Disputationes metaphysicae

1. It must first of all be supposed what the name of creation signifies, for what the thing itself is will be declared afterwards. Creation, then, signifies the effecting of some thing from nothing, as the theologians define it.¹ That particle from nothing, however, in order to distinguish this action from others, excludes every concurrence of a material cause and the dependence of the thing which is created on any subject, as Anselm rightly expounds, in the Monologion, c. 8, so that from nothing is the same as from no subject; and so this action is distinguished from the other, which is by eduction from the potency of a subject. For these two actions adequately divide all efficiency; and therefore, just as by that particle creation is sufficiently distinguished from eduction, so too by it the notion of creation is sufficiently explained. Hence the theologians infer that whatever is created must be subsistent or be made by way of a subsistent,² because it must be made outside a subject, or without dependence on a subject. But what exists without dependence on a subject subsists or behaves after the manner of a subsistent; which I say on account of an accident, if it were made by God separated from a subject, which would truly be created, because it would have a mode of being like subsistence. But the rational soul, even if it is made in the body, is yet truly made from nothing, because it is not made from the body itself; for it is not educed from its potency nor does it depend on it in its being; and therefore it also truly subsists while it is made in the body, as we shall say below in treating of subsistence.

Reasons for doubting

2. The first.—The word creation being thus explained, it seems that it cannot be known by natural reason that creation is possible; first, because what Aristotle, Plato and other weighty philosophers did not know, it is likely cannot be known by natural light; but those philosophers were so ignorant of creation that they held as a first principle and known per se that nothing is made from nothing, as is established from Aristotle, in I Phys.; therefore.

3. The second.—Secondly, of no being can it be demonstrated that it is created; therefore neither can it be demonstrated that creation is possible. The antecedent is evident, because every being is either substance or accident; but an accident, if it is in a subject, is neither created nor can be created, even if it is most supernatural, as was shown above; but that an accident exists and is made separated from a subject cannot be discovered by natural reason. Again, substance is either spiritual or material; of the former it can scarcely be investigated by natural reason whether it exists, let alone demonstrated what it is like or whence it is; therefore it cannot be evidently known that there is some spiritual substance made by another; and consequently neither can it be demonstrated that creation is necessary or possible on account of these substances. But material substance is always made from matter; but that matter itself is made, or needs the efficiency of another in order to be able to exist, cannot be demonstrated; hence Plato and many philosophers posited it eternal and unproduced, nor does a natural middle term appear by which the opposite can be demonstrated. For if there were any, it would chiefly be the imperfection and potentiality of matter. But why can it not be said that matter has of itself this its entity, although least and imperfect? For it is not known per se that this imperfection of passive potentiality has a necessary connection with that other imperfection of objective potentiality which a thing needing effecting or creation includes.

4. Thirdly, for creating infinite power is required; but it cannot be demonstrated that an infinite active power is possible; therefore neither that creation is possible. The major is declared a posteriori, because otherwise a creature could have the power of creating, because, if it is not repugnant on account of infinity of power, there is no reason why it should be repugnant; but the consequent is per se quite absurd. The minor, however, is proved, because there is no natural middle term for demonstrating infinite power in acting; for Aristotle tried to demonstrate this from motion, yet did not attain it, as I shall show below; and the reason is the same of any other natural reason. Hence many try to demonstrate from creation that there is some infinite power in acting; but this is a circle or a begging of the question in this matter which we are disputing.

5. Fourthly, it is repugnant that being as being be made; therefore it is repugnant that anything be created; the consequence is established from the definition of creation, because, if something is made from nothing, it is made per se primo according to the whole notion of being; therefore it is made per se primo inasmuch as it is being. The antecedent is proved, first, because, if being as being were makeable, every being would be makeable; because what belongs to some notion per se primo and as such belongs to everything in which such notion is found; but this is plainly false, because it is necessary that there be some being which cannot be made; otherwise there would be a process to infinity in producers and produced, which is impossible. Secondly the same antecedent is proved, because being as being abstracts from entity according to the being of existence and according to the being of essence; but it is impossible that any being be made according to this whole being; therefore it is impossible that it be made inasmuch as it is being. Hence it also comes about that it is impossible to be made from nothing, because it is impossible to be made according to the being of existence without being supposed according to the being of essence; which being is not wholly nothing, for through it true things are distinguished from fictitious and chimerical ones; therefore.

Various opinions

6. In this matter it was the opinion of many theologians that it cannot be demonstrated that any thing is made or can be made through creation. So holds Gregory, In II, dist. 1, q. 2, towards the end, and Gabriel inclines to it in the same place, q. 2, a. 2. Bassolis holds it, In I, dist. 1, q. 1, a. 3. Which authors a fortiori suppose that it cannot be demonstrated that every being distinct from God is made by Him, or that there cannot be several real unproduced beings. For although, the creation of some beings being admitted, it is not at once evidently inferred that it is impossible that there be two uncreated natures, or that every being distinct from God is made by Him, but this needs proper demonstration, yet, if creation were not possible, it would be wholly impossible that all beings distinct from God should be made by Him, because it is evident that there are many beings which cannot be made except through creation, if they are to be made. As all spiritual things, which, since they do not have matter, cannot be made from a presupposed subject; likewise the heavens, if we suppose that they cannot be made by generation, as their nature, operation, motion and whatever we experience of them seem sufficiently to show; likewise prime matter, which cannot be made from prior matter.

7. The second opinion is that this truth can be demonstrated by natural reason. This is the more common opinion of the theologians, which St. Thomas holds, In II, dist. 1, q. 1, a. 2, and he supposes the same in I, q. 44, a. 1, and q. 45, a. 2; Alexander of Hales also holds it, II p., q. 6, a. 6; Scotus, In I, dist. 8, q. 1; Thomas of Strasbourg, In II, dist. 1, q. 1; Hervaeus, Quodl. II, q. 1; Henry, Quodl. VIII, q. 6. And this opinion is more conformable to the divine Scriptures; for these teach that from this visible world it can be shown that God exists, because the creatures themselves cry out that they have another author or maker; which places we shall weigh below, when we demonstrate that God exists. The holy Fathers too speak in the same way, whom I shall report in the same place below. And this is without doubt the true opinion, which cannot be better proved than by bringing forward the middle terms by which this truth can be demonstrated.

Resolution of the question

8. We can prove two things, then: one is that creation is possible; the other is that creation actually is, or has been made, or is exercised in the universe by some efficient cause. From which we shall elicit a third, namely, that there is in the universe, and is necessary, one first cause to which all other beings which have being are reduced through creation as to the first origin of their being.

It is shown that creation is possible

9. First, then, we can prove a priori that creation is possible, if we suppose it proved from elsewhere that God exists and is supremely perfect, as much as can be or be understood in the latitude of being. For, as I shall say in the place cited below, although absolutely we cannot know God or His perfections a priori, yet, some principle or attribute being demonstrated a posteriori, from it we can gather another a priori, as immortality from immateriality. Thus, then, in the present case we suppose it demonstrated that there is one supreme most perfect being, indeed also most powerful; we shall prove it below, not from creation, lest we beg the question, but from other middle terms. Now, then, I argue in this way: effecting through creation is not so impossible as to involve in itself repugnance or contradiction; therefore neither is the power of acting in this way in itself impossible or involving repugnance or imperfection; therefore such power is in fact in some being, at least in the first; therefore by virtue of it creation is possible. This last consequence is clear; it is necessary, however, to distinguish that word or denomination possible; for in one way it is taken negatively, as it is the same as not repugnant; in another way positively, for that which can be or be made, in which sense it says a denomination from some power, either active or passive. In the antecedent, then, possible is taken in the former way, but in the consequent in the latter; for in order that creation be possible, two things are necessary and suffice: one, that in itself it be not repugnant; the other, that it be possible through some power; and so, the antecedent being supposed, the consecution is evident.

10. The first antecedent, however, is proved, first, because no repugnance can be shown in something's being made from nothing, in the true sense declared by us. For it is not to be imagined, as some thought, that nothing itself is to be the matter from which such being is made, which is plainly repugnant; for that particle from does not there say the relation of material cause but of terminus a quo; but so there is no repugnance that that which of itself was nothing begin to be something through the effecting of another. But if we wish to interpret that particle from according to the relation of material cause, it must be expounded not positively but negatively, so that that is said to be made from nothing which is not made from any material cause; in which too no repugnance can be shown; for why, just as something is made in act which was previously possible through active and passive potency together, could not something also be made in act which is possible through the sole power of the agent, more eminent and more efficacious?

11. An objection is satisfied.—You will say: just as it is repugnant that something be made in act which was previously possible through passive potency alone without active, so conversely it is repugnant that something be made in act which is possible only through active potency without passive; for why can there not be an effect from the suffering potency without the agent, if it can be from the agent without the recipient? It is answered that the reason for the diversity is quite perspicuous; for action as action says an essential order to the efficient, and therefore it implies a contradiction that there be action without an agent; but action as action does not say an essential order to the patient nor to passion, speaking of action in its whole latitude, but says a relation to the effect which is made through it and depends on the acting cause. And similarly passive potency says an adequate relation to active, because it cannot receive anything unless it receives it from something; but active potency does not say an adequate relation to passive, as we shall say more at length below in its place, because it is not of the notion of active potency that it can act on something, but that it can act something, and therefore something can be simply possible through active potency alone, but not through passive potency alone. Moreover, passive potency is imperfect, and alone is not simply able for the effect unless it is perfected by active; but active is of its genus perfect, and therefore of itself involves no repugnance that some active potency be in its order so perfect that by itself alone and without dependence on passive it contains virtually in itself both the effect and the action. And so at the same time the first consequence has been proved, which also is most evident, the antecedent being supposed. For what greater repugnance can be devised in a power of this kind than in the said mode of effecting? Or what imperfection, and not rather the greatest perfection?

12. And both can be confirmed if by that from nothing we understand it to be signified that the whole thing which is made per se primo as the adequate terminus of the action, which is called ut quod, be made wholly and according to its whole entity, no part or thing of it being presupposed; for all these senses are true and come back to the same. But in this too great perfection is indicated on the part of the active power, and there is no repugnance on the part of the effect or of its effecting. For what implication is there in this, that a whole thing which was not should receive being according to its whole self? Certainly from the terms no greater appears than in this, that a thing which was only begun according to one part should be perfected by the addition of another part which before was not, except that the former requires greater force in acting. There is, then, no repugnance in a power or effecting of this kind, but only greater perfection. Someone could only hesitate what kind of action this can be without a subject, or how this is not repugnant. But we shall easily explain this in what follows; for it is enough now that no repugnance is shown in it. Especially since some understand creation without transient action.

13. It remains to prove the second consequence, in which is the force of that reason, namely, that this power is to be posited in the nature of things at least in the first being, if in itself it involves no repugnance or imperfection. This, however, can be proved, first, from that general principle that in the first being is formally every perfection simply simple, which we shall demonstrate below in treating of the perfection of the first being. For a power of this kind from its proper objective concept says perfection simply simple; for it says a perfection of itself not repugnant nor involving imperfection. From which it plainly comes about that in the latitude of being it is better to have it than not to have it, in which consists the notion of perfection simply; therefore such power must necessarily be attributed to the first being. Almost the same argument is that this power is necessarily included in omnipotence, because omnipotence extends to everything possible, that is, to everything of itself not repugnant; but it is of the notion of the first being that it have omnipotence; therefore also that it have this power. The whole antecedent is to be demonstrated below in treating of the attributes of the first being.

14. To these are added other reasons of themselves very probable, for this mode of acting without dependence on another cause outside itself, whether efficient or material, is very consonant with the essential perfection of the first being. First indeed, because the mode of acting is proportioned to the mode of being; but the mode of being of the first being is with all independence; therefore its proper mode of acting too will be independent of every cause, even material. Secondly, because an active power defined to acting in a subject and from a subject is very contracted and limited; therefore it is not to be attributed to the first being, because there is no source from which it could have such limitation in it; for the power of acting is proportioned to the essence; as, therefore, the essence of the first being, because it is pure act, has no source from which it should have limitation, so neither its power. Thirdly, because it is consonant with reason that in God there be a power of a higher notion than in every other natural or created agent; but all others need a subject for acting; therefore the divine power must not be so needy, but the more perfect it is the freer it must be for acting, especially since that excess is in grade and in every possible perfection.

It is shown that creation in fact exists

15. The conclusion is proved in the heavenly bodies.—Secondly it must be added (by which the preceding conclusion will be confirmed more evidently) that creation is necessary in the beings which now exist, so that without it they could not have existed. It is proved, first, by induction, beginning from material things. And in the first place I ask of the heavenly bodies whether they are made or unmade. This latter cannot be said, first, on account of the reason common to all finite things, of which at once; next, because things much nobler than the heavens are not without efficiency, as is evident most of all of man. Likewise, because the heavens are so imperfect that they need motion for the complement of their actions, and moreover an extrinsic mover to move them, because they cannot have that motion of themselves; therefore much less is it likely that they have being of themselves. Likewise, we see that the heavens in all their powers, positions, aspects and motions are so constituted as was expedient for the conservation of lower things and their generations and corruptions; therefore it is an evident argument that they are not from themselves, but were founded by the common author of all. Which reason we shall pursue more at length below in demonstrating that God exists. But if the heavens are made, I ask again whether they consist of the matter of the elements, and therefore were made from it, and so the reason will be the same of them as of generable things; or whether they consist of matter of a higher notion, or are simple beings, and so it is concluded that they were made only through creation, because, if they are simple, they could in no way have been made otherwise, as is manifest per se. But if they consist of a superior matter, this is because they are ingenerable, and therefore could be made through creation alone. Add that the reasons by which we shall at once prove that the matter of generable things cannot be unmade prove equally of the matter of the heavenly bodies.

16. The conclusion is proved in the lower bodies.—I come, then, to the lower world, inasmuch as it embraces the elements and mixed bodies, and I ask whether this mass is made or not; it cannot be said not to be made, because all the species of things which are in it are made in their individuals; therefore in no species of those things can there be some individual not made or having being of itself; for this would be a great and most essential difference between such individual and the others, and consequently they would not be of the same species. Hence, just as Aristotle often argues against Plato that there is no man separated from the individuals, because he would be incorruptible but these corruptible, and so they would not be of the same species, so we say that there is no singular man who has being of himself without the efficiency of some cause, otherwise he would not be of the same species with other men; and the same argument holds of the remaining species, and so of this whole corporeal mass of elemental things. For although the elements are commonly said by the philosophers to be incorruptible according to their whole selves and corruptible according to their parts, this is not to be understood of intrinsic incorruptibility through the constitution of nature—for in this way the nature of the whole and of the parts is the same, especially of homogeneous ones—but of incorruptibility from the power and mode of acting of natural causes, because so the elements can never be corrupted according to their whole selves; absolutely, however, they are generable, and so they could not have being of themselves without effecting; this corporeal mass, therefore, is not unmade.

17. Who asserted that matter was not made, but coeternal with God.—Again, then, I ask whether it was made from nothing or from matter; if the former, what is intended is had; if the latter (which almost all the philosophers thought), I ask again whether matter itself was made or not. And indeed almost all the philosophers denied that matter was made, but asserted that it was coeternal with God and had being of itself and wholly necessarily. In which error Tertullian reports that the Stoics and Pythagoreans, and Plato himself, and Hermes Trismegistus were, book Against Hermogenes, cc. 1 and 8, and book Against the Valentinians, cc. 15 and 16, and Irenaeus signifies it, bk. II, c. 19; but Epiphanius, heresy 7, also adds the Peripatetics; and Lactantius, bk. II On the Origin of Error, says that both poets and philosophers thought the same, and specially designates the Academics, and most of all Cicero, book On the Nature of the Gods. Which philosophers many heretics imitated, as Hermogenes, Manichaeus and others, as is established from Tertullian above, and Augustine, book On Heresies, in 46 and 59; and Gregory of Nyssa, book On the Making of Man, c. 23, and Eusebius, bk. VII De Praeparat. Evang., cc. 8 and 9, where he also attributes this error to Sabellius.

18. The preceding assertion is attacked.—That this, however, is foreign to all natural reason, besides what was said in the prior assertion and besides what is common to all created beings, can be shown, first, from the imperfection of prime matter; for, since it is the lowest of all substances, even corruptible ones, it is incredible that it should have this highest perfection, which is to have being of itself, of which perfection all the other species of generable things and their forms are not capable. Whence a second reason can be taken; for, if matter is coeternal with God and has being of itself, either as such it was lacking every substantial form, or it had some of itself. The former cannot be said, because it is repugnant to the nature of matter; for, although it does not imply a contradiction, yet it is foreign to the natural order of things, and therefore it is not likely that matter has its entity of itself and yet has it in a preternatural state and without any formal perfection, and consequently without use or utility. But if it had some form of itself, then not matter alone, but a certain integral substance has being of itself. From which it further comes about that that whole substance is simply necessary and can no more not be than prime matter itself, because what is independent of another in its being cannot lose it. Hence it will also come about that that matter cannot serve for other generations, because it will always remain under that form.

19. Someone will perhaps say that matter has of itself its perpetual entity and has also had a perpetual form, not however of itself, but from God. But this too cannot be said, both because it involves repugnance that it should have being of itself and not whatever is necessary for being, and also because otherwise that form would flow from God of necessity of nature; for, if it were made freely, whence would it be established that it is eternal? But it is against natural reason to say that God acts outside Himself from necessity of nature. And moreover it follows that, with the same necessity with which God makes that form, He conserves it, and consequently that matter is always of necessity under that form, and therefore can in no way serve for the generations or corruptions of things.

