how many and what are the things which make human beings fortunate and unfortunate.
Thomas responds to this in Book III Against the Gentiles, chapters 90 and 92, where he says in substance that, since the human being is ordered according to the body under celestial bodies, according to the intellect under angels, and according to the will under God, a good according to fortune can happen to him in three ways: namely, from heaven, from an angel, and from God.
For the fact that the will of some human being is instigated to dig, or that he is caused to dig where he finds a treasure, proceeds from no human power. Rather, this occurs either because he is disposed by heaven, because he is illuminated by an angel, or because he is inclined by God.
This causality exists differently in these three.
First, heaven leads a human being to choose something whose reason he himself does not know, whence he is made fortunate by means of a certain passion which it impresses upon the body.
Second, a good or evil angel disposes a human being to choose something whose reason he does not know, whence he is made fortunate. It does so not by impressing some passion, as heaven does, but by illuminating him by means of a certain intelligible consideration, prompting him to choose or to know something which it is good to do. For it belongs to the intellect of an angel to order many things to one, although not by illuminating concerning the end why it is good to be done.
Third, God inclines the will of a human being toward choosing something whose reason he does not know, whence he is made fortunate. And he is properly said to make a human being fortunate, because he alone clearly beholds and simultaneously foresees all things, their relations, intentions, and motions, and consequently the accidental conjunctions and encounters of all things. This can naturally belong to no other created cause.
Therefore God alone can properly and efficaciously make a human being fortunate, but the heavens, a human being, or an angel cannot, since they do not behold or foresee all the things aforesaid.
Augustine speaks of these three things which make a human being fortunate in Book V of The City of God, saying: “Fortune is a hidden cause proceeding from God, heaven, or any spirits whatsoever.”
Nicholas of Lyra agrees with this opinion of Augustine at the beginning of his work upon the Psalter. He says that the motion of one who is well or badly fortuned is from God, insofar as God moves our will toward choosing something whose reason it does not know; or from a natural cause, namely from the influence of the celestial sphere; or from the intelligence of the mover; or from both together. It is from the good or evil spirits themselves; from heaven by the mediation of a certain passion which it impresses upon our bodies; and from angels insofar as they illuminate our intellect, or disorder it if they are evil. These are his words.
In this manner fortune is properly called divine providence itself, which those who curse fortune blaspheme.
For a clearer understanding of these matters, however, five things must be noted here.
The first noteworthy point is that, since someone is properly said to be made well or badly fortuned when he is directed by superior causes toward effectively choosing, executing, doing, or omitting something to which some unexpected event, good or evil, is accidentally joined for him, the heavens, angels, and God are therefore said in different ways to make a human being well or badly fortuned.
For the heavens are said to make someone well fortuned in a common sense, insofar as they impress some passion upon the body through which the will is inclined to execute something which it does not know, whence a good happens to it.
Angels, however, are said more properly than the heavens to make someone well fortuned when they illuminate or instigate the intellect, whence the will is afterward inclined to execute something which it does not know, whence a good happens to it.
But someone is said most properly to be made well fortuned when his will is inclined by God, he is illuminated by angels, and he is inclined by the heavens to execute something which he does not know, whence a good happens to him.
And conversely, someone is said in a common sense to be made badly fortuned when his will is inclined, wills, and consequently does things contrary to those toward which heaven moves him.
He is said more properly to be made badly fortuned when his will and choice are inclined and he does things contrary to those toward which heaven inclines and an angel instigates him. For a human being does not always choose that toward which an angel intends and a celestial body inclines him.
Therefore, although divine providence never ceases in any matter, an angel is nevertheless sometimes said to fail in the guardianship of human beings, insofar as a human being can fail to choose that toward which the angel moves him, according to Jeremiah 51: “We have cared for Babylon, and she has not been healed. Let us abandon her.”
But someone is said most properly to be made badly fortuned when his will, from a fixed intention, strives after and does things contrary to those toward which heaven inclines, an angel instigates, and God moves him. Thus it is written concerning a certain man in Jeremiah 22: “Write that man as sterile, a man who shall not prosper in his days.”
The second noteworthy point is that God and the angels, for various reasons, make good and evil human beings fortunate and unfortunate.
For they sometimes make the good unfortunate as punishment for some fault or foolishness, or for the exercise of virtue, namely prudence, patience, and so forth. They sometimes make the evil fortunate in order to draw them back from evil or to reward them for good things done in sin, and so forth.
Therefore, in all things we ought to give thanks to God.
The third noteworthy point is that a human being is said to be fortunate or unfortunate with respect to corporeal goods, not spiritual ones.
The reason for this is that a human being is then said to be well or badly fortuned when some good or evil happens to him beyond his intention, as is evident above. Spiritual goods or evils, however, cannot occur beyond intention, since they consist in choice. Therefore, and so forth.
The fourth noteworthy point is that God’s kindness toward human beings is great in this respect: he not only joins good things to them through the common course of nature and also manifestly in a supernatural manner, but also secretly, by way of making them fortunate, multiplying good things unexpectedly and removing evil things.
The fifth noteworthy point is that, since neither a human being nor an angel can, according to the common law, foresee all evil things and foreknow all accidental and unexpected causes, but God alone can, and since fortune or misfortune is an accidental cause, and so forth, we ought therefore to commit ourselves to God in all chance dangers which happen to us, so that he may preserve us from them.
Augustine speaks of these chance dangers in Book XXII of The City of God, chapter 22, saying: “But because of childish punishments,” and so forth. See his long statement there.
These things, however, are from theologians and philosophers.