Folia Theologica 20. (2009)
Barbour Hugh: The Cosmology of Catholic Worship: Pre-Socratic Sacraments? A Consideration by a disciple of St. Thomas Qauinas
THE COSMOLOGY OF CATHOLIC WORSHIP 13 In the third question of his De Potentia, in the body of the fifth article, St. Thomas Aquinas offers a brief "History of Philosophy" which moves from the considerations of sensible, accidental formal causes and material causality to the consideration of the universal efficient and final cause and the rationally intuited matter and form of composite substantial reality. That is from material causality, through movement and change to final and efficient causality and the intrinsic causes of prime matter and substantial form. This vast and broad context is the underlying apparatus of traditional scholastic theology and philosophy for the intelligibility of all things, including the understanding of the sacraments, as specific realities in the natural and supernatural workings of the cosmos created by God in Christ. In response to the question utrum possit esse aliquid quod non sit a Deo creatum. St Thomas offers this response: Respondeo. Dicendum, quod secundum ordinem cognitionis humanae processerunt antiqui in consideratione naturae rerum. Unde cum cognitio humana a sensu incipiens in intellectum perveniat priores philosophi circa sensibilia fuerunt occupati, et ex his paulatim in intelligibilia pervenerunt. Et quia accidentales formae sunt secundum se sensibiles, non autem substantiales, ideo primi philosophi omnes formas accidentia esse dixerunt, et solam materiam esse substantiam. Et quia substantia sufficit ad hoc quod sit accidentium causa, quae ex principiis substantiae causantur, inde est quod primi philosophi, praeter materiam, nullam aliam causam posuerunt; sed ex ea causari dicebant omnia quae in rebus sensibilibus provenire videntur; unde ponere cogebantur materiae causam non esse, et negare totaliter causam efficientem. Posteriores vero philosophi, substantiales formas aliquatenus considerare coeperunt; non tamen pervenerunt ad cognitionem universalium, sed tota eorum intentio circa formas speciales versabatur: et ideo posuerunt quidam aliquas causas agentes, non tamen quae universaliter rebus esse conferrent, sed quae ad hanc vel ad illam formam, materiam permutarent; sicut intellectum et amicitiam et litem, quorum actionem ponebant in segregando et congregando; et ideo etiam secundum ipsos non omnia entia a causa efficiente procedebant, sed materia actioni causae agentis praesupponebatur. Posteriores vero philosophi, ut Plato, Aristoteles et eorum sequaces, pervenerunt ad considerationem ipsius esse universalis; et ideo ipsi soli posuerunt aliquam universalem causam rerum, a qua omnia alia in esse prodirent, ut patet per Augustinum. Cui quidem sententiae etiam Catholica fides consentit. Et hoc triplici ratione demonstrari potest: ...Tertia ratio est, quia illud quod est per alterum, reducitur sicut in causam ad illud quod est per se. Unde si esset un-