20. It remains, therefore, that matter, since it is not of itself, needed some efficient principle by which it was made; but it could not be made except through creation, because it could not be made from prior matter; therefore the creation of some thing is wholly necessary in order that these material things can exist. You will say: the effecting of matter could not be creation, because creation is of a subsistent thing, as we said; but matter is not a subsistent thing, because it is not that which is. Some answer that matter, although it is not properly created, for the said reason, is yet created at least improperly or in a broad way. I say, however, that matter can be understood to be made in two ways: first, by itself alone and separated from form, and then without doubt it would be created most properly, for it would both be subsistent and be made by way of a whole, although of itself it is a part; for the rational soul too is a part, and yet is most properly created. Indeed, if quantity were made separated, it would properly be created by the opinion of all. In another way, however, matter can be made (and so we believe it was made) existing under some form; and then, properly speaking, the whole composite of matter and such form is said to be created, because that properly is; but to be made is properly attributed to that to which being also is; but then matter is said to be concreated, which is enough for the demonstration which we intend; for to the action, inasmuch as through it the whole is made and nothing is presupposed to it, belongs the notion of production from nothing. But if we wish accurately to distinguish that composite action into the several partial ones of which it consists, we shall find that the whole notion of creation which is in it comes from that part which is the effecting of matter from nothing, as was touched upon above in explaining the eduction of form from the potency of matter. And so the Fathers and Doctors of the Church absolutely and without any addition teach and demonstrate that matter was created by God, as may be seen in Tertullian, Irenaeus, Lactantius, Eusebius, Epiphanius, Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine, in the places cited a little before; and Augustine also, bk. I Genes. ad litter., c. 14, and XII Confess., c. 4; and Ambrose, bk. I Hexaem., c. 1; and Athanasius, book On the Incarnation of the Word, at the beginning; and elsewhere passim.

21. It remained to speak, in order to complete this induction, of the intelligences or immaterial things. Nevertheless no special argument can be made about them, besides that universal one taken from this principle, that it is repugnant that there be several unproduced beings, and that an unproduced being, or one from itself, is infinitely perfect in the genus of being; because neither special notions, nor differences, nor any proper effects of the intelligences are known to us from which we might demonstrate that they have being from another and not from themselves. I speak, however, of demonstration simply, because some conjecture can be taken from the motion of the heaven, as I shall show below in demonstrating that God exists. Where also that principle is to be demonstrated ex professo; now, however, let it be supposed. But from the fact that the intelligences have an efficient cause, it is evidently inferred that creation is necessary in order that they exist, because, since they do not have a material cause, as was touched upon above, they cannot be made by another mode of production. Which the production of the rational soul excellently confirms, which can only be creation, because it is not eduction from the potency of matter, as was also proved above. Which reason proves that creation is necessary in order that men be generated, because it is always mixed in (so to speak) with their generation. Hence the use of creation is as frequent as human generation. Unless someone is so foolish as to say that rational souls pre-exist before bodies, which would be an error not only in faith but also against natural reason, as is to be shown in its place; but for the present it does not matter, for even if souls existed before bodies, they would not yet be from themselves and without an efficient, because, besides the other reasons touched upon, since the soul is the natural form of the body, if it existed of itself necessarily, it would exist from eternity informing the body; for a thing which has being of itself cannot have it in a preternatural and as it were violent state, such as is the state of the soul outside the body. Whether, then, the soul begins with the body or before it, it is necessary that it have an efficient cause, and consequently be made through creation.

A first creating cause is demonstrated

22. Thirdly it must be said (and it is gathered from what has been said) that there is necessary in the universe one first efficient cause which through creation has effected the other things. This is sufficiently evident from the discourse made in the preceding assertion. And the necessity of this first efficient cause with respect to all other beings is to be demonstrated more at length in the place cited. But that, this necessity being supposed, that first cause could not have given origin to the other things without creation is established from the definition of creation given above, because the first cause could not produce things from some matter, since not all produced things have matter, and in those which have it, the matter itself had to be produced. It is only to be noted that the species of generable things could have been made in their first individuals from matter existing prior in time, and then they would not be made through creation in full strictness; inasmuch, however, as they necessarily suppose the creation of matter, to that extent we say that creation is necessary for their production. And for this reason the name of creation, especially in the usage of the holy Fathers, is often extended to new production from pre-existing created matter, as is evident from Augustine, bk. I Against the Adversary of the Law and the Prophets, c. 24.

The arguments are solved, and what the philosophers thought of creation

23. To the arguments I answer: in the first of them it is asked that we explain what the philosophers thought of this truth, and especially Aristotle. About which matter Eugubinus disputed much, bk. VII De Peren. Philos., c. 3 and following. But as regards the other philosophers, they indeed often teach that this world was created by some first author; yet, if they are rightly weighed, they do not attribute true creation, but formation from pre-existing matter, which they also called chaos, as is established from what Tertullian and the other authors cited above report,³ and Lactantius, bk. VII, c. 3. And this indeed they explained of the effecting of this sensible world. But of the superior and intelligible world, that is, of the angels, they spoke most obscurely; nor is it wonderful, for since they could not form them from chaos, it does not appear how they could constitute them as produced by God, unless perhaps they made them too material, although subtler than body; for they held it as ascertained that God can produce nothing except as an artificer who works from pre-existing matter. And this Anaxagoras signified, whom Aristotle praises, I Metaph., c. 6, text 18, because he said that all things are mixed together except mind, and that it alone is pure and free from all mixture. Hence Galen too, De Usu Partium, c. 10, reproves Moses because he said that God produced all things by His command.

24. What Aristotle thought.—Passing over the others, many think of Aristotle that he did not know creation, as Gregory, In II, dist. 1, q. 1; and Henry, Quodl. VIII, q. 9; and Jandun, II Metaph., q. 5; Marsilius, In II, q. 1, a. 2; and Bessarion, bk. II Against the Calumniator of Plato, c. 6; and the Commentator seems to think the same, VIII Phys., comm. 4, and Simplicius in the same place. And this opinion has no small indications in the principles of Aristotle. First, because everywhere he admits and supposes that principle: From nothing nothing is made. Secondly, because he defines all actions through order to passive potency, and thinks that every action has conjoined passion and motion or change, as is established from III Phys., from the beginning. But if it is said that Aristotle in those places speaks only of the action and efficiency of natural causes, it still stands in the way, because never, even in the Metaphysics, does he extend his doctrine to another mode of action. Rather, V Metaph., c. 12, he defines active potency through order to passive, saying that it is the power of transmuting another inasmuch as it is another; and c. 2 he defines the efficient cause in the same way through order to motion; he did not, therefore, know another mode of effecting. Which is also confirmed because he posited incorruptible things as eternal, thinking them per se necessary, and therefore, II Metaph., c. 1, he says in the plural that the principles of eternal things have no causes; but by eternal things he seems to understand the motions of the heavens and the perpetual series of generations and corruptions, whose principles are the heavens and the intelligences.

25. Others, however, think that Aristotle knew creation and that God is the creator of all things. So thought Averroes, II Metaph., comm. 4, and XII Metaph., comm. 44, and book On the Substance of the Orb, c. 2; and Alexander of Aphrodisias, in these places; and St. Thomas, in the same places, and I, q. 44, and II Cont. Gent., c. 15, and q. 3 De Potent., a. 6, and VIII Phys., lect. 2; Scotus, in Quodl., q. 7, and In II, dist. 1, q. 3; Thomas of Strasbourg, q. 4; Hervaeus, treatise On the Eternity of the World, q. 4, and others. And it is proved, for in II Metaph., c. 1, he says that there is some being most true and most perfect of all, which is the cause of the others. And he plainly speaks of the efficient cause, as the Commentator also expounds there, saying that only the first being is per se being and true; but the others acquire being and truth from it. Hence by that plural the principles of eternal things Aristotle seems to understand God alone, either on account of His eminence or on account of the several notions of causing. Moreover, in I De Caelo, c. 9, text 100, he posits a certain immortal and divine nature, on which, for the others, for some more exactly, for others more obscurely, their very being and living depends; and II De Gener., c. 10, text 59, he says that it does not belong to all things always to be, since some are far distant from the principle itself, and therefore (he says) God, providing in the way that remained, completed the universe, having instituted continuous generation; in bk. VIII Phys. too, and XII Metaph., he concludes that there is one first being and prince of all; but He would not be prince unless He were the principle of all. Hence Aristotle, XII Metaph., text 38, says that the heaven and nature depend on God. He also teaches most clearly in the same places that there is one end of all; from which it plainly comes about that there is also one efficient, because, as we shall hand down below, there cannot be final causality without efficient; but there cannot be one efficient cause of all except creation intervening, as was proved above. Moreover, II Metaph., c. 2, he proves that principle through which we most come to the knowledge of the first cause, namely, that there cannot be a process to infinity in efficient causes. Finally, in the book On the World to Alexander, he seems to teach this most clearly: It would be as it were a shameful thing (he says) in disputing of the things of the world to pass over that which is held highest in the world. And so it is an old report, and indeed hereditary among all mortals, that all things have been constituted for us from God and through God. Nor indeed does any nature suffice of itself, bereft of the preservation which He brings.

26. Others use a distinction, saying that Aristotle did not know creation with newness of being, but knew creation by way of natural and eternal emanation from the first being, and in this way posited that incorruptible things flowed from God from eternity. But although this could be sustained of the other things, yet of the rational soul it cannot; for he himself, II De Gener. Animal., c. 3, says that the rational soul comes from outside, that is, is not educed from the potency of matter, and consequently is made through creation. A special reason, however, can be given of it, because it is not made except on the occasion of the creation of the body, and for the sake of the composite. Nor is it likely that Aristotle posited the soul not made, if he knew all the rest outside God to be made. Nor can it be said that he thought all souls were eternal and afterwards in time united to bodies; for the same Aristotle, XII Metaph., c. 3, text 16, says generally that the form does not pre-exist before it is united to matter, and openly comprehends the rational soul; for he adds that in it there is the singular thing that it remains afterwards, that is, after the composite is dissolved; but in the beginning, because it begins together with the composite, he admits no exception. This part, therefore, is more likely, although it cannot be denied that Aristotle had slight knowledge of this matter, and therefore treated very few things of this efficiency, although, IX Metaph., c. 1, he sufficiently intimated that he knew an active power which does not need motion or change for acting.

27. To the second argument, it has been sufficiently proved by contrary induction how it is demonstrated that there are some beings which can be made only through creation, which is established to us especially of material things. Of immaterial things, however, we prove only from hypothesis that, if there are any outside God, they can be made only through creation, nor can they exist if they are not made. But whether it is proved by natural reason that there are substances of this kind besides God, of rational souls we indeed suppose it from the science of the soul, of the others we shall see below, for at present it does not matter.

28. To the third, about the major proposition, namely, that infinite power is required for creating, we shall speak in the following section; now we say only that from other middle terms it is sufficiently proved both that creation exists and that there is in things a power which is a sufficient principle of it, whether it must be infinite or a finite one suffices. Hence, if from elsewhere it is sufficiently proved that infinite power is required for creating, from the necessity of creation it will be sufficiently concluded that there is in things an infinite power. Nor will there be a begging of the question or a vicious circle, because either we do not prove that creation is possible from the infinity of that power, but because from elsewhere we gather its necessity and non-repugnance, both of it and also of the power which is its principle, abstracting from whether it is finite or infinite; or, if from the infinity of the power we conclude that creation is possible, we take the very infinity of the power as demonstrated from the infinity of the divine essence and perfection, which we gather from other principles, as we shall see below.

29. How being as being is made through creation.—To the fourth I answer that that proposition, through creation being is made inasmuch as it is being, can have several senses: one is if that inasmuch is taken reduplicatively and falls on the most abstract notion of being, common to God and creatures. And this sense is false, for by it it is signified that being, by virtue of that precise notion, is the terminus of creation, which is false. And that fourth argument supposes this sense and sufficiently attacks it; it nevertheless stands nothing in the way of the truth of creation, because that proposition in that sense does not follow from the definition of creation, as is evident. For if being is made reduplicating only the notion of finite or makeable being, that will be enough for the notion of creation, for it suffices that the thing be made wholly from nothing. And this can be another sense of that expression, which is true, and from it it only follows that every finite being is creatable; which also is true. But the last and proper sense is that that inasmuch be taken specificatively only. And in this way the proposition is most true, because through creation per se primo the thing is made according to the whole notion of being, because creation supposes no notion of being in it. For according to the doctrine of Aristotle,⁴ that is said to be made per se primo which is in no way supposed in the thing which is made; for being to be made inasmuch as it is being, then, is nothing else than that the very notion of being be per se primo made in such effect through such action. From this sense, however, it does not follow that every being according to the notion of being which it has in itself can terminate creation, because, as is established from dialectic, the particle inasmuch, taken specificatively, does not infer a universal or distributive sense, because it does not denote the adequate notion or cause of the predicate, but only designates the part or notion according to which it belongs. It is rightly inferred, however, from that sense that the very notion of being as such is not found univocally in the beings which can terminate creation and in uncreated being, as we shall say below in declaring this division.

30. To the last proof, taken from the fact that the being of essence of things is supposed to their creation, those who think that the being of essence according to itself is something eternal would perhaps say that creation is from the nothing of existence, not however of essence. But Wyclif said that creation is not production from nothing simply, but from intelligible being to being outside God, as Waldensis reports, vol. I, c. 17. Scotus likewise, In II, dist. 1, q. 2, says that creation is production from nothing, that is, not from something according to the being of existence nor according to the being of essence, yet not from nothing, that is, from what is in no way being, either simply or in a qualified sense; for he supposes that things have known being before they are made. But the truth is that the being of essence of the creature, or known or intelligible being, before creatures are made, is nothing real outside God, as we shall say at length below, in the disputation on the essence and existence of the creature. Wherefore that being in no way stands in the way of the creature's being made through creation from nothing and inasmuch as it is being.

1. A creature never created anything.—There were not lacking philosophers who said, not only of the possible but also of the fact, that the power of creating was communicated to creatures, and that a superior angel created the inferior one next to it, and the lowest created corporeal things. Which Avicenna opined, whose opinion we touched upon above in treating of the eduction of forms, and it will occur again below in treating of the active power of the created intelligences. The true and certain doctrine, however, teaches that in fact no creature has created anything; for the true faith acknowledges God alone as creator of all things, and all the Saints teach it, especially St. Augustine, XII De Civit., c. 24; Tertullian, book On the Prescription of Heretics; Damascene, bk. II, c. 3; and Cyril of Alexandria, bk. II Against Julian, near the end. And finally it has been defined in the chapter Firmiter, On the Supreme Trinity and the Catholic Faith.

2. But from this certain principle it is gathered with almost the same certainty that no creature in fact has the power of creating, because it is not likely that God gave this power to some creature and did not grant or permit its use; for it pertains to the providence of God to let creatures operate their proper motions or actions, and because otherwise such power would be in vain in the nature of things. Likewise, because what has never been made by any natural cause is deservedly reckoned impossible through natural causes. And so both the Fathers and all the theologians deny in the same way and with the same certainty that a creature has natural power of creating as they deny that one creature has created another.

3. But although these things are certain to us from revelation, we inquire (which is proper to the present task) whether they can be persuaded and convinced by natural reason, which we think depends wholly on the proposed question; for, if we prove that the power of creating, on account of the infinite perfection which it requires, is incommunicable to a creature, there will remain demonstrated that which faith teaches of the fact; but if the power of creating does not essentially include that infinity, and therefore is not repugnant to being communicated to a creature, it cannot be proved by reason that both the power and its act have not in fact been communicated; for it will depend on the free will of God, whose decree, if it is not manifested by effects, can become known to us by revelation alone.

The reason for doubting is posited and the sense of the question is opened

4. The reason for the difficulty in the present question, then, is that no sufficient reason, let alone a demonstration, has so far been found which persuades that simply infinite power is required for creating. I speak, however, of principal power, which by its own force can produce an effect; for of instrumental power we do not wish to dispute ex professo, because it is a merely theological matter. But the principal power of creating can be understood in various ways: first, as being in that order universal or adequate to the creatable object; and of this it is most evident that it cannot be communicated to a creature; nor has this (so far as I know) been called into doubt by any author. And the reason is clear, because such power has an object infinitely perfect syncategorematically; for in that latitude of the object none can be designated of so great perfection that another of greater perfection cannot be created, and so to infinity; therefore in the power which by its force contains that whole object simply infinite power and perfection is required, because neither can an actually finite one suffice—otherwise it could be equalled and surpassed by some part of its object—nor can that power be syncategorematically infinite, because it has its whole power and perfection existing at once and actually. Nor will it be enough that it be infinite in a qualified sense or in some order of beings; for in the first place such an infinite is simply and actually finite, and moreover the latitude of the object is not enclosed under some genus or order of things, but absolutely embraces the whole latitude of creatable being; therefore the power which contains and surpasses all that cannot be infinite only in a qualified sense, but simply and in the whole latitude of being.

5. A second reason can be applied, because it is impossible that any productive power enclose itself under its adequate object, because it is impossible that something be able to create itself; but every creature is contained under creatable being, as is known per se; therefore it cannot have as the adequate object of its power creatable being as such; otherwise it would enclose itself under its object. And for this reason no generable thing can have such a power of generating as has for its adequate object generable being. Nor can any individual have a power whose adequate object is the species itself. By these reasons, then, it is sufficiently demonstrated that the power of creating in this way is infinite and proper to God and incommunicable to creatures.

6. In another way again the power of creating can be understood as one which has the force by itself alone and without dependence on or concurrence of another to produce something from nothing. And in this way too I think it can be sufficiently proved that such a power, not only as it extends to everything creatable, but also as determined to creating any being whatever, is infinite and incommunicable to a creature, of which matter we shall treat below, disp. XXII. For as to this the reason is the same of the power of creating and of any created faculty for acting from a presupposed subject, because none can be independent in acting from the first cause, and such independence requires infinite perfection, as we shall see there.

7. In a third way, then, the power of creating can be understood only by way of a proximate principal cause, dependent in acting on the first cause and limited to a certain order or species of things to be created, as for creating bodies, or these species of angels, or something similar. And of this power there does not appear a sufficient reason why it should require simply infinite perfection, or why it cannot be communicated to a creature, because neither on the part of the object does it have infinity, since it is posited limited to an object of finite perfection, nor from the mode of acting, since it is posited dependent on the concurrence of another.

