Disputationes metaphysicae

1. In this matter there is first the opinion of Henry, Quodl. I, q. 7, asserting that in every production and conservation of things two actions intervene: one by which the thing acquires being; the other by which it is conserved in being; of which the former precedes, the latter follows. The same in Quodl. IX, q. 1; Aureolus and Gregory, to be cited below. The foundation seems to be that the action by which being is conferred on a thing is sudden and indivisible and lacking duration or permanence, and therefore at once passes, and to it succeeds the action by which the thing is conserved in being; for conservation is a permanent action. And it is confirmed, first, because, if a thing were conserved by the same action by which it is made, it would always, as long as it is, be in a certain continuous becoming, because the first becoming would continuously last. But the consequent seems very absurd, namely, that a substantial and permanent thing be in continuous flux. It is confirmed, secondly, because we often see a thing produced by one cause and conserved by another; therefore then it is necessary that conservation be distinguished from production; therefore they are always distinguished. Finally he confirms it from Augustine, book On the Immortality of the Soul, c. 8, where he writes thus of God: This incorporeal force and nature, effective of the whole body, holds the universe by present power; for it did not make and depart and abandon what it had effected; and below: That effecting force cannot be idle without guarding that which has been made by it, and not letting it lack the species by which it is in so far as it is; for what is not per se, if it is deserted by that through which it is, assuredly will not be, etc. Capreolus reports other arguments for this opinion from Aureolus, In II, dist. 1, q. 2, a. 2, in the argument against the third conclusion. Gregory too brings others, In II, dist. 1, q. 6, concl. 4. But I omit them, because they have no special difficulty.

2. The second opinion is that conservation is not another action from creation according to the thing or a real mode, but only by a certain connotation or included negation, or is distinguished in reason; for creation says the effecting of a thing, connoting that it was not before, but conservation says the same effecting, connoting that the thing was already before. This is the opinion of St. Thomas, I, q. 104, a. 1, ad 4; De Potent., q. 3, a. 3, ad 6, and q. 5, a. 1, ad 2; and the Thomists commonly follow it; Hervaeus, treatise On the Eternity of the World, q. 1; Giles, On Being and Essence, q. 7; Ferrariensis, III Cont. Gent., c. 65; Capreolus, above, who specially reports, against Henry, Bernard of Gannat, Quodl. I, q. 7. And this opinion, per se speaking, is true; in order, however, that it be explained more fully, a certain distinction must be applied.

Resolution of the question

3. The first assertion.—For it sometimes happens that a thing is conserved by wholly the same cause by which it is made, but sometimes by diverse ones, either because the effecting takes place by one with the help or concurrence of another, but the conservation by one cause alone, or conversely, because the production takes place by one, but many concur to the conservation. I say, then, first: when conservation is from wholly the same agent and with the same concurrence of the material cause, or also with the same independence from the material cause, then conservation is not another action from production or creation except by reason only, or connotation and relation. From which it comes about that, formally and per se speaking, action and conservation are not in reality two actions. This is the mind of St. Thomas. And it is proved, because there is no sufficient principle for distinguishing those actions; therefore they would be asserted distinct without cause. For who would believe that the sun or a lamp illuminates this air by one action when it is first applied and by another afterwards? For what would have been the cause that the prior action should be interrupted or cease and another afterwards be begun? Again, the first action would have to last only for an instant of our time, because by whatever reason it lasted longer, it could last always; the subsequent action, therefore, would either last only for another similar instant, and so there would be two immediate instants, or it would last for the whole subsequent time in which the thing is conserved, and then the same can be said with the same or greater reason of the prior action, and that superfluous multiplication of actions will be avoided. Add that that second action would have to be begun through a last non-being, which is beyond the nature of such actions. Likewise in the beatific vision, for example, there would be one action by which the blessed first sees God and another by which he afterwards perseveres in the vision of God. And so the first action would not be beatitude, nor of itself perpetual, which is absurd. Indeed, to admit this in any corporeal vision or in every intellection and volition is beyond all reason and beyond experience, so far as it can intervene in this matter. Indeed, it is scarcely possible for a man to persevere only for an instant in the vital action which he exercises. It would also be wonderful that in a natural agent, for example sight, the action should be varied without the principle, or the object, or the patient, or the effect being changed. And similarly that in a free agent the action should be multiplied without a new use of freedom. Finally, action has its unity from the terminus and the principle, or also from the patient, if it is concerned with it; but production and conservation have wholly the same terminus; therefore, if the principle is the same, as we suppose, the action of which we have treated will be the same, because creation has no subject; but the same holds, due proportion being kept, in the action and conservation which takes place from a subject, if the patient is the same.

