Случайност и необходимост в перспективата на каузалността при Тома от Аквино. Активността на творенията
Contingency and Necessity with Respect to Causality in Thomas Aquinas

Summary/Abstract: The current paper examines the phenomena of contingency and necessity with respect to causality presented by Thomas Aquinas mainly in Summa Theologica. According to Aquinas, the first cause (God) is active in the natural actions of things through the secondary causes of nature. Nature is considered as a certain kind of art (the divine art), impressed upon things, by which these things are moved to a determinate end. Creatures can participate not only in determinate natural processes, but also in contingent ones. Aquinas affirms that some things happen as of necessity and others of contingency, for it is according to the condition of the proximate cause that the effect has contingency or necessity. Contingency is considered to be identical with the potentiality to be or not to be. Aquinas maintains that potentiality belongs to matter, whereas necessity results from form, because whatever is consequent on form is of necessity in the subject. Thus contingency is due to the material mode of being. An essential part of this article is dedicated to exemplifying the coexistence of God’s providence and the contingent events.

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