Investigating The Church Father's Views On Concursus

When I consider

Your heavens,

the word of 

Your fingers,

the moon and the stars,

which You 

have ordained,

what is man

that You are

mindful of him,

and the son of man

that You visit Him?

Psalm 8:3-4

     The last blog was designed to develop your thinking on the matter of concursus as many of the Church Fathers in one way or another adopted a view on this matter that has become an influential principle. As a principle taught by the early Church Fathers then this principle applied in the Church has had influence upon people attending such Churches. Augustine, the Schoolmen, and the Thomists, and Dominicans who are associated with the Latin Church adopted this view. Furthermore, by Protestants, whether they be Lutheran, Reformed, or Remonstrants; that concursus was to be assumed as a philosophical axiom, that which all theological doctrines should be conformed. What was this theory, or axiom? That no second cause can act until acted upon and that nothing created can originate action. This I developed in the last blog by using the example of two balls in a vacuum, and the necessity of resistance. It was developed to such an extent that the balls cannot move without resistance and that resistance was the first cause of action. Furthermore, that resistance required a resistor and that resistor was God Himself empowering His creation.Mares, in his Collegium Theologicum, loc. iv. 29; Groningen, 1659, p. 42, b.; states: (my translation using Google translate); "In order as direct involvement is concerned, God not only gives the force of which it preserves and second causes of action, but also gives it motion and the same applies for it to act. Of the forerunner it is also said, for secondary causes do not move unless moved." Continuing to follow the early Church Fathers on this subject we shall examine; Francis Turretin (1623–1687; was a Swiss-Italian Protestant theologian. Turrettin is especially known as a zealous opponent of the of the Academey of Saumur (embodied by Moise Amyraut and called (Amyraldianism), as an earnest defender of the Calvinistic orthodoxy represented by the Synod of Dort, and as one of the authors of the Helvetic Consensus which defended the formulation of double predestination from the Synod of Dort and the verbal inspiration of the Bible. Turrettin states: 
"The first is the first mover in the cause of every action, therefore a secondary cause can not move, unless it be moved, nor act, except as the acts from the first; for otherwise it will be the principle of its movement, and thus was not more a secondary cause, but their first."

     Make no mistake here in regards to this axiom that in every effect there is an efficiency of two causes, the first and the second, and are to be considered as involving two operations. This would be admitting that there are two forces operating individually. To speak of the efficiency of concursus it is to be found that the first cause is in the second, and not merely with it; as would be when two horses are hitched to and pull a wagon. Johannes Andreas Quenstedt (1617-1688); in his Theologia, cap xiii. i. 15, edit, Leipzig, 1715, vol. i. p. 760; and in cap. xiii. 3, vol i. p. 782; states: 
"God "immediately flows into the action and the effect of the creature,  but the same effect is not from God alone, nor by only the creature, nor partly from God, and partly from the creation, but at the same time from the total efficiency of one and the same God and in creatures produced, by God, namely that the case is the universal and the first from the creation of the particular and to the second. "....." It is not a matter of fact the action of influx of other things are God's, another operation of the creature, but is one, and, indivisible action, both by both looking back they hang, by God to be the universal cause, from the creation of that particular."

     Not all theologians agree on every point on this subject; therefore, by taking it slowly, I will give their various viewpoints. But, not to overwhelm you with so much information and making it possible for you to absorb this information in order that you may examine and carefully come to your conclusions on this matter. We are not to just use our rationale to admit to only that which we can agree upon, rather we must decide upon all the information given, and allow Scripture to be our final and absolute guide. At this point, however, it is important to come to a knowledge of what the Church Fathers admitted and how that admission by them has affected the Church. This will be included in the following blogs. 

 

As I urged you

     when I went 

into Macedonia -- remain 

     in Ephesus that you

may charge some that

    they teach no other

doctrine.

                1 Timothy 1:3

 

 Now to Our King Eternal 

 

 Richard L. Crumb