4. An objection is satisfied.—You will say that actions are commonly distinguished also from diversity of time; for this is why Aristotle requires for the unity of motion the unity of time; but creation and conservation take place at diverse times, or at least the former takes place in the first instant, but the latter in the whole subsequent time. I answer that, according to the opinion of Aristotle, the same continuous time is enough for the motion to be the same, and consequently for the action to be the same; but in the present case the instant in which creation takes place is continuously conjoined to the subsequent time in which conservation lasts; continuously (I say) in the way in which an indivisible terminus can be immediately joined to a divisible thing; this, then, would be enough for that action to be one, and therefore St. Thomas often says that conservation is as it were continued creation. Which is not to be understood of proper continuation, but according to our way of understanding, or through coexistence with true continuous succession. For continuation properly so called is only in a divisible thing, but creation and conservation are one indivisible action; hence its unity is greater, and its duration is not through succession nor through true continuation, but through the permanence of the same indivisible action. For, when there is no succession in the terminus or in the acquisition of the terminus, neither can there be in the action; but here there is no succession in the terminus, because it is indivisible substantial being, nor in its acquisition, because it is acquired whole at once and conserved whole at once. From which it comes about that, when production and conservation are said to last in one continuous time, this is to be understood of the extrinsic time with which that action coexists; for if the discourse is of intrinsic duration, it is rather one instant or indivisible aevum, which begins whole at once in the first instant and perseveres whole in the whole following time and in each of its parts and instants.

5. And hence the reason made above is confirmed, for conservation is one action, as it lasts in the whole time after the first instant and in all the continuative instants of such time; therefore it is also one action with production itself or creation which takes place in the first instant. The consequence is evident, because there is no greater reason of distinction between the first instant and the time immediately following than between any continuative instant and the part of time which succeeds after it. Unless perhaps someone imagines in conservation itself a real intrinsic succession, which is both false and to me improbable, and still the same argument remains, that in the way in which conservation in itself is called one action, namely, by continuation, it must also be called one with creation, because a part is no less conjoined to the last terminus than to the continuative ones, as in a line the terminative point is truly united and in its way constitutes with the parts one whole, as does the continuative point.

6. An objection is dissolved.—Hence, by the way, an argument is solved, if someone objects thus: if God annihilated an angel and afterwards created the same one, the action of creating would be diverse only because it takes place at a diverse time; therefore creation and conservation, which take place at diverse times, will be diverse actions. For it is answered that the same argument can be made of conservation, which corresponds to prior and posterior time or instant, namely, that it is not the same action, but infinite ones are multiplied in the succession of all the instants or parts of time. The consequence, then, can be denied, because in that case the actions would be interrupted and discrete; but here there is one continuous one. It is better said, however, that the antecedent is not necessary, for God could reproduce the angel by the same numerical action by which He had created it; for it is not more difficult to effect again the same numerical action than the same numerical effect, as I have said more at length elsewhere. Yet He could also, if He willed, use a diverse action to reproduce the same numerical effect, as I noted in the foregoing. And therefore I did not say the antecedent is false, but uncertain, because it depends on the free will of God. Hence too I do not deny that God can, if He wills, vary the action in the creation and conservation of a thing, and indeed in conservation itself, as it takes place in diverse parts of our time; I say, however, that this is superfluous and not connatural, identity of terminus and principle being supposed, especially when the action is not interrupted.

7. What and how great is the distinction of creation from conservation.—Hence, moreover, the distinction of reason between creation and conservation is easily understood; for that at least this intervenes the diverse mode of speaking itself shows; because a thing is not said to be conserved in the first instant in which it is created, nor to be created after the first instant in the remaining time in which it is conserved; there intervenes, therefore, some discrimination at least of reason between those two, which is none other than that touched upon above, that creation under this word connotes the negation of being previously had, but conservation conversely connotes the possession of the same being previously had. But that this is only a diversity of reason seems known per se. And it is easily evident by likeness from the terminus itself, for the created effect itself, as existing in the first instant, or as existing in the whole following time, can be distinguished only in reason; therefore the same holds in the indivisible action, and so diverse names have been imposed by which the action may be signified under those diverse respects and connotations. But sometimes the action is conceived or signified without those respects, but indifferently, and then it is also said indifferently of production and of conservation, in which way the sun is said to illuminate the air both in the first instant and in the whole time in which the light lasts. In which sense too God is said to work until now, John 5, as Augustine expounds, IV Genes. ad litter., c. 12, and the other Fathers cited above. From these things, then, the whole conclusion is sufficiently evident. But why I added its last part will be established from the following conclusion.

