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Bonaventure strengthens this argument by considering the restriction of the existence of
the first element to be necessary only in the case of things ordered by causality as opposed to any
arbitrary order. Bonaventure responds that the order of solar revolutions gives rise to a causal
order of generation of animals. Therefore, there must have been a first animal in the sequence of
generation of animals. Then presuming that the world has never been without animals,
Bonaventure deduces the temporal beginning of the world. 73 In his treatment of the series of
efficient causes, Aquinas distinguishes two types of such series. The series of essentially
subordinated causes is a series of efficient causes that are required to act simultaneously for the
effect to be produced. The series of accidentally subordinated causes is a series of efficient
causes acting non-simultaneously. The first series cannot be infinite because such series would
be essentially infinite. However, Aquinas states that it is not impossible for the series of non-
simultaneously acting causes to be infinite because such series is only infinite in succession. 74
Aquinas illustrates this possibility in both the Writings on the Sentences 75 and the Summa
Theologica 76 with an example of an eternal craftsman using infinitely many tools one after
another. Aquinas argues that nothing prevents the present tool to be preceded by an infinite
successive multitude of other tools because their relation to the present tool is accidental rather
than essential.
73
Bonaventure, Comm. in Sent. 2, d.1, pars 1, art. 1, q.2: “Si dicas, quod statum ordinis non est necesse ponere, nisi
in bis quae ordinantur secundum ordinem causalitatis, quia in causis necessario est status; quaero, quare non in
aliis? Praeterea, in ex hoc non evades: nunquam enim fuit revolution caeli, quin fuisset generatio animalis ex
animali; sed constat, quod animal ordinatur ad animal; ex quo generator secundum ordinem causae: ergo si
secundum Philosphum et rationem necesse est ponere statum in his quae ordinantur secundum ordinem causae,
ergo in generatione animalium necesse est ponere primum animal. Et mundus non fuit sine animalibus.”
74
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, tr. James F. Anderson, accessed May 24, 2018, at DHS Priory,
www.dhspriory.org, II, 38.
75
Baldner and Carroll, Aquinas on Creation, 104.
76
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, tr. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, accessed May 24, 2018. DHS
Priory. https://dhspriory.org/thomas/summa/, I, q. 46, a. 2.
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