Commentaria in Summam contra Gentiles, Liber II

Having set out the arguments of those who wished to prove the eternity of the world, Saint Thomas proceeds to their solution ¹. In regard to this he does three things, just as the arguments to be solved fall into a threefold distinction.

I. First, therefore, he resolves the arguments taken from the side of God ² And to the first, he says that God need not be changed per se or per accidens by the beginning of His effect anew, since His action is not new but is His essence. For the newness of an effect indicates a change in the agent insofar as it demonstrates the newness of the action.

II. To the second, he says that although the divine action is eternal, it is not necessary that its effect be eternal. For God acts voluntarily in the production of things: not as though there were some intermediate action between his act of will and the effect; rather, his understanding and willing is his acting. But the effect follows from intellect and will according to the determination of the intellect and the command of the will. Now through the intellect the time for a thing to be made is prescribed. And therefore nothing prevents us from saying that God's action was from eternity, but its effect not from eternity, but at that time which he disposed from eternity.

2. Concerning what is said, namely that although the divine action is eternal, it does not follow of necessity that the effect is eternal, because God's acting is His understanding and willing etc., a doubt arises. For if the divine understanding and willing is itself the acting, it follows that the very willing of a thing is its producing. But producing is not without a terminus of production, either in esse or in becoming. Therefore they cannot stand together: that the divine action is eternal and yet the effect not eternal.

3. For the clarification of this, it must be considered that the immanent action of intellect and will differs from transitive action, because immanent action does not require the actual existence of its object, since it can be directed toward what does not exist: for I can understand and will something that is not in act. Since such an action is a perfection only of the agent, not of the patient or of the terminus, it suffices that the object be in the one understanding according to spiritual esse. Transitive action, however, because it perfects the patient as its form, cannot be unless the patient itself exists, in which it is received; and consequently, unless there be the esse of its effect, at least according to imperfect esse and in fieri. And therefore it cannot be that a transitive action be eternal while its effect is not eternal according to some esse: especially since such an action is materially identical with its terminus. But an immanent action can well be eternal, even though its effect does not exist eternally.

The deception in this objection, however, arises from the fact that when it is said that to will divinely is itself to act, the divine willing is thought of in the manner of an action passing over into some patient and received there; whereas it is not a transient action ³. But this deception is removed if one considers that the immanent action in the agent is efficacious of itself for producing an extrinsic effect, so that no other operation is required for the effect besides that action itself. For then it appears, since the immanent action which is willing does not necessarily require the co-existence of its object, that it can be an eternal action, and yet the effect will not be eternal. Hence Saint Thomas says that if the willing of an artisan were efficacious of itself for producing the effect—as namely requiring no other action—it would follow that from an ancient will there would be a new effect, with no new action existing. For the effect would exist not whenever the willing existed, but when the will willed it to exist.

4. To the objection, therefore, it is said, first, that willing itself, as regards the substance of the action, is itself producing. And when it is said that producing is not without a term of production, it is said that, speaking always of producing itself as regards the substance of the action, that is true of a production which is an action passing into external matter, but not of an immanent action.

It is said secondly that, if we speak of producing not only taken materially but also formally, and likewise of willing formally, then willing is not producing. For producing adds over and above willing a respect in the agent toward the effect produced. Hence, although the substance of the production itself is eternal, just as the willing is, it does not nevertheless have from eternity the character of what I call producing: because the respect of the agent to the effect, connoted within the very act of producing, is not eternal but temporal, as also is the respect of the thing produced to the very producer. So too it is conceded that producing is not without a terminus: because such a respect existing in the agent co-requires a terminus. But Saint Thomas does not speak of producing in this way when he says that the very willing and understanding is itself the making. For he speaks of it with regard to the substance of the making, not however with regard to the connoted respects: because the objection to which he responds proceeded concerning the making taken materially and as to its substance, not however formally as to all the connoted respects.

III. To the third objection, he says first that, once a sufficient cause is posited, its effect is posited as well—not indeed an extraneous effect, but its proper one. And therefore, since the proper effect of the will is that the thing be which the will wills; and it wills that this be then: for the will to be a sufficient cause, it is necessary that the effect be when the will is such that it should be, and when the will has disposed that the effect be ⁴.

He says second, that a natural cause differs from a voluntary cause in this: that to the esse of a natural cause the effect must follow, because the action of nature is according to what it itself is; but not to the esse of a voluntary cause, because the will acts not according to the mode of its esse, but according to the mode of its purpose. Hence, since God is an agent through will, although He is a sufficient cause and is eternal, it does not follow that His effect must be posited as eternal.

2. Concerning the difference between a natural cause and a voluntary one—namely, that a natural cause acts according to what it is, whereas a voluntary cause acts according to the mode of its purpose—a doubt arises. For God, in the production of creatures, is a voluntary agent. And yet he acts according to what he is: for in Prima, q. 45, a. 6, it is said that creating befits God according to his esse, which is his essence.

