SECOND ARTICLE: WHETHER GOD CAN CREATE ANYTHING

State of the question. We now explain the idea of creation with respect to the efficient cause.

First objection. It appears that God cannot create anything because, as the ancient Greek philosophers said, nothing is made of nothing, and God cannot do the impossible. The axiom, nothing is made of nothing, was formulated by Parmenides and from his time it was accepted by the Greek philosophers. This axiom can be understood as meaning that nothing is made without an efficient cause and then it is a formula of the principle of causality, namely, nothing is made except from some subject.

Second objection. Averroes objected that if creation is to make something out of nothing, to be created is to become something. But all becoming is a change presupposing a subject.

Third objection. Averroes insisted that what becomes is not yet made. In other words, whatever is made must first become, and all becoming presupposes a subject.

Fourth objection. An infinite distance cannot be crossed. But between nothing and being there is an infinite distance.

Reply. Nevertheless the reply is in the affirmative and of faith, as was said above. In the body of the article St. Thomas shows that it is not only possible but necessary that all things are created by God from nothing. He presents an explicative process of reasoning which resembles a reduction to absurdity:

If God acted only from some presupposed subject, it follows that that subject would not be caused by Him. But there can be nothing outside God that is not caused by Him.[801] Therefore we must say that God produces things in being from nothing.

Creation on the part of God is explained by showing not only that God actually created heaven and earth but that heaven and earth could not exist except by creation from nothing.

Reply to first objection. How can this ancient axiom, nothing is made from nothing, be reconciled with creation. If we understand the axiom to mean that nothing is made from no cause, it remains true for creation, because there is a creative cause. If it is understood to mean that nothing is made from no subject, this is true of both substantial and accidental change but not of the production of the total being of any thing.

Reply to second objection. St. Thomas points out that creation is not a change, because every change presupposes a subject which is different now than it was before. This will be explained at greater length in the following article.

Reply to third objection. Where there is neither change or movement there is no priority of time of the becoming with respect to the actual making. But, as St. Thomas says, in those things that are made without movement, that is, in an instant, the becoming and the making are simultaneous. For example, the mental word is forming and it is instantly formed, something is being created and it is instantly created, a dead man rises and he is instantly resuscitated. The ancients thought that illumination took place in an instant and therefore St. Thomas said, a thing is lighted and it is instantly illuminated. We now know that the movement of light is not instantaneous but that it is extremely swift in comparison with the velocity of the transmission of sound.

Reply to fourth objection. Is there an impassible distance between nothing and the finite thing that is produced? There would be an infinite distance if nothing were a positive terminus and if there were an infinite middle between the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quem. But nothing is a negative terminus and the distance is negatively infinite and can be overcome by an infinite active potency, as will be explained later[802]

Doubt. What is creation taken actively? It is a divine action, formally immanent and virtually transient, as will be explained in the third article, when we consider creation taken passively.

Such is the explanation of creation on the part of the efficient cause. We are still explaining the same notion and the same revealed truth, "In the beginning God created heaven and earth." We have not gone on to a new truth by any illative process but we are only explaining the word "created" by stages with respect to the terminus a quo, the agent, and the terminus ad quem.