Material cause
| Category | Philosophy |
|---|---|
| Depth | Standard |
| Article type | local Catholic reference article |
Definition
The material cause is that from which a bodily thing is made and which enters into it. Bronze is the material cause of a bronze statue; timber supplies the material of a wooden table. This answers “What is it made from?” rather than “Who made it?” or “What is it for?”
Catholic usage
Material makes a difference to what can be produced. Wet clay can be moulded; already fired pottery behaves differently. A plan cannot ignore the capacities and limitations of its material. The material cause therefore contributes to an explanation rather than serving as a passive label.
The term is relative to the thing under discussion. Timber is material for a table, while the timber itself has structure and constituents. Aristotle's analysis does not require treating every ordinary material as an ultimate element or accepting his ancient physical theories.
Doctrinal context
The material cause does not by itself explain the completed thing. A heap of bricks and a wall can contain the same kinds of material, yet differ in arrangement, stability and function. Identifying the ingredients leaves questions about their organisation and the agent that brought it about.
In a natural substance, matter and form are principles of one thing. They should not automatically be imagined as two complete objects placed side by side. The concept of primary matter, used in a deeper scholastic analysis of substantial change, concerns a principle of receptivity; it is not an unstructured substance someone could keep in a jar.
Creation raises a different question. Catholic doctrine does not depict God as a craftsman constrained by an independently existing material supply. Creating from nothing means that no pre-existing material is presupposed by the creative act. Nothing is not a special material cause. Ordinary making and creation must therefore be distinguished.
Distinctions and safeguards
A material cause is not always a raw material in the commercial sense. A component can already be highly organised. Nor does a material explanation alone decide whether all reality is material. Establishing what a body is made from does not settle the nature of thought, truth or the first cause.
If nothing can be made from nothing, how can creation be possible?
The ordinary maxim describes changes in which an agent works on something already there. Creation is the claim that the entire dependent reality receives existence, including its material. It is not a change of nothing into something, with nothing acting as a subject. Whether there is an adequate creative cause is a further argument; the distinction only prevents a false comparison with ordinary fabrication.