We may perhaps think of creation as a deliverance of religious revelation – ‘In the beginning God created heaven and earth’ – and not a philosophical topic. Thomas, characteristically, makes a distinction. If by creation we mean creation in time, Thomas will agree that, apart from the authorityof Genesis, we could never be sure that the world and time had a beginning. The truth is certain for us on the basis of belief, not on the basis of any philosophical argument. If, on the other hand, we mean by creation that all things other than the First Being depend on him in order to exist, then creation is a philosophical topic.
Does this mean that any philosophers actually taught the doctrine of creation? That Thomas thought so is clear from Article 1 in this important selection. Question 44 of the first part of the Summa theologiae has often been invoked as proof that Thomas did not think that Aristotle’s world is a created world. Article 2 describes a gradual progress towards a moresweeping account of the coming into being of the things of this world. The final step is made by those whose perspective was ‘being as being’ and whose quest was for the cause of being as such. Surprisingly, some have thought that Aristotle was being excluded from those whose focus was being as being. As has already been suggested, this interpretation does not agree with Article 1. The very phrase ‘being as being’ was coined by Aristotle to express the subject of that culminating science, one of whose names is theology.
Summa Theologiae, Part 1
QUESTION 44
Having considered the divine persons, we go on to discuss the procession of creatures from God. This will be a discussion in three parts: first the production of creatures will be considered, second their differences, third, their preservation and governance. Three things will be taken up under the first heading: the first cause of all being; how creatures proceed from the first cause; the principle of the duration of things. The first cause of all being involves four considerations: (1) whether God is the efficient cause of all beings; (2) whether prime matter is created by God, or is a coequal principle with him; (3) whether God is the exemplar cause of things or are there other exemplars beside him; (4) whether he is the final cause of things.
Article 1: Must every being be created by God?
It seems not.
1. Nothing prevents a thing’s being without something that is not part of its definition, as a man without whiteness. But the relation of caused to cause does not seem to be of the definition of things because things can be understood without it. Therefore, they can be without it. So nothing prevents there being some things that are not created by God.
2. Moreover, a thing needs an efficient cause in order to be. Therefore, what cannot be has no need of an efficient cause. But nothing necessary can fail to be, because what necessarily is, cannot not be. Therefore, since there are many necessary things, it seems that not all beings are from God.
3. Moreover, when things have a cause, things can be demonstrated about them through that cause, but in mathematicals there is no demonstration through the agent cause, as is clear from the Philosopher in Metaphysics 3. Therefore, not everything is from God as an agent cause.
ON THE CONTRARY:
It is said in Romans 11.36, ‘And through him and in him all things are.’
RESPONSE:
It should be said that we must affirm that whatever in any way exists is from God, for if something is found to be in a thing through participation, it must be caused in it by that which essentially is that something, as iron is heated by fire. It was shown above, however, when we treated of the divine simplicity, that God is subsistent existence itself, and it was also shown that subsistent existence must be unique, just as if there were a subsistent whiteness there could only be one, since whitenesses are multiplied by recipients. It follows therefore that nothing apart from God can be its own existence, but rather participates in existence. Therefore it is necessary that all the things that are diversified because of diverse participation in being, such that they are more or less perfect, are caused by the first being who is most perfect. Hence Plato said that it is necessary that all plurality be reduced to unity, and Aristotle says in Metaphysics 2 that that which is maximal being and truth is cause of every being and of every truth, just as that which is hottest is the cause of all heat.
Ad 1. It should be said that although the relation to its cause does not enter into the definition of the being that is caused, it none the less follows on what is of its nature, because from the fact that something is being through participation it follows that it is caused by another. Hence being of such a kind can only be if caused, just as a man incapable of laughter could not exist. It is because to be caused is not part of the account of being absolutely, that there is some uncaused being.
Ad 2. It should be said that some were moved by this argument to hold that what is necessary has no cause, as is said in Physics 8, but this shows itself to be manifestly false in the demonstrative sciences where necessary principles are the causes of necessary conclusions. Therefore Aristotle says in Metaphysics 5 that there are some necessary things which have a cause of their necessity. Therefore, it is not on account of this alone that an agent cause is needed, namely because the effect is capable of not being, but because the effect would not be if the cause were not. This conditional is true whether the antecedent and consequent are possible or impossible.
