CT 100: Finality of God’s Creative Activity









2 Responses to “CT 100: Finality of God’s Creative Activity”

  1. Brandon says:

    For the medieval scholastics acting for a purpose is only one way (the most obvious and familiar way) to act for an end. They called the end or final cause the ’cause of causes’ because it’s what makes efficient causes, what we normally think of as causes, causes this kind of effect rather than that kind of effect. So on their view whenever you have a cause that has an effect ‘always or for the most part’ that means there is a final cause or end: something is disposes the cause to have that effect rather than some other.

  2. Everything acts for an end? That surprised me, too. But Ed Feser explains it well “The basic idea is that if A regularly brings about B – rather than C, or D, or no effect at all – that can only be because there is something in the nature of A by virtue of which it is “directed at” or “points” to the generation of B specifically. This is an entirely general point about causation; it has nothing necessarily to do with human beings at all.” and in his book _the last superstition_. Recommended.