De Moor X:6: The Means of Providence

Providence, because it is conversant with things already existing, does not exclude Means, of which God makes use, out of the Abundance of His goodness.  It is obviously a Difference between Creation, which gives to Creatures their being, and presupposes the nothingness of the same, and between Providence, which is conversant with things already existing; because the former does not admit Means, but the latter does not at all exclude Means in subordination to itself in all its Acts.  Hence it is observed in particular, that God does indeed immediately preserve created Spirits, and also the diverse celestial Bodies, as far as it is permitted to us to ascertain:  but that God is wont to work Mediately and through Second Causes in the Preservation of terrestrial bodies; thus a tree, 1.  the gardener plants and cultivates; 2.  the earth bears; 3.  the root nourishes; 4.  the sun, rain, earth, and air, each confers much, and all concur to grant growth and fruitfulness to the tree, etc.:  in the case of animal Bodies, which need nourishment, it is similarly observed, that one creature to a certain extent preserves, and causes to be preserved, another, to the extent that certain particles of the one are substituted in the place of the dissipated particles of the other.  God elegantly declares this His Mediated manner of working in Preservation in Hosea 2:21, 22, on which passage our AUTHOR in his Commentario observes among other things:  Although to those things, either inanimate or irrational, is attributed Hearing, both passive with respect to God, and active with respect to themselves mutually and Jezreel, there is manifest Personification, not only in the Scriptures, but also in others….  Now, the general sense is, that the heavens and the earth and its fruits are going to be in that state, in which they would desire to be, if they were rational, and have to be, so that they might abundantly satisfy the necessities of men, etc.  Now, God makes use of Means of this sort in the Preservation of most bodies, not from a Want of Power; but, 1.  so that an elegant εὐταξία/orderliness and harmony might appear, which God most wisely willed to be visible among the diverse parts of this Universe and the individual creatures.  2.  So that He might demonstrate the Abundance of His Power and Goodness, through which He knew and willed also to communicate so much of His power and goodness to creatures, that one might usefully contribute, and be able to contribute, to the preservation of the other.

However, the Principal Power here is Incommunicable, since the Omnipotent Power of God is required to grant continuation of Essence to the Creature, no less than to produce the same originally; and, with respect to this Principal and Omnipotent Influx, whereby God causes all Creatures to continue in being, Preservation is always Immediate; neither does any Creature so depend upon another, as all do upon God.  And thus the matter stands as well in Government, in which, although many occasions come to rational Creatures, upon which they are urged to act in this or that way; although one Creature, in its manner, is a support to another in acting:  yet the Concursus of God as the First Cause in the actions of Creatures is always the immediate Impulse of the Creature to act.