Si aliquid est a Deo provisum. Aristotele, il caso e il futuro contingente in Tommaso d'Aquino

This paper briefly examines how and in what sense, according to Thomas Aquinas, divine foreknowledge, providence and predestination are compatible with human freedom and contingency. Its main aim is to show the way in which Aquinas appropriates Aristotle’s philosophy, adapting it to an Augustinian theory of the divine government of world and human will within the context of a finalistically–determined metaphysics of Creation. Made from nothing in order to be a tool of the Providence, the human being is naturally contained by the divine power, upon which not only his existence but also his action ultimately depends, just as the action of any second cause depends upon that of the first cause. In this perspective, it is only in God that the human being can find his natural condition of freedom, because only God—through an unconditioned gift of grace is able to recreate the good will from the moral nothingness of the sin, restoring the integrity of the rational nature. Hence, I suggest that Aquinas employs Aristotle to elaborate a theory of human freedom that would be consistent with his theological assumptions.