Introducing Causal Analysis
Aristotle spoke of four kinds of cause:
1. Efficient (or First)
2. Formal
3. Material
4. End (or Final)
Edward Feser introduces these with the example of a rubber ball:
“The material cause or underlying stuff the ball is made out of is rubber; its formal cause, or the form, pattern, or structure it exhibits, comprises such features as its sphericity, solidity, and bounciness … Next we have the efficient cause, that which actualizes a potency and thereby brings something into being. In this case it would be the actions of the workers and/or machines in the factory in which the ball was made, as they molded the rubber into the ball. Lastly we have the final cause or the end, goal, or purpose of a thing, which in the case of the ball might be to provide amusement to a child.”1
The formal cause is usually the toughest for the newcomer to get his or her mind wrapped around, as it involves abstract thinking. We are simultaneously thinking about “the thing itself,” that is, the end product, or “shape” or “form” it takes when it “hits the shelf” of the real world, and yet we are also thinking about the idea. A longer season in philosophical thinking will reveal that there cannot be formal causes without form. That comes to mean that there cannot be “finished products” of things unless things were first in the mind of a producer—no houses without blueprints, no holiday meals without recipes, no medicines or surgeries without anatomy charts and pathology reports.
Further reflection in this Aristotelian tradition yielded a fifth kind—the instrumental cause—when it comes to actions in which intelligent agents use means to achieve greater ends. In the technical lingo of philosophers, the instrumental is that by which the efficient act gives form (actuality) to the nature inherent (potential) in the material.
The machines in Feser’s example would fall under this heading if they were utilized by human labor, rather than replacing human labor as an alternative efficient cause. But then again, even robots and AI will give form to matter via the prior totality of form in the mind of programmers.
A Beginner’s Example of the Five Causes
Think of a girl learning to bake cookies. She has before her a bowl, spoons, measuring cups, and a baking sheet for tools. She has a cookbook opened, and containers filled with flour, sugar, butter, chocolate chips and eggs. The oven is heating and she begins to follow instructions. Causal analysis here will not be difficult at all.
1. Efficient (or first) — the cook / the girl
2. Formal — the “ideal act” represented by the recipe
3. Material — the sum of the ingredients
4. Instrumental — the utensils and heat from the oven
5. End (or final) — to serve a delicious desert
This is an example so easy that I made it my standard example—complete with a clipart picture on the notes—for students between the ages of 9 and 12 in our Academy years ago. Neither parent nor student could say with a straight face that this was too hard. Every one got it, and it served as encouragement to press on to further application.
I do not deny that causal analysis can get difficult, but hopefully one can begin to see, from the simplest examples, that the concept itself is neither mysterious nor obscure. Let us move just one step toward the deeper end of the pool, so to speak.
An Example from Scripture
Think of debates among Christians about how God brings salvation to sinners. Let me go right to the real expert on this, at least among mere mortals. The Apostle Paul wrote,
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:8-10).
I have put three words, in particular, in bold and italics. I could have highlighted more, but let us stay simple. The causes of things are signalled in those simple little words we call prepositions: by, through, for, and so forth.
Notice in this passage to the Ephesians, that the little words “by” and “through” and “for” are carrying a lot of causal freight. Grace is the efficient cause of salvation here. Of course that means that God is the ultimate cause, but grace is the word Paul uses for God’s unmerited favor toward sinners. Faith is the instrumental cause in some way. Since this is not a passage dealing more specifically with that part of salvation called justification, we need not (and arguably should not) delve into how faith functions as an instrumental cause in that divine courtroom. But at the very least, we can notice how Paul subordinates faith to grace, as an instrument—a “through” which—within the working of grace. Even our faith is a gift of God’s grace and thus falls within that class of things of which we cannot boast. For anyone who wants more clues as to why the way of faith would eliminate boasting precisely by how it is subordinated to grace, I would recommend reading Romans 3:27-28; 4:4-5, 16, 1 Corinthians 1:30; 4:7, and Philippians 1:29.
Returning to our Ephesians passage, as Paul comes to the end of the statement, he adds yet another cause—good works. That may be a surprise to many. But this is only alarming to Christians who have not thought deeply in terms of causal analysis. Which preposition is attached in this case? It is for good works. In other words, good works are the end cause—at least the particular end cause Paul wanted to talk about here—of salvation. To say that our works are an end cause in salvation is to say that it is something God designed to accomplish in saving sinners. It is crucial to salvation that those who are being saved perform good works in this world.
Note those prepositions carefully, then, that the grace is not “by” good works, but it is “for” good works.
By seeing good works as an end cause in salvation, we avoid two extreme errors. We avoid antinomianism, that chooses grace over how we live, on the ground that salvation must be caused by grace, not works. We also avoid legalism, that waters down grace in the attempt to factor in the necessity of good works. What we have here is a false dilemma.
This is simply not a choice we face—as if there were only one kind of cause! Likewise the concept of necessity is made needlessly difficult when we fail to see that there are different degrees and even kinds of necessity that run parallel to the same differences in causality.
Concluding Thoughts
If anyone takes the trouble to read the authors of books from before the mid-twentieth century, they will find such language. If anyone moves further back, behind the Enlightenment, when Aristotle’s way of thinking was more officially dumped by a more irreligious crowd, one will find the four causes functioning as a basic method of analyzing just about any issue in theology. In using causal analysis, these theologians were able to penetrate more deeply into the nature of reality, yes, even of the things of God as revealed in His word. The reason for that is quite simple.
Everything works this way.
Think about why that is. Everything that is not God—which is everything that He has made—is an effect and therefore required a cause. The very nature of being a creature is to be an effect, situated in time and space, acted upon in a succession of being and becoming, separable by form and matter, propositionally mapped by subject and predicate. Each will be caused in this matrix of causes—none causing themselves, none simply ordained as a second thing from God, bypassing all secondary causes.
So, to repeat: Everything works this way.
To try to explain the cause of things apart from this multifaceted way of causality is to kick against the metaphysical goads.
Many errors result from shallow thinking. And many kinds of shallow thinking result not from some natural inability to think, but from our ignorance of categories or concepts that make deeper thinking what it is. One of the most important of these is causal analysis. Our ignorance of this particular concept is largely forced. When people become so fixated on “not caring” what Aristotle had to say, in the name of pure devotion to the Bible or fear of pagan speech, I can only say that such a poor soul has succeeded only in replacing one superstition with another, and the one he has chosen, I am sorry to say, has left him with a very dull mind.
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1. Edward Feser, Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide (Oxford, UK: Oneworld Publications, 2009), 16.
