SECOND ARTICLE: WHETHER PRIME MATTER IS CREATED BY GOD

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.