It must be stressed here that the endless combinations of psychological, moral and intellectual influences do interfere with the basic pattern of the interaction between a soul and Grace, and that these differ from person to person. All this is studied in applied sciences like psychology,anthropology, behaviourism, counselling, etc. But experts in these fields would be wasting their time and that of their clients if they ignored, or were ignorant of, the true foundation that underlies all interaction between every human being and Divine Grace. And it is only one Philosophy that carries the guarantee that it has this interaction right. This is the same as saying that only Thomistic Philosophy can tell us how this interaction between soul and Grace works and should work according to the one reliable “blueprint” which the Creator has made to underlie all personal differences: the one human nature. As we know from papal assurances, the Holy Church founded by Christ has not a vestige of a doubt that Thomism found the ‘key’ needed for the accurate reading of this blueprint.
Creation then, according to Church belief, is the calling into existence by the Almighty of other beings outside Himself, who will be forever stamped with at least two characteristics concerning their origin:-
Since we speak about ‘the Act of Creation’, St. Thomas found it very convenient to keep alive in his system this powerful meaning of ‘this first act’ of the Almighty, and to keep the term “act” connected to this whole idea of “calling into being” or “being called into being”. From here on we will restrict ourselves deliberately to the crown and glory of the material creation: the human being. From (1) above we see that the human being does exist albeit with a limited existence, and from (2) above we accept that we can truthfully say of the human being that, surrounding his limited existence, there is a lot he is not ....
He is not a submarine, or a whale, or his next door neighbour, or the Archangel Gabriel, etc. etc. Since the human being cannot give himself his own existence, his existence depends so much on ‘the first act of creation’, that St. Thomas calls ‘existence’ by its proper name: actus primus, ‘first act’ or ‘primary act’. My existence as a human being is ‘the first act’ or ‘the primary act’, but a ‘first act’ about me, not my first or primary act since I did not make myself. I was called into being by Someone else’s ‘primary act’. However, once created as a human being by this ‘primary act’ of God, I am now a living ‘primary act’, His primary act as far as my existence is concerned.
And yet, since God called me into being and gave me existence, I can now call this existence my existence, and the act that produced it my primary act. Not mine as if performed by me, but truly my possession because it was given to me for a very definite purpose.
We have now arrived at a momentous fact of life, and at a most consoling truth: Once constituted in existence as God’s ‘primary act’, I am now able to perform my own acts, that is, as we saw, I can now ‘call into being’ some of that which as yet was not. All these acts, my acts, St. Thomas calls quite reasonably “secondary acts”, in Latin: actus secundus. It is clear that all my secondary acts flow totally and only from the nature the Creator called into being when He gave me ‘existence’, i.e. when He gave me my personal ‘primary act’, my existence. All secondary acts are limited by the nature one received in the primary act.
With this we have discovered the bedrock on which the whole of Thomistic philosophy is built: human nature is invariant for every human being, just as Divine Nature is invariant for each of the three Divine Persons in the Blessed Trinity, the foundation of our Faith that there is only one God. Now it is very necessary that we come to terms with that immense expanse of all that the human being is not, but (according to (2) above, and this remains important) from which he came. If his ‘primary act’, his own existence, came from what is not, then it is the fate of all his (own) secondary acts, that they share in this fate, and that they too come from what was not before. Even the simple task of putting my hand to my head shows the difference between primary and secondary act. My hand is part of ‘my primary act’, my human existence. It is there, but it was not always there. It, too, was created and came from nothing. But when I put my hand to my head, my secondary act, I must admit that it was not there a minute ago and that I could have put it somewhere else. All my secondary acts, that is all that I now bring into existence, remain surrounded by a vast expanse of what I could have done, a sea of almost endless ‘possibilities’ ....
This is such an obvious word to choose, that St. Thomas did just that, and gave the name ‘potential’ to that sea of ‘not-my-existence’ and yet possible existence. If a photo was taken of me with my hand at my head, I would have proof that I once ‘existed’ with my secondary act: my hand at my head. Which would be preferable to a photo showing that I once existed with another ‘secondary act’, another ‘potential’ or ‘possibility’: with my hand in the till .... Some of this created ‘not-my-existence’ (potential) surrounding me cannot possibly become incorporated in ‘my primary act’, my existence, but is itself not impossible to exist. I will never become a car or a fish, although ‘cars’ and ‘fish’ do exist.
But there are other secondary acts which the human being is not as yet, or has not done or made as yet, but which he could be, or do or make, or become, like making a car, or being a mother, or becoming a doctor. But it is important to realise that whatever ‘secondary act’ a human being will do or become, this secondary act will always be made up of these two components: what it eventually is: act (existence), and what as yet it was not. It is to this ‘not yet’ that Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophy wisely gave the name ‘potential’ or ‘potency’. So the human being is capable of bringing forth secondary acts from the nature he received from his Creator, and from the ‘potential’ by which he is surrounded. And once the choice has been made, this new existence again is made up of what it is: the act (existence) eventually chosen, and that whole lot of what it is not: ‘potential’, or ‘possible’, or ‘not-yet’ existence from which it came, showing again that vast expanse of what he could have done or become instead, that is, to which he could have given ‘act’: existence.
