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This article is a search for the real definition of
creation with respect to the terminus a quo and it is an
application of the conclusions arrived at in the first and
second articles of the preceding question.
State of the question. It seems that to create is not to
make something out of nothing, 1. because to create is
sometimes used in another sense, for example, to create a
bishop or elevate him to a higher position; 2. because
the "from nothing" designates a material cause, and
nothing cannot be a material cause.
Reply. The reply is in the affirmative.
1. Proof from Scripture. We read, "In the
beginning God made heaven and earth."[762] The
word bara (created) in the forms kal and niphal in
Sacred Scripture is never used except for the operation
that is proper to God, and therefore it is best suited to
designate production from nothing, that is, from no
presupposed subject, and this is an action proper to
God.[763] The fact that this word bara in this
instance signifies creation in the proper sense is clear
from other words in the text, namely, "in the
beginning," which indicate that the text refers to the
first origin of all things, and "heaven and earth"
signify the universe of things. No pre-existing matter
is mentioned from which all things were made, whereas
somewhat later we read that man was made "of the slime of
the earth."
In speaking of the creative power of God, the prophets
exclude any kind of dualism,[764] and the Psalmist
says that all things were made simply by the word of
God.[765] The same teaching is found in the
Sapiential Books.[766] Lastly, the mother of the
Machabees, prompted by the spirit of God, says to one
of her sons, "I beseech thee, my son, look upon heaven
and earth, and all that is in them: and consider that
God made them out of nothing."[767] And only God
is able to say, "I am who am,"[768] that is, not
from another.
In the New Testament we read, "All things were made
by Him (the Word): and without Him was made nothing
that was made."[769] Therefore, all things have
their origin from God and are out of nothing, not out of
pre-existing matter that was not produced, otherwise
things would be something out of themselves, they would
not be totally from God and to God, nor would they be
totally subject to God's dominion.
The first Christians professed, "Lord, thou art He
that didst make heaven and earth, the sea, and all things
that are in them."[770] St. Paul declares,
"For of Him, and by Him, and in Him, are all
things";[771] "One God, the Father, of whom
are all things, and we unto Him";[772] "For in
Him were all things created in heaven and on earth,
visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominations or
principalities or powers: all things were created by Him
and in Him. And He is before all, and by Him all
things consist."[773] Finally, God is "the
Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end," of all
things.[774] Such was the consistent Judaic and
Christian tradition. Nor is there any contradiction in
the words, "For Thy almighty hand, which made the
world of matter without form,"[775] since from the
context it is clear that God made the sensible world out
of unformed matter which He himself had produced before.
The Fathers of the early Church say without hesitation
that God is the one and only Creator of all
things;[776] and against the heretics they reject any
unproduced or eternal matter,[777] asserting that
things were produced from nothing,[778] and that this
doctrine pertains to faith.[779]
Journel arranges the texts of the Fathers under the
following headings: "God created all things," "out of
nothing," "He alone created," "He created
freely," "according to, the divine ideas," "out of
His goodness," "that He might make known His
perfections," "the Trinity creates," "the world
(matter) is not eternal," and "God is not the author
of evil."[780]
St. Augustine in particular says: "The angels can in
no way create a nature; the one and only Creator of every
creature, whether it be great or small, is
God."[781] He explains that God created all
things out of nothing, saying: "not of Himself, for
then (created being) would be equal to the only-begotten
Son,"[782] "but out of nothing" He made that
which He created.[783]
The councils often define that the triune God created the
world out of nothing, when He willed and not from
eternity, but freely because of His goodness.[784]
Errors. In the judgment of the Church creation was
erroneously explained by the following.
The Origenists,[785] who taught the pre-existence
of the human souls prior to the generation of the bodies
with which the souls were united; Eckhard, who admitted
creation from eternity;[786] the
ontologists,[787] Rosmini,[788] the
pantheists,[789] and the emanatists.[790]
The Gnostics also erred by saying that matter is
eternal; the Manichaeans, who admitted a twofold
principle of things, one good the other bad; and the
Albigenses revived this error. Abelard held that God
created things neither freely nor for His own glory, and
this error was accepted by Wyclif, Hermes, Guenther,
and Rosmini.[791]
In recent times the theosophists taught an evolutionistic
pantheism, and Bergson thought he could explain
everything by a creative evolution. According to this
theory nothing is (exists) properly speaking, all things
are becoming, all things and all minds are in a perpetual
flux or in a perennial evolution, and Bergson often
speaks as though God Himself were becoming.[792]
2. Proof from reason. The body of the article does not
contain an illative process, that is, one that deduces a
new truth from another, but an explicative process, in
which there is a transition from the confused notion of
creation to an explicit notion with respect to the terminus
a quo. Hence we do not arrive at a new truth, but the
same idea and the same truth is explained. This
explicative argument is an example of the evolution of
dogma or the evolution of some revealed truth. The
argument can be reduced to the following.
