Whether God Can Create Anything?
Objection 1: It would seem that God cannot create anything, because,
according to the Philosopher (Phys. i, text 34), the ancient
philosophers considered it as a commonly received axiom that "nothing
is made from nothing." But the power of God does not extend to the
contraries of first principles; as, for instance, that God could make
the whole to be less than its part, or that affirmation and negation
are both true at the same time. Therefore God cannot make anything
from nothing, or create.
Obj. 2: Further, if to create is to make something from nothing, to
be created is to be made. But to be made is to be changed. Therefore
creation is change. But every change occurs in some subject, as
appears by the definition of movement: for movement is the act of
what is in potentiality. Therefore it is impossible for anything to
be made out of nothing by God.
Obj. 3: Further, what has been made must have at some time been
becoming. But it cannot be said that what is created, at the same
time, is becoming and has been made, because in permanent things what
is becoming, is not, and what has been made, already is: and so it
would follow that something would be, and not be, at the same time.
Therefore when anything is made, its becoming precedes its having
been made. But this is impossible, unless there is a subject in which
the becoming is sustained. Therefore it is impossible that anything
should be made from nothing.
Obj. 4: Further, infinite distance cannot be crossed. But infinite
distance exists between being and nothing. Therefore it does not
happen that something is made from nothing.
_On the contrary,_ It is said (Gen. 1:1): "In the beginning God
created heaven and earth."
_I answer that,_ Not only is it [not] impossible that anything should
be created by God, but it is necessary to say that all things were
created by God, as appears from what has been said (Q. 44, A. 1). For
when anyone makes one thing from another, this latter thing from
which he makes is presupposed to his action, and is not produced by
his action; thus the craftsman works from natural things, as wood or
brass, which are caused not by the action of art, but by the action
of nature. So also nature itself causes natural things as regards
their form, but presupposes matter. If therefore God did only act
from something presupposed, it would follow that the thing
presupposed would not be caused by Him. Now it has been shown above
(Q. 44, AA. 1, 2), that nothing can be, unless it is from God, Who is
the universal cause of all being. Hence it is necessary to say that
God brings things into being from nothing.
Reply Obj. 1: Ancient philosophers, as is said above (Q. 44, A. 2),
considered only the emanation of particular effects from particular
causes, which necessarily presuppose something in their action;
whence came their common opinion that "nothing is made from nothing."
But this has no place in the first emanation from the universal
principle of things.
Reply Obj. 2: Creation is not change, except according to a mode of
understanding. For change means that the same something should be
different now from what it was previously. Sometimes, indeed, the
same actual thing is different now from what it was before, as in
motion according to quantity, quality and place; but sometimes it is
the same being only in potentiality, as in substantial change, the
subject of which is matter. But in creation, by which the whole
substance of a thing is produced, the same thing can be taken as
different now and before only according to our way of understanding,
so that a thing is understood as first not existing at all, and
afterwards as existing. But as action and passion coincide as to the
substance of motion, and differ only according to diverse relations
(Phys. iii, text 20, 21), it must follow that when motion is
withdrawn, only diverse relations remain in the Creator and in the
creature. But because the mode of signification follows the mode of
understanding as was said above (Q. 13, A. 1), creation is signified
by mode of change; and on this account it is said that to create is
to make something from nothing. And yet "to make" and "to be made"
are more suitable expressions here than "to change" and "to be
changed," because "to make" and "to be made" import a relation of
cause to the effect, and of effect to the cause, and imply change
only as a consequence.
Reply Obj. 3: In things which are made without movement, to become
and to be already made are simultaneous, whether such making is the
term of movement, as illumination (for a thing is being illuminated
and is illuminated at the same time) or whether it is not the term of
movement, as the word is being made in the mind and is made at the
same time. In these things what is being made, is; but when we speak
of its being made, we mean that it is from another, and was not
previously. Hence since creation is without movement, a thing is
being created and is already created at the same time.
Reply Obj. 4: This objection proceeds from a false imagination, as if
there were an infinite medium between nothing and being; which is
plainly false. This false imagination comes from creation being taken
to signify a change existing between two forms.
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