THEISM AND E VOL UTION. 297 



According to the Fathers and the Schoolmen, 

 therefore, as well as according to Catholic Dogma, 

 God is the First Cause ; finite beings are but second- 

 ary causes. God is the Primary Cause Causa Caus- 

 arum; while all finite causes are merely instrumental. 

 God is preeminently the integral and efficient Cause 

 of all things, for He, preeminently, is the Cause 

 " whence," to use the words of Aristotle, " is the first 

 beginning of change or of rest." 



In the language of the Scholastics, He is the 

 Form of forms ; Absolute Form because Absolute 

 Act. He is the Principiant of principiants, the first 

 Beginning '^/>/^', Principium of all that exists or 

 can exist. 



Efficient Causality of Creatures. 



But God, although the true, efficient Cause of 

 all things, has willed, in order to manifest more 

 clearly His wisdom and power and love, to re- 

 ceive the cooperation of His creatures, and to con- 

 fer on them, as St. Thomas puts it, " the dignity of 

 causality dignitatem causandi conferre voluit" It 

 is not, however, as the Angelic Doctor declares, 

 "from any indigence in God that He wants other 

 causes for the act of production." He does not re- 

 quire the cooperation of secondary causes because 

 He is unable to dispense with their aid. He is none 

 the less omnipotent because He has chosen to act in 

 conjunction with works of His own hand, for it is 

 manifest that He who has created the causes, is able 

 to produce the effects which proceed from such 

 causes. 



