On Creation, Conservation, and Concurrence: Metaphysical Disputations 20, 21, and 22

The Spanish Jesuit Francisco Suarez (1548–1617) was an eminent Catholic philosopher-theologian whose Disputationes Metaphysicae were first published in Spain in 1597 and came to be widely studied throughout Europe during the seventeenth century. The Disputationes Metaphysicae not only constituted the high point of sixteenth-century scholastic metaphysics but exercised a great influence on early modern philosophers such as Descartes, Malebranche, and Leibniz.

This is the first time that Disputations 20–22 have been translated into English. These disputations, which deal with the divine actions of creation, conservation, and concurrence, form the last half of Suarez’s treatment of efficient causality. The present work completes thus Freddoso’s translation of Suarez’s full account of efficient causality in the Disputationes Metaphysicae.

In his lengthy introduction, Freddoso situates the Disputationes Metaphysicae within their proper intellectual context, provides a basic introduction to scholastic ontology and treatments of efficient causality, and traces the main lines of argument proposed by Suarez in Disputations 20–22.