Dominic Ryan has reviewed the first two chapters of my book Nature and Nature’s God for New Blackfriars. In regards to the first chapter, which is devoted to interpreting Aquinas’ principle “omne quod movetur ab alio movetur,” Ryan states that I put “forward two main arguments in support of [my] contention” that this should be translated as “everything in motion is put in motion by another.” Ryan, however, does not attend to the text I allot the most space to, namely that from Aquinas’ commentary on Physics VIII.4 (p. 27-30, 34). That text is crucial to the whole argument.
What Ryan has to say about the text I cited from SCG I, c. 13 unfortunately misses the point. There Aquinas says: “Omne quod movetur ab alio movetur. That some] things are in motion (moveri)-for example, the sun-is evident from sense. Therefore it is movetur by some other mover.” Now we must translate movetur/moveri in such a way as to form a valid syllogism. But the minor premise that appeals to sensation cannot be interpreted as saying “that some things are moved (passively) is evident from sense.” It does not appear to the senses that the sun is moved passively, although it does appear to the senses that the sun is in motion. (Aquinas thought it was absolutely in motion, we might say that it is only in relative motion.) We certainly do not see a chariot pulling the sun, nor an angel pushing it, nor do we see some other massive body pulling it by gravity. (Is gravity a force? Both Aquinas and General Relativity say that it is not, albeit in very different ways. But even if gravity is a force it is invisible to the senses.) So we should translate Aquinas’ argument as follows: “Everything in motion is moved by something else. That some things are in motion-for example, the sun-is evident from sense. Therefore it is moved by some other mover.”
Ryan asks “What would be apparent to the senses were such ‘motion’ [of the sun] to occur? Surely what one would sense was that the sun appeared constantly to be changing place. But if the sun or indeed any other celestial body was constantly changing place would it not have to be moved in order to do so? Motion, after all, is not an end in itself.” But Ryan is saying nothing I disagree with, and nothing that is problematic for my interpretation. I take no issue with the obvious interpretation of the conclusion of Aquinas’ argument from SCG I, c. 13. He is certainly concluding that the sun is being moved by another, and for the reason that Ryan states, namely that motion is not an end in itself (see p. 91-92 of my book, from chapter 3.) My contention concerns the interpretation of the minor premise and thus of the middle term of the syllogism: “that something is in motion-for example the sun-is evident to the senses.” Interpreting the minor premise this way then requires the translation of the major premise I have given: “everything in motion is moved by another.” Otherwise the syllogism is invalid; it would commit the fallacy of having four terms.
Ryan continues: “Further and more fundamentally, it is not clear that sense knowledge alone can solve this problem. . . . motion . . . is, like any common sensible, something about which the senses can be in error.” To settle the question, Ryan tells us, we must use intellectual knowledge. Of course I don’t disagree, but this is besides the point. No one would claim that Aquinas had any doubts that the sun was itself in motion, living as he did long before Copernicus. He accepted the evidence of his senses in the most straightforward way. No one will read Aquinas as asserting “that something is passively moved-for example, the sun-is evident from sense”? Not even Pegis translates the text this way. But having gone on to translate the mover principle as “everything that is moved is moved by another,” Pegis makes Aquinas commit the fallacy of a syllogism in four terms.
Ryan takes issue with my characterization of the form of a natural body as the generator’s instrument by which it moves the body even when it is no longer in contact with it. The most helpful contribution of his review is to point out something that Aquinas holds about instrumental causes. Aquinas holds that instrumental causes have a proper effect in virtue of their own form and an instrumental effect in virtue of the principal agent’s form. (Ryan points to ST III, q. 62, a. 1, ad 2, where Aquinas is discussing the instrumental causality of the Sacraments; the same point is made in parallel texts from other periods of Aquinas’ career.) But Ryan argues that if the form of the element is an instrument in moving the element to its proper place–as I claim–then it will have no proper activity of its own.
