9.1 The Bringing Forth of Things into Being (SCG 2,6)
9.1 The Bringing Forth of Things into Being (SCG 2,6)
In SCG 2,6 Aquinas reiterates, and elaborates on, some key teachings of SCG 1 while drawing attention to the fact that he is doing just this. He begins by declaring that God is the first unmoved mover and that God is “the cause of being to many things.” He says that it belongs to God as a being in act “to enact some being in act, to which he is the cause of being.”5 Again, he observes, since God is perfect (see SCG 1,28), we know that he is able to produce what is like him somehow (see SCG 1,75): that it belongs to God “to produce something actual, like himself, so as to be the cause of its existence.”6 Given that we know that God is perfect, Aquinas goes on to say, we know that God “does not lack the power of communicating his being to a thing by way of likeness” and that God will thereby be the cause of its being.7 In this connection Aquinas notes that God, as pure act containing no potentiality, is able to produce effects and is able to be the cause of being.