00:00Can we change destiny?
00:02For Saint Thomas Aquinas, it is first necessary to make an essential distinction between providence and destiny.
00:07It's not exactly the same thing.
00:09Providence is the order of things as it is in God.
00:12Destiny is this order as it unfolds through created causes.
00:16that is to say, by everything in the world that produces effects according to the order willed by God.
00:21In other words, providence is God's plan.
00:24Destiny is this same plan as it unfolds in the world through secondary causes.
00:28And that is precisely why we can answer the question in a nuanced way.
00:33If we look at destiny from the perspective of created causes, then yes, there is change.
00:38Things move, unfold over time, and depend on real sequences of events.
00:42In this sense, destiny is mobile.
00:44But if we look at this same destiny in its relationship to God, then it does not change.
00:49because it depends on divine providence, which also does not change.
00:52We must therefore reject two errors.
00:55The first is to believe that everything happens out of absolute necessity.
00:59as if everything were mechanically locked in advance.
01:02The second is believing that one can modify destiny, even in its fundamental principles.
01:07as if one could change providence itself.
01:09His answer is therefore very precise.
01:11Destiny can change in the order of secondary causes.
01:14but his relationship with divine providence remains unchanged.
01:17In short, what happens in the world can be mobile,
01:20But the order by which God knows and ordains it does not change.
Commentaires