Ryan does not want to accept the explicit meaning of Aquinas’ text from De Pot., q. 3, a. 11, ad 5: “An instrument is understood to be moved by a principal agent as long as it retains the power (virtutem) impressed by the principal agent. For this reason an arrow is moved by the projector as long as the force of the impulse of the projector remains. In this way also that which is generated is moved by the generator in regard to heavy and light things as long as it retains the form given to it by the generator. Whence also semen is understood to be moved by the soul of the generator as long as the power (virtus) impressed by the soul remains there, although it be physically divided. It is necessary, however, for the mover and the moved to be together (simul) in regard to the beginning of motion, not, however, in regard to the whole motion, as appears in projectiles.”
The distinction Ryan points to between an instrument’s instrumental activity and its proper activity is brought forward by Aquinas in a discussion concerning instrumental efficient causality. But I argued in the book that the form of a heavy body is not the mover’s instrument as an efficient cause; the form is not a mover. Rather, it exercises instrumental formal causality, and so Aquinas’ point in the text Ryan cites need not apply. The proper effect of the form of the heavy body may be instrumental to the external efficient cause. Aquinas states that the form is not a mover, but that by which (quo) the body is moved. (De Ver., q. 22, a. 3, c.). He also states that “an instrument is compared to the action more as that by which (quo) it is performed than as that which performs it.” (De Ver., q. 27, a. 4, ad 8.)
Furthermore, motion towards the element’s natural place is not actually the most proper effect of the form; rather, the truly proper effect of the form is rest in the natural place. (As Ryan himself says, motion is not an end in itself.) The elemental body only undergoes motion towards its natural place because it is out of its natural place. The form is not responsible for the body being out of its proper place, and thus not fully responsible for its motion towards its proper place.
It is also worth pointing out that whether or not we use the word “instrument” to describe the internal form by which the external mover moves the patient is irrelevant, as long as we accurately understand the picture Aquinas is painting. Nothing Ryan has said casts any doubt on my claim that the mover need not be in contact with the body undergoing motion throughout the entirety of the motion, and that the mover principle should be translated as “everything in motion is put in motion by another.”
In regards to the second chapter where I discuss Aquinas’ case against infinite regresses, Ryan states: “Whether Aquinas had intended this denial [of infinite regresses] to pertain to a moved mover’s being moved or its being a mover is not clear. Shields, however, opts for being a mover and therefore renders the proof from motion a more restricted version of the second way (p. 47). One might question this though.” I do not understand what point Ryan is making in the first sentence, but the second sentence requires a clarification: I claim on p. 47 that the premise in the first way that an infinite regress of movers is impossible is a more restricted version of the premise in the second way that an infinite regress of efficient causes is impossible. I make no claims about whether or not the first way as a whole is a more restricted version of the second way as a whole.
Ryan objects to my claim that in essentially ordered series of causes the secondary causes fail to explain their effect. This is quite strange, as it is standard fare among Thomists. He says I must argue “either that (i) per se causes cannot be essentially ordered, or (ii) that if they can, that they fail to explain their effect.” I have no desire to argue for (i), nor does anything in my text suggest I do. The second is not controversial among Thomists, and I provide an argument in the book for non-Thomists. But since Ryan’s concern is with my interpretation of Aquinas, I will provide an example here from Thomistic physical theory: a child sheep is a per se effect of a parent sheep, but on Aquinas’ view the parent sheep fails to explain the child sheep. The sun is also necessary to explain the effect. But the sheep is also a per se effect of the sun, not an accidental effect. Furthermore, the sun and the parent sheep together fail to explain the child sheep, according to Aquinas. The angel that moves the sun is also necessary to explain the child sheep. But the child sheep is a per se effect of the angel, not an accidental effect. Finally, the angel is not sufficient to explain the effect. God is needed, and the child sheep is a per se effect of God. Thus we have an essentially ordered series of causes, each of which is a per se cause, and none of the secondary causes explain their effect, despite being per se causes.
I thank Ryan for taking the time to review my book.