15.1 Rational Creatures and Providence (SCG 3,111–113)
15.1 Rational Creatures and Providence (SCG 3,111–113)
According to Aquinas, two things make people unique in terms of God’s providence in the spatiotemporal world. First, they have the ability to act freely. Second, their end is the “knowing and loving of God.”5 Given these facts, Aquinas thinks that “there is one orderly plan in accord with which rational creatures are subjected to divine providence, and another by means of which the rest of creatures are ordered.”6
Aquinas argues that freely acting people are “principal agents,” not mere instruments. This means that they need to be guided by God as agents that provide for themselves. They have value in their own right and not just as a tool does only insofar as it gets a job done for one who uses it. “Intellectual creatures,” says Aquinas, are “controlled by God, as objects of care for their own sakes; while other creatures are subordinated, as it were, to the rational creatures.”7 According to Aquinas, special government is needed for people just because they have freedom when acting. So “through divine providence provision is made for intellectual creatures on their own account.”8 Things with freedom, says Aquinas, need to be governed differently from things that lack it. Therefore, things without freedom are governed by God for the sake of those with it. All nonfree things “are divinely ruled by providence for the sake of intellectual substances.”9 Why so? Not only for their individual good but also for the good of the whole universe, since that requires the perfection of intellectual creatures.
On this picture, people are directed to God as choosing individuals, not just things sharing a nature with other things. Aquinas therefore goes on to argue that people are governed by God as able to provide for themselves.10 They “receive direction from God in their acts, not only for the species, but for the individual.”11 Members of a species may be helped by what other members of it do, and divine providence may see to it that they are so helped. Yet people must be governed by God, not only as contributing to the good of their species, but as acting as able to make choices.
God takes care of each nature according to its capacity: indeed, he created singular creatures of such kinds that he knew were suited to achieving the end under his governance. Now, only rational creatures are capable of this direction, whereby their actions are guided, not only specifically, but also individually. For they have understanding and reason, and consequently they can grasp in what different ways a thing may be good or bad, depending on its suitability for various individuals, times, and places. Therefore, only rational creatures are directed in their acts by God, individually as well as specifically.12