God's Activity in Creating

Immediate creation by God The doctrine established above necessarily leads to the conclusion that things which cannot be brought into existence except by creation, come immediately from God. Thus the heavenly bodies,'°' as is manifest, cannot be produced except by creation. They cannot be said to be made from some preexisting matter, for then they would be capable of generation and corruption and would also be subject to contrariety. But they are not, as their motion proves.

For they move in circles; and circular motion has no contrary.

Consequently, the heavenly bodies were produced immediately by God.

Similarly the elements, regarded as complete units, do not come from any preexisting matter. Anything that would thus preexist would have some form. Thus some body, other than the elements, would exist prior to them in the order of material cause.

But if the matter existing prior to the elements had a distinct form, 103 OF chap. 9, note.

Aquinas's Shorter Summa one of the elements would have to be prior to the others in the same order, supposing that the preexisting matter had the form of an element. Therefore the very elements must have been produced immediately by God.

It is even more impossible for incorporeal and invisible substances to be created by someone else, for all such substances are immaterial. Matter cannot exist unless it is subject to dimension, whereby it is capable of being marked off, so that many things can be made from the same matter. Hence immaterial substances cannot be made from preexisting matter. Consequently they can be produced only by God through creation. For this reason the Catholic Faith professes that God is the "Creator of Heaven and Earth, and of all things visible," and also "of all things invisible."

Voluntariness of God's activity The truth set forth in the preceding chapter also discloses the fact that God has brought things into existence not through any necessity of His nature but by His will. A single natural agent produces immediately but one effect, whereas a voluntary agent can produce a variety of effects. The reason for this is that every agent acts in virtue of its form. The natural form, whereby a cause operates naturally, is limited to one for each agent. But intellectual forms, whereby an agent operates through his will, are many.

Therefore, since many things are immediately produced by God, as we have just shown,' God evidently produces things by His will and not under the impulse of natural necessity.

Ce chap. 95.

God's Activity in Creating Besides, in the order of causes, an agent operating through intellect and will is prior to an agent operating by the necessity of its nature. For an agent operating through his will predetermines for himself the end for the sake of which he acts, whereas a natural cause Operates on account of an end predetermined for it by another. But, as is clear from all that has gone before, God is the first agent. Hence He acts through His will and not by a necessity of His nature.

Moreover, we showed above that God is infinite in power."

Consequently He is not determined to this or that effect but is undetermined with regard to all effects. But what is undetermined regarding various effects is determined to produce one of them by desire or by the determination of the will. Thus a man who is free to walk or not to walk, walks when he wills. Hence effects proceed from God according to the determination of His will. And so He acts, not by a necessity of His nature, but by His will. This is why the Catholic Faith calls the omnipotent God not only Creator, but also Maker. For making is properly the action of an artificer who operates by his will. And since every voluntary agent acts in virtue of the conception of his intellect, which is called his word, as we indicated above,'"° and since the Word of God is His Son, the Catholic Faith professes that "all things were made" by the Son.

O7, Immutability of God in His activity The fact that God produces things by His will clearly shows that He can produce new things without any change in Himself. The difference between a natural agent and a voluntary agent is this: a 105C£. chap. 19.

106C£ chap. 38.

Aquinas's Shorter Summa natural agent acts consistently in the same manner as long as it is in the same condition. Such as it is, thus does it act. But a voluntary agent acts as he wills. Accordingly, it may well be that, without any change in himself, he wishes to act now and not previously. For there is nothing to prevent a person from willing to perform an action later even though he is not doing it now; and this without any change in himself. Thus it can happen, without any change in God, that God, although He is eternal, did not bring things into existence from eternity.

Question of the eternity of motion We might imagine that, although God can produce a new effect by His eternal and immutable will, some sort of motion would have to precede the newly produced effect. For we observe that the will does not delay doing what it wishes to do, unless because of some motive that is operative now but will cease later or because of some motive that is inoperative now but is expected to become operative in the future. In summer a man has the will to clothe himself with a warm garment, which, however, he does not wish to put on at present, but in the future; for now the weather is warm, although it will cease to be warm with the advent of a cold wave later in the year.

Accordingly, if God wished from eternity to produce some effect, but did not produce it from eternity, it seems either that something was expected to happen in the future that had not yet occurred or else that some obstacle had to be removed that was then present. Neither of these alternatives can take place without motion. Thus it seems that a subsequent effect cannot be produced by a preceding will unless some motion previously occurs. And so, if God's will relative to the production of things was eternal, and

God's Activity in Creating nevertheless things were not produced from eternity, their production must have been preceded by motion, and consequently by mobile objects. And if the latter were produced by God, but not from eternity, yet other motions and mobile objects must have preceded, and so on, in infinite recession.

The solution to this objection readily comes to mind if we but attend to the difference between a universal and a particular agent.

A particular agent has an activity that conforms to a norm and measure prescribed by the universal agent. This is clear even in civil government. The legislator enacts a law which is to serve as a norm and measure. Any particular judge must base his decisions on this law. Again, time is the measure of actions which occur in time. A particular agent is endowed with activity regulated by time, so that he acts for some definite reason now, and not before.

But the universal agent, God, instituted this measure, which is time, and He did so in accord with His will. Hence time also is to be numbered among the things produced by God. Therefore, just as the quantity and measure of each object are such as God wishes to assign to it, so the quantity of time is such as God wished to mete out; that is, time and the things existing in time began just when

God wished them to begin.

