Concursus

Concursus is a Latin noun meaning "running together" or "a coming together." It has several related senses. In classical Latin, it described a gathering or crowd, literally people or things rushing toward a common point. It also meant a running together of rivers or forces, a convergence or collision.

In philosophical and legal usage, concursus denotes concurrence or co-occurrence: the simultaneous or joint operation of multiple factors or agents producing an effect, sometimes simply translated as "concurrence." In theology, especially within medieval scholasticism, concursus refers to the cooperation of divine and created-causes in the production of effects. The formulation is that God cooperates with created causes without negating their agency or freedom. This idea, known as divine concursus, is central to discussions of causation, providence, and free will, and it is distinguished from strict occasionalism or mere parallelism.

In modern English, concursus appears mainly in scholarly Latin texts and in discussions of Catholic theology or philosophy of action; the ordinary English equivalents are "concurrence," "confluence," or "cooperation." The term's precise sense relies on context, spanning physical, social, legal, and theological domains.