As we discussed in our last video, God is the source of what science studies.
Whatever science discovers, the kind of causality that a creature has is never in competition with
God's transcendent first causality of the world, and of every being in it.
This means that God can bring things about in a radically different way than any creature can.
When creatures are secondary causes, God is always standing behind them as a first cause.
Within the creaturely frame of reference, a reality might be indeterminate, but this
doesn’t mean that it is uncaused or absolutely random. God is still the source of its being,
of its actuality, and of its causal power. So for example, it may be the case that,
after exposure to radiation, we will discover unpredictable genetic mutations in the DNA
of an animal cell. Even if we posit that the mutation that results is undetermined and
results from a truly contingent event, St. Thomas would still hold that God,
acting as a transcendent first cause, is able to guide this contingent process to its result.
To put it another way, randomness refers to indeterminacy within the framework of this world,
within the framework of creaturely or secondary causes.
But God who is the source of the entire framework, and of all of the order, symmetry, relations,
and causal structures of reality as a whole, and who makes everything have being in actuality, God
can activate a particular state of affairs through indeterminate or so-called random processes.
This means that it is possible for God, standing outside of the world as a first cause, to
guide the unfolding of the whole of reality, and of each thing in the world – whether
it is a subatomic particle, or an atom, a molecule, or an organism, or an asteroid –
according to a divine plan of governance or divine providence. ---And he does this while
it remains the case that, within the created frame of reference, there might be no determining cause
that necessitates any particular event. Seen from within creation, those events are undetermined
and happen by chance. But they nonetheless happen according to God’s infallible providential plan.
This is true even of physical things and natural realities, according to Aquinas.
But it is also true of a higher realm of indeterminacy, which we call freedom.
Freedom is not just the absence of a materially determining or necessary cause.
Indeed, Aquinas does not think that quantum indeterminacy explains our freedom. Rather,
freedom emerges from a higher source. It belongs to a realm that transcends matter,
because it is the act of the spiritual nature. We are creatures made up of matter and spirit
–we have a material dimension that is subject to the laws of physics – our bodies, for example, are
subject to gravity – but we also have a dimension of our existence, our minds, our free choices,
and these things are not the act of a bodily organ, they transcend the limits of matter.
As such then, creaturely freedom is radically undetermined by material causes.
Even if you could hit me over the head with a rock, or deprive me of food, or inject chemical
substances into my brain, and therefore affect my ability to use my mind, even so,
the free act of my mind is not caused by material causes. It emerges from the realm of the spirit.
As we have explained in earlier videos about divine providence, freedom, and evil, God is
able to move the free creature (both angels and human beings) to make a truly free act,
such that God can bring about a specific result through the genuinely free acts of human beings.
So, within the frame of reference of creation, those free human acts are truly
undetermined – in fact, that is a part of what we mean when we say that the act is free.
And yet, because God is the author of human nature and the creator of every human person,
and because he gives to every creature its very power of acting and of willing, God can move us
to act freely according to his divine plan.
This means that, in the end and when rightly understood, there is no conflict between God’s
providence and scientific theories about the big bang, quantum mechanics, and evolution. God guides
the unfolding of everything that is, because he is the source and the end of all things.
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