# Necessary causes without an entirely necessary universe

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH02.P014](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH02.P014/#char=868,949): "a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe"

A precise theological parallel is Aquinas's distinction between necessary and contingent effects. In *Summa theologiae* I, question 22, article 4, he argues that providence includes both: some effects follow necessarily from their proximate causes, while others occur contingently. The certainty of God's providence therefore does not make every effect necessary. Article 3, reply 2, likewise preserves the action of secondary causes within divine government. See the [English Dominican translation, second revised edition (1920)](https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1022.htm#article4), reproducing a medieval Latin work, rather than a contemporary statement prompted by Chesterton.

This clarifies the limited claim Chesterton needs: acknowledging regular causal processes does not oblige a Christian to reduce every event to one universally necessitating mechanism. Aquinas's treatment is also less miscellaneous than Chesterton's imagery suggests. Necessary and contingent causes belong to an intelligible order under providence; they are not simply exceptions added to a machine. The parallel illuminates a theological distinction, but does not establish that Chesterton borrowed this formulation from Aquinas or that every Christian tradition frames necessity identically.

## Sources

- [Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, question 22, English Dominican translation, second revised edition (1920)](https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1022.htm#article4), Article 4, answer and replies 1–3; article 3, reply 2; edition information at foot of page

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