8. Nor does what many say satisfy, that infinity is gathered from the mode of acting, not on account of the independence of the action from a superior acting cause, but on account of the independence of the action from a material cause; namely, because to reduce something from potency to act requires some power, and the more that potency is removed from act, the greater power is required in the agent; therefore what is so removed from act that it is contained in no passive potency requires infinite power in the agent in order that it can be made; this reason (I say) does not satisfy, first indeed, because the independence of action from a subject does not seem to be of so great moment, nor to indicate so great perfection, as to require in the agent simply infinite power; for why should it? For the concurrence of matter is something finite; why, then, cannot it be supplied by the power of an agent of a superior order and perfection, granted that it is not infinite? Next, because that gradation or proportional computation is not formal, both because at most it infers a power of acting of a superior order to every power defined to acting from passive potency, whether near or remote, or more or less removed from act; and also because that progression must be understood with respect to the same thing, and other things being equal; for it can happen that, to produce a more perfect form from near potency, greater perfection is required than to produce the lowest form from remote potency. Thus, then, to create the lowest thing, for example prime matter, a finite power could suffice, distinct however in species from every generative power.

9. And the difficulty is increased, for the principal power for acting can be attributed to a creature in two ways. First, as connatural and due, or flowing from the principles of nature, as is heat in fire, or as superadded or implanted in nature, as is the light of glory in the blessed. Although, then, we freely grant that the connatural power of created agents cannot extend to creation, on account of the said disproportion, yet of power superadded to nature that reason proves nothing, because that power can be supernatural, and so of a superior order, and therefore sufficient to overcome that disproportion. For so the theologians answer when a similar argument is made, namely, to see an intelligible object mixed of act and potency, an intellectual light of some perfection is required, and the more such object has of act and the less of potency, the more perfect a light is required to see it; therefore, if the object is pure act having no potency, an infinite light is required; the theologians answer (I say) by denying the consequence and asserting that a light of a superior order suffices. Why, then, can we not answer in the same way about the power of creating?

Various opinions

10. On account of these and similar causes, then, some theologians say that it is shown by no sufficient reason that the power of creating is simply repugnant to a creature. So plainly thinks Gabriel, In II, dist. 1, q. 4, a. 3. For although he simply teaches that a creature cannot create, yet, inquiring the reason of this thing, he answers that no other can be given except that this is the condition of the creature, which it received from God, whose order it cannot transgress. But that creatures received this condition of operating he says is established only by experience. But in the first place this experience is had at most in material agents and effects; but how did Gabriel experience that angels do nothing nor ever did anything except from a patient? How likewise did he experience that one man, while he generates another, does not attain the soul itself by effecting? Next, it seems to be founded only on the condition and order which the creature in fact received from God; either, then, he thinks that God could have granted another condition or mode of acting to the creature, or he does not sufficiently answer the question. Durandus holds the same opinion more clearly, In II, dist. 1, q. 4, who denies that infinite power is required for creating, and consequently denies that it is repugnant to a creature to effect something without change from a subject, and solves all the reasons which are commonly adduced to prove it.

11. Nevertheless the contrary opinion is the common one of the scholastics. The Master holds it, In IV, dist. 5, and St. Thomas, I, q. 45, a. 5, and often elsewhere, and all his followers; and Scotus, whom his own also follow, In IV, dist. 1, q. 1; Ockham, In II, q. 7, although he thinks it cannot be sufficiently demonstrated; the same, Quodl. II, q. 9; Henry, Quodl. IV, q. 37; and Giles, Quodl. V, q. 1.

Resolution of the question

12. And to me indeed the latter opinion seems true and certain; I think it most difficult, however, to bring a cogent demonstration to confirm it. A sign of which is that the authors who agree in the conclusion disagree greatly in giving the reason, and each attacks the reasons of the others. Wherefore with me the most efficacious reason is that which is taken from the principle of faith, and therefore I said that the assertion is certain to me rather than evident; for just as, from the fact that a creature never created anything, we rightly reason that no made creature has the power of creating, so, from the fact that no made creature has the power of creating, I think it is rightly gathered that no makeable creature is capable of this faculty. This consequence I prove, first, because, if such a creature were possible, it would surely constitute another order and grade of creature besides those which now exist, because it would have a distinct and higher mode of operating; therefore it would have pertained to the perfection of the universe that there be in it such an order or grade of creatures; therefore, conversely, since God has founded the universe without such a creature, it is a sign that it is not contained in the order of creatures nor is possible, and therefore does not pertain to the completion of the universe. Which reason we shall enrich below, disp. XXXVIII, when by a similar discourse we shall show that there are created intelligences in the universe.

13. Secondly the same reason is explained more fully, because among creatable substances there can be no higher grade than that of the angels or intellectual things; but among accidents, if we speak as philosophers, there are none better than those which are connatural to these supreme substances; but if we speak as theologians, there can be none better than those which pertain to the order of grace and the beatific vision; if, then, in these supreme orders of things the power of creating is not found, it is possible in no creature. For that in the grade of angels others more perfect in species could be made than are all those made is not enough for their having a mode of operating of so diverse an order and notion; and therefore Augustine, III De Trinit., c. 8, holds it as ascertained that, if angels both good and evil cannot create, no creature can.

The reason of Scotus is weighed

14. Thirdly, Scotus tried to give some reason for this induction or experience which we suppose, and from it to gather the cause on account of which no makeable creature can be a creator, whose discourse we can propose and amplify thus: every creature is either material or spiritual; but neither of these can create; therefore none. The consequence is evident, because those two members, which include immediate and contradictory opposition, embrace all possible creatures. But the minor, as to the former part about material creatures, is proved, because a material substance would create either through matter, or through form, or through accidents. Not through matter, because this is not active nor can it be; for it is repugnant intrinsically to its entity and imperfection, because essentially it is pure passive potency. Hence, since this reason is common to all creatable matter, it cannot happen that prime matter is a principle of creating. And this indeed seems known of itself and from the terms; for so great a perfection as creation indicates is plainly repugnant to so great an imperfection as prime matter displays.

15. Nor can a material form (for of this we are now treating) be the principle of creation. First indeed, because such as the mode of being is, such is the mode of acting; but this form has in its being connatural dependence on a subject; therefore also in every action of which it is the proper and connatural principle. Secondly, because such form is not producible in a connatural mode through proper creation, but either through eduction or through concreation with the whole composite; therefore neither can it itself be a principle of creating. The consequence is evident, because at most it can be a principle of producing a form like itself, and in a mode too proportioned to itself and connatural to the form to be produced. Which I declare thirdly thus; for such form would be a principle of creating either matter, or form, or the composite; not matter, because such form is posterior to matter and in the order of nature supposes it in order to be able to exist, and therefore also supposes it in order to be able to act. Especially because so imperfect a form cannot contain matter itself eminently, and therefore cannot procreate a thing so unlike itself. Nor can it create a form, because it cannot produce a spiritual form, since it cannot exceed its order; nor can it produce a material form except in a mode connatural to the form to be produced; for it cannot change the order connatural to things themselves; but such form, when it is not concreated with matter, is not makeable through creation but through eduction alone, because it is not capable of its proper being without dependence on matter.

16. Hence it also remains that such form cannot be a principle of creating the whole material substance, because this cannot be created except by him who can create matter. But that much less can it create a spiritual substance is supposed as evident, because it cannot transcend its order in acting. And by the same discourse it is easily concluded that a material substance cannot according to its whole self or per se primo be a principle of creating, both because, as has been said, matter cannot be a principle of acting, let alone of creating, and also because the whole composite cannot have the power of acting except from those parts of which it essentially consists; if, then, neither in matter nor in form can there be that power of creating or proportion to such action, neither can it be in the whole composite.

17. It remained to speak of the accidents of this substance, which was the third member proposed in that former part; but of accidents in general we shall say more at once; now we take this member as sufficiently proved from what has been said of the substantial form; for, if this cannot be a principle of creating on account of the natural dependence which it has on matter, much less can a material accident, which is both more dependent and less perfect, especially since we are now treating of the principal cause. And this discourse about material things seems to me indeed efficacious, and to proceed equally of made and possible substances; for it is founded on the proper nature and imperfection of material substance as such and on the connatural proportion between acting and being, which cannot be changed; for although God can act in a creature or through a creature something other than is connatural, yet He cannot make connatural to some creature that which is disproportioned to its nature.

18. I come to the other part proposed in the principal argument, about spiritual substance. Which Scotus proves in no other way than because a created spiritual substance can effect nothing except by means of an accident; but by means of an accident it cannot create anything; therefore no angel can have the power of creating. The major he proves from the fact that an angel can effect nothing except by means of acts of intellect and will; but these acts are accidents, nor can an angel be made in whom such acts are substance and not accident, as he proves at length there and we now admit, whatever may be the efficacy of his reasons as to this part, of which we shall speak below in disputing about the created intelligences. The minor, however, is proved by Scotus because an accident could only be required for creating either as the action itself which is terminated at the created thing—and this cannot be said in the present case, because an action of this kind is in the terminus itself, as we shall see below; hence such action cannot be an intellection or volition of the angel—or the accident could be required as the principle of such action; but that this cannot be he proves only from the general principle that an accident cannot be the principle of producing a substance. Which indeed all admit of the principal principle, and in this sense it seems sufficient for the present intention; for, as we said, we treat only of the principal principle.

19. Nevertheless Scotus himself extends that proposition also to the instrumental principle, in which sense it is not universally true, as we saw above; but whether by a peculiar reason it is true of the instrument of creation I shall say below. This discourse of Scotus supposes, however, as to this last part, that, if a creature could create, it would have to create substance; which it deservedly supposes, because, as we said above, nothing can be created except a subsistent thing or one by way of subsistent; but a creature cannot create an accident by way of subsistent or separated from a subject, because such a mode of being cannot be connatural to an accident; but a creature cannot have power for producing a thing in a preternatural mode or without the other causes on which by its nature it necessarily depends. Add that an accident inhering in a substance, and unable by its nature to exist otherwise, cannot by its nature be a principle of creating an accident per se separated, because such a mode of acting surpasses the mode of being connatural to such accident.

20. In what the discourse of Scotus fails.—There is one thing only, then, in which this discourse of Scotus seems deficient, namely, that dilemma that an accident could only be required for creating either as action or as principle of action; for besides these there could be a third member, namely, that an accidental act be prerequired to apply or direct the proximate power of acting; for in this way intellection and volition are also required for the works of art and for moving locally. Someone could say, then, that one angel can create another proximately and immediately through its substance as through the principle of acting; yet, in order that that principle act in a free and intellectual mode, an act of the will is required as applying that principle or executing power to operating, and an act of the intellect as directing, and in this way it is not unfitting that an accidental act be required for the creation of a substance. For thus in animals the power of generating is applied to operating through appetite, and in man through the will; and the intellect, although it is a more perfect power than the will, is subordinated to it as to exercise or application to act. Thus, then, the power of creating, even if it were substantial and more perfect, could be subordinated to the will and be applied to its action through the will's accidental act.

21. What must be added to the discourse of Scotus.—For this cause, then, I do not think this proof wholly efficacious as to spiritual and intellectual creatures. There can, however, be applied here the conjectures by which we shall prove below that angels cannot at the nod of their will transmute matter to form; for, if this is true, with much greater reason they will not be able to make anything from nothing; but of those reasons we shall speak below. Moreover, it is certain that no finite intelligence can create another more perfect than itself; for this is above the power of a principal cause. Nor is there any reason why it should be able to create material substances, because it does not contain them eminently, since it is limited to a definite species and has no proportion with corporeal things; but to other spiritual substances it is so compared that within the same grade they are co-distinguished as perfect species, as the species or genera of animal are distinguished. Hence, just as, per se speaking, one animal cannot generate another of a diverse species, even less perfect, so neither could one angel create a lower one; it only remains to be proved, then, that neither can it create one like itself in species. The reason of which would easily be given if it were true that intelligences cannot be multiplied in number within the same species. But because that opinion is not true, it can therefore be said that at least the multiplication of individuals is not per se intended by nature, but only for the sake of conserving the species, and therefore that it is not connatural to incorruptible individuals to have proper power of producing things like themselves in species. Finally, accommodating the discourse of Scotus, a conjecture can be added, because created intellectual substances, in the operations most proper to them, such as are those of intellect and will, can effect nothing except from a presupposed subject; therefore it is likely that they cannot have natural power for effecting a wholly substantial action independent of a subject.

22. Ockham adduces another reason, the said q. 7, namely, because every creature acts either naturally or freely; but in neither way can it have the power of creating; therefore. The minor, as to the former part, is proved because such a cause acting naturally would create at once whatever it could, because it would not depend on the disposition or capacity of a patient; it would create, therefore, infinite things, either in species or in individual, because no finite number can be assigned which it could cause. The other part, about a free cause, is proved because, although it would not necessarily create all those things, yet at least it could will, and consequently could create, all those at once, which is a drawback. But this reason is less efficacious than the preceding; for neither member is sufficiently attacked; for although such a cause acted naturally, it would yet depend in acting on the divine concurrence, and by the same could be determined to acting finite things, and these rather than those; as now a natural agent applied to a patient is of itself indifferent to producing this or that individual form out of infinite ones, but is determined through the concurrence of God. But Ockham says it is a drawback that such a creature be suspended from its action if it can produce infinite things. But this same argument can be made thus of the divine power; therefore that drawback is none, because infinite things are not producible actually all at once. And by the same reason the proof of the other part is attacked, because it can be applied to the divine will too; such a creature, therefore, could not will to create infinite things at once, because the object would be impossible, or, if it willed it, it would will vainly and inefficaciously; it could therefore only at its choice create these or those out of infinite ones. The argument rightly concludes, however, that such a creature could, within the same species or the same genus, create syncategorematically infinite things, that is, not so many that not more, at least successively, which Ockham too thinks a drawback, but it is none; for the sun too can so generate more and more to infinity successively, although those which it can make or conserve at once in any instant are not only finite but also in some determinate number and quantity, because finite power at least requires a terminus of this kind. Nevertheless this same could be said of the power of a creature for creating, if it were once posited.

The first reason of St. Thomas why infinite power is required for creating is weighed

23. Omitting, then, the reasons which either proceed in particular of this or that creature or through very extrinsic middle terms, St. Thomas tried from the proper object and mode of creation to bring two general reasons on account of which universally all creation is repugnant to every possible creature; the former he has in I, q. 45, a. 5, in the body; which can be formed thus: the effect or terminus of creation is proper to the most universal cause, so that it cannot belong to another; therefore both creation and the power of creating are so proper to the first cause that they cannot be communicated to another. The consequence is clear, because the action and power can only be of him whose effect it can be. The antecedent, however, is proved, because being as such is the proper effect of the most universal cause; but the proper terminus or effect of creation too is being itself as such; therefore the proper terminus of creation can be the effect of the first cause alone. The major is evident, because more universal effects are to be referred to more universal causes; therefore also the most universal effect to the most universal cause; but being is the most universal effect; therefore. The minor, however, is proved, because through creation being is produced inasmuch as it is being; therefore through it being as such is communicated according to its absolute notion, according to which it is the most universal effect and proper to the first cause. Scotus attacks this reason in the place cited, and other Scotists, In II, dist. 1; and Cajetan defends it at length, I, in the place cited, and Ferrariensis, II Cont. Gent., c. 21, and Capreolus, In II, dist. 1, q. 3. And indeed some of the objections of Scotus have a true and easy solution.

24. How being is said to be the proper effect of God.—For he attacks, first, that proposition of St. Thomas that being is the proper effect of God, as if the sense were that God alone effects being itself in any creature, and secondary causes do not concur actively to effecting the being of existence. But this sense is without doubt false, as I shall show below in disputing about the existence of the creature, and is not intended by St. Thomas, but he only calls being the proper effect of God formally and per se primo, either because God alone can make being from wholly non-being, or because He alone can make in any thing all that is required for its being. And these senses are true, yet they do not serve for the present matter, because the question would be begged, since this very thing is to be proved. Another sense, then, will be that God alone regards makeable being as the adequate object of His power; and in this sense too the proposition is true, as is established per se and from what was said at the beginning of this section, and the arguments of Scotus do not proceed against it. But how it serves the present reason will be evident from what is to be said.

25. A more universal effect is to be reduced to a more universal cause.—From which it is also easily established what sense the other proposition gives, that a more universal effect is reduced to a more universal cause, which Scotus also attacks, because either the discourse is of universality of perfection, both of the cause and of the effect, and so, although the general proposition would be true, it is false that being is the most universal effect, because it is not the most perfect but rather the most imperfect of all, since it is the most common; or the discourse is of universality of predication, and so neither would the proposition be to the point nor the subsumption true, because God is not in this way the most universal cause. But this has an easy answer, because the discourse is of universality proportioned to the effect and the cause. Hence on the part of the cause the discourse is of universality in causing; but on the part of the effect the discourse is of the effect universal in multitude, and consequently of an adequate objective notion more universal in predicating. And in this way it is most true that the more universal or more common effect, that is, the notion of being or of such being, the more universal it is, the more it is regarded by a more universal cause as the objective notion per se primo and adequate to its power. And the reason is clear, because, although the universal cause is in itself simple, yet it is called universal through order to the many things which it contains eminently and can effect; therefore, the more universal it is, the more things it will contain and be able to effect; therefore the more universal in predicating will be the objective notion which it has, that is, containing more things under it; therefore also, conversely, the more universal an effect is in this way, the more it is to be reduced to a more universal cause, if it is said to correspond adequately and per se primo. Nor does it stand against this that notions more universal in predicating are less perfect; for although this is true considering those notions according to the precision of the mind, yet not as they include all the inferiors; but in this way being and other similar notions are said to be adequate to some active power; for it does not attain that precise notion, but the whole which is contained under it; and in this way creatable being is said to be the adequate object of the divine power, all which things are sufficiently manifest. Others answer that being as such, even taken in general for the being of existence, is the greatest perfection of all. But of the sense of this expression we shall speak below in the aforesaid disputation, for now it is not necessary.

