Summa summae S. Thomae sive compendium theologiae

I say 1°: It is a dogma of faith that God alone has in fact created the universe.

It is established, first, from various passages of Sacred Scripture. Genesis, I, 1, relates that God created all things; whence there is no other creator besides him. Ecclesiasticus, I, 8: One is the most high Creator, almighty. Isaiah, XLIV, 24: I am the Lord, making all things, stretching forth the heavens alone, establishing the earth, and none is with me. Hebrews, III, 4: He that created all things is God.

To the same sense write the Holy Fathers: Athanasius, book III against the Arians; Cyril of Alexandria, book VI of the Treasury, c. 2; St. Augustine, book III On the Trinity, c. 8, n. 11; Damascene, book II On the Orthodox Faith, c. 3. Thus it has been defined in the Apostles' Creed, in the Lateran council under Innocent III, in the Vatican council, concerning which in the preceding article.

I say secondly: To create belongs to God alone in such a way that no creature can be the principal cause of creating¹.

It is proved. First. More universal effects ought to be reduced to more universal causes². But the effect of creation is the most universal, and God alone is the most universal cause. Therefore. — The minor as to the second part is evident. It is proved. the first part. The effect of creation is not a particular being, or this or that being from something pre-existing, but is being simply and absolutely, or being according to its whole self, or according to all things that pertain to its ratio and substantial being. Therefore.

2° For creating there is principally required an infinite power³. But the power of no creature, but of God alone, is or can be infinite. Therefore. — The minor is evident. — Proof of the major. The greater the remoteness of the potency and the lesser the dispositions to that form, so much the greater power is required in the agent for producing the form from potency. Therefore, where there is no potency and no dispositions, as in creation, an infinite power is required.

I say thirdly: It is more probable that a creature cannot be assumed as a cause, even as an instrumental physical cause, of creation⁴.

Prob. It belongs to the notion of a physical instrumental cause that, through an action proper to itself, unless it be the very action itself, it operate dispositively toward the effect of the principal cause, though not indeed always and necessarily on the part of the thing effected, as though it ought always and necessarily to produce some disposition in the subject in which the effect of the principal cause is received. This indeed occurs in the instruments of creatures, which employ instruments from indigence, but not in the instruments of God. For, as the Angelic Doctor teaches, He can assume an immanent act, such as the willing or understanding of the agent, as an instrumental cause of a miracle, for example; but on the side of the mode of operating, namely by modifying through its proper action the action of the principal cause, so that it may operate in the mode of an inferior cause, and thus together with that elevated action and from it attain its effect. For if the instrument of itself effected nothing, but remained idle, it would not be in the genus of cause, nor

therefore an instrument, but a pure medium conveying the influx of the principal agent. — I assume the minor. But no action of a creature can concur, even instrumentally, in creation. Therefore. — I prove the minor assumed. The action of a creature, since it is an accident, depends on a subject in being and in operating. Therefore, if God were to act in the mode of that action and through it attain His effect, He would operate dependently on a presupposed subject, which is repugnant to creation, which is from nothing.

You ask whether to create is proper to some divine person.

I respond that it is not proper to any one person, but common to the whole Trinity⁵:

1° — Because every agent acts something like itself; thus fire generates fire⁶. But to create is to produce the being of things. Therefore creating belongs to God according to his esse, which is his essence, which is common to the three persons.

2° — According to the common theological axiom, the works of the divinity ad extra are undivided and common to the three persons.

3° — The creating power, the wisdom or intellect through which it is created, the affection or will from which it is created, are common to the three persons. Therefore.

Nevertheless, because power is fittingly attributed to the Father, wisdom to the Son, love to the Holy Spirit, therefore in an accommodative sense the three persons are said to create in diverse ways: the Father is called the creator, the Son he through whom it is created, the Holy Spirit he from whom it is created.