Ad 3. It should be said that mathematicals are abstract as understood but are not taken to exist as abstract. A thing has an agent cause in the way in which it has existence. Therefore, although mathematicals have an agent cause it is not according to a relation to agent cause that they come under the consideration of mathematics. Therefore in mathematical sciences nothing is demonstrated through agent cause.
Article 2: Is prime matter created by God?
It seems that it is not.
1. For whatever comes to be is composed of a subject and something else, as is said in Physics 1. But prime matter has no subject. Therefore prime matter cannot be made by God.
2. Moreover, action and passion are opposed to one another, but just as the first active principle is God, so the first passive principle is matter. Therefore, God and prime matter are two contrary principles opposed to one another, neither of which is from the other.
3. Moreover every agent causes something like itself and thus, since every agent acts insofar as it is actual, it follows that everything that is made is in some way actual. Therefore it is against the nature of prime matter that it should be made.
ON THE CONTRARY:
There is what Augustine says in Book 12 of the Confessions, ‘Two things you made, Lord: one close to you, namely, the angel, the other close to nothing, namely, prime matter.’
RESPONSE:
It should be said that the ancient philosophers little by little and, as it were, haltingly entered into knowledge of the truth. In the beginning, being as it were more gross, they thought that sensible bodies were the only beings. And those who recognized motion in them, considered motion only with respect to accidents, as for example rarity and density, gathering and separating. And supposing the very substance of bodies to be uncreated, they assigned such causes of its accidental transformations as friendship, strife, intellect and the like.
Progressing further, they distinguished intellectually between substantial form and matter, which they held to be uncreated; and they perceived transformation to come about in bodies by essential forms. Of which transmutation some posited more universal causes, as the oblique circle (Aristotle), or Ideas (Plato).
But it should be considered that matter is restricted to a determinate species through form: much as the substance of any species is restricted to a determinate mode of existence through the accident advening to it, as man is restricted by white. Both therefore considered being in a particular way, either insofar as it is this being, or insofar as it is such a being. And thus they assigned particular agent causes of things.
Some extended themselves yet further to consider being as being, and considered the cause of things not only with respect to these or of such a kind, but as beings. That which is the cause of things insofar as they are being must be their cause not only insofar as they are of such kinds through accidental forms, nor insofar as they are these through substantial forms, but also according to everything that pertains in any way to their existence. And thus it is necessary to recognize prime matter too as created by the universal cause of being.
Ad 1. It should be said that the Philosopher in Physics 1 speaks of particular becoming, which is from form to form, whether accidental or substantial, but we are speaking now of things according to their emanation from the universal principle of being, from which emanation matter is not excluded, although it is excluded from the first kind of making.
Ad 2. It should be said that passion is an effect of action, hence it is reasonable that the first passive principle should be an effect of the first active principle, for every imperfect thing is caused by a perfect. But the first principle must be most perfect, as Aristotle says in Metaphysics 12.
3. It should be said that the argument does not show that prime matter is not created but only that it is not created without form, for although every created thing is actual, it is not pure act. Hence it is necessary that that which is on the side of potency should also be created, if the whole to which existence belongs is created.
Article 3: Is anything other than God the exemplar cause?
The answer seems to be yes.
1. The copy has a similarity to the exemplar, but creatures are far from divine similitude. Therefore God is not their exemplar cause.
2. Moreover, whatever is by way of participation is reduced to that which exists of itself, as the heated to fire, as has already been said. But whatever is found among sensible things is only through participation in a species, which is clear from this, that in no sensible thing do we find only what belongs to the definition of the species, but individuating principles are added to the principles of the species. Therefore, we must posit species existing of themselves, like man himself, horse itself, and the like. And these are called exemplars. Therefore the exemplars of things are apart from God.
3. Moreover, science and definition are of species as such, and not as they are in particulars, because there is no science or definition of the particular. Therefore there are some beings, which are beings or species apart from singulars, and they are called exemplars. Therefore, as before.
4. Moreover, the same thing is found in Dionysius, who says in On the Divine Names 5 that to be as such is prior to life as such and also to wisdom as such.
ON THE CONTRARY:
The exemplar is the same as the Idea. But Ideas, according to what Augustine says in the Eighty-three Questions, are the principal forms which are contained in the divine intelligence. Therefore, the exemplars of things are not outside God.