26. In what the difficulty of the reason of St. Thomas lies.—The greater difficulty is certainly in the application of these general principles to concluding the intended proposition, because from them at most two things seem able to be inferred, which we said above are certain. One is that a creature cannot create independently of the first cause. But that it cannot do so with the concurrence of the first cause does not seem at all to be inferred. For to give being is not proper to the first cause except with the aforesaid independence. Hence in the book On Causes it is said (which St. Thomas also adduces): The second cause does not give being except in the power of the first and inasmuch as it participates the operation of the first, which is true for no other reason except because the secondary cause can act only through power received from the first and dependent in its action on the actual operation of God; therefore in this way a creature can communicate being, even through creation, so far as concerns the force of that principle. Again, from those principles it is excellently concluded that a power of creating which has as its adequate object creatable being, or being itself as it includes the whole latitude of participable being, is not communicable to a creature. Hence, however, it cannot be concluded that every participation of that universal creative power, limited and determined to some genus or species, or certainly to some individuals of creatable things, is incommunicable to a creature; for neither does a power of this kind so determined involve repugnance in its very terms nor can it be shown impossible from those principles. The first is evident, because the creation of a lion, for example, is distinct in species from the creation of a man; therefore from the terms it is not repugnant that there be a created power commensurate with the creation of such species and not with creation according to its whole latitude, as is manifest in the generative or eductive power from the potency of matter, which, as it extends to every possible generable thing, is proper to God alone, especially with independence; but limited to a certain species of generation it can be communicated to a creature with dependence on the first cause. The second is evident, because such a created power, even if it is for creating, will not have as its object the most universal effect, but a determinate and particular one. Hence what St. Thomas subsumes, namely, that through creation being is produced absolutely, not inasmuch as it is this or such, is indeed true of creation in general, but not of this creation in species; for through this in truth being is produced inasmuch as it is such, namely of man or of angel, and therefore it is not necessary that the power which regards adequately not creation as such but such creation be the most universal power; therefore it is not necessary that it be proper to the first cause.

27. The first unravelling of the difficulty.—To this difficulty it can be answered, first, by granting that nothing more is proved by that discourse, and that this is not against the authority of St. Thomas, because he does not seem to have wished to conclude more by such discourse. Which is evident, for immediately after that reason he reports the opinion of those saying that a creature can create through power received from God, and although St. Thomas there calls this creating instrumentally, yet in truth he seems to take that instrumentally only broadly, as secondary principal causes too are called instruments of the first cause. Which can be proved, for in this way he at once reports the opinion of Avicenna saying that one intelligence created another; but Avicenna did not posit that an intelligence creates as an instrument strictly taken, but as a secondary principal cause. In this reply, however, two drawbacks remain; one, that the reason is not defended nor does the conclusion remain proved. The other, pertaining to the mind of St. Thomas, that the reason by which he at once proves that a creature cannot be the instrument of creation proceeds also of a secondary principal cause, which however is difficult, as we shall declare below in touching that reason.

28. The second.—Secondly, then, we can answer that the efficacy of that reason consists in this, that from the formal object and mode of creation it elicits that there cannot be a power of creating which of itself does not regard as its adequate object being according to the whole latitude of participable being (for being of this kind is to be understood whenever in this matter being inasmuch as being is said, unless that inasmuch is taken specificatively, as I said). But St. Thomas seems to place the force of that inference in that proposition: To produce being absolutely, not inasmuch as it is this or such, pertains to the notion of creation. And the deduction can be formed thus: through every creation being is made per se primo, not only inasmuch as it is such being, but also inasmuch as it is being; therefore every power from which such action is regards as its formal and adequate object being itself, not only inasmuch as it is such being, but absolutely inasmuch as it is being; therefore such power must necessarily be universal and embracing every participable being. The consequence is clear, because every power embraces all things which are comprehended under its adequate and formal object. The major too is established from the doctrine of the Philosopher, I Phys., touched upon above, which Cajetan also declares well, I, q. 44, a. 2. For an effect is said to be made per se primo according to that notion which did not precede on the part of the effect; for, if it preceded, it will now be said to be made not per se but per accidens; for when fire is generated from air, body is not made per se nor element, but fire is made per se. Thus, then, in every creation being or existence is made per se, not only as such, but simply as being, because no notion of being or existence is supposed to creation, since it is from nothing.

29. The minor, however, is proved, because that notion according to which a power per se primo attains its effect seems to be the formal objective notion under which such power attains the same effect. Hence it comes about that a power is as universal and abstract in causing as is in its order that formal objective notion which it per se primo attains.

30. Another discourse of St. Thomas explaining the former is declared.—We can add, moreover, to confirm the same deduction, another discourse of the same St. Thomas in the same article, in the solution ad 1. Because whatever creates anything creates being absolutely, and not only by applying being, or the nature of being, to this being; therefore, so far as concerns itself, it can create any creatable being. The antecedent is explained, for it cannot happen that one who participates some nature produce it absolutely, but only by applying it to something; as Peter cannot be the cause of human nature absolutely, otherwise he could be the cause of himself. Hence he can only be the cause that human nature be in Paul or Francis. But just as this man participates the nature of man, so any created being participates the nature of being; it cannot, therefore, produce the nature of being absolutely, but only by applying it to this being. Therefore, just as a man cannot through his action or production apply the nature of man to this except by presupposing something by which that determination of the common nature to this individual takes place, so universally a being by participation cannot communicate the nature of being except by presupposing something by which the nature of being is determined to this, which is repugnant to creation. Therefore, conversely, every power which can produce being absolutely, presupposing nothing, produces the nature of being absolutely, and not only by applying it to this; therefore every power which can so produce is a universal power; hence it cannot be a participated being, but being by essence.

31. Some objections against both discourses of St. Thomas adduced.—But still the mind does not rest, but finds several difficulties in both discourses. For in the former, that subsumed proposition in which the whole force of the argument lies, namely, every power per se attaining in some effect some notion of being is of itself universal for all things which are comprehended under such notion, does not seem universally true; for when wheat, for example, is generated, not only is wheat generated per se, but also a living thing, because the notion of living is not presupposed; for wheat or grass is generated from non-living earth, and yet, because it has the power of generating wheat, it does not on that account have the power of generating every living thing. The same holds when a horse generates a horse, not only from non-horse but also from non-animal, namely from seed; for then both horse and animal are generated per se, and yet that generative power does not regard the notion of animal as adequate, nor can it effect the generations of all animals. Moreover, otherwise it follows that God too could create Himself, because when some being is created, not only is the notion of creatable being made per se in it, but also the notion of most abstract being, because no notion of being is presupposed on the part of the effect; therefore, if the said consecution is universal, the adequate object of the creative power will be not only creatable being but absolutely and precisely being; therefore it will comprehend under itself absolutely every being, even God Himself. Nor can it be said that being as such abstracted is not created per se, because the notion of being is supposed at least in the creator; for this does not impede per se production, for fire per se generates fire, although the notion of fire is supposed in the generator, and therefore I said above that the notion which is made per se must not be supposed on the part of the effect, because on the part of the agent it does not stand in the way.

32. But if it is answered that this does not follow, because the power of creating does not attain that most abstract notion of being by reason¹ of it taken precisely as such, but inasmuch as it is included in the notion of creatable being—which we said above in dialectical terms is to attain it not reduplicatively but specificatively—it is indeed an excellent answer; yet by the same the whole force of the reason and discourse of St. Thomas is broken. For in the same way it will be said that through a power of creating communicated to a creature the notion of creatable being as such is not made per se, except inasmuch as it is included in the notion of such being, and so that such power too does not attain being inasmuch as being reduplicatively but specificatively, and therefore it is not rightly gathered that such power must be most universal and comprehend every creatable being. Hence, for the sake of clarity, we can distinguish between being made per se and being made per se primo, and assert that for the former it suffices that the thing, according to that notion by which it is said to be made per se, be not supposed on the part of the effect; but that the latter adds that the thing according to such notion be made as the proper and as it were formal terminus of the acting power, and not only as included in the formal terminus. Through creation, then, being inasmuch as creatable being is made per se; it cannot, however, be proved from the notion of creation that it is necessary that it be made per se primo according to that transcendental notion; for it can be created by some power per se primo inasmuch as it is such being. But although that proposition, which is the foundation of that discourse, is admitted of the effect per se primo, it cannot be admitted of every per se effect, as the arguments made conclude; it is not, therefore, sufficient for concluding what is intended.

33. Nor is the difficulty less, but perhaps greater, in the latter discourse; for that proposition, He who participates some nature cannot produce it absolutely, but by applying it to something or to this, is true in this sense, that he cannot produce it absolutely, that is, in all the things in which it exists; namely, if that nature is specific, he cannot produce it in all the individuals in which it is apt to exist; but if it is a generic nature or a transcendental notion, he cannot produce it in all the inferiors, due proportion being kept. And this sense that reason proves excellently, because otherwise such a thing could effect itself. According to this sense, however, either it is not true or at least it is assumed without proof that whatever creates creates being absolutely; for why could it not create some beings and not others, as we have argued so far? But that proposition can give another sense, which seems more intended in that discourse, namely, that he who participates some nature cannot produce that nature absolutely, that is, according to its whole self and according to every part of it, but only by presupposing some part of it and applying another to it, in which sense it is most truly said that whatever creates creates being absolutely; yet that proposition in that sense, whether true or false, is not proved in the aforesaid discourse; for although someone produced a nature like himself absolutely in the said sense, it does not follow that he could be the cause of himself; for he could produce such nature according to its whole self in one or another individual, yet not in all, or in one species (if the nature is generic) and not in all. And by parity of reasoning he could create some being absolutely in the said sense, that is, according to its whole entity, yet not every being.

34. Hence further, in a good sense it is true that he who participates some nature does not make it exist absolutely, but is the cause that it be in this individual or in this being; yet it is not rightly inferred thence that to the action through which such individual or such being is made some individuating principle is presupposed; for the whole thing with its whole individuating principle can be made through that action. For when the specific nature is said to be made in an individual or applied to an individual, it is not to be imagined that one thing which is made is applied to a pre-existing one, but it is only said to be applied because it is made in one individual and not in its abstraction. Hence also, when God created Adam, He did not create the whole human species absolutely, that is, abstract, but created it by applying it (according to that mode of speaking) to this individual, not indeed presupposing in it on its part the principle of individuation, but creating it together. Thus, then, although one angel created another like itself in nature, applying its specific nature to such individual, it would not be necessary that for its action it suppose some principle individuating the other angel, but that it produce it together; especially since this individuating principle in single natures is nothing else than the very entity of the nature, if it is simple, or the principles by which it is intrinsically constituted, if it is composite. And it is confirmed, because otherwise by the same discourse it would be proved that, one angel being supposed, God could not create another like it, because either by that action He would create such specific nature absolutely—and not this, because by that action He does not create the prior angel—or He produces it by applying the specific nature to this individual, and so a principle individuating would have to be supposed to such action. But if it is then said, as must truly be said, that that nature is applied to this individual by producing absolutely its whole entity from nothing, wholly the same would be said even if one angel created another like itself, either in species or in genus; for that a like nature is supposed in the agent itself in no way stands in the way of creation, as has already been said above.

35. Judgement on the aforesaid objections.—I confess that I do not know how to satisfy all these difficulties; for against the latter discourse they seem to me to conclude positively (so to speak) that that ratiocination is not apt; but against the former at least they show that it does not convince, because not all the principles which are assumed in it are sufficiently proved, although it is not established that they are false. And all are reduced to this, that every power of creating must necessarily be such as to extend to everything creatable. But this does not seem to be sufficiently convinced from what we have said so far, and precisely considering the terminus to which creation tends. It remains to be seen, however, whether, by conjoining the terminus a quo, and the special relation of these termini, and the mode of acting proportioned to them, this can be inferred more efficaciously.

36. The last reason by which St. Thomas proves the assertion.—There is, then, the last reason of the same St. Thomas, the said a. 5, ad 2, for the power of creating must necessarily be infinite; therefore it cannot be created; and in the same way it can be inferred that it necessarily extends to everything creatable; for a simply infinite power is also most universal, and its object must be infinite, as much as it can be in the notion of a makeable object. The antecedent is proved by St. Thomas because the power of a potency is measured not only from the thing made but also from the mode; but the mode of producing from nothing indicates infinite force in acting, for to produce something from remote potency great power is required, and from more remote greater; therefore to produce from no potency or from nothing infinite power is required. Albert has the same reason, In II, dist. 1, a. 7, and others.

37. Some found this reason on the fact that between being and nothing there is infinite distance.² But not rightly, as Scotus answers above, because no being is distant from nothing except according to those grades of entity which it has in itself. Hence St. Thomas too, In IV, dist. 5, q. 1, a. 3, ad 5, says that there is not infinite distance between being and non-being on the part of being itself except when the being is infinite, because one of opposites is as distant from the other as it participates of the remaining one. And therefore matter, because it is most imperfect, is said by Augustine to be near nothing; but the angel is said to be near God; and each being, the more perfect it is, the more it approaches God and the more it recedes from nothing. But nothing itself can in a certain way be said to be infinitely, or rather indefinitely or indeterminately, distant from being, because nothing can be more distant from being than nothing itself, or because it does not have one determinate distance, but can have greater and greater according to the various grades of being. But this does not matter for the present case, because through creation this whole distance of nothing is not transcended (so to speak) according to its whole latitude, but only according to those grades of entity which the being that is created receives.

38. Others, then, commonly found that consecution on the greatest disproportion which is between being and nothing. For to act from potency more removed from act greater power is required; therefore in whatever proportion the effect will be made from more remote potency, in the same greater power will be required; therefore where the removal of act from potency is without any proportion, there power greater without any proportion will be required; but this is none other than infinite; for every finite power preserves some proportion to another finite one. Which mode of arguing is frequent in Aristotle, as is established from IV and VIII Phys. From which Cajetan argues by a similar proportion, for if for producing something from nothing finite power sufficed, it would follow that equal power is required for producing something from some matter and from nothing; for let the creative power be finite as four, but the power producing from remote matter be as two; therefore the power necessary for producing from matter twice as remote will be at least as three; therefore for producing from further matter, also twice as remote, power as four will be necessary; therefore as much power is required for producing something from some matter as for creating.

39. Objections against the aforesaid reason.—Against this reason, however, Scotus and Durandus above object many things. But all tend to prove that between being and nothing there is either no distance or not infinite, which does not matter for the reason made; for we have already shown that it is not necessary to imagine that infinite distance, proper and positive, nor to take the argument from it, but from the disproportion, which indicates such a mode of operating as requires the highest efficacy in the agent. Nevertheless, that objection which we proposed above seems greatly to weaken this reason; for the argument excellently proves that creative power is from this head disproportionable to the power eductive from the potency of matter; but thence it is not rightly inferred that simply infinite power will be necessary, for it will suffice if it is of another order, which is also commonly called infinite in a qualified sense, which it is no drawback to admit. And this is enough for that power not to preserve proportion with respect to any power which can operate only through the eduction of form from the potency of matter; because proportion is preserved only between things which are of the same notion or quantity. And this is declared more from the very discourse; for when it is said that to produce something from more remote potency greater power is required, the discourse is of passive potency and of greater or less removal from act through defect of dispositions or on account of repugnant dispositions, and consequently the comparison is also made between active powers only through eduction from passive potency. But when it is inferred that to produce something from nothing greater power is required, that from nothing does not designate some passive potency most remote from act or very indisposed, but designates rather the lack of every passive potency; therefore it cannot be concluded that the power productive from nothing is greater or infinite by an increase (so to speak) of the eductive power, but only that a power so active, namely from nothing, is of another and superior order to every power only eductive, even if it be able to educe a form from any real potency however remote. And so that drawback does not follow, that the creative and eductive powers are equal, because they are disproportioned. Add that, if other things were not equal, but they were compared to diverse effects unequally perfect, that would not be a great drawback, as we also proposed above in arguing at the beginning.

40. The sum of all that has been said, and proof of the assertion.—The conclusion is strengthened by the authority of the Saints.—On account of these difficulties, then, I said above that this truth becomes more certain to us from the things which have been made than from a reason which efficaciously demonstrates and convinces that it cannot be otherwise. And in the same way I think it is most probably shown from the things made that for the creation of any thing simply infinite power is required; for, since several substances so perfect have been made by God, none of them received power for creating even the least thing, and that which is near nothing; therefore it is a sign that this comes only from the limitation of all these creatures, however perfect; otherwise no reason could be given why the greatest perfection which is found in the angels or Seraphim does not suffice for this. And hence further a conjecture arises that that superior order, to which the creative power must necessarily belong, is none other than that of being itself by essence; for among participated beings no new order or new grade can be found besides those which have been made; since, therefore, by computation it is concluded that the creative power must be of another order, it is concluded that it is infinite; for that order is none other than that in which is being itself by essence. And Athanasius signified this, sermon 3 Against the Arians, when he said: To administer belongs to creatures and servants, but to found and create belongs to God alone and to His Word and wisdom. Moreover this can be declared further; for the very mode of efficiency through creation indicates a certain highest efficacy and independence in the creator, because, since for acting it supposes no real potency outside itself, it requires only objective or possible³ potency through non-repugnance; but this indicates the highest force in the active power; and therefore perhaps Cyril said, bk. II Against Julian, that to be able to operate efficaciously as creator and to produce things which at some time were not is one of those things which are proper to the sole and supreme substance of all.

41. Next, creation is the first of all actions, through which participated being can be communicated, and in this sense it tends per se primo to producing the whole being inasmuch as being; hence, then, it becomes sufficiently likely that this action is such that by its nature it essentially demands to flow from being itself by essence, and therefore that there cannot be a participated entity which has power for such action.