The objection we are dealing with argues from the standpoint of an agent that presupposes time and acts in time, but did not institute time. Hence the question about why God's eternal will produces an effect now and not earlier presupposes that time exists; for now and earlier are segments of time. With regard to the universal production of things, among which time is also to be counted, we should not ask: "Why now and not earlier?" Rather we should ask: "Why did God wish this much time to intervene?"

And this depends on the divine will, which is perfectly free to assign this or any other quantity to time. The same may be noted with respect to the dimensional quantity of the world. No one asks

Aquinas's Shorter Summa why God located the material world in such and such a place rather than higher up or lower down or in some other position; for there is no place outside the world. The fact that God portioned out so much quantity to the world that no part of it would be beyond the place occupied in some other locality, depends on the divine will. However, although there was no time prior to the world and no place outside the world, we speak as if there were.

Thus we say that before the world existed there was nothing except God, and that there is no body lying outside the world. But in thus speaking of before and outside, we have in mind nothing but time and place as they exist in our imagination.

Controversy on the eternity of matter However, even though finished products were not in existence from eternity, we might be inclined to think that matter had to exist from eternity. For everything that has being subsequent to non-being, is changed from non-being to being. Therefore if created things, such as Heaven and Earth and the like, did not exist from eternity, but began to be after they had not been, we must admit that they were changed from non-being to being. But all change and motion have some sort of subject; for motion is the act of a thing existing in potency. However, the subject of the change whereby a thing is brought into existence, is not the thing itself that is produced, because this thing is the terminus of the motion, and the terminus and subject of motion ate not the same. Rather, the subject of the change is that from which the thing is produced, and this is called matter. Accordingly, if things are brought into being after a state of non-being, it seems that matter had to exist prior to them. And if this matter is, in turn, produced subsequent to a period of non-existence, it had to come from some other,

God's Activity in Creating preexisting matter. But infinite procession along these lines is impossible. Therefore we must eventually come to eternal matter, which was not produced subsequent to a period of non-existence.

Again, if the world began to exist after it had first not existed, then, before the world actually existed, it was either possible for the world to be or become, or it was not possible. If it was not possible for the world to be or to become, then, by equipollence, it was impossible for the world to be or to become. But if it is impossible for a thing to become, it is necessary for that thing not to become. In that case we must conclude that the world was not made. Since this conclusion is patently false, we are forced to admit that if the world began to be after it had first not been, it was possible for it to be or to become before it actually existed. Accordingly, there was something in potency with regard to the becoming and being of the world. But what is thus in potency to the becoming and existence of something, is the matter of that something, as we see exemplified in the case of wood relative to a bench. Apparently, therefore, matter must have existed always, even if the world did not exist always.

As against this line of reasoning, we showed above that the very matter of the world has no existence except from God.' The Catholic Faith does not admit that matter is eternal any more than it admits that the world is eternal. We have no other way of expressing the divine causality in things themselves than by saying that things produced by God began to exist after they had previously not existed. This way of speaking evidently and clearly brings out the truth that they have existence not of themselves, but from the eternal Author.

107C£. chap. 69.

Aquinas's Shorter Summa The arguments just reviewed do not compel us to postulate the eternity of matter, for the production of things in their totality cannot properly be called change. In no change is the subject of the change produced by the change, for the reason rightly alleged by the objector, namely, that the subject of change and the terminus of the change are not identical. Consequently, since the total production of things by God, which is known as creation, extends to all the reality that is found in a thing, production of this kind cannot properly verify the idea of change, even though the things created are brought into existence subsequently to non-existence.

Being that succeeds to non-being does not suffice to constitute real change, unless we suppose that a subject is first in a state of privation and later under its proper form. Hence this is found coming after that in certain things in which motion or change do not really occur, as when we say that day turns into night. Accordingly, even though the world began to exist after having not existed, this is not necessarily the result of some change. In fact, it is the result of creation which is not a true change, but is rather a certain relation of the created thing, as a being that is dependent on the Creator for its existence and that connotes succession to previous non-existence.

In every change there must be something that remains the same although it undergoes alteration in its manner of being, in the sense that at first it is under one extreme and subsequently under another. In creation this does not take place in objective reality, but only in our imagination. That is, we imagine that one and the same thing previously did not exist, and later existed. And so creation can be called change because it has some resemblance to change.

The second objection, too, lacks cogency. Although we can truly say that before the world was, it was possible for the world to be or to become, this possibility need not be taken to mean

God's Activity in Creating potentiality. In propositions, that which signifies a certain modality of truth (or in other words, that which is neither necessary nor impossible), is said to be possible. What is possible in this sense does not involve any potentiality, as the Philosopher teaches in Book V of his Metaphysics.'' However, if anyone insists on saying that it was possible for the world to exist according to some potency, we reply that this need not mean a passive potency, but can mean active potency; and so if we say that it was possible for the world to be before it actually was, we should understand this to mean that God could have brought the world into existence before He actually produced it. Hence we are not forced to postulate that matter existed before the world. Thus, the Catholic Faith acknowledges nothing to be coeternal with God, and for this reason professes that He is the "Creator and Maker of all things visible and invisible."

108 Aristotle, Metaph., V, 12 (1019 b 19).

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