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State of the question. It appears that what is properly
created is prime matter, which is presupposed by
generation, for the composite subsistences, like plants
and animals, are generated now and are not
created.[812]
Moreover it appears that sanctifying grace is created in
the baptized child, just as the spiritual soul is created
in the body. Indeed, St. Thomas says, "When grace
is destroyed it returns at once to nothing."[813]
And what ceases by annihilation begins by creation.
Therefore it appears that grace is created, although it
is an accident.
Reply. The things that are properly created are
subsisting beings, not accidents, or prime matter, or
the forms of sensible things.
1. Proof from Sacred Scripture. "In the beginning
God created heaven and earth,"[814] that is,
subsisting beings. We are still explaining the same
text, the same truth, not a new truth.
2. Proof from reason. Being properly belongs to
subsistences whether they are simple or composite. But
becoming and creation belong to those things to which being
belongs. Therefore becoming and creation properly belong
to subsistences, whether they are simple or composite.
Explanation of the major. A subsisting being is that
which is, or that which has being; forms and accidents
are not that which is but that by which something is such,
for example, that by which something is the earth or that
by which something is hot.
Explanation of the minor. Becoming is ordered to the
being of a thing, and what becomes is that which will be,
for example, this cow, not the form of the
cow.[815] To be created is in a sense a becoming,
or being produced, although properly it is not a
becoming, which presupposes a subject.
Corollary. We should say that forms and accidents are
concreated rather than created, just as they are rather
coexistences than beings.
Reply to third objection. Prime matter cannot be
produced except by creation, but it is not created without
a form, for creation is the production of the whole being
and not of matter alone. Hence matter is concreated.
Indeed, according to St. Thomas, prime matter cannot
exist without a form because prime matter is not that which
is but that by which something is material. That which
exists is the composite of matter and form, and here we
see the real distinction between essence and existence,
for the essence of a sensible thing is composed of matter
and form, while its being or existence is not a
composite.
Scotus and Suarez, on the contrary, held that prime
matter could exist without the form, because they
conceived prime matter not as pure potency but as the most
imperfect kind of act. This is a distortion of the idea
of potency. Potency is not even the most imperfect kind
of act; for example, before the movement there is a real
potency to movement, and not until the movement begins is
there even an imperfect act, which presupposes potency.
Potency is merely the real capacity for producing or
receiving inasmuch as the potency is active or passive.
Moreover, what would this matter without the form be?
It would not be something spiritual because it is matter
nor would it be corporeal because the corporeity is a
determination depending on the form.
First doubt. Is the human soul properly created? The
human soul is created in the proper sense because it is a
subsisting form, that is, intrinsically independent of
the copy in its specific act of intellection and therefore
also in its being and becoming.[816]
Second doubt. Whether grace is created in the soul?
Reply. Grace is not created in the soul because it is an
accident by which a person is pleasing to God; to be
created is a property of a subsisting being. The infusion
of grace presupposes a subject upon which grace, as an
accident, depends in its becoming and later in its being.
Hence St. Thomas says that grace and the infused
virtues are educed from the obediential potency of the
soul.[817]
The difference between St. Thomas and Suarez on
creation. The truth of creation is demonstrated by St.
Thomas from the fact that no being existing outside of
God is its own being, or from the fact that everything
outside of God is really distinct from its being. "God
is being subsisting in itself, and subsisting being can
only be one. It follows, then, that all other beings
besides God are not their own being but participate in
being,"[818] and are caused according to their whole
being by God. Here we see the connection between the
doctrine of creation and the real distinction between
created essence and being.
Those who deny this real distinction are forced to find
another way to prove the truth of creation, namely, by
induction, as Suarez did, by showing the contingency of
things.[819] But if this contingency is shown from
experience from their generation and corruption, it will
be quite difficult to show by induction that the angels
were created and do not exist of themselves from eternity.
How can this be proved conclusively if we deny in the
angels the real distinction between essence and being and
if therefore the angels' essence is their
being?[820]
When we deny the real distinction between created essence
and being, and between a created person and being, we
deny what St. Thomas laid down as the basis for the
infinity of God and for the distinction between God and
creatures. If we say, "The being in creatures is the
essence and substance itself," how shall we reply to
Spinoza when he says, "Existence pertains to the nature
of the substance," since then there can be but one
substance as there is only one subsisting being, as
Parmenides taught?
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