42. And from the same principle it is understood quite probably that that gradation made above, that to produce from a greater potency greater perfection is required, is to be understood not only within some genus of being but absolutely in the latitude of being; and therefore that for creating there is required power not of any superior order whatever, but of the supreme one which can be understood in the whole latitude of being or of active power. And hence further it becomes very probable that principle, that the power of creating necessarily extends to everything creatable, because it does not wait (so to speak) on the part of the object for anything except non-repugnance in order that the effect be or be made, and because the principle of the first emanation and participation is from being itself by essence, and therefore such power can be nothing but the power which is being itself by essence, which is the most universal power and of itself able for every participated being. And for this cause perhaps Augustine said, bk. IX De Genes. ad lit., c. 15, that an angel can no more create any thing whatever than it can create itself.

43. In these ways, then, we understand that, although the above reasons are not wholly cogent demonstrations, yet they contribute very much to indicating the height of the creative power and the reason why it is repugnant that it be created.

44. Finally, another conjecture of Giles⁴ does not wholly displease me (although Scotus despises it), namely, that, since every creature is mutable and in some way consists of act and potency, it is likely that it is not by its nature capable of power of acting except through motion or change and by inducing act into potency. The consequence is evident from that principle that the mode of acting imitates the mode of being. From which it comes about, conversely, that it belongs to God to be able to create inasmuch as He is pure act and being itself by essence, and finally inasmuch as He has infinite power.

The reason posited at the beginning is satisfied

45. The first reply.—From these things the principal reason for doubting posited at the beginning has been sufficiently answered. But what was added in increase of the difficulty, about principal power not innate but superadded, can also be easily dispatched in two ways from what has been said. The former is taken from what we in fact believe, because in fact no such principal power for creating has been communicated to created substances, and yet powers and qualities of the most perfect order have been added to them; therefore it is a sign that no power can be superadded to the natures of things which is a principal power of creating. Hence, in my judgement, those do not speak rightly nor consistently enough who say that all the supernatural qualities which are infused into us are created; otherwise supernatural acts too, as the beatific vision, would be created, for they are true qualities and as supernatural as the habits themselves. From which it would come about that the light of glory, for example, which is the principal principle for making vision, would also be a principal power for creating; which is absurd.

46. The second reply.—The latter reply is that the reasons made before prove not only of connatural power, but simply of created power; for they tend to show that no power of creating can be created or limited, which proceeds equally of power implanted in nature from without and of that which is born from within; for the power which is added from without must be created. Hence another reason also arises, because power added above the nature of a thing must necessarily be accidental, for a substance cannot be added to itself or be supernatural to itself; and therefore the superadded power is necessarily accidental; but accidental power cannot be the principal power of creating. Which can be sufficiently gathered from its mode of being, according to what we said above in explaining the first discourse of Scotus; for, since every accident by its nature depends in being on a subject, it cannot happen that it have a connatural mode of acting outside a subject or independent of a subject, such as is the mode of creation; therefore it cannot be a principal power of creating. For it must be attentively considered that, although some form which is the principal power for some act is supernatural to the subject, and therefore that mode of acting is also supernatural to such subject, yet that form has its own proper essence and nature connatural to itself; and therefore that mode of acting is connatural to the form itself. Since, then, the mode of acting without a subject cannot be connatural to an accident, neither can the power of creating be connatural either to the subject or to the accidental form itself; and therefore such form cannot be a principal power.

1. There is no natural instrument of creation.—It is not my intention to treat this matter ex professo and theologically, but only to touch on it briefly, so far as can be concluded from the discourses made. For from what has been said it seems to be efficaciously concluded that a creature cannot be an instrumental principle of creating—such an instrument (I say) as by its nature is instituted and ordered to such action and has a natural instrumental power for it; for it is established from what was said above of the created acting cause that among the active powers connatural to created agents there are some instrumental and not principal, such as is the power of seed. In this sense, then, we say that it is rightly proved from what has been said that there cannot be a created power which of itself and by its nature is an instrumental power of creating. It is proved, because the instrumental power of a creature for physical and real actions is always accidental; but to an accidental power the mode of acting through creation cannot be connatural, even instrumentally. The major is established by induction in all proper instruments, which are called instruments not only on account of relation or denomination to some prior agent, but properly on account of the intrinsic mode of acting and the insufficiency of the power for the effect. And moreover it is specially proved in the present case, because, if such instrument were not an accident, it would be some substance. Of whom, then, would it be the instrument in creation? Not of itself, as is established; nor yet of another created substance, because there is none which is a principal agent for creating, and an instrument is named from the side of the principal agent; nor finally of God, because on the part of God an instrument is not necessary for any creation, as is established per se; nor indeed on the part of the substance itself can any be thought of which by its nature demands to be instituted for this end, that it be an instrument of creation, since that end is very extrinsic and very accidental to the creations of things. Indeed, since a substance is a being per se, it is never the end connatural to any substance that it be an instrument for some action, unless such substance is in some way partial and is compared to that whose instrument it is as part to whole; and then too it behaves rather as bearing the instrumental power than as an instrument through its own substance.

2. But that an accidental power cannot be a natural instrument of creation can be proved by almost the same reason which was made of the principal power. For the connatural mode of acting must be proportioned to the mode of being of the form, whether it acts as principal or as instrumental power, because in both ways the action follows upon the natural being of the form; but the mode of being with independence from a subject cannot be connatural to an accident; therefore neither can the mode of acting from no subject be connatural; therefore an accident cannot be a power by its nature instituted to operate so, even by way of instrument. And the reason by which St. Thomas, I, q. 45, a. 5, proves that a creature cannot be an instrument of creation confirms this well, namely, because a creature cannot be an instrument except inasmuch as through something proper to itself it operates dispositively towards the effect of the principal agent.

3. Wherefore, if St. Thomas in that article spoke only in this sense, namely, of an instrument by its nature instituted for this action and having connatural instrumental power for creating, there would be no difficulty either in his conclusion or in his reason. For what can be objected against that reason, that the action of the instrument is often not other than the action of the principal agent, and that then the instrument does not operate dispositively towards the effect of the principal agent, but effects it immediately, as many think of the phantasm with respect to the intelligible species—this (I say) has a fitting solution and interpretation of that principle. For the natural instrument always operates towards the effect of the principal agent according to something proper to itself which in the effect proportionally corresponds to it; but it is said to operate dispositively not always with complete strictness and propriety, that is, by inducing a previous disposition really distinct from the effect of the principal agent, but either in this way or because the instrument, according to that which is proper to it, determines the action of the principal agent, which determination can be reduced to the genus of material or dispositive cause, in which way the phantasm determines the action of the agent intellect to producing such a species. But in neither of these ways can a creature by natural power concur to creation as an instrument. Not indeed by introducing a previous disposition, because such action always supposes a subject which is to be disposed, which is repugnant to creation. Nor yet by determining, through something proper to itself, the action of the principal agent, because every created form, according to its proper and connatural mode of acting, has no proportion with action from nothing, and therefore cannot, according to something proper to itself, determine an action of this kind by concurring to it.

4. Which reason so expounded can be accommodated also to secondary principal causes, which in that sense can be said to operate dispositively towards the effects of the first cause, inasmuch as by their proper powers they determine its action. Yet in them this reason by itself alone will not suffice unless it is supposed proved from elsewhere that the powers of secondary causes cannot by their nature be sufficient or proportioned in their genus to producing an effect from nothing, because thence alone it can be proved that they cannot determine the concurrence of the first cause to such action. Rather, that reason, applied to proper instruments and understood in the said way, supposes it proved that created power cannot be a principal principle of creating. For it is founded most of all on this, that the instrument, as regards that which it operates dispositively or (so to speak) determinatively through that which is proper to it, behaves as if it were a principal power as regards operating according to the mode connatural and proportioned to such nature.

5. Add moreover that, if we look only at the discourse of St. Thomas in that article, it does not seem able to proceed in another sense except of the connatural instrument. For that principle, the instrument through something proper to itself operates dispositively towards the effect of the principal agent, is not necessary or true in another sense, the more common doctrine being supposed about divine instruments supernaturally elevated to the works of justification, transubstantiation and the like; for those instruments operate nothing through their own power towards the effect of the principal agent, as was treated at length in tomes I and III of the III Part. And the proof of that principle which St. Thomas at once adds sufficiently confirms this sense, saying: If, therefore, it (supply: the instrument) did nothing there according to that which is proper to it, it would be employed in vain for acting. Nor would it be necessary that there be determinate instruments of determinate actions. For this reason is excellent in the instruments of nature, which are per se ordered, determinate and necessary to their effects. But in divine instruments that proof has no force, because it is most true that divine instruments are not determinate but indifferent and as it were universal through obediential potency; they are determined, however, to determinate actions through the divine will and elevation or most special concurrence. Wherefore such instruments are indeed not necessary, for without them God can equally make the same effects; yet they will not on that account be said to be in vain, because, both when they are elevated and assumed, they truly act, and they are not elevated to act without an end and reasonable cause.

6. The Master of the Sentences did not assert a natural instrument of creation.—But although the reason and discourse does not seem to conclude more, yet all the disciples and interpreters of St. Thomas understand his opinion more generally, namely, that a creature, even as an instrument elevated by divine power, cannot concur to creation. And certainly St. Thomas, when he there attacks the opinion of the Master, sufficiently signifies this. For the Master had not said that a creature can be a natural instrument of creation, but through divine ministry; for he was treating of the sacraments inasmuch as they are divine instruments, as is evident in IV, dist. 5. Hence the same St. Thomas, III, q. 13, a. 2, expressly distinguishing between the power of nature and the instrument of grace, denies that a creature can be an instrument of creation or annihilation; the same in II Cont. Gent., c. 21; and in the same opinion are all the theologians who attack the opinion of the Master, as Albert, Scotus, Henry and Giles, in the places cited in the preceding section. Nevertheless this controversy, so far as it concerns the supernatural instrument, is to be examined in theology; for I think it cannot be defined from the proper principles of creation.

7. For if it were true that a creature either can in no way be elevated by divine power to act something by true physical action which exceeds its natural potency and power, or only through some power received in it which has connatural force for such effect—which many theologians opine, and not improbably,—if this (I say) is true, it is quite consistently and very well said that a creature cannot be elevated to be an instrument of creation; but if God can elevate a creature so that through its very entity, without another superadded thing, it effects an effect exceeding its natural power—which I judge far more probable (for so I think He elevates water to effect grace, and fire to torment spirits, and words to transubstantiate)—if this (I say) is true, I do not see by what reason the consequence can be denied, that God can use one creature as an instrument to create others. Because neither is a sufficient reason of difference assigned nor is any special reason brought by which this is proved impossible.

8. The former part is evident, for the only difference seems to be that creation is not an action from a subject, as the other actions are. But this difference in the first place is not universal; for transubstantiation too is not an action from a subject¹, as St. Thomas teaches, III, q. 75, a. 8. But that in transubstantiation something is supposed as remote matter and as terminus a quo, or under another similar relation, certainly matters nothing for it to be less repugnant that a created instrument concur to that action than to creation. Next, from that difference what is to be proved is not proved, but assumed. For from the fact that creation is an action without a subject it is excellently inferred that it cannot be connatural to a creature either as principal power or as instrument; yet, this notwithstanding, from the proportional reason to other divine instruments we contend that this action can be communicated to a created instrument through elevation. For the action converting a whole substance into a whole substance too cannot be connatural to a creature either as principal cause or as instrument; similarly action on a spirit, especially because in it a supernatural quality is made, cannot be connatural to a body; and yet both are communicated by divine power through elevation; therefore the same holds of the other action.

9. The drawbacks inferred by some against an instrument of creation are repelled.—The other part, however, will easily be established by applying the reasons made about principal power and about the connatural instrument, and by considering that they do not proceed in an instrument through elevation. For what some say follows, namely, that such an instrument has infinite power and perfection, by no means follows; for the action of this instrument is not measured from its perfection but from the perfection of the first agent and the obediential potency of the instrument. Hence in this order of instruments a more perfect thing is not necessary for a more perfect effect or action. Nor can that gradation be made here, that for producing a thing from greater potency greater power is required; for with the same instrument God can educe a form from a subject however resisting. Finally, the same reason could be made of the instrument of transubstantiation; for to transubstantiate too by proper or connatural power infinite perfection is required.

10. Again, what others say follows does not press, that something could be assumed as an instrument for creating itself. First, we deny that this follows in strictness and propriety; for in order that something be a physical instrument it must necessarily be supposed existing, and therefore its creation is supposed, to which it itself could not be an instrument. That reason would have some force, however, against those who say that a non-existing thing can be a physical instrument; but we judge that opinion improbable. Wherefore, although by virtue of creation it is not repugnant that any creature whatever be made through a created instrument, yet from the condition presupposed and prerequired for acting it is repugnant that the same thing be the instrument of its own first creation. Which is evident by arguing in a similar form about the instrument of generation or eduction; for no one will deny that God can use grace existing in Peter to produce grace in Paul; he will deny, however, that He can use it to produce itself, not on account of a repugnance of such instrumental action taken per se, but on account of the aforesaid presupposition of existence for acting. Wherefore, if it is true that the same thing can be produced twice, or by two total actions truly and properly terminated at its being, there is no drawback in granting that the same thing already created can concur effectively to its own re-creation, as the humanity of Christ concurs effectively to the transubstantiation of bread into itself; of which elsewhere. Finally, proceeding in the same way through the reasons made above, it will easily be established that they have no place in this genus of concurrence or effecting through obediential potency.

11. Whether there is some action so proper to God that it can be communicated to no creature.—Some, however, reckon it a great drawback that there should be no action ad extra which God cannot communicate to creatures; for if there were any, it would most of all be creation. But I think neither the consequence necessary nor the consequent, rightly understood, a drawback. For someone could say that that action by which the hypostatic union is made is higher and more incommunicable to a creature; and likewise that in the treasuries of the divine power there are other modes of actions which by other titles surpass creation; for although creation is the first of all and as it were the foundation of the others, it is not yet the greatest of all. Again, it is one thing to speak of actions, another of the things which are made through actions; speaking, then, of things made, there is no drawback that God can do through a creature, as through an instrument, whatever He can make by His power alone; rather this pertains to the efficacy of the divine power, just as conversely it also pertains to the same efficacy that God can make no thing through a creature which He cannot make by Himself alone. But speaking of actions, many are so proper to God that they cannot be from a creature, as is the very action of creating by principal power alone. This, however, is not proper to God; for even the action of the creature, as such, cannot take place without that creature nor through another creature. The reason of which we shall explain in the following section, where we shall also touch upon another reason on account of which others say that an instrument of creation is impossible, and we shall show it to be inefficacious.

1. So far we have spoken almost only of the power of creating, and at the same time have declared its effect, inasmuch as it is the object or terminus to which that power says relation, at least according to our way of conceiving; it remains that we speak of the action itself, or creation, what it is.

Various opinions

2. The first.—In which matter I find there can be three ways of speaking. The first is that creation in the notion of action is not something in the creature, but is in the creator Himself, the very act of the divine will or of the divine command by which He produces things ad extra. I say, however, in the notion of action, for in the notion of relation, which supposes the action already terminated and results from its terminus, creation is said to be something in the creature, namely, a certain real relation to the creator. This is thought to be the opinion of St. Thomas, I, q. 45, a. 3, whom Cajetan and other Thomists so expound. The reason of St. Thomas is that creation is not a change; therefore there can be nothing in the creature except a relation. The antecedent is evident, because change is about some subject, as is established from the definition of motion; but creation is not about a subject, as is also established from its definition touched upon above. The first consequence St. Thomas proves, I, q. 45, a. 2, because action and passion agree in the substance of motion and differ according to diverse relations to agent or patient, from III Phys., text 20. Therefore, motion being taken away from creation, nothing can remain except relation, either of the creature to the creator or of the creator to the creature.

3. Secondly, because creation cannot be formally a transient action; therefore it is formally immanent in the creator, and can be called virtually or eminently transient, because it has power to posit an effect outside, which fits excellently the act of the divine will or command. The consequence is clear, because between those two members there is no middle. But the antecedent is proved, because transient action is an accident, and consequently of necessity requires a subject; but creation does not require a subject; therefore it cannot be an accident; therefore it cannot be a transient action.

4. Hence I argue thirdly: every action is prior in nature to its terminus; therefore creation too is prior in nature to the created thing; therefore it cannot be in the created thing, but in the creator. This last consequence is evident, because it is impossible to understand creation as an action outside God and prior to the created thing, because in that prior it is not understood in what or how it is, and action, as action, cannot be conceived in itself alone and as it were subsisting per se.

5. Fourthly the Thomists argue that not only creation, but no action of the divine power, can be transient with respect to it, nor can there ever be an action intermediate between the power of God and its effect which is distinct from the power of God; therefore much less can this be in creation. The antecedent is proved, first, because the divine power is intimately present in every effect of it; therefore it produces every effect of it immediately and per se, and not by means of some action. Secondly, because otherwise the power of God would be the principle not only of its effect but also of its action, which however St. Thomas denies, I, q. 25, a. 1, ad 3. Thirdly, because transient action is the complement of active power; but God cannot have the complement of His power in a creature, otherwise He would depend on it; therefore.

6. The second.—The second opinion is that creation is something outside God, yet in reality not something distinct from the creature which is created, and so properly is not in it except according to reason, but really and essentially is the creature itself; namely, that the creation of man is the very essence of man, and the creation of an angel the essence of the angel, and so of the others. This opinion, in placing creation in the created thing, is founded on this, that action as action must necessarily be in its terminus, either by identity or in some other way, because action is nothing but the dependence and emanation of the effect from the cause; but dependence must necessarily be in the thing which depends. Which principle we shall prove at length below, for it is most true. But in order to affirm that creation is in no way distinguished except according to reason from the created thing, this opinion can, first, be founded on the general proposition that no action is distinguished in reality from its terminus, but only in reason. And in this way this opinion can be attributed to the nominalists, who do not posit an action intermediate in reality between effect and cause, as may be seen in Ockham, In II, q. 9, and Gregory, In II, dist. 1, qq. 4 and 5, who in q. 6 adds that creation is in the creature, or rather is the creature itself.

