Chapter 9. God as Omnipotent Creator (SCG 2,1–29)
CHAPTER 9. GOD AS OMNIPOTENT CREATOR (SCG 2,1–29)
1. ND, 2, 32 [5].
2. ND, 2, 32 [1].
3. ND, 2, 34 [6].
4. ND, 2, 36, chapter 5 [1].
5. ND, 2, 37 [4].
6. ND, 2, 37 [5].
7. ND, 2, 37 [6].
8. ND, 2, 38 [2].
9. ND, 2, 40 [6].
10. ND, 2, 42.
11. ND, 2, 43 [in the title of the chapter].
12. ND, 2, 46 [1].
13. ND, 2, 47 and 48 [2, 3, and 4].
14. ND, 2, 46 [2].
15. ND, 2, 46 [2].
16. ND, 2, 47 [3].
17. ND, 2, 47 [3].
18. ND, 2, 48 [5].
19. This argument strongly resembles that of the Third Way in Summa Theologiae 1a,2,3.
20. ND, 2, 53 [14].
21. ND, 2, 54 [2]. In SCG 2,17 Aquinas speaks of both “motion” (motus) and “change” (mutatio). He thinks of these as different from each other since he takes motus to be a change in something that goes through various changes while continuing to exist as the thing that it is, while he thinks of mutatio as a more radical kind of change, as when something is generated or as when something perishes, as when something acquires or loses a substantial form. Yet, for Aquinas, both motus and mutatio involve some move from potentiality to actuality; and he thinks that being created cannot involve that. To be sure, Aquinas holds that something created by God is potentially nonexistent. But he does not think that being created involves any progression from potentiality to actuality.
22. ND, 2, 55 [2].
23. Here I take Aquinas to be thinking along these lines: Human beings only generate human beings, or milk, when drunk, produces effects that reflect what milk is. This is the force of his assertion “Anything whose actuality is subject to generic, specific, and accidental determinations must have a power that is limited to effects similar to the agent as such; for every agent produces its like” (ND, 2, 63 [9]). As I have already explained, “Every agent produces its like” does not, for Aquinas, mean that the effect of every agent cause literally looks like its agent cause. It means that the effects of agent causes reflect the nature of their causes.
24. See D. Z. Phillips, The Problem of Evil and the Problem of God (London: SCM Press, 2004), 11–12.
25. ND, 2, 65–66 [3].
26. ND, 2, 66 [4].
27. ND, 2, 72 [3].
28. ND, 2, 77 [3].
29. ND, 2, 78 [4].
30. ND, 2, 78 [5].
31. ND, 2, 78 [6].
32. ND, 2, 79 [2].
33. ND, 2, 81 [7].
34. See P. T. Geach, “God’s Relation to the World,” Sophia 8 (October 1969): 4. Geach speaks of Cambridge change since some famous Cambridge philosophers, such as John McTaggart (1866–1925) said that change is what we have when, say, “Fred is happy” is true at time 1 while it is true at time 2 that “Fred is miserable.”
35. Geach, “God’s Relation to the World,” 1.
36. Geach has previously argued that we can, indeed, do this, though some have denied that we can. See Geach, “God’s Relation to the World,” 2–3.
37. Geach, “God’s Relation to the World,” 4.