No, You are flatout wrong.
It is abundantly clear from Aquinas’ juxtapopsing contingency with necessity, that he speaks of chance. A juxtaposition of necessity with dependency makes no sense whatsoever. This is also the unequivocal interpretation of the quote within the Church document that I cited, where it is used within the context of discussing evolution.
You are trying to mold things into fitting your preconceptions. I specifically warned against that in my previous post.
Al:
There are two types of
necessity in the universe of mobile beings. One is
simple or
absolute necessity; the other is necessity of a
relative or
conditional type. “Simple or absolute necessity arises from the material, formal, and efficient causes of things.” –
Physics, Bk. II, ch. 9, 199b, 34-35;
Principles of Nature, 33;
Commentary on the Physics, Bk. II, les. 15, 2;
Summa contra Gentiles, Bk. II, chs. 29-30; Bk. I, chs. 83, 85;
On Truth, q. 17, a. 3. (all by St. Thomas Aquinas)
“Another type of necessity may be called conditional or relative; and, as the name implies, this necessity depends upon the fulfillment of certain conditions or suppositions.” – (
Ibid.)
Simple or absolute necessity from
material, formal, and
efficient causes are the so-called prior causes, because they exist in reality prior to the
final cause. As a necessity arising from the material cause, there is an absolute necessity that an animal be destructible because it is composed of parts. As a necessity owing from the formal cause, man must be a rational creature and a triangle must have interior angles whose sum is a straight angle.
Furthermore, from the point of view of efficient causality, it is necessary that there be an alternation of day and night because of the motions of the earth with respect to the sun. The necessity owing from these prior causes, matter, form, and agent, is simple or absolute. There could be no animal that was not destructible, no man that was not rational, no relative motion of the earth that did not affect night and day.
As depending on prior causes, the necessity we find in nature is simple, unconditioned, and absolute.
Take for example, St. Thomas’ Third Way, which is his argument from necessity. The following is from the book
Being and God, by Fathers Klubertanz and Holloway (1963), in the section on the discussion of Aquinas’ Third Way, also known as his argument from necessity and contingency. (This book is one of the most respected books on metaphysics and natural theology in all of Catholicism.):
"3.)
“…Contingent Being…” – That which can not-be in the order in which it is contingent; for example, a corruptible being can not-be by reason of its essence; and
a fortiori by an extrinsic reason, namely, by reason of an external agent. An incorruptible being can not-be only in the order of being; that is, it needs an external agent both for its beginning and for its duration in being.
4.)
Necessary Being – That which cannot not-be in the order in which it is necessary, for example:
(a) necessary by a necessity of consequence: while he sits, Socrates necessarily sits.
(b) necessary by a necessity of
matter: if material things exist they are necessarily corruptible.
(c) necessary by a necessity of form: forms which are not in matter, or which subsist in matter,
have a necessity of being.
(d) necessary by the very
act of existing: what cannot not-be because it is the very act of Being. Such a Being does not
have the necessity of being, it
is the necessary Being itself.
- “…the existence of God can be demonstrated…” – From the fact of the corruptibility of material things, and from the fact of the contingency in the order of being of incorruptible things which have their necessity from another, we conclude to the existence of a Being which does not have its necessity of Being from another, but has it of itself. This being is God.
- “…as a…necessary Bring…” – That is, in this third way, God terminates our investigation not as the ultimate reason for the existence of motion, nor as the ultimate reason for causality in things, but as the ultimate reason for the act of existing in all things."
Contingency does not mean “chance.” (In fact, St. Thomas treats “chance” as a cause, actually a kind of composite of causes, as it were.) It is:
adjective:
(contingent on/upon) occurring or existing only if (certain circumstances) are the case; dependent on *
his fees were contingent on the success of his search (Oxford Dictionary Online.)
This idea is very tough for most people to wrap themselves around. But, it is imperative if one does not want to have the proverbial floor pulled out from under him because of an incorrect definition of key words.
God bless,
jd*
)
