Whether Primary Matter Is Created by God?
Objection 1: It would seem that primary matter is not created by God.
For whatever is made is composed of a subject and of something else
(Phys. i, text 62). But primary matter has no subject. Therefore
primary matter cannot have been made by God.
Obj. 2: Further, action and passion are opposite members of a
division. But as the first active principle is God, so the first
passive principle is matter. Therefore God and primary matter are two
principles divided against each other, neither of which is from the
other.
Obj. 3: Further, every agent produces its like, and thus, since
every agent acts in proportion to its actuality, it follows that
everything made is in some degree actual. But primary matter is only
in potentiality, formally considered in itself. Therefore it is
against the nature of primary matter to be a thing made.
_On the contrary,_ Augustine says (Confess. xii, 7), Two "things hast
Thou made, O Lord; one nigh unto Thyself"--viz. angels--"the other
nigh unto nothing"--viz. primary matter.
_I answer that,_ The ancient philosophers gradually, and as it were
step by step, advanced to the knowledge of truth. At first being of
grosser mind, they failed to realize that any beings existed except
sensible bodies. And those among them who admitted movement, did not
consider it except as regards certain accidents, for instance, in
relation to rarefaction and condensation, by union and separation.
And supposing as they did that corporeal substance itself was
uncreated, they assigned certain causes for these accidental changes,
as for instance, affinity, discord, intellect, or something of that
kind. An advance was made when they understood that there was a
distinction between the substantial form and matter, which latter
they imagined to be uncreated, and when they perceived transmutation
to take place in bodies in regard to essential forms. Such
transmutations they attributed to certain universal causes, such as
the oblique circle [*The zodiac, according to Aristotle (De Gener.
ii)], or ideas, according to Plato. But we must take into
consideration that matter is contracted by its form to a determinate
species, as a substance, belonging to a certain species, is
contracted by a supervening accident to a determinate mode of being;
for instance, man by whiteness. Each of these opinions, therefore,
considered "being" under some particular aspect, either as "this" or
as "such"; and so they assigned particular efficient causes to
things. Then others there were who arose to the consideration of
"being," as being, and who assigned a cause to things, not as
"these," or as "such," but as "beings."
Therefore whatever is the cause of things considered as beings, must
be the cause of things, not only according as they are "such" by
accidental forms, nor according as they are "these" by substantial
forms, but also according to all that belongs to their being at all in
any way. And thus it is necessary to say that also primary matter is
created by the universal cause of things.
Reply Obj. 1: The Philosopher (Phys. i, text 62), is speaking of
"becoming" in particular--that is, from form to form, either
accidental or substantial. But here we are speaking of things
according to their emanation from the universal principle of being;
from which emanation matter itself is not excluded, although it is
excluded from the former mode of being made.
Reply Obj. 2: Passion is an effect of action. Hence it is reasonable
that the first passive principle should be the effect of the first
active principle, since every imperfect thing is caused by one
perfect. For the first principle must be most perfect, as Aristotle
says (Metaph. xii, text 40).
Reply Obj. 3: The reason adduced does not show that matter is not
created, but that it is not created without form; for though
everything created is actual, still it is not pure act. Hence it is
necessary that even what is potential in it should be created, if all
that belongs to its being is created.
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