It is answered that "to act insofar as it is" can be understood in two ways. In one way, that the very substance of the thing, taken absolutely according to which it is, is for itself the first principle of acting. And thus it belongs to a natural cause to act insofar as it is, but not to a voluntary cause. — In another way, that the substance itself is indeed a principle of acting as that which is communicated, but not first; rather, only in such a way that it subsists under the command of the will and the conception of the intellect. And thus to act insofar as it is can belong to some voluntary agent.

God therefore acts according to His esse in the second way, not in the first. Hence it does not follow that He is a natural agent. And it is as if we were to say of fire that, if it communicated itself voluntarily, it would enflame according to its essence, because its essence would be the principle of enflaming, not taken absolutely, but as determined by will and intellect: for the will would be the first commanding principle, while the essence would be a principle as a form communicated through intellect and will. So it is in God.

IV. To the fourth, it is clear from the same that the effect of the divine will is not delayed, even though the will has not always existed: for under the divine will falls not only that its effect be, but also that it be then, when God disposed it to be.

It must be noted that the effect of an agent is then said to be delayed when its production is drawn out beyond the measure in which it ought to be produced according to the condition of the cause considered in itself. But when the causality of the efficient cause has as its proper effect not only that a thing be, but also that it be at such a time or in such a duration; however much, with the cause existing, the effect is not yet posited in act but is posited in act in a subsequent or later measure, which that cause itself has established and preordained for that effect—such an effect is not said to be delayed, because it is not drawn out beyond the disposition of the cause; for it comes about in that measure in which the agent willed it to come about.

V. To the fifth, it is said first that before the initiation of the whole of creation there is no diversity of parts of any duration to be admitted, as the argument supposes, such that there must be in the agent a reason why at this marked point of that duration it produced the creature into being, and not in another preceding or following.

It is said second, that God produced creature and time together in esse. And therefore there is no reason why "now" and not "earlier" is to be considered here, but only why not always.

It must be noted that Saint Thomas, by this response, wishes to deny the following consequence: The will of God is equally disposed toward producing a creature throughout the whole of eternity (insofar as this follows from eternity itself). Therefore, either it belongs to the creature never to be established under his eternity, or to be so always. For it can belong to the creature to be established under eternity as under an inadequate measure, not always, but at the beginning of time, together with the creature's being produced. And from something else, that is, from his goodness, a reason can be taken why he did not will the creature to exist always, even though no such reason can be taken from the diversity of eternity itself.

2. But concerning this response a doubt arises. For it seems that if anything is produced by God, it must always be under eternity. For if it is not always under eternity, then it is after eternity. Therefore its duration succeeds to eternity. But this is impossible: because it would follow that eternity is a finite duration; for a duration which another succeeds is terminated, at least on that part on which it is succeeded. Therefore, etc.

It is answered, and first it is said that in this objection a deception occurs, because we imagine eternity either to have succession within itself or to have another duration succeed to it, as day succeeds day and hour hour. This imagination is false: since eternity, existing indivisibly and without limit, embraces every other duration.

It is said secondly, that some duration being after eternity and succeeding to it can be understood in two ways. In one way, positively: as if there were two durations between which there is succession, and one were prior only, and the other posterior. And in this sense no duration of a produced thing is after eternity. — In another way, negatively: namely, because it was not with eternity without a beginning, but had a beginning of its esse. And in this sense it is granted that the duration of a thing produced by God is after eternity. And the first consequence is admitted. But the second is denied, unless the inferred consequent be likewise taken negatively. The disproof of that consequent, however, proves that no duration positively, in the first sense, succeeds to eternity. But from this it does not follow that the thing always was: for it did not have esse at whatever time eternity was.

To the sixth, it is said that in producing things for the sake of an end to be participated by them, the uniform relation of the end to the agent is not to be considered as the reason of a sempiternal work; rather, attention should be given to the relation of the end to the effect which is made for the sake of the end, so that the effect be produced in such a way as is fittingly ordered to that end. Therefore the uniformity of the end with respect to the agent does not entail that the effect be sempiternal.

It must be noted that, although divine goodness in itself is always uniform, and also in its relation to the divine will, the things produced so as to participate in it are nevertheless not related to it uniformly. Nor does the same thing, in whatever disposition it may be, stand to that goodness in the same way: rather, a thing standing in one way is ordered to it more fittingly than one standing in another way. Hence, because divine goodness is manifested more fittingly if a creature participates in it with some inception than if from eternity, from this the reason for the creation of things in time can be taken, notwithstanding the uniformity of divine goodness in itself and in its order to the divine will, which is immutable: as will be evident from the following reply.

To the seventh, the consequence is denied. Because the representation of the divine goodness through a creature cannot be by way of equality, as would be required for eternal effects to be produced by infinite goodness.