7. Secondly, this opinion can be founded on the special notion of creation, namely, that it is an action from nothing, and therefore cannot be an accident, but a substance or by way of substance, if perhaps a separated accident is created.¹ And to confirm this the opinion can be helped by the arguments of the former opinion, especially the third. And it can be confirmed, because, if creation were something in the creature distinct from it and as it were mediating between it and God, that, whatever it were, would be something created and made; for it would be distinct from God and flowing from Him; therefore it would be necessary to distinguish its creation from it, and so there would be a process to infinity, or, if one must stop somewhere, let one stop at the first creature. And to confirm this the arguments can avail by which Scotus, In II, dist. 1, q. 5, tries to prove that passive creation (he speaks of the relation) is not a thing distinct from the creature, which Capreolus reports and solves there, q. 2.

8. Thirdly, this opinion can be founded on the essential notion of the creature as such; for it is of the essence of the creature that it depend on the first being; therefore the dependence by which it depends is both in the creature itself and is not other than its essence. But this first and essential dependence of participated being on being by essence is creation; therefore creation is both in the creature itself and is nothing other than its essence; hence it can no more be distinguished from it than the essence of each thing from itself. The first antecedent is evident, because, just as it is of the essence of the first being to be being by essence, and consequently to be from itself and not from another, so it is of the essence of every other being to be being by participation, and consequently to be dependent on another. But the first consequence is proved, because to depend is something intrinsic to the creature; therefore it belongs to it through something intrinsic; but it belongs to it through dependence. Again, if the formal effect is essential, so is the form; but to depend is as it were the formal effect of dependence; therefore, if the creature is essentially dependent, the dependence itself is of its essence. Therefore this is most true of the first and most immutable dependence; but such is creation, because, as we said above, this is the first emanation of participable being from being by essence, and through it any creature can be from God alone.

9. But from this foundation it is inferred (speaking consistently according to this opinion) that in every created thing there is included some dependence on God wholly immutable and inseparable from the created thing itself, both because what is essential is immutable, and also because what is not distinct in reality is not separable while that thing remains (for so we speak). Hence it comes about, secondly, that this dependence is on God alone; for every dependence of one creature on another is separable from the creature, especially speaking of created things, not of the modes of things; for in this way it is true that God can make by Himself alone whatever He makes through a creature, or with it, or in it, or from it. And so every dependence on a creature in any genus of cause is accidental and mutable, but dependence on God alone is essential and immutable. Thirdly, it is inferred that this dependence on God alone is most proper creation, since it includes no order to a material cause. Fourthly, hence the best reason seems to be given why a creature cannot concur to creation, even by way of instrument, because by the very fact that it depended on another creature it would not be essential to the other creature, and so would no longer be creation.

10. The third.—The third opinion is that creation is something in the created thing, not indeed really distinct from it as having its own entity, but distinct by the nature of the thing as its mode. This opinion, as regards that part about the existence of creation in the creature, is quite common. Gabriel holds it in the place cited; Aureolus, cited by Capreolus, In II, dist. 1, q. 2, in the argument against the first conclusion; Ockham, In I, dist. 43, q. 1; Thomas of Strasbourg, In II, dist. 19, q. 1, a. 1; Giles, In II, dist. 1, p. I, q. 3, a. 2, and On Being and Essence, q. 7; all which authors also sufficiently explain and declare that creation is not a thing wholly distinct from the created thing; sometimes too they call it passive creation and the dependence of the creature on God; they also call it active creation or transient action. The modal distinction, however, they do not sufficiently explain; indeed Giles and some others seem to deny it. St. Thomas could be cited in favour of this opinion, In I, dist. 40, q. 1, a. 1, ad 1, where he calls creation a transient action and compares it to heating; yet St. Thomas there speaks very ambiguously; for in every transient action he seems to place the action formally in the agent, but in the patient only effectively or by way of passion, and so Deza interprets him, In I, dist. 27, q. 1, note 1. Hence Cajetan too, I, q. 25, a. 1, says that, if in God the executive power is distinct in reason from intellect and will, it cannot be denied that creation is a transient action, and nevertheless says that that action is not something distinct from the essence of God, because universally he holds that transient action is formally in the agent. Wherefore this ambiguity of expressions must be guarded against.

Resolution of the question

11. Among these opinions this last, as proposed, seems true to me; in order, however, that we may declare the matter, and begin from those things which seem more certain, it must be said, in the first place, that the dependence of the creature on God is something really and intrinsically existing in the creature. This assertion seems sufficiently proved in the third opinion, and I have read no one who denies it under these terms, and in equivalent ones all grant it. For all confess that passive creation is in the creature, not only as it signifies the resulting relation (for that is nothing), but as it says passive emanation, or the becoming of the creature from God, whether these are distinguished in reality or in reason, for we are not now treating this; but dependence is nothing else than passive emanation or creation, speaking of the first dependence on God alone, of which we are now treating. The reason, however, is that for the creature to depend is not an extrinsic denomination in the creature, but rather it is an extrinsic denomination in God that the creature depends on Him; but the creature is called dependent from dependence; therefore dependence is something in it, and not only in God. Likewise, because the dependence which light has on the sun is something in the light itself, and the same holds in any effect with respect to a created cause, according to the mode of dependence which it has on it, either in becoming only or also in being conserved. And by the same reason, if God alone illuminated the air, the dependence of that light on God would be something in the light itself; for the reason is the same as of dependence on the sun, or perhaps greater; therefore that dependence too by which the creature according to its whole self depends on God is something in the creature itself. The consequence is evident, because, if in other effects dependence is something in them, this is because dependence says a mode or condition of the effect, not of the cause; but this reason proceeds equally or more in total dependence.

12. The dependence of the creature on God is distinct from it in reality.—I say secondly: this dependence of the creature on the creator is not wholly the same as the creature which is the terminus of that dependence or creation, but is something in it, distinct from it on the part of the thing. It is proved, first, by parity of reasoning, induction being made in all the other dependences of effects on their efficient causes; for in all the action, and consequently also the dependence, is distinguished by the nature of the thing from its terminus, as was touched upon above and will be treated ex professo below in the proper predicament; therefore the dependence of creation too will be distinct in reality from the terminus; for it differs from the others only because it is dependence on the efficient without the concurrence of matter or subject; but this difference matters nothing for taking away the distinction, as will be established from what is to be said. Secondly it is proved, because this dependence is mutable and variable in the creature, the same thing which is made remaining; therefore they are distinguished on the part of the thing. The consequence is founded on the principle treated above, disp. VII, sect. 2, where we showed that this is a certain sign of distinction, either real or at least modal, if of two real extremes one can be without the other on the part of the thing. And this is the chief indication by which in other actions we prove that the action is distinguished on the part of the thing from the terminus. The antecedent, however, is proved, because the dependence by which God now conserves quantity without a subject in the Sacrament is distinct from that by which He conserved the same quantity in the substance of bread; for that former depended on matter, but the other not at all, but is by way of creation; therefore, if God created quantity from the beginning outside a subject, and afterwards united it to a subject and conserved it dependently on it, the same quantity would remain without the prior dependence of creation; for that two total dependences should remain there together is improbable, as I shall show below; therefore the dependence of creation is separable from the created terminus. What, therefore, appears in this example is to be understood in every creation, both because the reason is the same, and also because, if there seems to be any difficulty in this, it intervenes in every creation; but if in some thing it ceases, it ceases also in all.

13. The conclusion is proved by examples.—We cannot, however, bring examples in the ordinary mode of the creation of substances, because creation of this kind is always made by God alone and from the nature of the thing, and whatever is properly created by God from nothing is perpetually conserved by the same action, as will be said below, because the nature of the thing demands this. Yet from this an argument of complete identity and inseparability cannot be taken; for it is enough that, a miracle or supernatural work intervening, the dependence about the same creature can be varied, because this very thing could not take place without some distinction in reality. But that this can take place by miracle can be declared (besides the argument made) according to the probable opinion that a creature can be an instrument of creation; for then God can create the same thing either by Himself alone or through an instrument, and then the dependences about the same thing are diverse; for when He creates through an instrument, the dependence is far diverse than if it were from God alone; for through it the effect depends at once on God and on the created instrument, which cannot be understood without a new and distinct dependence. For neither, when an effect is made by God through a secondary principal or instrumental cause, are there two dependences there, one on God alone, which always remains, the other on the creature, which is changed, as we shall show in the discourse of this section and shall often repeat in the two following disputations; therefore it is necessary that the whole dependence be varied about the same thing. Wherefore, since it is probable that, when worms or flesh are generated from the consecrated species, the same numerical prime matter which before was in the bread is created again under them, and it is also probable that it is created by means of the humanity of Christ as an instrument, then, although the prime matter which is created is the same which before was, yet its dependence is diverse on account of the said cause. And finally, if God annihilated one angel and afterwards created it again, it would not be necessary that the dependence be numerically the same as it had been before; for although God can do this, there is no reason why we should say it is necessary; because, if the same light successively depends on diverse agents through diverse dependences, why cannot God make the same angel successively depend on Him by diverse dependences? All these things, then, sufficiently show that there is some distinction in reality between the dependence of the creature and its terminus.

14. The a priori reason for the conclusion.—Thirdly there is the a priori reason, because this dependence is not of the essence of the dependent substance, quality or quantity, but is a certain way to it. Which is evident from the very notion of substance, and the same holds of the others; for substance, although it is created, is in its essence something absolute and only includes essentially to be per se, and in the species of substance the essential notion is understood to be completed through similar absolute differences, without that transcendental relation which actual dependence essentially includes. And this could be confirmed, because it is not of the essence of the creature to be actually; therefore neither actually to depend; which inference has force according to the opinion which distinguishes existence from essence as actually created; but according to our opinion it has less efficacy. But that this actual dependence is not essential will be proved more at length and more efficaciously below against the second opinion, from the drawbacks which follow from it, because it does not rightly declare the essential dependence which the creature has on the creator.

15. The dependence of the creature on God is a mode distinct from it by the nature of the thing.—I say thirdly: this dependence which is in the creature is not a thing wholly really distinct from the terminus of creation, nor is it only the relation resulting from the terminus of creation, but is a certain mode distinct by the nature of the thing from the terminus itself. In all these things we equate creation with all other dependences, in which almost all these things are certain, and from them an argument sufficiently efficacious is taken by induction and likeness, because the difference that an action is from a subject or not from a subject matters nothing for all these, as is easily evident from what has been said and will be more established from the solutions of the arguments. And moreover I prove each briefly. And in the first part indeed there is no controversy, both because it is superfluous to devise that entity, since for all that we have said a distinct mode suffices, and also because the second foundation of the second opinion proceeds efficaciously against an entity of this kind, and finally because that entity cannot be a substance per se distinct; for who would understand or devise it? or who would say that God cannot create one substance alone? and similar drawbacks can easily be inferred from that position. Nor yet is it a proper entity which is an accidental form, since it is not in a subject, nor can an accident be intrinsically terminated to giving substantial being; it remains, therefore, that it be a mode, which is what we intend.

16. The second part, about the resulting relation, whether it is a thing, or a mode distinct by the nature of the thing from the creature, or not: in the way in which it is said to be resulting, it cannot be the dependence of which we are now treating, because it is founded on the dependence itself; for it can have no other foundation or reason of founding, from those which Aristotle enumerated, V Metaph., c. 15, text 20. And it is evident, because the creature is referred to God because it depends on Him. Likewise, because the relation is posterior in nature to the created thing and is subjected in it as in its proper subject; but dependence is prior in the order of nature not only to the relation but also to the created thing, at least under some notion, namely, because the way is prior to the terminus, and becoming prior to having been made. Thirdly finally, because this relation is said to result, the foundation and terminus being posited; but dependence does not result from the terminus, but is rather the way to it, or its emanation from God. It remains, therefore, that it is only a certain mode modally distinct from the creature which depends. Which, finally, that sign of distinction by the nature of the thing which we adduced above excellently confirms. For although the creature and its dependence are so compared that this same creature can remain, the dependence or creation being varied, yet conversely this creation or dependence cannot remain without carrying with it its intrinsic terminus, because essentially it is the becoming or being conserved of such terminus; it is a sign, therefore, that only modal distinction intervenes between them.

17. I say fourthly: this dependence does not have the true notion of change; it has, however, the true notion of way, or of the becoming of the creature, and so is called passive creation; it also has the true notion of emanation from God, and, inasmuch as it is from Him, can truly and properly be called the action of God Himself, formally transient, by which He produces the creature. In order that the whole conclusion be understood, I suppose that in an action which takes place from a subject these three are conjoined, which are distinguished by us in relation and denomination, yet not in reality, even with modal distinction, namely, the becoming of the terminus, the action of the agent, and the passion or change of the subject; for the same mode of dependence, with respect to the form which it induces, is called becoming or way to it; with respect to the agent it is called its action; and with respect to the patient it is called change or passion. Of these three, then, this last has no place in creation. And this is the first part of the assertion, which St. Thomas rightly taught in denying that creation is a change; and Gregory proves the same at length above, concl. 2, in which for this cause he deservedly says that, although every passion is action or has action conjoined, yet not conversely does every action bring in passion, because action is not always concerned with a subject or patient; but passion cannot be understood without a patient, nor change without a mobile. Since, therefore, the dependence of creation does not suppose some subject from which it is made, it cannot have the true notion of passion or change.

18. You will say: the creature itself is changed when it is created, for it is otherwise than before; hence it is referred to God by a new relation, not indeed through the change of God, but of the creature itself, according to the doctrine of Augustine, V De Trinit., last chapter. It is easily answered that change is sometimes said properly, and so is said only of a subject which in duration (or, according to some, in order of nature) pre-exists and through action is otherwise than it was before. And in this sense we deny that creation is a change, and it would be said more clearly that it is not a passion. But sometimes change is said more broadly of every action or effecting which posits some newness in the effect, and so through generation not only matter but the thing generated will be said to be changed; and in this sense creation can be called a change, yet less properly, because the thing which is created is not properly said to be otherwise than before, because before it was nothing, but is to be said to have simply the being which it did not have before.

19. From this reason and reply, however, it is understood that there has place in creation that relation of way to terminus which is commonly called passive becoming. For in the first place a way or becoming of this kind from its formal notion does not say relation to a subject, but only to the terminus; therefore from its precise notion it is not repugnant to creation. Next, becoming of this kind in other effectings is nothing else than the dependence of the effect on the cause, inasmuch as it is a certain tendency to the effect. But this whole is found in this dependence of creation. Moreover, because in everything which has been changed being changed intervenes; therefore in everything which has been made becoming intervenes. Especially because this very thing, namely, to have been newly made, is in some way to have been changed, at least speaking broadly, as we said.

20. The active notion of creation truly belongs to the dependence of the creature on God.—Finally, hence the last part of the assertion is easily shown, namely, that to this dependence of the creature, inasmuch as it says relation to the divine power from which it flows, belongs the proper notion of action or of active creation. In which part the dissension among authors about the present question seems chiefly to be placed. Care must be taken, however, lest one contend only about a name. For this question depends on that philosophical one, whether transient action is formally in the agent or in the patient, which we shall treat below in the proper predicament. Now I only note that among those who place transient action in the agent, some posit it as a certain absolute mode including a transcendental relation newly coming to the active power when it acts and actuating it. And those who think so of transient action speak quite consistently in denying such action in God; for it would be a great imperfection in Him. Nevertheless that mode of explaining transient action is not only against Aristotle and the weightier philosophers, but also plainly improbable, as having been devised without foundation or reason, since it can scarcely be understood. Others, then, also placing transient action in the agent, say that there is nothing in it except a real relation resulting in it from the production of the effect. And these too consistently deny transient action to God, because in God real relations do not result from His effects. These, however, would perhaps say consistently that action in God is a relation of reason, which is sufficiently established per se to be improbable. And similarly that opinion relies on a foundation of little probability; for that relation, if it results in a created agent, supposes the effect already produced; how, then, will it be action? But if it does not result, but is said to be made as it were per se and primarily by the acting power itself, as some Scotists imagine, it is a mere fiction and without foundation. Others finally, also placing transient action in the agent, say that it is not something new, absolute or respective, distinct in reality from the power and added to it, but is the acting power itself as actually conjoined to its effect, or connoting that the effect actually depends on it. And these will not be reluctant to grant transient action even in God Himself; indeed they will speak consistently. But these place transient action in the agent in name only, and therefore we do not now dispute with them.

21. An objection is satisfied.—We suppose, then, with Aristotle, IX Metaph., text 16, that actions which have a terminus made outside the acting cause are in the patient itself or terminus, and not in the agent. And according to this opinion we say that the dependence of the creature, as it is a certain flowing from God, has the true notion of transient action. And it is proved, first, because in the heating of fire and in all similar cases, the dependence by which heat is made in the patient is the action of the heat existing in the fire for no other reason than because it is a certain flowing from the heat emanating from it; but the dependence by which the creature is made by God is a certain flowing emanating from God Himself; therefore it has the true notion of action. Some say that for the notion of action it is not enough that it be a flowing from active power, but that it must be its actuality and complement. But this reply seems to consist only in words, because no active power as such receives complement or actuality from action, but only exercises its actuality; but this exercising is not to actuate itself, but to reduce another to act, which belongs also to God. For in any merely active power there is only an extrinsic denomination; for active powers by immanent action actuate themselves, yet not inasmuch as they are only active, but inasmuch as they are also passive.

