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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Secondary causes possessing real productive powers, as Aquinas defended via instrumental causality, is coherent with divine primacy and does not require reducing created agents to mere occasions.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Instrumental causality remains unexplained: how does a tool possess 'real' power yet remain wholly dependent on the agent wielding it? The analogy obscures rather than clarifies.
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    • 2.If God is the primary cause of all effects including human choices, the claim that secondary causes have 'real' productive power appears nominal—God alone determines outcomes.
      ?

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    • 3.The doctrine requires distinguishing God's action from creatures' actions at the metaphysical level without clear criteria, risking incoherence about what 'real productive power' means.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Instrumental causality allows created causes to possess genuine causal powers while remaining dependent on God's primary causality, avoiding both occasionalism and dualism.
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    • 2.If creatures lack real productive powers, their actions become metaphysically illusory, undercutting moral responsibility and making divine causation appear manipulative.
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    • 3.Aquinas's framework preserves human agency and natural law by grounding secondary causes in a hierarchical causal order where God acts through creatures, not despite them.
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