The production of the entire being of any thing is from no
being just as the production of a man is not from a man.
But by creation we understand the production of the entire
being of some thing.[793] Therefore by creation we
understand the production of a thing out of nothing.
We have here not only a verbal advance but a conceptual
advance, not however from one concept to another but from
a confused concept to a clear concept, for the concepts in
our minds are representative qualities or habits, which
can be vitally augmented, as a plant grows.
The primitive concept of creation is expressed in Sacred
Scripture, "In the beginning God created heaven and
earth."[794] Hence God produced whatever is
outside Him, the whole being of all things that are
produced. Therefore this production was out of no
presupposed subject but out of nothing, just as the
generation of man is out of no man, that is, out of the
seed, which is not yet man. For if a man were already
generated then he would not now be generated, because that
which is generated was not before. The same notion of
creation is developed, the same truth, "God created all
things," is explained; now we add "from nothing."
This is not the deduction of a new truth but an
explanation of the same truth, as in the search for a real
definition which begins with the nominal definition, since
the question, "What is it called, what is its name?"
tells vaguely what the thing is without determining the
genus and difference.
This inquiry into the real definition is not, therefore,
a demonstration. As Aristotle explained, the
definitions of things are not demonstrated; they are
sought out by a descending division of the highest genus
and by an ascending comparative induction of the specific
difference. The direction of this search is from the
confused concept expressed in the nominal definition to a
distinct statement.[795] Sometimes the definition of
a thing is from the aspect of the end from which a
definition can be deduced defining the form; thus if a saw
is intended to cut, it should be made with teeth from some
durable metal. If we are dealing with a definition based
on the formal cause, which is at first confused and later
becomes distinct, the transition is not a demonstration,
nor is it an objectively illative syllogism, although
there may be a noticeable conceptual advance in the same
concept, for example, from the vulgar concept of the
human soul to the explicitly defined concept found in the
Council of Vienne: the human soul is truly per se and
essentially the form of the body.[796] The same
progress can be made in the concept of the personality of
Christ, of the consubstantiality of the Word, and now
in the idea of creation.
Hence in the first four articles of this question we have
the search for the real definition of creation, beginning
with the nominal definition.[797] This search is
confirmed by the solution of the objections.
Reply to first objection. Sometimes St. Augustine
uses the word "creation" equivocally, for example, to
create a bishop. But in its proper sense "creation"
signifies the production of a thing from nothing.
Reply to second objection. A change receives its species
and dignity not from the terminus a quo but from the
terminus ad quem, for it has a reference to that toward
which it tends. Thus creation, which produces the total
being of a thing, is more perfect than generation, which
produces the one begotten from a presupposed subject.
Reply to third objection. "Out of nothing" can be
understood in two ways: 1. as "after nothing" and then
it does not designate a material cause but only an order;
2. "more profoundly," as out of no presupposed
subject, and then it designates a negated material cause,
that is, something is created when it is produced not out
of anything. In this second acceptation, St. Thomas
points out, the expression "out of nothing" implies the
condition of a material cause, which is denied.
If Bergson had studied the teaching of St. Thomas, he
might perhaps have refrained from saying that the concept
of creation out of nothing was a pseudo-idea, because we
cannot have an idea of nothing. We cannot, of course,
positively conceive nothing, but it can be conceived
negatively with reference to being as the absolute negation
of being. In order to conceive creation we need not first
conceive nothing and later the appearance of the thing
produced; it is more profound to conceive creation as the
production of a thing out of no presupposed subject, and
this concept is verified even though creation from nothing
should be from eternity.
Before this man is generated he was not and therefore he
is generated from no man; similarly the entire being of
things is produced; the things were not and therefore they
are produced from no thing or from nothing. This is not a
pseudo-idea but the true idea of nothing, a negative
idea, it is true, obtained by the negation of being.
First doubt. Why do the Scholastics say that creation
is the production of a thing "out of nothing of itself or
of a subject"? They mean that what is properly created,
before it was created was entirely nothing in itself and
moreover did not have a subject out of which it became.
On the other hand, what is created, before it was
generated was nothing in itself, as the generated cow,
but there was a subject from which it became.
Objection. But before creation, at least the
possibility of the thing to be produced is presupposed,
and this possibility is not only something logical or a
being of the mind, which can be conceived but not
realized, as a predicament, a universal, a syllogism,
or the syllogistic laws, but it is a possible real being
or a being really possible outside the mind.