RESPONSE:
It should be said that God is the first exemplar cause of all things. For evidence of which it should be noted that an exemplar is required for the production of a thing, as an effect follows on a determinate form, for the artisan produces a determinate form in matter, because of the exemplar he studies, whether that exemplar be something seen outside or is interiorly conceived by mind. It is manifest that things which come about naturally follow on determinate forms. But this determination of forms must be taken back as to a first principle to divine wisdom which thought up the order of the universe, which consists in the distinction of things. So it must be said that in the divine wisdom are the reasons of everything, which above we called Ideas, that is, exemplar forms existing in the divine mind. Although they are multiplied with respect to things, they are not really other than the divine essence, insofar as its likeness can be diversely participated by diverse things. Therefore God himself is the first exemplar of all things. Among created things, some can be called the exemplars of others, insofar as they are in the likeness of others, whether with respect to species, or according to the analogy of some imitation.
Ad 1. It should be said that although creatures do not attain to similarity with God’s nature by a similitude of species, as a man generated is to the man generating, they attain similitude with him according to the representation of a notion understood by God, as the house which is in matter does to the house in the artisan’s mind.
Ad 2. It should be said that it is of man’s definition that he be in matter, so no man can be found apart from matter. Therefore, though this man is by participation in the species, he cannot be traced back to something existing as that species itself, but to something exceeding species, such as the separate substances are. And the same argument holds for other sensible things.
Ad 3. It should be said that although science and definition are of beings alone, it is not necessary that things should exist in the way they are understood. For we, thanks to the power of agent intellect, abstract universal species from particular conditions, but universals need not subsist apart from particulars as their exemplars.
Ad 4. It should be said that, as Dionysius writes in On the Divine Names 11, life itself and wisdom itself sometimes name God himself and sometimes the powers given to things – not, however, as subsisting things, as the ancients thought.
Article 4: Is God the final cause of all things?
It seems that he is not.
1. To act for the sake of an end seems to be proper to what is needful of the end. But God does not need anything. Therefore, it is not fitting that he should act for the sake of an end.
2. Moreover, the end of generation and the form of the generated and the agent are not numerically identical, as we read in Physics 2, because the end of generation is the form of the generated. But God is the first agent cause of all things; therefore he is not their final cause.
3. Moreover, all things seek the end. But not everything seeks God, because not everything knows him. Therefore God is not the end of all things.
4. Moreover, the final cause is the first of causes. Therefore, if God were the agent cause and the final cause, it would follow that in him the posterior would be the prior. Which is impossible.
ON THE CONTRARY:
There is what is said in Proverbs 16.4: ‘The Lord hath made all things for himself.’
RESPONSE:
It should be said that every agent acts for the sake of an end, otherwise from its action neither this rather than that would follow, except by chance. The end of the thing acted on and of the agent is the same, as such, but with a qualification, for it is one and the same thing that the agent intends to confer and the thing acted upon intends to receive. There are some things which mutually act upon and are acted upon by one another; these are imperfect agents, and it is true of them that even in acting they intend to acquire something. But it is not fitting that the first agent, who is just an agent, should act for the acquisition of some end, but he intends only to communicate his perfection, which is his goodness. And every creature intends to acquire its own perfection, which is a likeness of divine perfection and goodness. In this way, therefore, the divine goodness is the end of all things.
Ad 1. It should be said that to act out of need is proper to an imperfect agent which is fashioned to act and to be acted upon. But this is not the case with God. Therefore he alone is completely liberal because he does not act because of some utility, but only on account of his own goodness.
Ad 2. It should be said that the form of the thing generated is the end of generation only insofar as it is the likeness of the generating form, which intends to communicate its likeness. Otherwise the form of the generated would be more noble than the one generating, since the end is more noble than what is for the sake of the end.
Ad 3. It should be said that all things desire God as their end by seeking any kind of good whether by intellectual, sensible or natural appetite, which is without knowledge, because a thing has the note of the good and is desirable only insofar as it participates in the likeness of God.
Ad 4. It should be said that since God is the efficient, exemplar and final cause of everything and prime matter is from him, it follows that the first principle of everything is really only one. But nothing prevents there being considered in him things many according to reason, some of which are grasped by our intellect before others.