A Glance at the Nature of Preparing Causes

Viewing their wide applications, preparing causes are of the most important kind of causes. A preparing cause just paves the way for a material effect to come into being; and according to the researches carried out such a cause’s being gone before its effect’s coming into being, the cause is not the constituent of the effect. The nature of a preparing cause as an occasioning ground for something is no more than the very ground for the capacities of that thing to be newly developed. Other existing views about the nature of preparing causes and their general instances concern their capacities and grounds. In a more precise view, all contingent beings involved in bringing an effect into being are no more than the preparing causes, and the true efficient cause is exclusive to Allah Almighty. This application is different from that of the common meaning of the preparing cause, though it is possible to consider a general meaning for the term in order to cover such an application.