22. Hence I argue secondly: for what stands in the way of this flowing of creation, as from God, having the true notion of action? Either the lack of a subject stands in the way, because action must precede in the order of nature the thing made; and this not, because as to this the reason is the same of that dependence as it is passive becoming; hence, just as according to the relation of dependence or way it can precede in its genus, even if it is not in a subject, so it can also in the notion of action; and both will be more established from the solutions of the arguments. Or the perfection of the divine power stands in the way; and this not, because transient action does not perfect the power from which it flows, but rather whatever perfection it has it receives from the power; it does not, therefore, derogate more from the perfection of the divine power that transient action flow from it than that its effects themselves flow from it. But that action mediates between the effect and the power derogates no more from the perfection of the power of God than that dependence mediates, and both come from the limitation and potentiality of the effects themselves. Finally, even if we freely grant that, with respect to some created power, transient action can be called its extrinsic complement or perfection, because such power is by its nature ordered and instituted for such action, yet it is not necessary to attribute this to the action emanating from the power of God, because this power is such that it is not of itself ordered to action, but only from the fullness of its perfection can have it. Which by a certain participation belongs also to some created principles of acting, as was touched upon above and will be said more at length below in disputing about powers. It is not, therefore, of the notion of transient action as such that it be a perfection of active power, even in that extrinsic and improper way.

23. Thirdly I argue that the active power of God ad extra, formally speaking, is neither the intellect nor the will, but an executive power distinct from them in reason, as we shall show below in disputing about the attributes of God; therefore the action of such power cannot be formally immanent, because only intellect and will in an immaterial thing act immanently; but the executive power is immediately active ad extra. The act of the will of God, therefore, is not the very action by which He acts ad extra, since it is only the application of the executive power to acting. Indeed, even if someone holds that the will of God is the proximate power of acting ad extra, he will not rightly say that the volition of God, according to what is really in it, is the action by which He produces ad extra; for rather it is the very principle of acting ad extra, because it is the very formal perfection of the will of God, which is in Him by way of act rather than by way of a power receptive of its act; but the principle of acting ad extra never enters (so to speak) the action itself, since such action flows from such principle. But the respect of reason which is understood to be added to the free act of the will of God as willing the thing which He produces ad extra cannot have the notion of real action, since that is nothing, while this is true and real production or making, from which God is denominated maker of heaven and earth. And the same reason can be applied to the intellect, even if executive power is placed in it. Hence Scotus rightly, In IV, dist. 1, q. 1, § Ista ergo, proves generally that the act of intellect or will cannot be productive of the terminus as action, but only as principle, because the productive action and that which is produced are in the same. In which he openly favours this opinion, although In II, dist. 1, q. 5, and in other places, he seems to think otherwise.

The foundations of the other opinions are solved

24. Whether action includes motion and relation.—To the first reason of the first opinion it is answered by granting the antecedent, namely, that creation is not a change, but denying the consequence, namely, that it is not action; for it is from the inferior to the superior negatively; for action extends more widely than change. But when it is said that action includes the substance of motion and relation, if it is understood of the precise notion of action (as the argument seems to require), the assumption is false; for it only includes the substance of flowing or dependence with transcendental relation to the principle from which it flows. But if that proposition is understood of action with motion, or a subject being presupposed, then as to both parts it can be well or badly understood; for if we speak really or identically, it is true that such action is the very substance of motion; yet it does not have this from the fact that it is action, but from the fact that it is such action, namely, because it is from a subject; but according to precision and formal concepts it is not true, because motion as such says the act of the mobile, which action as action does not say, and therefore, although the notion of motion or change is taken away, the substance of flowing or dependence can remain, which suffices for the notion of action. Similarly, when it is said that relation conjoined to the substance of motion is of the notion of action, this can be understood either of predicamental relation resulting, either in the acting cause or in the effect made, and so the proposition is false, because action is not an aggregate of predicamental relation and motion; likewise because action is prior, as the reason for founding a relation of this kind. Or it can be understood of the transcendental relation of the emanation or dependence itself to its principle, and so the assumed proposition is true; yet it is not rightly inferred thence that, change being taken away, nothing remains except predicamental relation, either of the effect to the cause or of the cause to the effect; for there can still remain the transcendental relation of the dependence itself to its principle, although it is dependence without a subject and without proper change. All which seem so clear per se that it is scarcely credible that St. Thomas used that reason to conclude that creation is only a predicamental relation resulting in the created thing made. And therefore some try to expound it of transcendental relation, so that by it he understood that dependence which we said is in the creature on the creator. For this mode of speaking is not unusual with St. Thomas; for in III, q. 2, he often calls the union a relation, and never distinguishes between predicamental relation and the mode of union, although it cannot be denied that there is that mode including transcendental relation to the unitable things. This exposition, then, is probable; it cannot, however, be accommodated to all the expressions of St. Thomas, as is evident from the solutions of the arguments, I, q. 44, a. 3.

25. Creation is formally a transient action.—To the second the antecedent is denied; for creation is formally a transient action, not that it passes from one subject into another, as Deza above seems to attack, but that it goes out effectively from the agent and is in the terminus, and therefore is said to pass to it. But it is asked in that argument whether this creative action is an accident. In which Giles and others affirm; for it is univocally action, and consequently is of the predicament of action, which is one of the predicaments of accidents. Nor is it repugnant that an accident be a way to substance, because substantial generation too has this; and by the very fact that it is called a way it is called something imperfect and a being of a being. But when the subject of this accident is sought, they answer that it is the terminus itself; for although in one genus, namely of terminus, it is posterior, yet in the genus of subjective cause it can be prior in nature. But this last is difficult for me to believe; first, because I do not think creation has a material cause; therefore neither can it have a subjective cause, for they are the same. The antecedent is evident, because this is the chief difference of the creative action from all others, that it takes place from the sole force of the agent without concurrence of matter or subject. Secondly, because I do not understand that the terminus of a way can be prior to the way itself under some notion including real existence. Which I add on account of the notion of end, under which the terminus is prior in nature, because the final cause as such does not prerequire real existence; but the subjective cause intrinsically prerequires real existence; therefore the terminus cannot be understood under that notion before its way in the order of nature, because it has no real being which has not come to it through that way.

26. Whether creation is an accident, and of what subject.—Wherefore it seems it can more easily be answered that action as action does not require a subject of inherence, but a principle from which it flows, because action as action does not say relation to that in which, but to that from which; for thence it comes about that action as action confers no formal denomination on the patient, but only on the agent. Nevertheless this reply, although it can satisfy about action as action, yet about passive creation or dependence as such the difficulty still remains, because becoming as such does not say relation to the principle, but to the thing which depends or is made, and therefore of it as such it must be explained in what subject it is. Hence again the difficulty about action can be pressed; for although action as action does not regard a subject of inherence, yet in reality it must always have some subject of inherence.

27. In what predicament creation is placed.—Many, then, deny that this dependence which is creation is an accident, asserting that it is a substantial mode of the thing which is created, which reductively pertains to the predicament of substance, because it is nothing else than the substance itself according as it is in becoming and as it were in an imperfect state. And this can be confirmed, for motion for this cause is not placed by Aristotle in any predicament, but is reduced to the predicament of its terminus, which is to be understood of motion precisely as it is a way to the terminus, because, as it is action or passion, it is placed in its predicaments, because as such it is compared by way of form to the agent or patient; yet, as a way, it is not properly compared to the terminus as form, but only as imperfect to perfect. Thus, then, passive creation, inasmuch as it is a way to a substantial terminus, is reduced to the predicament of substance; but it does not have the notion of passion, because it is not in a subject. Hence, inasmuch as that becoming is conceived as prior in nature to its terminus, it must be granted that it is not in a subject, but is conceived as it were in itself, which is not unfitting, indeed rather this is the singular excellence and mode of the dependence of the creature. But in the same instant of time in which it is made it is, through intimate conjunction and a certain identity, in the terminus itself, not as in a subject, but according to the special and proper relation by which the way regards the terminus; in which priority of nature on the part of the terminus is not required, because it does not require true causality, but mere termination. As heating is both in the thing which is heated and in the heat which is made, in the former as in a subject of inherence, which it supposes, but in the latter as in the formal terminus to which it tends, and therefore does not suppose it but brings it with itself and is identified with it. Thus, then, in the dependence of the creature, the order to a subject, which it does not have, being taken away, there remains the relation to the terminus, in which it is not as in a subject, but by another special and proper reason, as a certain mode of it. For this is common to many other modes, that they have a proper notion of affecting, as is established of the mode of union and of the mode of subsistence, as we shall see below.

28. Hence it can consequently be said that that creative dependence, as it has the notion of action, is not an accidental action, such as that which needs a subject, but is a substantial action, and therefore is not placed in the predicament of action, but is reduced to the predicament of substance. Or it can also be added that in the predicaments of accidents are placed not only those things which are true and proper accidents, having true inherence in a subject, but also many which imitate the mode of accidents in denomination and as it were extrinsic or intrinsic information, as habit, containing place, and similar things, and perhaps action as action universally so behaves; thus, then, in the present case it can be said that, although the dependence of creation in itself is a certain substantial mode, yet through relation to the agent it puts on the mode of an accident, and this is enough for it to be placed in the predicament of action. Which reply is probable, but the former seems truer, as I said in tome III of the III Part, disp. L, sect. 5. From which reply has also been made to the third argument of the same first opinion.

29. Every transient action is God's.—To the fourth it is answered that the antecedent is false, namely, that there is no transient action with respect to God; rather every transient action is the action of God Himself; for if it is from a creature, it is from God through general concurrence, so that one indivisible action is the same of the creature and of God. From which it comes about that not only is every transient action of a created agent also transient with respect to the uncreated, because it flows outside both, but also every immanent action of a created agent is transient with respect to God, because, as it is from God, it flows outside Him. Nor can it be said that these actions are not compared to God as actions but as effects, both because this is said gratuitously, since the relation to both agents is of the same mode, and also because that action tends to a further terminus, hence from both agents it is as a certain flowing to the terminus, and this is to be action. Finally, because there is no action to an action. And by the same reasons it is concluded a fortiori that, when God acts by Himself alone from a presupposed subject, transient action of God intervenes there; for who would believe that the heating or illumination made by fire or the sun is action, but not that made by God alone? or that this has anything less in reality than that? or, if it has nothing less in reality, that it is not equally true action?

30. God, when He acts, always acts by means of action.—To the first proof of that antecedent, then, it is answered that from the intimate presence of God it is only concluded that God acts in all things by immediacy of power and of supposit, but not without a mediating action; for this does not intervene on account of the distance of the agent, but because it is His formal causality, which must always be in the effect. To the second it is answered by granting the sequel; for the executive power of God is truly the principle of its effect and of its action; for it is of the notion of transient action that it really flow from its power; but St. Thomas, in the place cited, either speaks according to the first opinion, or speaks of the power of God with respect to the immanent act, which is also the cause of effects ad extra. To the third it has already been said how action as such is not a true complement of active power, or, if this is attributed by some in a broad way, yet that it is not of the notion of action as such.

31. To the foundations of the second opinion, so far as they persuade that dependence is not distinguished by the nature of the thing from the terminus, it must be said, first, that this, taken universally of every action and its terminus, is false, as was touched upon above in explaining the causality of the efficient cause, and will also be said below in treating of the predicament of action. Next, it is denied that as to this there is a special reason in creation, and that dependence is less distinguished from the terminus in it than in other actions, as has been sufficiently proved above, and it has been declared how it is no obstacle to this distinction that creation is production from nothing. Nor does a process to infinity follow, for the same could be inferred in any action; for any action in its way is an effect of the agent from which it flows, yet it is not made or does not flow through another action, because it does not flow as an effect, but as the very flowing and dependence. So, then, creation can broadly be called a creature, inasmuch as it too is made by God from nothing; yet it is not a creature simply, as a thing made and terminus of the effecting of God, but as the very dependence and effecting, and therefore for it another creation is not necessary, because its essential notion is that it be dependence, and therefore for it another dependence is not necessary. Which reply is also taken from St. Thomas, I, q. 45, a. 3, ad 2. And hence it is that, although the creature can change its dependence on this or that agent, yet in the dependence itself the relation to this or that agent cannot be changed unless the dependence is changed, because through itself and not through another dependence it says intrinsic relation to such agent.

32. Hence, to the third part of those arguments, it is answered that the creature can be understood in two ways to be a being essentially depending on God; in one way, that the actual dependence itself is of the essence of the creature; and so it is not true except of the actual dependence itself alone, which it is established is its own modal essence. But it is not of the essence of that creature whose mode and dependence it is, since it has been shown to be something separable from it; and in this sense that whole argument proceeds, which therefore concludes nothing. In another way, then, the creature is to be understood to be a being essentially depending on God, because namely it is a being of such nature and essence that it cannot exist without some dependence on God. And this sense is most true, and is excellently proved from the nature of participated being. But thence it does not come about that the actual dependence itself is of the essence, but only that that condition or imperfection on account of which such nature needs dependence is essential. Which is evident, because, although it is of the essence of the creature that it depend on God, it is not so that it depend on God alone, or (what is the same) that it depend through a dependence saying relation to God alone, although it can also sufficiently depend through such dependence; therefore it does not essentially determine for itself a certain dependence, but only the condition or need of dependence.

33. Some inferences of the second opinion are reproved.—And hence it is established, first, that the first inference of that opinion is false, for the thing which is properly created does not determine for itself some determinate dependence wholly immutable and inseparable, as we have proved. Secondly, it is established that the second and third inferences of that opinion are also false, because even dependence on God alone is not essential or wholly immutable in every created thing. Otherwise all things, and forms, and accidents, would depend on God now and always through some essential and immutable dependence regarding God alone, because of themselves they are apt so to depend, and this could be enough for their existence, and finally because they are true creatures producible from nothing. From which it further follows, first, that in every production of forms true creation is mixed in, against what was proved above and what St. Thomas teaches, I, q. 45, a. 8. It follows, secondly, that created agents either do nothing or act an act, or at least do not attain by effecting the forms themselves, either substantial or accidental, but at most their modes or unions, and that God alone creates all forms. Hence it further follows, thirdly, that there is no natural reason why other forms should cease to be by separation from a subject rather than the rational soul; all which are against true philosophy and sound doctrine, as I treated more at length in tome III of the III Part, disp. IX, sect. 1, towards the end.

34. And from what has been said here and there it is sufficiently established that the fourth inference of that opinion too is false; for that reason which from essential and immutable dependence infers that there cannot be an instrument of creation relies on a false foundation; indeed it openly begs the question, for it supposes that it is of the notion of creation that it be dependence on God alone, which was to be proved. Add that the authors of that opinion are compelled to posit in generable things two dependences at once, one essential on God alone and another as it were accidental (yet connatural) on created causes; therefore, although ingenerable things have essential dependence on God and do not have connatural dependence on a created agent, God could nevertheless supernaturally bring it about that they be made by a created agent through an as it were accidental and preternatural dependence. For thus grace, although it has the said essential dependence, according to that opinion, and does not have another connatural dependence, is nevertheless made supernaturally through the sacraments; therefore so it could be said of an angel, so far as concerns the force of that reason; but that second dependence would be true creation, because it would be action, unless such angel is said to be made from itself, which is improbable; that reason, therefore, is in many ways inefficacious and has a false foundation.

1. Concerning the eternity of the world there is a twofold consideration, one as to its substance, the other as to motion. This latter is properly physical, and therefore is to be passed over in this science, although we shall not be able not to touch on it below in demonstrating that God exists and that there cannot be a process to infinity in efficient causes, whether subordinated per se or per accidens. But the former consideration is properly metaphysical, for it pertains to the causality of beings inasmuch as they are beings, and is necessary for declaring the notion of creation, and therefore falls very well into this place.

Arguments for the affirmative part of the question

2. For we said that creation is production from nothing; therefore it is necessary that the thing which is created was previously nothing; therefore it is of the notion of creation that before it there precede the simple and complete non-being of the thing which is created; therefore newness of being is of the notion of creation. This last consequence is evident, because everything which has being after non-being had at some time a beginning of being, and this is to have newness of being. Secondly, because it is of the notion of creation that it be distinguished from conservation, at least in reason and denomination, according to what is to be treated in the following disputation; but it is distinguished in nothing else except that creation says newness of being, which conservation does not say; for this is why the angel, which is now conserved by God by the same action by which it was created, is not now created, because in the present now it does not have newness of being; therefore. The major is evident, because, if in some effect creation were not distinguished from conservation, such effect would never have been created, but always conserved, which plainly seems to involve repugnance. For how will that be conserved which was not made or created? Thirdly, it is of the notion of a creature that it be not eternal; therefore it is of the notion of creation that it be not eternal; therefore newness of being is of the notion of creation. The consequences are clear; but the antecedent can, first, be proved theologically, because the holy Fathers gather that the Word is true God because He was produced from eternity. And thence they think it sufficiently proved that that production is not creation, because it is eternal; therefore they suppose that eternity is repugnant to creation. The consequence is clear; and the antecedent is proved from Athanasius, oration II Against the Arians; and Nazianzen, oration XXXII, with the scholion of Nicetas, n. 58; Basil, bk. IV Against Eunomius, § That the Son is not a creature; and Cyril of Alexandria, dialogue IV On the Trinity; Damascene, bk. I De Fide, cc. 8 and 9; Ambrose, bk. I Hexaem., c. 3, and others whom we shall report below. Secondly the same antecedent is proved by philosophical reason, because what is eternal is immutable; but immutability is repugnant to a creature. The antecedent is evident, because what is eternal must so remain with infinite duration as it was from eternity; otherwise there would be something eternal remaining with only finite duration, which is a manifest implication of contradiction. But what of necessity remains in the same way and in the same disposition through infinite duration is immutable. Hence it is confirmed, for if the creature were eternal, God would be compelled to conserve it for infinite time or duration. And with the same reason and necessity He would always perpetually conserve it, because there is no greater reason of one duration than of another.

Contrary opinions are reported

3. On account of these and similar arguments some theologians asserted that it is of the notion of creation that through it being is communicated after non-being, so that in real succession or duration being follows after non-being. So thinks Albert the Great, In II, dist. 1, aa. 6 and 10, and VIII Phys., ch.; Bonaventure, In II, dist. 1, a. 1, q. 1; Richard, in the same place, a. 3, q. 4; Marsilius, in the same place, q. 1, a. 2; Henry, Quodl. I, q. 7, and Quodl. IX, q. 17. Who all from this foundation teach that it was impossible that things, even substantial and incorruptible ones, were created from eternity; and some philosophers thought the same, as Philoponus in the book in which he answers the arguments of Proclus for the eternity of the world, c. 3. And in favour of this opinion Toletus gathers several arguments, VIII Phys., c. 2, q. 2, who also embraces it.

