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State of the question. This article is not without value
after the preceding article, for prime matter is not some
kind of being, nor is it that which exists, but that by
which something is material; it is a part of material
being.
The question of this second article coincides materially
with the question of creation, because prime matter cannot
be produced except from nothing. Neither has it anything
to do formally with the mode of creation, which we will
treat in the next question. We are now not considering
the mode of production but that part of material things
which is prime matter. The state of the question will
appear more clearly from the difficulties posed at the
beginning of the article. These difficulties are the
arguments of dualism.
First difficulty. Averroes argued: nothing is produced
from nothing, for everything that becomes is produced from
some subject. But prime matter has no subject from which
it is produced. Therefore it cannot be produced. As
Aristotle said, prime matter is ingenerable and
incorruptible, for all generation presupposes it and all
corruption ends with it.
Second difficulty. There cannot be an active principle
without a passive correlative. But God is the first
active principle. Therefore matter must be coordinated to
God, as the first passive principle.
Third difficulty. Every agent produces its effect in
act. But prime matter is pure potency. Therefore prime
matter cannot be produced by God. From this we see the
difficulties inherent in the present question.
Reply. The reply is that prime matter is created by
God. This doctrine is of faith, since it is of faith,
as we shall see below,[736] that the creation of the
world was a production of the world out of nothing of
itself or of any subject. In the argument sed contra
St. Thomas quotes St. Augustine's classical text,
"Thou hast made two things, O Lord, one close to
Thee, namely, the angel, and the other close to
nothing, namely, prime matter."[737] We should
point out, however, that St. Augustine did not speak
as precisely about prime matter as the Peripatetics. He
was speaking here perhaps of elementary matter, of the
empty earth, which could exist without any form, because
it already had an elementary form. For the Peripatetics
prime matter is not something, it has no quality and no
quantity, it is pure potency or the real capacity for that
perfection which is the specific form of material things.
Hence for the Peripatetics prime matter was not burnable
wood, or transformable land, or air, or water, but that
which is determinable by the forms of things. Therefore
it is not that which is but that by which a thing is
material, and therefore, as St. Thomas
says,[738] it cannot exist without a form.
Scotus and Suarez did not clearly understand this prime
matter; they thought that it was not pure potency and that
it had an essential actuality and could exist without a
form. This is a different kind of metaphysics from ours,
for with them potency is most imperfect act, as if the
potency which is presupposed in motion were the beginning
of the motion.
The body of the article has two parts, one historical,
the other theoretic, beginning with hoc igitur.
In the historical part St. Thomas distinguishes three
classes of philosophers.
1. In the first group are those who list only the causes
of accidental changes: Thales, Anaximenes,
Anaximander, Heraclitus, Empedocles, and even
Anaxagoras, although Anaxagoras said that a separate
intelligence existed which ordered all things.
2. In the second group are those who assign causes of
substantial changes or the causes of being inasmuch as it
is a particular being, as this being individually (this
animal), or such a being specifically (cow,
bovinity). Plato gave as causes the separated ideas,
and Aristotle said that substantial generations did not
take place in the winter but in the spring under the
influence of the stars and especially under the influence
of the oblique circles, that is, the ecliptic.
3. In the third group are those who assign the cause of
being not only as this being individually or specifically,
but of being as being. Among these are the Christian
philosophers, who benefited by the light of revelation and
learned of creation from the words of Scripture, "In
the beginning God created heaven and earth."[739]
Only the supreme cause pours out the whole being; others
are only causes changing some subject. With regard to
this classification it should be noted that St. Thomas
did not always present it in the same way.
In the second book of the Sentences, St. Thomas
classifies the philosophers as above.[740]
In the De potentia[741] he places Plato and
Aristotle in the third group since they say at least
implicitly that all being depends as being on God.
In the eighth book of the Physica,[742] while
refuting the dualism of Averroes, St. Thomas said that
creation out of nothing "is not contrary to Aristotle's
intention," that is, not contrary to his principles,
and that it is rather virtually contained in his
principles,[743] although Aristotle had not attained
to the explicit notion of creation from nothing.
Aristotle did say that "nothing comes from nothing,"
but he was speaking of production in the proper sense out
of a subject, whereas creation is not production in the
proper sense, as we shall explain below.
