Efficient Cause or Final Cause?

Debate Around the Primate of the Efficient Cause in Francisco Suarez's the Disputationes Metaphysicae and the Expression Per Antonomasiam

Abstract

The increasing attention of the critics and, in particular, of the international academics who are interested in the metaphysic work of Granada”™s theologian Francisco Suárez has brought about a more indepth analysis of the diverse topics of Súarez”™s work, especially in regards to the importance that it has had, and still has, in maintaining two different traditions of thought, that is the second or late Scholastic and the Modern Age. In this article, we deal with one of these topics developed in the Disputationes metaphysicae and in particular with the relation between the efficient cause and the final cause through which, especially regarding the critical debate that has developed over the last few years and the attention that Suárez himself gives to the topic, we aim to: (a) introduce the most important positions of the international debate (Introduction); b) retrace all the fundamental landmarks that led to the constitution of ratio causae in communi (Paragraph one); and (c) underline the ”˜problematic”™ relationship between the efficient cause and the final cause, appealing to the «per antonomasiam» expression (Paragraph two). Therefore, our purpose is to show that: (a) each cause maintains an independent role in the doctrine of causality, although in different ways; (b) though each cause is independent, there is also an analogical and univocal relationship between the causes; and (c) the efficient cause is not the «per antonomasiam» cause, at least not in the double meaning in which it could be understood.