4. The contrary opinion is supposed by Aristotle, VIII Phys. (if it is true that he knew creation). But St. Thomas chiefly defends it, I, q. 46, a. 2, whom his disciples follow; Cajetan, there; Ferrariensis, VIII Phys., q. 3; Hervaeus, treatise On the Eternity of the World, q. 2, and In II, dist. 1, where also Capreolus and Deza; and also Giles, Ockham, Gabriel, Thomas of Strasbourg, and chiefly Gregory, q. 3, and Durandus, q. 2, who limits this to the creation of incorruptible things. Scotus, however, q. 3, thinks it a problem.

Resolution of the question

5. To me the opinion of St. Thomas seems true as to this part. In order to declare and confirm the matter, however, I note that some thing or production can be eternal in two ways. In one way from its intrinsic necessity, in which way the generation of the divine Word is eternal. In another way without simple necessity, from the freedom of the cause willing to effect it from eternity.

6. Creation is not necessarily eternal.—I say, then, first: it is repugnant to creation that it be eternal from within. Hence it can be said that newness of being is of the notion of creation, either in act or at least in aptitude. This assertion follows in the first place from faith, both because it is of faith that no creation was actually eternal; therefore much more that none is of necessity eternal; and also because it is of faith that God does nothing outside Himself from necessity of nature. Hence the reason is concluded, because every creature (under which creation itself too can be comprehended, as we saw above) does not have being of itself, and consequently neither necessity of being; therefore neither can creation of itself have this necessity; but neither does it have it from an extrinsic cause; therefore it cannot be eternal in the aforesaid sense. And hence follows the latter part of the conclusion, namely, that newness of being is of the notion of creation at least in aptitude. Because from its notion this newness is not repugnant; nor yet is it repugnant on the part of God, because, as we shall show below, God does nothing outside Himself from necessity of nature; therefore.

7. No natural reason proves that the world is from eternity.—And from this conclusion it is established by the way that it cannot be demonstrated by natural reason that the world is from eternity; for I suppose it established by natural reason that the world had being through creation, as was proved above. Hence the reason is concluded thus: for demonstration is only of necessary things; but that the creation of the world always was is not necessary, neither from its intrinsic necessity nor from the extrinsic necessity of the agent; therefore it is not demonstrable. I shall not linger, however, in solving the reasons of Aristotle, in which other writers have laboured with sufficient erudition; both for this very reason, and also because the philosophical reasons either are of no weight or tend chiefly to prove that the world did not begin through natural generation, which is most true, whatever be the efficacy of the reasons. But the metaphysical or theological reason, which can be of some difficulty or weight, will be touched upon at once.

8. A doubt is dissolved.—For someone may doubt about the proof of this assertion, for we see a certain thing founded on an uncertain and opinable principle, namely, that creation is something created and outside God, which is uncertain, as is evident from the preceding section. It is answered that for the reason made it is enough that passive creation, or the becoming of the creature (whether it is distinguished from the creature in reality or only in reason), is outside God and consequently outside all necessity of being. You will say: then, if we suppose that active creation is in God and not in the creature, it will have necessity of being and will be eternal from within; therefore of necessity it will bring in eternal passive creation. It is commonly answered by distinguishing the antecedent, namely, that that action will be eternal as to the thing which it posits in God, but not as to the relation of reason which it connotes to the creature; for this is not understood to be until the creature exists. But if you insist that that action is not action according to what the relation of reason adds, for that is nothing, but according to what of entity and reality is in it, it must be answered that in that action two things can be considered: one is its being, the other its actual efficacy, or that it actually brings in passion; as to the first it is eternal, but as to the second by no means, because that action is of such nobility and perfection that it does not bring in or posit its terminus except when the operator wills. And because action as action says not only the entity of that action according to itself, but connotes also the actual conjunction or passive emanation of the terminus, therefore that action is not simply of necessity eternal, but can be temporal.

9. And this doctrine indeed is true; if, however, someone considers it attentively, he will understand that whatever is by way of act which is understood eternal in God is not true action, as action signifies the actual way and flowing emanating from the agent and tending to the terminus; for action of this kind is not separable in reality from the terminus, since it consists in its actual flowing. Therefore whatever is understood eternal in God is by way of an act which is a principle of acting, whether it is a principle as the very power or form from which in time the action flows, or by way of an immanent act applying the executive power so that at such time it may bring in the action, in which way there is in God from eternity the act of the will by which He wills to create, yet not for eternity itself, but for the time or moment which He Himself willed to define.

10. From which is easily solved the argument which most could move the philosophers: for, if creation is in time, God would have had to be changed, at least by reason of the will to create; for if He creates in time, He wills to create in time; therefore He is changed. For the first consequent must be distinguished, in time He wills, on the part of the act or on the part of the object; the first is true, the second false; that is, if the sense is that in time He begins to have the act by which He wills to create, or its free determination, so the consequence is denied, for by an eternal act He could will from eternity the creation which He makes in time; but if the sense is that in time He wills to create objectively, that is, that to create in time was the object of the divine will, so the consequent is true. To explain which it is commonly said that it is more truly and properly said that God willed to create in time than that in time He willed to create; because in the former expression that in time is conjoined with the verb to create, but in the latter it seems to be conjoined with the willing itself; but from this true sense no change follows, since the will of that temporal object is eternal. But what that eternal will is, and what the free determination to a temporal object adds in eternity itself, is to be said below in treating of the attributes of God, for it does not matter for the present; for the difficulty is the same even if we understand that free determination of God to be to eternal creation.

11. It is not repugnant to creation to be exercised from eternity.—How the particle from nothing in the definition of creation is to be understood.—I say secondly: actual newness of being, or that it not be made from eternity, is not of the notion of creation. It is proved, because neither is this included in the definition of creation rightly understood, nor from any other head is it necessary, or the opposite repugnant. The former part is proved, for when creation is said to be production from nothing, that from does not signify the succession of one after another, as when we say that evening time comes from morning; for besides the fact that that expression is very improper and inept for a definition, it also denotes an order per accidens, except in successive things inasmuch as they are successive; but creation is not of itself a successive emanation, but momentary or whole at once. That from nothing, then, either taken negatively signifies the lack of a material cause, and from this side there is no necessity of newness of being, because creation, even if it were eternal, could be independent of a material cause; or it denotes the relation to the terminus a quo, which must be simply non-being, and so it denotes only order of nature, not of duration, as Avicenna also noted, VI of his Metaph., c. 2. But this order of nature consists only in this, that the creature of itself has no being at all unless it is communicated by another through creation, and so of itself is nothing negatively, that is, does not have being of itself. And for this reason, even if it were created from eternity, it would be created from nothing, because from what does not have being of itself it is made having being from another, so that being itself (which, if it were not made, would be nothing) is made through creation. And then, although in no real duration is it true to say the creature is not, or it is nothing, nevertheless it is true to say that prior in nature it is nothing rather than something, because that prior in nature does not exclude its so being in some real duration, but is to be explained negatively, namely, that without the causality which is through creation the thing would be nothing. Which Scotus rightly noted, In II, dist. 1, q. 2, distinguishing a twofold priority of nature, namely, positive and privative. As in the same instant in which the form enters matter the privation is said to be expelled, which is said to be in matter prior in nature to the form's being introduced, not formally or positively, but causally or negatively, because, unless the form were introduced, there would be privation there; so, then, it is to be understood in the present case.

12. The latter part.—The latter part is proved, because from no other head can repugnance be shown, which will be most easily established by solving the difficulties posited at the beginning. Now, however, it is declared briefly, because it is not repugnant on the part of God, as is established, since He is omnipotent; nor is it repugnant on the part of created being itself as such, because, although it is made from eternity, it will be truly created and dependent; for it is not of the notion of such created being that at some time a parte ante it was not, just as it is not of its notion that at some time a parte post it will not be; it is only of its notion, then, that it be not from itself and that it not have absolute necessity of being; but it would have both even if it were made from eternity, because it would both flow effectively from another and depend on his free determination. Nor yet is the eternity of the effect repugnant to the freedom of the cause, because, just as the determination of the divine will is eternal and nevertheless free, because prior in reason to that will's being understood determined in its eternity it is understood indifferent to willing this or that object outside itself, so, although He created from eternity and for eternity itself, He would be indifferent prior in reason to creating or not creating. Again, neither from the mode in which creation takes place is it repugnant that it be eternal, because it does not take place successively but whole at once and indivisibly, and therefore, although eternity itself is understood indivisible, creation can coexist with it.

13. An objection is satisfied.—Some say that, although creation as such takes place whole at once, yet conservation takes place successively; but eternal creation necessarily has adjoined conservation and infinite successive duration; since, therefore, it is repugnant that succession be eternal, as we suppose, it will also be repugnant that creation be eternal, at least on account of the adjoined conservation. Which objection would indeed have place in the opinion of Bonaventure and others, who think that in the being of incorruptible things, or in their duration or aevum, there is real succession; that opinion, however, is false, as we shall show below in disputing about durations. Wherefore it is also false that in the perpetual conservation of these things some real succession is necessary, for they are conserved in the same permanent being and in the same indivisible duration, and by the same indivisible action, as I shall say in the following disputation. Only according to our mode of conceiving is that conservation or duration apprehended by way of succession; because we cannot otherwise measure or conceive that duration except as it were through coexistence with an infinite imaginary succession.

14. A thing created from eternity is not infinitely perfect.—And so it is also easily understood that from eternal creation no real infinity follows in the created thing; for, although eternal duration is called infinite inasmuch as it lacks beginning, yet it is only either a certain extrinsic denomination of coexistence with the eternity of God, inasmuch as it lacks beginning, or (which seems truer) a certain negation of beginning in existing; but in reality no infinite perfection is adjoined to the creature, but it is the same always existing; as for an angel to coexist or endure for a thousand years of the heavenly motion is not a greater physical perfection in it than to exist for one moment, but it is the same according to its whole self enduring without intermission; therefore from no head is it repugnant to creation that it be eternal.

15. Permanent corruptible things could be created from eternity.—And hence I further gather that the limitation which Durandus adds about incorruptible things is not necessary; for the creation too of permanent corruptible things, if it takes place whole at once without succession, as the condition of permanent things of itself demands, does not require newness of being from its intrinsic notion, nor has it whence eternity of being should be intrinsically repugnant, for the whole discourse made can be applied in the same way to things of this kind. But Durandus says that infinite duration, even in the declared sense, is repugnant to a corruptible thing, because a corruptible thing cannot endure for infinite time; but a thing made from eternity must endure for infinite time. The common reply is that the argument proves that a corruptible thing cannot be created from eternity and left to its nature, because thence follows that contradiction, namely, that the thing endures and does not endure for infinite time; but that it does not prove that it is absolutely repugnant that things of this kind be created from eternity, because God could not leave them to their nature, but conserve them for infinite time.

16. But I think it must be answered otherwise, that corruptible things too can endure for infinite time left to their nature, if a contrary agent is absent, or is so affected or disposed that it cannot act on them, because nothing destroys itself, per se speaking. But if corruptible things were created from eternity, they could suffer nothing from eternity from contrary agents, because they could suffer nothing except through successive motion, which it is repugnant should be from eternity. I say, however, from contrary agents, because we are treating of corruptive action; for perfective action, as illumination, vision, intellection, can very well be eternal, because it can take place whole at once without resistance, and once made can of itself endure for infinite time. In which way Augustine said, VI De Trinit., c. 1, that the splendour of fire or of the sun would be coeternal if the fire or the sun were eternal. But corruptive action, which takes place with contrary resistance, requires motion and succession, and therefore cannot be from eternity, as Durandus himself teaches and we suppose. And so it comes about that corruptible things created from eternity and left to their nature, that is, with no special protection of God applied besides the general influx, could endure for infinite time through defect of action of a contrary agent, so that, although fire and tow created from eternity were near, the fire could not act on the tow in eternity, and consequently not for infinite imaginary time either. It is proved, because, if the fire acted on the tow, either it would corrupt it and change it into itself by a simultaneous and indivisible action, or it would alter it successively. The first cannot be said, both because it exceeds the efficacy of fire, and also because it is repugnant to the position; for if eternal fire by indivisible action at once generated another fire, the thing generated would be as eternal as the generator; but in order that it be generated from tow, it is necessary that the tow at some time have existed; there will, therefore, be together in eternity the tow and the fire generated from the tow, which is plainly repugnant. Nor can the second be said, because (as is supposed) successive alteration cannot be eternal. And this can easily be understood by explaining the argument made; for successive alteration is from a contrary and through it the contrary is removed from the disposition pre-existing in it; therefore, if successive alteration is eternal, the patient existing with the disposition contrary to the alteration is also eternal; therefore in eternity itself it at once had that disposition and was deprived of it through the contrary alteration, which is an open repugnance. And the a priori reason is that a thing which is created from eternity is created in some real disposition, and therefore it is necessary that it endure in it for infinite time; therefore in the whole of that no contrary alteration can take place; it is necessary, therefore, that it begin in time. And for the same reason, if some man were created from eternity, even in pure nature, he could not for infinite time suffer any alteration from within, because the reason is the same of the alteration of one part in another, or of natural heat in the humours or nourishment, as of any other agents or patients whatever; and therefore such a man would not need food for infinite time, and for the same he would not only not die, but would not even be able to die.

17. You will say: all these things are preternatural to corruptible things and to contrary agents and patients; therefore things of this kind are no longer left to their nature, as was supposed. It is answered that by these and similar arguments and inferences it is declared at least a posteriori that eternal creation is not consonant with the natures of these things, because each thing by its nature demands to exist, and also to be made, in that measure and in that state in which it can exercise its actions in a mode accommodated to its nature. But corruptible things made in eternity could do nothing accommodated to themselves for eternity itself. Hence neither could they afterwards of themselves begin action and passion; for that infinite imaginary time, for which they would necessarily endure in the disposition in which they had been created, would not have a certain terminus a parte post, but could be ended before any designated instant, and so too before any instant the action of the creature could be begun; therefore they could not of themselves begin action by determining the instant for which it was to be begun, but this would pertain to God, which also is preternatural. Nevertheless, eternal creation being supposed, we say that all these things follow by natural necessity, and from that supposition of eternal creation we say that, although in other respects things of this kind are left to their natures, they will endure for infinite time.

18. Incorruptible substances would not exist wholly connaturally if created from eternity.—But I add further that this disproportion or (so to speak) preternaturalness, although not wholly equal, is found almost the same in the eternal creation of incorruptible things, because it is necessary that any thing created from eternity remain wholly unchanged for infinite time, both in substance and in all the accidents with which it was created, because all those are eternal, and therefore on that side infinite in duration according to the whole reality or real mode in which they were created from eternity; therefore it is necessary that they remain unchanged for infinite duration. But every creature, however incorruptible, is mutable according to place or other operations, and therefore it is also preternatural that it be made in that state in which it could not exercise or vary its natural motions or operations for infinite time. Nevertheless, this is not simply impossible or repugnant, which is what we intend.

Solutions of the arguments

19. The first argument made at the beginning has already been sufficiently solved from what has been said; for we have shown that it is not of the notion of creation that nothing precede it in real duration, but only in the order of reason and causality. Nor does it stand in the way that Anselm, in the Monologion, c. 8, also approves that exposition, that what is created is said to be made from nothing because previously it was nothing and through creation becomes something. For he first teaches there the true interpretation handed down above, namely, that through that particle every subject and all matter from which creation is made is denied; but afterwards he applies that other interpretation, not as necessary nor as fitting creation from the fact precisely that it is creation, but as declaring creation as it was made.

20. To the second it is answered, first, that there is no drawback in granting that a thing is created by the action by which it is conserved, as we shall say shortly. Next it is said that even in eternal creation creation can be distinguished in reason from conservation. For as that creation is said to be absolutely in eternity itself, as a simple participation of created being, it has the notion of creation; but as in it we conceive a certain imaginary succession, so for any designated instant of such succession it has the notion of conservation. Which we apprehend in almost the same way in the eternal generation of the Word. For as it is in its eternity it is true production and generation; but as it is understood coexisting with instants of our time or imaginary ones, it is (so to speak) a certain permanence in the same generation; for the name of conservation, which denotes imperfection, is not to be attributed. See St. Thomas, q. 3 De Potent., a. 14, ad 10.

21. How the Saints prove the divinity of the Word of God from His eternal existence.—To the third the antecedent is denied, namely, that eternity is repugnant to the notion of creature. To the Fathers, however, it can first be said that they speak from the supposition of faith, which teaches that no creature was created from eternity; from which they rightly gather that, if the Word is eternal, He is not a creature. But because they sometimes signify that coeternity with God is repugnant to a creature, this is to be understood according to the former conclusion. In which way Augustine said, XII De Civit., c. 15, that, although the angels had been created from eternity, they would nevertheless not have been coeternal with their creator, for He always was by immutable eternity, but these were made. To the reason it is answered that what is eternal from within is immutable from within; but that what is made from without in eternity need not be immutable from within, but it is enough if for eternity itself, or for the infinite duration which is thought of in it, it remains unchanged.

22. Hence, to the confirmation, I grant that by the very fact that God creates something from eternity He must of necessity conserve it for infinite imaginary time, in the declared sense. Nor is this a drawback, because this is not absolute necessity but from supposition, which proportionally has place in any action of God. For if He wills to produce a thing in time, at least for that time it is necessary that He conserve it; therefore, if He wills to produce it in eternity, what wonder that for eternity He necessarily conserves it? This necessity, however, is only a parte ante, because ascending towards the beginning no terminus is ever found in that duration; but not a parte post, because in any designated instant in that eternity God could cease from the conservation of that thing, and before any designated one, in any designable one too, He could cease at His choice. The rest of this matter we refer to VIII Phys.¹