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real being
actual
by itself
by another
in itself
in another
really possible
mental being, that can be conceived but not realized
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Reply. The possibility prerequisite to creation is not
only a being of the mind, or of second intention like the
laws of the syllogism, which cannot be effected or really
produced but only conceived, I concede.
But this possibility is not something existing outside of
God; it expresses that which can be produced by God ad
extra. Hence that which is outside the mind is only a
real possibility, not a real entity or a real potency like
prime matter. This point is important inasmuch as the
principle of contradiction is not only a law of the mind
but also a law of being, for example, a square circle is
not only unthinkable but really impossible, whatever the
subjectivists say about it. The essences of things do not
depend on the liberty and omnipotence of God, whatever
Descartes says when he asserts that the principle of
contradiction is true because God wills it that way; in
that case this principle would be a contingent truth. The
supposition underlying creation is the divine ideas, and
thus creation is from the material nothing but not from the
ideal nothing. Hence when we say that creation is out of
nothing we do not mean out of the nothing of its own
possibility, for this itself would be impossible, but out
of no presupposed, preexisting subject.
Second doubt. What was Rosmini's error about
creation? Rosmini erred in thinking that real being taken
indeterminately (that which our intellect first apprehends
and predicates of all things) is in itself something
divine and that it has the same essence as God. He spoke
as if a possible real being (not created) were already
some kind of initial being common to God and creatures.
Hence he said that this initial being is not created and
that the essences of created things are not something
positive but something negative, consisting in limits
which God adds to the initial being. For Rosmini this
limiting action of God is creation. (Cf. Denz.,
nos. 1903 f.) This initial being is for him the
univocal minimum in the analogy between God and
creatures, and it is positively determined by God and
negatively by the created essence, which is a limitation
or negation. The Deity is like a white light, and
creatures are like the colors. For Rosmini the created
essence is something negative, for us it is something
potential.
Reply. Creation, as we have said, presupposes nothing
else than the real possibility of creatures and this
possibility is not a kind of initial being, it is merely
the non-repugnance to being. Rosmini's teaching is an
immoderate realism, which confuses being in common with
the divine being.
Third doubt. In what did Victor Cousin's error on
creation consist?[798] Cousin said that "we create
whenever we produce a free act, that is, we produce this
act from our real potency. Similarly, God in creating
the universe educed it from Himself because He was not
able to produce it from nothing since nothing is not,
cannot be, and is purely a name." Bergson said almost
the same thing: "creation out of nothing is a
pseudo-idea, like the idea of nothing, and in its place
we must have creative evolution."
Reply. Cousin and Bergson after him confuse creation
with the production from some presupposed real potency,
either material or spiritual, as when we produce a free
act inasmuch as the will actually willing an end reduces
itself to the act of willing the means. In the body of
the article St. Thomas replies that as the eduction of
the generated cow is from no generated being (but out of
matter), so the production of total being is from no
being, that is, from no presupposed subject. And for
this it is not necessary that nothing be something or could
be something.
Moreover, if God educed the universe not from nothing
but from Himself in the same way that our will, actually
willing an end, reduces itself to the act of the free
choice of the means and thus educes a free act from itself
as it is a determinable potency, then God would be in
potency to another act and He would not be pure
act.[799] Bergson's creative evolution is also
objectionable because it posits a reality in potency until
it is perfected by itself, and in this theory more is
produced by less, the more perfect by the less perfect.
There would also be motion without a mobile subject,
without an extrinsic mover, and without an end understood
beforehand, whereas every movement requires a mover and in
the final analysis the prime mover who is his own action
and consequently his own being, that is, pure act in no
way in potency. Cousin, and Bergson to some extent,
confused the material cause with the efficient cause.
God, however, cannot be the material cause and therefore
He did not make the world out cf Himself or of Himself
but out of no presupposed subject. The Son of God,
however, was begotten, not made from nothing.
Final conclusion. Such is the explanation of creation
with regard to the terminus a quo; it is the production of
a thing from nothing, that is, from no presupposed
subject and from no real potency; it presupposes only a
real possibility, which is entirely different from real
potency, because a real possibility is merely the
non-repugnance to being; real passive potency is the real
capacity of receiving an act, for example, prime matter
is real capacity for receiving the substantial forms of
material things. Such real capacity, however, cannot
exist without some form which is received and which limits
and individuates the real capacity.
Objection. We read, "For of Him, and by Him, and
in Him, are all things."[800] Therefore God
created the world not from nothing but from Himself.
Reply. The "of Him" signifies not from God as from a
material cause but by God's power.
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