8. The second assertion.—I say secondly: sometimes conservation is an action distinct from production on account of the diversity of the efficient or of the material cause; but then the distinction between production and conservation is material rather than formal. The first part is declared and proved, for quantity, for example, in the mystery of the Eucharist is conserved numerically the same both in the matter of bread and separated from the bread. And therefore it was produced by one action from the matter of bread, and is conserved separated by another. And the reason is that the prior action was eduction from the potency of matter, or concreation with matter, or coproduction with the bread, according to the various opinions. But the posterior action is from no subject; and in reality is the same as creation; it is only not so called because that thing already pre-existed. Hence, by the way, it is understood that this mode of distinction between production and conservation, namely, that one be by way of eduction and the other by way of creation, or conversely, cannot intervene naturally except through a miracle or supernatural work; for a form which is made through action dependent on a subject cannot naturally be made or conserved independently of a subject. And by the same reason, if an accident produced in one subject were transmuted into another and conserved in it, the action by which it would be conserved in the other subject would be distinct from that by which it was produced in the prior one; because it would be as it were a new eduction and a new dependence on a distinct cause; yet that diversity cannot be natural, because an accident cannot naturally migrate from subject to subject.

9. The distinction of creation from conservation on account of the variation of the efficient.—In another way conservation can be distinguished from production on the part of the principle, as when fire is produced by fire and afterwards conserved by God alone, or when water is heated by the sun or by fire, and, the sun or fire being removed, retains the heat; for then it is necessary that the conservation be a new distinct action. Which is easily evident, because the prior action and dependence has ceased; for now the fire does not act on the water, for example, or on the other generated fire, and consequently the prior action, as it was from God, has also ceased; for in reality it was wholly the same with the action of the fire, as will be declared in the following question; therefore there is a new action by which God by Himself alone conserves that effect. Indeed it happens that the prior action is successive, but the conservation indivisible and permanent, because through this nothing new is acquired by parts, but what was acquired gradually is conserved at once and indivisibly; for I speak of pure conservation, which takes place without increase. Finally, the reason is that action, since by itself it depends on the agent, cannot vary the dependence or relation to the agent without the action being varied. And therefore, if light is produced by one lamp and conserved by another, the conservation is an action distinct from the production; and universally the same holds whenever the conserver is distinct from the producer.

10. From which, by the way, it is understood that this mode of distinction has no place naturally in creation and the corresponding conservation, because naturally a thing cannot be created, nor when created be conserved, except by God alone; but it is otherwise supernaturally, for if God created a thing through a created instrument and afterwards conserved it by Himself alone, or conversely, then too the action would be distinct for the same reason. I said, however, that the comparison is to be made between conservation corresponding to creation; because so the comparison is to be made formally and per se, whenever it is asked about the distinction between production and conservation. For if someone compares the conservation of fire in matter with any creation whatever, it is clear that they are diverse actions. Likewise one must stop at the action and causality of the efficient cause; for if someone compares the creation of matter, for example, to its conservation as it is in its way from the form actuating it, so the causality of the form is other than the action of the agent; yet this is not formally to compare active conservation with production.

11. Hence, finally, it is understood why in this assertion I said that this distinction between conservation and production is per accidens and material, but in the preceding I said that the identity is per se and formal. Because namely the distinction which we have explained is not between conservation and production from the fact that one is conservation and the other production, but from the fact that one is from one cause and the other from another. Which distinction will be the same between two productions, or also between two conservations, if the same diversity of principles intervenes; therefore production and conservation per se do not have this diversity, but rather identity, if they are compared formally and precisely.

The arguments are satisfied

12. The arguments of the former opinion almost do not need solution. For it is denied that creation of necessity lasts only for an instant of our time, speaking according to the thing; for it lasts as long as conservation remains; but according to the name or connotation it is said to last only for an instant, because only for that instant does it connote the negation of prior existence. We are speaking always, however, of creation which is with newness of being; for that which would be from eternity would not last for an instant of our time, but would be in the now of eternity, and in it creation and conservation would be distinguished in a proportional mode, as we declared in the preceding disputation. To the first confirmation it is answered that, when a permanent thing is said to be in a certain continuous becoming, the expression is equivocal; for to be always in becoming, from the strictness of the words, signifies to be in a certain continuous passage and succession; but in this sense the proposition is false, yet it does not follow from the aforesaid opinion, as is known per se. But another sense can be that the creature, as long as it is, actually depends on the first cause, from which it always receives being through the same actual influx by which it was created. And in this sense the proposition is true, yet it is improper, because becoming in strictness connotes a certain newness of being. The second confirmation proves the second conclusion laid down by us. But the words of St. Augustine either do nothing to the matter or at most confirm the same conclusion.