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Aquinas on making waves

ST I, q. 105, a. 6, ad 1:  Moving something like water upward, as the heavenly bodies do in the case of the waves, is not violent in the Medieval sense, because they depend upon heavenly bodies for their natural inclination.

 Reply to Objection 1. In natural things something may happen outside this natural order, in two ways. It may happen by the action of an agent which did not give them theirnatural inclination; as, for example, when a man moves a heavy body upwards, which does not owe to him its natural inclination to move downwards; and that would be againstnature. It may also happen by the action of the agent on whom the natural inclination depends; and this is not against nature, as is clear in the ebb and flow of the tide, which is not against nature; although it is against the natural movement of water in a downward direction; for it is owing to the influence of a heavenly body, on which the natural inclination of lower bodies depends. Therefore since the order of nature is given to things by God; if He does anything outside this order, it is not against nature. Wherefore Augustine says (Contra Faust. xxvi, 3): "That is natural to each thing which is caused by Him from Whom is all mode, number, and order in nature."

 http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1105.htm 

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