Whether Creation Is Anything in the Creature?
Objection 1: It would seem that creation is not anything in the
creature. For as creation taken in a passive sense is attributed to
the creature, so creation taken in an active sense is attributed to
the Creator. But creation taken actively is not anything in the
Creator, because otherwise it would follow that in God there would be
something temporal. Therefore creation taken passively is not anything
in the creature.
Obj. 2: Further, there is no medium between the Creator and the
creature. But creation is signified as the medium between them both:
since it is not the Creator, as it is not eternal; nor is it the
creature, because in that case it would be necessary for the same
reason to suppose another creation to create it, and so on to
infinity. Therefore creation is not anything in the creature.
Obj. 3: Further, if creation is anything besides the created
substance, it must be an accident belonging to it. But every accident
is in a subject. Therefore a thing created would be the subject of
creation, and so the same thing would be the subject and also the term
of creation. This is impossible, because the subject is before the
accident, and preserves the accident; while the term is after the
action and passion whose term it is, and as soon as it exists, action
and passion cease. Therefore creation itself is not any thing.
_On the contrary,_ It is greater for a thing to be made according to
its entire substance, than to be made according to its substantial or
accidental form. But generation taken simply, or relatively, whereby
anything is made according to the substantial or the accidental form,
is something in the thing generated. Therefore much more is creation,
whereby a thing is made according to its whole substance, something
in the thing created.
_I answer that,_ Creation places something in the thing created
according to relation only; because what is created, is not made by
movement, or by change. For what is made by movement or by change is
made from something pre-existing. And this happens, indeed, in the
particular productions of some beings, but cannot happen in the
production of all being by the universal cause of all beings, which is
God. Hence God by creation produces things without movement. Now when
movement is removed from action and passion, only relation remains, as
was said above (A. 2, ad 2). Hence creation in the creature is only a
certain relation to the Creator as to the principle of its being; even
as in passion, which implies movement, is implied a relation to the
principle of motion.
Reply Obj. 1: Creation signified actively means the divine action,
which is God's essence, with a relation to the creature. But in God
relation to the creature is not a real relation, but only a relation
of reason; whereas the relation of the creature to God is a real
relation, as was said above (Q. 13, A. 7) in treating of the divine
names.
Reply Obj. 2: Because creation is signified as a change, as was said
above (A. 2, ad 2), and change is a kind of medium between the mover
and the moved, therefore also creation is signified as a medium
between the Creator and the creature. Nevertheless passive creation
is in the creature, and is a creature. Nor is there need of a further
creation in its creation; because relations, or their entire nature
being referred to something, are not referred by any other relations,
but by themselves; as was also shown above (Q. 42, A. 1, ad 4), in
treating of the equality of the Persons.
Reply Obj. 3: The creature is the term of creation as signifying a
change, but is the subject of creation, taken as a real relation, and
is prior to it in being, as the subject is to the accident.
Nevertheless creation has a certain aspect of priority on the part of
the object to which it is directed, which is the beginning of the
creature. Nor is it necessary that as long as the creature is it
should be created; because creation imports a relation of the
creature to the Creator, with a certain newness or beginning.
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