Aristotle the Calvinist

Yes, it is a bit anachronistic -- and it seems to be that Aristotle has not been interpreted properly in light of the following ill-attended-to section. I want to redeem this, which is quoted to some degree, to what degree I do not know, by the late great Catholic Saint Thomas of Aquinas in his Treatise on Grace -- the second article. So, in the end perhaps we should deem Calvin a Thomist or at least Aristotelian rather than Thomas and Aristotle Calvinists. Calvin was an avid student of Aristotle, even if he didn't always allude to him -- this mainly because of his audience rather than his unfamiliarity and impotency to engage such ideas. To clarify, I'm providing the context -- it's Aristotle on luck, but i'm emboldening the middle section which I find most relevant, with italicized parts I found especially illuminating (the three paragraph separation is mine also). His main point (as far as I'm concerned) is to say that God is not merely the formal cause of all things in the human will, but also the efficient cause. This idea is especially applicable to the issue of faith, such that man's freedom is respected, demonstrating that Aristotle's notion of the relation of the divine and human wills is not synergistic, neither that God is deistic and distant, but near to man and all things. Enjoy!
-Guy

From: Eudemian Ethics Bk. 7 1247b40-1248b7
But in the other cases how can the good luck be due to a natural goodness in desire and appetite? But surely the good fortune and chance spoken of here and in the other case are the same, or else there is more than one sort of good fortune, and chance is of two kinds. But since we see some men lucky contrary to all knowledge and right reasonings, it is clear that the cause of luck must be something different from these. But is it luck or not by which a man desires what and when he ought, though for him human reasoning could not lead to this? For that is not altogether unreasonable, nor is the desire natural, though it is misled by something. The man, then, is thought to have good luck, because luck is the cause of things contrary to reason, and this is contrary to reason (for it is contrary to knowledge and the universal). But probably it does not spring from chance, but seems so for the above reason. So that this argument shows not that good luck is due to nature, but that not all who seem to be lucky are successful owing to chance, but rather owing to nature; nor does it show that fortune is not the cause of anything, but only not of all that it seems to be the cause of. This, however, one might question: whether fortune is the cause of just this, viz. desiring what and when one ought. But will it not in this case be the cause of everything, even of thought and deliberation?

For one does not deliberate after previous deliberation which itself presupposed deliberation, but there is some starting-point; nor does one think after thinking previously to thinking, and so ad infinitum. Thought, then, is not the starting-point of thinking nor deliberation of deliberation. What, then, can be the starting-point except chance? Thus everything would come from chance. Perhaps there is a starting-point with none other outside it, and this can act in this sort of way by being such as it is. The object of our search is this--what is the commencement of movement in the soul? The answer is clear: as in the universe, so in the soul, it is god. For in a sense the divine element in us moves everything. The starting-point of reasoning is not reasoning, but something greater.

What, then, could be greater even than knowledge and intellect but god? For excellence is an instrument of he intellect. And for this reason, as I said a while ago, those are called fortunate who, whatever they start on, succeed in it without being good at reasoning. And deliberation is of no advantage to them, for they have in them a principle that is better than intellect and deliberation, while the others have not this but have intellect; they have inspiration, but they cannot deliberate. For, though lacking reason, they succeed, and like the prudent and wise, their divination is speedy; and we must mark off as included in it all but the judgment that comes from reasoning; in some cases it is due to experience, in others to habituation in the use of reflection; and both experience and habituation use god. This quality sees well the future and the present, and these are the men in whom the reasoning-power is relaxed. Hence we have the melancholy men, the dreamers of what is true. For the moving principle seems to become stronger when the reasoning-power is relaxed. So the blind remember better, being freed from concern with the visible, since their memory is stronger. It is clear, then, that there are two kinds of good luck, the one divine--and so the lucky seem to succeed owing to god--, the other natural. Men of this sort seem to succeed in following their impulse, the others to succeed contrary to their impulse; both are irrational, but the one is persistent good luck, the other not.