In the first part of the Theological Summa St. Thomas
places Plato and Aristotle in the second group because he
was speaking here of what these great philosophers taught
explicitly.
The theoretical part of the article can be reduced to the
following.
The efficient cause of beings inasmuch as they are beings
is their cause with respect to everything that pertains to
their being. But God is the cause of all beings inasmuch
as they are beings, and, if they are material beings,
prime matter pertains to their being. Therefore God is
the efficient cause of prime matter.
This argument is an application of the conclusion of the
preceding article to that part of things which is prime
matter. The major is evident from a comparison of the
cause of being itself as being and the cause of being as
this being individually or such being specifically. The
minor is clear from the preceding article. This is a
demonstration based on an analysis of the ideas involved
and not from general principles, that is, from a formal
demonstrative middle.
Let us turn to the solution of the objections of dualism
and the objections based on the Cartesian concept of
matter or space.
The objections raised by dualism are placed at the
beginning of the article.
First objection. Everything that is produced is produced
from some subject. But prime matter has no subject.
Therefore prime matter cannot be produced.
Reply. Everything that is properly produced, I
concede; improperly, in the sense of being produced in
any way whatsoever, I deny. I concede the minor and
distinguish the conclusion.
Second objection. The active cannot be without the
passive. But God is the first active principle.
Therefore prime matter ought to be eternal as the passive
principle.
Reply. I distinguish the major: there cannot be an
active principle transforming a subject without a
correlative passive principle, I concede; there cannot
be an active principle which does not transform a subject
but produces the whole being without a correlative passive
principle, I deny; I contradistinguish the minor and
deny the conclusion.
Third objection. Every agent produces an effect in act.
But prime matter is pure potency. Therefore it cannot be
produced.
Reply. I distinguish the major: every agent produces
its effect in act and also whatever pertains to it, I
concede; without also producing whatever pertains to the
effect, I deny. I concede the minor and distinguish the
conclusion: prime matter cannot be produced as something
pertaining to the material thing, I deny; that it cannot
be produced without a form, I concede. Hence prime
matter is not properly created, it is concreated while the
material suppositum, of which it is a part, is created.
Hence St. Thomas says: "Matter has an idea in God
but the idea is not other than the idea of the composite,
since matter in itself neither has being nor is it
knowable."[744]
Doubt. Whether transforming causes, those that produce
substantial or accidental changes, are in some way causes
of being as it is being?
Reply. They are not per se but per accidens, that is,
by reason of another inasmuch as they produce this being or
such a being. Cajetan points out that a cow generating a
cow produces a certain being simpliciter, that is, some
suppositum, by a transmutation of matter but it does not
produce being as such per se, because the act of the
generator presupposes the matter which already existed in
the other composite. Further, in generation being is not
produced per se as being, because prior to this the being
was in potency, but per accidens being IS produced as
being inasmuch as this being is produced per se that is,
this individual cow. So from black, white is produced
per se, and per accidens something colored is produced,
because the color already was in the black.
An objection against this article can be made on the basis
of the Cartesian idea of matter as understood by
Spinoza. According to Spinoza, matter is nothing else
than the threefold extension of length, width, and
depth, which is space, having no limits, and so all
imaginary space is already filled and a vacuum is
impossible. But space conceived in this way appears to be
something existing of itself independently of God, or it
is a divine attribute. Therefore matter is uncreated.
More briefly Spinoza's objection based on the Cartesian
idea can be stated as follows: Infinite space is
something uncreated. But matter is infinite space.
Therefore matter is something uncreated, a divine
attribute.
Reply. I distinguish the major: imaginary space as the
possibility of placing a body, that this possibility is
not something created, I concede; that real space or the
real extension of some body is something uncreated, I
deny. I contradistinguish the minor: matter is imaginary
space, I deny; that it is really extended in bodies, I
concede, and I deny the conclusion.
Further, space cannot be a divine attribute, because it
belongs to the corporeal order and hence is less perfect
than a spirit. But in God there is nothing imperfect,
because God is subsisting being itself per se; He is
subsisting perfection itself. Moreover, space is
divisible and divided, and it has parts beyond parts, of
which some are not as perfect as others. Finally, space
is arranged in parts up and down, right and left,
according to the three dimensions. But that which is
arranged itself is not the first principle of order.
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