Whether It Belongs to God Alone to Create?
Objection 1: It would seem that it does not belong to God alone to
create, because, according to the Philosopher (De Anima ii, text 34),
what is perfect can make its own likeness. But immaterial creatures
are more perfect than material creatures, which nevertheless can make
their own likeness, for fire generates fire, and man begets man.
Therefore an immaterial substance can make a substance like to itself.
But immaterial substance can be made only by creation, since it has no
matter from which to be made. Therefore a creature can create.
Obj. 2: Further, the greater the resistance is on the part of the
thing made, so much the greater power is required in the maker. But
a "contrary" resists more than "nothing." Therefore it requires more
power to make (something) from its contrary, which nevertheless a
creature can do, than to make a thing from nothing. Much more
therefore can a creature do this.
Obj. 3: Further, the power of the maker is considered according to
the measure of what is made. But created being is finite, as we
proved above when treating of the infinity of God (Q. 7, AA. 2, 3,
4). Therefore only a finite power is needed to produce a creature by
creation. But to have a finite power is not contrary to the nature of
a creature. Therefore it is not impossible for a creature to create.
_On the contrary,_ Augustine says (De Trin. iii, 8) that neither good
nor bad angels can create anything. Much less therefore can any other
creatures.
_I answer that,_ It sufficiently appears at the first glance,
according to what precedes (A. 1), that to create can be the action
of God alone. For the more universal effects must be reduced to the
more universal and prior causes. Now among all effects the most
universal is being itself: and hence it must be the proper effect of
the first and most universal cause, and that is God. Hence also it is
said (De Causis prop., iii) that "neither intelligence nor the soul
gives us being, except inasmuch as it works by divine operation." Now
to produce being absolutely, not as this or that being, belongs to
creation. Hence it is manifest that creation is the proper act of God
alone.
It happens, however, that something participates the proper action of
another, not by its own power, but instrumentally, inasmuch as it acts
by the power of another; as air can heat and ignite by the power of
fire. And so some have supposed that although creation is the proper
act of the universal cause, still some inferior cause acting by the
power of the first cause, can create. And thus Avicenna asserted that
the first separate substance created by God created another after
itself, and the substance of the world and its soul; and that the
substance of the world creates the matter of inferior bodies. And in
the same manner the Master says (Sent. iv, D, 5) that God can
communicate to a creature the power of creating, so that the latter
can create ministerially, not by its own power.
But such a thing cannot be, because the secondary instrumental cause
does not participate the action of the superior cause, except inasmuch
as by something proper to itself it acts dispositively to the effect
of the principal agent. If therefore it effects nothing, according to
what is proper to itself, it is used to no purpose; nor would there be
any need of certain instruments for certain actions. Thus we see that
a saw, in cutting wood, which it does by the property of its own form,
produces the form of a bench, which is the proper effect of the
principal agent. Now the proper effect of God creating is what is
presupposed to all other effects, and that is absolute being. Hence
nothing else can act dispositively and instrumentally to this effect,
since creation is not from anything presupposed, which can be disposed
by the action of the instrumental agent. So therefore it is impossible
for any creature to create, either by its own power or
instrumentally--that is, ministerially.
And above all it is absurd to suppose that a body can create, for no
body acts except by touching or moving; and thus it requires in its
action some pre-existing thing, which can be touched or moved, which
is contrary to the very idea of creation.
Reply Obj. 1: A perfect thing participating any nature, makes a
likeness to itself, not by absolutely producing that nature, but by
applying it to something else. For an individual man cannot be the
cause of human nature absolutely, because he would then be the cause
of himself; but he is the cause of human nature being in the man
begotten; and thus he presupposes in his action a determinate matter
whereby he is an individual man. But as an individual man
participates human nature, so every created being participates, so to
speak, the nature of being; for God alone is His own being, as we
have said above (Q. 7, AA. 1, 2). Therefore no created being can
produce a being absolutely, except forasmuch as it causes "being" in
"this": and so it is necessary to presuppose that whereby a thing is
this thing, before the action whereby it makes its own likeness. But
in an immaterial substance it is not possible to presuppose anything
whereby it is this thing; because it is what it is by its form,
whereby it has being, since it is a subsisting form. Therefore an
immaterial substance cannot produce another immaterial substance like
to itself as regards its being, but only as regards some added
perfection; as we may say that a superior angel illuminates an
inferior, as Dionysius says (Coel. Hier. iv, x). In this way even in
heaven there is paternity, as the Apostle says (Eph. 3:15): "From
whom all paternity in heaven and on earth is named." From which
evidently appears that no created being can cause anything, unless
something is presupposed; which is against the very idea of creation.
Reply Obj. 2: A thing is made from its contrary indirectly (Phys. i,
text 43), but directly from the subject which is in potentiality. And
so the contrary resists the agent, inasmuch as it impedes the
potentiality from the act which the agent intends to induce, as fire
intends to reduce the matter of water to an act like to itself, but
is impeded by the form and contrary dispositions, whereby the
potentiality (of the water) is restrained from being reduced to act;
and the more the potentiality is restrained, the more power is
required in the agent to reduce the matter to act. Hence a much
greater power is required in the agent when no potentiality
pre-exists. Thus therefore it appears that it is an act of much
greater power to make a thing from nothing, than from its contrary.
Reply Obj. 3: The power of the maker is reckoned not only from the
substance of the thing made, but also from the mode of its being
made; for a greater heat heats not only more, but quicker. Therefore
although to create a finite effect does not show an infinite power,
yet to create it from nothing does show an infinite power: which
appears from what has been said (ad 2). For if a greater power is
required in the agent in proportion to the distance of the
potentiality from the act, it follows that the power of that which
produces something from no presupposed potentiality is infinite,
because there is no proportion between "no potentiality" and the
potentiality presupposed by the power of a natural agent, as there is
no proportion between "not being" and "being." And because no
creature has simply an infinite power, any more than it has an
infinite being, as was proved above (Q. 7, A. 2), it follows that no
creature can create.
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