A piece of marble is in a ‘potential’ state of becoming a sculpture; seeds are ‘potential’ flowers or trees. Human beings are not only ‘in potential’ of becoming engineers, teachers, housewives, artists, but also of becoming children of God, or even Saints, sharing in the Divine Nature of God by Baptism! All the secondary acts are there to ‘realise’, i.e. ‘to make real’, to bring into existence, the potentials that the nature of a human being is capable of. To bring the ‘actus primus’ of his/her existence to perfection by choosing what is needed to become a good teacher, a good engineer, a good housewife, etc. We spoke briefly of what is meant by ‘not my existence’, that, as a vast void, surrounds the primary act of human existence, and from which are drawn all humanity’s secondary acts. But with his beautiful teaching, St. Thomas has transformed this void into a huge and plentiful ocean, brimming with all sorts of potential possibilities.
What an almost limitless panorama unfolds itself before us.
How richly endowed is man in his ‘first act’ of creation. His human nature in which he stands created ‘in the image and likeness of God’ with his spiritual gifts of intellect and will, feelings, freedom of choice, memory, inclinations and aspirations. To that must be added the beautiful attributes that belong to his corporal and material make-up: his brain, the five senses, his physical strength and great endurance, his avidity to learn and master his surroundings, and his powers of recuperation and procreation, all contributing to an almost endless variety of choices and secondary acts, leading up to, if chosen wisely, the perfection of his primary act, the act by which he came forth from the loving hands of his Creator. “The perfection of his primary act” we said. The perfection of his very own share in human nature ....
Here at last we have discovered the gold we are after. Let us polish it up so it will glow with the brilliance it received from God, before a grateful St. Thomas enshrined it as one of the crown jewels in his system. The Divine Law ‘dictates’ that God lives according to the infinite perfection of His own Divine Nature. In God there is no distinction between primary act and secondary act. God is infinite, unlimited, necessary and perfect Existence. God is all Act, which St. Thomas wisely calls ‘Actus purus’, Pure Existence. Existing is Nature to Him, and it is His Nature to exist.
Since God therefore is necessary existence, there is no ‘potential’ in God, no becoming something He was not already before. The only ‘potency’ we may attribute to the Divine Nature is that God is Omnipotent.
Divine Law demands that, at the level of Creation too, all secondary acts of His rational creatures are performed according to the nature of the Primary Act, and lead to its perfection. That is, that they make real, that they ‘bring into existence’ its glorious potential. God lives according to His Nature which is unlimited perfection, called Holiness. As we saw, it is this stamp of God which is left on every rational creature that comes from His hands. It is this particular ‘brand’: to live according to the perfection of human nature, to perform secondary acts leading to the perfection of the primary act, which is left on every human being as the necessity, the dictates, of the Natural Law. Natural Law then is the human participation in the Divine Law. And the Natural Law dictates that only secondary acts are chosen which lead to the perfection of the primary act: human existence.
And it is right here, on the borderline between Primary Act and Secondary Act, that human conscience has its permanent home to secure this perfection.
Conscience is not the human brain. Conscience has immediate access to the human intellect. It dictates which secondary acts in any given situation will lead to an intermediate perfection of the primary act, that which is immediately required for the moment, and sounds a warning against secondary acts which would injure the perfection of human nature and might even impair human nature itself. Conscience has the power to arrest both intellect and will. The borderline between the primary act (human nature as created by God and given to a human person) and individual secondary acts is wholly subconscious. And it is conscience which makes known what happens on the border. This conscience is capable of doing, because it is in the primary act, that is in human nature itself, that the Divine Law: to live according to the perfection of one’s primary act, lives as a permanent and indelible reminder.
And it is the contemplation of any possible secondary act which triggers that living reminder into ‘conscience’: either by encouraging the choice of a good act or warning against choosing a bad act. Conscience is not ‘the voice of God’ telling us what to do. When a car is being driven beyond the physical endurance of its ‘primary act’, it is not the car manufacturers who are telling the nut at the wheel how to treat the car properly: it is the screeching of the car itself protesting against the secondary acts to which its primary act is being subjected. In the same way, conscience is a safety device for human nature, an alarm that rings when secondary acts are being performed, or even contemplated, which violate the natural law: the human participation in the Divine Law, which says, ‘that everything that exists must act according to the perfection of its nature, its primary act’.
Conscience can be overruled by intellect and will. Like the ‘nut at the wheel’ can turn up the radio to drown the ‘voice with noise’. But until the total breakdown in hell, where the ruin of human nature will be fixed forever, this friction between the primary act and the wrong secondary acts will remain as a guide for both intellect and will. Once conscience penetrates into the conscious level, its message may be misinterpreted.
This is especially the case with fallen human nature, where conscience has to cope with ‘an inclination to evil’, assisted by a host of unbridled desires. And then there are the already mentioned psychological, intellectual and moral influences in individuals, interfering with a calm and rational analysis of the conscience messages. And even if the poor intellect does understand, ‘the flesh is weak’. Yet even if its voice has been dulled, a persistent uneasiness about a certain way of life is conscience’s way of asking for an investigation and consequent further information. All this is one of the reasons why conscience can never be elevated to an absolute.